Chapter 30 #2
And with every eye watching, I guide him from the room, my heart racing.
The din of the banquet hall fades as we round the stone corner, footsteps echoing down the long corridor like a ticking clock.
Alder walks beside me rigidly, his silk jacket and shirt clinging to him in damp, crimson-splotches.
“I’m so sorry again,” I say sweetly, clutching his sleeve and forcing him to look at me. “It’s just…those goblets are so slippery, aren’t they?”
He huffs a breath and dabs at his chest with a silk handkerchief like it’s the greatest tragedy ever to befall him.
And there, tucked into the shadows exactly where he’s supposed to be, Alderic waits. Perfectly poised to step in as the man walking beside me the moment we get far enough away.
Our eyes meet for the briefest second. I offer him a subtle nod, then keep walking. Keep pretending.
There’s a flash at the far end of the corridor. A blur of hair and wide, familiar eyes.
Sylvie?
We really have to stop meeting like this.
I wish she’d trust me. But I don’t blame her for keeping her distance. Not when trust is a luxury most women here have never been afforded.
“Are you even paying attention?” Alder says, voice edged with irritation. “Or are you planning to spill something else on me?”
My pulse lurches. I glance again, but the hallway is empty. Just a shimmer of torchlight, a whisper of movement that might’ve been real or might’ve been my nerves tangling with the shadows.
“Of course,” I lie. I have so many more important things to worry about than Alder’s most recent snarky complaints.
Even if Sylvie doesn’t feel confident with the full scope of the plan, she knows the stakes. She knows what we’re up against. What we’re fighting for. What we’re trying to stop.
I square my shoulders, bury the tremble in my spine, and lead Alder toward the trap he doesn’t know he’s walking into.
Everything’s in motion now, and there’s no turning back.
I step onto the staircase that leads to our shared chambers, nerves tight, breath shallow, my mind already racing through the next steps of the plan.
I just need to get him to the room. That’s it. One last performance. A little flirtation. Some false vulnerability. Keep him distracted long enough for Alderic to slip into the banquet and take his place.
I’ll keep Alder talking. Maybe I’ll pretend I want to help him change, maybe I’ll start undressing him myself. The thought makes bile rise in my throat. I’ve never been good at being a tease, but I’m going to have to become an expert now.
I’m halfway up the steps before I realize he isn’t following.
Alder keeps walking, unhurried as he moves past the staircase and deeper into the corridor, the soft scrape of his boots echoing off the stone.
I pause on the third step. My pulse flutters. A strange chill slips down my back. “Where are you going?” I ask, voice pitched too high. “You need to change.”
A small, amused breath escapes him. “Do I?”
“The wine…” I swallow hard. “Your outfit is ruined. I thought—”
He smiles. It’s not a smile meant for ballrooms or banquets or seduction. It’s razor-sharp and venomous. “Sweetheart,” he says, each syllable so quiet, so careful, it feels like it’s been dipped in poison. “Did you really think I didn’t know what you were doing?”
My stomach lurches, dread hitting in one nauseating wave.
From the shadows, they emerge. One masked figure. Then another. Then more—slipping from alcoves and side corridors like they’ve been waiting all along. Like they were always going to be here, just out of sight.
Like the plan was never mine to begin with.
Silver masks gleam beneath the flickering torchlight, blank and inhuman, their expressionless eyes locking on me. Their armor catches the light in jagged flashes, bodies silent, hands already reaching.
No.
No no no no no.
My breath stutters. I take one step back. Then another. My slipper catches on the edge of my gown. I stumble, one arm flying out, the other groping for the stair rail. The wrought iron bites into my palm as I steady myself, heart crashing against my ribs.
“You’ve been busy,” Alder continues. His voice is low, lilting, almost amused. “Scheming with the kitchen girls. Whispering in dark corners. Plotting to take down a queen.”
He walks toward me, casually, and the floor feels like it tilts beneath my feet. “You almost got away with it too.” His smile sharpens, slicing straight through me.
My heel slips. I jolt, nearly falling backwards up the stairs, clutching at the banister like it might save me. The gown tangles around my legs, and my pulse screams in my ears.
“Guards,” he shouts. “Take her.”
Panic claws at my throat. I whirl and run. The hem of my gown snags on the stone, tears at the seam. I don’t care. I don’t look back.
I have to move. I have to get away. I’ve walked right into a trap I thought I’d set. And now it’s closing. Fast.
Hands seize me from behind. A sharp yank, a rough, crushing grip.
Gloved fingers clamp over my mouth, my shoulders, pinning me before I can scramble away. My pulse spikes like a struck bell.
I twist, my teeth snapping at the hand stifling my mouth, but thick leather blocks the bite. A cry builds in my throat, but it dies beneath the pressure of the palm crushing my jaw. I can’t make a sound. I can’t breathe. No one can hear me.
No one is coming.
I thrash—wild, desperate, feral. I buck and twist, fighting against their arms, refusing to make this easy.
My legs kick. My nails scrape skin and armor and anything I can reach.
But it’s like fighting stone. Their grip doesn’t loosen.
My lungs scream for air. My limbs burn. Each heartbeat crashes like symbols in my ears.
I’m being taken. Like Clara. Like all the girls before her. A sacrifice ripped from the world and cast into darkness. A warm body to feed the cold machine while the rest of the kingdom raises their glasses and toasts to power, blissfully unaware their comfort is built on slaughter.
I made the same mistake every heroine makes: I thought I was different. I thought I was special. I thought that, against all odds, I would be the one to stop it. That I’d change the story.
But Alder has always been a step ahead. Watching.
Calculating. Pressing until I cracked just enough to let him slip back in.
He’s always known how to twist things—how to make me second-guess my instincts, question my truths.
How to rebuild my thoughts until I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began.
It makes me sick to think I ever believed I loved him. Like his PR team, I thought I’d be the one who fixed him, who transformed him into the man I believed he could be.
But no woman can change a man. She can only change herself.
And I was never fighting to change him. Not really. I was fighting the version of myself who knew not to let him win.
And I am done losing.
I am not the same woman I was six months ago. I am not fragile. I am not breakable. And I am not going down without a fight.