Chapter 3

Isabeau's necklace went missing. It was a keepsake from Kazimir's late mother.

Kazimir searched half the castle with his guards, and the search ended at my door. The corridor filled with vampire nobles who had come running at the news.

A guard lifted my mattress. The necklace was underneath.

A gasp ran through the crowd.

"I knew it was her."

"A half-elf. Blood always tells."

"His Highness kept her alive for a hundred years. Mercy wasted."

"What do you have to say for yourself now?" Kazimir hurled the necklace at my face.

The pendant cut my cheek open. A bead of blood dripped onto the chain. I didn't wipe it away.

"I didn't take it." A statement of fact, nothing more.

"Who else would set foot in Isabeau's room?" He sneered. "Elowen, you are vicious to the bone."

"My door has never had a lock." I looked at him. "Anyone in this castle could slip anything they liked under my mattress."

I paused.

"Including her."

The corridor went dead silent.

Isabeau's eyes reddened instantly, and she shrank half a step behind Kazimir. "Kazimir, I... I have never wished Elowen any harm..."

"Shut your mouth."

It was me he silenced.

He closed in step by step, eyes burning red. "Even now, you'd drag Isabeau down with you?"

I looked at him.

A hundred years. No matter what happened, his first instinct was always to find me guilty. Evidence in front of his eyes changed nothing. The truth said out loud changed nothing.

"Think what you like." I lowered my eyes.

"Throw her in the ice prison," Kazimir ordered.

The nobles parted to make way. Behind Kazimir, Isabeau gave me a small, victorious smile.

Just before the guards dragged me out the door, I spotted Oswin at the very edge of the crowd. I pressed the thing I'd been clutching all this time into his hand—a brass key. The key to the bottom drawer of my desk.

"Leave the castle," I said. "Don't come back."

He opened his mouth. The guards hauled me away.

The ice prison. The place where vampires punish their traitors. The cold in there can freeze a soul.

It was dark inside. The only light came from the ice in the walls, glowing a faint blue. They chained me to an iron rack.

The cold crawled up from the soles of my feet and gnawed at my core, draining what was left of my life faster than ever. A single day in the ice prison burned through several days of my remaining time.

On the first day, a guard tossed in a chunk of stale bread. It rolled across the ice, frozen hard as a rock. I didn't eat it.

On the third day, I coughed up blood. It hit the ice and turned instantly to black frost—the sign of a core burning out.

Seven days left.

I was so cold I could no longer feel my hands or feet. I closed my eyes, and a memory from a hundred years ago surfaced. Back then, Kazimir would gather me out of the snow and hold me against his chest. He'd say, "Elowen, I will always protect you."

Too late. All of it, far too late.

On the fifth day, the door of the ice prison opened.

It wasn't Kazimir.

Isabeau stopped three steps away from me. "I sent the guards off," she said. "Let's speak honestly for once."

I said nothing.

"I planted the necklace. He didn't ask a single question—just took his men straight to your room."

She watched my face, waiting for a reaction.

I gave her one.

"You cry in front of him and smile in front of me. Isabeau, doesn't it exhaust you?"

Her smile faded. A few seconds later, it came back.

"Exhaust me? Please. No one would ever believe you. You don't even dare protest your own innocence—because the moment you speak the truth, the curse goes back to him. Isn't that right?"

My breath caught. Only one living soul knew that. Oswin.

"Don't look at me like that." Her smile deepened. "I know far more than you think."

She crouched down until we were eye to eye. "Let me tell you something. Last night, all I said was: I don't think I can hold on much longer. And he said: then tomorrow, we take her core."

"One sentence, Elowen. Your blood, your heart's blood, your life—whichever one I want, I only have to ask. Sometimes I don't even have to ask. I frown, and he thinks of you all on his own."

I held her gaze.

"Then you'd better pray my core is clean. You've been drinking my heart's blood for a hundred years. Elven heart's blood holds a grudge—your soul is already coming apart, isn't it?"

Isabeau's smile froze. This time, for more than an instant.

"Which is exactly why I need your core." She rose to her feet, and her voice went cold. "See? One sentence. That's all it takes."

At the door, she turned back. "Care to guess whether he knows that taking your core will kill you?"

"He knows."

The door closed.

Silence settled over the ice prison again. I stared at the glowing blue wall for a long time.

Then I bit my finger open.

The blood that welled from my fingertip was black. Heart's blood. Every stroke I drew with it would cost me another slice of my life.

With my blackened fingertip, I drew the first line on the ice wall. My vision went dark for a moment. I didn't know how many days this spell would burn away.

Let it burn. After tomorrow, I wouldn't need them anyway.

Stroke by stroke, the black blood spread across the ice and began to give off a faint green light. It was a forbidden elven spell—an unbinding circle.

When a vampire and an elf marry, their souls are bound together, to live and die as one. I was going to break that bond. I didn't want to be tied to him in any way, not even in death.

When the last stroke was done, the strength went out of me, and I collapsed onto the ice. I looked at the marks on the wall and smiled, just a little.

The lock rattled.

Kazimir walked in.