My sister and I shared one body, Twin Souls bound together since birth, fighting over control for as long as I could remember.
The year we came of age, I gave my heart to the Ninth Prince. She fell for the Crown Prince.
Our father laid down the rule: whichever girl's beloved claimed the throne would claim the body for good.
A year later, the Crown Prince was crowned Emperor.
He married my sister with a procession that stretched for miles, making her his Empress.
And I, as promised, sank into dormancy.
I thought I would never wake again.
Until a night of bitter wind tore through me and I opened my eyes to find myself drenched in blood.
Dana Griffin kicked open the doors of the Forsaken Palace, his eyes shot through with red.
"Clarissa Blackwood. Lucretia only accidentally lost your child again, and you curse her with infant spirits haunting her every dream?"
"When did you become this vicious?"
I watched my sister's beloved glare at her as though he wanted to tear her apart.
Rage boiled through me.
Dana Griffin had no idea. My sweet sister was soft-hearted and kind, the sort of soul who lived to save others.
But me? I was born from malice. The only creed I knew was an eye for an eye.
……
Pain bored through my body like a drill through bone.
Hot copper surged up my throat.
Dana seized my jaw, his gaze cold and venomous.
"Try your filthy sorcery again, and I'll dig that wretched child of yours out of the ground and roast it over an open flame!"
"So it never dares be reborn as a human!"
My pupils shrank to pinpoints.
The boy my sister once loved, the one who used to frown over a wounded sparrow.
Now he stood here saying this to her, words so depraved they defied heaven itself?
I locked my fingers around his wrist and snarled through my teeth.
"Dana Griffin, when exactly did you become this monstrous? Was that not your own child?"
Dana went rigid. His breath caught.
I saw something flicker in his eyes.
Only for an instant.
The next second, he slammed me into the ground.
He looked down at me from above, the disgust in his gaze deepening another layer.
"With a mother like you, dying early was a mercy."
"The exorcist says Lucretia's nightmares can be cured with the blood from your heart!"
"Since you refuse to confess, don't blame me for being merciless. Guards!"
I stared at Dana through hooded eyes, a strand of his hair still clenched between my fingertips where I'd torn it free.
Guards closed in around me on every side.
Their formation was practiced, seamless. This was clearly not the first time.
"Stand down. I'll do it myself." My voice cut through them like a blade.
I rose to my feet and picked up the silver needle.
In full view of every last one of them, I ripped open my sleeping gown without a shred of hesitation.
Dana's expression twisted. He whipped toward the guards and roared, "Close your eyes! All of you!"
I let out a cold, mocking laugh.
He was the one who sent these guards. What exactly was he pretending to protect?
I looked down at my own chest.
There, over the sternum, across the core of the body's spiritual center, were seven puncture wounds.
Three to shatter the soul. Seven to strip the spirit.
This was a method designed to scatter a person's soul into nothing, to ensure my sister couldn't even become a ghost.
Dana's gaze darkened as it settled on the wounds across my body.
"Clara, Lucretia and I did this for your own good. The Rite of Soul Purification was always meant to cleanse the dark energy inside you."
"You even tried to fake your death to escape the palace, claiming the Rite would kill you, that the baby would die too. And yet here you are, alive and well, and the child was born safely. Stop being so ungrateful."
The words hit me like a fist closing around my heart. Cold spread through every limb, every vein, all at once.
"You drove Soul-Scattering Nails into Clarissa while she was still carrying her child?"
When Soul-Scattering Nails pierced flesh,
it was like ten thousand steel needles driving in from every direction, then ripping back out.
They punctured the soul until it was riddled with holes, until the spirit scattered so completely it could never be pieced together again.
My sister must have burned through the very essence of her soul to shield both the baby and me.
And the child she'd gambled her life and her soul to save.
