Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

T he keeper is my enemy.

The shock of this discovery is breaking my heart into tiny pieces—each one fracturing and falling away.

More than anything, I don't want it to be true. I don't want to believe that the keeper betrayed me.

But there's no denying the look in his eyes. The truth he has confirmed.

He accepted the name I gave him: Emil. Enemy .

Tears of rage stream down my cheeks as my lips clash against his.

With every stab of pain in my chest, fresh blood spills from the cuts across his face and torso.

I gave him the power in my heart—it's how I freed him from his realm—and now he feels all of my heart's pain as if it were his own.

As my heart breaks, his too is breaking.

We're kneeling side by side on the cold, stone floor of a catacomb buried deep beneath a church in New York City.

I came here to steal The Book of Dark Magic from my father, who believes that I will start a war among dark creatures that will fill the streets with blood.

Instead, I was forced to read the book, which showed me how my mother really died ten years ago.

The images leaped up from the pages and surrounded me as if I'd been part of them.

I watched as the keeper—my keeper, the man who had walked beside me ever since I'd escaped my cage—tore out my mother's mechanical heart.

Her heart was unique, its delicate, interlocking, metallic parts moving in perfect harmony to a thud-thud that had slowed and finally stopped.

In the vision, he told her that he would take everything from her. And then he took her life.

Now, black dragon scales cover Emil's skin while inky-dark, leathery wings rest at his sides. Those same wings that once cradled me and kept me safe from harm are torn up and hanging low.

To destroy him, all I have to do is let my heart crack apart completely.

Let it shatter.

But I can't allow his end to be that simple.

Oh, no .

The mess of betrayal and fury and sadness within me demands that he suffer.

He must pay.

His words, spoken only seconds ago, spiral around and around within my mind. It's the question that has taken root at the center of my existence and driven my actions ever since I escaped the prison where I spent the first twenty-three years of my life.

My Veda. My beautiful, dark love. Will you have your revenge?

I grit my teeth against his mouth, tasting the warmth of his blood on my lips and sensing it beneath my hands, where I press them to his injured chest.

"Oh, Emil," I whisper, pulling back to speak. "I promise you: I will fight for my vengeance with every dark fiber of my being."

Against him.

And against my father, who looms over us both.

He is a dark angel named Taiven Nostra, head of the Nostra Empire, to which thousands of dark creatures owe their allegiance. He is the power behind other dark powers, controlling other families, clans, and packs—even influencing humans—from the shadows.

His skin is luminescent, his irises are golden like mine, and his feathery, black wings are tucked regally to his sides. Every angle of his face is so flawlessly smooth that he could be made of light, not darkness.

Currently, he stands not more than five paces away from us, positioned slightly behind Emil.

"Poor Daughter," Taiven croons, his melodic voice a grating hum in the echoey chamber. "To discover that your true enemy was right beside you all along, holding your hand, giving you false comfort and feigned protection."

His gaze flickers to The Book of Dark Magic , which now lies on the floor to my left.

I thought I could take the book in an act that was intended to strike at the heart of my father's power, leaving him anchorless and directionless without its guidance.

He was the one who had my mother imprisoned when she was six months pregnant with me.

All because of his belief that I am an evil being that should never have existed. He was the reason I spent so many years in a dark cell with no fresh air and no natural light.

I came here to this crypt to walk a path that would shatter my father's power.

Now, I'm trapped with two of the most dangerous men in existence, both of whom are my enemies.

While my father speaks, Emil's focus is entirely on me. One of his big hands is wrapped around the back of my neck, and his fiery eyes compel me not to look away from him.

He's strong enough to snap my neck if he wants to.

He is the keeper of dark magic. For thousands of years, he was confined within his realm—his only purpose was to gather up the magic of dark creatures when they died. He tethered the remnant power of witches, warlocks, dark shifters, demons, and deadly mythological creatures.

All of that magic was siphoned into his metal crown, which he now wears in the form of a ring around the forefinger of his left hand.

With it, he can harness the power of every dark creature whose magic he bound to it. He can create illusions, use compulsion to get what he wants, harness the power of nature, and drain life to feed his dark magic. He can take the form of any dark creature: a devil, a blue-skinned draugr, a demon of smoke and ash, a fiery dragon, a dark wolf, a wicked warlock.

His power is immense and endless.

But his deal with me binds him to me. In exchange for the power in my heart that freed him to walk this Earth, he has promised me vengeance, and he made it clear that how I achieve that vengeance is up to me.

I'm certain that it's only because of our deal that he has remained kneeling where he is.

He has the power to translocate himself out of here in the blink of an eye—and yet he remains.

