Chapter 4
Violet
A thousand thoughts crowded my head as they always did—but one small, irritating one kept circling back no matter how many times I shoved it aside. And if I was being honest, it was easier to focus on that than everything else pressing in on me.
So when Sebastian left early that morning—again—with nothing more than a vague there’s a situation and a promise to explain later, I didn’t argue.
I went straight to the library.
I spent hours there.
Digging through records. Flipping brittle pages filled with faded names and fractured lineage charts that followed no system I could understand. Ink smudged into parchment. Margins torn. Dates half scratched out or overwritten.
Eventually, I found exactly what I expected.
Nothing.
There was no Delvaux line.
No migration notes. No obscure footnote buried in the margins.
Nothing at all.
It was as if Adar and Bronwen had simply appeared.
By the time I closed the last book, my head ached and my patience was gone.
I made my way to the kitchen, rummaging through cupboards until I found bread and fruit and stacked them on a plate. A cook immediately tried to take over, but I waved her off because it was my fault for losing track of time and reading through breakfast.
We compromised by letting her make me tea.
I’d barely taken a bite when I heard Bronwen.
She announced herself long before she appeared—barking orders down the hall, footsteps sharp and unhurried. A moment later, she stuck her head into the kitchen like she’d sensed me there.
“What are you doing?”
I glanced down at my plate. “Eating.”
She stepped inside and leaned against the wooden cutting table, arms crossing as she looked me over. She didn’t say a word, and yet the cook handed her a cup of tea without being asked.
Bronwen had told me once that I only ever saw one version of them.
I turned that over in my mind—shapeshifters, pills like mine, spells layered so deep maybe even Sebastian couldn’t see them.
Then she shifted, and a faint shimmer rippled around her.
My spine straightened.
I focused harder. Let my vision sink past what it was meant to see. The shimmer moved in waves, subtle and wrong.
She was glamoured.
I’d never been able to see it before—but now, when I held my focus just right, it was there. A distortion at the edges, like heat rising off stone.
I didn’t even have a second to process the victory before she noticed.
“You’re staring.”
“I’m thinking.”
Bronwen arched her brow. “About what?”
I dropped my gaze to my plate. “Your last name.”
Silence.
“I spent all morning in the library,” I continued. “It wasn’t there.”
Bronwen exhaled through her nose. Her smile stayed easy. Practiced. “Families change names. Records get lost. It happens.”
“Not like this,” I said. “Names always leave something behind.”
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the table for half a second. “Why didn’t you come to training this morning?”
The shift didn’t surprise me. It was what she always did.
“We didn’t have training,” I said. “Sebastian and Adar left early to deal with a situation.”
Bronwen inclined her head. “Adar didn’t go.”
I nearly choked on my tea.
“What?”
I’d assumed he had. Commanders always went with their Sovereigns. Adar always went when Sebastian left the castle.
“Well,” she said lightly, lifting her cup, “Adar’s going to be pissed. And as much as I’d love to watch that, you’re on your own today. Finnel managed to misplace the dresses I bought yesterday, and if he doesn’t find them in the next hour, he’s working in the stables shoveling shit for a month.”
I bolted out of the kitchen and toward Sebastian’s rooms.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” I muttered, nearly tripping as I took my dress off and dragged my pants on.
Yara tried to stop me as I ran out the front of the castle—hands moving fast, urgent—but I didn’t slow. Guilt flickered, sharp and brief for ignoring her, and then I shoved it aside. I didn’t have a minute to spare.
I was tying my hair back as the training yard came into view. Fae I didn’t recognize filled the space—some sparring in pairs, others standing off to the side while servants wrapped injuries or adjusted armor straps. New recruits. Fresh blood. The air smelled like sweat and iron and anticipation.
Adar was rebuilding the Guard.
And now they were all staring at me.
“Nice of you to finally come.” His voice carried easily across the yard.
He stood at the center—posture straight, eyes already measuring me.
“I didn’t know you were here,” I said quickly. “If I had, I would’ve been on time.” My gaze flicked to the soldiers—every one of them taller, broader, stronger than me. Watching. Evaluating. “But maybe we can skip training today.”
I took a step toward the tree line.
“No.”
One word. Final.
“My Sovereign gave me orders to train you,” Adar said. “And the soldiers in training would benefit from seeing how far they’ve progressed compared to… others.”
Adar was pissed. And I knew that this wasn’t going to end well.
He tossed me a staff. I barely caught it.
“Ready?”
“Not really,” I muttered.
He moved anyway. His strikes came fast—sharper than yesterday. I blocked the first hit, but the second slammed into my forearm. The third drove through my shoulder, pain blooming bright and immediate. He wasn’t training me.
He was making an example of me.
“Guard up,” he said.
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
I adjusted my stance. He swept my feet out from under, and I hit the dirt hard. Grit scraped into my palms as I pushed myself back up.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Each time faster. Each time more eyes on me.
Sweat clung to my spine, my palms burned, and every muscle felt like it had been rung out and left to dry.
Adar turned slightly, addressing the recruits without looking away from me. “Do you see the hesitation?” he said. “The overthinking before she moves?”
I swallowed, breath burning.
“That will get you killed in battle,” he continued calmly. “You are not here to think. You are here to serve. Obey. Defend.”
Gods, I hated him.
