present for you,” he says. He turns and opens the velvet box on the dresser.
My heart skips a beat.
It’s a white half mask, made of porcelain and cold to the touch. Diamonds trace along its edges and twinkle in the light, and trails of bright glitter paint elaborate patterns across the mask’s pale surface. Tiny white plumes arch at the point where it curves up toward the temple. I can only stare. Never in my life have I worn something so finely crafted.
“I commissioned this for you,” Raffaele says. “Care to try it?”
I nod wordlessly.
Raffaele positions the half mask over my face. It fits snugly, like a long-lost possession, something that has always been a part of my body. Now snow-white porcelain and lines of shining light conceal the spot where my eye used to be. The mask covers it all. Without the distraction of my marking, the natural beauty of my face shines through.
“Mi Adelinetta,” Raffaele breathes. He leans down close enough for his breath to warm the skin of my neck. “You are truly kissed by moon and water.”
As I stare silently back, I feel something powerful stir inside me—a buried fire, subdued during childhood and long forgotten. I have lived all my life in the shadow of my father and my sister. Now that I’m standing in the sun for the first time, I dare to think differently.
The broken butterfly has been made whole.
Faint voices come from the hallway outside. Before either of us can react, the door opens and Enzo strides in. I can’t keep my cheeks from turning bright red, and I turn my face partly away, hoping he doesn’t notice. His eyes settle first on Raffaele. “Is she ready?”
Then he notices me. Whatever words he meant to speak now halt on his tongue. For the first time since I met him, a strange emotion flickers across his face that hints at something underneath.
Raffaele studies him. “At a loss for words, Your Highness? I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Enzo recovers in an instant. He exchanges a quiet look with Raffaele. I look between them, uncertain what conversation has just passed. Finally, he turns away from us—and it seems as if he purposely avoids meeting my stare.
“She starts tomorrow,” he says before he leaves.
Teren Santoro
As the sun sets over Estenzia, Teren locks himself inside his chambers. His jaw is tight with frustration.
Several weeks have already passed since Adelina’s escape from her execution. He’s not found a single trace of her. Rumor has it that she came here to Estenzia—at least, that was all his Inquisition patrols could gather. But Estenzia is a large city. He needs more information than that.
Teren undoes the gold buttons of his Inquisition uniform, strips off his robe, and removes the armor underneath. He pulls his thin linen undershirt up over his head, baring his torso to the air. The orange glow of sunset from his window highlights his shoulders, the hard, muscled contour of his back.
It also illuminates the maze of crisscrossing scars that cover his body.
Teren sighs, closes his eyes, and rolls his neck. His thoughts wander to the queen. The king had been dead drunk at his council meeting today, laughing off fears of his hungry people’s rising anger at his taxes, impatient to return to his afternoon hunting trips and brothels. Throughout the whole meeting, Queen Giulietta looked on in silence. Her eyes were cool, calm, and dark. If her husband irritated her, she didn’t show it. She certainly didn’t show any signs that she had invited Teren to her bedchambers the night before.
Teren closes his eyes at the memory of her in his arms, and shivers in longing.
He looks down at the whip lying by his bed. He walks over to it. He had to have the weapon specially made: It consists of nine different tails, each tail equipped at the end with long blades—rare foreign platinum for weight, tipped with steel—honed so finely that their edges could slice open skin with the faintest whisper of a touch.
On any normal man, a weapon like this would shred his back into ribbons of meat with a single strike. Even on someone like Teren, with skin and flesh hardened by demonic magic, the metal whip wreaks havoc.
He kneels on the floor. Lifts the whip. Holds his breath. Then he snaps the whip over his head. The blades rake deep into the flesh of his back, ripping jagged lines across his skin. He lets out a strangled gasp as pain