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C elandine’s revenge plan was mad. It all depended on waking a monster. But ten years of festering rage had made her willing to do anything.

She stood in the shadow of the mausoleum while the procession surged past her.

The celebrants were in high spirits for the first day of the Summer Solstice festival.

Through the sheer fabric of her veil, she could make out the vibrant colors of their gowns and tunics.

Whiffs of fragrance from their flower crowns briefly lifted the odor of death that clung to her.

The last, brilliant light of sunset slipped away after them. Celandine’s hand tightened on her distaff. It was almost dark, and with the Summer Solstice only a fortnight away, the nights were short. She didn’t have much time.

As soon as the street cleared, she headed in the opposite direction of the parade, her distaff tapping on the cobbles.

At last someone noticed her. The stragglers took one glance at the gray robes that shrouded her from head to toe, then hastened to catch up with the festival, as if she were a portent of impending death.

But she had no power of prophecy, nor could she read minds or cast illusions. Although she was a sorceress in service to Chera, the Mourning Goddess, Celandine possessed none of the typical talents of the women of her Mage Order.

Not that she needed spells to make herself invisible. No one ever saw her, except when she was allowed out of the temple to be a ritual mourner at funerary rites. Her throat ached from wailing for people she didn’t know. When she failed to return on time, punishment would await her.

An iron calm descended over her as she turned down a side street toward her goal. She no longer cared what the temple would do to her if her plan failed. She existed with nothing in her future but funerary rites until the day her own came. She had already lost everything.

She navigated from memory along lanes lined with orange trees, past the porticoes of noble manors. Before her world had shrunk to the inside of the temple, this had been her city. Corona, the magnificent capital of Cordium. Home. Right outside the temple gates yet always out of reach.

In the distance, she caught flashes of light and noise from the procession.

But she didn’t cross paths with anyone except drunken lovers who had stayed behind to seize fleeting pleasure in the shadows.

Hearing their moans, Celandine fought off a stab of envy.

This was no time to resent the celibacy forced on all mages. She had to focus.

Among the historic residences, she came to a high, forbidding wall. How like the Mage Orders to build walls around whatever they couldn’t control and claim they had conquered it.

For one hundred years, mages and aristocrats had pretended this forsaken estate no longer existed in their midst, while tales of the creature sleeping within ran rampant in fine courts and shady alehouses alike.

The oak gates were reinforced with iron, but the real barrier to entry was the spells beyond. She had to throw her entire weight against one gate to make it shudder and groan open.

Firelight spilled out. Magic and heat prickled her senses as she crept inside. The gate slammed shut behind her, and she started.

Celandine faced a solid wall of magefire that burned so high she couldn’t see over it.

The Order of Anthros would come here on Summer Solstice to extinguish the fires and take the creature. She had to beat them to their prey, or the plot she had so carefully crafted these ten years would fail.

The war mages who served Anthros, god of order and battle, reigned supreme over all magic users. Would the magic of one unwilling Cheran sorceress be enough against them? If Celandine proved powerless against them tonight—as she had ten years ago—she could not bear it.

She clenched her teeth. She would not let them win. Not this time.

From the raw flax wrapped around the top of her distaff, she pulled out one of the spindles she kept tucked there. How she hated the tools of her trade as a Cheran mage. How satisfying it would be to use them to unravel everything the Orders had done to her.

Drawing a bit of flax from the distaff, she gave her spindle a twirl sunwise. As it spun and the flax honed to thread between her fingers, she let her arcane senses spin out and hone in on the magefire.

Old, mighty fires. She wouldn’t have stood a chance against these spells in years past. But now, after a century, their power was fading. She spun her thread, studying the patterns of the magefire until she had a firm grasp on the spells.

Then she twirled her spindle widdershins, freeing the thread on it. She felt an ephemeral tug on the flames. The fires burned lower, and their heat faded to warmth.

She gave her spindle another vicious turn. Another. Inch by inch, the wall of fire sank lower, then finally fell to embers, leaving spots of light on her vision.

She drew a breath. She had done it.

Overgrown gardens spread out before her, and beyond them stood the manor, a stately shadow in the moons’ light.

A fragrance wafted over her, more exquisite than any from the summer procession.

The scent must have been coming from the flowers that had taken over the grounds.

Their twisting vines were armed with thorns, and yet the most stunning blooms grew from the wicked things, with layers upon layers of crimson petals curling around each other.

Celandine had never seen the like before.

Were these roses, the sacred flower of Hespera, the Goddess of Night? All her creations were dangerously beautiful. Especially the Hesperines, the fanged, bloodthirsty immortals who served her.

