Chapter 2

I found a rag, knelt down, and wiped the blood from the carpet, inch by inch. It had soaked in deep and didn't want to come out. The puncture was still bleeding, and the hand I pressed against it wouldn't stop shaking.

Kazimir left Isabeau's bedside and crouched down in front of me. He reached out—toward my bleeding arm.

My body froze before my mind could. A hundred years ago, he had crouched down exactly like this to bandage my arm, after the brambles tore it open on a hunt.

His hand passed right over the wound. He gripped my wrist and ground the rag—and my hand with it—into the bloodstain.

"Scrub harder. If it isn't spotless, you kneel here all night."

He let go and went back to the bed. I lowered my head and kept scrubbing.

Nestled in his arms, Isabeau drank my blood. Color came back into her face. She watched me as she drank, and a flicker of smugness crossed her eyes—too faint for anyone else to catch.

"Kazimir, does Elowen hate me?" she asked sweetly. "Giving me her blood like this... doesn't she resent it?"

"What right does she have to resent anything?" He scoffed. "This is what she owes."

I didn't look up. When the carpet was clean, I took the rag and left.

Back in my own room, I collapsed onto the bed, freezing. I piled every blanket I owned on top of myself and still couldn't stop shivering.

Under my pillow was a small packet of dried edelweiss. Oswin had slipped it there during the day. I held it against my chest.

Twenty-nine days left.

The next day, Isabeau took a sudden turn for the worse. Kazimir kicked my door open again and hauled me up off the bed.

"What did you do to the blood?" he roared.

His hand locked around my throat. I couldn't breathe. "I... didn't."

"Isabeau drank your blood, and now her soul is coming apart!" His eyes burned bright red—the mark of vampire fury.

"It wasn't me." I looked at him, calm.

He flung me to the floor. My head cracked against the bed frame, and something warm trickled down.

"Oswin says ordinary blood is useless now." He stared down at me. "She needs heart's blood."

Heart's blood. For an elf, heart's blood runs straight from the core. Every drop shortens your life.

And my core was already shattered.

"Fine." I braced my hands against the floor and slowly sat up.

Kazimir went still for a beat. He hadn't expected me to agree that fast.

"What are you playing at?" He seized my chin.

"Nothing." I held his gaze. "You're choking a sick woman into draining her own heart for your old flame. Kazimir—between the two of us, I'm not the one playing games."

The fingers on my jaw tightened until the bone creaked.

"As long as I'm not dead," I said, "take all you want."

Something savage flashed through his eyes. He drew a silver knife.

"Strip."

I undid the buttons and bared my chest. There was an old scar there, from a hundred years ago—from the day I took the Abyssal curse for him. He didn't know that. He thought a guard's blade had caught me while I was trying to flee.

His gaze landed on the scar and stopped there for a second. My heart skipped a beat.

"From the guards, when you ran?" He sneered. "A shame they didn't cut deeper."

The knifepoint pressed against my chest.

"This will hurt," he said flatly. "Don't play dead on me."

"Do it."

The blade slid through skin, through muscle, toward the heart. I bit down on my lip and made no sound.

Blood welled up. Dark red, nearly black. Kazimir caught it in a crystal bottle.

One drop. The instant it left my body, I heard my core crack a little further. A drop was three days of my life. I did the math: twenty-six left.

Two drops. Twenty-three.

And when I reached twenty-three, I actually felt relieved.

Almost there.

Then my vision went black. I couldn't hear anything, couldn't feel anything. All I knew was that somewhere inside me, something had finally died for good.

When I woke, the room was empty. The wound on my chest had been rebandaged, dressed with a layer of snow moss. In this whole castle, only Oswin knew elven herbs.

I got out of bed and walked to the mirror. The woman looking back at me had brittle, faded hair and empty eyes.

Isabeau's laughter drifted in from beyond the door. "Kazimir, I feel so much better. The heart's blood really works."

"As long as it works." His voice was warm.

I shut the door on the sound. Then I went to the desk and took out a sheet of parchment.

And I began to write.