“Ana,” I said, my vision blurred with tears. I wanted to touch her face, but I knew I would only hurt her, so I reached for her hands instead. They were bruised, her nails broken. “What happened?”

She tried to speak, but every time she started to open her mouth, a violent sob burst from her throat. I waited as she navigated this vicious cycle, and the more I watched, the more I wanted to carve out my own heart just so I would not have to feel the pain of it breaking.

“King Dragos keeps a pleasure house in the dungeon of the Red Palace,” she explained. “He says it is for his lords, says they will perform better if they have a place to spill their seed.”

She spoke with her bloody teeth clenched, her disgust barely contained.

“The lords are free to go any time so long as they bring a new boy or girl every month. They have kidnapped hundreds, and I have only helped a few escape, but tonight as I was trying to free a girl, I was caught.”

Her voice broke and she shook, tears streaming down her face. She pulled her hands from mine and started to wipe her face, but I stopped her.

That only seemed to make her cry harder.

“They raped me,” she whispered and then spoke through her teeth again, shaking with hate. “Every. Lord.”

Tears spilled down my cheeks. I had no words.

There was no comfort for this—not even in revenge—because trauma was a nightmare that clung to its victims with an iron fist.

“Then they killed her,” she said, and then she wailed. “They killed her because of me.”

She collapsed in my arms, and I held her and cried with her until neither of us had anything left but rage.

Nineteen

Isolde

I woke up crying.

At first it was because of my memory of Ana, and then I cried for myself.

Adrian lay beside me, and I turned into him, burying my face in his chest, weeping harder. He held me gently and whispered love to me while he kissed my hair.

It took me a while to speak, to form words beyond the sobs wracking my body, and I held onto Adrian harder, almost as if I feared someone would tear me away from him.

I don’t know how long I cried, but what brought words to my lips was the realization that I still wore Violeta’s necklace.

“How is Ana?…Violeta?”

When Adrian spoke, his voice was quiet, warm, and pained. “Ana is healed but she has not woken up yet.”

“And Violeta?”

He was quiet and I shifted to meet his gaze. “Adrian.” My voice trembled. “How is Violeta?”

He looked far more pale than usual, and he swallowed before he spoke, the words escaping his colorless lips in a whisper. “She didn’t make it.”

I shook my head. “She had to have.”