ARIA POV
They changed the room.
Not because anyone said the first one was too much.
No one in that dungeon seemed like the kind of person who admitted when blood was too much.
But I was pale, and Alaric had noticed, because of course he had. He noticed the stupidest things. A shift in my breathing. The way my fingers curled against my stomach before I realized I was doing it. The way my eyes kept finding the drain in the middle of the floor, still wet and dark and ugly.
Too much blood.
Too much copper in the air.
Too much death still steaming against stone.
The former Luna was dead.
Finally.
That should have made something better.
It didn’t.
Not yet.
Maybe later. Maybe when I could sleep without hearing her voice. Maybe when I could walk into a room and not feel her eyes on my
