Chapter 1
“There’s no way he has a fiancée.”
The words tore from me, rough and sharp, too loud for the stone walls of Zander’s room.
Inderia’s smile was silk and venom as she turned toward the door, her skirts whispering with the movement as Zander entered. “Tell her,” she said, her voice syrupy sweet, a dagger hidden beneath each syllable.
The door groaned shut behind him.
Zander stood there frozen. Silent. His shoulders stiff beneath the weight of a thousand unspoken things.
Say something, I begged him silently, my heart stumbling. Tell me she’s lying.
But he didn’t. He didn’t say a godsdamned thing.
The air between us shattered like spun glass.
My lungs refused to fill properly, too tight, too broken, as Inderia slid a long, rolled parchment from the folds of her cloak.
She let it unfurl with a dramatic flick of her wrist, the paper snapping and curling toward the floor.
Her finger, pale and unyielding, landed on the wax seal pressed near the bottom, a dragon crowned with thorns. The royal seal.
Proof.
Real.
My vision blurred at the edges, a storm crashing into my chest. The betrayal seeped deep, poisoning bone and marrow alike.
“You knew,” I rasped, the words slicing my throat on their way out.
Zander’s mouth opened, but nothing came.
The room tilted. Kaelith rumbled low in the back of my mind, a warning or a promise, I wasn’t sure which.
Inderia tilted her head, pity dripping from her like a perfume too thick to breathe. “It was arranged long before you, lowborn.” Her voice dripped with honeyed cruelty. “He was promised to me three years ago. Sealed by blood and law. Unbreakable.”
“Zander...” My voice faltered, raw and small. Tell me she’s wrong. Tell me she’s lying. I asked through our bond.
His hands curled into fists at his sides, veins standing out starkly against his skin. “It was before you.” His voice fractured, then steadied like a blade honed too thin. “Before the Trials. Before Hein. Before us.”
Before us.
The words gutted me.
Every memory, every look, every stolen moment, all of it shattered in an instant.
Inderia stepped closer, her smile a blade as she drove straight into my heart. “He belongs to me,” she breathed, victorious. “By right.”
I staggered back, barely aware of my own movement. The hurt bloomed inside me, too vast, too violent to name.
I was a fool.
Kaelith’s growl thundered in my mind. You are not the fool here, little one.
But I felt like it. Gods, I felt like it.
“You were promised to her?” My voice cracked through the room like a whip, raw and furious and trembling with betrayal. “Three years, Zander? And you didn’t think to mention that?”
His face twisted in pain as he took a single step toward me, hands open like he could somehow catch the pieces of me already breaking apart.
“It wasn’t supposed to matter,” he said hoarsely.
“I’m the fourth son, Ashe. The treaty required a match to solidify the alliance with her kingdom, but it was ceremonial.
An agreement meant to please old kings and restless courts.
I was never meant to inherit. Never meant to need her. ”
I shook my head, heat blistering behind my eyes. Ceremonial. Like I was supposed to understand, that meant nothing. Like that erased the ink binding him to another.
“And yet here we are,” I whispered, my chest heaving against the iron cage of my ribs. “Bound by lies you didn’t trust me enough to share.”
Zander flinched. “I didn’t lie. I…” His jaw flexed, a muscle ticking in the silence.
“I thought the contract would dissolve when Dorian returned, when he took the throne. There was, there still is a chance to end it. But I needed time. I needed to find a way without risking...” He swallowed, voice cracking. “Without risking…”
“Risking what?” My voice rose, incredulous. What else haven’t you told me? I wondered.
Inderia’s laugh was low and cruel. She stepped between us like a dagger, her skirts brushing my boots. “The contract is indisputable,” she purred. “If Prince Zander breaks it, he forfeits his claim to any title. Worse, he could be sentenced to death for high treason against the crown.”
I jerked my gaze to him, heart thundering in my ears. “Is that true?”
His eyes closed for a brief, tortured second. When he opened them, the truth burned there, bright and brutal.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “But I will find a way. I swear it, Ashe. I will find a way to end this without—” He broke off, reaching for me like he could somehow pull me back from the edge I was teetering over.
I took a stumbling step away, the distance between us widening into a chasm that no oath could cross.
Gods, how could I have been so stupid?
The ache bloomed hot and sick inside me, a burn beneath my skin that even Kaelith’s silent rumble couldn’t soothe.
I wrapped my arms around myself, around the hollowness gnawing through my chest, and forced my legs to move.
“I need to go,” I choked out, barely above a whisper.
