Chapter Fifty-Two
ChApter
Fifty-Two
Apale-grey light filters through the narrow window, casting long shadows across the stone floor.
The fire has long since died out, and the air in the room is thick with cold.
I sit on the edge of the bed, wrapped in the same gauzy blanket they gave me days ago.
Soft but thin. Decorative. Like everything here, comfort is an illusion.
I haven’t slept. Not really. My thoughts have spun too fast to catch. My father is the tsar. The man I once imagined was brave and noble and dead. It turns out he’s none of those things. And he’s keeping something monstrous in the caves beneath the fortress.
A secret weapon?
He’s created carnoraxis, so I wouldn’t put it past him to have another beast to terrorize Terre Ferique.
My thoughts keep drifting back to the night before. To the way the cold stone seeped through the thin soles of my feet in that tunnel, the heat blooming at the end of it, the silver eyes blinking in the dark. And the fact that I wasn’t even meant to be there.
I’ve only ever sleepwalked when I’ve gone without Ezra’s powder. I’ve been without it for days now. Here, there’s no familiar jar tucked into my satchel, no chalky bitterness on my tongue before bed to keep me anchored. No one to shake me awake before I wander somewhere dangerous.
And in Dulcamar, everywhere is dangerous.
The thought makes my skin prickle. If it happened once, it could happen again. And next time… I might not make it back to this room. Or worse, they might find me before I wake.
I try to imagine finding my way out of this place in a half-dream state, but I’ve never seen the fortress from the outside—only the blinding white drifts through the arrow-slit windows.
Even if I did somehow stumble past Torbin’s locks and guards, I wouldn’t get far in the freezing night.
Not barefoot. Not in a nightgown thin enough for the wind to cut through.
A soft knock at the door jerks me upright.
For a moment, I’m afraid it’s Torbin. But it’s Staja who slips inside, a bundle of fabric in her arms.
She closes the door quickly behind her, her eyes flicking to the corners, like she’s being watched—even though we’re alone.
“Good morning,” she says gently. “Can you still understand me?”
“Yes.”
She smiles and nods, then crosses the room and sets the clothes down on the chair beside the hearth.
My gaze catches on the deep-green wool of the tunic; the sturdy, brown trousers; the thick, grey shawl lined with fur.
Not silk. Not sheer. Not a dress meant to humiliate or seduce. Real clothes, thank the gods.
“You’re letting me dress like a person today,” I murmur.
She doesn’t look at me. “He gave no orders on what you should wear this morning. I took the liberty.”
My brows lift. “And that’s allowed?”
She pauses just slightly, her back still turned. “Not usually.”
I rise from the bed and step closer to the clothes, letting my fingers ghost over the fabric. It’s soft, warm. Meant for travel. Meant for someone who might need to run.
I glance at her again.
She stands with her hands folded in front of her, shoulders stiff, face carefully neutral. But something flickers there—beneath the surface. Something that makes me choose my next words more carefully.
“I appreciate it,” I say, quiet but sincere.
Her gaze flicks to me briefly, and in it, I see something unexpected. Kindness.
I sit slowly in the chair and begin to pull on the new clothes. She waits, respectfully turning her back.
“Staja,” I say after a long silence. “Why are you here?”
She stiffens.
I keep my tone casual. Gentle. “Yesterday, you said that it would be better for both of us if I listened. Which tells me you’re not here by choice.”
For a moment, I think she won’t answer.
Then, softly, she says, “My husband and son serve the tsar. But they serve him under threat.” She turns her head, just enough for me to see her profile. “If I disobey any orders… if I help anyone defy him… he said he will turn them into beasts.”
I freeze. He’ll turn them into carnoraxis if she dares step out of line. A bitter weight settles in my stomach.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. “I didn’t realize—”
“No one does. No one realizes the extremes he’s taken to force others into obedience. That’s how he keeps control.”
I take in the tension in her shoulders, the faint tremble of her hands.
“How long have you been here?”
Her gaze is fixed on the fire. “Longer than I ever meant to be.”
“You were taken?”
“No,” she says. “Not taken. Trapped.”
She draws in a slow breath and exhales it just as quietly.
“I used to live in Bastos,” she adds, almost wistfully. “It was always warm there. The heat soaked into your bones, stayed with you. The food was better. The people laughed more. I miss it… Not just the freedom, but the heat. The cold here never leaves you.”
My eyes widen. “Bastos?”
