My father’s kingdom. My kingdom.

The faint pulse of my Heir Mark over my throat and chest burned stronger now. Itched, like an acid bite.

At least that will get some of them out of our way, Raihn had said, so fucking casually, when talking about the people who now relied on me.

“You don’t want a Hiaj’s help,” I spat. “You’re too busy killing all of us.”

“Us?” Raihn’s scoff was immediate, vicious, like he couldn’t even stop himself. “When the hell did it become ‘us?’ They never treated you like you were one of them. They treated people like you like fucking livestock. They disrespected you, they—”

“You killed my father!”

The words burst out of me. The accusation, the ugly truth, had been pressing up beneath the underside of my skin for weeks. Every time I looked at Raihn, they screamed in my ears. All those accusations: You killed my father, you lied to me, you used me.

YOU.

KILLED.

MY.

FATHER.

They drowned out every word he said to me.

They silenced him immediately, and then hung there between us, palpable and cutting as razor blades.

“You. Killed. My. Father.”

I didn’t even realize I was speaking aloud this time, the words scraping from between my clenched teeth.

With each word, I relived it—Raihn’s magic flaring as he pinned Vincent to the wall. Vincent’s body falling, nothing more than a pile of broken flesh.

Silvery smoke unfurled around my clenched fists. My shoulders rose and fell heavily. My chest hurt—Goddess, my chest hurt so, so much. I’d let out too much and now I struggled to wrangle it all back under control.

For a long, horrible, silent moment I was so sure I was going to fall apart. Raihn at last moved around that desk, approaching me slowly, watching me so steadily I could feel it even when I squeezed my eyes shut.

Like he was waiting. Like he was ready.

“I am so sorry, Oraya,” he murmured. “I’m just—I’m so sorry that it all happened this way. I’m so sorry.”

The worst part was, I couldn’t even doubt that he meant it.

Sorry. I remembered the first time Raihn had apologized to me, plainly, like it had been a simple truth, and how it had meant so much to me that it rearranged my entire world a little to hear it spoken that way. I’d felt like I’d been given a gift I had been waiting so long for—for someone to validate my feelings that way, to concede to me even at the expense of their own pride.

I’d been so desperate to hear those words from my father.

I’d finally gotten them in his final breaths. I love you. I’m sorry.

And did they change anything? Did they mean anything, in the end? What fucking good did a few words do?

I opened my eyes and met Raihn’s. His face was so starkly honest, so raw, that it startled me. I could see that he was opening a door for me, coaxing me through. Ready to take my hand and guide me there.

“But you’d do it again,” I said.

I slammed that door shut.

He flinched.

“I am trying to save so many lives,” he said.

Helplessly. Like he didn’t know what else to tell me.

Well, what else was he going to tell me but the truth?

I fucking hated that I understood that, in some dark corner of myself. Raihn had made a bargain he had died trying to avoid fulfilling. Raihn had thousands of people relying on him. Raihn had his obligations tattooed onto his flesh.

But I’d been denying for too long that I had my own obligations seared into my skin, too. And I’d just listened to Raihn talk about killing the people who now relied on me. Talk of a new kingdom was one thing. But it was talk. Because I’d just watched him put on a performance to gain the favor of the very same people who abused him.

Fucking hypocrite.

We wanted to talk about hard decisions?

Raihn took another step closer. “Oraya, listen…”

But I jerked backwards. “I want to go back to my room.”

It was impossible to miss the disappointment in his eyes.

“Take me back or let me walk there myself,” I spat.

To his credit, he knew when there was no arguing with me. He didn’t say another word as he opened the door and walked silently a step behind me, all the way back to my room.

7

ORAYA

I wasn’t sure when I decided what I was going to do, only that by the time I made it back to my room, it was no longer a question. I waited until long after Raihn’s footsteps had faded down the hallway. I didn’t want to take any risks, especially not when Raihn had made it so clear just how embarrassingly well he could hear what went on inside my chambers.

And then, finally, I reached into my pocket and withdrew that little clump of glass, placing it on my bed. It looked just as unremarkable in here as it had on Vincent’s desk—like stacked shards, now stained with my blood.

I still didn’t understand what this was, or how it worked. But I mimicked what I’d done in the study, sliding the still-bleeding pad of my thumb over the smooth edge.

Just as it had before, the shards immediately scattered into a pile of broken glass. I touched them again, and it reassembled into the mirrored, shallow bowl.

Now that I was watching more closely, I noticed that the pieces, when assembled, still trembled a bit—in some areas, they didn’t seem to line up quite right. I sliced my thumb on the edge again and watched my blood swirl down the decorative whorls, pooling at the bottom of the basin.

I was prepared, this time, for the wave of—of Vincent that would follow. But it wasn’t any less painful to feel it, nor any less difficult to keep myself from shutting it out. I didn’t hear the sound of his voice or see his face, but I unmistakably felt his presence, like at any moment I’d turn around and he would be standing behind me. Deeper, more visceral certainty than any single sense could conjure.

The blood at the center sputtered and widened, shivering at the edges with the trembling shards of glass. The image in the blood seemed like a reflection from another location, distant and faint. Maybe it would have been easier to see in a pool of black blood. Or perhaps it was so faint because this device—whatever it was—was never intended to work for me. I was only half vampire, after all.

I squinted into the half-formed image. I could make out the faintest suggestion of a person’s face, as if leaning over the mirror from the opposite side.

“Jesmine?” I whispered.

“Highness?”

It was unmistakably Jesmine’s voice, just like I’d thought before, albeit very distant and fuzzy. I leaned closer, straining my ears.

“It is you—” she said. “Thought—from the—where are—”

“Slow down,” I said. “I can’t hear you.”

Just as I always told you, little serpent, Vincent whispered to me. You must learn how to be more patient. Wait, and feel it.

I drew in a sharp breath.

Goddess, his voice felt so close, I could practically feel his breath on my ear. The sudden wave of grief struck me before I could steel myself against it.

Jesmine’s image solidified, her voice growing stronger, even though I still had to strain to hear her.

“—you can use it,” she was saying. I could make out her expression now—confused, intrigued. Dirt—or blood—appeared to smear one of her cheeks, her hair pulled back in a frizzy knot, a bandage wrapped around one of her arms. A stark difference from the polished seductress I was so used to seeing slink around Vincent’s parties.

“Use it?” I asked.

“His mirror. You can use it.”

His.

I didn’t need to know the details of what this thing was, exactly, to know that it was powerful, old magic—just from the way it felt, so inextricably linked to Vincent’s soul. And if this was his, and it ran on his blood…