Alexandra thought back to the night she stirred the petals of a Dyphis flower into her mother’s water, then poured one innocent glass. The stupid bitch drank it, none the wiser, and took her bastard child with her. Sometimes, Alexandra fell asleep to the memory of her mother’s grotesque body lying in her own blood and sick.
“My mother was murdered by her handmaid, Selene Marinea.”
Kassandra shoved Alexandra toward the end of the hall. “Your lies will never pass for truth here, niece.”
The next hour was spent living another kind of torture: bathing. Her aunt had three different women—all with a bruising touch—dunk her in and out of lukewarm water. They must have ripped out half a head of her hair while brushing and pinning.
Kassandra stood over it all, inspecting.
Alexandra was tugged and pushed and jerked until she resembled a version of herself she’d once been. Except for the hair and eyes. Black as the darkest night—part of Xavlin’s gift.
Her curse.
Eventually, Kassandra deemed Alexandra perfect. Or “as together as she’s capable” and escorted her to the dining hall.
Alexandra would have thrived in a situation such as she faced…before. Now, she begged the gods for silence. The ability to focus.
This wasn’t a meeting with her uncle. It was a public lashing with her entire extended family seated at the table.
At the head, Titos reclined to watch her entrance. He was her late father’s age, but unlike Orestis, Titos preferred minimalism to ostentation. He didn’tneedto flaunt power. It already radiated off him.
To his right, his second wife Daphira—and a snake of a woman that Alexandra once admired—peered coldly down her nose. Daphira’s sister, Lady Helike, sat beside her. Smug, both of them.
There were his children, of course—Calliane, Belenor, Thessa. Consorts. Suitors. Aunts. Uncles. Socialites, drunks, soldiers. A house fat with power. A house ripe for ruin. They were no different from Alexandra, though none would dare admit it aloud.
Alexandra didn’t mind. Let them have their moment. It wouldn’t last.
She focused on one boy at the other end of the table. Evander, Daphira’s youngest. A boy of eight. Quiet, barely half-listening most days. Ignored. It would take a small handful of deaths for him to become the heir.
Unlikely, some might say.
Alexandra smiled to herself and sank into the chair at her uncle’s left.
Titos scanned her up and down as she and Kassandra settled.
A full plate was put before Kassandra, but the space before Alexandra remained empty.
Daphira smirked, then tucked a tiny bite of meat between her teeth.
Alexandra’s stomach gurgled. When had she last eaten?
“I allowed your friends to remain as a courtesy,” her uncle began, gnawing on his meat.
She hadn’t seen her Eyes in several hours. Or had it been days? “Where are they?”
Damn gods—this wastheirfault. She couldn’t keep track of time anymore.
“As if you don’t already know.” Titos hurled his entire plate at Alexandra, soaking her in saucy meat and buttered vegetables.
Daphira’s eyes glinted as she daintily cut into a carrot.
“They’re dead,” he continued coldly, a flush filling his cheeks. “Or have fled. You interfered with my plans, and so I was forced to take action on those who remained.”
How manyhadremained? She honestly didn’t know. Many of her Eyes had vanished on the mountain road out of fear for what she had become. Others didn’t like Titos’s idea of using them for his own means, and Alexandra wasn’t in her right mind to help them.
Only her truest, most loyal remained, ready to follow her to the very end.
Alexandra’s fingers curled into fists, and heat shot through her entire body. “You have no right?—”
