My sister and I shared one body, Twin Souls bound together since birth, fighting over control for as long as I could remember.

The year we came of age, I gave my heart to the Ninth Prince. She fell for the Crown Prince.

Our father laid down the rule: whichever girl's beloved claimed the throne would claim the body for good.

A year later, the Crown Prince was crowned Emperor.

He married my sister with a procession that stretched for miles, making her his Empress.

And I, as promised, sank into dormancy.

I thought I would never wake again.

Until a night of bitter wind tore through me and I opened my eyes to find myself drenched in blood.

Dana Griffin kicked open the doors of the Forsaken Palace, his eyes shot through with red.

"Clarissa Blackwood. Lucretia only accidentally lost your child again, and you curse her with infant spirits haunting her every dream?"

"When did you become this vicious?"

I watched my sister's beloved glare at her as though he wanted to tear her apart.

Rage boiled through me.

Dana Griffin had no idea. My sweet sister was soft-hearted and kind, the sort of soul who lived to save others.

But me? I was born from malice. The only creed I knew was an eye for an eye.

……

Pain bored through my body like a drill through bone.

Hot copper surged up my throat.

Dana seized my jaw, his gaze cold and venomous.

"Try your filthy sorcery again, and I'll dig that wretched child of yours out of the ground and roast it over an open flame!"

"So it never dares be reborn as a human!"

My pupils shrank to pinpoints.

The boy my sister once loved, the one who used to frown over a wounded sparrow.

Now he stood here saying this to her, words so depraved they defied heaven itself?

I locked my fingers around his wrist and snarled through my teeth.

"Dana Griffin, when exactly did you become this monstrous? Was that not your own child?"

Dana went rigid. His breath caught.

I saw something flicker in his eyes.

Only for an instant.

The next second, he slammed me into the ground.

He looked down at me from above, the disgust in his gaze deepening another layer.

"With a mother like you, dying early was a mercy."

"The exorcist says Lucretia's nightmares can be cured with the blood from your heart!"

"Since you refuse to confess, don't blame me for being merciless. Guards!"

I stared at Dana through hooded eyes, a strand of his hair still clenched between my fingertips where I'd torn it free.

Guards closed in around me on every side.

Their formation was practiced, seamless. This was clearly not the first time.

"Stand down. I'll do it myself." My voice cut through them like a blade.

I rose to my feet and picked up the silver needle.

In full view of every last one of them, I ripped open my sleeping gown without a shred of hesitation.

Dana's expression twisted. He whipped toward the guards and roared, "Close your eyes! All of you!"

I let out a cold, mocking laugh.

He was the one who sent these guards. What exactly was he pretending to protect?

I looked down at my own chest.

There, over the sternum, across the core of the body's spiritual center, were seven puncture wounds.

Three to shatter the soul. Seven to strip the spirit.

This was a method designed to scatter a person's soul into nothing, to ensure my sister couldn't even become a ghost.

Dana's gaze darkened as it settled on the wounds across my body.

"Clara, Lucretia and I did this for your own good. The Rite of Soul Purification was always meant to cleanse the dark energy inside you."

"You even tried to fake your death to escape the palace, claiming the Rite would kill you, that the baby would die too. And yet here you are, alive and well, and the child was born safely. Stop being so ungrateful."

The words hit me like a fist closing around my heart. Cold spread through every limb, every vein, all at once.

"You drove Soul-Scattering Nails into Clarissa while she was still carrying her child?"

When Soul-Scattering Nails pierced flesh,

it was like ten thousand steel needles driving in from every direction, then ripping back out.

They punctured the soul until it was riddled with holes, until the spirit scattered so completely it could never be pieced together again.

My sister must have burned through the very essence of her soul to shield both the baby and me.

And the child she'd gambled her life and her soul to save.

Smashed to death against the ground.

I drove the silver needle into my chest without so much as a flicker of expression.

Not a trace of pain crossed my face.

Only the fury buried deep in my soul.

Perhaps it was this deathly, silent obedience that finally pricked at something guilty inside Dana.

His brow furrowed. His expression softened. He was just about to speak.

Then Lucretia Harding appeared, dropping to her knees without preamble, her voice fragile and trembling:

"Your Majesty, this is all my fault. I failed to protect our sister's child."

"I've been plagued by nightmares, unable to sleep. This is the punishment I deserve..."

"I only beg that our sister show mercy and stop cursing this poor child's spirit. Let the little one rest in peace."

A few sentences, and she'd turned every drop of blame onto my sister.

My gaze went cold. Killing intent churned behind my eyes.

Dana, who had been on the verge of relenting, moved to her side almost instantly, pulling her up and gathering her into his arms.

"Lucretia, why are you kneeling to her again?" His voice was thick with tenderness and edged with anger. "You are the Empress now. She is nothing."

"She's the one steeped in malice. You have no reason to lower yourself. I will see justice done for you."

He bent down and brushed the dust from her knees, his touch gentle, as if handling something infinitely precious.

Then he raised his head and looked at me.

"Guards! Consort Blackwood has forgotten her place. Hold her down and make her kneel before the Empress. She will confess and beg forgiveness!"

I watched the two of them perform their little act, and a cold smile curved slowly across my lips.

"You both truly..."

"Deserve to die."

My sister Clarissa and I were born as Twin Souls sharing one body.

Even in the womb, whenever our mother felt the slightest discomfort, Clarissa would push me aside and take control.

As children, every time a dark thought stirred in me, she threw herself in the way to stop it.

When I was five, I grew so sick of my father's distant cousin that I spent three consecutive nights creeping toward her with a knife, intent on slitting her throat.

The first night, Clarissa threw herself off a wall.

The second night, Clarissa jumped into the well.

The third night, Clarissa stabbed herself.

