Chapter 1
The Prisoner
I’d seen dozens of beheadings in my thirty-three years, but I’d never considered practicing for my own. The wooden execution block beneath my tensed neck was more comfortable than I’d expected. How many heads were severed on this surface for it to have formed such a welcoming curve?
I closed my eyes, exhaled slowly, and imagined the sounds and smells of my execution day. The crowd trading whispered rumors that my husband’s death wasn’t a mystery at all. The swell of collective energy as I ascended the platform in the castle square. The anticipation of blood and the opportunity to gossip brewing a restlessness among the citizens of Illica who would come to witness my death.
“It’s obvious she poisoned him. She could have never loved him.”
“I heard he beat her when he found out she couldn’t produce a son.”
“Of course she deserves this. She’s a sorceress whore.”
A brash knock at my cell door pulled me from my ominous imaginings.
My hands met the cold, stone floor and I pushed myself away from the execution block. The long, thick braid I’d twisted together fell over my shoulder as I stood. The knock came again, more impatient this time.
I wiped my hands on my plain dress, smoothing and dirtying the fabric in one motion. In four paces, I crossed the room and moved past the threeitems of furniture in the mostly bare space—the executioner’s block, a chamber pot, and the hay-stuffed bed.
“Yes?” I called gently to the solid slab of wood that hadn’t opened since the day I was delivered to my new accommodation. That was weeks ago, when the summer leaves were set ablaze, welcoming the impending autumn. Now, what trees I could see beyond Illica’s walls were brown and barren.
“You have a visitor, Lady Ashford,” a soldier’s voice answered through the iron peephole, and I flinched at my late husband’s name.
He wasn’t here, and I wasn’t his. I wasn’t Lady Ashford anymore.
The guard likely didn’t mean anything by it. He seemed naïve enough not to know better. And while we were far from friends, he was the same young man who stood guard and checked on me four times each day. I’d heard stories of soldiers who would take advantage of a position like his with lingering stares or late-night visits, and I was thankful he’d never been tempted to test the limits of his role. But perhaps I had my reputation to thank for that.
Upon determining I was both alive and non-threatening, he disappeared from the opening.
The iron slammed shut with a violent clang before being thrust open again. Icy blue eyes peered at me through the peephole.
“Are you well?” Curt and to the point, my older sister, Cova, had finally deigned to visit.
“I am.” I pushed my stiff shoulders back as I lied to her.
Her soft scoff nestled between the echoes of clanging armor from the hall. Her eyes shifted, and her demeanor softened slightly before she whispered, “Your death will coincide with the full moon.”
Time stopped, wrapping its arms around this moment to hold me hostage in its truth. Besides my unintrusive guard, the celestial timekeeper was my only other means of comfort and company.
I’d whispered my secrets, my fears, and everything I’d wished I’d done differently to the moon.
What if I’d been a more attentive wife? What if I’d never taken to gardening and concocting my own medicines? What if I’d said no to all of those women who came to me seeking aid—wanting to tap into my magic?
And the moon listened. Swelling slowly, night after night, as if absorbing the weight of my confessions. My breath hitched as I realized it was nearly full the night before.
Cova hadn’t shared this information out of spite. Quite the opposite.She was offering me a small kindness. Part of the torture of prison was psychological. Any day, any moment, could be the end. But now, my end was as real and solid as my enclosure.
“That’s that then.” Worry bloomed in my chest, and I fought the urge to chew my lip with its ceaseless buzzing.
“Rey.” My sister’s wintery glare narrowed.
“Cova,” I countered, much more being said between our eyes than our words.
Shewasworried about me. But not in the empathetic way I wish she possessed. No, my situation could inconvenience her family’s livelihood, andthatcomes before my beating heart.
“What will you choose?” she asked, proving my theory correct in four short words.
There was only one alternative: opting out of my promised end and instead, relinquishing myself to the bloodthirsty vampire colony to the North of Illica’s borders.The Hive.
