My father gave my dirty appearance a swift assessing glance before his gaze slid over to my sister. "Both of you are filthy. What did Sirro ask you to do for him?"

Sirro might be a Horned God, but my father ruled this House, and our loyalty lay with him. The wine glass was cool beneath my fingers as I curled them around the crystal, lifting it to take a generous sip before I answered. "He sent us off to investigate something in the Hemmlok Forest."

I tried my best to ignore the tension that wrapped around my mother at the name of the forest where her son had died.

"A hole in the g-ground," my sister elaborated, a shudder running across her shoulder as her quick glance met mine. Both of us remembered that dark void that split apart the rock where I'd climbed down, down, down. "There w-wasn't anything inside of it."

Only bones. A hole filled with tiny, shattered animal bones.

Jeroen wiped his mouth with his dinner napkin, then asked, "Was there supposed to be?"

I nodded, popping a slice of orange into my mouth. Sweetness burst across my tongue. "Some kind of lingering afterlife. Sirro called it the Kinslayer."

My father's gruff voice repeated the name. "Kinslayer?" His silver eyebrows nudged together as he tilted his head to the side, thoughtful. A moment later his gaze sharpened on me and he shook his head as if to say he had no idea what it was.

I shrugged. "That's all I know."

He leaned close, curious. "What did he want with this Kinslayer?"

As much as I should have shared the next bit, how Sirro had been worried about the fact that the Kinslayer was freed, that the Horned God would place the Houses between it and his kind, I just didn't want to. Fuck the old man.

"I'm to meet with Sirro on his return from his business out of state. I guess he may explain more." I took another sip of wine, relishing the full-bodied liquor spilling down my throat and warming my stomach. "Or maybe not."

My father grunted, drumming his fingertips on the table. "Kinslayer... Such an interesting name."

I hadn't thought of it that way. I hadn't mulled that name over properly or given it the consideration it deserved. The earth surrounding the outcropping of rock in the Hemmlok Forest had been burned and scarred and turned to brittle dust. A fearsome battle had taken place there and resulted in the lingering afterlife, if it had even started out that way, being trapped inside the crevasse.

Something itched the back of my mind. Sirro had said a few things earlier at the Deniauds'.

Holes in the ground filled with lingering afterlife; and trees that only survive on melancholy and blood...

But what else had he said?

What was it?

Sirro had gazed upon the sinister Hemmlok Forest and mused aloud: I have seen and encountered many strange things... There are lesser creatures that barter; and Horned Gods who hunt one another...

Shock slammed into my heart and made it stumble. A flash of goosebumps washed over my skin and all the hair on my arms rose beneath my armor.

Kinslayer—one who slays his or her own kin.

Holy shit.

Was the Kinslayer a Horned God?

Clack...clack...clack...

The sound, metal on wood, interrupted my thoughts and severed them right in two.

I was half-twisted in my seat facing my father. I slid my eyes sideways and clashed with such intense repugnance it shredded the last fragments of my thoughts that remained on Sirro and the Kinslayer, obliterating them into nothing.

Addie slouched in her chair directly across from me. Her vehemence was almost tangible and I felt the loathing rake across my flesh like crushed metal—jagged and saw-edged and excruciating.

In her hands was a salt shaker. The top was unscrewed and she tapped it against the wood ...clack...clack...clack... as she stared back at me. She held such anger, such unyielding anger for me, that it seemed candlelight shied away from her small figure, and the shadows folded around her like a cloak.

Just those slitted eyes peered at me from the shadows.

Chilling. Festering. Hate-filled eyes.

Eyes that wanted to make me bleed.

Every room within the Keep was grim and shadowy. My ancestral home was like the film set of a horror movie, one you wanted to scoff at the absurdity of the characters for walking naively into its sinister depth. I loved my kid sister, but Addie was giving off freaky-as-fuck vibes, like those twin sisters from the Shining. She was seriously creeping me out.

Addie fiddled with the salt shaker, her brow furrowed above eyes smoldering with contempt, all directed at me. She screwed and unscrewed the cap, back and forth, innocent and annoying, the noise of the salt shaker grating on my ears.

"Addison!" my father barked suddenly, slapping the table with the flat of his hand.

