I could see it now. Feel it. The rot that stalked the halls in a cool caress. The soulless stone that harbored copious ghosts of those who’d met untimely and unjust deaths.

A curse, my father had always claimed, one he’d never wanted us exposed to. While my mother had always harbored a fear that the king had been ashamed of us. Over time, as more people met their ends and the news of burning towns and villages arrived in warnings delivered by the breeze, she came to learn his intentions were honorable.

I’d never known what to believe.

Not until a knife was taken to my face upon the sand of Nodoya’s coastline.

I’d lost an eye that night, but I’d never seen clearer since.

“Let us say they do have opinions, Doral,” I said casually. “Then I would think my father’s would have only grown in conviction. This place is nothing but a cursed wasteland of spreading poison.”

The warrior stilled. “You remember me.”

“I remember everything,” I said, rising and kicking open the door to my cell.

Doral advanced in a heartbeat, only to be met by my fists at his coat collar.

“So…” I tightened my grip as I said through my teeth, “You can either try to stop me and join the ghosts trapped within this putrid shithole, or you can go and take a piss and simply fail to comprehend how the fuck I managed to slip past your excellent observation skills.”

His bright blue eyes narrowed to slits, his body vibrating with the need to change. “I didn’t know what Rorn would do to you and your mother. Helvectus was my friend.”

“A friend you failed. You let that pompous excuse for a king drag his mate from this very dungeon right before your pretty eyes, and you did nothing.”

His teeth gnashed, said eyes shining with both anger and regret. “I didn’t think he would have her killed.”

We both knew he wouldn’t have been able to stop it even if he had known—therefore, he wouldn’t have even tried. “Go take a piss,” I reiterated softly. “I’ll be back before anyone knows I was gone.”

“With the exception of the queen,” he said, a brow rising. “Right?”

I released him and brushed the leather lapels of his coat. “I’d mind your fucking business if I were you, Doral.”

I could have stood there and watched her sleep until the sky lightened with the incoming dawn, if it weren’t for the way she tossed and turned upon the chaise.

A damp sheen coated Aster’s forehead. Her lips parted and closed and twisted as though wherever she’d gone in her dreams, it was just as stressful as the world she’d briefly left behind.