The fever dreams were the worst part of dying. In them, I saw Prince Damien's face again—young, handsome, so certain of his immortality—as I begged him not to attend the coronation ceremony. I saw the marble steps slick with his blood. I saw the dagger, the assassin's hood, the way his silver eyes dimmed as he reached for me. I'd tried to save him. They called me a murderer for it. "Drink." The voice cut through my delirium like a blade through silk. Strong hands lifted my head, and cool water touched my cracked lips. I choked, sputtered, then drank greedily. When my vision finally cleared, I stopped breathing. The man sitting beside my bed wore the black and gold regalia of the Imperial throne. Dark hair fell across a face that was both familiar and foreign—sharper than Damien's had been, with a harder set to his jaw. But those eyes. Gods, those silver eyes were exactly the same. Emperor Caspian. The dead prince's younger brother. I tried to scramble backward, but my body refused to obey. The grimoire had taken too much from me. My fingers looked skeletal against the emerald silk sheets, and when I touched my face, I felt nothing but sharp bones beneath papery skin. "Don't move," Caspian said, his voice surprisingly gentle. "You've been unconscious for three days. My physicians say it's a miracle you're alive at all." "Then they should have let me die." My voice came out as a rasp. "Why am I here? Why aren't I in chains?" He stood, moving to the window where snow fell in thick curtains beyond the glass. We were somewhere in the Northern territories—I could tell by the ancient pines visible through the storm. Far from the capital. Far from the execution platform that should have been my fate. "Because you're not a criminal, Selene." He spoke my name like a prayer. "You're a victim." I laughed, and it hurt. "Your brother is dead because of my prophecy. The entire empire wants my head. Your council—" "My council believes what they were told." Caspian turned, and the look in his eyes made my breath catch. It wasn't hatred. It was something far more dangerous. "But I've spent six months investigating my brother's death. I know about the poison in his wine. I know about the councilors who wanted him dead. And I know you tried to warn him, tried to save him, and they branded you a curse-bringer to silence you." Tears burned my eyes. No one had believed me. Not even Damien. Caspian crossed the room in three strides and knelt beside the bed. This close, I could see the shadows under his eyes, the lines of grief etched into his face. He'd loved his brother. Of course he had. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm so sorry I couldn't—" "Stop." His hand covered mine, warm and solid. Real. "You have nothing to apologize for. But I need your help, Selene. Desperately." He reached beneath his cloak and pulled out a book that made my blood run cold. The grimoire. My grimoire. The forbidden text I'd stolen from the Oracle's vault when I fled, the one that had been drinking my life force drop by drop in exchange for showing me fragments of the future. "I found this in the snow beside you," Caspian said softly. "I've had every scholar in the empire examine it. None of them can read a single word. But you can, can't you?" I stared at the ancient leather binding, at the silver runes that writhed and shifted across its surface. "That book is death itself. It's why I was dying in that wasteland." "I know." His silver eyes met mine, and what I saw there stopped my heart. "But I've seen the same symbols, Selene. In my dreams. In my mirror. Written in frost on my window every morning." His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "You didn't curse my brother. You tried to save him, and they punished you for it. But I've been searching for you because only you can read what's written here." He opened the grimoire, and I saw my own handwriting scrawled in the margins—desperate notes, failed interpretations, warnings I'd tried to piece together. "And because," Caspian continued, his hand tightening on mine, "the same fate is coming for me." ---