CHAPTER ONE
My uncle Arnel carried me toward his home’s stairwell. His grip was like iron. Unyielding. Terrifically strong. And unbreakable.
Dizziness made my head spin. He’d smashed a vase into the side of my temple only seconds ago, and the hot feel of sticky blood trickled down my cheek.
Struggling, I tried to fight again. Tried to break free. But his grip was like talons, piercing and sharp, and my head throbbed.
“Why are you doing this?” I rasped.
He smirked. “Because it’s time. I’m due what’s mine.”
I tried to mistphase again. To disappear. Vanish. Escape.
But my magic was still gone. Tylen had nulled it completely.
Above us, the fairy lights in my uncle’s home burned brightly, illuminating every harsh line around his mouth.
My head spun more as he began to climb the stairs. I kicked, but dizziness made my attempts disjointed. I didn’t even connect. “Whatever you’re going to do, please don’t. Please stop.” I panted.
“Why should I?” His lips peeled back. “You may not know this,Niece, since you just joined the family, but the king was born only minutes before me.” He climbed another step, and my foot brushed against the wall, but I couldn’t get leverage to usethat to my advantage. “Even though we’re twins, the crown could only pass to one of us, and since he was born minutes before me, he gets to wear it. But tell me something. Is that fair? Is it right that birth order determines the next in line for the Mistvale throne?”
Hatred and envy burned in his expression, glowing as brightly as a star.
I shrank away from him and struggled anew. “So you’re taking...your anger out onme?” I asked between pants as I continued to struggle. “I’m the one...to bear the brunt...of your jealousy?”
He laughed, the sound brittle, just as we reached the top of the stairs. “Believe it or not, what I’m doing now has little to do with you and is entirely to do with your magic. When you were younger, I strove to do what my brother was too weak to enact. You were a scourge to our society, dangerous and spoiled. He was too weak to do what was right, but then you died, or so they said, and your immense magic was gone.” He strode down the hall of the second floor, and I looked every which way for a servant or someone to help me, but my vision was fuzzy, and I couldn’t properly focus.
“Help!” I screamed and kicked again.
My uncle tightened his grip on me and hissed, “Stop that. It hurts my ears.” An object flew from a hallway table and smashed into my head in the same spot as before.
Painexplodedin my temple.
I sagged in his arms, my vision darkening, but I fought to stay conscious. Stay awake.
A tunnel appeared in my vision, but with effort, it cleared.
But that only gave my uncle more time to carry me toward wherever he planned to take me.
We were still on the second floor, in the same hallway, and he strode toward one of the rooms.
“Do you know what happened six months ago?” he said out of the blue. Nausea rolled through me, and I felt as though I would be sick, but he continued unperturbed. “A bit over six months ago, I saw a young female in the palace, visiting an inventor, and she looked so much like the queen, uncannily so, and it got me thinking...”
I swallowed my nausea down, and my stomach twisted into knots. It hit me how my uncle had found me before anyone knew I was the princess. He’d seen me the day I’d gone to the palace, filled with joy since I’d just been offered my dream position at the Whiteolf Academic Library, and even though my aunt and uncle had always warned me not to bother Timith while he was working, I’d been so overcome with excitement that I’d broken their rule.
Yet,whythey’d created that rule became obvious with startling clarity. They knew I looked like the queen. They knew that someone might see me and begin to wonder about my parentage.
And their fear hadn’t been for naught, because that was exactly what’d happened.
I opened my mouth, trying to control my terror, but my words were slurred, and my senses were dulled. “You saw me...that day and...realized I’d never died at all.”
His smirk strengthened. “Exactly, and that’s when I found out who you supposedly were, some unknown female living in the Coswell District. But that’s not who you were at all, was it, Primelle?” He carried on. “I’ve wanted to share this with you for so long. To see how you would take the news that I knew who you truly were even though the rest of the realm only knew you as Primelle Hollaran.” His lips lifted in a terrifying smile. “After that day, I had you followed, along with Gwenery and Timith. Once I was certain you were the third princess, I sent Verin, a devout God of Night follower, to work in their home since I knewI could never plant a servant in your apartment.” He ambled toward a door at the end of the hall, no longer seeming in a hurry since I’d grown so docile and useless from the blows to my temple. “You see, Primelle, I’m not only a follower of the God of Night, but I’m also our followers’ leader and have been for many full seasons, unbeknownst to our family, and I realized with my god’s help that I may be able to use your power and that death may not be what’s best for you and the realm.”
The walls spun around me, everything growing blurry. But I was still coherent enough to realize I’d been right. All of the fae who’d been turned into vamfeers were God of Night followers.
“You all meet...every month,” I slurred, the key detail the Imperial Council had uncovered finally falling into place.
“Indeed. We’ve been meeting in secret for the past two centuries, and my god finally answered my call last summer, allowing me to create my potions.”
