The mist clung to her boots, cold and wet as it slithered up her ankles, but Aisling barely noticed. Her emerald eyes were locked in a wild, disbelieving glare at the thin band suffocating her finger.
The engagement ring.
When had he—?
She sucked in a sharp breath, chest tightening. No. No, no, no. It hadn't been there when she left the Court of Thorns, she would have noticed—
Her mind flung back to the last moments at the court. The arguing. The shouting. The way he'd grabbed her hand, too tightly, too suddenly.
Her stomach twisted into knots, furious and helpless all at once. Had he done it then?
While she was fighting him?
The bloodstone in the center of the ring winked at her under the sickly slashes of dawnlight like it was mocking her.
"That sneaky, arrogant, insufferable bastard," she hissed under her breath.
A fresh surge of rage tore through her.
It prickled under her skin, a feverish, dizzying thing, so hot she could barely breathe around it.
She yanked at the ring, clawing at it, but it refused to budge — as if the damned thing had welded itself to her flesh.
"Oh, brilliant. Perfect," she spat into the mist. "First, he blackmails me into marrying him, and now he shackles me like a prized animal!"
Her boots crushed against the gravel path, each step harder, heavier.
The cracked iron gates of Rutherford Cemetery loomed ahead, twisted and broken like the bones of some ancient beast.
She hadn't even realized she was walking until the gates yawned open before her with a creak that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
Aisling stumbled through them anyway, heart hammering.
The bloodred gown Kylian had insisted she wear clung to her, soaked at the hem with mist and dew and regret.
She hated it.
Hated everything.
The dress.
The ring.
The way her life had been auctioned off for debts and desperation and the fading promises of an ancient house.
Another angry sound clawed its way up her throat — half scream, half sob — and she grabbed the nearest thing she could find: a broken branch lying at the foot of the family mausoleum.
With a vicious grunt, she slammed it against the marble.
The brittle wood cracked and snapped, flying off into the mist like broken wings.
Still not enough.
Her trembling fingers tore at the ruby-stitched bodice, ripping the precious stones free, one by one.
Rip.
Tear.
Destroy.
The jewels scattered across the ground like drops of blood.
Her gloves shredded next under the fury of her nails.
"You think you can dress me up like some—some bloody—gift-wrapped sacrifice?" she gasped into the mist, voice cracking on the words.
"You think you can buy me, cage me, chain me just because my bloody House Rutherford needs saving?"
She staggered deeper into the graveyard, the swirling mist swallowing her whole.
Past the cracked tombstones.
Past the twisted vines.
Past the shriveled ghost-roses.
Until she dropped, hard, onto her knees before the one grave that still meant anything.
Lady Althea Rutherford.
Beloved wife. Fierce mother. Lost too soon.
Aisling's palms slapped against the weathered stone, cold seeping instantly into her bones.
"Mother," she choked out, voice wrecked and broken.
"Mother, I don't know what to do."
Her forehead pressed against the granite, the coolness a bitter comfort.
Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
She didn't deserve that release.
Not tonight.
"I don't want this marriage," she whispered fiercely, fingers curling into the damp earth.
"If it weren't for Father's debts... for Corwin's sickness... I would have told him to rot in his miserable castle and choke on his pride."
A gust of wind stirred her hair, dragging the fiery curls across her face like ghost fingers.
"And Kylian Hawkrige—" she spat the name like it burned her tongue, "—he had someone else before me!"
The memory of the court session flashed behind her eyes.
The way Lady Lysandra's eyes had burned with barely hidden hatred.
The barely restrained rage as she'd looked at Aisling — the replacement.
"If I had my way," Aisling growled, "I would gift-wrap him and send him back to that she-vampire without blinking."
The mist thickened, curling tighter around her like a living thing.
Her fists tightened against the grave.
"And that portrait," she muttered, shaking with fury.
"Serena."
The beautiful, dead wife who wore Aisling's face.
The dead woman he couldn't let go of.
"That's the real reason he wants me," she whispered into the stone, a bitter laugh shaking loose from her chest.
"Because I look like her. Because he thinks I'm her and I've come back to haunt him."
Her emerald eyes burned with a vicious, wild light.
"Fine," she hissed.
"Let him marry his dead wife's shadow. Let him wake up every day wishing he hadn't."
Her lips curled in a snarl, voice dropping lower.
"I'll make his life such a living hell he'll think twice before daring to think I'm Serena."
The ring on her finger pulsed.
Warm.
Alive.
Aisling froze, heart slamming against her ribs.
Slowly, she pulled her hand away from the grave.
The bloodstone glowed faintly, throbbing with a heartbeat that wasn't hers.
A low rumble stirred the ground beneath her.
The mist around the gravestones hissed, twisting into delicate fingers that brushed against her ankles, her wrists, her throat.
Then — like a blade sliding between ribs — a whisper slithered through her mind, cold and clear as winter bones.
"Beware the crimson vow... blood remembers."
Aisling stumbled back, her heart vaulting straight into her throat.
Her breath hitched, wild and uneven, as the mist coiled tighter around the ancient grave markers, winding like pale fingers through the crooked crosses and broken headstones.
Her voice, sharp and high with panic, tore through the stillness.
"Mother?"
The word barely left her lips before it was devoured by the hungry fog.
Nothing answered.
Only the soft, eerie sigh of the wind pushing the mist against her skirts, curling it around her ankles like something alive, something watching.
Aisling swallowed hard, every nerve in her body screaming at her to move, to run— but her legs betrayed her, rooted to the sodden earth as if the graves themselves had latched onto her.
You imagined it, she told herself fiercely, fingers clenching into fists. Just nerves. Just this gods-damned place—
But the ring on her finger betrayed her again, the glow beneath her skin pulsing once more—no longer bright, but a dull, feverish throb that set her teeth on edge.
