ARWEN

MY STOMACH FLIPPED SO RIOTOUSLY I was sure I’d be spewing radishes and cherries soon.

The oblong birdcage was too short for me to stand, but too narrow to lay down, and hugging my knees in to contort myself had resulted in close to full-body numbness.

If there’d ever been an exotic bird that fit inside this cage or any of the other empty, bent-out-of-shape cages in here, they were long gone now. Not even the few fossilized feathers dotting the floor told me anything about what kind of creatures Ethera had once kept.

It didn’t matter. I needed air.

It was late, and the glass panes around me had grown dark, but I could tell by the mossy scent and coiled, twining vines that I was in a greenhouse. A stuffy, suffocating greenhouse. And a very neglected one, given all the shriveled blooms and prickly thorns. Overrun with vines and withered leaves that slithered along the floor and up the glass walls, curving themselves around the potted plants and twisting around the legs of raised wooden plant beds. The deterioration wasn’t due to the wintertime—all the soil I could see was dry as bone, no cover crops or shrubbery to keep it moist. Maybe nobody had been in here for years.

Years…

I counted my inhales and exhales as my hands twined in my blouse.

One, two. One, two. In, out. In, out.

That was making it worse. Now all I could think about was my breathing—or lack thereof. My heart—it was beating too fast. I was going to have a heart attack. I was going to die of a heart attack before I could escape.

No, I told myself. You cannot die from fear.

“Anxiety lives only in the mind. If your thoughts are elsewhere, you can’t panic.”

How many times had I conjured Kane to take over as the voice in my head and distract me when I was held captive in Lumera? How many times had I allowed him to flirt with me or anger me inside my mind so I could lose track of how long Octavia had been reaping lighte from my veins?

I could do that again.

Three things. Find and focus on three things you can name, bird. I could do that much.

One. A long-since-withered, rancid pomegranate. Rolled to the side of a dusty ceramic pot. Desiccated, kind of like a—

Bleeding Stones, I couldn’t think. Not as my blood lurched in my veins with the urge to run or move or breathe more or breathe harder—

No. No—

Three things, Arwen.

That voice in my head. My own this time. Urging myself to unclench my hands and slow my rapid breathing.

What was two? Two marble pots, both overrun with stinging nettles. I knew from my Evendell Flora book that despite the sting, that nettle could be brewed to make the sweetest summer tea. I conjured my mother, and her patience as it brewed while I waited on tippy toes for my cup.

“What ailment has you so deeply discomposed?” Ethera’s voice chimed.

I knew only from the singsong tone as my vision continued to tunnel.

No words formed.

Three, three…In the heart of the greenhouse was a low tiled pool half- filled with fetid water, now sage green with algae. At its center a copper

fountain of a woman with a scaled tail, long since oxidized and now matching the water’s teal hue. I tried to imagine myself becoming very small, walking through the bars of this cage, and taking a mossy dip.

By the time Ethera bent over before me, beautiful head cocked, I was actually breathing. My heart rate had slowed.

The queen was bundled in a deep vermillion fur and matching hat that looked like feather grass, with two hulking guards behind her. She frowned, drawing her hands up to her face. “Dear, are you all right? This whole endeavor has given me the collywobbles.”

Her eclectic capriciousness had surpassed grating. I glowered at her, still catching my breath. “Pity.”

She sank to her knees. “I must ask you a question, darling, and I require your utmost truthfulness.”

“Why would I give you anything you ask for?”

“I do not wish to execute you,” she said, nodding to one of her guards who knelt as well, brandishing a serrated hunting knife and sending a vicious chill down my spine. “But I haven’t the luxury of sparing you unless you do indeed answer me.”

I swallowed hard, eyes still on that jagged blade.

Ethera’s beautiful brows rose. “Have you and the king yet borne a child?”

My shock, confusion, or both must have been written clear across my face, because the queen sighed as if my expression alone served as her answer. “How truly fortuitous.”

