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

1

"Wait." The Sword stops her before she can descend the steps.

Elegy stares at the hand on her shoulder. The Sword removes it.

"This place has been neutral ground for hundreds of years," the Sword says. "I need your assurance that you will tread lightly."

"'Tread lightly'?" Elegy repeats. "I'm unarmed. What do you think I'm going to do, throw a boot at them?"

They're about to meet their enemies, the Talusar, under a temporary ceasefire. But even if the ceasefire didn't compel Elegy to restrain herself, she's seen enough battlegrounds to know how foolish it is to engage with Talusar soldiers on foot. Especially when outnumbered—and the Talusar always outnumber them.

The Sword presses her already thin mouth into an even thinner line. "Six years in the army have made you rough around the edges, at best. But this is a delicate situation. So I want your word."

The door at the bottom of the steps opens, and warmth rushes into the Sparrow. Elegy tastes dust and salt on the air. Wind kisses her cheeks, soft and prickling with particles of earth.

"You have it," she says to the Sword.

The Sword nods, and walks on.

Elegy stretches her hand behind her, and her husband's calloused fingers catch it. For a moment he stands at her back, and she can feel the heat of him.

"Wow, you can really feel the love between you and your mom," Shir says into her ear. "I don't understand why you waited so long to introduce us."

Elegy's laugh surprises her.

Shir's eyes crinkle at the corners. When she first met him, she noted—with disdain—that he looked like he'd walked straight out of an old-fashioned romance designed to appeal to as many people as possible. Thick, wavy hair. Easy smile. Long eyelashes.

But she fell for him anyway. Annoying.

"Are you ready?" he asks, his thumb tracing a circle on the back of her hand.

She isn't—how can a person be "ready" to hear a prophecy?—but she nods, and together they descend to the salt flat, where the Sword waits for them.

She doesn't think of the Sword as her mother, though that's who she is. Elegy is the result of a transaction. The Sword was required to have two children, one to inherit her title and the other as a spare. Elegy is that spare. Her father applied for the privilege of contributing his genes to her, and once he was approved, he was given the lifelong job of protecting and instructing her. Growing up, she visited her mother and half sister once a year to learn what her father couldn't teach her, but otherwise, she only had one parent … and it wasn't the woman in front of her.

Her hand trails behind her to keep hold of Shir's. The salt flat is wide and white and surrounded by mountains. It's patterned with hexagons the size of dinner plates, like the scaly skin of a mythical creature. She understands why the Cenobium is here—it feels like a holy place.

She lets go of Shir's hand and crouches to press her palms to the earth. The salt is hard but fragile, cracking under pressure. It flakes onto her palms and stings the little cuts on her cuticles.

Behind the Sword is a lonely building of flat, circular stone with a vaulted wooden roof: the Cenobium, which houses the augurs. The ones who summoned her here.

Elegy's first reaction to the summons was a snort. I'm not a dog, she said to Shir. They can't just call my name and expect me to come running.

But the augurs' foretellings are something even she can't ignore. That they perceive the future isn't a matter of faith; it's a biological reality produced by the Fever in their blood. And they don't issue a summons for anything less than world-shaking prophecy.

Movement catches Elegy's attention in the land behind the Cenobium. Approaching the structure from the north is a line of people on horseback, shimmering in the desert heat. Even from here, she can tell their clothes are too heavy for the hot sun. They're not used to the desert.

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.