Chapter 1

Three o’clock in the morning, when darkness clung to the castle like a curse. The iron door of the cellar was kicked open with a harsh, echoing crash that shattered the dead silence.

Guards hauled me roughly to my feet, their blows landing sharp and unforgiving across my face—each slap a dull crack, until the corner of my mouth split, blood oozing sluggishly down my chin. Only then did the cruelty stop.

Lazarus’s personal attendant seized my legs, dragging me across the cold stone floor, his curses venomous and bitter, hanging thick in the stagnant air.

“Isolde is hurt, you lowly thing—how dare you sleep soundly while she suffers!”

The castle’s wind sliced through the corridors, carrying the acrid stench of rust and old blood, creeping all the way to Lazarus’s chambers. I was hurled roughly at his feet.

Lazarus’s eyes flickered to the blood on me, his brows furrowing as if a flicker of something stirred—but it vanished, leaving only cold indifference.

“Isolde is injured. Heal her.” His voice was cold, carrying the command of a vampire lord who had never been denied.

Crack—

He loomed over me, his shadow swallowing me whole, voice sharp with disdain. “I told you to heal her. Do you think you’re worthy to even glance at her?”

I bowed my head at once.

“My apologies.” My voice was a hoarse, hollow whisper, stripped of all pride.

I crawled on hands and knees to the bedside, and only then saw the truth: Isolde had merely teased piranhas late at night, her fingertip bitten lightly. All these years, every injury, every cruelty from her, had been deliberate.

Numbly, I pulled open my garment and tore fresh blood from my chest. Vampire medicine had long since learned to feed on merfolk life.

In the deathly hush, Lazarus’s voice cut through like shards of ice.

“Aurora, stop your pitiful charade. It means nothing to me.”

In his eyes, every bit of my pain was just a cheap trick to beg for sympathy.

He still thought mermaid blood could heal all wounds—but it no longer could.

Isolde coughed softly and opened her eyes. Lazarus moved at once, pulling her into his arms.

“Does it still hurt ?”

Isolde bit her lip, her gaze glinting with malice as it swept over my bleeding chest.

“Lazarus, since I conceived your child, the scent of blood turns my stomach.”

Before she finished, Lazarus kicked me hard, sending me sprawling.

“Get out. Don’t sully her eyes with your presence.”

I struggled to crawl outward, and behind me, his voice softened— a tenderness he never once offered me, thick with hypocrisy.

A maid appeared, carrying a bucket of putrid holy water, and poured it over my head without mercy, her face twisted in revulsion.

“Lowly siren—aren’t you supposed to heal? Why do you still bleed? Disgusting filth.”

A mop crashed down on my forehead, and I trembled violently, pain searing through my skull.

“Clean this floor until it shines, or I’ll tell the lord—and you’ll regret it.”

For the rest of the night, I knelt on the freezing stone floor, wiping it clean. The ambiguous sounds from the chamber echoed around me, and a single tear fell silently, vanishing into the cold stone.

Soon. Soon I would be free. Even an immortal mermaid could die. Only three days left.