PROLOGUE
EVERETT
Thirteen YearsAgo
"I don't want to watch the executions," I tell my birth mother quietly, watching the raindrops trailing down outside the window to my right.
It's just the two of us in the back of the limousine. We're running late because she had to make sure my outfit was perfect before I could be seen in public. The rest of my parents are already inside the big courthouse we're driving to, where the Legacy Council and the Immortal Quintet meet to conduct official business.
At fourteen, I've already been to the courthouse too many times to count. I've hated it every time.
My mother reaches out to adjust my collar, muttering about wanting me to look flawless when we step outside. I can already see the horde of people holding cameras standing outside the massive front doors of the courthouse, and my stomach clenches.
I hate cameras.
Ever since my parents insisted I make my modeling debut in the human world last year, cameras have followed me everywhere I go outside of the Frost estate. My parents tell me I'm a child modeling phenomenon, but I can't stand looking in the mirror anymore. It doesn't help that I look so much like my father.
"You must learn to watch whenever this happens, son," Mother says. "Executions are uncommon but necessary. The council and the Immortal Quintet expect the strongest legacies to support their final decision, and what are we?"
"The strongest," I mumble on autopilot. I know there's no use trying to get out of this dread pooling in my gut, but I still look at her pleadingly. "Heidi never has to sit through shit like this. Why do I?"
"Don't use that language. And your sister isn't a real Frost. You know this."
I've heard it too many times to count, but it still bothers me. Alaric Frost is my father and the prestigious keeper of my parents' elite quintet, so they all took on the Frost last name. But Corbin, another of my parents, fathered Heidi with Daphne, my mother. Since Heidi isn'tbiologicallya Frost from Alaric's bloodline, they had her take my mother's maiden name. She's only eight, but we've been raised so differently.
Heidi can't stand looking at me, either. I wonder if she will always hate me as much as I've forced her to. I've pushed her away for her own good, just in case my parents ever stooped low enough to try using her as leverage against me, but it still hurts.
"The gods have granted you power and beauty befitting a true Frost," my mother muses, checking her lipstick one last time as the limousine slows to a stop. She turns and levels me with a harsh look, slipping her compact mirror back into her purse. "But it's up to you to live up to our name. Which means in that courtroom, there will be no more whining, no grimacing, not somuch as asniffleif you don't like what you see. Frosts are not soft. You will sit up straight, observe, and say nothing. And if you embarrass us in any way, you know what will happen."
My stomach pain worsens, and I look away, tucking my hands into my gray overcoat so she won't see the frost prickling my fingertips.
It's true. Idoknow what happens when I disappoint my family. They punish me, but not by hurtingme. Instead, they take it out on anything or anyone I remotely like.
Which is why I pretend to hate everything. Every gift, every hobby, every person.
It's safer for everyone that way.
Maybe one day I'll be able to love something,anything, without the fear that it will be ripped to pieces if I step out of line. Even my curse mocks me, reminding me that I'll ruin any chance at my own future happiness if Icare.
"Yes, Mother," I mutter.
She opens the door. As we step out, I look straight ahead through the flashing lights despite the photographers screaming for me to look at them. By the time we make it through the doors and to our seats at the edges of the massive vaulted courtroom filled with legacies, my vision is spotted from all the camera flashes.
I sit with my parents' quintet. My father, as usual, sits with the rest of the Legacy Council. I can't remember a time when he wasn't sitting at the front of the room with them. He's completely focused on something another council member is saying to him. Even here, many legacies eye me from their seats, curious to see the heir of Alaric Frost. Members of influential quintets are here as representatives from each of the four Houses.
My attention lands on two Cranes sitting on the opposite side of the room, the only members of their quintet in attendancetoday. They wear all black, and their faces are chalky with dark circles under their eyes. I’m pretty sure that shifty-eyed blood fae is Silas Crane's birth father.
Mother sees where I'm looking and whispers, "Their keeper just committed suicide. Rumor has it that Somnus DeLune's bastard son got inside his head and drove him to it. Quite the scandal—needless to say, we won't be associating with any of them anymore. But pay attention. Even in mourning, even with their curses returning, the Cranes know to heed when the Immortal Quintet extends a call. We Frosts are just the same. Loyalty is everything."
She goes quiet along with everyone else when the large double doors at the head of the room open, and the Immortal Quintet strides in.
I've seen them in person before, but it's still hard not to shrink in on myself when their intimidating presence fills the room. It's impossible to forget that they have ruled legacies for centuries for a good reason—we legacies might be descended from the original monsters who escaped the Nether, but theyaremonsters who escaped it. They’re frighteningly powerful.
Especially their keeper, Natalya, who calls the court to order before she turns to address the Legacy Council. When she does, I stare at the keeper emblems that are etched like a crown across her forehead, curtained by her copper-colored hair. Each emblem represents one of the Four Houses—one for each of her quintet members.
"Bring in the dissenters,” she says.
Several uniformed legacy security guards drag two shifters and a caster into the room, all beaten to a pulp. I don't recognize any of their bloodied, bruised faces.
