Chapter 26

(Elouera’s POV)

The smell of blood in a narrow stone corridor never really leaves the back of your throat. It settles into the roof of your mouth like old copper, thick and sweet and suffocating.

I stood still on the spiral stairs. My bare feet were freezing against the cold stone.

I could hardly breathe.

Holden stood only a few steps away from me. His leather-gloved hand was still reaching toward me.

Black ash from Bram’s burned letter slowly fell through the pale moonlight.

It landed on Pip’s torn, dirty tunic.And this time, you will swallow it yourself.

The Archduke’s words didn't sound like a threat. They were delivered with the soft, horrifying gentleness of a father putting a feverish child back to bed. That was what made my stomach turn over in a violent, icy wave.

"Get away from me," I gasped out. The words didn't carry the weight of the Weaver. They came out small, ragged, and stripped bare the voice of a terrified boy cornered in a dark hallway.

Holden tilted his head, his amber-green eyes reflecting the tiny, dying ember of the burning paper. "You're bleeding through your bandages again, Elouera. Your chest is rattling. You can barely keep your knees from buckling." He took another slow, deliberate step forward, his polished riding boot stepping directly into the pool of dark blood creeping out from Pip’s neck. He didn't even glance down. "You have fought so hard for so many years. Aren't you tired? Wouldn't it be easier to simply... let go?"

A terrible, suffocating weight pressed down on my ribs.

Every instinct honed over five years of living as a phantom in the imperial court screamed at me to draw the silver stiletto lying three inches from my toes, to drive it through his throat before he could draw another breath. But my muscles refused to obey. The Night-bloom already in my system was a leaden fog in my blood, pulling at my limbs, slowing my heart to a dull, sluggish thud.

He was right. I was so utterly, impossibly tired.

"The third dose," I whispered, my voice shaking so violently my teeth clicked together. "You killed him... just to make sure I had no way out."

"I killed him because he was a rat carrying garbage into my house," Holden said smoothly. He reached into his coat pocket, his long fingers emerging with a small, velvet-lined silver box. He flicked the latch open with his thumb.

Inside sat a single, pitch-black pill. Dull. Oily. Absorbing the weak candlelight.

"You are going to take this," Holden murmured, his tone dripping with fake tender pity. "And by tomorrow morning, the strange, rebellious thoughts in your head will begin to quiet down. You won't feel the heat anymore. You won't care about the succession, or the Weaver, or the crown. You will be safe, my dear. Safe under my care."

He raised his hand, reaching out to grab my chin, to force my jaw open just as he had done in his study two weeks ago.

The memory of that violent violation slammed into my chest like a physical blow.

No.

A surge of wild, feral adrenaline tore through the drug-induced fog in my brain. I didn't reach for the dagger. I dropped my shoulder, lunging sideways with every fraction of strength left in my broken body, slamming my weight directly into the high stone arch of the servant's doorway.

The heavy oak door swung shut with a deafening, thunderous CRACK.

I slapped the iron bolt home, my hands slick with sweat and Pip's blood, before throwing my shoulder against the timber.

On the other side, there was no loud impact, no furious pounding. Just a single, low chuckle from Holden that bled straight through the thick oak.

"Locking the door won't change the sunrise, Elouera," his voice came through the wood, muffled and terribly calm. "You have until dawn before the guard turns over. Where will you run? Who will you turn to? The Crown Prince, who wants to lock you in an iron cage? Stirling Vance, who is being shipped to the northern border in three days? Or Commander Jace, who spent his evening examining the body you left in the Sinks?"

He paused, letting the silence hang in the air like a noose.

"You are entirely alone, little bird. And the palace is a very small cage."

His footsteps slowly retreated down the stone stairs, clack... clack... clack, until the quiet swallowed them whole.

I slid down the back of the door, my knees giving out completely, my bare legs sprawling across the cold floorboards of my dressing room. I buried my face in my blood-stained hands, a dry, silent convulsion racking my body.

Alone.

The word echoed in the empty, dark room, stripping away the last remaining layers of my resolve.

Holden was telling the truth. The fragile web of lies I had spent years spinning had completely collapsed. Callan saw me as a rival to be crushed or a secret to be possessed. Stirling looked at me with a desperate, terrifying hunger that belonged to a man drowning, but he was bound for the frozen waste of the north. And Jace... Jace had seen the corpse in the steam. He had seen the surgical precision of the Weaver, and he was likely searching the castle grounds right now with a squad of imperial guards, ready to expose the prince as a monster.

There was no shadow left to hide in. There was no ally waiting in the dark.

I dragged myself up from the floor, using the edge of my dressing table to pull my shaking frame upright. I looked into the cracked glass of the mirror resting on the mahogany surface.

The reflection looking back at me wasn't Prince Elian. It wasn't the Weaver. It was a dying girl with hollow, shadowed eyes, hair damp with sweat, and a face as pale as a corpse. Spreading upward from beneath the collar of my nightshirt, dark, web-like veins were clawing their way toward my jawline, black as ink beneath my skin.

The poison was moving faster.

I grabbed a clean wool tunic from the wardrobe, pulling it over my head with frantic, clumsier-than-usual movements. I strapped my leather boots tight, ignoring the sharp, biting agony in my fractured rib. If I stayed in these rooms until sunrise, Holden would simply return with a dozen guards, break the door down, and force the third pill down my throat.

I had to move. I had to disappear into the lower city before the palace gates locked for the dawn muster.

I stepped out of the dressing alcove into the main bedchamber, reaching for the heavy wool cloak I had tossed onto the settee.

I froze.

The balcony doors were wide open. The midnight wind was howling into the room, snapping the heavy velvet drapes back and forth like wild black wings.

Standing in the center of my bedchamber, bathed in the icy moonlight, was a figure draped in a long, dark traveling cloak.

My hand shot to my waist, but my sheath was empty. I had left my stiletto on the stairwell beside Pip's body.

"Who's there?" I rasped, my throat raw, taking a step backward toward the servant's door I had just locked.

The figure slowly pulled down their hood.

In the dim light, two glowing, strike-gold eyes locked onto mine. The scent that flooded the room wasn't the heavy cedar of Stirling or the frost of Callan. It was the sharp, dangerous, metallic tang of crushed pine needles and fresh lightning.

It was Duchess Vespera, the ruthless architect of the Northern House, the woman Stirling was being forced to marry.

She looked at my heaving chest, her golden eyes drifting slowly down to the dark, black veins spidering up my neck. A cold, terrifying smile slowly spread across her lips.

"So," Vespera murmured, her voice like velvet dragged across glass. "The rumors from the Under-Market were true. The little prince isn't a prince at all... and you're already dying."