I sighed as well. “It is? Well, we haven’t, I swear.”

Ethera nodded. “Yes, darling, for me, very fortuitous indeed. Delightful, really. For you, not quite as splendid, I’m afraid.”

Before I could shriek, Ethera’s guard wrapped a calloused hand around my blouse and yanked me into the bars of the cage. He drew his dagger back and moved to drive it through the slats and into my chest.

“Wait!” I wailed, scrambling my aching limbs backward and going nowhere. “Wait—”

I needed to buy time. I needed— “Please, I just have one question!”

The guard hesitated, and Ethera’s painfully stunning head cocked to him, gleaming hair spilling across her shoulder.

“Why?” I breathed, making use of his moment of indecision. “If you’re going to kill me, at least tell me that. Why would my life have been spared if I’d had a child?”

“Well, there would be nothing I could do about it then, would there?”

My mind reeled faster than my lips could keep up. “You are killing me to…ensure that I don’t have a child with Kane?”

Ethera grinned again, those teal eyes surrounded by the expansive bright whites of her eyes. She clapped her hands. “Yes, yes, very good!”

Why in the world—

She was a mad, mad woman. Out of her mind.

I needed to stall her. To distract her until some kind of help arrived. Or I came up with something more clever.

And I didn’t know, even as I said, “But I have something you need…” if this might work. If she would even allow me to utter the words.

Ethera narrowed her lovely eyes at me, long dark lashes lowering. “Do you take me for a dunderhead?”

“No, Your Majesty. Of course not.”

Ethera’s guard’s dagger hovered between the bars of the cage. He watched as she considered me. I was sure I wasn’t breathing.

Eventually the corner of her mouth quirked up, and with it, a small crack tore at her lips and up her cheek. A fissure, like in sedimentary rock.

I must have made a terrible face because she waved her elegant hand at me and said, “Oh, hush. Do share whatever it was you felt so inclined to.” Then she nodded at her guard, who sheathed his serrated knife, releasing me back into the bars.

“I don’t want to imply anything improper, but…” I let my eyes trail over her nailless finger and the thin crack along her cheek. “It seems to me you have an ailment, Your Majesty. You know the power that I hold…I could help you. Could heal you. Make you healthy again.”

Ethera’s eyes had grown so wide I was worried they might pop right out. She seemed the type. The queen tapped a long, painted finger along her

heart-shaped chin. “But you’ve been ensnared by the lilium. You cannot perform any benevolent acts with your lighte now, can you?”

I swallowed my nausea. “We’ll have to wait until it’s left my system.” Ethera’s teal eyes burned, and I cowered against my better judgment.

“And allow you to annihilate my home with me and all my lovelies inside it?”

“No,” I swore. “Never. If you wish to stop decomposing, Your Majesty, you’ll have to trust me.”

Ethera considered me, her mouth a tight knot.

I forced my gaze anywhere but Ethera’s guard’s sheathed knife. “I am not an advocate for violence. I allowed your men to capture me just to set my friends free. I helped you put an end to that bloodbath. I don’t wish to see your home destroyed or to take your life. I just want to spare my own.”

“Very well,” she said in the end as she stood. “I shall be back to inspect you tomorrow morning.”

And then she left in a whirl of fur and wine-colored hair. I exhaled thoroughly.

The greenhouse was cold, and I knew the coming night would only bring more snow atop the glass roof. I wrapped my arms around myself as best I could given the angle and tried not to shiver.

All I could really discern in the stifling darkness were cobwebs and drying brown vines that climbed along the glass and across the dusty floor. And I was unfocused. My mind dissecting over and over again why Ethera would want to prohibit Kane and I from bearing a child…

Before I came up with a single halfway-decent theory, the glass door creaked open. A pink-clad housemaid strolled in with a bowl of something meaty and warm and a hot mug billowing steam into the chilly greenhouse.

