Mariluna ran barefoot through the corridor, her silk gown streaming behind her like smoke.
The scream that had torn through the estate hadn't sounded human.
It had started as Cassandra's voice, but twisted, ending in something altogether different.
A guttural, wrenching wail. Like lungs being ripped empty. Like bones grinding between teeth.
When she reached the west wing, everything was cloaked in pitch darkness.
Every candle extinguished.
The cold there didn't feel natural. It moved like a sentient thing, pressing into her skin, sliding down her back, whispering secrets just out of reach.
She pushed open the final door.
And saw her.
Cassandra.
Pinned to the ceiling.
Her eyes were wide with horror. Blood trailed from her fingers in long, delicate strands, forming symbols across the floor, etched in a language Mariluna couldn't read but somehow recognized. Ancient. Old as time.
Something had torn into Cassandra's chest, not with blades, but claws.
There was no sign of a fight.
Only the darkness.
Mariluna stumbled back, nausea surging up her throat.
Then, A voice hissed in her ear.
"One queen must fall for the other to rise."
She spun around.
No one.
She backed away from the room,
And collided with Lorenzo.
His eyes swept over the blood, the runes, Cassandra's lifeless body.
He didn't flinch.
"She was marked," he said quietly.
"By who?!" Mariluna demanded, her voice cracking.
"The Court," he said.
They stood in silence in that dark hallway. The shadows around them felt alive. Listening.
"Why her?" she whispered.
Lorenzo's voice was rough, grim. "Because she touched the Crown-Breaker."
"She didn't even wear it."
"No," he said. "But she carried it. And they smelled it on her."
He stepped forward, reached up, and brushed Mariluna's hair gently away from her face.
"This is your warning, Luna. You're not hidden anymore. They've marked you as theirs."
"I didn't choose them."
He gave her a hollow smile.
"They don't care."
Meanwhile, in the Red Market
A goblet of blood wine shattered against stone.
Veritas stood at the head of a long obsidian table. Around him, seven figures sat, what remained of the Unblooded Court.
Each more monstrous than the last.
"We warned you," Lady Orasha hissed, her four black eyes flashing like coals. "You should not have touched her cousin."
"She bore the scent," Veritas snapped back.
"And now she bleeds," muttered another, a male figure, his skin like drifting smoke. "The mortal world will take notice."
"I don't care if it burns," Veritas growled. "She was meant to come home."
"And if she doesn't?" Orasha asked, voice like silk pulled across a blade.
Veritas lifted one hand.
The flames in the chamber pulsed red.
"She will."
Back at the estate
Lorenzo's office no longer resembled a study.
It had become a war room.
David stood by the window, watching the trees beyond the estate, gun in hand.
Mariluna sat in a high-backed chair, clutching the cracked glass case that once held the Crown-Breaker.
Lorenzo watched her without speaking.
Then, finally, he said:
"You deserve the truth."
She didn't respond.
He poured two glasses of scotch and handed her one. Her fingers shook as she took it.
"My mother was Unblooded," he said.
She looked up at that.
"She escaped the Court before I was born," he continued. "Fell in love with a human man, my father. But the Court found her. They burned our home to ash. I lived. He didn't."
"And your mother?" she asked.
"She gave herself up. To save me."
He paused, drinking deep, jaw tight with memory.
"She begged me, before they took her, never let them find another. Hide them. Bury them. Erase them all."
Mariluna's voice was barely a whisper. "So when you found out about me…"
"I should've killed you."
"But you didn't."
"No," he said, his voice lower now. "Because the day I saw you, blood on your face, fire in your eyes, I knew. You weren't meant to hide. You were meant to rule."
A knock at the door.
Three slow taps.
Not David's signal.
Not anyone's.
Lorenzo was already on his feet, weapon drawn, motioning for Mariluna to stay low behind the desk.
David opened the door.
A boy stood there.
Soaked in rain. Barefoot.
His eyes, black. Entirely black.
He held out a scroll, sealed in red wax.
"This is for the girl," the child said. The voice that came from him was not his own.
Lorenzo stepped forward,
But the boy vanished.
Vanished into thin air.
The scroll dropped to the ground.
David grabbed it and handed it to Lorenzo, who broke the wax seal and unrolled the parchment carefully.
His face went pale.
Mariluna stood.
"What does it say?"
Lorenzo turned to her.
His voice unreadable.
"It's an invitation."
"To what?"
"Your coronation."