Prologue
Kaia's POV
The scream tore through the stillness of the night like glass shattering.
Kaia was out of bed before she fully woke, heart pounding, muscles already moving. Her hand closed around the stake she kept beneath her pillow, fingers trembling slightly as she darted to the door and yanked it open.
The hall outside was bathed in moonlight and shadows—and far too quiet.
Another scream—this time further off, muffled by stone and distance.
Kaia ran.
Barefoot and half-dressed, she moved instinctively down the corridor, listening for anything—footsteps, shouts, orders. Nothing. The Conta estate was usually guarded with discreet security, Moroi families more interested in appearances than true wartime protocol. But Kaia had trained enough to recognize what silence meant.
Something had gone wrong.
She reached the main staircase just as a third scream—shrill, younger—pierced the air from the east wing.
Alric.
Kaia didn’t hesitate. She took the steps two at a time, her body moving faster than thought, silver stake cold in her hand.
When she reached the second floor landing, she saw it.
A man—but not a man. Pale, too tall, his mouth red and wet and wide. His eyes burned with something unnatural.
Strigoi.
He was standing over the slumped form of a guard. Another lay crumpled near the wall. Blood darkened the polished floors beneath them.
Kaia didn’t think. She lunged.
Her shoulder slammed into the Strigoi’s side with enough force to knock him off balance. He snarled, twisting toward her, claws flashing, too fast—
She ducked under the swipe and stabbed upward, the stake burying itself in the side of his neck. Not deep enough.
He backhanded her across the face.
Pain exploded behind her eye as she hit the ground hard, the wind knocked from her lungs. She rolled just as his foot crashed down where her head had been.
She got her legs under her and drove forward—low and fast. This time, the stake found his heart.
He jerked once. Then collapsed, lifeless.
Kaia didn’t wait.
She grabbed her weapon and sprinted down the east wing toward the family rooms.
The hallway near the Conta family chambers was chaos.
Furniture overturned. Paintings ripped from walls. Shattered glass from a broken sconce glittered across the carpet like ice. Somewhere down the corridor, she heard someone sobbing—and another voice, sharp and panicked.
“Protect the children! Get them inside—now!”
Kaia turned the corner and found two guards wrestling with another Strigoi. One was already bleeding from the shoulder. The other managed to drive the creature back with brute force, but they were losing ground fast.
Behind them, the doors to the Conta family’s private quarters were wide open.
Kaia’s stomach dropped.
She slipped behind a nearby pillar and moved around the chaos, crouched low and silent. She spotted Alric’s nursemaid dragging the boy through the doorway, tears streaking her face.
Then Liora’s voice—frantic, just beyond the threshold.
“Where’s Kaia? Where is she?!”
Kaia didn’t have time to call out. Another figure emerged from the shadows—a second Strigoi, smaller but just as deadly, heading straight for the nursemaid’s unguarded back.
Kaia didn’t scream.
She ran.
She launched herself off the ground, her legs slamming into the creature’s back with enough force to knock it off course. The nursemaid shrieked and scrambled inside, pulling Alric with her.
Kaia and the Strigoi rolled across the carpet, crashing into the wall.
It hissed and lunged.
She barely got the stake up in time.
It missed her neck by inches.
Her arm burned as it clawed her shoulder, tearing skin.
She gritted her teeth, twisted, and jammed the stake straight into its chest.
It let out a breathless wheeze—like surprise—and slumped over her, dead.
Kaia shoved it off and stumbled to her feet, blood warm on her side. The first two guards were still holding their own, but barely.
A third Strigoi burst from the servant stairwell.
Kaia turned and ran toward the private chamber doors.
“Liora!”
The girl appeared in the doorway, barefoot, dressed in her nightgown, eyes wide with horror.
Kaia pushed her back into the room. “Barricade the door. Keep Alric down. Don’t make a sound.”
Liora grabbed her hand. “Don’t—”
“I’m not going far.”
Kaia turned and shut the door, wedging a heavy wardrobe against it.
She turned to find the hallway empty—too empty.
Then she heard it.
Breathing. Close. Behind her.
She spun.
Another Strigoi—this one different. Taller. Older. Eyes deeper set, almost thoughtful. Dressed in black. His lips curled into a smile when he saw her stake.
“You’re a brave little thing,” he murmured.
Kaia didn’t answer.
She ran at him.
They clashed with a thud that sent pain rattling up her arms. He grabbed her wrist mid-strike and slammed her into the wall. Her head cracked against the plaster. She saw stars.
He lifted her by the throat and the claws of his other hand sank into her side.
She kicked, clawed, thrashed—nothing.
He opened his mouth, long fangs gleaming.
Then—
A sound.
A door slamming open.
“KAIA!”
Liora’s voice.
Stupid. So stupid.
Kaia couldn’t breathe.
Then the Strigoi let go.
A blade sank into his side—shallow, but enough to distract him.
Corwin.
Her blood roared in her ears as she fell to the floor, gasping. She tried to rise.
The Strigoi roared, turned on Corwin—and struck.
The blow landed square in Corwin’s chest, sending him flying backward.
Kaia surged forward, stake in hand.
The Strigoi turned back to finish her off—
And this time, she didn’t miss.
She drove the stake into his chest with everything she had left.
He collapsed.
Kaia fell to her knees, swaying.
Her side was soaked in blood. Her vision swam.
Kaia’s ears rang. Her stake slipped from her fingers, the silver clinking softly against the stone. Blood pulsed from the gash in her side, hot and heavy. She tried to stand but her leg gave out beneath her.
Someone was yelling. A girl’s voice. Liora’s.
Kaia blinked, once, twice, her vision refusing to settle.