Arlene Henson stared at the knife in my hand and collapsed weeping into my father's arms:

"How has your wife raised this child to be like this?"

My father was beside himself with rage. At Arlene's urging, he summoned an exorcist.

The exorcist declared me a malevolent spirit. He drew up a Soul-Scattering Formation with great ceremony, intending to obliterate my soul entirely.

It was Clarissa who shoved me aside, seized control of the body, and wrapped her own soul around mine so that not a shred of harm touched me.

When I was ten, I tried to have Arlene Henson's daughter sold off.

That daughter was none other than the oh-so-delicate Empress Lucretia Harding standing before me now.

That time, even our mother was shaken.

Terrified our enraged father would beat us to death, she rushed us to Celestine Abbey.

The sacred light there seared me, keeping me from taking control of the body.

But Clarissa would sneak down the mountain to call me out, letting me taste the joys of the world beyond.

It was also at that abbey that she met Dana, then still a young imperial heir.

A sudden fire engulfed Celestine Abbey, turning the sky black with smoke and flame.

Clarissa charged into the inferno and shoved Dana to safety, only to collapse herself, her strength spent, surrounded by fire.

I was pinned down by the sacred light, unable to move an inch. I endured the searing agony in my soul and dragged myself to the threshold.

In the end, it was the cold and ruthless Ninth Prince, Roy Griffin, who pulled me out at the last moment.

Clarissa fell in love with the imperial heir. I fell in love with the Ninth Prince.

But the two of us could never go on living like that forever.

Our parents made a pact with us.

Whichever sister's beloved became Emperor would be the one to claim the body from that day forward.

Everyone poured everything they had into placing Dana on the throne.

The Ninth Prince, Roy, was sent to the Northern Frontier to guard the border.

Clarissa married the man she loved, just as she'd always wished.

I believed she would live happily ever after.

But now?

I pulled my collar closed.

"Dana Griffin. On your wedding day, you knelt three times before heaven and earth. You looked Clarissa in the eye and swore you would trust her, protect her, never doubt her. That you would be hers alone, for the rest of your lives."

"All those vows dripping with devotion. Did you feed every last one of them to the dogs?"

I didn't wait for his answer.

My gaze dropped to the strands of his hair still tangled between my fingers, torn loose only moments ago.

"No matter."

"Every wrong done to her, I will repay in full."

Dana's brow furrowed. "You—"

Lucretia wrenched herself free of his arms and threw herself at my feet.

She flashed me a taunting smile, but the words that left her mouth were a tearful wail:

"Sister, whatever grievance you have, take it out on me! Don't hurt His Majesty!"

I was happy to oblige.

Without a heartbeat's hesitation, I swung my hand and slapped her across the face.

Then I hurled the entire bowl of heart's blood over her.

Lucretia screamed.

The blood was still warm. It dripped from her hairpins, ran down her temples, soaked through the crimson phoenix robe until the silk clung to her skin.

She raised a hand on instinct and wiped at her face, smearing the blood into a grotesque mask.

Dana stared at Lucretia, drenched and trembling.

As though she were the one who'd been bled. As though she were the one who'd been hurt.

Every ounce of tenderness in his eyes belonged to her. Every shred of his pity, his bias.

"Clarissa, you've bullied Lucretia since you were children. And now you use whatever affection I still hold for you to humiliate her again and again!"

"Since you drew heart's blood and still refuse to save her, then I will have every last one of those wretched spawn dug up and ground to dust. Let's see you use them to terrorize Lucretia then!"

"Guards! Exhume the remains of the First Prince, the Second Prince, the Third Princess, the Fourth Prince, and the Fifth Princess. All of them!"

"Burn them in open flame. Boil them in oil. Then summon the Exorcist to lay the foulest curse he knows, so they can never be reborn. Not even as ghosts!"

A savage pain detonated in my chest.

It wasn't mine. It was my sister's.

I froze.

Was Clarissa's soul still inside this body?

Then why, no matter how many times I called for her, had she never answered?

With every word Dana spoke, the pain deepened, as if something were being ripped apart inside me, slow and alive.

Lucretia sat crumpled in the pooling blood, biting her lip, sobbing as though each breath cost her dearly.

"Your Majesty, my sister truly despises me beyond all reason!"

"But... but the Exorcist himself said those five children died because of the elder sister's wickedness. That her sins provoked heaven's wrath..."

"That's why they were smothered one by one, trampled by horses, thrown to their deaths... I grieve for those poor children so deeply..."

Dana's chest heaved violently. He erupted.

"Even after you've humiliated her to this degree, Lucretia still weeps for those children! That is a heart of pure sincerity!"

"And you? All you do is use your own children as weapons for revenge! You don't deserve to be called their mother!"

Two lines of blood-red tears spilled from my eyes, beyond my control.

Those were my sister's tears, shed for her five murdered children.

I clenched my fists until the strands of hair bit into the flesh of my fingers.

I laughed. The sound was jagged, ugly.

"Sister Clarissa! Your five children are barely cold in their graves, and you... you can still laugh?!"

Lucretia's tears flowed without end, her expression the very portrait of unbearable grief.

But I saw it clearly. The triumph glinting in her eyes.

The same look her mother had worn, all those years ago, when the two of them had wielded their fragile, pitiful act to steal Father's affection and driven Mother to weep alone every night.

"I'm laughing," I said, "because you fools don't know what you've done. You woke me up."

I raised my hand and pressed a finger to my own chest.

"Dana Griffin. Do you know what a Soul-Scattering Nail is?"

"It is a torture designed to pin a living soul apart, scattering all three spiritual essences and all seven mortal forms until nothing remains."

"I was trying to save you, and you threw it back in my face!" Dana's eyes were full of bitter disappointment. "That ritual was meant to purge the darkness festering inside you. And it didn't do a damn thing!"