Spring Hills Hold No Autumn

The day she was to be crowned queen, Eva turned her back on the throne within her grasp and chose the cold and unforgiving stone of the city wall instead.

As the darkness swallowed her, a distant, sorrowful sigh reached her ears.

“Eva, last descendant of your line. Once, you traded your gift of divination to save Dylan’s life. Now, you sacrifice your very essence to enact the Retribution Curse.

“When this circle is complete, Dylan will be returned to his destined path. But you, the caster, will be cast adrift from the mortal world, walking alone for the rest of your days.

“Will you come to regret this?”

A surge of hot, coppery blood rose in Eva’s throat.

“My only regret is that I ever saved him.”

And that I ever gave him my heart.

Today was supposed to be her coronation. Yet before the crown could settle on her brow, the Imperial Guard had dragged her to the execution ground at the palace gates.

Her wedding robes trailed through bloodstains on the jade steps. Stumbling, she looked up.

One hundred and one heads hung from the ramparts.

In the center, hair frosted at the temples, was the mother who had smiled and brushed her hair just yesterday.

“Mother! Father!!”

A raw scream tore from Eva’s throat as she staggered toward the wall.

Lifting her head, she saw the familiar faces—Father, Mother, Uncle, Aunt, Cousin… her little niece, barely ten years old.

One hundred and one heads. One hundred and one faces frozen in terror.

They hung high above, blood still dripping from severed necks.

Drop by drop, it fell onto Eva’s upturned face.

“Who did this… WHO?!”

Her scream was ragged, hysterical.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dylan approaching. Like a drowning woman grasping at straws, she lunged toward him.

“Dylan! There are traitors in the court! My family—my entire clan—has been slaughtered! You have to catch those beasts, have them torn limb from limb—”

Her words died in her throat, choked off by the icy darkness in Dylan’s eyes.

“Dylan…”

He pried her fingers from his sleeve, one by one.

“Eva,” he said, his voice devoid of warmth. “I gave the order. Are you going to have me torn limb from limb as well?”

Eva refused to believe it. She shook her head violently. “No… you couldn’t. You would never…”

Years ago, when Dylan had fallen from favor and been exiled to the borderlands, assassins left him for dead outside Eva’s village.

She saved him.

Later, to help him achieve his ambitions, the long-secluded Eva Family emerged from hiding. They located a lost imperial treasury for him; they aided him in quelling the rebellion of the three lords.

Her grandfather, Walter, had even sacrificed years of his own life to alter the heavenly mandate in Dylan’s favor.

Eva could not—would not—believe the man she was to marry today was responsible for slaughtering her entire family.

But Dylan’s expression was cold and pitiless. The