By accident, her gaze slipped onto the king’s face, and she found his dark eyes staring into hers. The king smirked. Her heart threw itself backward and clung to the bars of her ribcage.Murderer.He should be hanging from the gallows. He had killed many more than she— people undeserving and defenseless. He’d destroyed cultures, destroyed invaluable knowledge, destroyed so much of what had once been bright and good. His people should revolt. Erilea should revolt—the way those few rebels had dared to do. Matilda struggled to maintain his gaze. She couldn’t retreat.“Is that understood?” the king asked, still staring at her.Her head was heavy as she nodded. She had only until Yulemas to beat them all. One test a week—perhaps more.“Speak!” the king bellowed to the room, and she tried not to flinch. “Are you not grateful for this opportunity? Do you not wish to give me your thanks and allegiance?”She bowed her head and stared at his feet. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I am most appreciativ

Matilda felt as if she’d barely closed her eyes when a hand jabbed her side. She groaned, wincing as the drapes were thrown back to welcome the morning sun.“Wake up.” Not surprisingly, it was Chaol.She shimmied beneath the blankets, pulling them over her head, but he grabbed the covers and threw them to the floor. Her nightgown was wrapped around her thighs. Matilda shivered.“It’s cold,” she moaned, holding her knees to her body. She didn’t care that she had only a few months to beat the other Champions—she needed sleep. It would have been nice if the Leader of the gang had considered springing her from Endovier earlier so she could have some time to regain her strength; how long had he known about this competition, anyway?“Get up.” Chaol ripped the pillows from beneath her head. “Now you’re wasting my time.” If he noticed how much skin she was showing, he didn’t react.Grumbling, Matilda slithered to the edge of the bed, dangling a hand over the edge to touch the floor. “Fetch my

Across the castle, Kaltain Rompier clapped lightly as a troupe of acrobats finished their tumbling. The performance had stopped at last. She didn’t feel inclined to watch peasants bouncing about in bright colors for hours, but Queen Georgina enjoyed it, and had invited her to sit beside the throne today. It was an honor, and had been arranged through Perrington. Perrington wanted her; she knew it. And if she pushed, she could easily get him to offer to make her his duchess. But duchess wasn’t enough—not when Leonard was still unmarried. Her head had been pounding for the past week, and today it seemed to throb with the words: Not enough. Not enough. Not enough. Even in her sleep, the pain seeped in, warping her dreams into nightmares so vivid she couldn’t remember where she was when she awoke. “How delightful, Your Majesty,” Kaltain said as the acrobats gathered their things. “Yes, they were rather exciting, weren’t they?” The queen’s green eyes were bright, and she smiled at Kaltai

Of course,” he said, a dark expression crossing his handsome face. She wasall too aware of how close his leg was, but she couldn’t bring herself to shift away.“And you’re not at all concerned that so many Champions have been brutally murdered at the hands of someone’s feral beast?”Leonard leaned in, his eyes fixed on hers. “All of those murders occurred in dark, isolated hallways. You’re never without guards—and your chambers are well-watched.”“I’m not concerned for myself,” she said sharply, pulling back a bit. Which wasn’t entirely true. “I just think it reflects poorly on your esteemed father to have all of this going on.”“When was the last time you bothered to care for the reputation of my ‘esteemed’ father?”“Since I became his son’s Champion. So perhaps you ought to devote some additional resources to solving these murders, before I win this absurd competition just because I’m the last one left alive.”“Any more demands?” he asked, still close enough for her lips to graze h

The next evening, Spencer stood on the second floor of the castle, looking over the courtyard. Below him, two figures slowly wove through the hedges. Matilda’s white cloak made her easy to spot, and Leonard could always be noticed by the empty circle of space around him.He should be down there, a foot behind, watching them, making sure she didn’t seize Leonard and use him to escape. Logic and years of experience screamed at him to be with them, even though six guards trailed them. She was deceitful, cunning, vicious.But he couldn’t make his feet move.With each day, he felt the barriers melting. He let them melt. Because of her genuine laugh, because he caught her one afternoon sleeping with her face in the middle of a book, because he knew that she would win.She was a criminal—a prodigy at killing, a Queen of the Underworld—and yet . . . yet she was just a girl, sent at seventeen to Endovier.It made him sick every time he thought about it. He’d been training with the guards at s