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Clarissa

T he last time I’d been in a dungeon, I was the one interrogating a Shifter on the other side of the bars. The cells in Veridia were nicer, I had to admit.

Staring at the dark, dank stone wall, I listened to the drip drip drip of a leak in the ceiling above me. The sound echoed through the cell as a chill sank into my bones.

It was safe to say this dress was ruined. I’d been sitting on this dirty stone floor for hours, with only the Fates-knew-what-else seeping into the fabric. It smelled like musty piss, the staleness of the air making it difficult to draw a full breath.

The only light came from a couple of swinging lanterns placed along the wall on the opposite side of the bars. Every once in a while, I’d hear an occasional whistle or scuffle from some inmate deep within the dungeon, but other than that, I was left with my own thoughts.

A dangerous place to be.

Galen was dead. My family was in trouble, Azura was framing me, and there was nothing I could do about it. Not when I was stuck in a foreign kingdom without my magic to protect me.

How could he have died? Our marriage was supposed to break the curse. That was what the Fates told his ancestor. That was what we’d based this entire alliance on. Had we done something wrong? Misunderstood the curse? Pissed off the Fates?

I groaned and held my face in my hands, then winced at the grime on my fingers.

I had to figure out a way out of here. Mother, Rose, and Leo were just as defenseless as I was.

Azura could be doing anything to them right now, all because she had some vendetta against me.

Against all Veridians, I supposed. It was far too easy to make an entire throne room full of guests turn on us with a few simple lies.

And Thorne…

I closed my eyes and rested my cheek against the cool stone.

I couldn’t even think about him right now.

I didn’t know what to believe—Azura was a manipulative liar, but how else could she have known the things I said about Galen that night?

She was Thorne’s mother. It would make sense for his loyalty to be to her.

She cared for him and Marigold, in some twisted way.

If she had this grand plan to obtain power for her family, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he’d been part of it.

I thought I knew him. After everything we’d been through, everything he’d said…

He was either as skilled of a liar as his dear mother, or she was playing all of us.

I just didn’t know which was true.

A draft blew through the cell, sending a shiver down my spine. The flames in the torches outside the bars flickered. Something light and airy pressed against my skin, and the hair on the back of my neck rose in warning.

“Who’s there?” I called out. I felt along the floor and grabbed a small, sharp rock as I slowly rose to my feet.

A faint giggle reached my ears.

“ My, this one is brave, isn’t she? ” a high-pitched voice crooned.

I jumped and slammed my back into the corner, holding out the rock as if it could do anything to protect me. Scanning the shadows, I craned my neck to listen for footsteps, but there was nothing. No movement, no bodies, just darkness.

“Who said that?” I asked.

A ripple of wind rolled across my arm, almost as if invisible fingers danced over it.

“ Though not as bright as she seems, ” a second feminine voice said.

Well, that was just rude. “Who are you?” I demanded with a growl. “Show yourself.”

“ Haven’t you guessed by now, Clarissa Aris? ” The last sound was drawn out like a snake hissing through the grass.

“ You call upon us in your anger, ”

“ Your pain, ”

“ Your desperation, ” said a third voice, rising with the other two as they wavered closer.

“ And we answer in our strength, ”

“ In our glory, ”

“ In our power. ”

All three voices blended together, and the force of it sent me staggering to the side. Magic stirred in the air. Old and long-forgotten, like an ancient, primal power that made my own dormant magic raise its head in curiosity.

“The Fates,” I breathed out.

“ At your service, ” the first one said, and a faint presence brushed against my skin.

I glanced around the cell, trying to find some form or body to lock onto, but it was still empty. “How—what are you doing here?”

“ Call us curious, ” one of them mused.

“ We’ve been wondering when someone might come along and break this curse. ”

“ It was my favorite one, too, ” the first one purred.

I wrinkled my nose. “Break the curse? The king died . I thought our marriage was supposed to save him? Or did you lie about that to his ancestor too?”

“ Brave and a sharp tongue. ” Ghostly fingers gripped my cheeks, pinching them together. I reared back to yank out of their hold, and faded laughter echoed off the stone walls.

“ The curse did break, little Empress, ” the second voice hissed. “ Or is it Queen now? ”

“ We did not lie. The blight will no longer touch this kingdom. ”

“ We never said how it would break, ” the first one said, and I could almost imagine an outline of shoulders lifting into a shrug.

