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  Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  Thirty-eight

  Thirty-nine

  Forty

  Forty-one

  Forty-two

  Forty-three

  Forty-four

  Forty-five

  Forty-six

  Forty-seven

  Forty-eight

  Forty-nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-one

  Fifty-two

  Fifty-four

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  One

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Cara Witter Books

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, printing, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except for use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design by Janci Patterson

  Fire Ring by istock.com/adventtr

  Flame Burst by istock.com/pobytov

  Sparks by istock.com/jxfzsy

  Map Design by Isaac Stewart

  Published by Garden Ninja Books

  carawitterbooks.com

  First Edition: June 2020

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Lauren's grandma, Mary Janes, who taught her to tell stories,

  and to her dad, Ed Janes, who introduced her to fantasy.

  Prologue

  Late at night, Kenton walked into Castle Peldenar wearing his Sevairnese officer’s uniform, his sword sheathed. The gate guards saluted him, noting only the insignia on his lapel, showing no recognition of his face. Kenton didn’t remember so many guards patrolling the halls the last time he’d been here, after the second battle of Berlaith. He’d been summoned to Diamis’ throne, given a commendation and an opportunity to drink beside some of the finest soldiers in the Lord General’s army. It had been nearly a year, but Kenton still remembered the black cherry wine swirling in his glass, darker than blood.

  There would be no honors bestowed on him tonight. Lord General Diamis had stepped up security of late, and in a flash of pure hubris, Kenton wanted to believe this was because the man was expecting him. Kenton moved through the halls with purpose, past the handbills with the wood-cut stamp picture of his own face—a poor likeness, thankfully—and beneath it, the single word: Drim. A death sentence, by Sevairnese law.

  Kenton fully expected to die tonight. And when he did, he was going to take the Lord General with him.

  Kenton quickened his stride as he moved toward the center of the castle, to the chamber where the Lord General’s daughter—the Lady Daniella—liked to read by the fire before her father required her ladies-in-waiting to escort her to bed.

  There were no light charms in the austere stone hallways, no extravagance in the service of the Lord General. Two of Diamis’ officers passed by, laughing to one another. They both outranked Kenton, though neither had been his direct commander. Kenton felt his heart beat faster. He’d lightened his hair with lye to alter his appearance, and he didn’t allow his face to betray even the slightest flicker of uncertainty or fear. Kenton thought he caught the glimmer of recognition on one man’s face, a twitch of his graying mustache after Kenton performed the proper salute. But if so, the officer must not have been able to place him, because they saluted back and continued on.

  Kenton turned another corner and counted the doorways. Two. Three. Four. The next should be the sitting room with the large hearth, where Calida said that Daniella took her evening tea and read, sometimes far into the night. Kenton would have preferred to take her as his hostage somewhere decidedly less secure, but Daniella was always kept behind fortified walls, hardly even allowed into the city under escort. Years ago, there had been a rumor that a blood mage had gotten hold of her blood, and no one saw a trace of the girl for over a year.

  He approached the doorway, pausing at the edge to peer in.

  There she was. A teenage girl in a white nightdress, stretched out on a chaise with a thick book open on her lap. She had no lantern, only the firelight from the hearth.

  Kenton couldn’t see her face, but backlit by the fire, her red hair glowed as if wreathed in flames.

  After this, there would be no going back.

  He stepped into the room, taking steady strides until he reached the chaise. Daniella looked up at him, startled, and then seemed to wilt onto her cushion. “Excuse me, soldier,” she said. “May I help you?”

  He couldn’t see her face well, backlit as she was by the fire, but she seemed oddly tense, as if she sensed danger. Kenton could work with that. “Your father bids you come to him,” he said, keeping his voice as low as he could without arousing her suspicion. “I will escort you.”

  Her fingers shook slightly, and she looked downright terrified. “My father?”

  Gods, was she afraid of Diamis, or did she recognize Kenton from the wood-cut images? If she did, she might scream at any moment.

  “Now, my lady,” he said. And though she was a princess and he only a soldier, she shut her book and stood, smoothing her nightdress and moving toward the door.

  Kenton didn’t waste a moment. In one step, he closed the distance between them, drawing his dagger and bringing it to her throat, bracing her against him with his other arm. He turned, looking down at her. “Silence,” he said. “Draw attention, and I’ll kill you.”

  Daniella let out a small whimper, her whole body trembling.

  “I’m going to pull the knife away,” he said. “It’ll be behind your back, between us, ready to cut you in an instant. Do you understand?”

