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How could I be a part of Isbeth? I was. I shared her bloodline, no matter how desperately I wanted it not to be true. How could that be my mother? Had she always been like this? When she was a mortal? Had the loss of her son and heartmate done this? Had the pain of such a loss truly shaped her into a monster utterly incapable of caring about anything but revenge?

My throat dried as I held Casteel’s ring tighter. Could I become like her? If something happened to Casteel? If he…if he were killed, would I become nothing more than wrath and poison that only liberated death?

I’d already been close.

So close to losing myself in that pain. And he was still alive. Was that the impact of her blood in me? Did it mean I was more likely to become like her? Or was it the heartmate bond? Was that what became of those who lost their other halves—if they simply didn’t give up and die like the ones Casteel had spoken of?

In the dark, silent moments of the night, I could admit that it was possible. I could become just like her. But what terrified me more was the knowledge that I could become something far worse.

Maybe that was what she wanted. Perhaps that was what she planned, and I truly was the Harbinger. The Bringer of Death and Destruction.

And maybe it wasn’t just Isbeth’s bloodline. Perhaps it was also the Consort’s. She slept until at least one of her sons was returned to her because of what she might do if awake. In those strange glimpses I’d gotten of her, I’d felt her rage. Her pain. It’d felt like the kind that…undid things.

And when I felt rage, I tasted death.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I lifted my closed hand to my lips. The ring dug into my skin as I opened my mouth and screamed without sound—yelled in silence until the corners of my mouth hurt, my throat burned, and my entire body shook with the force of it. I screamed until whatever Kieran felt from me through the notam had not only awakened him but also caused him to shift into his mortal form. A heavy, warm arm covered mine.

Kieran didn’t speak as he worked his other arm under my stiff shoulders and folded his upper body over mine. He didn’t say a word as I lifted my hands, ring and all, to my face, covering my mouth and eyes as he tucked my head under his chin. I stopped the silent screaming, but I didn’t cry. I wanted to. My eyes ached, and so did my throat. But I couldn’t. If I did, I didn’t think I’d stop. Because a sinking sort of horror settled into me. The same sort of foreboding dread I’d felt when I heard Duke Silvan say that I would fill the streets with blood.

I didn’t know how long we lay there before it hit me—before I realized what I needed to do. Then, the trembling ceased. The fire in my throat eased.

I lowered my hands, still holding onto the ring. “I need you to promise me something.”

Kieran was silent, but his arms tightened around me, and I felt his heart beating against my back.

“You’re not going to like this. You may even hate me a little for it,” I began.

“Poppy,” he whispered.

“But you’re the only person I trust to do this,” I continued. “The only person who can.” I took a breath. “If I…if we lose Casteel, if something happens to him—”

“We won’t. That will not happen.”

“Even if it doesn’t, I could still…lose myself. If I become something capable of the kind of devastation we saw yesterday—” I whispered.

“You won’t. You won’t become like that.”

“You don’t know that. I don’t know that.”

“Poppy.”

“What I said, about feeling less mortal with each day? I wasn’t lying, Kieran. There’s like this…this line inside me that, once crossed, makes me something else. I’ve done it before. At the Chambers of Nyktos. I could’ve destroyed Saion’s Cove,” I reminded him. “I could’ve destroyed Oak Ambler when I woke to find Casteel taken. I wanted to.”

“I will reach you. Cas will,” he reasoned.

“There won’t always be someone there.” I forced my grip on Casteel’s ring to loosen. “There may be a time that no one will be able to reach me. And if that happens, I need you—”

“Fuck.”

“I need you to put me in the ground. Casteel won’t be able to do it. You know that. He can’t,” I forged on. “I need you to stop me. You know how. There are bone chains under—”

“I know where the chains are.” His anger was hot in my throat but not nearly as bitter as his anguish. And I hated myself a little then.

I hated myself a lot. But there was no other choice. “And if we haven’t discovered all Eloana did to entomb Malec, you need to find out. Put me in the ground and do whatever she did. Please. He…Casteel will be angry with you, but he’ll understand. Eventually.”