“Ashe—”
But I didn’t stay to hear the rest.
I turned and fled, the heavy thud of my boots on stone a poor echo for the shattering inside me.
I didn’t remember running through the castle, only the way my boots echoed against the cold stone floors.
Get out. Breathe.
The world blurred around me until the heavy wooden door slammed open against the courtyard wall and the night swallowed me whole.
I made for the battlements without thinking, my fingers scraping against the rough stone as I climbed one of the old ladders bolted to the outer wall.
It creaked under my weight, the wood splintering beneath my palms, but I didn’t care.
I needed air. I needed distance from everything—the lies, the betrayal clawing down my spine.
The wind hit me the second I hauled myself over the edge. It whipped my braided hair back from my face, a fierce, untamed thing, much like the storm building inside me.
I stood there, muscles locked tight, staring out over the dark expanse of the ocean. In the distance, barely visible beneath the threadbare moonlight, was the outline of the isle, Kaelith’s home.
Are you still there? I reached for her in my mind.
No answer. Just the steady roar of the sea and the ache blooming beneath my ribs.
The ladder groaned behind me. I stiffened, instinct flaring, hand already reaching for the dagger at my thigh, when a familiar voice broke the silence.
“You shouldn’t be alone up here.”
Remy.
I didn’t turn as he crossed the battlements to stand beside me, close but not touching.
“He should’ve told you,” he said quietly, his gaze pinned to the same dark horizon I stared at. “That’s not loyalty, Ashe. That’s entitlement.”
The words sliced deeper than I wanted to admit.
“I don’t need a lecture,” I muttered, dragging in a breath that tasted like salt and steel. “I need...” I don’t even know what I need anymore.
Remy’s chuckle was low, bitter. “Not lecturing. Just... agreeing with you.” He leaned his elbows against the stone edge, his hair tousled by the wind, his eyes catching a flicker of moonlight. “You deserved better than secrets and half-truths. I know that better than anyone.”
“Maybe I don’t deserve anything at all,” I said, the bitterness coating my tongue so thick I could barely swallow it. “Maybe this is exactly what happens when you forget your place.”
“Your place?” His head whipped toward me, disbelief flashing across his face. “Gods, Ashe, you don’t belong beneath anyone.” His voice softened, rough with something that twisted in my chest. “Least of all a prince who couldn’t even trust you with the truth.”
I wanted to scream. To cry. To rage at the stars until they fell.
Instead, I stayed frozen, fists clenched against the stone as the wind howled around us.
Remy stepped closer, his hand tentative as it brushed against my waist, the same way he used to, like no time had passed at all.
The touch seared through the numbness, a brand against my skin.
I jerked away, breath catching. “Don’t,” I said sharply, more harshly than I intended.
Remy’s hand dropped instantly, guilt flashing across his face.
“I need to go,” I whispered, the words breaking apart like shattered glass.
He didn’t stop me.
Didn’t follow.
Just watched as I turned and disappeared back down the ladder, back into the heavy, suffocating dark of the castle below.
I ran back toward the barracks.
The door shut behind me with a hollow thud, rattling the iron hinges.
I stood there for a second, dragging in a breath thick with the scent of sweat, leather, and the faint singe of lightning magic that always clung to our training mats.
Ferrula and Jax were mid-spar, their boots scuffing across the stone floor in a familiar rhythm, strike, block, pivot, feint. Kaelith’s presence stirred at the edge of my mind, distant and silent. The others weren’t there so I assumed they went for food.
Jax caught Ferrula’s wrist and twisted, forcing her into a retreat. She growled low in her throat, spun, and slammed her elbow into his ribs.
He let out a grunt that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
It was the kind of normalcy that made my throat ache.
They noticed me then, Ferrula’s keen green eyes narrowing slightly, Jax straightening and brushing a hand over his sweaty hair.
“You look like someone shoved you off the battlements,” Ferrula said bluntly, stepping back and reaching for a towel slung over a nearby bench.
“I might’ve preferred that,” I rasped, voice hollow.
Jax tossed Ferrula a towel and crossed his arms over his broad chest, waiting. No questions. Just patience. Like they already knew.
I let the words fall from my mouth before I could think better of it. “I just met Inderia. She’s... she’s Zander’s betrothed.”
The silence that followed wasn’t shock. Wasn’t even surprise.
Ferrula just snorted under her breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead. “Figures.”
Jax shrugged one shoulder, slow and unsurprised. “All nobles have arranged marriages, Ashe. It’s how they retain power. Trading bloodlines like currency.”