Chapter 1

I was born with a cursed mouth, and I was the unluckiest baseborn daughter of Northcott Hall.

When I was seven, my older half sister stole my only winter coat, and I cried that all ten of her fingers would rot with frost.

The next day she fell through the lake ice, and every one of those ten fingers festered.

When I was thirteen, my stepmother locked me in the woodshed with no food or water.

I muttered that she'd see blood before sunset, and half an hour later a panicked stallion broke her ribs.

After that, everyone in Northcott Hall called me a calamity. My father said I poisoned the house just by standing in it.

My stepmother accused me of killing my grandmother and dumped me in a paupers' burial field.

I lived on bark and roots, and all I wanted was to carry my mother's ashes home to the Veyra Highlands.

I'd barely reached the city gate when Beatrice arrived with Crown Guards and blocked my path.

"The Dowager Queen has ordered a noblewoman chosen to be buried with the Emperor.

"If Northcott Hall gives up a daughter, the whole family is honored.

"You're an embarrassment alive. At least your death can bring this house some glory."

My father took the payment with his own hands and ordered the servants to nail me into the coffin.

What they didn't know was that the Emperor wasn't dead at all.

A few days earlier, at a palace banquet, I'd seen him standing in the winter wind and said, "Dressed that lightly, His Majesty may stop breathing from the cold tonight."

Before dawn, the palace announced the Emperor had no pulse.

I kicked the coffin lid open, looked around at a burial chamber full of royal treasure, and smiled.

"Your Majesty, I've come to lift your curse."

Chapter 1

When I kicked open the coffin lid, the mausoleum steward tumbled down the steps in terror.

White mourning banners twisted in the wind, and mourning papers scattered across the chamber.

Someone screamed, "The dead woman's moving."

Half my body was still trapped inside the coffin, and an iron shackle around my ankle had been bolted to the bottom.

Northcott Hall had been determined to make certain I died. Even their burial sacrifice came with a lock.

Fresh scratches marked the inside wall of the coffin. Beatrice had carved them.

"Calamities belong underground, rotting forever."

I laughed once. The coffin nails had already torn my palm open.

The mausoleum steward had nearly lost his senses.

"Hold her down. Don't let that filthy thing near His Majesty."

Two young attendants rushed me, but I caught the coffin edge and dragged myself free.

In the central sarcophagus, Emperor Cassian Thornfield's face had turned gray, yet his chest still moved faintly.

An elderly palace steward hurried over and planted his boot on the back of my hand.

"A sacrificial girl sent by Northcott Hall dares touch the Emperor?"

My fingernails bent backward beneath his heel, and pain darkened my vision.

He spat beside me. "With a fate like yours, even your corpse pollutes the royal tomb."

I looked up and smiled coldly.

"If your eyes are useless, have them cut out.

"Delay any longer and blood will start leaking from every opening in his face."

The instant I finished speaking, two trails of black blood appeared beneath Cassian's nose.

A junior attendant dropped to his knees. "Steward Bram, His Majesty's bleeding."

Bram's expression changed. He pointed at me and started shouting.

"Calamity. Her curse has woken up.

"Beat her to death. Now."

The other women chosen for the burial huddled in a corner and sobbed.

"Don't drag us into this. She's Northcott Hall's cursed daughter. Kill her."

Guards forced me to the floor, and my forehead struck the stone tiles.

"Northcott's castoff. Even dead, she'd stain the mausoleum."

I bit through my lip but refused to shed a tear.

All through childhood, tears at Northcott Hall had earned only harder blows.

My mother's ashes were still in that house.

If I died here, even her remains would have nowhere to rest.

I raised my voice and screamed, "The incense burner is poisoned."

I jerked my chin toward the bronze vessel in the center of the chamber.

"Let it burn another few minutes and every living person in this room goes down."

Bram was about to order someone to gag me when a young attendant suddenly clutched his throat and fell, his face turning purple.