She jolted. I almost did too.

Addie stopped what she was doing. But she didn't cap the salt shaker or put it back in place next to the pepper.

My father turned his attention back to me. "After supper, we'll look into our archives and see if we can find anything on this Kinslayer of Sirro's. Now, whereabouts was this hole in the ground in the Hemmlok Forest?"

"Near the Szarvases'," I answered, relieved to shift my attention from Addie to my father. I took a generous sip of wine, then another.

A clank came from across the table.

"How far away?" he asked.

It was Valarie who answered Jeroen, explaining the barest details of that night hunting for the crevasse, what we'd come across in the forest—the derelict cottage and well full of human bones—and describing the barren earth surrounding the outcropping of rock because I'd taken too long to answer.

My attention had swiftly slid to my mother, disturbed and worried about the way she'd stilled. A fork full of kale hovered before her lips.

I suddenly realized, too late, that all this talk of the Hemmlok Forest and the Szarvases, had stirred up her grief. Mamãe's bottom lip wobbled and she slowly lowered her fork to her plate as tears pricked the corner of her storm-gray eyes.

Tension and shame locked my shoulders rigid.

I was about to say something, to reach across the table to comfort her, to beg for her forgiveness for stealing her son's life away, when in the corner of my eye I realized what the clanking noise had been. Addie had accidentally tipped over the salt shaker. Salt was scattered over the tabletop like a thick dusting of snow—a stark contrast of white on polished black wood.

Everyone else was too focused down the other end of the table, attention resting on my father as he continued to gruffly interrogate Valarie about the mission Sirro had sent us on, to know what Addie had done.

Unease stroked along my bones.

A whisper of foreboding that something wasn't right sent an icy shiver down my spine.

Slowly, so slowly, I twisted back around in my seat to face my kid sister.

Addie drew her forefinger through the smear of salt. At first, I thought she was just messing about until a letter distinctly appeared within the white grains—W.

I leaned forward. My fingers, wrapped around the wine glass, tightened when I finally understood that the spilling of salt had been intentional.

Addie drew an—n.

...nW

Slowly, another letter appeared amongst the spilled salt, an upside-down 'r', and it took a long moment for me to understand what was going on.

I swallowed and my tongue rasped against the back of my mouth which had gone bone-dry.

Addie wasn't writing a word or a message to herself in the salt. She was purposely writing upside down, writing something for someone else to read. It wasn't a W at all, nor was it an n. The letters were intended for me. The word that began with the letters—MU—were now joined by an R.

MUR—

Addie continued drawing through the salt, her movement precise and careful.

MURD—

Her violet eyes lifted to meet mine and they burned with accusation. Her fingertip poised just above the dusting of salt.

My stomach lifted as I waited in apprehension It was the same feeling I got when our sports yacht sped across the ocean and lifted up from a wave. I was perched, suspended mid-air, waiting for the yacht to drop down and hit the choppy surface with a bone-jarring jolt.

Addie kept her hunter-bright eyes on mine and they glimmered with dark menace. She held me in thrall. I couldn't look away. My heart raced and sweat beaded on the palms of my hands, making my grip on the wine glass slippery. All the while, she continued to sweep her fingertip through the salt, until she'd finished.

Her fingertip tapped against the wooden tabletop ...tap, tap, tap... as she taunted me to look down, to read exactly what she thought of me.

I did.

I knew, I fucking knew, what she'd wanted me to know, before I even saw the word written in salt, the grains swept aside and dark wood showing through straight lines and curves, to spell out the letters of one single word. My mind raced forward, putting the word together so fast, my heart wasn't braced for the impact.

Culpability cracked through my entire being, my very soul, like a lightning strike.

My stomach plummeted and acid, hot and fierce, churned in my gut.

My gaze snapped up to meet hers.

A promise of retribution danced like cold flames in the fathomless depth of my sister's dark violet eyes.

Addie had followed Gratian everywhere when he was at home.

Irma visited us often while you were away.

Had Addie seen Irma with Gratian?

She had to have.

Before her on the table was a word that summed up exactly what she thought of me.

MURDERER.

My stomach twisted and heaved and pure revulsion surged up my throat.

