Crowns Don’t Make Queens will be published on August 31, 2026. Pre-orders are now live for just 0.99$.
Loved Humans Don’t Have Horns? Here’s how you can help it reach the readers who need it most :
-
Leave a review on Goodreads — it makes a real difference
-
Request it at your local library — it’s free for you and opens the door for new readers
Haven’t read Humans Don’t Have Horns yet? It’s available on KU, in paperback, and the audiobook is widely available across major platforms. All links in my Linktree.
I shared in the past that Crowns Don’t Make Queens will open with a prologue.
I’m excited to share the full prologue with you. This is the first taste from Crowns Don’t Make Queens, which will be published on August 31, 2026, and is available for pre-orders.
Reminding you that digital ARCs are available to my subscribers + an influencer box for the blog’s patrons. More details in this post:
And now to the full Prologue of Crowns Don’t Make Queens
Nineteen years earlier
The boy has been hiding in the hayloft of the stables for a few hours now. He told himself that in two hours the sun would rise, and this night of nightmares would end. He hugged Natuzi to his chest and murmured words of comfort, telling her how brave she was and how proud he was of her for staying quiet for so long.
Below them, the Cursed Ones came in and out of the stables, dragging in different soldiers each time. The boy could smell the sweat and piss, the blood and waste of the soldiers. Even at this late hour, the soldiers were still mostly drunk. It happened nearly every night. They would drink until they passed out, which was why the boy hid, following the advice of Naga, the old cook who always kept a bit of food tucked away for him.
During the day, the soldiers were mostly fine. But as they started to drink, they grew unpredictable and violent. A month ago, when the boy had only arrived at the army camp, one of the soldiers whipped him with his belt, slurring unclear things about “fucking royals” and how “they all are pieces of shit.” It was sheer luck that the man passed out mid-sentence. So the boy did his chores during the day while keeping his head down, and hid during the night.
The boy was grateful for Natuzi. Without her, he would surely be miserable. Caring for her and sleeping beside her made him so happy, he barely even missed life in the palace.
Naga also made everything more bearable. The sad truth was that Naga was more affectionate than his mother had ever been. The wrinkled old cook always had a treat for the boy, and even a mouse for Natuzi. She woke him every morning in the hayloft with a warm bun for breakfast. At seventy, she was surprisingly fluid in her movements. He’d never met someone as old as she was. He thought she was the smartest person in all of Amada for knowing how to care for a broken bird, and the best person for wanting to help in the first place.
At first, the boy wanted to cry whenever he thought of the day his uncle sent him to the army. He told him it was to guarantee his future. The boy struggled to understand how shining the shoes of drunk soldiers would help his future. His uncle said that because he was a bastard, he must be better than any other man in Aldon. Now that the whore witch gave birth to an heir, he needed to be better than ever. And so at the age of five, the boy was sent to the army as an apprentice.
He learned that being a royal in the army is not a thing to flaunt. That if the camp commander belongs to a rival house, he might look the other way when a commoner soldier whips the king’s bastard.
“Don’t go crying like a useless girl,” the commander had spat when he found the boy bleeding from the belt.
From his hiding place, the boy could clearly see everything that was happening in the stables. The Cursed female didn’t kill the commander first. She made him watch as she maimed and killed his men, one by one.
The boy had never seen Cursed Ones before. But he knew she looked different from the rest. Despite having horns, her colors were red, though not the deep, dark blood-red of his own hair.
One of the first soldiers they dragged in leered at her, telling her how pretty she was. The boy remembered how his mother would respond like a flower to the sun when his uncle called her pretty. But the Cursed female didn’t like it at all. She cut out the soldier’s tongue, then shoved it into his mouth and laughed as he choked on it. The other Cursed Ones simply hauled the body away and brought another soldier. She maimed him as well.
The boy couldn’t bring himself to look away from the horrors inflicted onto the soldiers he’d come to know in the past month. He wanted to cover his ears to block out the screams, but he was afraid Natuzi would bolt if he let go.
The Cursed One finally took out the dirty cloth she had stuffed into the commander’s mouth and asked, “Where is she?”
She spoke in Aldonian, but she carried the words differently. The boy had never heard Aldonian spoken in such a way. The commander shook his head and struggled for air. “It doesn’t matter. She’s dead already,” he sobbed, and the stain of piss in his pants spread wider.
