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C ora was no stranger to death. It had first entered her life when her parents died. Next, it had arrived courtesy of Morkai when he’d murdered Queen Linette. More recently, she’d delivered several souls to death’s door; first with Erwin, the hunter who’d tormented Valorre with an iron-barbed whip, then a camp of hunters, their rum poisoned by belladonna placed by Cora’s own hand.

But this…

Lurel was different. Her death was senseless. Unfair. Untimely. Just like Cora’s parents’ deaths had been. Linette’s too. And yet, Lurel’s carried the same weight Erwin’s and the hunters’ did.

Because this too was Cora’s fault.

Words of blame echoed around her, shouted by Lord Kevan. They resounded up the stairwell—now lit by several lanterns and the first blush of dawn peeking through the windows. All she could do was accept his condemnation. She couldn’t refute what Lord Kevan was saying.

“She was supposed to stay with you. She was not to leave your side. Why was she in the tower? Why? Why ?”

Because I told her it wasn’t haunted , she said to no one as she let Kevan continue to shout at her. Because I left the castle. Because Lurel woke up alone and came to find me .

Her eyes stared sightlessly at the space where Lurel had lost her life. A stair now empty after the girl’s body had been hauled away. By the time Cora had shouted for help, it had already been too late. Lurel had taken her last breath in Cora’s arms.

“Look at me and give me a reason why my daughter is dead.”

Cora managed to tear her gaze away from the empty stair to take in Kevan’s stricken face. He stood several steps down from her, still dressed in his nightgown and robe. A robe that bore a crimson stain from where he’d cradled his daughter’s face to his chest with a wail Cora could still hear piercing the air. His face was pale, his eyes rimmed with red. Sorrow poured out of him, slamming into Cora’s threadbare mental shields and pummeling her with emotions that were not her own. Or perhaps they were. She was in a state of shock. Of numbness. Of feeling everything and nothing at once.

“Tell me why you’re dressed in a riding cloak in the middle of the night.”

The lie would be a simple one . Lurel left my room in the middle of the night. I donned my cloak to go look for her . But she couldn’t utter the words.

Lord Kevan took a forbidding step up the stairs, his face contorted with rage. “Tell me why my daughter had blood streaming from her eyes! Give me an explanation, or for the love of the seven gods?—”

“Lord Kevan.”

Cora stiffened at her brother’s voice. He hadn’t been awoken when the chaos erupted, which meant he might not yet know what had happened. Kevan whirled to the side, revealing Dimetreus at the base of the stairs, shadowed by two guards.

“Watch your tone with my sister,” Dimetreus said.

Kevan’s chest heaved as he stared down at Dimetreus, but he managed to cut off his tirade.

“I’ve been informed a great tragedy has befallen us,” Dimetreus said with gentle calm as he ascended the staircase, stopping when he was next to Cora. Placing himself at her side was a silent statement, demonstrating his support of Cora while reminding Lord Kevan of his place. Or what should be his place. Dimetreus’ demeanor reminded her so much of the confident monarch he used to be that it cleared some of the grief clouding her mind. “You have my condolences, but please do not take your sorrows out on my sister. We are lucky she found Lady Lurel.”

Kevan huffed. “Lucky. Perhaps you, Majesty, can shed some light on why my daughter was in the tower in the middle of the night.”

“It is a fool’s errand to seek such explanations, trust me.” A note of sympathy deepened his voice. “My only guess is that she couldn’t sleep. The library is stocked with ample reading material?—”

“Reading material,” Kevan echoed. “What in the name of the seven devils would she possibly have wanted to read in there? She was forbidden from stepping foot inside the cursed room. And…trust you? Trust you? You were in league with a sorcerer. Perhaps you still are. Perhaps you’re the reason my daughter wept blood when she died.”

“Wept blood,” Dimetreus whispered, his face going a shade paler. “Cursed room.”

Cora’s stomach bottomed out. Whatever Dimetreus had been told about Lurel’s death, he hadn’t been given the whole story. A dark dread crept over her, clearing the remainder of her somber fog. This was not the time to get lost in her grief. In her guilt. She took a step closer to her brother and laid a gentle hand on his forearm. “Dimi.”

