Nothing could have prepared Remi for the sight that lay before her eyes.

Time seemed to freeze.

There was blood everywhere. Sinking into the pores of the walls, dripping from the ceiling, sticking to the polished floor.

Remi took a step further, and almost tripped over something. She glanced down slowly, frightfully, terrified to see what terrible thing might be before her.

Faye.

Her body twisted in unnatural angles, gashes running along the length of her body, slash marks everywhere. She must have been in terrible pain when she died.

Remi sunk down to her knees. This couldn't be happening. Surely this was all just one terrifying nightmare manufactured by her brain to cause her distress. She'd wake up soon. No tragedy this brutal and heartbreaking could be real.

Remi brushed her fingers across Faye's cheek, and choked out a sob. Her sister stared with wide, terrified eyes at the ceiling, eyes that were dead and frozen in place.

Unable to look at the vacancy within them any longer, Remi quickly closed her older sister's eyes. Whatever had happened to her, she hadn't expected. Not even the knives in her belt had been touched.

Tears streamed down Remi's face. She remembered when Faye, as a willful child, had gotten frustrated when she'd seen Remi, Blue, and Bliss excelling in their training. Remi with her light energy, and Blue and Bliss with their dark energy. Faye had hardly been able to conjure up enough to ease a headache, and even then she lost the struggle to hold on long enough to figure out the origin of the headache in order to alleviate it. Not wanting to seem useless, Faye took up the art of knife throwing. She begged her father to get her a personal weapons trainer, and eventually he got so annoyed with her constant nagging that he relented and got her a trainer. Faye had excelled in the art of knife throwing. Remi had been surprised at how dedicated her older sister was to it, considering her attention was usually spent on vain and frivolous things and even then every interest she took always seemed to lose its novelty to her before long. But not knife throwing.

Faye should have been able to defend herself if she were attacked. Remi could only assume that her sister hadn't considered her attacker a threat until it was too late.

She'd known whoever did this.

Remi glanced up and noticed Caede's body not too far away. He'd clearly tried to fight. Another sob clawed its way out of Remi's throat. She collapsed on her sister's lifeless body, hugging her tightly, and cried harder than she'd ever cried before.

Although she and Caede had grown apart in recent years due to his interests in women and booze, they'd been close as kids. He'd always been there for her, and Remi had just assumed that he always would be.

She'd taken Faye and Caede for granted. Hadn't spent as much time with them as she should have. Had just assumed they'd always be there.

Remi didn't care that her clothes and the side of her cheek that she was pressing against her sister's chest were now soaked in blood.

They'd ended things in a fight, and that destroyed Remi. She felt like the worst person alive. Her sister had left this world before Remi had a chance to mend things.

Why hadn't she made an effort with Faye before leaving for Vertice? If only she had . . .

She tried to project her healing energy into Faye, but her thoughts were all over the place, a jumbled mess, and she couldn't focus long enough to do anything. Even if she could manage to focus, she didn't know if she could help Faye. She'd never seen someone so damaged and mutilated before, and the job of reviving people this messy had always gone to her father and uncle. The most she'd ever done was heal a stab wound or broken bone every now and then. She'd always immersed herself in studies of the brain—how it worked and how it connected with the rest of the body—and didn't know near as much as she should about the rest of the body. She couldn't heal Faye on her own. If only Blue and Bliss were here, perhaps they could help, but they were probably dead as well. She'd also need a whole bunch of type A blood for her sister, since she lost far too much blood, and who knows what type for Caede. Stupidly, ever so stupidly, she'd never bothered to find out.

Sound, which had until now seemed muted and muffled as though she were plugging her ears, came back in full force. Suddenly, Remi was aware she wasn't alone.

"My poor, poor, niece," her Uncle Fahrem's sickly sweet voice said into her ear. His hand touched her shoulder, but even in her shocked state, she recoiled from his touch.

Upon whipping her head to the side and seeing the face of her uncle, Remi scurried backwards, terrified.

He was the killer.

He would kill her next.

Was everyone already dead? Was she the only one left to die?

Where was her father, and why hadn't he protected Faye? Was he dead too? If he was, who would her uncle have left to keep him alive for years to come? He'd never dare try to enlist Uncle Shaam or Soren after their dramatic falling out years ago.

Therefore, her father had to be alive. Remi could only hope.

"You killed them!" Remi choked out, jabbing a finger in her uncle's direction. "How could you?!" she shrieked.

With a smile that almost came too easily, Uncle Fahrem stood up and brushed himself off. "Me? What on earth are you going off about? I'd never lay a finger on our family."

Reeling in her devastation, Remi swept out her arm and gestured towards Faye and Caede. "Then what do you call this?" she hissed, wishing she were a venomous snake so she could bite his neck and make him pay.

Her uncle sighed and shook his head. "Have you even taken a close look at the body of your sister? Those are claw marks."

Claw marks?

Remi wanted to peer at her sister's body once again, but didn't have the heart to see Faye in such a state.

"I see you're confused," her uncle remarked, his voice infuriatingly calm. He took the time to stroll around the room and stare at his niece and son. There was no remorse or sadness on his face. But what had he meant about claw marks? Her uncle didn't have any claws. Had some beastly type of Carnean gotten in here and attacked her family? No, that didn't make any sense, considering what Killure had overheard in the study.

Her uncle continued. "Allow me to enlighten you. Your father and I walked in on your Icix tearing into and feasting on the hides of poor Faye and Caede. The others, too. We fought him off, but this is what was left."

Remi's heart missed a beat. Her body turned stone cold. Dangerously, frighteningly cold.