I think I blacked out mentally.

One moment I was talking to Larkin on the phone.

The next a car was picking us up from the jet and the humidity was gone and the landscape was familiar. Security from the House of Valdez was swarming.

I blinked, looking around.

All the faces were solemn. Alivia. Ian. Eshan was totally stark white.

Did I tell them all? Did we talk about it? Do they know?

I snap into myself as we turn down our street. Everything comes crashing in as my childhood home comes into view. The red brick. The driveway where I used to draw pictures with chalk. The grass I started mowing when I was twelve.

I think they were actually looking for you, Sevan. And now they’re trying to draw you back.

Darkness gathers in my chest as we park at the curb. Black ink spreads through my veins. A thunderstorm rolls in through my brain.

I open the door and stalk across the grass. I shove the door open with enough force to crack the doorframe.

But my determination depletes as I see the blood.

A smear of it goes from the front door, through the living room, around the corner. Just past the corner, I see my father’s wheelchair turned over.

“No,” I breathe in horror.

I slowly step forward. Through the living room. I turn that corner.

So much blood.

It’s smeared all over the kitchen. A bloody handprint is on the pantry door. Track marks from the wheelchair cut through streaks of red.

This was an animal.

They played with my parents.

They toyed with them like mice.

I turn when I hear sound.

“Eshan, no!” I yell, holding a hand out to stop him from seeing it all.

But his eyes are wide, looking around in horror.

“No, no,” he says, his lips quivering. “Where are they? Where’s mom and dad?”

I pull him into my chest, which is difficult considering he’s inches taller than I am. “I will deal with this,” I promise him. “I will make them pay.”

From the basement, I hear Larkin call my name.

My eyes ignite and I feel my fangs lengthen. Ian and Alivia hesitantly step inside, taking in the carnage. “Stay with them,” I tell Eshan, pushing him toward Alivia.

I can feel the power ripple through me. The strength of the rhino. The speed of the cheetah, the stalking abilities of the jaguar. It flows through me, created by Cyrus so, so long ago.

I open the door leading down, and step onto that first stair.

I smell it.

Their fear.

It’s intoxicating. My blood sings for theirs, to spill every drop of it, to see it wasted into the dirt.

I step off the stairs and turn into the dim light of the unfinished basement.

Larkin did me proud.

He holds them captive.

A huge stake is driven through each of their wrists, through their ankles, and one through their stomachs, nailing them to the wooden studs behind them. Blood is pooled on the ground beneath them, some dark and congealed, some fresh and wet.

But the moment I see their faces, I feel the fear and the past slammes into me with the force of an avalanche.

---

Waking in the absolute dark with nearly no air was terrifying.

Using the strength I didn’t know why I had, to fight my way through the wooden box was terrifying.

Having a crushing force of dirt collapse in on my face was terrifying.

Digging my way through that dirt was terrifying.

Climbing out of the ground and finding myself in the outcasts graveyard was bone chilling.

But the burn in my throat, the way my nostrils flared, smelling the air: that was instinct.

I knew where I was going. I knew the way back to the village and where everyone slept. But they didn’t have names. They were only bodies with the solution to my burning.

I took one and I drank and I drank until the burning was only an ache in my throat.

But in horror, I understood.

I could never show my face again.

I had been dead, and now I wasn’t. And now I had killed someone I had known my whole life.

My life as Itsuko was over.

For weeks I hid, keeping to the forest, trying to force myself to drink the blood of the animals I found, but it was never right. I found myself vomiting it back up, and always, I went back to the village at night, and killing someone I did not want to kill.

One night I had a dream. Of a man. A man with captivating eyes. A man with beautiful lips. A man with power in his hands and heart.

“Cyrus,” I whispered as I woke up.

The next night, I went down to the docks and spoke to a captain, asking how I could get from this corner of the world to the land far away known as Austria.

He told me how much money he needed to take me to the closest point he could.

I was to return in two nights.

It wasn’t hard. I was silent and quick and no one even saw me. I snuck into homes and I stole what I needed.

And I wondered how I got here.

I was in the territory of the House of Himura. Considering I now remembered my life as Sevan, I knew I had to be a daughter of a Royal. As Itsuko, my mother did not know the name of my father, only that he was a wealthy man who had passed through our village and took her to bed.

And here I was.

My mother had no idea what my father was. Or what I would become one day.

And here I was, an unknown Royal. Here I was, Sevan and Itsuko.

I returned to the dock after two nights with the money. I boarded the ship. And we set sail for a long journey.

But when I woke after sleeping the second night, two men stood above me, wearing wicked smiles.

A man with a scar down the left side of his face, barely missing his eye. And a man missing one of his front teeth.

“Welcome back, Queen Sevan,” one of them said with glee in his eyes.

