Sera's POV
The blood won't come out.
I scrub harder, my knees aching against the wooden floor, my hands raw and red. The water in my bucket turns pink, then darker. This is the third person who died in the healing house this week. Dust fever. It takes them fast in the summer heat.
"You'll wear a hole in the floor, girl," Old Martha says from the doorway. She's holding fresh bandages that smell like herbs and hope. "The stain will fade on its own."
I don't look up. "Blood never really fades."
I know this because five years ago, I watched my mother's blood pool across marble floors so white they looked like snow. I watched it spread and spread until it reached my feet. I was nineteen and wearing a silver dress for the Harvest Festival. The dress turned red that night.
So did everything else.
"Sera?" Martha's voice pulls me back. "You're crying, child."
I touch my face. She's right. I wipe the tears away fast and sit back on my heels. "Just tired."
That's a lie. I'm always tired in the Dust Quarter, but I never cry anymore. Crying is something princesses do. Crying is weak. And Princess Seraphina Ashcroft died the same night her parents did.
I'm just Sera now. Nobody important. Nobody at all.
"You work too hard," Martha says softly. She's one of the few people here who's kind to me. Most people in the Dust Quarter are too busy surviving to notice anyone else. "When's the last time you ate?"
I can't remember. Yesterday? The day before?
The Dust Quarter is where Ashenvale Kingdom throws away people it doesn't want. The sick. The poor. The ones who ask too many questions. The streets smell like rotting garbage and broken dreams. Children with hollow eyes beg for bread. Disease spreads faster than rumors.
I've lived here for five years, moving from room to room, healing people for scraps of food. I keep my hair dirty and tangled. I keep my eyes—violet like my mother's, violet like all royal blood—hidden behind a squint and a face covered in grime. I learned to shuffle when I walk instead of gliding like I was taught. I stutter when I'm nervous. I make myself small.
Because being invisible keeps me alive.
My uncle Dorian sits on my throne now. He tells everyone that my father was a tyrant. That my mother was cruel. That I died with them, a spoiled princess who deserved her fate. The whole kingdom believes him.
But I know the truth. I was there when Uncle Dorian smiled at my father across the festival table. I was there when he gave the signal. I was there when the guards—our own guards—turned their swords on us.
I watched my father try to protect my mother. I watched him fail. I watched the light leave their eyes.
My lady's maid, Elise, grabbed me. She was only sixteen, just two years younger than me. She died getting me out of the palace. Her last words were "Run. Hide. Live."
So I did. I ran until my feet bled. I hid in the Dust Quarter where royalty would never think to look. And I lived, even though most days I'm not sure why.
"Sera!"
I jerk my head up. A boy named Tommy bursts through the door, his eyes wide with fear. He's only eight years old, all skinny arms and scraped knees. I've been treating his cough for weeks.
"What's wrong?" I drop my scrub brush and stand.
"Soldiers!" Tommy gasps. "Hundreds of them! They're coming into the Quarter!"
My heart stops. Soldiers don't come to the Dust Quarter unless they're looking for someone. Unless someone talked. Unless—
"Whose soldiers?" Martha asks sharply.
"The general's," Tommy whispers. "General Kade Nightborne. The War Beast himself."
The bucket of bloody water tips over. I barely notice.
General Kade Nightborne. My uncle's most feared weapon. The man who wins every battle. The man they say can smell treason on your breath. They call him the War Beast because he's more monster than human. He's crushed three rebellions in the past two years alone.
And he's coming here.
"Why?" My voice sounds strange and far away. "Why would the general come to the Dust Quarter?"
"They're saying he's here to stop the rebellion," Tommy says. He's shaking. "They're saying he's going to search every building. Question everyone. He brought five hundred soldiers."
Five hundred. To terrorize people who can barely feed themselves. To crush people who already have nothing.
This is my fault. For the past year, I've been secretly helping the rebellion. Not directly—I'm too careful for that. But through my friend Lyra's network, I've been sending money. Information. Medicine. The rebellion is made up of people who remember my father's kind rule. People who see through Uncle Dorian's lies.
Now the War Beast is here to destroy them. To destroy everyone I've been trying to save.
"When?" I ask Tommy. "When are they coming?"
He looks at me with terrified eyes. "They're already here. I saw them two streets over. They're searching house by house, and—"
The door explodes inward.
Armored soldiers flood into the healing house like a wave of steel and violence. Their boots are loud against the floor I just cleaned. Their swords gleam in the dim light.
And behind them, filling the doorway like a nightmare come to life, is a man who makes every soldier look small.
General Kade Nightborne is taller than the rumors said. His eyes are silver-gray like storm clouds. Even standing still, he looks like a predator about to strike.
Those silver eyes sweep across the room. Across Martha. Across Tommy. Across the blood-stained floor.
Then they land on me.
The world stops.
He stares at me for three seconds that feel like three years. I see his jaw tighten. I see his eyes narrow. I see something flicker across his face that I can't name.
When he speaks, his voice is like gravel and smoke. "You. Don't move."
Everyone in the healing house freezes.
The War Beast takes a step toward me. Then another. His boots leave prints in the spilled bloody water.
He stops one foot away from me. Close enough that I can see gold flecks in those silver eyes. Close enough that I can smell steel and leather and something darker underneath.
"What's your name?" he asks quietly.
I can barely breathe. "S-Sera."
"Sera what?"
I don't have a last name anymore. I gave it up the night I became nobody. "Just Sera."
His eyes narrow even more. Something dangerous flashes in them.
"Liar," he says softly. "Everyone has a last name. Who are you really?"
My blood turns to ice.
He knows. Somehow, the War Beast knows I'm hiding something.
And I'm about to die the same way my parents did.