Chapter 3

His posture shifted. The arrogance dimmed—just enough to let something else through.

"Elara is sick. A fever that won't break. The healers have tried everything." He paused. "Your Starblood is the only thing potent enough. Three drops. That's all I need."

Three drops. Like he was asking to borrow a horse.

During the war, every time Varen nearly died—and there were many times—I'd cut into my own chest and bled for him. Starblood. The strongest healing substance a Fae can produce, drawn from the veins closest to the heart.

Each extraction left a silver scar that never faded. My chest looked like a cracked mirror—every line a wound he'd taken, mapped onto my skin. One drop takes decades to replenish. I'd given so many that my body nearly collapsed twice. My father's healers spent months putting me back together each time.

All of that for Varen. And now he wanted me to bleed for the woman he'd replaced me with.

"No."

"Liora—"

"I'm not your blood bank. Find another way."

He stared at me like I was the unreasonable one. "It's three drops. I brought compensation—enough enchanted herbs to fill a storehouse. If that's not sufficient, name your price."

Three drops. That's what he called it. Like the scars on my chest were a minor inconvenience. Like decades of recovery were loose change.

"You could empty every vault in the Five Realms and I still wouldn't give you a single drop." I turned to my guards. "Escort the High King out."

They moved. Varen didn't resist, but his voice carried all the way down the corridor. "What will it take? Just tell me!"

I looked over my shoulder. "Abdicate. Give up the crown. Then we'll talk."

His last words before the gates closed: "Three days, Liora. Bring me the Starblood willingly—or I'll come take it myself."

This was the man I loved for three hundred years. Threatening to cut me open for a woman who wasn't even what she pretended to be.

"Then come."

Since taking the throne, Varen had become unrecognizable. He spent every hour with Elara, built her a palace on the backs of forced labor—workers who collapsed on the construction grounds were dragged aside and left to die. Anyone who protested lost a hand. Or a head.

The Realms that bled together to stop the Demons now bled under their own king. And I was done bleeding for him.

On the third day, Varen didn't come.

A messenger did. Shaking. Barely able to get the words out.

Varen had sent soldiers to three Fae border villages. They rounded up every Fae they could find—elders, children, it didn't matter—and bled them dry. Forced Starblood extractions from common bloodlines that were never meant to produce it in quantity.

Common Fae Starblood is a fraction of a royal's potency. To match three drops of mine, they'd had to drain dozens of people.

Many didn't survive.

My hands shook. Not from fear. From the effort of keeping still.

I could have prevented this. Three drops from my chest, and those villagers would still be alive. That thought would sit in me for a long time.

But I knew—I knew—that giving Varen what he wanted only taught him to take more. I'd learned that lesson with my life.

And it started, of course, with Elara.

When she heard Varen had asked me for Starblood, she wept. Pressed her hands to her chest and whispered, "I'd rather die than take anything from Liora. The whole Realm already says I stole her future. If I take her blood too, I'll never hold my head up."

Varen held her close. Promised her he'd find another way.

The "other way" was ripping my people open.

That was the thing about Elara. She never asked for cruelty directly. She just made sure every door led to it—then stood back with clean hands and wet eyes.

Across the Five Realms, the news spread. And with it, rage.