Every insult in the room stopped.

Bram stepped backward, and I used the confusion to crawl to the burner and scrape aside the ash.

A layer of Veyran datura powder had been hidden beneath it.

The room had smelled exactly like this when my mother died.

My father had stood outside her door then, unwilling even to touch her forehead because he thought she was unlucky.

I pulled a silver burial pin from my hair and cut Cassian's fingertip.

Blackened blood welled from the wound at once.

"Bring cold water, coarse salt, and clean needles. Hurry."

Everyone stared without moving.

"Or bring nothing. When the Emperor really dies, every one of you can follow him down for real."

That threat worked better than anything else.

A basin arrived quickly, followed by needles.

I drew off more than half a bowl of poisoned blood before a trace of living color returned to Cassian's face.

His eyes opened slowly. "Who sent you?"

Before I could answer, a shrill proclamation sounded beyond Hollowcrest Mausoleum.

"By order of the Dowager Queen, His Majesty has entered final rest. Seal the coffins and begin burial at once. No one may reopen or inspect them."

I drew breath to shout.

Cassian's hand closed suddenly around my wrist from inside the sarcophagus.

"Keep playing dead.

"I want to see who's most desperate to bury me."

I lowered my eyes. Blood still ran from the iron wound around my ankle.

Northcott Hall wanted me dead. The Dowager Queen wanted him dead.

Whether I saved the Emperor or not, no one meant to let me survive the night.

Chapter 2

Cassian saw that I hadn't moved and warned me again.

"Quick. Get back in the sacrifice coffin."

I nearly cursed him aloud and wished him a miserable death.

Before I could, he pressed half of a crest-marked medallion into my palm.

"Survive tonight.

"Whatever Northcott Hall owes you in blood, I'll collect it for you myself."

He coughed, and black blood stained the corner of his mouth.

"Whatever they owe you, I'll collect."

I'd heard too many beautiful promises inside that family.

My father always said he'd buy me new clothes once my stepmother calmed down.

Moira always promised that if I admitted fault, she'd let me out of the shed and feed me.

Beatrice had sworn more than once that sisters could never truly harm each other.

But trusting Cassian was the only path out alive.

"Your Majesty had better keep his word."

The moment I lay back inside the coffin, someone outside started pouring powdered lime through the gaps.

I didn't dare cough. I covered my mouth and nose with both hands.

Tears, blood, and bitter lime ran together down my throat.

Chaotic footsteps filled the outer passage. The Dowager Queen's agents had entered the mausoleum.

The officer leading them went straight to the central sarcophagus, saw that the lid hadn't been nailed shut, and turned toward mine.

"Inspect the sacrifice first."

Through the wood, I heard the men talking.

"Lord Northcott took three thousand silver crowns from the Dowager Queen. He sold this cursed daughter without blinking."

"Lady Northcott slipped us an extra purse too, with instructions.

"If the wretch isn't fully dead, finish her before she can crawl home and spoil Lady Beatrice's luck."

My whole body started shaking beyond my control.

Three thousand crowns. That was the price my father took to nail me into a coffin.

"Hands that greedy should rot before they hold another coin."

The instant I spoke, a scream erupted outside.

"My hand. What's happening to my hand?"

The officer stopped lifting the burial cloth.

Dark blisters spread across the back of his hand and started breaking open.

Everyone retreated in panic.

"The dead woman's spite is on us."

Cassian used the moment to cough a mouthful of black blood inside the neighboring sarcophagus.

He sounded like something crawling up out of a grave to take a life with it.

The Dowager Queen's guards stepped back.

The officer clutched his hand and forced out an order.

"Seal the mausoleum. Her Majesty commands that the living and the dead stay inside."

The hammering carried me back to the steps of Northcott Hall, where Beatrice had bent toward my coffin and smiled.

"Don't be afraid, Elara. It's dark in there, I know, but that's better than having you where I can see you."

