I didn’t remember leaving the dungeon. I remembered the blood, though.

  The tower bridge stretched ahead of me, black stone slick with dew and moonlight fading toward dawn. The forest beyond the walls breathed in long quiet sighs, the kind that came before morning birds began their endless arguments. I crossed it slowly, my boots scraping against the stone with each exhausted step.

  Something warm ran down my wrist. I lifted my hand and stared at it for a moment before realizing it was blood…

  Not mine.

  My stomach felt… heavy. That was the strangest part of all. I had never felt full before. Not truly full. There had always been an edge to the hunger, a hollow place somewhere beneath my ribs that never quite went away. It was gone now, and the absence of it made me giddy.

  A laugh slipped out of me before I realized what I was doing. It bounced strangely across the empty courtyard walls, thin and breathless, like the echo didn’t quite belong to me. That made me laugh again before I could clamp my mouth shut.

  Pink had begun to creep in on the eastern horizon, beyond the trees and mountains. Dawn was coming. The first thin line of sunlight crept over the distant peaks, touching the upper towers of the castle with a dull copper glow.

  I should have gone inside. Instead, I leaned against the cold stone railing and watched it. The light made my eyes sting, but I didn’t look away. It felt warm. Not pleasant exactly, but sharp and bright, like pressing a bruise just to prove it still hurt.

  Another laugh bubbled up in my chest. I swallowed it this time, though it escaped anyway as a small breathless giggle.

  Gods, is this what it was like to be drunk? Was I… blood-drunk? I giggled again, then suddenly hiccupped. Now, that was funny.

  My gaze dropped slowly to my hands again. The sleeves of my shirt were soaked dark nearly to the elbows. Something clung to the fabric there, stiff and tacky. I frowned down at it, trying to remember.

  Faces flittered across my thoughts. A man shouting. Someone praying. Another voice begging in a language I didn’t quite recognize. The memories slipped through my fingers like smoke when I tried to hold them.

  I pushed myself away from the railing and staggered a step toward the tower. My body moved easily enough, but my thoughts lagged behind, slow and hazy.

  Father had told me to feed. The thought felt warm and comfortable in my mind, like settling into a chair that had always belonged to me. Feed until I was full. Until the moment came. He loved me. And I had done what I was told. I had done that. I had done exactly what he asked.

  Until I couldn’t anymore.

  Only… With this cloak, I could, couldn’t I?

  I put my wings away. Then I summoned them again. No one would see, and I could feed again. How many times had I done that?

  Another laugh escaped me, softer, but still uncontrolled.. I covered my mouth with the back of my hand and tasted blood on my skin.

  Gods. There had been so much of it. Until my trick didn’t help anymore. Until I was too bloated to drink another drop.

  “...Mirela?”

  The voice drifted across the bridge, and it just took such a long time to reach me. I turned slowly. Nadine stood in the archway leading from the tower, one hand braced against the stone as she stared at me. Her hair was still loose from sleep, her expression caught somewhere between confusion and concern. For a moment neither of us spoke.

  Her gaze dropped to my sleeves. Then to my hands. Then to the dark stains splashed across the front of my cloak.

  “Mirela,” she said again, more sharply this time. “What happened?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but a laugh came out instead. I tried to stop it, but that only made it worse. The sound doubled over on itself until I had to brace a hand against the railing to keep my balance.

  “Daddy made me clean up the dungeons,” I managed through the laughter.

  The words felt incredibly funny for reasons I couldn’t quite explain. Nadine didn’t laugh, though, and her expression went very still.

  “Don’t call him that,” she said quietly.

  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, still smiling despite myself.

  “What?” I said, hiccupping once. “Oh. It is a silly word, isn’t it?”

  She took a step closer and stopped abruptly, wrinkling her nose.

  “Oh gods,” she whispered.

  Only then did I notice the smell myself. Blood—the scent clung to me like a second skin.

  Behind Nadine, the tower door opened again and Maeyke stepped out onto the bridge, one hand still holding the door as her gaze lifted toward us.

  Her eyes widened instantly.

  “My lady—“

  She didn’t finish the sentence. Her gaze snapped upward toward the eastern sky where the rising sun had finally cleared the distant mountains. The light struck the bridge, and then it struck me.