“ Nyses Grimaldi’s son simply never asked. ” A dark chuckle drifted in the cell.

My stomach sank. This was always how they’d planned for it to go. This was always how the curse would be “broken.” Galen had based his entire hope, his entire future …on a lie. A technicality .

And now he was dead.

My forehead pinched. “You…you’re supposed to be the Fates. The overseers of our world, the ones people pray to in their darkest hours.” I shook my head in disgust. “You’re nothing but cruel. Preying on desperation and weaknesses.”

Anger boiled inside of me as I thought about the past weeks and all we had worked for. Everything was for this. I may not have respected him as a ruler in the end, but Galen didn’t deserve to die. He didn’t deserve to have one shining millisecond of freedom before his life was snuffed from him.

I clenched my jaw. “You’re no better than the tyrants of this world. Do you get off on weaving your little webs and watching us all get caught in them? Does it make you feel powerful ?”

“ Careful, Clarissa Aris, ” one of them warned.

“Or what, you’re going to curse my bloodline too?” I bit down on the inside of my cheek, wondering if I’d finally crossed a line. For as much as I’d learned to control my tongue over the years, my anger still got the best of me.

“ Do you know the truth of what happened that night with Nyses Grimaldi? ” the third voice boomed.

I swallowed back a retort. “I know he asked for magic out of jealousy for what you gave the Veridians after the war, and you granted it to him. But it wasn’t magic like we have—it was devastating.

” I thought back to what Thorne told me at the hedge maze, how each descendant had a different brutal power.

Seeing spirits, inflicting pain, forced to become a beast. “It was a curse.”

A myriad of hums echoed around me. “ It seems the Grimaldis have concealed things as well, ” the first one said.

“What do you mean?”

There was a pause, a rustle in the air. And then?—

“ Let us show you, little Empress. ”

A cold, invisible hand gripped my wrist. I let out a strangled gasp as my body was thrown backward into the stone wall.

The cell disappeared.

I was standing before a burning temple in the dead of night.

Smoke and bright orange flames attacked the building, rising like a warning against the dark blue sky.

Dozens of men and women in long white robes rushed around the blaze.

Some carried buckets of water, while others tucked leather-bound books and old scrolls under their robes as they fled the scene.

A particularly terrifying wail caught my attention, and I looked to the right to see a young man—barely out of adolescence—flailing on the ground, flames consuming his legs.

My eyes widened as he screamed himself hoarse, his flesh bubbling beneath the fire traveling higher and higher up his body. I tried to run forward, but my limbs wouldn’t move.

“ There is nothing you can do but watch, ” the third voice of the Fates murmured in my ear, and for once, it didn’t sound cruel. It sounded pained. Remorseful.

My breath quickened, a whimper escaping me as the inferno overtook the boy.

His mangled cries stopped, leaving behind a scorched body.

A thunderous crash came from the front of the temple.

One of the statues resting above the entrance cracked in half.

My eyes flicked to the ground where an elderly woman struggled to carry a bag overflowing with scrolls away from the building.

I sucked in a breath and again tried to lurch toward her, only to be stopped by the same force .

The statue tipped.

I let out a silent scream as it tumbled through the air and crashed on top of the woman. She crumbled under its weight, not even having time to call out before she was dead. A pool of blood trickled from her head and over the grass, mingling with the ash and dirt.

Tears now tracked down my cheeks. I took in the chaos, the hordes of people running for their lives as flames continued to wreck the temple.

Horse hooves pounded on the ground behind me. I turned to see a large man in a mahogany cloak barreling forward on his horse, the crest of Mysthelm adorned on the saddle. Those familiar four branches with a sword and sickle. A priest rushed to him as he dismounted.

“My King!” the elderly man called out.

Nyses Grimaldi . Galen’s ancestor. I could see the resemblance as I squinted—the same golden-brown skin, the dark hair, the chiseled features.

Was this the night the curse began?

I blinked, and my body jerked forward as the temple vanished.

In my next breath, I was inside what I assumed was the same building—a high ceiling with marble columns surrounded by burning wood, a raised dais with the king standing at its center.

There was a dagger in his grip. Blood streamed from his hand to the stone altar beneath.

