I see perfectly clear as I run, an invisible blur. My feet are numb within seconds from pounding the ground so hard. My hair rips from its braid, flowing out behind me.

I crest the road, the valley coming into view.

I hear a scream. I hear glass shatter.

It comes from the castle.

A curse and a prayer slips over my lips as I race down the road.

“No,” I cry, so, so desperate and sick. “No.”

I bullet toward the lake, to the southeast corner. I don’t slow as I leap into the air, forming an arrow with my body, and dive into the water.

The cold hits me like a baseball bat, but I use every ounce of strength I have to propel myself through the water. I rocket through the dark, frigid water, knowing exactly where I’m going.

Even with my enhanced vision, I can hardly see the dark hole. I rely on memory more than sight.

There, deep, along the cliff of the shore, I find the entrance to the cave.

The rock cuts back into the shore, creating an underwater tunnel. I swim through it for a good fifteen yards, dragging my hands along the roof of it, and finally, there, I find the opening.

A narrow circle opens above my head, and I pull myself up and out of the water, onto a muddy ledge. Gasping for oxygen that I don’t really need, I pull myself up into the cold air.

A tunnel, barely tall enough for me not to have to crouch to walk, cuts from here at the lake’s edge, and drives back straight toward the castle.

It’s pitch black. I can’t see anything. So I walk slowly. I have to inspect the entire thing. I have to know if there are any other entrances to the castle beside the one I know.

It feels like it goes on and on forever, and I have to remind myself, the tunnel is in fact nearly two miles long. But I don’t cheat, I don’t skip anything. I have to find any other entrances. I have to know.

The entry that I know of into the castle is directly ahead. It cuts down into the castle and comes out in the secret armory in the floor of my bedroom. Even though this tunnel feels infinitely long, I know that there are exactly sixty-seven more steps before the tunnel makes a slight left bend and then begins rising.

I drag my hand along the tunnel, breathing hard, using my enhanced senses to listen to the sound reverberate against the walls.

My hand drops into cold air at the same time I hear a sound that doesn’t belong.

Three footsteps.

I halt my breathing and follow my hand into the unknown entry. I have to crouch down as my forehead hits the dirt ceiling. I tuck myself against the wall and place my hand on the hilt of my sword.

Straining, I listen hard for more footsteps, for breathing.

There’s one, but then no more. And then another.

They’re coming toward me, from the direction of the lake.

Someone followed me.

They’re deathly quiet. I only hear a footstep every thirty or so feet they travel.

I count in my head, imagining myself stepping through the dark to gauge when they should level with this side tunnel I just stepped into.

And just as they step level with me, I draw my sword and swing.

A huge hand wraps around my wrist, stopping my swing instantly. A finger presses to my lips before I can say anything and a low voice whispers in the dark.

“It is me, my Queen,” they say, not letting go of me so I cannot use that sword, or the stake in my other hand to kill him.

“Larkin,” I breathe. My heart is going a million miles an hour, making it hard to breathe.

He makes a quiet affirmative noise. “The issue you asked me to take care of has been dealt with.” It feels like forever ago, when there were Born who had gotten into Roter Himmel and planned the attack on Cyrus that led to him being decapitated. There had been four of them. One of them had betrayed the others, killing them, and then fled. I told Larkin to track them down and not return until the problem was eliminated.

I knew he would succeed.

“You just got back?” I whisper.

“Just moments ago,” he says. “I came through the mountains, and was on my way to the castle when I saw you run straight from the canyon to the lake. You looked as if you needed assistance.”

“I do,” I say with an appreciative nod I know he can’t see. “We’re fighting Moab’s army right now, with Lorenzo’s aide for the time being. But we haven’t seen any signs of the man himself yet. I think…” I really didn’t want to think what I thought. “I think he’s inside the castle.”

A booming sound echoes through the tunnel and I can’t stand here and explain any longer. I take off through my newly discovered branch, dragging my hands along the walls to guide me.

By my estimates we have a quarter of a mile left to go before we will be under the castle. I count down the steps in my head.