  Maeyke’s face went white.

  “Mirela!”

  She rushed forward with a speed I had rarely seen from her, grabbing my arm and pulling me sharply toward the shadow of the tower wall.

  “You must get out of the sun!”

  I blinked at her. “Why?”

  She froze, and her eyes moved slowly from the sunlight falling across my shoulders to my face, then back again. Nothing was burning. Nothing was smoking.

  The silence stretched for several long seconds, and Maeyke’s grip on my arm loosened.

  “That…” she said slowly. “That isn’t right. It’s not possible.”

  I looked down at the light touching my hands.

  “Oh.”

  Right. That was supposed to hurt.

  “Ouch?” I said, unconvincingly.

  I pulled my cloak a little tighter around myself, suddenly aware I had made a mistake.

  “I forgot that was supposed to be a secret.” I muttered.

  Nadine shook her head in confusion. “What? You’re not making any sense, Mirela.”

  I waved vaguely toward the sky. “The sun thing,” I said. “It’s… I haven’t told anyone here.”

  Her eyes widened. “They don’t know?”

  “Apparently,” I said. That seemed like the correct answer.

  My legs suddenly felt very heavy. The stone beneath my boots tilted sideways in a slow, lazy motion that I found deeply unfair.

  “Oh.” I leaned harder against the railing. “That’s new.”

  Nadine reached me just as my knees gave out. Her hands caught my shoulders, steadying me before I could slide all the way to the ground.

  “Mirela,” she said sharply. “Stay with me.”

  I tried. Really. But the world had begun to feel distant again, the sounds around me stretching out like they were traveling through water.

  “I’m fine,” I murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  My stomach shifted unpleasantly. It was incredibly strange. I corrected my earlier musings: I had never felt too full before.

  “Just tired,” I added faintly.

  Maeyke knelt beside us, her expression still caught somewhere between alarm and disbelief.

  “My lady,” she said carefully, “exactly how much did you feed?”

  I considered the question. The answer seemed obvious.

  “All of them,“ I said with a snort. “Maybe.”

  Nadine almost stumbled.

  “All of who?” she asked.

  I frowned slightly, trying to remember.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “The dungeons,” I said. Another giggle escaped before I could stop it. “Father said I should find the strongest ones... I think I ate an elf.”

  The last thing I saw before the darkness finally took me was Nadine’s face. She looked like she wanted to burn the entire castle down.

  I woke in darkness. For a few seconds I didn’t know where I was. The ceiling above me was a dim shape broken only by the faint glow of a drifting wisp light near the far wall. The mattress beneath me was far too soft to belong to an inn, and the air carried the quiet stone scent of the castle.

  My room. My mind settled slowly as I pushed myself upright. The movement made my head swim, and something heavy shifted unpleasantly inside my stomach. A thick sloshing sensation rolled beneath my ribs, making my throat tighten.

  Gods. I pressed a hand against my ribs and breathed slowly until the nausea faded. Then another thought struck me.

  “Nadine?”

  The room answered with silence. I swung my legs off the bed too quickly and nearly tipped forward when the floor tilted under my feet. The world steadied after a moment, though the strange weight in my stomach shifted again in protest.

  Where was she? A thin thread of panic tugged through my chest. Nadine would not have left. Not after—

  The thought slipped away before I could catch it. Something else pushed into its place instead, a quiet certainty that didn’t quite feel like my own. I should be doing something.

  I frowned, trying to remember what that was. The answer slid easily into place.

  Feed until you are full. Until the moment comes. Until your blood is ready to evolve.

  My stomach twisted again. That didn’t make sense. I was full—so full I thought I might be sick. Yet the hunger was there too, gnawing at the edges of my thoughts like a rat behind the walls.

  The dungeons.

  The thought hit me with a sudden, sharp urgency. There were still prisoners there. Strong ones. Father had said… and I was so hungry.

  I pushed the thought aside and reached for the door. I would find Nadine first. She would understand. And the dungeons, I could find her on the way.

  Outside my room, the tower was quiet, the others nowhere to be seen. I had barely taken two steps when the door across from mine opened.

