I thrust the crown at him and grabbed my knife as fast as I could, slashing out with the blade. I felt it tear through his doublet, but I had no idea if I’d struck flesh. He was reaching for a short sword at his waist, and rather than attempt to fight someone who had a lifetime of training, I ran.

Fortunately he hadn’t locked the door to the cell behind him. A foxfire torch up ahead told me which direction to run. I tried to keep down the panic rising in my throat, but Ceren was already behind me, gaining, and he could see where he was going far better than I could.

“Nor!” he screamed after me. “Where do you think you’ll go? You’re trapped, little bird.”

I continued down the corridor and out of the dungeons into a forked tunnel. I could hear Ceren’s ragged breath behind me. I turned right, praying this fork led to the glowworm cave.

When I felt the air around me shift, I felt a brief jolt of adrenaline. I’d made it. But then my eyes began to adjust, thanks to the small foxfire lanterns lining the walls of the chamber I was in, and I tasted the cloying scent of decay on my tongue. The crypt.

Hundreds of bones were piled here without ceremony, as if the bodies of the dead had merely been flung on top of one another. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Ceren’s silhouette in the entrance. Without thinking, I fled farther into the crypt, to the part reserved for royalty, judging by the marble tables the skeletons had been laid on. A few still wore the remnants of their moldering robes, their hollow eye sockets staring back at me in warning. The edge of the coral knife gleamed in the low light as I held it in front of me, but I couldn’t tell if there was any blood on the red blade.

I turned a corner and ducked down next to the nearest slab, praying Ceren hadn’t seen me. I felt around on the top of the table until my hand met a heavy bone, sticky with cobwebs. A femur, most likely. I pulled it down next to me and waited.

Ceren had slowed to a walk, and I held my breath as he neared the table. When he’d gone two steps past, I stood, and he whirled toward me. “There you are—”

I swung the femur against his face like a club. Instantly, blood spurted from his nose, and his hands flew up to it on instinct.

I dropped the bone and reached for my knife. “Let me go, Ceren,” I pleaded, backing away from him. “You have what you need from me. Just let me go home.”

He growled and lunged at me, exposing his bloodied face, and on instinct I raised my hands to defend myself.

His eyes widened in shock, mirroring mine, as the blood coral blade slipped through his doublet and into the flesh beneath.

I released the hilt and stumbled backward as a howl of anguish erupted from his bloodied mouth. “I’ll kill you for this,” he said, staggering toward me, blood spraying from his lips.

“No,” I said, unable to keep the sadness out of my voice. “You won’t. That blade is made from blood coral, and there is one thing about blood coral you never thought to ask me.”

He looked down at the knife still sticking out of his chest. “And what’s that?” he hissed as he sank to his knees.

“It’s lethal.”

Ceren stared up at me with his silver eyes, dark blood covering the lower half of his pale face. I couldn’t see the blood coming from the wound in his chest against his dark clothing, but I knew that the poison would already be entering his heart.

He opened his mouth and screamed so loud I thought the dead would rise, but then he collapsed at my feet, his hard eyes boring into mine, and exhaled a ragged breath.

I inhaled sharply, stumbling back against a tomb. I brought my shaking hands up to my face and began to weep at the sight of so much blood.

I had killed a man. And not just any man. I had killed the Crown Prince of Ilara.

      33

The sound of Ceren’s final scream seemed to echo through the caverns as I ran. I was so frightened it became almost impossible to recall Melina’s song.

Deep in the mountain,

Far below,

Beyond the lake,

Where the glowworms glow...

I sang the words in my head until I saw a faint blue light coming from one of the caverns.

When I finally reached the lake where I had killed Salandrin, I dived in headfirst, the icy water closing around my scalp like Thalos’s cold fingers. I imagined it cleansing me, taking away the stain of Ceren’s blood on my body and soul. I swam, straight and powerful, and despite the cold and the fear, it felt good to be in the water again. My limbs remembered everything, how to slice the water with the side of my hand, how to pump my legs to propel me forward. I was so caught up in my breathing that I didn’t notice the ground rising beneath me until my hand met it.