And when I get down to fifteen, I feel the air shift.

“There’s an opening up ahead,” Larkin whispers very, very quietly.

I nod my head in agreement. I draw my sword again.

Slowly, we creep through the tunnel and my heart hammers faster as the rush of air grows steadier.

Faint, faint light cuts through the ceiling of the tunnel up ahead, and I slow as I come to stand beneath it.

It’s a pile of rubble. I reach out with my sword, prodding at it, and immediately, a pile of rocks falls from up above and scatters across the tunnel floor. I reach up, digging through the rubble. It goes at an upward angle. And after about a foot of digging, my arm suddenly breaks free into open space.

I look back at Larkin, only barely able to see part of his face through the dark.

He cups his hands and I place my foot into it, and he gives me a lift.

I find myself in a dug out hole, three feet deep, six feet in length. Above that opens into a big space, lit with torches along the walls, with a wide tunnel with stairs rising up.

Just to the side of this coffin built into the stone floor, is a massive boulder, multiple tons in size.

My jaw slackens.

Moab’s prison.

When Cyrus captured him after the war, he had Moab brought here, to this specifically designed prison. A hole in the ground, where Moab had lain for sixteen centuries before somehow miraculously escaping.

“This was Moab’s prison,” I say as Larkin climbs through the little hole at the end where Moab’s head would have lain. “He…he was here for hundreds of years. He…” I look back to the tiny hole we escaped through.

“He dug himself straight through the rock,” I said. “That tunnel, it was just a foot under the bedrock. He…” I shake my head. “Moab simply walked out of the castle to escape and found his freedom through the lake.”

The sound of metal against stone draws both of our eyes to the stairway.

“I think we know exactly how he got back into the castle,” Larkin says aloud.

There’s a shrill scream, and when it triples in volume and fear, I realize it’s not just one person screaming, but multiple. Four, five.

“Come on!” I say, forgetting instantly to keep my voice down.

As always, Larkin is armed to the teeth, even if it isn’t immediately visible. He pulls out two fighting blades, and we race up the stairs together.

The stairs rise before flattening out, and we dart through a long tunnel. Moab’s prison was carved into the darkest heart of the mountain. Away from the world he so longed to take over. So through an incredibly long tunnel we travel, before we reach another set of stairs.

They’re steep and are nearly more like a ladder.

“There is a hatch just up above,” I whisper to Larkin, who climbs behind me. “It opens into a supply closet. We just have to hope and pray it’s unoccupied.”

He makes a small noise, acknowledging what I just said.

I rise four more stairs, holding my hand above my head. In the pitch black, I can’t see a thing.

And there’s the hatch. I rise up one more stair, pressing my ear to the smooth wood, listening.

There are still sounds of the ambush, but I don’t hear anyone in the space above us, so I slowly lift the hatch.

The room is empty. Where it should be filled to the brim with supplies, all the boxes have been pushed away from the hatch, things toppled over. Like a lot of people came in through that little entry into the castle.

“Shit,” I breathe.

Larkin surfaces behind me and we both silently creep to the door.

Peering through the crack, I see a woman from the House of Cordero locking swords with a man. He pushes her back down the hall.

She slips, getting knocked down to one knee.

I don’t think.

I’m so stupid.

I dart from the room, silent and unexpected. I bring my sword down, cutting clean through his skull, slicing it right down the middle. He drops to the ground in a bloody heap.

My head whips around, surveying the scene, looking for others, as the woman breathes my name and a profuse thank you.

We’re in a hallway on the fourth floor, a little way down from the main stairway that goes up to the main floor.

I turn, grabbing the Cordero woman by the front of her shirt and drag her back toward Larkin and the room we just came through.

“Sevan,” the woman breathes. “Thank…thank you.”

“How many of Moab’s people are in the castle?” I demand, ignoring her.

“We…” she struggles to focus, to think back through the events of the last hour or two. “We were spread throughout the castle, guarding the entry points. I was on the third floor when suddenly all these people poured up the stairs.”

