The Emperor's Enemy

After leaving Tarantula on the floor, Zora approaches their chessboard and knocks over his queen, exposing his king. In the hall, she finds a newspaper reporting that her mother has been taken hostage by the Empire and is being held at Port Crow for an exchange. An accompanying illustration depicts the Royal Mage responsible, distinguished by an ouroboros tattoo around his eye, matching the man Zora saw on the portrait that fell from her mother’s journal.

Zora goes to the Marshal, who confirms that the next phase of their secret quest has begun and provides her with a tracker and other concealed equipment. Zora escapes the base on a dire horse named Black Beauty, accompanied by Squire, and rides east. During the journey, Zora remembers that the Marshal had previously mentioned the man with the ouroboros tattoo being part of their mission. She realizes the Marshal orchestrated her mother’s kidnapping as part of the plan. As a torrential rainstorm begins, Zora feels her magical water powers amplify. She eventually reaches the cliffs overlooking Port Crow, where she discovers an enormous Imperial ship bearing the Draconis dire-lion figurehead. Determined to complete her quest, she descends toward the port, only to be surrounded by disease pirates seeking the bounty on her head.

At Port Crow, Zora fights the pirates while deliberately avoiding fatal injuries, concerned that killing them might violate her new responsibilities as a Keeper. Tarantula arrives on a dire horse and throws Zora’s bone dagger toward her, killing a pirate who had been approaching her from behind. He then reveals he was never unconscious after her attack and easily breaks his titanium chains. 

The pirates continue to surround Zora and Tarantula. The tarp covering the Imperial ship is removed, revealing Plague, the Emperor’s enormous golden dragon, secured to the vessel. Zora attempts to reach the ship while Tarantula fights to protect her, but a pirate strikes her head. Enraged, Tarantula unleashes a devastating wave of magic that kills the remaining attackers. During the chaos, Zora accidentally drops the shock-collar dial, which catches on a cobblestone and turns to its highest setting. The electricity, intensified by the rain and salt water, brings Tarantula to his knees as Zora loses consciousness. She later awakens aboard the moving ship, feverish and frightened, before discovering that Tarantula is safely holding Squire protectively.

Aboard the Imperial ship, Tarantula tends to Zora’s fever, giving her water, warming her, and expressing an increasingly tender devotion. He suggests that they could abandon their opposing loyalties and declares that he wants to serve her. However, Zora rejects his proposal, insisting that his cruelty and allegiance to the Empire make reconciliation impossible.

The ship docks in a land called Azote, near a forest of white trees and a grand castle named Palladium. A man wearing a golden mask boards the ship and is introduced as Emperor Aleksander. However, the supposed Emperor is actually the real Tarantula, who has been impersonating his ruler. At the same time, the man Zora knows as Tarantula is actually Emperor Aleksander himself. He has been living in disguise among the Commonwealth’s soldiers.

When Zora refuses to leave the ship without seeing her kidnapped mother, a tense confrontation follows. The real Aleksander quietly orders the golden-masked imposter to depart, revealing which man truly holds authority. Once they are alone, Zora confronts the real Aleksander and reveals that she has known for some time that he has been impersonating Tarantula. She figured it out from his real name “Sazha,” which she knows is a shortened form of Aleksander.

Zora further explains how she recognized Aleksander beneath the Tarantula disguise, noting his eyes, wind magic, and the bite he inflicted on her years earlier. At Zora’s goading, Aleksander removes his silver mask, confirming her accusation. In response, Zora attacks him with powerful water magic, which he easily deflects with wind.

As they fight, Aleksander reveals that Zora’s father is Marx Ravenal, a wanted Royal Mage with an ouroboros tattoo, and that Zora is a “halfling,” descended from both human and Fae. He then destroys his shock collar, admitting that he could have escaped its restraints at any time and that he had deliberately allowed Zora to believe she controlled him. He reveals that he orchestrated his own capture and manipulated events to remain close to her. Aleksander shifts into his true form, a Storm Fae—a winged immortal being. Horrified by his belief that humans are inferior, Zora rejects his claim over her. Despite suffering severe magical exhaustion, she leaps from his protective shield into the raging ocean below, determined to complete her quest.

The perspective shifts to Aleksander as he desperately searches for Zora after her plunge into the ocean. His thoughts reveal that he adopted the Tarantula alias solely to get close to Zora, as he has regarded her as his destined “soulmate” since their first encounter years earlier. He locates Zora amid the devastation caused by his uncontrolled storm magic, then restrains her with platinum cuffs and chains her to his belt. He convinces himself that her decision to strike him with her dagger hilt rather than its blade proves she cares for him.

Aleksander drags Zora onto the back of his dragon, Plague. As they ride, Zora secretly attaches a tracking device to the creature and activates it, concealing the sound beneath her screams. She then leaps from Plague’s back, dragging the chained Aleksander with her as a missile strikes and kills the dragon, causing a large explosion. Devastated by Plague’s death, Aleksander demands to know how Zora could betray him. When she confronts him about Aurora’s death and her mother’s kidnapping, he admits that he wanted Zora for himself but claims Aurora was only killed because Tarantula disobeyed his orders. Zora declares that he has taken so much from her—and now she has taken something from him. As they fall into the crater left by the explosion, Aleksander shields her with his body while Plague’s blood rains down around them.

The narrative flashes back several months to the day of the Iron Ritual and magic test, revealing that Zora had already identified their supposed prisoner as Emperor Aleksander in disguise. She secretly informs the Marshal, explaining that she recognizes his wind magic, speech, and more. Recognizing an extraordinary opportunity, the Marshal devises a covert operation code-named “Quest.” She explains that Aleksander’s dragon, Plague, is the Empire’s critical military asset and that destroying her could break the stalemate of mutually assured destruction in the Storm Wars. Zora’s mission is to seduce Aleksander, persuade him to bring her close to Plague, and secretly attach a tracker that will guide one of the Commonwealth’s remaining high-speed missiles to the dragon.

Horrified by the danger, Zora initially refuses the mission. The Marshal slaps her before offering her hand, and Zora reluctantly accepts. She realizes that the mission may be humanity’s best opportunity to defeat the Empire. As the enormous responsibilities settle upon her, Zora remembers her mother’s reassuring words about being able to accomplish anything she chooses.

Eight years in the past, 15-year-old Storm Fae Crown Prince Aleksander visits the Northern Commune during peace negotiations, secretly determined to solve the ancient Iron Trap Dilemma. His objective is to free his ancestor, Chriztoph the Raving, whom humans have held captive for centuries. He also wants to locate the remaining platinum mine essential to his people’s survival. Convinced that he is more intelligent and ruthless than his predecessors, Aleksander believes he is destined to accomplish what generations of rulers have failed to achieve.

Aleksander attempts to attract the attention of the elf Barren and become a Keeper. However, he is rejected. His attention then turns to Zora Ravenal, a young human girl whose hunting abilities, courage, and mysterious silver scar fascinate him. Suspecting that she is his destined soulmate, or syxzal, he follows her and becomes increasingly obsessed. When he witnesses her kissing a boy, his jealousy provokes a confrontation on a bridge. Their argument escalates into violence, and Aleksander bites Zora’s neck, discovering through her blood and magic that she is indeed his soulmate. He is astonished to find that her essence embodies heroism, loyalty, and extraordinary goodness, qualities directly opposed to his own cruelty. Rather than abandoning his ambitions, Aleksander develops a new objective: to “ruin the world” so that he can watch Zora attempt to “save it” (431).