The other grabbed me by the throat, picking me up and lifting me off of my feet. I kicked, tried to scream, but his Born strength held me immobile.

“We knew we would eventually find you, and finally we found you first,” one said.

“What do you want?” I choked.

He pinned me against the wall, his hand closing tight.

“You are the key,” he said, bringing his face close to mine. “The key to ending this whole monarchy. The key to ending the banishment.”

My eyes widened.

There were thousands of Born in the world, those descended from the five exiled grandsons. The ones who had been banished from our lives.

“For all these years we have tried to take out Cyrus and his blood descendants at Court,” the other hissed. “But never to any avail. They are too loyal. Too comfortable. Cyrus is too well guarded.”

The man holding me grinned, leaning in a little closer.

“But the King has one weakness,” he said softly. “One thing he will do anything for, give up any throne for.”

My eyes widened and my heart stopped beating.

Me.

They were going to use me as the bargaining chip to tear down everything we had built. And I knew he would do it. To get me back, Cyrus would turn it all over. He would walk away from every bit of the system.

Tears pricked into my eyes. A sob tried to push its way over my lips, but the air couldn’t move with his hand around my throat.

They both grinned wickedly.

“It has been building for centuries, lovely,” he said. “And now, after all this time, we will finally make it happen. We will finally end the monarchy. And we will end Cyrus.”

Tears slipped down my face, but steel framed its way around my heart.

I knew what that meant.

They would get Cyrus to give up the throne.

But then they would kill him.

They’d kill me.

They’d kill everyone at Court. And those who allied themselves with my son, those who wanted to take over the world, they would be in control.

So I waited.

I knew what I had to do.

It took so long until I had my opportunity. They kept me locked in a cell with nothing within reach. For days, probably weeks, we sailed toward Austria and the closest port.

But finally, I heard noise. I could smell something other than sea.

I climbed to my feet and waited for them to come retrieve me.

Roughly, they dragged me out of the cell and we went above deck. The moon shone brightly, illuminating the quiet but still-occupied port.

I walked down the plank, onto the dock. My eyes wildly searched, looking.

And there, just within my reach, I spotted a harpoon.

I moved faster than I’d ever moved.

I grabbed it.

And I buried it deep in my chest.

Pain seared through me, and then it pierced my heart.

I was dead. I would never make it back to Cyrus.

But without me, these men had nothing.

With me dead, he, and everyone at Court would remain safe.

And I knew, someday, I would be born again.

---

“We meet again, Queen Sevan,” the man with the scar says with a smug smile.

My movements invisible, I was so fast, I rush forward, wrapping my hand around his throat. His head cracks back against the wood studs.

“How many of you are there?” I hiss in his face. “Who else is here in Greendale?”

He just smiles, baring yellowed fangs. “This goes beyond the Born now,” he says. “Others have not been happy with the reigning King, one who has had too much power for too long.”

“Are you saying that some of the Royals are turning on Cyrus?” I demand, my grip on him tightening.

He just smiles and laughs.

I yank.

I rip his head clean from his shoulders and let it fall to the floor with a crack against the concrete.

My eyes dark and narrowed, I move over to the man who has gotten his front tooth replaced since the last time I saw him.

“Tell me everything you know,” I growl.

His eyes narrow. “No.”

My hand darts out and I grab one of his fingers, snapping it off.

The man screams out in pain.

“There are two factions trying to get Cyrus off the throne,” I demand. “True or false?”

“There have always been those of us trying to get Cyrus off the throne,” the man growls through his pain. “Ever since he suppressed us. The time of humans must come to an end.”

I snap another of his fingers off. “That is beside the point,” I snarl. “The Born are trying to get to Cyrus through me. These Royals. Are they a real threat?”

The man smiles through his pain. It grows slowly.

“Oh how blind Cyrus has been to what has been going on within his own Court for so long. Cyrus cares about so little anymore. His focus has been on finding you, his long lost wife, for all these years. He didn’t care to take note of the whisperings in his own land.”

My blood rushes hot. But now fear races through my veins.

“Are the two groups working together?” I ask one more time.

The man laughs. “If we are, if we are not, either way, the King will fall now that you have returned.”

My hand darts out and my fingers burrow into his chest as he lets out a choked off cry. Warm and wet, they know exactly where to search. The muscle and incredibly soft tissues pulse as my fingers wrap around it.

And I rip his heart out.

I stare at it, anger raging through me. Terror slips through my veins like a snake.

We’ve dealt with insurrection before. With assassination attempts.

But this one feels different. If what he said is true, if Royals are turning against us, the game will change.

“There are no others here, my Queen,” Larkin speaks from the shadows. “I’m sure of it this time.”

I nod, still staring at the man’s heart.