I hauled myself out of the water and gasped for air on the slick bank. Sitting still gave me too much time to think. Ceren was dead, I told myself. If a tiny cut like mine had nearly killed me, a coral blade to the heart would be instantly lethal.

Even with that knowledge, I couldn’t fight the feeling that someone was chasing me. So I scrambled up the bank toward what I hoped was the way out, though the farther I got from the glowworms, the harder it was to see.

I reached the fork in the tunnel and tried to clear my head of everything but Melina’s song.

The path is clear to Varenian eyes. What did that mean? I started down one fork, but I could see nothing here. If this was the path to freedom, it didn’t look promising.

Follow the blood. What blood? I went back to the fork and stepped into the other tunnel. I waited for a moment, my eyes searching the darkness, and then I saw it: a faint glimmer of red up ahead. I ran toward it. There. Some kind of crystal was embedded in the stone. It pulsed with a soft red glow, as if it was lit from within. And suddenly, as my eyes adjusted, a long, snaking line of the crystal appeared to me. It ran along the tunnel wall like a vein.

What had Ebb said to me about the bloodstones? They say the giants’ blood froze in their veins. This must be a bloodstone vein that had never been discovered. Not surprising, considering it was beyond Salandrin’s lair and a lake vast enough I doubted any Ilareans would dare to cross it.

I began to jog down the tunnel, my body warming from the effort, and the hope that I thought had died with Melina burst back into flame. A sliver of light slowly came into focus ahead of me. I raced toward it, my lungs and muscles burning, but the light was growing larger, and the thought of freedom spurred me forward.

I didn’t stop until I’d reached the crack in the stone, which was only three feet high and barely wide enough for a person to fit through. Fortunately, my clothing was slick from the lake water, and I managed to wriggle through, bursting free and rolling onto the dirt with a groan.

I lay on my back for a moment, staring up at the thin crescent moon. A guard would find Ceren soon enough, and then the search would be on. I needed to keep moving.

* * *

The journey to Old Castle was a terrifying reminder of how far from safety I still was. The road was black under the canopy of the forest here, blocking out what little moonlight there was, and I was shaky with hunger and exhaustion. My wet leather breeches clung to me, chafing my skin with each step. I had nothing but the knife and the vellum map, which was useless to me now. I would need the pearl necklace, which I’d kept hidden in my bodice, to barter for a ride to Varenia.

The thought of leaving Ilara without saying goodbye to Talin was even more painful than my injuries, but even if I found him, there was a good chance he would hate me.

I had murdered his only brother.

Ragged sobs tore from my throat when I realized that would be his last memory of me, and I prayed to Thalos that Talin would someday be able to forgive me.

By the time the lights of Old Castle were in sight, I couldn’t tell if the moisture in my boots was lake water or blood. I crept toward the stables. There were lanterns burning in the barn, but it was quiet except for the occasional stomp of a hoof as I tiptoed into my mare’s stall. She lifted her head at my approach and nickered quietly.

“Good girl,” I whispered, patting her neck as I looked around for a saddle and bridle. I spotted a door that most likely led to the tack room and had just started moving when I heard my name—my real name.

“Nor?”

I spun around. “Talin!”

“What are you doing here? What happened?” He looked down at my sodden clothing, the pink stains of Ceren’s blood on my tunic. “Gods, are you hurt?” He rushed forward to catch me just as I started to sway.

The full gravity of what I had done hit me as I remembered the feeling of Ceren’s warm blood spraying my face, the terror of that swim and running here in the dark. “Ceren came to my cell,” I whispered against him. I was shaking with fear and cold and exhaustion. “He offered me the crown if I married him. He said he would free the Varenians, but I couldn’t, Talin. I just couldn’t.”

He gripped me harder. “What did he do to you?”