Ember Frost’s POV

I stared at the girl in the mirror, and for a moment, the girl staring back seemed almost unrecognizable. Her wide eyes, pale skin, and the fresh burn of tattoos made it feel like I was trapped in a dream I couldn’t wake from.

When I was a child, I admired comic-book tyrants with tattoos sprawling across their bodies. I thought it looked cool, exciting… But I realized that being a “tyrant” was nothing like I imagined.

The pale golden medicine trickled into the ...