“Where is she?” she asked again, flipping her axe.
The commander’s body shook. He just sobbed, too fearful to speak. She sighed and mumbled in the Cursed Ones’ language.
A tall Cursed male with long black hair entered the stables and spoke to her. She suddenly looked smaller, shorter. As if the air had left her body.
She looked back at the commander. “They found her body,” she said, her voice cold as she stepped toward him.
The boy understood then that the Cursed Ones had come for the Cursed woman the soldiers had captured and dragged into the camp days ago. They were always going on about how they had to have women in the camp, but the commander forbade it. He said women only cause problems. Naga was a woman, but she was so old no one treated her as such.
The soldiers drugged the Cursed woman, boasting to each other about how they’d gotten themselves a captive. The boy covered his ears that night, trying to shut out the woman’s screams. He knew Natuzi would not run away that night, since all the soldiers were outside.
The commander sounded like a butchered pig as the Cursed One with the red hair carved out his heart from his chest. Naga was then dragged into the stables. The boy didn’t realize he could be more terrified. He started to tremble and hugged Natuzi even harder.
Naga dropped to her knees and pleaded. She told the Cursed Ones that she is nothing but an old, poor woman. That she could have done nothing to help the Cursed woman. But the Cursed Ones were not convinced. The one with the red hair grabbed Naga by her long, thin braid, her axe ready to slice her throat.
The boy didn’t think. He ran out of his hiding place. “Don’t kill her,” he cried out. Then he blurted, “I’ll give you my greatest treasure for her life.”
His appearance startled the Cursed female with the red hair. She let go of Naga’s braid, “Why do they have such young kids in here?” she scoffed, asking no one in particular.
Natuzi followed the boy out of the hiding spot, hopping lopsidedly as her broken wing dragged slightly. The Cursed Ones’ eyes went wide.
“Please,” the boy whispered. “Her wing is broken, but she’s still a Gyrfalcon.”
He knew how coveted the beautiful white falcons were for their beauty and rarity alike. Even if she couldn’t fly, Naga always warned him that he must keep Natuzi hidden, or the soldiers would steal her from him and sell her for coin.
The Cursed One gave Natuzi an assessing look, and suddenly, the boy feared she would agree to take his best friend from him. But he closed his fist tight and braced himself. He knew that if she killed Naga, that would be even worse, so this was the right choice to make. The honorable choice. And Natuzi was clever and very good at running away, despite her broken wing.
“How did you find her?” the Cursed One asked.
She lowered herself to her knees and gently brushed Natuzi’s head. Natuzi didn’t look scared, and even the boy had forgotten to be afraid for a moment. The Cursed One reminded him of the young ladies in waiting who followed his mother. They were always kind to the boy.
At close range, he could see the Cursed female colors were bright ruby.
“She fell from the nest when she was still a nestling. Her mother wouldn’t have anything to do with her,” he answered, his voice somber.
“I thought Gyrfalcons live only in Kozari,” she mumbled.
“We are quite close to the border,” the boy pointed out.
She smiled at his serious tone. “How old are you?” she asked the boy, who stood taller. “Almost five and a half,” he answered.
She opened her mouth to say something else, but then the Cursed One with the long hair snapped. He stepped forward and hissed impatiently in the Cursed language. Abruptly, he plunged his axe into Naga’s throat so powerfully that her head barely remained attached to her body.
Enraged, the Cursed female yelled at him in the Cursed Ones’ language and struck him with the handle of her axe.
The boy stood frozen. Naga’s dead eyes were wide open. It was the most horrifying sight he had seen in his entire short life. The boy felt as if he couldn’t breathe. He made a run for it.
They killed Naga. And now they have Natuzi. The boy knew that only useless girls cry, and that he was not to be useless, but still he cried as he ran. He reached the chapel and hid behind the great stone statue of Sun.
The boy never said it out loud, but he always feared Sun. Sun knew all sinful deeds, even thoughts, and demanded atonement for them. But now Sun made him feel safe from the awful Cursed Ones who killed Naga.
He huddled behind Sun, as the first rays of dawn pierced the stained glass. It was almost as if Sun had finally chosen to shine his light on him.
The boy hid behind his god the entire day and night until his uncle’s men found him.
Some of the links I share will be affiliate links. I’ll still only recommend books I genuinely loved (honest reviews, always). If you buy through one of my links, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