He flinched at her touch and whirled to the side, casting a glance at the closed door at the top of the stairwell. His eyes grew wide. Haunted. “What significance does this room hold? Why was Lady Lurel forbidden from entering the North Tower Library?”

Kevan gave a disbelieving shake of his head. “You’re going to claim ignorance about that too, then? That you had no idea your own library had been turned into a sorcerer’s lair?”

Dimetreus flinched at his words, and he began to shrink in on himself. His regal demeanor drained to match the sudden pallor of his skin. “Sorcerer’s lair?”

Cora put a hand on his shoulder and tried to turn him away from the door. “Dimi, let’s leave the man to grieve alone,” she whispered.

He ignored her, rounding on Kevan. “You said your daughter died with…with tears of blood. And that…that...” He gestured at the closed door, his throat bobbing. “Beyond that door is… his lair.”

Kevan said nothing, only narrowed his eyes.

A tangled web of emotions—terror, confusion, panic—flooded Cora with a force that nearly made her knees buckle. She was still too raw, too drained, to strengthen her shields, but she breathed as much of the unwanted energy away and gripped her brother’s arm tighter. “Dimetreus, we should go?—”

He wrenched himself from her grip and cast another glance at the closed door. He trembled so hard he slipped down a step but caught himself against the wall before he could stumble down another. “He’s here,” the king muttered. “He’s still here. We’ll never be rid of him.”

A low chuckle slipped from Kevan’s lips, expression smug. “Ah, and now the king unravels. I’ve been waiting for this moment.”

A spark of rage lit Cora’s blood, burning away all her sympathy for the man. Her voice came out with a sharpened edge. “You are dismissed, Lord Kevan.”

“I think not, Highness. It is my duty to make a sound judgment on the king’s stability. You agreed to the terms. You know what will happen if your brother proves ill-suited to the crown.”

She did know; Dimetreus could be forced to abdicate at any time.

Oblivious to her and Kevan’s conversation, Dimetreus leaned against the wall and lowered himself onto one of the stairs. Cora tried not to think about how Lurel had done exactly that before she’d?—

Cora shook her head, patting her brother’s shoulder as he began to weep, his sobs punctured by a single name. “Linette. Linette. Oh, gods, I remember the blood.”

Kevan lifted his chin and opened his mouth, but before he could utter a word, Cora said, “If anyone is incapable of sound judgment right now, it’s you. You’re grieving, Lord Kevan. Go tend to your daughter’s death rites and keep your nose out of business you don’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand?—”

“You understand nothing.” Her voice rose nearly to a shout. Movement shifted at the bottom of the staircase, reminding her of the presence of the two guards who’d followed her brother. She clenched her jaw, hating that there were witnesses to the king’s current state. The guards may have been assigned to Dimetreus, but they were appointed by Verdian and Kevan, and likely held a stronger allegiance to them than to the king they now served.

She descended a few steps closer to Kevan until they were nearly at eye level. “Had you a sympathetic bone in your body, you’d recognize the king’s sorrow and understand where it was coming from. But seeing as you choose to berate a grieving man rather than confront your own pain tells me you are in no position to judge us. Go, Lord Kevan. I’ve no need for your council at this time.”

His face burned crimson, and a vein pulsed at his temple, but he made no argument. Whirling on his heel, he stomped down the stairs. “To the seven devils with you.”

Cora’s muscles uncoiled with every step the man took. Once he was out of sight, she released a heavy sigh and turned toward her brother, taking a seat next to him. For a while, that was all she did, sitting in silence while she let him cry, not forcing him to move or talk or leave. She caught the two guards exchanging a wary glance or two, but at least they left them alone.

“Aveline,” Dimetreus said, acknowledging her presence for the first time since his breakdown had begun. He lifted his head and turned his tear-stained face to her.

Her breath caught in her throat as she recalled Lurel’s face, eyes leaking crimson tears. She almost expected her brother’s to look the same.

But the moisture on the king’s cheeks was the benign sort, sending her panicked memories to the back of her mind. Shifting her focus to the cold stone beneath her, she anchored her energy and rose to her feet. “Come,” she whispered softly to her brother, extending a hand. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

And away from the godsforsaken tower.

The sun had fully risen by the time Cora returned to the stairwell. As much as she never wanted to step foot there again, she knew she needed to. She couldn’t rest until she saw what Lurel had seen. Until she had some inkling as to what had led to her death.