Even as his body breaks with every growing crack within my heart.

My father circles around behind him, angling to position himself between me and the only way out of this chamber—a single, wooden door that's curved in an arch at the top and opens outward from this room. It's a solid forty paces away from me. Far enough that my father could easily strike me down before I could reach it.

Where he stands now, both he and Emil are facing me.

My father clicks his tongue and shakes his head at me, his smile growing. "Poor, poor Daughter. How can you possibly hope to survive now?"

His confidence isn't false.

He controls the keeper of light magic. Somehow, he must have freed her from her realm, just as I freed Emil.

Because I'm a creature of the dark, her light magic can strip the flesh from my body and burn me to my very bones.

Right now, she slumps against the stone wall to my far right, at least thirty paces away. Her form appears insubstantial, fading in and out of view, disappearing completely for long seconds before it becomes clear again.

Her eyes are empty, golden orbs and her arms hang at her sides. Her labored breathing causes her to sway from side to side against the rock at her back. She's wearing golden armor while a curved blade rests in a harness that's visible at her left shoulder, the weapon's edge rasping against the wall with every shuddering breath she takes.

As for the rest of the room, it's circular and stretches at least seventy paces in each direction.

Despite the room's size, the ceiling is low, not high enough to fly around inside.

Not that flying would help me, anyway, because the wings I kept hidden until recently are still not much use to me.

In the exact center of the room, not ten paces away from me, are four stone statues. They stand in a tight circle, each one facing outward so that their backs are to each other.

Each one is a different color: one white, the next golden, then black, and finally crimson.

They are depictions of the four keepers of magic.

Their arms are bent at the elbows, their palms turned up.

Until minutes ago, the black statue held The Book of Dark Magic .

Once again, my own father has given rise to a deep despair and powerlessness within me.

"Your keeper is weak now, Daughter," he says, continuing to croon at me. "Which means you have two choices."

I could tell him to take his choices and shove them somewhere dark, but instead, without taking my focus off Emil, I demand to know, "What are they?"

Taiven steps closer to us, his focus flickering again to The Book of Dark Magic .

No doubt, he is desperate to retrieve it now that it has done its work and hurt my heart.

"You can't defeat me," my father continues. "The light magic I control can flay the flesh from your bones within mere seconds. You must surrender to your death." He nods to himself as if it's a foregone conclusion. "But before you die, I will give you the chance to decide your keeper's fate. Because I am merciful like that."

As he speaks, bright light glimmers around his palms, casting up across his triumphant features and sizzling in the air across our heads.

Each time he draws on the light keeper's magic, she shudders harder against the wall.

I feel the heat of her energy burning through the air around me. Its destructive force.

Tearing my gaze away from Emil, who has remained unnervingly silent, I ask my father, "What are my choices?"

Taiven relaxes a little, white light continuing to spill around his fingertips as he lowers his hands. "You can kill your keeper yourself by stabbing your claws through the heart in his chest."

He pauses for a moment, as if he thinks I'll immediately choose that option.

As if I would.

I have no idea what will happen to me if the keeper's heart is destroyed. My own physical heart still beats in my chest, but my heart's power connects him and me in ways I don't completely understand.

He feels my pain, my heartache. He even sensed when I had nightmares while I slept. I kept him awake many nights because of it.

I can't be certain that if Emil's physical heart is torn out, my own physical heart will keep beating—or if it will destroy me, too.

Of course, my father wants us both dead, so it makes no difference to him.

In fact, I imagine it would be quite an efficient way to get rid of me. Especially if he thinks my current pain and anger will cloud my judgment.

Taiven's eyebrows rise when I grind my speech through my clenched teeth. "Or?"

"Simply move aside." He shrugs. "Let me flay open your keeper's chest with my light magic. I will tear out his heart for you."

I latch on to his last words. " For me?"

"A final gift," my father says with a smile. "Before I kill you."

No, thank you.

Although, the fact that my father thinks he will have to kill me separately indicates his belief that tearing out Emil's heart won't end me.

Whatever he believes is only that: a belief. I can't assume he's right.

My fate was already balanced on a knife's edge, and it is more so now.

I blow out a soft exhale, putting on a show of considering each of my father's proposals. "Well," I murmur. "What a difficult choice."

What a terrible game I must now play.

I'm counting on my father underestimating my desire to survive.

He doesn't know what I went through while I was living in prison, the mental fortitude it took to retain my sense of self, my determination, and my belief in a future where I would be free.

He has no fucking idea what I'll do to survive.

I make a very deliberate show of returning my attention to Emil, who hasn't taken his eyes off me.

"Which will I choose?" I ask him. "To kill you myself or let my father end you for me?"