  Maeyke stepped out first, Nadine just behind her. Relief flooded through me so suddenly my knees nearly buckled.

  “There you are,” I said, already turning toward the stairs.

  Maeyke caught my arm immediately.

  “My lady,” she said sharply.

  I blinked at her. “What?”

  “You are not leaving this room dressed like that.”

  I glanced down at myself. My night shirt hung loosely around my knees, the hem twisted where I must have turned in my sleep.

  “Right.”

  “We have guests in the castle,” Maeyke continued firmly. “You will not wander the halls half dressed.”

  That seemed like a very strange concern.

  “I need to go to the dungeons,” I said.

  Nadine’s expression hardened instantly. “You just woke up. Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To feed.”

  The words left my mouth before I could stop them, leaving the room in silence.

  Nadine stared at me. “How could you possibly want to feed? Mirela, you’re practically sloshing when you walk!”

  I shook my head impatiently. “I’m hungry.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. My stomach lurched again in protest, the weight of it threatening to climb up my throat. But the hunger was there all the same—painful, insistent, clawing at the edges of my thoughts.

  I stepped toward the stairs.

  Nadine moved in front of me. “Mirela.”

  “I’ll be quick.”

  “You are not going anywhere.”

  Her voice had dropped into the tone she used when arguing with stubborn merchants or guards.

  “I need to go.”

  “Mirela—“

  “Father said—“ I began… but it was me who was hungry, wasn’t it? Did it matter?

  Behind Nadine, Coralie rushed out of my room holding my cloak. “My lady, you forgot—“

  I pushed past them. “I don’t need it.”

  “Mirela!”

  Nadine grabbed my arm. I pulled away, the hallway spinning slightly as my wings shifted behind me, half unfolding while I tried to keep my balance.

  “I just need—“

  The slap cracked through the corridor like thunder.

  My head snapped sideways, and for a moment the world went white. Then my stomach lurched violently. I doubled over, barely catching myself on the wall before I could collapse.

  “Oh gods—“ The nausea surged up hard enough to blur my vision. I gagged once, fighting it down.

  “Mirela,” Nadine said breathlessly. “Look at me.”

  I tried, but my thoughts were suddenly full of noise.

  Chains hanging from the ceiling. Iron biting into wrists. A man suspended in rusted shackles, swaying slightly as he struggled to lift his head.

  “Please,” someone had said.

  Another voice had cut through the dark.

  “Wait… you’re the girl from the guild.” A dog barking somewhere far away. “You’re the one who brought him back, right?”

  Then the screaming started. Steel flashing in torchlight. Blood spilling across stone floors already stained dark with it. Someone begging. Someone whispering a prayer.

  “Make it quick.”

  The memories snapped away before I could hold them.

  I stared down at my hands. They were clean now, but I remembered the blood. So much of it. The weight in my stomach shifted again, and understanding crept in slowly, like cracks spreading through ice.

  “Oh.” My voice came out very small.

  Nadine was still holding my shoulders.

  “Mirela,” she said softly.

  “I…”

  The words wouldn’t come. The dungeons. The prisoners. All of them.

  “That’s not…” The dream broke all at once, and I met Nadine’s eyes. “Why did I do that?”

  For a moment, no one spoke. The hallway seemed suddenly too quiet, the castle holding its breath around us. My stomach twisted again, and I pressed a hand against it as if that might somehow hold the memories back inside.

  “I didn’t…” My voice faltered. “I didn’t mean to.”

  Nadine didn’t answer right away. Her hands were still on my shoulders, gripping just hard enough that I could feel the tremor in them.

  “What happened, Mirela?” she asked quietly.

  The question slipped past the haze in my mind before I had time to think about it.

  “He said I should feed,” I murmured. “Find the strongest ones. Drink until I was full.”

  The words sounded reasonable when I said them aloud. Obvious, even.

  “Until the moment came,” I added faintly. “I need to evolve.”

  Maeyke’s expression changed, and I could see understanding in her eyes.

  Nadine’s grip tightened. “He wouldn’t let you stop?”

  I shook my head slowly. “I did stop.”

  The protest sounded weak even to me.

  “I stopped when I couldn’t drink anymore,” I said. “I was too full.” My stomach lurched again as if agreeing.