But he didn’t look angry anymore.
He looked satisfied.
Then he stiffened as he looked at something behind me.
I didn’t have to look to know Sebastian was here. I sensed him the moment he appeared. But I looked anyway.
Shadows pulsed outward more than usual, crawling along the ground and curling at the edges of armor and boots of the nearest soldiers. They noticed but pretended not to.
His gaze found me immediately, sweeping over every place I might hurt.
Then he looked around the yard, landing on the recruits who were suddenly very invested in adjusting straps, checking blades, or staring at literally anything except the Shadow King who had slaughtered the last Guard without blinking.
“Really, Adar?” Sebastian said.
Adar shrugged. “She was late.”
Sebastian took a step closer. “You were trying to make her look weak.”
Adar met his stare without flinching. “She is weak.”
The word landed like a slap.
Sebastian’s eyes darkened, shifting from their usual dusty-blue. Before he could get a word out, something caught his attention. My breath caught when I realized what.
Alastor.
At the edge of the field, he stood—arms crossed, posture rigid, every inch the Commander I’d grown up with.
Why was he here? How was he here when he told me yesterday he was near the Mountain Realm border?
His attention was on Sebastian as he nodded toward the castle.
“He needs to talk to me,” Sebastian muttered.
“Okay,” I said without thinking. “Then let’s go. I have a few questions for him anyway.”
I reached for his hand and tugged.
He didn’t move.
I knew why. The instinct to step in front of me instead of beside me. To intercept. To shield.
Maybe he thought he was protecting me.
Maybe he wasn’t used to not being the only Sovereign in the room.
“Bash,” I said. “My throne. My realm.” I met his eyes. “My conversation to hear.”
He went still.
His shadows slowed, hovering close to his hands, coiled and waiting. Those dusty-blue eyes locked onto mine, and in them I saw everything he kept buried beneath control.
Pride tangled with fear.
Possession wrestling with respect.
The need to protect colliding with the knowledge that I wasn’t something to be shielded anymore.
I was a Sovereign.
His equal.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Finally, he exhaled.
“…Fine,” he said, voice low and rough at the edges. “You’re right. It’s your throne. Your realm.” A beat. “Your conversation to hear.”
Behind us, Adar made a sound of pure disgust and rolled his eyes so hard I was surprised his head didn’t snap clean off.
Alastor smiled at me as we approached. “Little bird.”
“You lied.” I said it before I could stop myself.
He brushed a loose strand of blond hair from his face. Since my secret had come out, he’d stopped taking the pills I hadn’t even known he’d been using to dull his Sun Realm lineage. Seeing him like this sent a small, sharp ache through my chest.
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Is there something I should be worried about?”
“No. But there is something you need to see.”
He headed toward the castle before I could question him further. The training yard fell away behind us as we followed in silence. Sebastian stayed at my side, and I watched as he put on his Shadow King mask. I wasn’t sure if he saw something through his shadows, but he knew more than he said.
Yara stood just inside the castle doors, half-hidden in the alcove near the entrance, hands already moving.
I tried to warn you, she signed.
I gave her a soft smile, hoping it would reassure her even though my appearance probably told a different story.
We moved deeper into the castle.
“Well,” Bronwen said as she stepped out from between two columns, arms crossed, green eyes sharp as she took in the lineup—Alastor leading, Sebastian tense at my side, Adar scowling like he’d rather be anywhere else, “this looks important.”
Her gaze lingered on Alastor. Then on me.
Then she smiled. “You weren’t going to start something interesting without me, were you?”
She fell into step beside us without waiting for an answer. We were halfway to the sitting room when soft footsteps hurried down a side hall.
A servant—a faerie with green skin and wings like spun cobwebs—rushed toward us. The moment she spotted Sebastian, she dipped into a hurried bow, nearly tripping over her own feet.
Then she turned to Bronwen.
“My Lady,” she whispered, eyes darting nervously back to Sebastian before she leaned in close to Bronwen’s ear. Her voice dropped too low to fully catch, but I heard enough.
“…west wing… issue with the shipment… Finnel requested—”
Bronwen let out a long, suffering groan. “Of course he did.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Tell him I’m on my way.”
The servant nodded quickly and vanished back down the hall, wings fluttering.
Bronwen glanced between the four of us. “Apparently Finnel has decided he’s in charge now.”
She turned and headed down the corridor, already muttering under her breath about incompetence and misplaced shipments.
We continued on without her, turning toward the sitting room near Sebastian’s study. It was smaller than the great halls, tucked away and warded for privacy—the kind of place used when conversations needed fewer witnesses and thicker walls.
Sebastian reached the door first.
He pushed it open.
And stopped.
Inside the sitting room, a fae man stood near the window. He wore simple traveling leathers, but they sat on him with a refinement that couldn’t be disguised. His hair, a muted gold, was tied neatly at the nape of his neck, and his skin carried a faint warmth.
His eyes caught the low light and reflected it back—polished amber.
My steps faltered as my body reacted before my mind could catch up.
Sun Realm features.
Alastor exhaled slowly and stepped forward. “I should explain,” he said as he gestured once toward the man by the window. “This is Theron.”
The fae inclined his head. “It is an honor,” he said, “to stand in the presence of my Sovereign.”
He wasn’t looking at Sebastian.
He was looking at me.