The voices of the Fates rang out around me. But they weren’t the ones who had spoken to me—they were speaking to him .

“ Tell us, oh great Nyses Grimaldi, ”

“ What would make the King of Mysthelm, ”

“ Burn his own temple to the ground? ”

Confusion struck me as they kept talking. He had done this? Their own king? That couldn’t be true. All those innocent people, dead?—

“ Setting fire to your people? Letting them burn among the smoke and flames? You must be truly desperate to summon an audience with us. ”

The third voice purred, “ Yes, Nyses. So very desperate. ”

Nyses’s body jerked, and he tipped his head up as if being clutched around the throat.

“ Well, Your Majesty? ”

“ What is it that you seek? ”

“Magic,” he choked out. His voice was deep and gravelly, full of hatred.

“ That’s what all of this was for? ” the third voice asked. “ You desire magic? ”

“Yes. Magic to rival that of the Veridian Empire. Magic you granted them.”

“ Magic they earned, Nyses. ”

“ The Veridian Empire defeated your kingdom over a century ago. ”

“ They conquered the power we offered to both of your lands. ”

“You asked what I sought,” Nyses said. “That is my answer. Magic to rule over my people. Magic to conquer my foes. Magic greater than what you have given our enemies.”

The smoke in the temple rose as their voices grew distant. My vision wavered, and when I reached up to rub my eyes, my body slammed back into the stone wall of my cell.

I stumbled forward and dropped to my knees. The smell of smoke clung to the walls, to my skin, to the inside of my nose.

“Was—was that real?” I croaked out.

“ Yes, ” the second one hissed. “ Do you see why we did what we did? ”

“ The Grimaldis were power-hungry and foolish, desperate for bloodshed without caring who got in their way. ”

“ Call us liars all you want, little Empress, ” the first one sang. “ But can you truly blame us? ”

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Galen’s ancestor was willing to endanger so many lives, all for the sake of seeking an audience with the Fates. To what, threaten them? Bargain with them? To convince them to give him their magic ?

And in his greed, he’d condemned his entire bloodline.

A wicked laugh filled the silence. “ Poor Nyses must be turning over in his grave knowing his own flesh and blood put a Veridian on his precious throne. ”

I gritted my teeth. “This isn’t funny. Galen didn’t deserve to die for his ancestor’s sins.”

“ Perhaps not, ” the second voice said. “ But what’s done is done. ”

“You don’t even care,” I muttered. “You’ve never cared about any of us.

You started an entire war, killing hundreds of thousands of people over this magic, just for what?

Your entertainment ? And now you act as if this curse was some sort of justice against a corrupted king.

Where’s the justice in anything you’ve done? ”

“ We did not come here to be lectured by a self-righteous, would-be queen, ” the third one warned, the feminine voice now deep and laced with irritation.

“Then why did you come here?” I demanded. “To watch me die like you watched Galen?”

Frigid air swept over me as an invisible finger swiped along my neck. I froze in place, my legs rigid and breaths shaking. Its touch trailed over my collarbone and my shoulder, then down my right arm.

Quick as lightning, another set of fingers wrapped around my throat.

“ We came here, little Empress, because we’re not done with you yet, ” the first voice said sweetly in my ear.

I choked against their hold and reached up to try to claw my way loose, but they released me. With a gasp, I slumped into the wall, struggling to catch my breath.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I rasped.

Silence.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

The doors to the dungeon slammed open, and loud footsteps drew nearer, along with the clanking of metal on metal and a cane scraping the floor. Voices filled the cell as shadows came into view.

I recognized Azura’s voice. I backed farther into the corner, but something on the ground at my feet caught my eye.

I paused and squinted, cocking my head. It looked like a flower.

A…marigold. Faded orange petals connected to a stem, their colors beginning to turn gray as if caught in the blight I’d seen so many times.

A warning buzzed in the back of my mind, and before I could think too hard about it, I knelt down and scooped up the cursed flower with the sleeves of my wedding dress.

The door to my cell banged open.

“Clarissa Aris,” the head of the King’s Guard called out. Azura stood next to him, and I held her stare.

“You have been found guilty of the murder of King Galen Grimaldi and treason against the Mysthelm crown. You are hereby sentenced to death.”