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Again, I try to stand. Moving slowly this time, I brace my weight on my palms, then push to my forearms and use them to push my legs under me me.

My hair falls into my eyes, the long strands streaked with blood.

Bracing myself, I glance down the length of my body, wholly unprepared for the macabre sight.

Blood.

Everywhere.

I’m covered in it. My skin, my hair, my once-white dress, all of it streaked red, as if I walked through a war-zone.

Images flicker through my head. Snapshots of memories. I chase each as it appears, longing to see them clearly. But the moment an image coalesces into something I recognize, it fractures. Thousands of sharp, disjointed pieces scatter, reforming into something new.

Caelan. Slitting the throat of one of my father’s men.

That man slamming to his knees on the ground, blood misting through the air like a fountain.

A second guard. Sprawled across the floor, a pulsing wound in his chest that he frantically paws at with clumsy, trembling hands.

Another attacker rushing across the floor, eyes fix on Caelan.

My Mate on his knees, a graceful predator with a stolen blade. A flash of silver as he spins, cutting an arc through his attacker’s hamstring.

The gunshot. Loud. Unmistakable.

The scent of gunpowder and charred flesh as the bullet rips a bloody path through Caelan’s leg. Me, on my hands and knees, trying frantically to shove Caelan’s blood back inside his body. Vision blurred by tears and the taste of iron on my tongue.

Fates, I can still taste it. Bile surges once more, and I cough, choking on it.

Deep breaths. Don’t think about that. Not now.

Just get up, Idril, GET UP.

I pull my legs under me and try again to stand, but they’re still shaking too hard to support me.

The room tilts. I have a single moment to realize I’m falling, about to crack my head on the floor, then⁠—

My own scent wakes me next, but I don’t recognize it at first.

The moon’s barely moved since I last opened my eyes. My body aches, and the hard floor offers no comfort outside of confirmation I’m still alive.

My stomach churns with nausea, and I know I’m about to be sick again. I have to get to the bathroom. I have to get to Caelan.

One thing at a time. Take a breath. Think.

But thinking’s so difficult. My thoughts are water, slipping through a thousand cracks in a shallow bowl.

The overwhelming scent of iron makes me gag, but underneath it is another scent. It’s new, sneaking in like smoke through the cracks of a door. It’s soft and sweet and strangely familiar.

Rich honey, white musk, and… smoked vanilla.

I take a deep breath, then another. Over and over until⁠—

Oh!

It’s… me. My Omega perfume.

My mother was the one who scented me the morning I designated, and my father shot me full of suppressants before I had a chance to smell it myself.