  Maeyke closed her eyes briefly, but Nadine stared at me as if she had just been handed the final piece of a puzzle she desperately didn’t want to solve.

  “Oh gods,” she whispered.

  “What?” I asked.

  Her hands slid from my shoulders to my arms, steadying me as she searched my face.

  “I’d read about it in stories… I didn’t think it was real. He compelled you, didn’t he?”

  The words landed like a stone dropped into still water.

  “No,” I said automatically, but the answer didn’t feel right. The memory of my father’s voice slid through my thoughts again, smooth and calm and certain.

  You should find the strongest among them.

  Feed until you are full.

  I swallowed, fighting down the urge to continue to the stairs.

  “He wouldn’t—“

  “Yes,” Nadine said sharply. The word snapped through the room hard enough that even Maeyke flinched.

  “Yes, he would.” Her voice had changed. The quiet concern was gone, replaced by something hotter and far less controlled.

  “He pointed you at a room full of prisoners and told you to drain them dry,” she said. “What exactly did you think he expected to happen?”

  “I…” I faltered. That had seemed clear before. Now it didn’t.

  Nadine took a step back from me, running a hand through her hair as if trying to physically shake the thought loose from her head.

  “That bastard,” she breathed.

  Maeyke’s eyes snapped toward her. “My lady—“

  “No,” Nadine said, rounding on her. “Don’t you dare defend him.”

  “I was not—“

  “She came back here terrified she’d made a mistake,” Nadine snapped, gesturing toward me. “She thought he was angry at her. She thought she’d disappointed him.” The words echoed off the stone walls. “And instead of welcoming her home, he sends her down there,” she continued, her voice rising. “Into a dungeon full of chained prisoners, and a command she can’t refuse.”

  The last words came out sharp and bitter.

  Maeyke looked stricken.

  “My lady, Lord Dragomir would never—“

  “He already did,” Nadine said.

  Silence fell again.

  I leaned back against the wall, trying to steady the spinning in my head. The pieces of the night were still sliding together in ways I didn’t want to see too clearly.

  Father’s voice.

  The dungeon doors opening.

  The smell of blood.

  The certainty that what I was doing was right.

  My stomach churned.

  “I… was supposed to go back,” I whispered.

  Both of them looked at me.

  “The dungeons,” I said. “When I woke up, I was supposed to feed.” The hunger stirred as if the thought itself had teeth, and I squeezed my eyes shut. “It’s still there. I still feel it.”

  Nadine grabbed my hand and squeezed it, hard. Then, very slowly, her expression hardened into something cold and furious.

  “He’s been doing this to you,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell her this was the first time. But how would I know? If Nadine hadn’t dragged me back, would I have stopped on my own? Or realized something was wrong afterward? For an instant, I thought maybe I would. And that instant died as my own enthusiasm to follow that order resurfaced in my mind with terrifying clarity.

  How many times had I done that?

  “It wasn’t completely his fault,” I said quietly.

  I tilted my wings forward beside myself and ran my fingers along the feathers, smoothing one that had bent out of place. It gave my hands something to focus on besides the memory clawing at the back of my mind.

  “I followed the command,” I added after a moment. “Once I started feeding, the rest was… easy.” I kept my attention fixed stubbornly on the feathers instead of looking at Nadine.

  Nadine stared at me as if I had just said something deeply offensive.

  “Mirela—“

  “Why don’t we just leave?”

  Coralie’s voice cut across the room, small but surprisingly firm. All three of us turned toward her. She still held my cloak clutched against her chest, looking from one face to the other as if she had missed the part of the conversation that made everything so complicated.

  “If it’s dangerous here,” she said, “why don’t we just go?”

  “Escape,” Nadine corrected automatically.

  Coralie blinked. “What?”

  “We wouldn’t be leaving,” Nadine said. “We’d be escaping.”

  Maeyke exhaled softly, the sound almost lost in the stone corridor. “There is no escape from this castle,” she said calmly. “This place was not built to let its guests wander away whenever they please, and Lord Dragomir does not tolerate betrayal lightly.”

