Prologue
Run.
Not fast enough.
Stone screams under my boots as I take the corner too hard, shoulder clipping marble, sparks bursting across my vision. I don’t stop. I don’t slow. Pain is a luxury for later—if there is a later.
Air rips in and out of my lungs in sharp, ugly sounds I don’t recognize as my own. Every breath tastes like blood and dust and the cold bite of winter magic I didn’t mean to bleed into the floor.
The corridor stretches impossibly long, a grand artery of the kingdom meant for ceremonies, not escape. Pillars rise like sentinels on either side, carved with victories I don’t care about and laws I already broke.
Footsteps thunder behind me.
Too many.
Armor. Steel. Orders barked in clipped, panicked shouts.
“Seal the east wing!”
“She went this way—move!”
Fuck.
I vault a fallen tapestry rod, barely clearing it, boots slipping on polished stone. My calves burn, muscles screaming as the corridor opens into a vaulted junction—four branching paths, all lit, all wrong.
Think.
Think like a killer.
I take the left corridor because it slopes downward and smells faintly of cold air. Exit. Maybe. Or storage. Or a dead end.
Doesn’t matter. Standing still is death.
I sprint.
My heartbeat is a drum in my skull, frantic and out of rhythm. I force my breathing into count—four in, four out—but panic keeps breaking the pattern. My fingers shake as I brush the wall for balance, frost ghosting where I touch stone.
Stop that.
The magic isn’t supposed to leak. Not here. Not now.
I duck under an archway just as a bolt whistles past my head, embedding itself into stone with a violent crack. Shards explode, nicking my cheek. Warmth runs down my face.
They’re firing now.
The realization hits like ice water.
They’re not trying to capture me.
They’re trying to end this.
I push harder, lungs burning, vision narrowing as another corridor opens into a gallery lined with stained glass windows. Moonlight spills through them in fractured colors—reds and blues and golds splashed across the floor like spilled wine.
Beautiful.
Useless.
My boot skids. I catch myself on a pillar, chest heaving, stars flickering at the edge of my vision. I force myself upright, teeth clenched so hard my jaw aches.
I shouldn’t be here.
I was never supposed to get this far.
The plan was clean. Simple. Silent.
In.
Up the servant stairs.
One blade.
Out.
I see it again—too vivid, too sharp.
The king turning.
Not fast enough to stop me.
Fast enough to see my face.
The memory makes my stomach lurch.
Idiot.
I cut through the gallery, leaping over a fallen bench, ducking another bolt that scorches past my ribs. Heat blooms, then cold as adrenaline swallows the pain.
The exit should be close now.
I know these halls. I studied them. Walked them in daylight pretending to be something harmless, something small. I counted steps. Measured guard rotations. Marked blind spots.
They changed something.
They always do.
I slam through a side door and nearly collide with two guards rushing from the opposite direction. We freeze for a fraction of a second—surprise flaring in all our eyes.
Then instinct takes over.
I drop low, sliding between them as one spear thrusts where my head had been. The shaft grazes my hair, ripping free a lock as I twist and drive my elbow back into soft armor. A grunt. A curse.
I don’t stay to see if they fall.
I run.
My lungs are on fire now, each breath a blade. My legs feel heavy, like I’m dragging chains instead of boots. The corridor narrows, ceilings lowering, walls closing in as the palace gives way to older stone.
Good.
Old passages mean secrets.
I tear down a stairwell two steps at a time, boots slipping, shoulder screaming where I clipped stone earlier. My fingers brush the hilt at my side—empty.
No blade.
Of course.
I left it in him.
The thought hits harder than the pain.
I reach the bottom of the stairwell and burst into a service hall lined with doors—pantries, linen storage, maintenance tunnels. Somewhere here there should be a passage that leads out beyond the kitchens.
Somewhere.
Shouts echo closer now, overlapping, frantic.
“She’s bleeding!”
“Don’t let her reach the lower levels!”
I slam into a door and wrench it open—darkness yawns beyond, cool air spilling out. Storage. Crates stacked high, narrow paths between them.
I dive inside and pull the door shut just as steel slams into it from the other side.
The impact rattles my bones.
I clamp a hand over my mouth, forcing my breathing silent as I stagger deeper into the room. My chest heaves, vision swimming, heart hammering so loud I’m sure they can hear it through the walls.
I crouch between two crates, pressing myself into shadow.
Please.
Just a second.
My legs shake violently as I fight the urge to collapse. Sweat chills on my skin. Blood drips from my cheek onto the stone floor, dark against gray.
Footsteps thunder past the door.
Orders snap.
The door rattles again—once, twice—then stills.
I stay frozen long after the sound fades, muscles locked, lungs burning as I count breaths with trembling precision.
One.
Two.
Three.
My heartbeat slows, just a fraction.
That’s when it hits me.
Not sound.
Not movement.
Pressure.
The air thickens, heavy and wrong, crawling across my skin like a warning. Every instinct I own screams at once.
You’re not alone.
My head snaps up.