My arms and legs were going numb.

I couldn't let myself be trapped and smothered again.

I searched the coffin floor and found a short ceremonial knife among the burial goods.

I cut through the ropes binding my wrists and ankles.

Cassian didn't move. He pressed a raised stone set into the base of his sarcophagus.

A thunderous grinding came from the deepest burial passage, and dust fell from the ceiling.

"The vaults are collapsing. Run."

The guards forgot the burial order and fled for their lives.

Hollowcrest Mausoleum fell silent again.

I dragged in breath after breath and believed we'd escaped.

Cassian sat up in the central coffin and wiped the blood from his lips.

"Tomorrow morning, the Dowager Queen will announce my death before the Crown Council.

"Every guard in Stoneharbor will be ordered to search for our bodies."

Cold sweat covered my back.

"What happens if Northcott Hall catches me first?"

Cassian looked at me. "I'll save you."

Chapter 3

Cassian's personal guard, Tobias Vance, hid me inside a side chamber of Hollowcrest Mausoleum.

Only after I'd stripped off the burial dress did I realize the cloth bundle I always carried was gone.

It held the urn with my mother's ashes.

I grabbed Tobias by the sleeve. "Where are my mother's remains?"

He looked startled. "You weren't carrying an urn when they brought you in."

Northcott Hall must have kept it to keep a grip on me.

I'd found a way out of the grave only to feel it close again.

Every humiliation, every swallowed grief, lodged in my throat.

I'd walk straight back into death before I left my mother in that house.

Tobias blocked the doorway.

"Lady Elara, don't do anything reckless."

I shoved him aside.

"Move. Before my mother died, she held my hand and made me promise to take her home to Veyra.

"Everything I've survived was for the chance to keep that promise."

Conflict crossed his face.

"The city's crawling with the Dowager Queen's informants."

Cassian coughed behind the curtain and came out, one hand braced against the doorframe.

Tobias dropped to one knee. "Your Majesty."

Cassian didn't stop me. He handed me a bronze authority token.

"The charity morgue outside the eastern gate. Go."

Then he added, "Northcott Hall will be there to identify a body and collect the reward."

I turned toward the exit. Cassian lifted one hand.

"Take two guards. Come back alive."

A Northcott carriage stood outside the morgue.

From behind a curtain, I heard Moira Northcott sobbing with extraordinary force.

"My poor Elara. She was baseborn, but I raised that girl with these two hands."

Beatrice covered the corner of her mouth with an embroidered handkerchief.

"Don't grieve, Mother. Elara's luck was cruel, but dying for the Crown is an honor."

Through the gap in the curtain I saw a woman's body under a white cloth.

My father, Cedric Northcott, stood nearby wearing an expression of deep sorrow while his eyes kept sliding toward the reward ledger in a palace official's hands.

Moira covered her nose and dropped her voice.

"The smell is unbearable.

"If I'd known, I'd have starved her a few days before we sent her off, so there'd be less filth in her."

Cedric warned her quietly.

"Keep your voice down. Don't let the palace men hear you."

Beatrice put out one polished shoe and kicked the covered corpse.

"She was a disaster alive, but at least she picked a useful time to die. Once the Dowager Queen pays out, I'll have a reason to enter the palace mourning rites."

Anger burned through me.

"Cry that falsely and your painted face will split open."

Moira screamed.

Powder peeled off her cheeks, showing the raw, scratched rash underneath.

Cedric recoiled and pointed at the corpse.

"The body's cursed. Get a priest. Bring salt and holy water."

Moira scrambled behind him and pulled my mother's urn out of her sleeve.

She held it over the burning brazier.

"Elara Northcott, I know your spirit's here.

"Show yourself, or there won't be a grain of your foreign mother left."

Reason snapped. I threw the curtain aside and ran into the yard.

"Give me my mother."

All three of them went white when they saw me alive.

