She was a small woman. Slim and compact, with the quiet sturdiness of a worn but beloved book. Wrinkles lined her face, her gray hair was neatly coiled beneath a modest maid’s cap, and her grey, unadorned clothing marked her station.
“Your hands are shaking,” Evelyne observed under her breath. She held her white bouquet in one palm, helping release the fabric with the other.
“I’m old,” the maid replied gently. “Everything shakes.”
They reached the last hallway.
The chapel doors stood ahead. Double height, carved with the interlocking crests of Edrathen and Calveran. At the threshold, a small pool of wax had been carefully poured. An old tradition meant to seal luck into the home and keep ill omens from crossing its line.
She wondered, with no small amount of irony, if she’d burst into flames the moment she stepped over the threshold.
There were no guards posted outside, and Evelyne found that fitting. Calveran, for all its wealth, had perpetually favored simplicity. Even The Vaults, rumored to hold fortunes from every kingdom, were hidden so deep and sealed so tightly that only the ruling family knew the way in. If there were sentries, they were posted within the chapel.
The iron hinges let out a deep, groaning creak as the Silverwards moved past them and pushed the chapel doors open. She caught the scent of lilies as she moved inside. The weight of her wedding dress brushed the marble. Her heels clicked against the floor, the sound seemed deafening in the unnatural quiet. There were no murmurs.
Just bodies covered in blood.
At first, the guests looked merely still. Like statues. Lords and ladies sat frozen in their pews, as if the ceremony had simply paused.
But then she saw the eyes. Wide and glossy. One noblewoman’s mouth was twisted in a silent scream, her hands clutched to her throat. Another had collapsed sideways; blood was leaking from his ears in thin rivulets. One of them had dragged himself a few feet before dying, a streak of maroon trailing behind him. One of the guards inhaled sharply. The other reached instinctively for the hilt at his side.
No. No, this couldn’t be real.
Crimson coated the marble, dripped from the steps in slow, syrupy trails. Every guest from Dasmon’s noble mother to the lowest attending squire lay strewn like broken dolls.
She noticed his siblings. A ribbon. Blue satin, peeking from beneath the crushed weight of her mother’s arm. His sister. The youngest. Her favorite.
Her breath hitched. She couldn’t find the shape of a single thought.
And then she saw him. Dasmon lay alone, as if placed there deliberately. Beneath the altar, at the base of the stone steps. His head was tilted to the side, lips parted in a final breath that never came. His ceremonial robes, once white and silver, were soaked through. Scarlet blooming from a clean wound just below the ribs.
And carved into the flesh of his mouth, like a signature left behind: three vertical lines enclosed in a perfect circle.
Her ears were ringing. She didn’t realize she was moving until the red reached her toes. The hem of her gown darkened as it kissed the blood pooling beneath the altar. The fabric absorbed it greedily, staining with every step. Her bouquet fell with a soft thud, scattering delicate blooms across the burgundy marble like bones from a broken spine.
Her father was saying something to the Silverwards, about stepping back, but the words slid past her, water over glass. She couldn’t hear him. Couldn’t hear anything but the dull thrum behind her ears, the faint squelch of crimson-soaked silk as she took one more step.
Evelyne dropped on her knees. Touched his palm.
It was too still. Too stiff. Her thumb brushed the back of his hand and met skin that was cold and clammy.Her stomach turned, her mouth filled with the bitter taste of iron.
She swallowed it back, barely.
She couldn’t look at his face. She couldn’t not look at his face.
His lips were parted. His blue irises stared at something beyond her. The mark carved into his mouth was slowly leaking, as if even death hadn’t finished with him yet.
Her throat made a sound she didn’t recognize—a half-sob, half-gasp, as if her lungs couldn’t decide whether to scream or drown.
A truth she didn’t want and couldn’t refuse.
Her gown from that night will be burned to erase the memory of blood.
But she will remember.
Chapter 3
She woke with the taste of memory in her mouth. It wasn't real; she knew that, but her tongue still curled as if to spit something out, and her fingers clawed instinctively at the sheets, the embroidered coverlet tangled around her legs. The curtains in her chambers were still drawn.