“How many?” I demand again. “Twenty people? A hundred?”

“I’d guess fifty or so,” she says. Her eyes are wide and keep flicking back to the door. She’s totally overwhelmed.

“And how many of us are dead?” I ask the question I do not want to ask. “Do you have any guess?”

Tears prick her eyes. She shakes her head. “I don’t know. They took us off guard, coming at us from inside the castle.”

I sigh through my nose, frustrated that she can’t keep it together in this moment.

“Larkin and I are going into the castle,” I say. “I need you to stay here.” I grab her sword, which she dropped in the doorway and hand it back to her. “This,” I say as I point down at the hatch, “is how they all got inside. I want you watching this hatch, and if anyone tries to come through it, you hack them to pieces. Got it?”

She takes two quick breaths through her pursed lips, collecting herself, and finally nods.

I don’t have time to make sure she can actually handle this. I just have to hope she can be the leader she’s always been.

“Any grand ideas on how to clear them out of the castle?” I breathe to Larkin as we go back to the door.

“With them spread throughout the castle, there’s no quick way to do it,” he says, his eyes scanning the narrow sliver of hall we can see. “Our best bet is to go room by room, as quickly as we can, and stick together. Then we pray we find individuals and can take them out between the two of us.”

I swear under my breath. “It feels like a shit plan.”

“It is,” Larkin agrees. “But it’s the only option at the moment.”

Without waiting for my confirmation, Larkin slips out the door, waving me after him.

We slip down the hall, hooking to the central space of the fourth floor: the kitchens.

The main cooking area is clear, as is the walk-in refrigerator and freezer. As we round a corner, Larkin holds up a fist, halting me for a moment.

I hear it, too. The sound of someone inside the pantry.

Larkin darts inside. Whoever it was doesn’t even get half a second to make a cry. I can only see Larkin’s back. Then I hear the wet sound of a blade sinking into a body, and then that body hitting the ground.

With the kitchens cleared, we move deeper into the fourth floor.

Two great ballrooms are set on the north and south sides of the stairs. The first is clear. But in the south, we find an all-out brawl.

In the chaos, I see Edmond Valdez, locked in a sword fight with a man who has half his face sliced off. Edmond is back-to-back with two other Royals I don’t recognize. Five of Moab’s men appear to be winning.

There’s three dead people on the ground.

Neither Larkin nor I hesitate. We’re both across the ballroom in a fraction of a second. I lop the head off the man Edmond was fighting, and Larkin slices two women through in one clean sweep.

With the tides turned, the other two are swiftly killed.

“Apparently today is going to be a day of timing,” Edmond says, breathing hard. He pushes his hair out of his face, leaving behind a streak of blood. “Thank you.”

My eyes go to the two others at Edmond’s side. I recognize one from the House of Ng, but I can’t place the other. But almost immediately, my eyes go to the two dead on the floor.

“Ines and Adele,” I breathe, kneeling down beside them.

From the House of Emile, in France.

“They were the last of the Emile family,” Hector breathes. He shakes his head. “The line ended when their father produced two daughters. What…what will become of their House now?”

My throat is thick. So, so tight. Emotions stab the backs of my eyes as I look at the two women.

Their faces are so peaceful looking now, like they’re sleeping. Except there’s so much blood.

“We will have to worry about that later,” I say. The words sound all wrong coming from a throat this constricted. “We have to go help others.”

“Stay together,” Larkin instructs.

I have to leave. I have to look away from the Emile girls. Because my brain wants to spin out.

One whole House now is destroyed. The ramifications will be huge for their area.

A whole House.

But I can’t think about that right now.

There are dozens of personal quarters on this level. As a team, one by one, we go through the rooms, checking for anyone.

We find the body of Siobhan O’Rourke in one of the bedrooms. Another House leader, dead.

There are also the bodies of five Born scattered throughout the rooms, their heads removed, or stakes or blade holes through their hearts.

Sure the fourth floor is clear, as a group of five, we ascend the stairs to the main level.

The carnage is so much worse here.