  Daniella nodded, her breath coming in quick gasps. He drew the knife away and pressed it lightly against the back of her gauzy nightdress, for effect. He needed her afraid, but he wasn’t planning to hurt her. There would be no benefit in it.

  “All right,” he said. “Now take me to your father.” Kenton couldn’t get closer to the Lord General with his uniform alone, but a blade to Daniella’s throat should help. The Lord General had no prize greater than his darling daughter.

  To Daniella’s credit, she didn’t seem surprised by this instruction. She cast one glance back at him, her eyes welling with tears—

  Eyes he recognized.


  Gods, it couldn’t be. Kenton’s memories were only fragments. Soldiers in Sevairnese livery cutting down his mother, his brothers, his sister. Kenton hiding cramped in the cupboard beneath the stairs, hugging his knees.

  Then, clearest of all, through the thin slice of light from the cupboard door, his father being made to kneel, the little girl with the blood-red hair toddling forward on unsteady legs, placing her hand on his father’s forehead. Blood bursting from his father’s body in a swirling cloud, collecting in the air. Kenton burying his head in his arms, unable to watch, desperately holding in a scream. And then his father’s body crumpled on the floor, still and lifeless.

  Kenton shivered. All these years, he hadn’t been sure she was real, and yet here he was, standing face to face with his father’s killer, the little red-haired girl who could kill with only a touch.

  No wonder Diamis kept her so close. Kenton had never even heard of a power like that, blood magic or otherwise, but if she had it, why wouldn’t she touch him and end it all here? Kenton’s own hand began to shake, but Daniella made no move to hurt him.

  He directed her forward before she could see the blade quivering in the firelight. “Now, Princess.”

  Daniella nodded and started forward into the empty hall. Kenton followed close enough behind to reach for her if she refused to do as he asked, but not so close that one of Diamis’ staff might think anything was amiss. Daniella turned a corner just ahead of him, toward the stairwell that would lead to Diamis’ own chambers.

  Then, with no warning, she broke into a run.

  Kenton swore under his breath. Now she was going to attract attention, bring the guard down on him before he could even—

  Daniella turned another corner and slipped into an alcove, and Kenton checked up and down the corridor, ensuring that no one had seen them. Idiot girl. She’d holed up in a corner when she should have screamed for help. Kenton advanced on the alcove, his blade at the ready—

  But when he peered into the shadows, he saw only her bare leg and the hem of her nightdress, disappearing into the wall like a haunt from a children’s tale.

  Kenton blinked at the space where she’d disappeared. How had she done that? He knew of no magic that could accomplish it, not that he was an expert in such things. If she’d murdered his father, she was certainly a blood mage, but he’d never heard of a blood mage who could manipulate stone.

  Unless. Kenton reached out, touching the wall where she’d disappeared.

  His hand slipped right through. He took a step and passed through the wall as if only through air. The scent—musty and somehow metallic—hit him the moment he emerged on the other side into a narrow, rough stone tunnel.

  It was dark in the tunnels, but as Kenton stepped in, his boot kicked over a lantern that had been left there—whether by the girl or by someone else. By feel, he righted the thing, found the lantern flint, and struck it.

  The narrow stone corridor lit up in time for him to see the girl disappear around a sharp corner several yards away.

  Gods. Kenton picked up the lantern and hurried to catch her. He grabbed her by the shoulder, spinning her around to face him, the knife between them. Her hand reached toward his arm—

  Kenton leaped back, brandishing the blade at her. “Don’t touch me,” he said. He hadn’t intended to harm her, but this creature could kill, and if her fingers so much as twitched toward him, so help him he would slit her throat.

  Daniella stared at him, confusion crossing her face. Yet she continued to quiver, as if he were the one who was dangerous. She didn’t seem at all like someone who could murder him at a whim, but he could easily see the similarities, now, in her face between this girl and that little girl from long ago, the one he’d imagined was only a nightmare. “Why not?” she asked.

  Kenton blinked at her. She was so young when she’d killed his father—not more than two years. Perhaps she didn’t remember. She might have no idea what she was capable of.

  He wasn’t going to be the one to tell her. Kenton nodded toward the wall and moved his dagger deliberately closer. “How did you do that?”

  “Please don’t hurt me.” Her voice was a whimper, and the sound of her fear dug at Kenton’s resolve.

  She might not be a monster at all, merely a puppet. “How did you do that?” he repeated, stressing each syllable.

  “D-do what?”

  Kill my father with a touch of your hand, he wanted to say. But he had a mission, and there was more pressing information he needed from her.

  “Walk through the stone wall.”

  Tears formed at the edges of her eyes. “You saw for yourself. It’s immaterial.”

