Chapter 1

The moment the ring slid onto my ring finger, darkness exploded.

Not light. Darkness. Thick, living, burrowing into skin, bone, soul.

I crumpled to the ground.

Dorian rose and looked down at me.

"It's done, my dear."

Behind him, Rosaline stepped forward.

My best friend.

The person I had told every secret.

She walked over my hair and past me, laughing. "Poor Arwen — and you actually believed it."

It wasn't a ring.

It was a forbidden soul-swap ritual.

The wedding went ahead as planned. Rosaline wore my wedding gown, took Dorian's arm, and smiled at my father the King.

They had stolen my body.

My identity as the mermaid princess. My birthright. My family's love.

My brother Leon noticed something was wrong.

That night he died on the stone floor of the throne hall, face purple, pupils blown wide.

I screamed. No sound came.

I was nothing but a wandering wraith. Invisible to everyone. Inaudible to everyone.

The King and Queen fell ill and died, one after the other.

When the Queen died, she was holding Rosaline's hand — that hand wearing my ring, wrapped in my skin.

"Mother… I will take good care of the kingdom."

She called her Mother.

That was my mother.

The coronation. Dorian and Rosaline sat side by side on my father's throne.

Dorian turned his face toward her. "I love you, Arwen."

Rosaline nestled against him. "I love you too, Dorian."

No.

I am Arwen.

I am Arwen.

I threw myself at the throne. My fingers passed through their bodies — nothing to grab. Tears of blood poured from my eyes: the first sign of a soul's collapse. I was growing more transparent by the moment.

I was about to disappear.

To disappear forever.

No one would ever remember me. The villains sat on the throne, draped in my flesh, living a stolen life.

At the edge of extinction —

I opened my eyes.

My bed. The bed in the palace, the year I turned eighteen.

Sunlight filtered down through the sea, through the crystal window, and fell across my face.

The door opened.

Dorian walked in, took my hand, and cradled in his palm that deep-blue ring.

"This ring is the symbol of our eternal love."

He smiled. The most perfect fiancé in the world.

I stared at the ring.

The ring that had taken everything from me. The ring that had killed my brother. The ring that had brought my parents to their deaths. The ring that had erased me from the world.

My hand was trembling.

But this time —

I would not put it on.

This time, I would make them burn in hell.