The handmaiden knelt and threaded the supper steadily through the birdcage. But before I could take the bowl and mug from her, a commotion sounded from beyond the greenhouse doors.

My eyes shot up.

The handmaiden’s expression had blossomed into one of true fear as the shouts and slamming doors intensified somewhere outside. She offered me

one last stricken look before she ran, knocking hot soup across the greenhouse floor.

Not just ran—this woman sprinted for the doors, her footfalls on the floor reverberating into my stiff bones. In her haste she threw the glass wide open, dousing me in a blast of snow-flecked night. The wind set my teeth on edge as she deserted me in a frozen greenhouse clearly destined for some kind of violence.

And there was nothing I could do but sit and listen as that shouting only drew nearer. The squawk of the queen rang out, alongside the low rumble of someone—not Kane. Not any voice I’d heard before.

More shrieking…

My hands braced around the wire of the birdcage. If I hadn’t been doped with lilium I could have torn the wiry iron bars apart enough to squeeze through. Instead I shattered the fallen mug on the hard ground and brandished one ceramic sliver like a dagger.

“We are not finished here!” Ethera’s voice warbled from right outside the greenhouse.

The glass doors swung open and my blood—

The striking, harrowing man that stood before me turned my blood to ice.

Pale, near-translucent skin as if he avoided all sunlight, ice-white hair, glaring expression on that carved, elegant face—all of it aligned with the expected beauty of Fae males. It was the glowing, sinister, bloodred eyes that stole the breath from my chest. Their razor focus. Their need.

Aleksander Hale. I knew it in my bones.

And, knowing what I did of the Hemolich, he could sense the way the chilling sensation of beholding him coursed through my veins. The slight uptick of his elegant dark brow told me as much.

He was like a hound. He could smell my fear. “You must be Arwen.”

“Where’s Kane?”

Without answering me he strode toward my cage and flicked the ironclad latch open with a single menacing finger.

When I didn’t scramble out immediately, the Blood Fae lowered his brows. “I won’t bite.”

I didn’t laugh. Neither did he.

In the end I scooted out of the birdcage about as ungracefully as a gangly newborn lamb. By the time I was standing he’d already walked out.

Night had drowned the palace courtyard in darkness and the few mermagic lamps that decorated the garden’s arches and fountains cast the blades of grass and clumps of frost in hazy blue.

Where I expected slain Rose men I found untouched, fresh snow. I’d only heard yelling, but assumed Aleksander had slaughtered them all when he’d arrived.

My boots crunched as I raced to keep up with the Blood Fae’s long legs. Terrifying or not, the man was tall and lean and graceful and made me feel like a scurrying rat beside him. The weakness in my bones didn’t help.

“Why didn’t Kane come free me?”

He said nothing and my heart slammed into my ribs.

“Where is he?”

Aleksander didn’t turn at my question even as he said, “I told him to wait outside.”

“And he obeyed?”

At a gilded arch wreathed in snowy vines, the Hemolich finally turned to face me. Those bloodred eyes simmered. “I owed your king a debt. He cashed it in. But that required doing this my way.”

Kane had gone to Aleksander to free me. Besides his father, I wasn’t sure Kane despised anyone as much as the ice-cold man that stood before me. Warmth flickered through my chest.

At the end of the garden path, Aleksander opened a heavy palace door with one hand and I dashed in after him before it could slam in my face. The long hallway was empty, and I couldn’t hear any voices in the neighboring rooms. The eerie quiet turned the watercolor wallpaper and gilded moldings ominous, the cherubic faces in the paintings like ghosts, watching us.

Was the palace empty? Had he killed everyone inside? Did Ethera’s men know I’d been freed, or would they be after me the minute they found my cage empty? I was still too drained to defend myself against much of anyone, even mortal soldiers.

For now at least, I had my white-haired Hemolich bodyguard. Whatever he’d done—or not done, given the lack of gore or bodies—I was grateful.

“Thank you for—”

“Don’t.” Aleksander’s voice was low as he his stalked through the next passage, his hands lodged in his pockets.