I spot no less than seven Royals lying dead on the floor just from the stairs. There are another twelve Born dead.

But a battle rages at the front gates.

We don’t wait. We react. We jump into the battle.

I swing this sword like I’ve never fought in any other lifetime.

I have a cut down the middle of my back. Blood is pouring down my chin from a slice on my cheek. I nearly lost the fingers on my left hand, and now have a huge gash down the back of my knuckles.

But I keep swinging.

I take two of Moab’s soldiers down.

And scream in regret as a man from the House of Ng goes down, instantly turning ashen gray.

With a war scream, I thrust my sword, burying it in a woman’s chest.

“Where is Moab?” I bellow, to anyone who may hear me.

Find Moab. End this. The words chant through my head.

But I don’t get a reply.

Our battle spreads throughout the entry of the castle. I go back-to-back with Larkin, swinging and slicing and bleeding all over the place.

I see Edmond out of the corner of my eye as he cuts the head from a soldier, only to catch his heel on something and trip backward.

There’s a choked off scream that doesn’t fully escape his lips. “Raphael?”

I dare a look in his direction for just half a second.

Edmond is crouched on the ground next to a body. Through the blood, I recognize the face of Raphael Valdez.

“Raphael?” Edmond cries in horror.

I lose the rest of the words he cries as I strike at the soldier before me. Again and again I blow. I slice through the air, dart out of the way of his blade. And when he doesn’t take a big enough step to the side, I bury my sword into his side, sinking the tip all the way to his heart.

I hear a skull crunch against stone behind me and know Larkin has slain the betrayer.

I take one breath, two, nearly deafened by the pounding sound of my own heart. And the quiet.

Looking around, I see that we’ve cleared the entry.

Every soldier now lies dead.

Still standing are six Royals, me, Larkin, and a grieving Edmond.

A voice, muffled and barely audible trickles to my ears. And my body instantly feels hollow.

“He ordered the extermination sixteen years ago.”

Very quietly, I hear her voice.

No.

I take a step toward the hall. My footsteps echo on the stone floor. Bloody boot prints follow after me.

“And did all these Houses instantly obey?”

Another voice floats to my ears, one I don’t recognize.

“It…” she falters. “It wasn’t an active execution of the order. It more came about as they caused issues. At least in my area. We took them out when they stepped out of line. A few of my House members were more…assertive whenever they came across them. But it took years. A decade, really, before finding any of them became a real challenge.”

The massive doors stand before me, and beyond them, there is the soaring space of the Great Hall.

“Sevan?” Larkin says, a question and a request to come back in his voice.

I take the final four steps, and enter the Hall.

The great table is still set in the middle of the space. Fifty chairs surround it. But only three people are seated at it, on the end furthest from me.

The moment I clear the doors, they slam shut behind me, sealing me inside. I don’t have to turn and look to know that there were two soldiers waiting inside, prepared to close them as soon as I walked in.

Instantly, I hear Larkin and others at the door, pounding on it, yelling my name.

At the noise, three pairs of eyes jump to my face.

There’s a woman there, she looks familiar, but I can’t quite place her. She’s pretty, I’d guess in her mid-forties. Her blonde hair is cut short and blunt, accentuating her sharp but balanced features.

Sitting across the table from her, in front of the camera set up on the table, is Alivia Conrath. She looks at me with horror, her eyes begging me to run.

Because seated at the head of the table, just beside her, is Moab.

My heat stops.

It literally stops beating in my chest for a couple of seconds.

Because it is Moab, but just as his name means, of his father, he looks just like his father. Just like the Blood Father. Just like my son.

Dark green eyes. Like Cyrus’. A slightly too-full upper lip. Like Cyrus’.

Curly hair falls onto his forehead. Like his father’s hair. Just like Sevan’s hair. A square jaw, just like his father’s, just like his grandmother’s.

I may not have the same face anymore. I may look entirely different from when I was born as Sevan in the country that is now known as Armenia.

But our son was the perfect blend of Cyrus and I. And Moab looks just like him.

“Hello, All Mother,” he says.