  It certainly was, and Kenton wasn’t about to test it again. These tunnels were better—safer. Daniella had isolated herself from those who might help her. She looked up at him, cringing, as if she expected him to plunge his blade into her at any moment. For killing his father—even as a tool—he probably should have.

  But he still needed her, so he couldn’t. Not yet.

  Kenton looked down the corridor. “Where do these passageways go?”

  “I’m not really sure. I only just found out about—”

  “Where?” He pressed the knife point to the base of her throat, and she swallowed hard.

  “Everywhere,” she whispered. He refused to let himself be taken in by how young she looked in that moment, and how scared. His family had been frightened too, before they died.

  “Take me to your father’s chambers,” he said. He handed her the lantern—it was possible she’d try to use it as a weapon, but it would be easier to keep control of her if he had use of both hands. “Take this.”

  Daniella sighed in resignation and turned again, moving more slowly down the corridor. He followed with his blade at the ready, close enough this time to catch her if she ran. She turned the corner ahead and then made another turn at the next intersection, just as he heard a faint echo of something from behind them. A small skittering of rock.

  “Stop,” he ordered, and she did, her back stiff.

  “I’m taking you to—”

  Kenton made a slashing motion across his throat, and her lips clamped shut. He strained to listen for further sounds but heard only the cadence of their breathing—hers quick and shallow, his even and barely perceptible.

  Rats apparently knew the way in as well.

  “You’re leading me away from your father’s chambers,” Kenton said. “Let’s try this again.”

  She turned to face him, her lips pressed so tightly together they were almost as white as her nightdress. She lowered her eyes and led back the other direction.

  He continued close behind her in silence. The girl kept to her path this time, and soon they reached a narrow set of stone stairs leading upwards. As they started up, he heard a tinkling of stone behind them, and caught sight of a thick, pink tail darting into a tiny crevice.

  They continued this way through more passageways on the second floor and up more stairs to the third floor, where the girl’s chambers would be, and, more importantly, Diamis’.

  At the top of these stairs, though, the girl stopped so suddenly she nearly ended up with a blade between her shoulders. The tunnel went off to the right and the left, and she looked back and forth between them.

  “I don’t know which way,” she whispered. “I don’t know which wall will take you to his rooms.”

  “But you can walk through them?” Kenton asked. “These are also immaterial?”

  Daniella hesitated, as if weighing whether she wanted to show him her secret or stay trapped with him here in the tunnels. “Some of them.”

  “Well, pick a direction and find one.”

  She drew a trembling breath and turned right, holding the lantern up to the walls as she went, clearly looking for something specific. It wasn’t until they made another few turns that she foun
d it, reaching a hand up to one of the blocks of stone at eye level. He could now see a faintly etched rune—two straight lines running parallel, with a curved line bisecting them.

  Kenton’s throat went dry. A Drim rune.

  Before he could object, Daniella ran her finger over the rune, not tracing the lines but drawing a different pattern. She added one tiny dot with her fingertip, and the rune glowed blue.

  “There,” she said, and in her face he saw something like pride, a kind of tight-lipped resolve he was almost tempted to admire. “That’s how I did it.”

  “You,” he said. “Gods, you’re a Drim?”

  “N-no!” Daniella said.

  Kenton stared at her. Her father had spent his entire reign—the last fourteen years—hunting down and exterminating every last Drim. Under the Lord General’s command, Kenton himself had arrested plenty of civilians who had the misfortune of that accusation, and now he wondered if even one of them had actually been of Drim heritage.

  He hadn’t known about his own Drim blood until the last few days.

  “Then how did you do that?” Kenton asked.

  “Anyone can. Only Drim can make the runes, but anyone can work them. You only have to know the pattern.”

  “But if anyone can work them, then the guards—”

  “No one knows,” Daniella said. “No one but me.” She anticipated his next question. “I read about it in a book. I found it in the library and—”

  “All right,” Kenton said. The Drim had inhabited this castle for centuries before the Lord General’s coup. No matter how much Diamis hated them, Kenton imagined ridding the castle of Drim artifacts was as much of a fool’s errand as trying to rid it of rats.

  “All right, Princess,” he said. “Go ahead and walk through.”

  She turned, her eyes wide and watery. “Please don’t make me go. If my father sees me, he’ll . . .”

  She trailed off, but Kenton would wager that what Diamis would do to him was surely far worse. “Don’t worry about your father,” he said. “I’ll be solving both our problems tonight.”

  Daniella drew a deep breath and stepped through. Kenton followed quickly, hoping to take advantage of whatever surprise he’d elicit by appearing through a wall behind Diamis’ daughter.