The shadows between the crates bend, stretching too long, pooling unnaturally at the edges. Torchlight from the hall bleeds through cracks in the door, flickering—and bowing inward, like it’s afraid.
I don’t see him.
I feel him.
Not a guard.
Something worse.
I rise slowly, backing deeper into the room, heart slamming against my ribs. My fingers curl, frost blooming across my knuckles unbidden.
No.
Not now.
A memory breaks through the panic, sharp and unwanted.
Silver eyes in torchlight.
Dark skin like polished obsidian.
A voice low and steady, hiding fear behind humor.
“If this kingdom’s laws stand, I don’t.”
My breath stutters.
This is why.
Not the gold.
Not the thrill.
Not the kill.
Her.
The drow academies burned.
Their scholars outlawed.
Their children taken “for study.”
I see her as she was—leaning against a balcony rail, smirking like the world hadn’t already decided she was disposable.
“You don’t owe me,” she’d said.
She was wrong.
A sharp whistle cuts through the air.
Too late.
Pain explodes between my shoulders.
White-hot.
Crushing.
Unbearable.
My scream tears free as the first spear punches through my back, bursting out beneath my collarbone. My body jerks forward violently—
—and the second spear hits.
Perfectly.
Symmetrical.
Pinning me in place.
The force slams me into the crates, knocking the breath from my lungs in a strangled gasp. My hands claw uselessly at the wood as agony floods every nerve.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
Blood spills warm and fast down my chest, soaking into my clothes, dripping onto stone.
Boots step into the storage room behind me.
Calm.
Unhurried.
I hang there, impaled, shaking violently, frost creeping across the floor beneath my feet as my vision blurs.
Her face flashes before me one last time.
Not dying.
Smiling.
Defiant.
Worth it.
Pain comes second.
Pressure comes first.
Then weight.
Then the sudden, unmistakable knowledge that I am no longer moving forward.
Steel punches through my back.
Once.
Then again.
Perfectly placed. High. Deep. Intentional.
My body jerks forward, breath tearing out of me in a sound I don’t recognize as my own. The crates in front of me rattle as I hit them, the spears driving me flush against the wood.
Pinned.
That’s the point.
My fingers spasm uselessly, scraping along the crate as blood spills hot and fast down my chest. I taste iron. My knees tremble, barely holding my weight.
This is where they expect me to die.
I don’t scream again. I already gave them that.
I breathe.
Shallow. Careful. Controlled.
Think.
The spears hum faintly against my bones. I can feel my heartbeat through the shafts—feel how close they came to ending this cleanly.
Close doesn’t count.
Cold answers before I consciously reach for it.
Ice crawls along the metal, creeping outward in thin, deliberate veins. The spears shriek as the temperature drops, contracting violently.
I pull.
Agony flares bright and absolute—but the first spear tears free with a wet, obscene sound, dropping me hard to one knee. Blood pours freely now, soaking my clothes, pooling on stone.
I don’t stop.
I grab the second shaft, jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth, and rip it out.
My vision whites out.
I sway, barely upright, frost spreading beneath my boots in an uncontrolled bloom. Somewhere nearby, boots pound. Voices rise.
They know.
Good.
I stagger forward, dragging myself through the storage room, every step deliberate. My shoulders burn, nerves screaming, but my mind is suddenly—eerily—clear.
Why are you here?
Not the contract.
Not the crown.
Not the blade buried in royal flesh.
A memory cuts through the haze.
Dark skin in candlelight.
Silver eyes sharp with hope she refused to kill.
“I don’t want to tear it down,” she’d said. “I want laws that don’t treat us like mistakes.”
A school.
A place to learn without hiding names.
Without disappearing.
I reach the stairwell and stop.
Down is death.
They’ll seal it. They already are.
I laugh once—quiet, breathless.
Of course.
Up it is.
Each step is a negotiation with my body. Blood marks my path, a steady, traitorous drip. My breathing grows thin, shallow, but I keep moving.
The gallery explodes into moonlight as I burst through the door.
Wind howls through shattered windows. Guards flood in behind me, weapons raised, shouting orders that no longer matter.
I don’t slow.
I run straight for the window.
The river waits far below—dark, fast, alive. Mist curls upward like a promise that hurts.
I stop at the ledge.
Not out of fear.
Out of respect.
My hands rest on the stone sill. Blood slips from my shoulders, tapping against marble like a clock counting down nothing.
“Well,” I say quietly, voice steady. “This escalated.”
The wind pulls at my hair. The palace roars behind me, furious and loud and very sure it has won.
I think of her again—not broken, not begging—but smiling like she’d already decided the world didn’t get to choose her ending.
Worth it.
I climb onto the ledge.
“If I’m going to tell this,” I murmur coolly, “now seems like the right time.”
I step backward into open air.
The palace vanishes. Wind screams. Cold rushes up to meet me.
As I fall, calm settles fully into place.
“Well,” I think distantly, almost amused, “I guess I’ve got some time to tell you my story.”
The river surges closer.
“And I suppose it’s only fair,” I add, “to start with the part where I tried to kill a king.”
