Above, the moon hung low, pale as bone, watching me struggle not to fall apart. I sheathed my sword, hands shaking. The blood on my knuckles gleamed in the moonlight.
The monster I’d feared all my life was gone. And still, I felt like nothing more than an echo of what he wanted from me—small, angry, hollow.
“Majesty?” Holt asked softly. “What are your orders?”
Orders. Because that’s what kings gave.
“Find her,” I said. “Bring her back to me.”
He hesitated. “Alive?”
I didn’t answer.
He bowed low and disappeared into the smoke.
The night wind swept through the courtyard, scattering burnt leaves and ash. Scattering him. Underneath the scent of it, I caught the faintest trace of blue vervain smoke from the herb I burned to silence my power.
I breathed it in for the last time and whispered to the dark, “Long live the king.”
Chapter Two
Aurelia
Every flutter of my eyelids dragged like cotton soaked in water. I stopped trying to pry them open and inhaled slowly, taking stock. The first thing I noticed was the smell—woodsmoke and damp stone, threaded with something sharp and herbal that clung to the back of my throat.
The second thing was sound. A hush, broken only by the faint crackle of a fire somewhere nearby. No voices. No footsteps. Just silence, the kind that reminded me of all those years spent among my sleeping kingdom. The kind of silence that pressed like a weight on my ribs and brought a twinge of panic that I’d been transported right back to the nightmare of the past seven years spent inside my sleeping kingdom.
Maybe the last few weeks were nothing more than a strange dream. Sonoma’s death, the secret she’d kept from me until the end—that she was my mother and a god of Hel was my father, Callan’s marriage proposal. His father’s plan to drain my magic for the sake of a pretty lawn. Rydian. Thinking of all that had happened, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted it to be real or not.
Either way, I was awake now. And reality could not be ignored much longer, especially not my bladder.
My limbs were heavy, sluggish, every movement tinged with the wrongness of muscles that shouldn’t ache this badly, considering the softness of the mattress I found myself on. My mouth was dry, and when I swallowed, nausea climbed my throat.
Drugged.
The realization crawled over my skin like cold sweat. Followed quickly by the memory of how it had happened in the first place.
My furyfire burning King Duron to ash. His advisor, Koraz, with a blade through his chest. Rydian pushing me into a black carriage. The driver’s armor emblazoned with the silver sigil of the Midnight Court.
My eyes flew open, my heart racing as I tried to breathe through the panic. I blinked at the sight of the smooth ceiling, slanted and high, exposed rafters gleaming in the soft, orange light. Beneath that, the walls were stone, uneven and old, and a faint draft whispered through cracks.
I was lying on a large bed layered in thick blankets. A single window was shuttered tight. Two doors stood across from me. One hung open, revealing a glimpse of a massive bathing chamber. The other was closed, the faint glint of iron along its latched edge telling me what I didn’t want to know.
Locked.
I hadn’t dreamt it after all; I was a prisoner.
Another quick glance around the space revealed no sign of my personal belongings, including my beloved swords: Dorcha and Latha.
Panic flared in my chest, sharp enough to shove me upright. My pulse hammered in my temples. But the ache in my head was nothing compared to the fresh pain splittingthrough my chest. My heart broke all over again as the truth settled like stone in my lungs.
Rydian had betrayed me.
He had used my feelings for him as a lure, dangling his own affections like a bait and switch. By the time I’d decided to flee Grey Oak, I’d given up the idea that my alliance with Callan would have worked, but there were plenty of other courts I could have run to. The only one I never planned to cross paths with was the Midnight Court. Cowards and monsters—the lot of them.
And now, I was here—whereverherewas—locked away, drugged into compliance.
An heir without a throne.