Rumors had already circulated the castle regarding Lurel’s demise. The official story was that she’d taken a tumble down the stairs, but whispered gossip told of the cursed tower, tears of blood, and a vengeful ghost. Cora wanted to flay whoever was spreading the latter rumors, no matter how close to the truth they were. Only the guards who’d been summoned to help would have seen Lurel’s body. Known where she’d lost her life. Which wouldn’t make it difficult to pinpoint exactly who had broken Lord Kevan’s order to keep quiet.

But that wasn’t the task that took precedence in Cora’s mind. She crept up the North Tower stairwell, thankful it was devoid of guards. Her throat tightened as she reached the closed door at the top of the staircase. At least the daylight made it harder to conjure images of what had happened earlier that morning. Made it less daunting to turn the handle and step inside the room…

Cora shuddered as she took in the circular library. It was dimmer than the stairwell, each window covered by a tapestry—the same as it had been when Morkai had brought her there to talk. In fact, everything was exactly as she remembered it. There was a tea table and a pair of wingback chairs by the empty fireplace, a cluttered desk shoved haphazardly against one of the many bookcases that lined the walls, books upon books upon books bearing spines with titles she hadn’t been able to forget: The Art of Blood, Grimoire Sanguina, Mastering the Ethera . Then there was the table that stood at the center of the room.

Her gaze lingered there, and she crept toward it. Upon the table she spotted the one item that had not been in the room before—Lurel’s candlestick holder, the candle’s wick extinguished after having burned down to the base. Beside it sat an open book.

Lurel’s words echoed through Cora’s mind: I pricked my finger on a book when I tried to open it…

Cora’s heart hammered as she stepped closer to the table, to the book. She dropped her mental shields, assessing the energy in the room, and immediately felt the air darken, its weight prickling the hair on her arms. It was condensed around the book, saturating the metal clasp that hung from the cover, crawling over the page it had been opened to.

Cora breathed away the darkness and maintained focus on the stone floor beneath her slippered feet, rooting herself to the earth, to safety, to protection. Careful not to touch anything, she lifted a hand above the book. Her inked palms tingled against the darkness, buzzing against her flesh in an almost painful way. Her stomach churned the closer she let her hand drift to the book. The energy thrummed near the clasp, and as Cora leaned closer to investigate, she caught a glint of sharp metal protruding from the top edge. That must have been where Lurel had pricked her finger. The clasp must have been fitted with a mechanism that pricked anyone who tried to open it. Anyone aside from Morkai, perhaps, for how else would he have accessed the book? And it was certainly his; it writhed with the sorcerer’s essence, as potent as his living presence had been. But how did Lurel die?

A hollow feeling drew her attention to the open page of the book. It was one of the first pages. On the left was blank paper, but on the right…

Cora launched a step back as bile rose in her throat.

Rust-colored ink crisscrossed the sheet, almost too faint to see beneath the dim lighting. It was a pattern of intersecting lines like a tapestry.

A blood weaving.

She understood then that the book had been enchanted to kill anyone who dared open it. The clasp had pricked Lurel’s finger, drawn her blood, and woven it with whoever’s this page contained. Perhaps even Queen Linette’s, considering the similarity of their deaths—blood that seeped not from any ordinary wound but the eyes, nose, and mouth.

Cora’s breaths grew sharper as panic threatened to seize her. But she couldn’t give in. Neither to panic nor to sorrow. She needed to be strong. For her brother. For Khero. For the safety of Ridine Castle.

She swallowed her fear and let anger take its place, let it crawl down her arms, spiraling through the inked sigils she bore, driving the dark energy away from her, shoving it back, back, until it retreated into the pages of the book. Then she slammed the cover down, containing the energy. She sneered down at the closed book, the dark leather cover hiding the blood weaving that marred the inner page. She turned her scowl to the vials littering the table, then to the volumes of books cluttered upon the bookshelves around her. The objects leered, taunting her, but unlike their master, they were easily destroyed. One simply had to know how. And Cora did. She was the only person in the castle who could make this room safe again.

She’d been wrong when she’d told Lurel the tower wasn’t haunted. It was. Now she was determined to rid every last scrap of Morkai’s memory, his essence, his energy, if it was the last thing she did.