She nods again. “My husband and I had a market stall in the old capital. Spices, mostly. That was before.”
“Before what?”
Her lips press together. “Before the tsar’s men came.
They were in Bastos to have an audience with the queens.
But some of them were making the rounds, growing their army.
They took us, promising my husband and son ‘positions of value.’ But things changed when we got here, and I became the tsar’s servant, whether I wanted to or not. ”
There’s bitterness in her voice now. Quiet, but real.
“Wait.” I shake my head. “If you’re from Bastos, why can’t you speak the common language?”
“We are forbidden.” She swallows hard. “The seer… She is a siren, and she used her magic to make our tongues forget. We can’t physically form the words.”
“But why?”
“Just another way of controlling us.”
I blink, my gaze dropping to the floor as I try to wrap my head around this. Was this so the people trapped here couldn’t get word out to their families outside of Dulcamar? “You were here when she arrived?”
“She came with him,” Staja says, glancing at the door before lowering her voice further. “When the Shadow Tsar took the throne from the old ruler, the seer was already at his side. They arrived in Dulcamar together.”
The words land oddly in my chest. My father… and a siren? It’s a pairing that shouldn’t exist. He never trusted sirens, so why bring one here? Why keep her close?
The thought turns over in my mind like a jagged stone. Could she be controlling him? Steering his war, his hunger for power, his… interest in me?
I can almost hear her voice from the chamber where we first met—low, certain, brimming with confidence. “We’ve been expecting you.”
A chill runs over my arms that has nothing to do with the cold.
“Do you think the prophecy is true?” I ask.
Staja exhales slowly. “Prophecies tend to hold truth, yes. But often, there is a chance for someone special to change them. But she believes it, and she’s convinced the tsar it’s true. She’s why he believes he’s destined to rule everything. Why he’s doing all this. The war. The blood. You.”
“I don’t even know what the full prophecy says,” I admit. “Only fragments.”
Her voice takes on a rhythmic cadence, like she’s speaking something memorized long ago.
“Power taken by force in the heart of Dulcamar shall shape the world anew. He who wields it shall stand above all, unchallenged in dominion, unbroken in will. But to reign eternal, the magic gifted by the gods to a powerful descendant, must be seized, torn from its vessel, and bound anew. Yet beware—one of fae blood, third-born of kin, shall rise as the harbinger of ruin and bring the fall of he who seeks to command the world.”
The words wrap around me like a tightening snare. Third-born of kin. The harbinger of ruin.
Does she not know?
I search Staja’s expression for some clue, but she offers none.
Could the seer be oblivious to the truth of who I am because my magic is trapped, dormant in ways it shouldn’t be?
Or is it something simpler? That she’s relying on the fact that Axel only had two children, never knowing my mother had a child before she married him, and therefore does not see me as a third-born fae?
But a darker thought stirs, uncoiling in the back of my mind—what if she does know, and she’s holding it close, biding her time until it serves her? What if Torbin knows, too?
The door swings open without warning.
Torbin steps inside, his presence filling the space like a shadow.
He’s dressed immaculately in a dark-crimson doublet, his golden hair combed back from his face, every button and thread in place.
No sign of a sleepless night. No crease of guilt or weight of a thousand deaths etched into his posture.
His eyes narrow, sweeping over me from head to toe. The weight of his gaze is sharp, assessing—not just my body, but something deeper, like he’s looking for cracks in the mask I wear.
I force myself to meet his stare, my spine straightening even as my pulse spikes. His scrutiny lingers on my face a moment too long, and I can’t shake the prickle at the back of my neck—the sense that he’s searching for something he already suspects.
Finally, his mouth curves, not into a smile, but something colder. “Good morning, Princess.” His tone is flat but edged. “I won’t bother to ask how you slept. Osrem tells me you wandered from your room last night.”
He doesn’t know about my night wanderings. He doesn’t know about the powder Ezra gave me to keep me from leaving my bed at night. He probably thinks I was trying to escape.
“It goes without saying, Celeste, but you would be a fool to think you could escape from the fortress.”
I gather my resolve and square my shoulders. “Did you just come here to reprimand me, or is there something else you needed?”
He lifts his chin, his posture infuriatingly relaxed. “Breakfast is being served. The tsar would like your company.”
I suppress a flinch. The tsar. The man who betrayed his family.
“I’ll go,” I say evenly, “but only if you let me see Nadya.”