To cover her fear, Moira pitched her voice loud enough for the crowd.

"You cursed creature. You're still alive?

"You killed Grandmother Adeline years ago, and now you've come back to destroy the rest of us."

I looked at her and laughed coldly.

"Did I really kill Adeline?

"She was poisoned for months with cinnabar stirred into her sleeping draught."

The morgue examiner was standing right there.

At those words he stepped over to the older set of bones laid out on the ground.

After a long inspection, his expression changed.

"These bones are darkened, and the residue in the joints matches long-term cinnabar poisoning."

My father's first instinct wasn't to investigate his own mother's murder.

His eyes went red as he waved the household guards forward.

"Shut that cursed girl's mouth before she spreads another lie."

Chapter 4

Northcott Hall didn't dare bring the city watch into it.

My father swore I'd been staging tricks and had the household guards drag me home.

They forced me to kneel outside the family shrine, the spot reserved for every beating and punishment of my childhood.

Beatrice set my mother's urn beside a brazier.

"Admit you're a calamity, and admit you went to the royal tomb willingly.

"Then I might be generous enough to give this ugly jar back."

She sent a maid to fetch the last winter coat my mother had sewn before she died.

"Remember this, Elara? You were seven, and you cursed me over this rag.

"It should've been burned years ago, but you guarded it like treasure."

Moira gave the housekeeper, Winifred Doyle, a look.

"Hold her down. Make her bow to Lady Beatrice."

Winifred pressed a hand to the back of my neck.

"Bow to your sister and thank her for keeping Northcott Hall's dignity."

As my face neared the floor, I locked both arms and held.

My father shouted, "Why haven't you admitted your fault yet?"

I lifted my head. Blood ran from the corner of my mouth.

"What did I do wrong?"

Moira slammed the table and stood.

"Your mistake was being born worthless and refusing to stay obedient."

Beatrice bent down and tossed the coat beside the brazier.

"Confess, and you get your mother's ashes."

Sparks landed on the old fabric. I looked toward the memorial plaques on the shrine wall.

"Then let every Northcott ancestor hear it. This whole house is rotten enough to hold a dead woman's ashes over a fire to break the living."

Dust came down from the shrine beam.

One of the plaques crashed beside my father's boot, and he stumbled back in terror.

Moira threw herself at him and started crying.

"Look at that, Cedric. The calamity came back to kill us all.

"Tie her up and hand her to the Dowager Queen for another reward."

Beatrice knelt in front of my father.

"Yes, Father.

"As the recognized daughter of Northcott Hall, I'm willing to enter the palace and lead the mourning rites for His Majesty.

"If I can get close to the Dowager Queen and the young prince she means to put on the throne, I can save this family."

So that was her plan. She meant to climb into the palace by stepping over my coffin.

To humiliate me, Beatrice changed into her mourning clothes while making me kneel out in the freezing corridor.

"Do you understand now, Elara?

"You only ever get into a coffin like a rat, while I walk through the palace gates in front of the whole court."

I watched her roll the sealing clay she'd pried off my mother's urn between her fingers.

Right in front of me, she ground it to powder under her shoe.

I lunged for what was left of my mother.

My father crossed the room and slapped me across the face.

"Why can't you show one fraction of your sister's sense?"

He didn't look at me again. He turned to lift Beatrice's long mourning train so it wouldn't touch the dust.

I lay on the floor and laughed under my breath.

"If she touches the Emperor's coffin tonight, she'll be on her knees begging me to save her by morning."

A palace attendant beside her whispered, "Lady Beatrice, the Dowager Queen says that if you keep all three nights of vigil, Northcott Hall will be shown extraordinary favor once the young prince takes the Crown."

Beatrice set her incense in the burner and rested a hand on the coffin lid.

"He's really dead, isn't he?"

Cassian's voice came from inside the coffin.

"Beatrice. Were you certain I was dead before you came to collect your reward?"