Five years had passed since the night in the crimson room. Five years since the covenant was renewed and the hunger was reawakened in its full, consuming force. And in those five years, Anaya had given Lord Vikram two more children.

The second child, a daughter, had come two years after Vrikas. She was born on the night of the spring equinox, when the world balanced between light and dark, and she entered the world with a laugh instead of a cry. A strange, gurgling, delighted laugh that had made the midwife cross herself and step back. But Anaya had only smiled and gathered her daughter to her breast. The child had her father's dark eyes and her mother's strong, curved mouth, and on her lower back, just above the swell of her tiny buttocks, a birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon. They named her Chandrika, little moonlight, and she was the joy of the palace.