She tore her gaze down to it, yanking her hand against her chest as if she could shove the strange magic back into her bones.
Her breath rattled.
"Blood remembers," she whispered, the words tumbling from her lips without thought, without understanding.
As soon as they left her mouth, she wished she could claw them back.
Because they felt wrong.
The air around her seemed to press in closer, heavier, denser, like a thousand unseen eyes had snapped toward her all at once.
Blood remembers.
A vow.
A promise.
Something older than even the graves around her.
What blood? What memory? What oath was made before I was even born?
The thoughts skittered wildly through her mind, crashing into each other like moths against a flame.
She couldn't breathe.
Her chest heaved, panic rising swift and brutal, and she scrambled upright, her fingers scrabbling in the muck for purchase.
The torn hem of her gown dragged heavily behind her, sodden and blackened from the grave dirt.
But she didn't care.
Every instinct in her screamed Run.
She jerked to her feet, a desperate sound escaping her lips—somewhere between a gasp and a sob—when the ground beneath her seemed to groan.
Not like the usual settling of earth after a rainstorm.
No.
This was different.
The cemetery itself shifted under her, as if some massive, slumbering thing had rolled over just beneath the surface.
The graves... they breathed.
She could feel it—under her boots, in her blood.
Aisling spun on her heel, skirts whipping around her legs.
No more questions.
No more waiting.
Her heart pounded a frantic rhythm against her ribs as she bolted, the mist tearing at her arms like jealous hands desperate to pull her back.
She didn't dare look over her shoulder.
She didn't want to see what was reaching out from the dark.
She slammed into the front doors of Rutherford Manor hard enough to make the whole damn thing shudder on its ancient hinges.
Pain ricocheted up her shoulder, knocking the breath straight from her lungs, but she didn't stop.
Didn't dare.
Her boots—filthy with mud, grave dirt, and shredded lace—skidded across the polished marble as she stumbled into the cavernous entrance hall, trailing a mess behind her like some deranged storm cloud.
Everything inside was blinding.
Too bright. Too sharp.
Each crystal drop from the chandelier stabbed at her raw nerves, a thousand little knives slicing through the ghostlight haze still clinging to her.
Aisling dragged herself forward, her palm clutched tight against her chest where the cursed ring blazed against her skin, searing like an iron brand.
Each step felt wrong, as if the very air inside the manor recoiled from her presence.
The drawing room loomed ahead, doors yawning open. Empty, she thought wildly. The house would be empty. Had to be.
Because if there was any justice left in the world, she could fall apart in peace without an audience.
But fate, as always, had other plans.
A figure lounged in the wingback chair by the hearth, one booted foot hooked lazily over the other, long fingers drumming an idle rhythm against the armrest.
Her heart plummeted.
Uncle Seamus.
Because of course.
Because when your entire world was unraveling at the seams, why not toss your eccentric, half-mad warlock uncle into the disaster pile?
He lifted his head as she all but crashed into the room, one thick brow arching high with the slow amusement of a man watching a particularly clumsy deer stumble into a wolf's den.
"Nice of you to finally come home, girl," he drawled, the old country brogue rolling off his tongue as thick and heavy as smoke.
Aisling blinked at him, her whole body trembling like a plucked string.
Words, she needed words—anything—but her throat locked up, her voice a broken thing in her chest.
"Uncle—" she croaked, but the rest dissolved into a dry, useless rasp.
Seamus tilted his head, studying her with the same detached curiosity a butcher gives a twitching rabbit just before the knife comes down.
"You smell it, don't you?" he murmured, voice softer now, nearly tender if it weren't for the glint of something wild gleaming in his eyes.
"The blood stirring in your veins. The ring singing to your bones."
Her mouth went desert dry.
No.
No, she didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she rasped out, the words tripping and fumbling past cracked lips.
Seamus gave a short, humorless snort.
Rose smoothly to his feet, all loose-limbed grace that belied the iron-gray streaking his beard.
"Of course you don't," he said, mouth twisting into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"No one ever tells the little ones anything useful, do they? Just shove 'em into silk gowns and hope they don't explode before the wedding night."
The jab hit hard, sharper than a slap.
Aisling flinched before she could stop herself, her cheeks burning, fists clenching uselessly at her sides.
Gods, she hated how easy it was to be seen through.
Seamus prowled forward, the firelight casting his shadow long and jagged across the walls, a wolf disguised in human skin.
"You've made a crimson vow, girl," he said, voice low and rough, like boots dragging over gravel.
"And crimson vows bind more than bodies."
He reached out without warning, jabbing a calloused finger straight into her sternum.
Hard.
Hard enough to knock her back a step, her spine jarring against the doorframe.
"They awaken what sleeps," he said grimly.
The fireplace crackled and spat, shadows leaping like mad things up the velvet-draped walls.
The house, once so familiar, felt like a stranger breathing down her neck.
Aisling's heartbeat rattled against her ribs like a drum in a funeral march.
"What... what did I vow?" she whispered hoarsely, hating how small she sounded, how scared.
Seamus bared his teeth in something too sharp to be called a smile.
"You'll find out soon enough," he said, voice dropping to a conspiratorial growl.
"When blood calls to blood, and the dead come whispering."
Her gaze followed his to the front windows, where mist clung thick and heavy against the glass, pressing inward like skeletal fingers.
"You're not just marrying a vampire, girl," he said, almost gently.
"You're marrying into something far older. Far worse."
The floor seemed to tilt under her feet.
The edges of the room blurred, the colors bleeding into one another.
The ring burned hotter against her skin, a cruel reminder she couldn't tear off no matter how much she wanted to.
And somewhere, deep down in the marrow of her bones, a voice she didn't recognize whispered—
Run.