CALISTA'S POV
I wake up wrong.
That's the first thought in my head—not where am I or what happened, but simply: something is wrong.
My hands are sticky. My nightgown clings to my skin. The air smells like copper and roses, sweet and sick at the same time.
I open my eyes.
Red.
Everything is red.
The white silk sheets beneath me are soaked crimson. My hands—I lift them slowly, like they belong to someone else—are painted dark with drying blood. It's under my fingernails. It's in the creases of my palms. It's everywhere.
My heart starts pounding, but my body stays perfectly still. I know this scene. I've lived it before.
Six times before.
I turn my head—moving feels like pushing through water—and there he is.
Lord Ashton Greyward. My husband of exactly one night. His eyes stare at the ceiling, empty and glassy. His throat has been cut so deeply I can see bone. Blood pools around him like a dark halo.
I should scream. A normal person would scream.
Instead, I sit up carefully and check my own body for injuries. Nothing. Not a scratch. The blood isn't mine.
It never is.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, and that's when I notice my bare feet leaving red footprints on the marble floor. I must have walked around. I must have done... something. But I don't remember. Between drinking wine at the wedding feast and waking up now, there's nothing. Just empty black space where hours should be.
"How long?" I whisper to the corpse. My voice sounds hollow. "How long did it take me to kill you this time?"
Ashton doesn't answer. Obviously.
I stand up, swaying slightly, and that's when I see it—written on the mirror above the dresser, in blood, in handwriting that looks like mine but messier:
HE KNEW YOUR NAME
My breath catches. I stumble toward the mirror, reading the words again and again. What does that mean? Everyone knows my name. I'm famous—or infamous, rather. The Poison Bride. The Black Widow. The girl who kills her husbands.
But something about these words feels important. Urgent. Like Past Me was trying to leave a message for Now Me before the memories got stolen again.
Before I can figure it out, I hear them: boots in the hallway. Heavy, marching in perfect rhythm. The guards.
They're early this time. Usually I have at least an hour alone with the body.
The door crashes open—no knock, no warning. Six royal guards pour into the room, and behind them, Captain Vex. She's a tall woman with a scar across her jaw and eyes that have seen too much. She looks at the scene—me, the blood, the corpse—and sighs like this is just another boring day.
"Lady Calista," she says, not unkindly. "Please step away from the body."
I don't move. "I don't remember."
"You never do." She signals to two guards. "Take her to the bathing room. Gently."
The guards approach me like I'm a dangerous animal. Maybe I am. Their hands on my arms are firm but not rough. They've done this before, too. We all have our roles in this nightmare play.
As they lead me away, I glance back at the mirror. At those bloody words.
HE KNEW YOUR NAME
But I'm already forgetting why they seemed important.
They scrub the blood off me in silence.
I sit in a copper tub while two servant women—their faces carefully blank—wash my hair, my skin, my hands. The water turns pink, then red, then dark brown. They drain it and fill it again. And again.
I don't cry. I haven't cried since the second time this happened. Now I just feel... empty.
"Am I going to die today?" I ask the younger servant, a girl named Mira.
She flinches. "I—I don't know, my lady."
"It's alright. You can say it." I lean my head back against the tub. "Six murders might be forgiven. But surely not seven."
"The Queen will decide," says the older servant, not looking at me.
Right. The Queen always decides.
They dress me in a simple gray gown—mourning clothes, I suppose, though I'm not sure who I'm mourning. The husband I don't remember marrying? Or the girl I used to be before I became a monster?
Captain Vex is waiting outside. "The Queen requests your presence."
My stomach drops. "Already?"
"She's eager to see you." Vex's expression is unreadable. "Walk, please."
We move through the palace halls, and I notice something strange: the servants don't run away this time. Instead, they stare at me with something that looks almost like... pity?
That's new.
That's bad.
We reach the throne room doors—massive, carved with images of past queens—and Vex stops me with a hand on my shoulder.
"Whatever happens in there," she says quietly, "remember you're not the first person to be used as a weapon. And weapons don't choose their targets."
Before I can ask what she means, the doors swing open.
The throne room is empty except for two people: Queen Meridian, sitting on her throne of black stone and silver, and beside her, a man I've never seen before.
He's young—maybe late twenties—with dark hair and darker eyes. He's dressed like a noble but stands like a fighter. When those eyes lock onto mine, I feel something impossible: recognition.
I don't know him.
But something deep inside me—something buried under all the forgetting—does.
"Calista Ravencross," the Queen says, and she's smiling. That's wrong. She never smiles at me. "I have wonderful news. You've been pardoned for Lord Ashton's death."
I blink. "Pardoned?"
"Of course. These... incidents... are clearly not your fault. Some curse, perhaps, or magical affliction." Her smile widens, showing too many teeth. "Which is why I've decided to help you break it."
My heart pounds. "How?"
"By giving you a seventh husband." She gestures to the man beside her. "May I introduce Lord Theron Blackthorn, my Master of Whispers. He's volunteered to marry you."
The room tilts.
A seventh husband. Another man I'll kill. Another name for my list.
But Theron—that's his name, Theron—is walking toward me. And he's smiling.
"Lady Calista," he says, reaching me, taking my blood-stained hand like it's an honor. "I've been trying to meet you for three years."
His touch sends a shock through me—not painful, but familiar, like touching something I've forgotten I loved.
"Then you're insane," I whisper.
"Or very curious." He leans closer, and his next words are so soft only I can hear them: "Check under your pillow tonight. And Calista—fight the sleep."
He releases my hand and bows to the Queen. "Seven nights until the wedding, Your Majesty. I promise you, this time will be different."
The Queen's smile could freeze fire. "Oh, I'm counting on it."
As guards escort me back to my tower—my beautiful prison—my mind races.
Check under your pillow.
Fight the sleep.
What does he know? What does he want?
And why, when he touched my hand, did it feel like coming home?
I reach my tower room and immediately go to my bed. I tear the pillows apart, and there—tucked inside the silk—is a folded piece of paper.
My hands shake as I open it.
It's a list. Seven names.
Six of them I recognize: my dead husbands.
The seventh name is: Theron Blackthorn.
But beneath his name, in handwriting that looks like mine, are three words that make my blood run cold:
DON'T TRUST HIM