Prologue
25 Years Earlier
Blood and anguish blotted out the stars. Screams carved through the ensuing darkness, echoing through the bitter cold of the longest night, and he could do nothing to stop them.
Claudian stroked Ágnes’s hair and pressed kisses to her temple, whispering softly to the child in her womb. “Stay with me, my love. I am nothing without the both of you.”
White cloth stained red as her life seeped upon it. Her veins emptied no matter the pressure he put upon her wounds. Torn flesh yawned up at him, fang-bitten and unmended.
“Brother!” Claudian shouted, throat raw from his efforts. He choked around a sob. “We need a healer, please!”
But there was no answer—no confirmation that help was on the way. There were only mirroring screams from the birthing chamber. Cries of pain punctuated by joyous laughter. A new life being born unto the throne while his wife’s soul guttered out of existence.
“Claudian… Save her…” Ágnes begged, the light in her eyes already dimming. “Promise me you will protect her.”
“Do not leave me!” Desperation flooded him, thundered through his chest.
She stroked his cheek, pushed the sweat-slicked hair from his forehead. He leaned into her touch—far too cold and tremblingwith exertion. He strained to hear her whispering plea. “Promise me.”
“I promise,” he gasped.
Ice crackled between them, and his breath came in great, billowing puffs. The Gryffem had arrived. Her time was running out.
Ágnes’s hand caught his, passing off the dagger she held so loosely in her weakening grasp. He knew what he must do, but it gutted him to consider it. How could he harm a body he loved so dearly? How could he say goodbye to the woman he cherished?
But there was no other option, not if he wished to save his child.
Her flesh parted easily for him, skin giving way to muscle and bone. Her eyes had gone dark, but he could not think of that now. He could only keep cutting, so deeply he felt it within his own chest.
When the child was freed from her mother’s body, Claudian drew his daughter close. He held her tiny body to his, but her chest did not rise.
“Breathe,” he whispered, lips brushing her soft shock of hair. “Live! Do not leave me alone in this world. Do not make me into a liar.”
Still, she did not stir.
Claudian placed his daughter beside Ágnes—curled her fragile body against the mother she should have grown to know and love. He closed her eyes with a gentle touch, ran his fingers along the swell of her parted lips. He held the smallest fingers he had ever known between his own. Gazing down upon them, he knew they had taken his heart from this realm. The prince cried until he was hollow inside—until only pain and anger filled his middle.
Celebrations and clinking glasses grew louder, echoing through the halls. His brother’s voice boomed through the quiet, a jarringreminder that while Claudian hadlosteverything, Tarquin hadgainedeverything.
“Brother!” Tarquin spilled through the doorway. Liquor sloshed in his glass, soaking into the rug—so careless with things that did not belong to him. His eyes found Ágnes and the child, bloody and lifeless. “Ah…”
“I called for you, Tarquin. Did you not hear me?” Claudian stepped forward, blood soaked blade still clutched between white knuckles.
Tarquin shifted in discomfort then shrugged, a smile splitting his face once more. “There will be other wives, Brother, and other children. Do not fret.”
“Do not…” Claudian stared in disbelief, cold callousness stealing beneath his breastbone. “Did you hear me?”
“Well, yes, but there were no healers to spare. My wife is the queen and my daughter the crown princess. Their safety comes first, surely you understand that.” Tarquin tipped back his glass, brown liquor slipping between smiling lips.
The king had always been a fair brother, if not a particularly kind one. Claudian had never imagined he could be so cruel—so uncaring in the face of his brother’s agony.
“You killed them…” His head shook back and forth in a denial he could not fully claim. “This isyourfault.”
Tarquin laughed and clapped his hand upon Claudian’s shoulder. “I did nothing. It was that beast who claimed the life of your Ágnes. I’m sorry, Brother, truly, but there is nothing more to be done.”
As the king walked away, his broad back so very exposed, Claudian knew the truth of it. Though his brother could not hear him,he voiced the words anyway. “You did nothing, but what is apathy if not betrayal? What is inaction if not incompetence?”
Frost crackled through his veins, so stark against the heat of the hearth—at odds with the disappearance of the Gryffem.
