When he offered his arm, my fingers twitched. Revulsion crawled over my skin. I didn’t want to touch him. Contact felt like surrender.
He seized my hand before I could pull away, grip bruising as he forced it into the crook of his elbow. He grimaced, wiping his palm down his trousers after touching me. “Gods, you’re wet with nerves.”
Heat flared across my face. I said nothing.
Egath opened the door. Cool air brushed my flushed cheeks, scented with smoke and something sweet beneath it, like spiced wine. I stepped forward at once, eager for distance, leaving Tallon to follow. Space. I needed space. Needed air. Needed time to think past the thundering in my ears.
There had to be a way to wedge the king of Vellos against Tallon. A fracture I could widen. A weakness I might exploit.
There had to be.
The halls stretched long and dim, torches guttering in iron brackets. Light pooled in uneven patches while shadows swallowed the edges of the corridor, thick and watchful. Laughter drifted from deeper within the palace, mingling with the clink of goblets and the low murmur of conversation. It sounded like any other court in session. No screams. No hush of dread. Joyous, even. Normal.
“I advise you both to watch your tongue,” Egath warned under his breath, gaze forward, jaw tight. “Tallon, don’t forget what you are.”
“That isn’t likely,” he replied, smug satisfaction coating each word.
What he was. Half-Velli. Half-Radaanian. Traitor prince to Radaan. A nightmare made flesh.
Unless he meant something else?
As we strode down the halls, servants melted from our path without a word. No curious stares. No whispered questions. Heads bowed. Shoulders rounded. They folded inward, shrinking as if the air itself punished breadth.
But their necks.
Weak torchlight caught the ruin there, and horror pierced straight through my ribs. Flesh twisted into thick ropes of scar tissue. Jagged seams puckered the skin, ridged and swollen, some still an angry red. Others gray and waxen. Bite marks layered over bite marks, as though their bodies were fields harvested again and again.
The Velli nobles mutilated them, used them as vessels for power.
“Have no fear. I won’t let that happen to you,” Tallon murmured, noticing where my attention lingered.
Revulsion clenched my gut. I sucked in a sharp breath and fixed my gaze on Egath’s boots striking against the floor. Steady. Forward. Anything but those mutilated throats.
The darkness thinned as we turned into a broader corridor. Chandeliers blazed overhead, crystals scattering warm light that flickered across gilded frames. Paintings lined the walls, each steeped in red pigment so thick it seemed wet.
One canvas caught my eye before I could look away. A male Velli draped along a mound of naked female bodies, their limbs limp, skin pale beneath streaks of blood. His expression was languid. Sated. The women looked less like corpses and more like offerings.
Bile burned the back of my throat.
Tallon’s grip tightened, pulling me through an arching doorway before I could fully process the horror.
The throne room swallowed us whole.
Light pooled across every surface, yet the space devoured it. Obsidian walls broken by mahogany beams drank the glow of torches until the flames seemed smaller, weaker. Above, the vaulted ceiling shifted from pitch black to a bruised crimson, as if the stone itself bled upward. A red carpet stretched from the entrance to the dais in a long, narrow strip. It resembled a tongue unfurling toward its master. The throne waited at its end,midnight dark with iron spikes curving up from its back like a predator’s fangs.
The chamber teemed with bodies. A sea of Velli turned at our entrance, the murmur of conversation collapsing into a low ripple. They parted for Egath as he advanced, chin lifted, teeth faintly bared in challenge.
Nobles scattered from his path. Silk rustled. Boots scraped. Whispers slithered across the space.
Then their eyes found me.
Jaws slackened. Not in shock. In hunger.
The fear that drove them from Egath dissolved, replaced by something ravenous. They pressed closer, nostrils flaring, mouths parting to reveal sharpened teeth. A woman with glossy dark hair reached toward me, fingers elegant, nails lacquered crimson. Saliva gathered at the corner of her lips, catching the light before slipping down her chin.
My pulse spiked. I edged closer to Tallon despite myself.
“Easy,” he said with a soft chuckle, arm circling my waist.
