Excerpt from Seek the Traitor's Son by Veronica Roth, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I'll just wait out here," Shir says. Elegy didn't really expect him to be able to come into the sanctuary with her. But it's better to have him close.

"Obviously," the Sword replies, without looking at him.

Elegy makes a face at Shir, who makes an identical one back. Stifling a laugh, she undoes her own shoelaces and strips off her mismatched socks, one striped and the other covered in little hearts. She stuffs them into the toes of her boots and stands. The stone is cold under her heels. She ignores the shiver that moves through her at the thought of what waits past the sanctuary doors.

The Sword is staring at her. She opens her mouth to speak, then hesitates, and then does.

"You weren't a lament," she says.

Elegy stiffens.

"We thought we might lose you, your father and I. So. When you came, and you were healthy and strong … you brought joy with you, and relief."

It seems like she's going to say more, but Nerina returns with an ornate gold thurible at the end of a long golden chain. Smoke spills from its decorative openings.

"Stand together, please," Nerina says. "I need to prepare you."

"Prepare us for what, exactly?" Elegy says.

"To receive the future." Nerina gives her the gentle smile of an adult being patient with a child. "It requires fortitude. You'll see."

Elegy is about to object when the Sword pinches her arm.

The Sword stands beside Elegy so their shoulders are together, their arms brushing. They're the same height. Nerina swings the ball so the smoke spills out of it in long, jagged lines that wrap around Elegy and the Sword. It smells like sage and something greener, like eucalyptus.

Nerina finishes, and opens one of the doors to the sanctuary with her shoulder. Just before following her, Elegy looks back at Shir. He gives her a lopsided smile.

"I'll be right here," he says.

Elegy's mouth is dry. She follows the Sword through the sanctuary door.

Her steps falter. The room is bigger than she expected, and circular, the outer wall made of thousands of small stones arranged in a spiral from bottom to top. The ceiling is wooden, hundreds of narrow planks converging in the center at a round window that lets in a shaft of light. The floor is white-dusted stone, as cold as the antechamber, and in the center of the room is a mirror with the light from the skylight sparkling on its surface.

It's as big as a pond, and fragmented, so it reflects bits and pieces rather than whole images: a wisp of cloud, a wink of sunlight, a sliver of blue.

Standing in a semicircle around that mirror are ten people in dove-gray robes with bands of white across their throats. The augurs.

The Sword ushers Elegy forward, toward the augurs and the future she doesn't want to know.

The augurs are all different ages, the oldest a straight-backed elderly woman, the youngest a teenager with soft, pink cheeks. All their eyes lock on her the moment she walks in, and the effect is unsettling. Those eyes see more than hers ever will.

"Go to the center of the mirror," Nerina says to her.

Elegy glances at the Sword. She may not like the woman whose body formed hers, but in this strange place, she's Elegy's only ally. The Sword nods, and Elegy walks past Nerina to the edge of the mirror. It looks fragile, like her weight will break it, but when she steps on it, it feels solid. She can see herself reflected upward at a dozen different angles, in one a downturned mouth, in another a fidgeting hand. She walks to what looks like the center, the window showing blue sky above her. Sunlight stretches across her body. At once, all the augurs step forward and look at the reflections of her in the glass.

"You see," the youngest one says, pointing at one of them. "It is her."

"That's the faulty logic of the young," one of the others replies. "One piece of evidence and you say it's certain."

Excerpted from Seek the Traitor's Son by Veronica Roth. Copyright © 2026 by Veronica Roth. Excerpted by permission of Tor Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.