She was on the floor. The hall lights had dimmed—or maybe her eyes weren’t working right.
The taste of copper filled her mouth. She forced herself to roll over.
Footsteps pounded past her. Liora dropped to her knees beside her, hair loose and tangled, face pale with terror.
“Kaia—Kaia, stay with me,” she whispered, hands fluttering uselessly near Kaia’s bleeding ribs. “Help’s coming. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
Kaia tried to speak, but the words caught. Her throat felt thick. She gasped instead—a ragged, rattling sound that scared her more than the Strigoi had.
“Where’s—” she forced out. “Your… brother…”
Liora’s lips parted.
Behind her, the corridor flashed red.
A blast of movement. Screaming. Alric’s voice.
Then silence.
A beat later, Liora’s mother stumbled into view, holding Alric in her arms. The boy’s arms dangled. His head lolled to one side. There was too much blood on her gown.
“Liora—run!” her mother cried, eyes wide with something deeper than panic. “Take her and run!”
Then she, too, was gone.
Something took her—Kaia didn’t even see what.
Just red.
Just a sound like meat being torn.
Liora screamed.
Kaia couldn’t move.
Corwin, dragged himself up from where he landed, face bruised, jaw clenched in rage. “Liora, move! Now!”
He made it three steps before a shadow dropped from the ceiling and landed on him. One second, he was shouting—trying to fight back—and the next, his throat opened like paper.
Blood sprayed across the tile.
Kaia tried to reach for Liora. Her fingers twitched.
Nothing more.
Liora stood frozen in the middle of the hallway, lips trembling, eyes locked on her brother’s body.
A Strigoi turned its gaze toward her.
“Liora…” Kaia rasped.
Liora blinked, jerked into motion, dropped to Kaia’s side, and tried to lift her.
“I’m not leaving you,” she whispered.
Kaia couldn’t feel her legs anymore.
“Go,” she said—or maybe thought. “You have to go.”
Liora shook her head. Her hands trembled as she tried to pull Kaia upright. “We’re going together. I’ll get us out. I just need—” Her voice cracked.
Another Strigoi rounded the far corner.
Then another.
And another.
Kaia’s vision darkened at the edges. Her lungs fought for air that wouldn’t come. Pain throbbed dully through her core, but her limbs were numb. The hallway tilted and flickered. Sounds became distant.
Liora leaned over her, sobbing.
“I’m sorry,” Kaia thought. Or said. Or maybe just felt.
“I’m not going to make it.”
Then everything stopped.
There was no light at the end.
No tunnel. No gentle warmth. No welcoming voices from beyond the veil.
There was only cold.
Not the kind that made you shiver, but the kind that pulled everything inward—your breath, your blood, your memories. Kaia felt her body slipping, falling down into something heavy and endless. Her fingers wouldn’t move. Her chest wouldn’t rise.
Only the silence moved. That, and a faint, distant sound.
Liora. Crying.
Her voice cracked against the dark.
Then—
A burst of warmth.
Not heat. Not fire. Something older.
It slid across Kaia’s skin like a second heartbeat. Pulled at her chest. Called her name—not with words, but with will.
She gasped.
Air slammed back into her lungs like a wave. Her body convulsed. She coughed—choked—then sucked in a ragged, staggering breath that burned all the way down.
She was alive.
Why?
The ceiling swam above her—distant, blurred, cracked by shadows. Shapes moved around her. Boots. Voices. Flashes of silver. Guardians.
She turned her head.
Liora knelt beside her, hands still on Kaia’s chest, her face pale and streaked with blood and tears.
But her eyes—her eyes were gold.
Lit from within.
Kaia tried to speak, but her throat gave nothing but a dry rasp.
Liora collapsed forward, barely catching herself. “You came back…” she whispered. “Oh gods… you came back…”
“What…?” Kaia managed.
Liora’s hands trembled as she reached for her, tucking sticky hair behind Kaia’s ear. Her lips moved soundlessly, but Kaia didn’t need to hear it.
She felt it.
A flood of emotion poured into her—grief, terror, relief, guilt. But not hers.
Liora’s.
Kaia blinked again, dazed, as the world took sharper shape around her. Voices filtered in—low, grim orders from Guardians now flooding the hall. Footsteps. Stakes being sheathed. Strigoi corpses being dragged away.
“They’re gone,” someone muttered.
“All of them?”
“All but the girls.”
Kaia turned her head.
Down the hallway, she saw a blur of red—the hem of a woman’s gown. A man’s body slumped near the wall, neck torn. Alric’s blanket, stained and trampled.
She tried to rise.
Pain tore through her.
“No—don’t,” Liora said quickly, gently holding her down. Her own body was shaking. “You’re not ready.”
“What happened?”
Liora looked away.
“Everyone…?” Kaia rasped.
A pause.
Then Liora nodded, just once. Barely more than a breath.
Kaia let her head fall back against the floor.
Her ribs ached. Her entire torso felt like it had been stitched back together wrong. But she was alive. And something inside her—deep, invisible—had changed.
She looked at Liora again.
And this time, she didn’t need words to understand what she was feeling.
Liora was inside her—her fear, her pain, her thoughts humming just beneath Kaia’s skin like an echo.
“Oh,” Kaia whispered. Her fingers curled against the floor. “Liora… what did you do?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Liora said, her voice breaking. “I just— I couldn’t let you go.”
Kaia tried to sit up again. Failed.
“I felt you leave,” Liora whispered. “I felt it. And something inside me just—broke open.”
Kaia’s heart pounded—not just with her own rhythm, but something tethered. Shared.
This wasn’t Guardian loyalty.
This was more.
A bond.
Not imagined. Not spoken.
Real.
Spirit-born.
And unbreakable.