Somewhere in this house, one of their kind lay trapped in a hundred-year sleep. After all this time, he must be very, very hungry. Celandine was counting on that.

But to reach him, she would have to survive the Hesperine magic that guarded his lair.

The remnants of a path led through the rose vines.

She held her robes close so as not to catch them on the thorns.

Some tales said that the flowers would kill any mage who tried to approach the Hesperine.

Others claimed that when either of the moons was full, he rose from his slumber to lure virgins into his garden to devour their blood.

Celandine didn’t see the corpses of any maidens as she approached the manor.

Perhaps not all the stories were true. Fortunate, for if he preferred virgins, he would have little interest in Celandine, and her attempt to give him her blood would be for nothing.

Even so, she held her distaff at the ready to push aside any vines in case they tried to strangle her.

When she ran headfirst into a warding spell, the impact stunned her. She leaned on her distaff for support, reeling. She had never felt such power. It repelled and comforted her.

Beautiful. Deceptive. Hesperine.

Tangling with Hespera was more dangerous than anything she had ever done.

She had known that when she came here. Was she a coward, or would she have her revenge?

She fumbled for her spindle and twisted it with a shaking hand. The whole night sky seemed to whirl around her. She stood firm against a wave of vertigo and let the eerie power flow across her arcane senses. Just when she thought she understood its nature, it transformed.

Finally, she reversed her spindle. She stood there for long moments, twirling and twirling widdershins. It seemed she would need to be immortal herself to have enough time for unraveling all the layers of spells the Hesperines had cast to guard their sleeping brother.

Then with a rustle, the roses parted, revealing the steps to the manor door. She took one cautious step forward.

And slipped through the ward, as if it welcomed her into the Hesperine’s domain.

Had she really unwoven the spell? Or had it let her in for reasons of its own?

“Do your worst, Hesperine.” Celandine marched up the steps and pushed open the front door.

She peered around the bright antechamber, testing the space with her senses. She could detect no magical traps, but also no Hesperine.

Did his slumber dampen his presence? She hoped that was the reason. If he had died before she could get any use out of him, she would be furious with him.

She padded forward. Spell lights shone from every sconce. Their brilliant glow looked more like stars than any working of mortal mages. More Hesperine magic.

She made her way across thick carpets and under high, rounded arches. With every step, she felt more alone.

No temple crones watching like hawks. No apprentices ferreting out transgressions for their own advancement. No dictates handed down from the men in the Order of Anthros, who ruled women even in their own halls of worship.

Celandine halted in her tracks and ripped off her veil. The warmth of summer reached her cheeks and dried the tears there.

Freeing her hair from its knot, she gave her head a shake and let the dark brown waves fall around her.

Her distaff clattered on the floor as she tore out of her shroud and kicked off her hard, thin shoes.

She stripped off every vestige of the temple until she wore nothing but her long tunica and underlinens.

She stood there panting and realized she had come to the great hall.

Without her veil, she could appreciate every detail.

The lavish table settings were a hundred years out of style, but this place had been a palace in its glory days.

The platters were still heavy with a half-eaten feast, preserved under the wards.

The chairs were pushed back, right where the guests must have left them the night of the fateful summer banquet when the curse had befallen this place.

Hurry , said the voice of revenge in her mind. But longing drew her toward the dais and the golden chair at the high table. She slid onto the throne and looked out over the grand room.

She had once ruled her own world from a seat like this.

A lute lay abandoned by the chair. Remembering when her life had been filled with dances instead of funerary rites, she ran her fingers over the strings.

Celandine winced. Long out of tune. She shook her head and left, picking up her distaff and spindle on the way to the door. Her old life was gone. She could never get it back.

But she would make sure that if she couldn’t have it, no one could. Least of all the men who had stolen it from her.

Wishing was for fools. Revenge was for survivors.

And her revenge required the Hesperine. She climbed a grand staircase to seek him in the upper levels of the manor. As she wandered along a gallery, princes of the Taurus family watched her from the portraits on the walls.

She looked into the eyes of the men who had feuded with her ancestors of the Pavo dynasty.

She was fairly certain the one with the crooked nose had been disfigured by her great-great-great-grandfather’s fist. That one there with the smug expression had seduced her aunt by several greats and slaughtered the husband in a bloody duel.

Celandine might have lost her name and her title, but she was still a Pavo by blood. She made a vulgar gesture at her long-dead Taurus enemies.

At the end of the gallery, she pushed open a tall, carved door. Inside the luxurious chamber, soft spell lights shone on a massive canopy bed.

She had found him.

The reality hit her then. She had actually made it this far, and now she would face the greatest danger of all: the Hesperine himself.

Her survival depended on his sleep leaving him weakened…and on making him an offer he couldn’t resist.