Page 12 of Shadows and Roses (The Dark Queens #1)

Anais

Jerak Maru’uel.

Her hands were forever stained by his blood. Not a single day went by that she didn’t remember the boy. How he screamed. How his blood ran. So little of it. Too much of it.

After the Maru’uels begged to be allowed to bury the small body, she’d dragged Darius to her playroom, as though bleeding a child had—

Death had never bothered her. She spent her childhood bathed in blood and torture. Her mother had been ruthless, demanding Anais grow up faster than she should have, knowing a princess could too soon become a Queen. Anais' youth had been as bright as it was dark. Joy carefully hidden. A wild strength shown to the court. She was the only child allowed to roam the palace. The nobles learned to respect her, to be wary of her as she learned to manipulate them.

She shouldn’t have killed the boy. Out of fear and desperation, she’d sacrificed one to save the others, she’d told herself. Darius had held her, forced her from the water closet when she refused to stop scrubbing her raw, red hands. Washing the blood that could never be washed away.

There would not be another Jerak. Never again.