Something had woken Kai.

He remained still, facing the lone window in the unfamiliar room. The night was silent—or as silent as it could be in a large city.

When nothing unusual stuck out to him, he threw back the covers and hurriedly dressed, shoving his feet into his boots and doing up the laces.

He hoped he was wrong as he crossed the hall and knocked on Sterling’s door.

There was no response, nor did he hear the sound of stirring. When he tried the knob, he found it turned easily in his hand.

The room was empty. The bed unslept in.

Kai cursed.

He’d been responsible for keeping Sterling safe for a handful of days, and he’d already lost her. Seraiah’s trust in him was misplaced.

A quick search of the room told him she hadn’t been taken. There were no signs of a struggle, which meant Sterling had gone off on her own. She’d been quiet after their trip to the market in the afternoon, and any time he’d spoken to her, he’d often have to repeat himself because she hadn’t been paying attention.

The only thing he could think of was that she’d gone looking for her necromancer friend on her own.

While Seraiah seemed to think it was fine for her to seek him out, Kai had never spoken to Sterling about it again. She must have thought the only way she was going to be able to find him was if she went off on her own.

He sighed. Sterling and Seraiah may not have been related by blood, but they were more similar than they realized.

Weapons in place, Kai headed out into the night to track Sterling down. Unlike when he was searching for her previously, he now knew the signature of her magic. She may not have been able to call it yet, but he could sense it waiting below the surface.

As he walked, he felt for the signature. Directly outside the inn, he hadn’t been able to detect anything, so he decided to return to the place where Sterling had gone quiet: the market. He was closing in on the area when he picked up a faint pulse.

Not the market then, he decided, but somewhere nearby.

Kai headed east, turning down a street that was louder than most. Taverns made up the majority of the buildings, although there were others sprinkled in between. A woman out front of one such building called out to him, but he waved her away, focused on the pulse of magic. It led him to the mouth of a dark alley.

"Sterling?" Kai called. The narrow space between buildings was swathed in shadows and stunk of rotten food and other less pleasant things. If this was the sort of place where her friend could be found, he didn’t think she should have anything to do with him.

The alley was silent. The only sounds were the music and laughter coming from the nearby tavern, but Kai knew Sterling was here. He could feel her magic calling to his own.

"Sterling?" he called again, louder this time.

Still no response.

Kai drew his sword and stepped forward cautiously, scanning the shadows around him for any movement. As he neared the end of the alley, he thought perhaps he had been mistaken, and she wasn't here after all.

Then he spotted a slight dark-haired figure standing motionless near the back wall. It took him a moment to realize it was Sterling. Her newly darkened hair made her appear almost a different person.

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"Sterling?" he called softly.

She turned, and that's when he caught sight of the knives in her hands—of the dark liquid staining the front of her clothes and dripping down off the blades.

Blood.

Sterling was covered in blood.

"What have you done?" he whispered.

"I—" A tremor ran through Sterling's body, and the knives slipped from her fingers. The clatter as they hit the ground sounded unnaturally loud in the silence. "I don't know what happened. I-I don't know what came over me."

She turned to look behind her, and that's when he caught sight of the body.

"I killed him. I've killed someone. What have I done?" Sterling pressed a bloody hand to her mouth, stifling her sobs.

"Shh," Kai said, sheathing his sword and coming up behind her. "It will be all right." The lie rolled smoothly off his tongue. He wasn't sure it would be all right, but it was what Sterling needed to hear right now.

Picking up her discarded blades, he used the man's clothes to wipe them off as best he could. The man looked vaguely familiar, but Kai couldn’t have said why, and he certainly wasn’t about to ask Sterling, at least not now.

Sterling remained frozen to her spot, her bloody hand still pressed to her face.

"Come on, let's get you out of here before someone comes." Kai took her by the shoulders and gently turned her in the direction of the street. There was nothing to be done for her clothes or the blood she’d smeared across her chin. He would have to keep them to the shadows and hope that no one noticed.

The inn was thankfully quiet when they returned, and Kai hurried Sterling up the stairs and into her rented room.

She hadn't said a word since they’d left the alley.

"Change your clothes and wash off as much of the blood as you can,” he ordered. “I will be back to check on you. Do not leave this room."

Kai waited until she nodded she understood, and then he returned to the night to clean up her mess.

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It took a few minutes after Kai left for Sterling to move. Following his instructions, she pulled off her soiled clothes and threw them into the fireplace. She watched as the flames made quick work of them, turning her misdeeds into nothing more than a pile of ash.

Next, she did her best to scrub the blood from her skin and beneath her fingernails.

Even after her hands were clean, she could still feel the blood there. The stain of it couldn't be washed away with a bit of water and soap.

By the time Kai returned, she was dressed in clean clothes, and every trace of her night's adventure was gone.

And so were the voices. They had gone blessedly silent after she had given in to their demand.

"We need to talk," Kai said as he entered the room.

Sterling glanced up at him before returning her gaze to the fireplace. She didn't bother to ask where he had gone.

"Sterling." She felt rather than heard him come up next to her. "Sterling, you have to tell me what happened."

"You saw what happened. I murdered someone." She stayed focused on the flames dancing over the wood, trying not to recall the memory. The way the blade had slid in so easily.

"Yes, I know that," Kai said softly, taking a seat next to her on the floor. "But why?"

She shrugged. She didn't have an answer. The anger had consumed her. The voices had encouraged her.

"I know he was one of the men who kidnapped you. Did he do something to you? Did he . . . hurt you?"

Sterling shrugged again. "He broke my nose, but that was about it." She didn't want to tell Kai about the voices—she couldn't tell him about the voices. He would give her that pitying look he sometimes gave Seraiah or Kestrel when he thought they weren’t looking. She wouldn't be able to stand it. She didn’t want him feeling sorry for her—she didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for her.

She was a queen, and no one pitied queens.

"But to murder him?" Kai asked. "That doesn't seem like you."

"You don't know me," she shot back. Please, she thought, please stop asking questions I can't answer.

Kai flinched, a hurt look darting across his features before disappearing. “Sterling, I’m trying—”

Rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, she apologized. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I just . . ." she trailed off, trying to gather the right words that wouldn’t make her sound insane. "I don't know what happened. It was like I was there, but I wasn't. I didn't have control over my own body, and I could do nothing but watch. And—And I didn't want to stop it either." Everything she said was true, but she didn't tell him about hearing the voices.

"I see. How did you find him? Did you know he would be there?"

"I'm not sure," she mumbled. Also, the truth. She hadn't known where he would be, but the voices had—somehow, they had known and led her straight there.

Sterling could feel Kai studying her face, looking for clues.

"Get some sleep," he finally said.

She watched him as he stood and moved toward the door.

"Kai?" she called.

"Yes?"

"Are we going to have to leave Daralis now?"

"Do you want to?"

Sterling thought about it for a moment. "No. No, I want to stay and find answers."

"Good. We will start in the morning, then. Goodnight."

"Goodnight," she echoed as he let himself out.

She pulled the blanket tighter around herself and didn't bother to move to the bed. The closer she could be to the light, the better. She didn't want to see the shadows. Sterling knew what lurked there, and she was afraid.