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“Where did you find this?”

“Adrastos gave⁠—”

“Liar!” he snarled, spittle flying across my face. I loathed the whimper that crept up my throat, but he was turning my arm tighter, brows pinched as he scoured the ruby. My mind scrambled for answers, for ideas, for Adrastos’ fucking plan. Moros was a madman. A demon-infested coward who spent his immortal existence consumed by loathing for his younger brother—the man the universe had carved as my anchor.

“Do you know what this is?” Something guttural and serpentine slithered along his words.

“No,” I lied. “A gift⁠—”

“This was not his to give,” he hissed. “Much less to a whore of a mortal bride.”

“A mating gift!” I blurted through a panicked cry. Because Bellamy told us the best lies are woven with truth, and when unwinding the weave of a killer, you’d find kernels of reality there. Because that tether had been the lone constant in a life that never stopped changing. Because he’d been so godsdamned careful to keep it from this monster, like maybe, under all that swagger, I truly was something precious after all.

“Please,” I rasped, “Your Majesty, please, you’re hurting⁠—”

A dark, humorless sound rumbled in his throat as Moros’ eyes cut from the ruby to me. Pain ricocheted through my nerves a moment before a cruel smile stretched across his face and bone snapped. The scream ripped from my chest before I could stop it, his broad palm cutting off the sound as it clamped around my throat, shoving me into the glass hard enough my head snapped back.

“Mate, you say?” he hissed, the heat of his breath fanning across my neck as he inhaled deeply, my body trembling. Somewhere beyond us, a great explosion rocked through the palace, the ground shuddering beneath our feet as dust cascaded from all sides.

Unperturbed, shadows poured from Moros, taking the place of his hand, winding down my arm to pin it against the windows. Leisurely, Moros grasped my trembling finger between his fingers, pinching the ring with the opposite hand and pulling. A cry leapt from my chest as the ring…

Stayed exactly where it was, tugging instead at the bones and sinew beneath. Jaw flexing, Moros tugged harder, the yank that followed sending a cry spilling between my lips as the joint threatened to dislocate.

“Bastard,” pressed between Moros’ clenched teeth as he whirled, marching across the marble. “Always was clever, my brother.”

I sucked in breaths, deep and slow through my nose, breathing through the agony in my wrist, my skull.

“Too clever for his own good,” he muttered more to himself than to me as he crossed the room to the guards stationed by the door. “Too clever for yours, certainly.”

Dread became a leaden weight in my belly as my eyes tracked his movement, mind zeroing in on the rasp of breath through my lungs. The shadows kept me pinned, unable to turn, precariously balanced on tiptoe as my bones screamed in protest. Moros plucked a dagger from the guard’s sheath⁠—

—only to jerk the blade across the man’s neck.

A scream ripped from me as blood spurted, pooling over the black marble. The guard hit his knees before toppling sideways with a sickening gurgle.

Shaking his head in irritation, Moros gave the dying man his back as he returned, wiping the crimson onto the arm of his embroidered jacket. His next words were nearly swallowed by the sounds of choking. “My Mother’s ring was never the bastard’s gift to bestow. Forgive me, Princess—” a sickening smile contorted his features, “for I fear I must take it back.” He twirled the dagger between his fingers. “Pity. Those pretty little hands of yours must be quite persuasive if you coaxed one of Rhiannon’s relics from him. He prized them, you see. Always taunted us when none appeared to me.”

My stomach threatened upheaval as Moros closed the distance, bile filling my mouth as he ran the tip of the blade down the length of my arm, over the ridge of my knuckle to my fingertip. “Let’s not pretend we don’t both know—” he placed the steel over my forearm, my breaths sawing raggedly as I strained to keep my eyes on the threat, “—that the bastard prince no longer draws breath.”

I screamed then. Not for the brutal reality callously flung at my feet. But for the dagger’s tip digging into my arm. I thrashed as sobs tore up my throat. Tears rendered me blind as breathtaking agony erupted, shooting from the carved flesh into my spine as I fought the shadows’ hold.

“What incantation do you use to access the passageways?”

“Nothing!” I screeched. The entire palace seemed to shiver.

“What. Spell?”

“They just appear!”

“Liar!”

It’s said that in her anger, her plants reclaimed the castle, and her soul comes for those who still bear fealty to her crown.

Rhiannon’s curse was inflicted to keep this monster out. Bone-deep surety filled me a beat before agony shattered any semblance of sense. Sobs racked my body as I begged and pleaded, no trace of pride left to muzzle my terror as I implored the cruel king to end the agony he inflicted⁠—

And then I was falling. Falling away from my body as he carved through my flesh. Falling and falling and falling through the blue to the depths of the ice below, my breath stalling as it clouded in front of my face.

Numb.