Chapter 26
ELARA
My body didn’t belong to me anymore.
It belonged to the chains. The cold. The blank places in my mind where something important used to live.
They came for me without warning, which was almost considerate at this point.
If I’d had time to prepare, I might have tried to fight.
I might have tried to die out of spite. Instead, the door groaned open and light poured in like an insult, and hands grabbed my arms like I was a rag they meant to wring dry.
“Up,” a guard barked.
I laughed. It came out cracked. “Bold of you to assume I can.”
They hauled me anyway.
My feet scraped stone. My knees buckled twice. The third time, one of them simply lifted me under the arms like I weighed nothing. My stomach turned as I was dragged past the cells, past the blackened walls, and past the place where time stopped having meaning.
The air changed as we climbed.
Not warmer. Just different. Cleaner. Less rot. Less blood.
I recognized that kind of hallway. The kind meant for visiting dignitaries who liked their suffering hidden behind velvet curtains.
The floors here weren’t stained. The sconces were evenly spaced.
The banners hung crisp and perfect, like the castle had taken a deep breath and remembered how to pretend.
I swallowed, throat tight.
“Where are you taking me?” I rasped.
No answer.
Of course not.
We stopped in front of a set of doors that looked expensive enough to deserve their own guard rotation. Carved frostwood. Inlaid silver. The kind of entrance that screamed, important people inside. Do not bleed on the rugs.
The guard shoved the door open.
I stumbled forward.
And the warmth hit me first.
Not heat. Not comfort.
Just the absence of dungeon cold, which my body treated like a miracle anyway. My skin prickled as if it didn’t trust the sensation. My knees shook harder. My vision swam, then steadied, and I lifted my head.
The room was built for guests who liked to pretend they’d never seen blood.
High ceilings. Pale stone veined with frost, polished until it gleamed.
A long table set for a feast no one intended to share, silver laid out with ceremonial precision, goblets waiting like an accusation.
Tapestries lined the walls, all noble kings and heroic frozen battles, stitched in tasteful blues and whites, as if history could be made respectable if you embroidered enough of it.
The guards didn’t bring me fully in.
Not yet.
They halted me just inside the threshold, half hidden by the doorframe and the angle of the corridor, where I could see without being seen. Where I could be displayed in the right moment, like a surprise no one asked for.
Further down, beyond a carved archway and into the sitting room, voices drifted toward me. Soft at first. Then clearer.
Women.
Close enough that I could hear them and catch glimpses, close enough that I could catch every irritated sigh and every syllable, but far enough away that none of them turned their heads.
Their attention was on each other, on their own small wars, not on the guards waiting in the hall with a half-dead prisoner at their feet.
They were arranged in subtle factions the way wolves arranged themselves without admitting it. Four women.
Four wives.
And I was there in the doorway, chained and silent, listening to them speak like I wasn’t about to become the center of the room.
Lady Vivienne drew my eye first.
She was draped across a settee like she’d been poured there.
Flowing chestnut hair falling over one shoulder.
Curves arranged with lethal elegance. Eyes bright with mischief that didn’t quite reach kindness.
She looked like a woman who knew exactly how dangerous she was and enjoyed watching people underestimate it anyway.
She didn’t even look at me when I stumbled in. She was too busy examining her own inconvenience.
“This is intolerable,” Vivienne complained, pulling her fur tighter around her shoulders like the air itself had offended her. “I swear to the gods, my skin is going to crack. How do they live like this?”
Her voice had the smoothness of a former courtesan who had learned how to turn displeasure into performance.
A second woman stood nearby with a rigid posture and a warrior’s patience.
Lyra.
First wife.
Tall, athletic, shoulders squared like she’d been born braced for violence. Dark hair pulled back tight. Dark eyes that flicked once toward the guards, not me, like she was already assessing how many throats she’d need to cut if something went wrong.
Therynne hovered closer to the table, hands clasped behind her back as if she belonged in a library instead of an enemy kingdom. She looked pale and curious in a way that would have been almost charming if I hadn’t been dragged in here half-dead.
“I for one find Icespire fascinating,” Therynne said, voice thoughtful.
“The architecture alone is a living reflection of their devotion to death. Their crypt traditions are unprecedented. The cultural implications of worshipping ancestral remains rather than a deity suggest a unique social structure built around inherited power and memory, which would make sense, given their bloodline-based magic systems and the way?—”
Lyra snapped her head toward her.