“Why can’t I thank you for your kindness?”

“I’m not kind.” Each word seemed an effort not to tear into my throat, and I swallowed audibly. Aleksander’s nostrils flared.

“Kane was riddled with lilium when he found you,” I said as we rounded a corner into a hallway dripping in chandeliers. Some so low I had to dodge past the dangling crystal. “You could have killed him, but you didn’t. Is that not kindness? Or mercy, at least?”

Aleksander didn’t respond, trudging through as if he knew the place well, turning here and pushing a door open there. His eyes never met mine, his hands never left his pockets, and I didn’t spy one guard or handmaiden.

“Are they all dead?”

His throat bobbed though he didn’t answer me. I paled, regretting the question.

“They’re hiding,” he said, voice like venom, as he nudged the door to the grand hall open with his shoulder. “Like mice.”

The grand hall was off the parlor, and I could just make out the shattered window, which funneled freezing night air into the room. The towering golden elm tree and its priceless branches were still lodged through the broken glass, halfway hanging outside the now-vacant bow frame.

Though servants had clearly tried to tidy up, there were still stray books, shards of glass, and smears of blood on the floor. I spied still-wet rags and buckets of soapy water left haphazardly across the room, as if everyone who’d been cleaning had up and left in an instant.

My eyes cut back to Aleksander, his bloodred gaze on me intently. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped walking. “You frighten them.”

His eyes burned. “I frighten you, too.” I swallowed hard. “No, you don’t.”

His nostrils flared as he scented the air. Then he cocked his head at me pitilessly. “She lies.”

“Fine.” I inhaled sharply, resuming our walk. Maybe this would be my only chance at an honest conversation with this man who held so much fury and yet so much power. Whom we’d need if we had any chance of winning this war. “You frighten me, yes. But I feel sorry for you, too. I…have empathy for you.” His jaw tensed, and I shivered, an unpleasant reaction to his severity. “You’ve suffered. Is all I mean. You—”

“Subtlety is not your strong suit, full-blood. My men will not be used as weapons again. You’d be wise to keep any other pesky thoughts to yourself.”

But I couldn’t. Not when I hoped there was a chance. A slim one that— “Don’t you see? If Lazarus wins, they’ll—”

“Do not argue with me,” Aleksander hissed, stepping toward me with intent. I pressed myself so far up against an oil painting to get away from his wrath that I could smell the fresh varnish.

But he only folded his hands back into his pants and continued toward the foyer. I caught my breath and tried in vain to still my racing heart as we passed more decorative arches and luxe pastel furniture in tense silence.

Finally, we arrived at the castle entrance. A single guard stood there, the first we’d seen in the palace all night.

“I did mean it,” I murmured, so quietly I wasn’t sure I’d said it aloud. “That you don’t deserve the suffering you and your people have endured. And I’m sorry for it. Whether you fight with us or not.”

“Don’t you despise me? The blood of your king’s family is on my hands.”

“I must believe there is some light buried inside everyone. Even those who appear at their darkest.”

“You must?” he asked, incredulous.

Mocking or simply arrogant, I didn’t care. I nodded at him just the same. “It’s the only way I can live in this world. Compassion must be born out of all this cruelty, otherwise I just can’t see my way through. What would be the point of any of it?”

Aleksander said nothing, eyes desolate as he stalked onward.

The Rose guard stood taller and opened the wide, gilded white doors for us with a grimace. A chilly breeze kissed my face. There, in the bustling city center, beyond the palace gates, were Kane, Mari, and Griffin.

Before I could race down the polished stairs to them, the Rose guard spat at Aleksander, muttering, “Filthy fucking viper.”

I froze—ready for a fight, a disembowelment…whatever it was unpredictable, violent Hemolichs like Aleksander did when disrespected with such a slur—

But he only clicked down the stairs past me, hands still lodged in his pockets, cold red eyes on the falling snow.