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A firm hand clamps around my arm, and I yelp, nearly jumping straight out of my skin. I look straight up into those impossible red eyes. “Are you okay?” he says, voice just a notch softer than normal.

I try to smile, and it feels wrong. “Yeah. Just tired, I guess. It’s a lot to process.” Even my voice sounds wrecked.

Kylian’s eyes linger on me skeptically, but he leaves it alone. “Come on, let’s head home so I can show you around.”

CHAPTER 35

• Alessia •

KYLIAN’S HAND RESTS on my lower back as he steers me down the steps of the council building. I let him guide me because my legs feel like they belong to someone else, and my mind is still standing on that balcony, still locked on those hazel eyes that stared up at me.

We reach the bottom of the steps when a guard materializes from the shadows near the entrance, falling into step beside Eagan. He is tall with sharp features common to vampires, and his dark uniform is pristine despite the evening’s sorting. He leans close to Eagan, murmuring something I don’t catch, and Eagan shakes his head once before redirecting the guard toward Kylian.

“My king,” the guard says, dipping his head low enough that his chin nearly touches his chest. “What should we do with the package still aboard the ship? The captain wants to know if it stays in the hold or gets moved tonight.”

Package? Something about the way the guard says it has me straining to listen. As if the word is a replacement for something he doesn’t want to say aloud for just anyone to hear.

Kylian doesn’t break stride. “Take it to the cellars beneath the east wing.” His voice is flat and uninterested, the way someone might discuss the storage of wine barrels rather than whatever this is. “Have it secured properly. I’ll deal with it when I’m ready.”

The guard nods sharply and peels away, disappearing back toward the docks with quick, silent steps. I watch him go, a question forming on my tongue, but something stops me. Maybe it’s the edge in Kylian’s posture that tells me he isn’t in the mood for questions. Or maybe it’s the fact that I already have so many secrets fighting for space inside my chest that adding another worry feels like it may just overwhelm my sanity.

Whatever this package is, it isn’t a crate of goods. You don’t secure crates like hostages. You don’t store them in cells beneath an east wing like they need to be hidden away from everyone.

But I don’t ask. I can’t afford to draw attention to myself right now. Not when every ounce of my willpower is being spent keeping my face neutral and my breathing steady while my mind screams Arlo’s name on a loop that won’t stop.

We move through the cobblestone streets, and the town thins around us as the road climbs. The buildings grow sparser, replaced by low stone walls lining a path that winds upward through patches of scrubby vegetation that look more dead than alive in the torchlight. I walk beside Kylian with Eagan a few paces behind, forcing myself to focus on my footsteps against the stone, on the cool night air that smells faintly of salt, on anything that isn’t the image burned into the backs of my eyelids.

But it doesn’t work. Nothing works. Because every time I blink, I see Arlo’s face tilting upward from the pier. His swollen features were barely recognizable beneath the bruises and the blood, and then when his gaze found me standing next to Kylian, his expression shifted from hatred to something far worse. Not anger. Not confusion. Understanding. He understood exactly what he was seeing: the girl he loved standing beside the monster who now owns him. I watched the understanding hollow him out in a single heartbeat. Something died behind his eyes, and I couldn’t do a single thing about it with the king standing right beside me.

The guilt feels like a weight pressing against my sternum, making each breath feel like effort. I want to turn around and run back to the pier, find the infirmary or the cells or wherever they’ve taken him, and tell him it isn’t what it looks like. That I didn’t choose this. That my body’s betrayals don’t speak for my heart.

But I can’t. I know I can’t. Kylian won’t let me out of his sight, and even if he did, what would I say? I’m not ‌even sure I could explain it to myself, let alone to the boy who told me he loved me and then got sold to a kingdom of predators for his trouble.

The castle emerges from the darkness ahead of us like something risen from the earth itself. Its towers stretch high, black stone against an even blacker sky. The iron-framed windows are set deep into walls so thick they look like they could withstand a siege. Torches burn in iron brackets along the outer walls, their flames bending in the sea breeze, casting shifting orange light across stonework. The architecture is beautiful, all clean lines and sharp edges with no softness anywhere, no warmth. Dead-looking vines climb parts of the lower walls, but even they look withered, like the stone is slowly strangling whatever tries to grow on it.

Something like this would take humans decades to build, but I suppose for vampires this wouldn’t be that difficult when their strength has no limits. Their abilities outweigh what I could ever comprehend.

The gates are enormous, dark iron set between pillars of carved stone, depicting figures I can’t make out in this light. Guards stand at attention on either side, their eyes fixed straight ahead. Their posture is so rigid they might as well be statues themselves.

“There is no power here?” I ask, looking at Kylian as I peer up at the torches lining the walls.

The world used to be full of it. Planes, engines, power in the walls. Most of Purgatory had reliable power before the purge, but when the world began to crumble beneath the curse, our power grid became very unstable.

On Purgatory Island, the castle windows were the only ones that never saw darkness.

“We have power, but it is easier to burn a torch than to keep generators running purely for convenience. Resources are scarce, replacements for anything is like finding a needle in a haystack.”

“Why would a needle be in a haystack?” I shake my head. Kylian chuckles, and Eagan dips his head closer to me.

“It’s a figure of speech.”

My brows pinch.

“We try to conserve power where we can,” Kylian explains. “We have generators, solar power, and wind turbines, but those have been down since the last storm. We have water turbines as well, but they keep rusting. You’re probably used to being able to scavenge on Purgatory for what washes up. I’ve seen the local markets there filled with old-world relics that people have patched up, but we don’t have that here. Everything we need relies on bartering.”

“Why would a kingdom this big and successful need to barter with Purgatory?” I ask, thinking about how scarce our own resources were and how nothing on our island looked so clean or taken care of the way it does here.

“That can be explained another day. Come . . .” Kylian’s hand on my lower back nudges me along.