“No one cares what you think, Therynne.”
Therynne blinked like she’d forgotten other people existed.
Vivienne let out a quiet laugh that sounded like it belonged in a bedroom, not a diplomatic chamber. “Oh, don’t be cruel. Let her have her little frosty fantasies.”
Lyra’s eyes narrowed. “We are not here to sightsee.”
In the corner, Lady Selene knelt, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white. Golden hair tied back in a severe braid. Her lips moved in silent prayer, her face lifted toward nothing like she expected the sun god to break through Icespire’s ceiling and rescue her personally.
She didn’t look at me.
She didn’t have to.
This room already had enough judgment in it.
My mouth was dry. My wrists throbbed. My head felt wrong. Like there was a bruise on my brain that no one could see.
I tried to stand straight anyway, because dignity was sometimes the only weapon left.
Then I saw him.
King Ciaran.
He stood near the hearth, broad shouldered, muscular, too solid to be real. Dark hair streaked with gold like he’d been touched by something divine and it had left a mark. His amber eyes were the only warm thing in the room, and even that warmth was predatory.
His presence filled the space the way fire filled air.
He wasn’t lounging.
He wasn’t relaxed.
He looked like a man holding a leash too tight, just waiting for something to snap.
Vivienne was still complaining. “It’s so cold I’m starting to think this kingdom is a curse invented by bitter women.”
Ciaran’s head turned slowly.
The entire room felt it.
His temper moved like a shadow crawling up the walls.
“None of my wives are to leave my side,” he said, voice low. Not raised, but somehow louder than shouting. “Not one of you.”
Vivienne’s eyes widened slightly, her smile faltering. “Ciaran, darling, it was only a comment.”
Lyra stiffened, ready, like she half expected him to strike someone.
Therynne looked from one face to another, mentally recording the tension like it was a lecture.
Selene whispered faster, prayer turning frantic.
Ciaran’s jaw flexed once. His eyes stayed on Vivienne like he was carving the warning into her skin.
“I don’t care,” he said. “You will not wander. You will not test the borders of my patience. You will not give anyone an opening to touch what belongs to me.”
The possessiveness in it made my stomach twist, equal parts disgust and a bitter, ugly recognition.
I knew this kind of man. I’d been trapped by worse.
Vivienne lifted her chin, but her voice softened. “Yes, my king.”
The guards at my sides shifted. One of them cleared his throat. The sound cut clean through the room. “Your Majesty,” he announced, formal. “We present the prisoner.” Every eye turned.
Finally.
Vivienne’s gaze landed on me like I was a scandal she couldn’t decide whether to pity or enjoy. Therynne’s eyes widened, pure fascination. Lyra’s expression went hard. Selene’s prayer stopped mid-word.
And then Ciaran turned around.
His amber eyes found me.
Murderous.
Absolutely, unmistakably murderous.
And I knew, in the instant his gaze locked onto mine, that whatever game Marisella was playing, she had just brought her favorite weapon into the room.
“Bring her in,” Ciaran said.
Not loudly.
He didn’t need to raise his voice. The command hit the room like it belonged to the stone itself, like the castle had been waiting its whole life to obey him.
The guards yanked me forward.
My feet dragged. My balance lagged half a breath behind my body.
I tried to catch myself, tried to keep my spine straight, but weakness made everything clumsy.
They hauled me down the hall that cut through the embassy wing, past polished doors and pale tapestries, deeper into a sitting room meant for kings who liked their comfort imported.
The warmth in here was crueler than the cold. It made my skin ache. Made my hunger roar to life like it had been sleeping out of spite and finally woke up.
The smell hit me next.
Food.
Actual food.
Hot bread. Roasted meat. Something sweet and spiced that made my mouth flood with saliva so fast it hurt.
My stomach growled.
Loud.
Humiliating.
I clenched my jaw and prayed no one heard it.
Of course everyone did.
Vivienne’s gaze flicked to my face when the guards shoved me closer. She looked… shocked.
Not gleeful.
Not entertained.
Just stunned, like she’d expected to hear I was dead before she ever had to look at me again.
For a heartbeat, something softer crossed her expression.
Pity.
Or maybe recognition.
Then she caught herself and smoothed it away like she was adjusting a sleeve.
Therynne, standing a pace behind her, opened her mouth like she wanted to speak.
Closed it.