It was all gray and flat. A painting left too long in the sun.

“You need to get dressed.” Lev laid a hand on Safi’s shoulder. “His Imperial Majesty is expecting you.”

“Good for him.”

“Safi.”

There it was again: her real name and not the title. This time, Lev offered it as a warning. Her grip dropped and her weight shifted, a subtle clink of armor. “I know you have a fancy title now, but it doesn’t make any difference if you’re wearing that noose.”

Safi almost laughed at those words: if you’re wearing that noose. Like wearing the gold chain around her neck was an option. Like she could remove it at any time and have her magic once more bound inside her.

“Let the Emperor command me,” she declared with false lightness, returning her attention to the candle, Firewitched and always flickering atop a hexagonal golden base.

Fascinating. Foul.

“It is not you,” Lev began, “he will command.”

As if to demonstrate this—as if the Emperor knew exactly what words Lev had just uttered—the Hell-Bard doubled over with coughing. It took Safi a moment to understand what was happening. A moment to spot the tainted lines swirling over Lev’s skin. But as soon as she saw and understood, horror yawned inside her lungs. She lurched at Lev and yanked off her helmet. The Hell-Bard didn’t resist.

And there they were: more shadows writhing across her face, wriggling in her eyes. Emperor Henrick fon Cartorra was commanding Lev to deliver Safi, and Lev was failing to obey.

For the first time in fourteen days, heat ignited in Safi’s veins. Rage that tasted so thick, so good.

In ten long strides, she reached her bedroom door and burst into the hallway, where five Hell-Bards leaped into formation around her. Lev did not join, so the knights closed the gap where she usually stood. They were accustomed to comrades felled by punishment.

Without any verbal command from Safi, the Hell-Bards aimed for the imperial wing on the western side of the sprawling palace. Through the Gentleladies’ Gallery they strode with Safi in their midst, the wood gleaming beneath crystal chandeliers, the various seating areas covered in enough gold to sustain a small nation. A nation like Nubrevna. Safi hated this room, not merely because of the waste, but because once upon a time, she had thought all that glittering beautiful.

Now it was just a washed-out reminder of what her world had become.

Gods below, how had everything gone so thrice-damned wrong? How had Safi done so much damage in so little time? She had left Mathew and Habim in a world of flames a month ago—two men she loved as fathers—and then she had lost Vaness somewhere inside a mountain.

She’d found Merik, only to lose him as well. And then, after two glorious weeks with Iseult, she had lost her too. And for what? Safi had come here to save Uncle Eron from execution, but she was no closer to achieving that than she had been in Marstok.

Everything she’d ever fought for, everything she had ever loved had been scorched away. She was trapped here, inside this palace. Inside herself.

The Hell-Bards’ footsteps changed from clack-clack to echoing hammers as they crossed into the oldest part of the palace. Then Safi’s footsteps changed too, and harsh drafts swept against her.

Everything felt colder here. Larger too, each stone in the wall as tall as she was, each banner stretching long as a sea fox. It reduced her to tiny insignificance—as no doubt the Emperor wanted. And no doubt why he kept his personal quarters here, despite greater comfort in the newer additions.

Safi followed the Hell-Bards through the King’s Gallery, then the First Receiving Room, the Second Receiving Room, and, at last, the former empress’s sitting room, where Henrick’s mother had once entertained. Safi stalked past the door to what should have been her bedroom, and stoutly avoided looking at it.

It was just one more reminder of how everything in her plan had gone horribly wrong.

When at last she turned onto the Guards’ Hall that preceded the Emperor’s personal rooms, twelve Hell-Bards watched her pass. Their expressions were hidden behind their helms, and Safi’s own retinue took up positions between them. One Hell-Bard, however, winked as Safi passed.

Caden fitz Grieg, appointed three weeks ago to personally guard His Imperial Majesty.

Safi did not wink back.

One of the Emperor’s many simpering attendants rushed forward, the whip-thin man clearly appalled to see Safi still dressed in her green velvet nightgown. Which just reminded her how much she hated him, how much she hated his master, and how furious she was that Henrick had hurt Lev.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” the attendant began, hurrying toward her, “the Emperor would like you to dress for court—”

Safi threw him. So easily. Too easily, really. When he was near enough to reach, his palms raised and beseeching, she smacked up both his arms, braced one leg against his hip, and dumped him to the ground.

“Stay down,” she ordered, pleased when none of the Hell-Bards intervened. Now that she was one of them, they regularly looked the other way when she did things that were … beneath her title.

A second attendant, his eyes bulging, yanked open the door into the Emperor’s quarters. He did not have time to announce Safi before she strode in.

She had entered Henrick’s personal office only once before, prior to having her magic severed away. At that time, the scarlet rugs had shone bright as fresh blood. Now, they were old gashes, left exposed and rotten. Even the bookshelves she had genuinely admired—so many tomes from all over the Witchlands and beyond—now felt oppressive. Too many shades of gray stacked around her.

Behind a broad desk layered thick with papers and ledgers sat the Emperor himself: Henrick fon Cartorra. He was, as Safi was meant to be, dressed for court, in a fine brown velvet suit.

The color did not suit him, and for the hundredth time, Safi was struck by his toad-like visage, his face sagging and mouth too wide. Although, now she understood his looks were carefully cultivated. The waddling and exaggerated underbite, the slouched posture and overindulgence in food, the unkempt nature of his graying brown curls. Even the sallow undertones to his pale skin seemed part of the act. And though he might look like a toad, he had the mind of a taro player—one who knew exactly how to play the tricky Emperor card.

Safi came to a stop before his desk. “If you want me to do something,” she declared, standing at her tallest, “then pull my noose. Do not hurt the Hell-Bards, do you understand?”

Henrick sniffed, an indulgent sound. “My Empress.” He pushed to his feet with a grunt. “I will hurt whomever I please, and despite your wishes, that will never be you.”

“Then why put this on me?” She yanked at the chain around her neck. “If you do not plan to use it, why bind me to you at all?”

His lips spread with a smile. “That is simply a guarantee.” His one snaggling tooth jutted out above the rest as he shuffled around his desk toward her. “You proved I could not trust you, so I did what I had to do. If you did not want others to suffer at your expense, then you should never have returned to Cartorra. You should have continued running, just as your uncle wanted you to do.”

It was a fist to the stomach, a blow meant to wound—and it did. Safi knew her own mistakes had landed her here. She’d come for marriage to save her uncle. Instead, she’d ended up a Hell-Bard like him.