Kingdom of the Feared (Kingdom of the Wicked, #3)

by Kerri Maniscalco

“And he is her fate. As she is his. ‘As above, so below.’ They are the balance. Light and dark. One fallen from above, and one created in the underworld below.”

At his House of Sin, I’d said seven hells, and he’d corrected me to eight.

“House Vengeance.”

“I mean, you were shackled from accessing your truth. You were given something mortal in hopes that humanity would bleed into the fabric of your soul. They wanted you tamed. Who do you think would have done such a thing?”

“You know. Suspect. And yet you still don’t want to accept what they did to us. What she did. They took our power because that’s how much they feared us. Feared the vengeance we’d reap.”

“Nonna wouldn’t. She couldn’t have done that. Why would she?” “It’s a spell-lock. Meant to bind. Cast by the darkest sort of magic. Human sacrifice.”

Because we probably would have discovered the truth much faster,

The night we took our amulets off? It made a fissure in our curse. That’s why she warned us against switching them. They weren’t going to alert the devil. They were going to begin a chain reaction that would set us free, another one of their prophecies. No one wants to free vengeance goddesses, especially when they’d wronged them.”

“How did we arrive there? How did we get home? Why was it so brutally cold and covered in snow? It felt a lot like here, didn’t it?”

“So you trapped her mind for nearly two decades?”

So La Prima Strega made a bargain with the devil. No one knows the exact terms. She’d set her spell using her blood, made a sacrifice to the goddess, and was overly confident in her abilities. She forgot whom she’d been dealing with.”

“I was sent to Wrath; my mission was to seduce him.” Something like relief crossed my twin’s features. “And I was sent to Pride with the same mission,”

The First Witch wanted a war to break out. She wanted her daughter to see that Pride wasn’t serious about her, had never been, if he publicly fought his brother over someone else.”

“The prophecy of the twin witches wasn’t about us.”

They put those hearts inside of us and created our spell-locks.

Now I knew her pose had been by design. It hadn’t been a message to me, it had been a warning to Nonna and the witches. The goddess of death remembered.

“And I imagine also hiding us from any of our mother’s tracking spells.” “Precisely. The spell-lock and amulets both prevented the Crone from locating us. Something the witches also feared.”

“It’s the symbol of the vampire court.”

“You’re the First Witch,” I said. “La Prima Strega.”

“I always knew you. And always will. Your soul calls to mine. It’s a feeling of coming home.

Though I remember teasing my friend Claudia about it once when she’d admitted to doing something similar after her crush rejected her.

but I had to know if this was what he was drinking and why.

I reread the handwritten note, clearly depicting its sole purpose. I had to be mistaken.

Our home was glamoured. And I’d never known, never sensed the magic that had been used. Because Nonna kept us ignorant. The truth didn’t break my heart this time; it made me furious.

“This is not truly Sicily.” Vittoria exhaled. My attention finally left the house that wasn’t our home to settle on my twin. For once, she seemed pained. “Welcome to the Shifting Isles.”

“This is where mortal souls are sent.” I didn’t ask, but Vittoria nodded. “The prison of damnation.”

“We’ve never been part of the mortal world.” “No, we haven’t.”

Fear would hold me back. But faith in myself would set me free.

there was something familiar about the shade of her eyes and the shape of her face. She quickly averted her gaze and moved back.

Fear. That’s what my friend felt in my presence now.

“No, Lady Emilia. Aside from the Crone and the Sisters Seven, there aren’t many beings that were here before you and your twin.”

Celestia didn’t want anyone to recall the time before the demons ruled. When worse creatures reigned.

Even then, I imagined nothing I did would ever be good enough for some.

but this? This was not at all what I wanted. A memory of my old life came floating back.

I’d forgotten how lonely I’d been before I met you. How cold it had made me, bringing fear and chaos with me in place of warmth and love.”

There were no features carved onto her face, but she had flowers in her hair, much like how I used to wear mine.

“This is your firstborn? The hybrid warrior?”

If Papa didn’t save her, no one would.

“You were foolish enough to bargain with House Greed. I suggest you think about the consequences the next time you gamble something so valuable away.”

The father seemed almost familiar, but his features had been obscured by both the darkness of the room and the tears of the wolf pup.

“A hybrid child.” The result of a wolf mating with a demon. Just as I suspected Vesta had been. If she still lived—as I believed she did—then this memory proved the court rumors the duke had shared were correct—Vesta had to have been unhappy.

near the statue that—I’d suspected, and finally had confirmed—represented a feared goddess Wrath had never allowed himself to forget.