In those final, fading moments, my thoughts drift to the Wolf. When I come back, I wonder if this will work or if Alexios will send him to hunt me down and finish what Silas’ knife started. If he does, I hope my blood stains the Wolf’s hands, his wings, his soul, if he even has one. I hope I haunt him.

The shadows claim me. They always do.

Then the Shroud’s power wraps around my soul and pulls, dragging me upward. Hauling me through the suffocating blackness. The pressure shatters, and the Void spits me out.

I gasp awake, choking on air, my fingers already scrambling at my sleeve to find the scars.

One. Breathe.

Two. There’s a breeze on my face and the warm flagstones beneath me.

Three. My name is Bryony.

Four. I’m at Alexios’ temple.

Five. This is real.

I open my eyes, blinking against the harsh sunlight. When I look down, there’s no trace of the wound that killed me—only the sticky, cold residue of Alexios’ blood smeared on me from the revival bowl.

“Get up.” The Head Oracle’s sharp voice cuts through the fog. “And get out. Don’t come back.”

No gentle words to ease the transition. Just a perfunctory ritual, the minimum required to pull my soul from the Void. The message is clear: they don’t give a shit about me. I’m not protected by my service to the Shroud.

I’m no longer required.

It takes two tries to stand even with Theo’s help. Resurrection never gets easier—my body always aches after, like it’s been broken apart and stuck back together wrong.

Silas hovers behind the Oracles, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. Jumping into the Rionese Sea, perhaps. Or taking a walk off the palace battlements. Honestly, that makes two of us.

I return his knife, and he takes it without a word, probably wishing he’d never handed it over.

“You okay?” Theodora asks quietly as she leads me down the temple steps. “They didn’t do the aftercare.”

“Fine.” The word comes out flat. “As fine as I can be.”

She helps me into the carriage. I stare out of the window as the vehicle starts toward the palace. For years, this route has defined my existence—palace to temple, temple to palace, over and over again. A life shaped by orders and duty. I’ve given up this body to a god for so long that I can barely remember what it was like to be mine.

And I won’t ever have that again.

Theodora grasps my hand. “We’ll fix this. Just keep up appearances for now, and don’t take that cuff off.”

“Right. Play my part tomorrow night, too?” My lips twist. “Spread my legs for my new husband like a good little princess?”

“One crisis at a time, Bry.”

I nod. It’s not that I don’t trust my sister’s plans. It’s that deep down, I’m already preparing for the Wolf.

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4

EVANDER

THE STENCH FILLS my lungs, one I’ve encountered a thousand times before: mortality combined with power that doesn’t belong to a human.

The man is unaware he’s being hunted. I first caught his scent after an execution in Montorosa, the capital of Havenridge. Then I followed him on the train to Valchek, and watched as he went about his business for the last week. Patiently biding my time. Other than the scent, there’s nothing noteworthy about him. Unremarkable face, average body, boring life. He wears Alexios’ Claim, but that won’t save him—he’s going to be another tally on my centuries-old kill count. Yesterday, I watched him clip his toenails at the dinner table, gather them in the tobacco tin, and eat one. Honestly, I’m doing the realm a favor by killing him.

After he leads me where I want.

He walks the dark street with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets. I follow from the rooftops, feet soundless. Windows across the city glow as I leap from building to building. Smoke curls from chimneys, and the occasional burst of chatter drifts up from the roads below. My wings tense as I land on another roof, but I keep them tight against my back. No need to announce my presence yet.

He turns onto a narrow lane just off the main road, pausing in front of a shitty little apothecary shop with a faded wooden sign creaking in the wind.

Roots & Remedies. How quaint.

My target knocks on the door, and something dark clenches in my gut at the familiar pattern, the sign I’ve been waiting for: quick-quick-quick, slow-slow—the code of fleshtraders.

The door cracks open. “Yeah?”

“Here for the Butcher.”

The doorman grunts and opens the door wide. “Inside.”

I drop to street level, wrapping myself in invisibility before slipping in after them. The shop looks innocuous enough. Dried plants hang from the ceiling rafters alongside bones and animal hides. Shelves groan under the weight of colored glass jars, their contents floating in murky liquids and oils. Roots and leaves fill the tiny cabinets built into the wall behind the counter.

But it’s for show, a cheap veneer of legitimacy hiding the real merchandise in the back.

My nostrils flare as the apothecary worker’s scent wafts over me. I narrow my eyes at the tall, thin man. He’s been indulging. And if the strength is anything to go by, he’s been on dust for years.

Humans can’t seem to help themselves.

I trail after them as they head down the hall. They stop at a door, and the apothecary fumbles with an oversized ring of keys.

“In here.” He jerks his head, flipping on the light. “Special stock.”

The air inside is cold and tinged with the stink of preservatives. Shelves are packed with my realm’s spoils—books, scrolls, trinkets, and oddities. Stone carvings of Scillarian beasts are perched alongside busts displaying jewelry our demis wore into battle. Beside that sit precious gems in open velvet boxes, infused with god power that glows from within. The plunder of thousands of destroyed lives, stolen from corpses and homes during the human occupation of my realm.

Magic rises with my anger, the heat of it sliding across my skin, but I shove it down before it betrays my presence.

Not yet.

The apothecary approaches an ornate wooden cabinet, pulling out a silk-wrapped parcel.

Something stirs in me—a resonance, like plucking a string and feeling another vibrate in harmony. Power recognizing power. I know what’s in that bundle before he opens it.

No. Not here. Not like this.

“Just got these in,” he says, laying it on the table and unfolding it carefully. “Found in an old war cache. These came right off some ascended prince’s back.”

He flips back the fabric to reveal four dark feathers sparkling with starlight. Bastien’s feathers.

I’m going to rip their throats out.

Memories flash of my brother shackled to the wall of a filthy cell, with his blood pooled on the floor and his wings hacked off. There’s a reason my people call that war the Devouring.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” I watch as the apothecary strokes a feather, picturing myself cutting off his fingers. “Grind these up, and you’ve got pure power. Most just want the high—like swallowing stars. But if you take enough and let it build up in your system? The magic becomes yours.”

Fuck.

I figured the forbidden knowledge still circulated in some corners of the mortal world—it’s what started the war and left gods trafficked for parts. But I haven’t heard it spoken aloud in years. I’ve worked with Alexios and his other Enforcers to eliminate every trace of that information from mortal memories and any documents we could find.