PROLOGUE
SAMARA
My mother liked to tell me that idle hands make idle minds. I wasn’t sure I one hundred percent believed that, but on a night like tonight, I needed something to do.
I held the soap in my left hand and slowly worked the small carving knife through the buttery smooth bar with my right. It curled beneath my blade in pale ribbons, falling onto the floor like snow.
Not that I’d ever seen snow. I’d only imagined it from the books I snuck from my father’s library about a fantastical world where the sky was blue with a blazing star.
My hobby started as a joke from my older brother, Taylor, who said I should find something to do instead of annoying him on his time off from boarding school.
I finished the intricate scrollwork on one arm of what my throne would look like if I were the queen of Inferna. Father would disapprove of the frivolity when I should have been focusing on my upcoming nuptials.
“They would kill you before you even had the crown upon your head.”
While my father’s words were most likely true, they hurt me to my core. My father was much too traditional for my taste. He refused to let me go away to boarding school, picked my suitor, and thought I’d make a horrible queen.
Not that I ever had a chance at it with two older brothers.
I heard a rumble of thunder in the distance and stood up from my desk with my soap and knife. The air shifted, growing thick and electric the way it did before a storm rolled in. My skin prickled with awareness, and I moved toward the window, pulling back the heavy curtain to peer out into the courtyard below.
Empty.
The guards who normally patrolled this section must have been called elsewhere. I frowned, unease settling in my stomach.
Thunder rumbled again, and several seconds later, a purple crack of lightning reached from the sky for whatever target it was after. I shuddered at the thought of being stuck out in the storm.
It was beautiful but deadlier than a vampire with bloodlust.
My door swung open suddenly with so much force that it hit the wall. I jumped and messed up one arm of my throne.
“What the hell, Reve? Haven’t you heard of knocking? What if I’d been naked?” I pointed the knife at him.
Reve stood in the doorway, breathing hard. His normally immaculate appearance was disheveled, with his shirt untucked, jacket missing, and a wild look in his eyes that I’d never seen before. Dirt and debris covered his clothes, and a smear of blood ran across his left cheek, though I couldn’t tell if it was his or someone else’s.
“What’s happening?” I took a step back, and he entered and shut the door.
He crossed the room in three long strides and snatchedthe knife and soap out of my hands, throwing them on my bed. He was one of the mellowest demons I knew, and my heart nearly beat out of my chest as he took my hands in his. “You need to run. Now.”
He was frantic, which was unusual for him—he was calm under pressure, easily keeping his emotions in check. He had to be since he was heir to the throne.
“What? Why?” I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened.
“There’s no time to explain. Someone’s coming, someone powerful enough to—” He cut himself off, his jaw clenching. “They’re going to kill us all, Sammy. Run and go to Taylor.”
He finally let me go and rushed to my closet, disappearing inside. A bag came flying out and landed at my feet. Next, a pair of boots, several pairs of pants, and some shirts flew at me.
“But what about you? And Mother and Father?” I bent down and started shoving the items into the bag. I didn’t understand what was happening, but if Reve was freaking out, I should take it seriously.
He was at the doorway of the closet. Tears lined his face, more spilling out as he shook his head. He choked back a sob and brought his fist to his mouth as if biting down on it would stop the strained sound.
“You’re scaring me.”
A scream erupted from somewhere deep in the castle, high-pitched and abruptly cut off. Then another, closer this time. Running feet echoed through the corridors, along with shouts I couldn’t make out.
This couldn’t be real. This had to be a nightmare, the kind where you woke up gasping and grateful for the mundane safety of your bedroom.
Reve shoved my desk chair under the handle of my door. He came back toward me and took the bag out of my shaking hands, tying it closed.
