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“What?”

“Daughter of Katia, Savior of the Realm… So many titles. I can’t keep up.”

“Don’t forget Blood of Old Creed and Child of Benevolence,” he added. I cringed at the addition of two more titles to the list. “Castemont said the Bloodsingers are involved, so I bet they foresaw something.”

Silence settled again as the blood curdled in my veins. Bloodsingers.Ludovicus.Castemont had said the Board of Blood was made up of Bloodsingers. I didn’t even know what a Bloodsingerwas, why they all looked the same and why they delighted in pain, but I knew for a Saints damned fact they wereevil.

“I have a theory,” Miles said quietly. I looked at him expectantly. “Normally when people talk aboutthe prophecy, it’s the part I gave you in the note. Not many people know that it doesn’t end there but I didn’t include that in the note.” My brows raised. “I didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.”

“What’s the rest?”

He took a deep breath and swallowed hard, the scar on his throat flexing. “Her bloodline exposed by he who exacts pain, cursed to walk the realm when evil comes again.”

I blinked, my brain running in circles trying to understand. What was he saying?

“I think it’s saying your existence can only be uncovered, or confirmed, byhe who exacts pain, which I believe is–”

“Noros, Saint of Pain.” My ears were ringing as I shook my head. “You think that could be Castemont?”

“I know it sounds crazy.”

It did sound crazy. But so did the ability to conjure fire and wind from nothing. So was the fact that I was the daughter of the Keepers. The idea that Castemont could be the authority over the infliction of pain and suffering? No, it wasn’t crazy.

I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to come up with the words. “So what, he’scursedto live in a human body? How are we supposed to prove that?”

“I don’t know, Petra,” he snapped, his tone completely different now as he threw his hands up in exasperation. What the hell was his problem? “Keep that to yourself,” he spat, a finger pointed at me. “There are enough rumors flying around. We don’t need people thinking Castemont could actually be Noros until we know for certain.”

“Do not point your finger at me,” I snarled.

He dropped his hand, his knuckles flexing at his side. His voice was a whisper. “I thought the arrow was headed for you.”

The sudden admission caught me off guard, but I quickly recovered. “Without me, you wouldn’t get those answers,” I sneered.

“Oh, I got my answers,” he seethed back, stepping even closer to me, the light reflecting off the tarnished metal of his mask. I could feel the heat from his body as he stared, blood spattered across the curved horns.

“And what? They weren’t the answers you were hoping for?”

He was silent, but something glistening caught my eye and I realized blood was trickling down his leather-clad arm. “You’re bleeding,” I whispered.

His head fell to the side, raising his arm to look at the wound on his bicep. It was bad — not life threatening, but the bleeding was heavy enough to make me nervous. “It’s fine,” he said.

“Let me see,” I commanded, plucking the veil spattered with my own blood from where it sat behind the diadem on my head.

“It’s not bad.”

“Let me see,” I repeated, more forcefully this time, my fury flaring inside me. He turned, the movement begrudgingly slow, the oozing blood catching the torchlight. “Don’t think I care,” I muttered as I looped the veil around his arm. “I don’t want to be stuck down here when you lose consciousness.” I tied off the fabric as he stared down the corridor.

An echo clanged from behind us, the sudden noise assaulting the eerie silence. That was… That was the sound of steel. Footsteps and steel.

Without another word, we were moving, my mind too full of renewed panic to think of anything else.

Chapter 5

The glow of white light cut through the darkness of the tunnel, contrasting the orange hues emitted from the torch.Daylight. I didn’t know how long we’d been moving. An awkward, slow run was the only thing I could manage in my massive wedding gown. Only faint noises reached us from behind, the echoes of echoes. The tulle of the veil tied around Miles’ arm should have been crimson by now with how heavy he’d been bleeding, and I eyed it as we continued toward the light.

“Stay here,” he said flatly, barely stopping to hand me the torch as he rounded a corner.

“Are we in the mountains?”