The Last Dragon War: Rise of the Ash Queen: Kaelia on the Dark Fantasy Court That Tried to Burn Her

What is The Last Dragon War: Rise of the Ash Queen about?

The Great Houses of Aethelgard rule from the backs of dragons, and the High Priests have promised a golden savior called the Ember Princess. The ancient texts name somebody else: the Ash Queen, who ends the fire rather than feeding it. Kaelia's family read the prophecy, picked the sister with the better hair, and pushed the spare into the Pit of the Eternal Flame. As court intrigue fantasy goes, an unusually literal opening move.

Anyone hunting shows like Shadow and Bone will recognise the shape: The Last Dragon War: Rise of the Ash Queen is the dark fantasy where the overlooked girl turns out to be the prophecy, and the prophecy is not good news for anyone at court. It is a villain origin story whose villain is the wronged one — a prophecy gone wrong less by bad translation than by who was allowed to do the reading.

How did Kaelia survive the Pit of the Eternal Flame?

InterviewerYou went into that pit in front of the entire court. What's the first thing you noticed when you woke up?

KaeliaQuiet. \[pause\] Fire has a sound. Then it didn't. I opened my eyes in black water with embers floating in it, and every single one of them had gone grey.

InterviewerDid your family mean to kill you?

KaeliaThey didn't miss. The fire did. My father gave the signal himself, the Sun-Drakes came down into the pit after me, and not one Lord in Aethelgard put down his cup. Lyanna leaned in and called it a blessing before the bridge went. She has a beautiful voice for that sort of thing.

Why wake the Feral Ones?

The map on the crate in front of her is her father's palace. She has not looked at it once.

InterviewerYou put your hand on a dead dragon's skull in the dark and something opened its eye. Why keep walking toward it?

KaeliaBecause it was already awake, and it was the first thing in my life that came when I called. The Pale Dread doesn't want anything from me except what I want. My whole family called that a monster. My father keeps a priesthood to tell him he isn't one.

InterviewerThe Feral Ones ate people. You're taking them to a capital full of people. How do you square that?

KaeliaI'm taking them to a palace. That distinction matters to me and I intend to keep it. I know what you want me to promise: that I'll be careful with the city. Have you stood outside those walls? The spires are gold and the people under them are starving, and all that divine fire everyone is so frightened of losing has never once been turned on that problem. I'm not going to promise this court anything my father didn't promise me on the bridge. I'll promise the people in this room instead, and they can hold me to it.

The dark fantasy nobody wrote down

InterviewerRoslin showed you what actually keeps the royal dragons burning. What did that do to you?

KaeliaIt ended my interest in my own grievances. There were children born the way I was born, in this realm, under this King, and they were used for it. Roslin had the record in her hands and she read it to me twice, because I did not believe her the first time. I'm not going to describe how in a room with the door open, and I'd ask you not to guess at it in print. Whatever else you print, don't call it a rumour.

\[silence\]

InterviewerPractical question, then. What's the worst part of the Void-Touch?

KaeliaBread. \[laughs\] Anything warm goes grey if I'm careless with it, so I eat everything cold now. Yoren keeps one wooden spoon he won't let me within reach of. It's the only object in that hut he's sentimental about.

Will Kaelia get her throne?

InterviewerYou walk up to your father's gates in the morning. What happens when he opens them?

KaeliaHe opens them. That part I'm sure of — he can't afford a dead daughter in front of the Iron-Reach Lords, and he has never been able to resist a blessing he can take credit for. What I say next I've rehearsed in a dirty mirror for a week, in a voice that breaks in exactly the right place, and I'd like him to hear it before you do.

InterviewerAnything you'd say to the people about to hear your name for the first time?

KaeliaTell them the prophecy is right. The priests have had it word for word for generations, and every one of them has been reciting it correctly. It simply isn't about the sister they were promised. Nobody in that palace has thought to check which queen they've been praying to, and I would rather they didn't start checking until I'm through the gates.