  A sudden bite of hunger tore at me, guiding my mind back and reminding me that I had somewhere important to be. I needed to move, to get to the dungeons. I needed to drink down the life force of everyone in my path. I needed to evolve.

  I pressed my hand against the wall to steady myself. “It’s still there,” I said. “Its pushing on my mind.”

  All three of them looked back at me.

  “It’s weaker than before,” I continued, working through what I was feeling. “But it hasn’t gone away.” The thought of the prisoners below stirred something inside my mind that felt almost like an itch. I swallowed. “It’s fading, but slowly. I think it might take days.”

  Nadine’s whole frame tensed. “We’re not letting you go back down there.”

  I shook my head. “If I don’t, he might know.” The words tasted bitter.

  The room fell quiet again. I pushed myself upright and forced my thoughts back into something resembling order.

  “He told me something else,” I said.

  Nadine’s attention sharpened instantly. “What?”

  “The curse in Valoria,” I said. “He knows about it. He said it can be broken. The people trapped in stone could be saved.”

  That caught Maeyke’s attention as well. “I’ve heard about this. I am certain we could find the solution in the library.”

  “Yes,” I continued, “so if we want to learn how, we need time.” The hunger stirred again, but this time it had to compete with my building resolve.

  Nadine studied my face for a long moment. “You’re saying you’re going to keep doing what he told you to do.”

  “Yes.” The word came out before I could soften it. “I am not ashamed of feeding, but I am uncomfortable with being wasteful.”

  The memories of the dungeon flickered behind my eyes again. Chains. Iron bars. People who had no chance to fight back.

  I took a slow breath. “They will die regardless of what I do. But if their deaths buy us time to save our family… and I suppose the rest of the city…” I let the sentence trail off.

  Maeyke watched me carefully. “What would you have me do, my lady?”

  “Listen,” I said.

  Her brow furrowed slightly.

  “In the castle,” I clarified. “To the revenants and servants. The others of the Coven, if you see them. If Father speaks about this again, or if anyone mentions why he gave that command, try to learn what he’s planning.”

  Maeyke inclined her head. “I will listen.”

  I hesitated before forcing the next question out.

  “And… if you can, tell me whether he’s done this before.”

  Maeyke met eyes, and I searched hers. For a moment, I thought she might answer.

  Instead, she folded her hands together and lowered her gaze. “I will keep my ears open,” she said carefully. “If there is anything to learn, I will bring it to you.”

  Which was not an answer at all. Or maybe more of an answer than I ever wanted to hear.

  I let out a slow breath and glanced down at my wings again. “They should probably go away,” I muttered.

  Nadine frowned. “What?”

  “If anyone sees them—“

  I drew the feathers inward. The moment they vanished, the nausea hit me like a hammer. I doubled over with almost no warning as my stomach convulsed violently. Dark liquid splashed across the stone floor in a thick, horrible torrent, and then, more followed. Far more than should have been possible.

  The smell hit a second later. Blood, but something about it was wrong. The liquid pooled across the floor in sluggish black streams, dull and lifeless. There was no warmth to it, and more importantly, no vitality or magic.

  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and stared at the mess in stunned silence.

  “That… that is too much blood to fit in any one person,” Nadine said, covering her mouth.

  “It is,” I said hoarsely. Seeing the dead, empty blood finally helped me understand why I’d been so bloated. “I wasn’t absorbing it fast enough.” I looked down at the black blood again. “But I was still taking the life from it. No wonder I felt sick.”

  That realization sent a chill down my spine. My stomach twisted again, but this time it wasn’t from fullness. It was hunger—Real hunger, made worse by the lingering compulsion.

  I grimaced. “That made it worse.”

  Nadine looked alarmed. “What did?”

  “Putting my wings away. It’s getting easier every time, but the cost…”

  The hunger clawed harder at the inside of my ribs. I couldn’t tell where Father’s command ended and reality began. I straightened slowly and saw Maeyke was already ushering Coralie away from the spreading black pool across the stone.

  “We will go to the library,” she said calmly. “There are texts there that may speak of this curse. And the other revenants may have heard rumors worth considering.”

  Nadine hesitated, clearly reluctant to leave me alone.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said quietly.

  The hunger pulsed again.

  “I know where I need to go.”