I shot awkwardly to my feet. The wine glass went flying and fell upon the rug, staining it with crimson. My thighs hit the table and I jolted it. The abrupt movement shifted the salt, like sand drift whipped by wind, and the letters disappeared. But the word wasn't gone, it was burned inside my head, inked behind my eyelids, scarified across my black heart. And it was reflected within my sister's hateful eyes.

My chair tipped over behind me. The sound of clattering wood was softened by the Persian rug beneath the table. My heart raced so fast and my airway narrowed to such a point that I struggled to draw breath. All I focused on was what Addie had written in the salt and what she thought of me.

She knows...

Addie truly believed I'd wanted to get rid of Gratian, that I'd murdered him because I'd discovered my brother with Irma.

No one else had seen what my kid sister had written. They all turned to me in various states of surprise and confusion, and it took a long moment for me to recognize the sound of crying.

My mother's slight upper body was curved over the table and shuddered with sobs. Her lank hair fell across her face which shielded her from sight.

Mamãe had lost Gratian in such a horrific manner and there hadn't even been a body to bury in our family mausoleum either. Jeroen pulled my mother to him, consoling her with soft words while she was lost within her grief and sobbed into his chest.

I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...

The room seemed to spin and shake and sway, but that was me, in shock with my knees wobbling beneath me.

My family's faces were distorted and their features smeared. My gaze went from one to the other. A twitch of sinister satisfaction played across Addie's lips. Sander and Valarie, worried. My father glared furiously as if blaming me for my mother's relapse into grief

"Varen?" my twin asked, beginning to rise from her seat.

I couldn't even hear what Valarie was saying. Not properly. It was as if there was a disconnection between my ears and brain.

I have to get the fuck out of here.

"I-I-I'm not...feeling well..." I lied, stumbling away.

I staggered from the room. The door was opened for me by one of the servants without even having to ask. I lurched down the hallway like I was on a ship rolling and pitching upon an angry sea.

She knows...she knows...

Behind me, I heard the rhythmic thud of footfall. My sister chased me down. "V-Varen?"

I flinched at Valarie's touch, whirling away, only to crash into a table that rocked a collection of Ming Dynasty jade carvings. "I have to get out of here... I have to go..." I wasn't even fully aware of how many times I kept repeating those desperate words until my sister's voice rose sharply and she interjected.

"Okay, okay... I'll c-come with—"

"No," I barked, cutting her off. I winced at the hurt that dimmed her eyes and the confusion that tightened her square jaw.

"Val, please..." I raised appeasing hands, both of them trembling. "Cover for me with Dad... I just...I need to get out of here..."

Before she agreed or not—I knew she would—I spun around and ran toward the spiral staircase with only one aim in mind: to leave this all behind.

My heavy boots cracked against stone, then the sound of them thudding upon concrete echoed—

And I had no idea—

No idea at all how I came to be in my car. But when I next came to, awakening from a fugue of sorts, I was sitting in my car, the engine furiously roaring, my fingers strangling the steering wheel as I barreled down the narrow driveway toward the entrance to our estate.

As I approached the fortified gates, I slammed the heel of my palm on the car horn several times and blasted my utter desperation to escape my family home. By the time I arrived at the entrance, I didn't even need to check the speed at which I was traveling. The iron gates rumbled open and I streaked straight through.

The car's headlights sliced through the darkness as I pushed my car faster and faster down the private road that cut through the wild forest. The storm had arrived and it blustered the old, gnarled trees. Their branches shivered and snapped in the tempestuous wind that pushed at my car, trying to slow it down. Leaves were torn free by the fierce winds and blown much like a blizzard of snow over the hood of the Bugatti, and underneath, to be churned outward like a spray of wake.

I hit the fork in the road and I veered east. The tires hugged the curve tight, but the reckless speed I was traveling caused the car to drift across the road before I powered out.

My mind was fixated on Addie and that word spelled out on the polished wooden table—MURDERER. It carved itself upon my soul. Once more I disappeared into black thoughts, and I had no idea where I'd been heading until twinkling lights and neon streaks awoke me to the fact I'd reached the outer city limits of Ascendria.