“We are returning to Roter Himmel,” I say as I squeeze the heart just a little tighter. “I’m taking my parents with me. I will bury them there. We can’t leave any evidence here.” My eyes flick up to Larkin’s face. “Do you understand?”

“I do, my Queen,” he says with a deep bow.

I turn, finding Ian standing there. Softly, I hear Alivia comforting Eshan upstairs.

“I need your help,” I say to him, walking back toward the stairs.

Ian goes to steal a truck. There’s no time to worry about renting one, not a second to be spared. He goes to the next neighborhood over and brings it back ten minutes later.

Larkin wrapped my parents’ bodies in sheets. I’m ever grateful that I don’t even have to see them.

I’ve dealt with dozens of bodies over the short course of my career as a mortician’s assistant. I’ve cleaned gruesome things, washed plenty of blood.

It’s different when it’s your own parents. When it’s the man who taught you how to drive, or the woman who put a bandage on your scraped knee.

I turn to Eshan, stone-faced before we leave.

“It’s going to hit later,” I say quietly to him. I look up into his beautiful face. He stares blankly at a streak of blood on the wood floor. “It’s going to sink in later. And it’s going to be bad. But right now we need to leave. I have to get back to Roter Himmel, to Cyrus.”

He still doesn’t look at me, so I place my hands on either side of his face, turning it to me. Finally, his eyes float to mine, and I see the terror in them.

“You’re my brother,” I say, my voice even. “Take away all of this stuff, every bit of it, and that’s still true. You’re my brother and we are family. And I am going to take care of you, Eshan. I promise.”

His eyes clear just a bit as he understands what that means.

That I’m taking him with me to Roter Himmel. Taking him to stay, to live with me.

He looks scared, but he nods.

“Let’s go,” I say, wrapping an arm around him.

Together, Eshan, Ian, Alivia, and I climb into the truck. I slip into the backseat with my brother, and Ian drives us back to the airport.

I pull out my phone and touch the name on the screen.

“Im yndmisht srtov,” Cyrus answers after only one ring.

“Cyrus,” I say, and with his name, my emotional dam breaks open.

“What is it, my love?” he says, and I hear him whip into action. “Tell me where you are.”

I squeeze my eyes closed, pushing out tears. “Cyrus, I have learned so much.”

I can hear him storming through the castle, hear people scrambling to get out of his way, to do as he will demand.

“Talk to me,” he says.

Another sob pushes out past my lips. “I remember it all, Cyrus. Everything.” I take a deep breath in. “I knew there had been an eighth immortal death.”

He’s very quiet now, listening so intently.

“Cyrus, it has not been 286 years since I last died,” I say as my stomach turns. “There was another life. As a descendant of the House of Himura. I tried to come to you. I was on my way.”

A breath slips between Cyrus’ lips.

I can only imagine how his heart is shattering.

It had been so long. Those 286 years are the longest we have ever been separated. The longest by far.

“Old ways of thinking are sparking to life again, im yndmisht srtov,” I say. My voice trembles slightly, my voice going low. “They tried to use me to get to you. I stopped them then. I took matters into my own hands. They tried to get to me again, but we put a stop to it. But they are coming, Cyrus.”

“Sevan,” he breathes.

And finally, it doesn’t hurt so much when he calls me that name.

“I’m on my way home,” I say, looking out the window. We will be back at the airport in ten minutes. “Until I arrive, don’t trust anyone. Not a soul.”

“Sevan, I-”

But suddenly there is a loud, wet thwack sound. There’s a loud clatter, as if the phone fell to the ground.

“Cyrus?” I call. My hands begin to tremble. “Cyrus?”

He doesn’t answer.

I listen hard.

There’s a sound, like something being dragged across a stone floor.

I hear a wet drip.

“Cyrus?” I breathe quietly. My entire body goes ice still. “Cyrus!” I scream.

The other line goes quiet for a second. And then muffled noise. And then a quiet breath.

“It looks like we did not need you after all, Sevan,” a voice says.

“What did you do?” I gasp.

The voice on the other end chuckles. “Oh, how the times will change.”

“What did you do?” I scream.

I hear a shout on the phone, followed by another. The man on the other line makes a startled sound and a quick intake of breath.

More shouts.

Guards.

I can hear them.

Chaos.

“What did you do?” I scream again. “What have you done to Cyrus?”

But there’s a loud cracking sound again, as if the phone was dropped once more, and the line goes dead.

I pull my phone away, staring at the screen, my mouth hanging open.

“What is it?” Alivia asks. “What happened?”

My mouth opens and closes. I shake my head. “I…I don’t know. There was this man, and…”

A fog. A numbing fog takes over my brain.

I can’t think.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t…

I can’t…

“Drive faster,” I grit out.