Chapter One
Fallyn
The world went quiet at my father’s words. Not the quiet that accompanies tranquility, but the muffled violence that comes with a slight buzzing in your ear and a severe head wound.
“The royal family has claimed you. And denial isn’t an option we have.
” He wrung the sheathed dagger in his hands as though it were malleable enough to reshape under his white knuckled grasp.
He barely looked at me, and even when he did it was from the corner of his defeated gaze. "I tried, Fallyn. I’m so sorry."
Something deep within me, where my soul rested and my magic dwelled, turned frigid and sharp.
In a moment the span of a heartbeat, a single, essential part of me froze.
If this spread, I feared I would never be thawed.
I felt it in the way my body stilled, the way my face fell and drained of color, the way my posture stiffened like no amount of shoulder rolling would unfurl it.
There was a time you could pray to the gods for aid and there was a decent chance of a response. Either they stopped caring about us, or the king is right and they all perished, replaced by the one he calls the Morningstar.
More and more, our cities change to usher in this new era. Temples torn down, a sacrilege that would once earn yourself a death sentence at best, and a curse from the offended god at worst. Now several shorn away, replaced by temples teeming with acolytes in devotion to the new god.
No curses were laid. No lives met unexpected ends.
No grey skies or smoke pillars choked the sun into darkening.
To King Kodiak the third, this was a divine message—confirmation that he was correct.
Righteous, leading the realm to its salvation.
And he alone was the mortal savior placed by his god himself.
To follow his rules, his ordinances, was to achieve immortality.
Was to pass from this realm to a new one of The Morningstar’s design.
At this side. You live forever in paradise.
But should you fail, your damnation to hell will be infinite and absolute.
The very idea was barbaric.
Mother said the same thing, but made the mistake of criticizing the Morningstar publicly, a crime nobody under the king’s employ could tolerate.
“Father,” I struggled to keep my tone even despite the anger that threatened to wobble my voice, “you cannot honestly mean to marry me to him. What he did to mother—”
“What choice have we?” His face was haggard. Sad. Disheveled and greyer than I’d remembered, as he ran a hand down his face, as if to wipe away the tension. It didn’t work. “You’re god-blessed, and the King heralded your beauty… He thinks—”
“He thinks I’ll give him powerful offspring, and I’ll be nice to look at in the meantime.
I get it.” I didn’t mean to snap at him, but I didn’t soften my tone.
I refused to dull my anger now even as my understanding attempted to snag my awareness.
How could the king want my magic when it’s rooted in the blessing of one of the deities he so openly opposed?
“If you think this marriage will go through—”
“It will go through, Fallyn.” It was his turn to interrupt me. Though he never raised his voice, it felt like it boomed around me, making me flinch. “The dowry has been paid. We leave for Ipsilon tomorrow.”
I blanched until I was sure there was no color within me.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’d be officially and publicly engaged to that prick of a prince who didn’t know his ass from his elbow.
That prince who had chosen to garner favor through fear rather than respect, just like this father.
Violence over kindness and empathy. And even more disturbing, he was openly embracing the Morningstar and mandated that the people of his kingdom all follow suit.
And while religion wasn’t something I cared for, while the gods hadn’t done much to win my prayer or favor, I certainly wasn’t planning on turning my back on them.
Though current events made me rethink that.
I shot another loathsome glare at the sky, as if they cared whatsoever.
Steadfast may you be.
The Morningstar’s adage mocked me as it rattled in my head, growing louder with each lancing blow.
Females were little more than currency in society. Certain payers, like the aristocracy, were not to be refused, regardless of what or whom they’d wish to purchase. The ruling class knew how to make your life so terrible you’d wish for death.
Tears ran down my father’s ruddy cheeks and spilled onto his black, soot-stained tunic. My heart squeezed, begging me to go to him, but anger held me fast in place, at war with all the other emotions whirling within me.
“Why?” I whispered. My father blew a breath, allowing me to see his despair. His desperation. “I shouldn’t be eligible. I’m not of nobility.”
“I had no other alternative. The prince wanted you. You’re eligible if he deems it so, it would seem.
” And the threat of retribution and death loomed over us like a thick shade, the thing he didn’t say, but the most important.
At the age of twenty-six, I should have been married off years ago.
“All I can hope is behind closed doors, he’s not so bad.
That his reputation is an image. A misunderstanding.
” That I don’t meet the same end as his first wife, he means.
I tensed until I practically vibrated, my anger simmering under the surface of my skin.
“But I made this, daughter.” He unveiled a slim dagger, black in color and sheen, easily concealed, and sharper than any that would lay claim of being its equal.
“If he harms you, use this.” My father’s voice was grave, his gaze barreling into mine and tracking my surprise.
“I would not give you up to that tyrant so easily, Fallyn, and certainty not without protection. It’s a special material, enchanted to disappear on impact, so it’ll never be traced back to you, magically or otherwise.
But it’s still risky, so use it wisely. This is one thing you cannot outrun. ”
Kill my fiancée if the need arises. I felt my blood turn cold, much like that vital place of me until I began to worry my whole person would freeze as well. I feared the cage I would walk into more than I feared the distant possibility of blood on my hands.
I would not marry him.
And if they forced me, the prince, my not so beloved betrothed would be dead the moment he raised a hand to me. Even as I wondered if I could purposely take life.
Everyone knew that the royal family disposed of their wives once they’d bared an heir, though nobody knew the specifics, but there were plenty of rumors.
I would not be one of those women, I decided as I thrust the knife beneath the belt of my dress and pulled my cloak over it to keep it secret.
My new constant companion. My father and I shared a final glance before I left him in tears in his shop where it connected to the mountain our home was built into, where his forge lay within.
I would not go quietly. I would not be another rumored death.
The cold steel of the dagger, the weight of it hardened my resolve even has my body trembled. If this came down to my death or his, I would not lose. If he was the male from my nightmares, I would become his in turn.
I would be ready.