“What happened to her?”
Mora’s hands stilled completely. “No one knows. She’s alive, but not what she used to be. Lord Auradelle keeps her in the deep chambers. Sometimes at night, you can hear her singing. It doesn’t sound fae anymore.”
Ice ran through my veins, but I forced my voice steady. “Cheerful. And you? How long have you been here?”
She resumed working on the robe, but I caught the way her fingers trembled slightly. “Since I was seven. My village started to show signs of the rot. My parents thought sending me to serve at the Heartspire would save me.” A bitter smile crossed her face. “They were half right. I’m alive.”
“But not saved.”
“No one who enters the Heartspire is ever truly saved.” She finished with the robe and stepped back, studying me with an expression I couldn’t read. “We just learn to survive.”
I’d asked her once, in a moment of curiosity between torture sessions, about the twisted marks on her forearms—forced into her skin rather than growing naturally, patterns that hurt to look at. She’d told me Lord Auradelle tested her when she was eleven, hoping her Root-touched blood might manifest marks strong enough to hold his power. They’d been hollow. Empty. When it failed, he kept her as a servant, saying she might be useful for understanding the real marked one when they finally arrived.
“You understand what he’s doing to me, don’t you?” I’d asked her then.
She’d met my eyes and said simply: “I understand that you’re terrified. That you miss him—your Kaelren. That you’re trying to be brave but inside you’re screaming.” Her voice had softened. “I understand because I felt all of that too. The difference is, you have someone coming for you. Someone who loves you enough to tear the world apart to get you back.”
Now, as she stepped back from adjusting my robe, that same knowing look was in her eyes.
“Be strong today,” Mora whispered. “Remember who you are. You’re Elle. The woman who told Lord Auradelle to his face that his crown looked like a diseased mushroom.”
I almost laughed despite everything. I had said that, two days ago, delirious with pain and exhausted past the point of self-preservation.
“You’re stronger than they know,” she continued. “Stronger than you know.”
Before I could respond, the door opened. Four guards entered, their faces hidden behind ceremonial masks that looked like twisted vines.
“Time to go,” one said, voice muffled and strange. “PrinceAuradelle can’t be kept waiting.”
They didn’t grab me roughly like the first day. They’d learned I would come willingly to spare Mora from being dragged into the testing chambers “for comparison purposes,” as Auradelle had so delicately phrased the threat. I stood, the white robe swirling around me, and followed them out.
The route was different from yesterday. We went deeper into the Heartspire, down stairs that seemed to grow from the walls themselves, through corridors where the air grew hotter and thicker with magic that made my marks burn. The temperature rose with each step until sweat beaded on my skin beneath the silk robe. Finally, we arrived at a chamber I hadn’t seen before.
It was larger than yesterday’s testing room, circular, with a vaulted ceiling that disappeared into shadow. The walls were covered in mirrors with surfaces that showed different versions of reality—me with marks covering every inch of skin, me as pure corruption, me as something between human and tree. But what made my stomach drop were the figures already in the chamber.
Seven robed figures stood in a circle, swaying in unison to a rhythm I couldn’t hear but could feel in my bones. Their faces were hidden behind dark masks that left what they were to the imagination. They hummed—a low, discordant sound that made my marks pulse with painful heat.
At the center of the circle stood not Auradelle, but someone else.
The mage was tall and thin, draped in robes the color of old blood. But it was their face that made me freeze—half of it was ruined, melted and twisted into a grotesque parody of features. Burn scars ran from their left temple down their neck, disappearing beneath the robe. The unmarred right side was beautiful in a cruel way, all sharp angles and cold eyes the color of winter ice.
“Ah,” the mage said, and their voice was like something from a horror movie. “The prince’s little toy. How delightful.” The guards pushed me to the middle of the room and the robed figures circled me slowly as I caught the scent of burned roses. “Do you know who I am, vessel?”
“Should I?”
The mage barked a humorless laugh. “Your corruption-touched pet didn’t mention me? How disappointing. I am Malachar, formerly of the Winter Court, before your Kaelren decided I was too ‘cruel’ in my interrogation methods.” They traced one finger down their scarred cheek. “He gave me this. Corruption-fire, burning so hot it melted through my protective wards like they were cobwebs. It took days before the healers could stop the spread.”
Ice flooded my veins. “You were torturing someone.”
“I was extracting information vital to the realm’s security,” Malachar corrected, still circling. “But Kaelren has always been… sentimental about such things. Weakness, really. A weakness you seem to share.” They stopped directly in front of me. “But Prince Auradelle has given me a gift—the chance to break something he loves. To make you scream the way I screamed. To burn you from the inside out with your own power until you beg for death.”
“Charming. You must be delightful at parties.”
Malachar’s unmarred eye twitched. “Strap her down.”
The guards forced me into a chair at the circle’s center. This time the restraints were thick vines that grew from the chair itself, wrapping around my wrists, ankles, waist, and throat with enough pressure to make breathing difficult. They were covered in thorns that pressed into my skin without breaking it—yet.
The seven dancers moved closer, their humming growing louder, more discordant. I could feel it now—their power building, feeding into whatever Malachar was about to do.
