Chapter 1 #2
But then his gaze drops. A flicker of confusion passes through his eyes as he takes in the thing I carry, the bones and the blooms.
Our eyes meet again across the distance, and for a moment, something unspoken lingers between us. A question. The beginning of concern.
Then he gives the slightest shake of his head, almost a smile, almost a sigh, and looks away, as if to say he won’t question me. He never does.
And I’ve never given him a reason to start. He was the boy who once made me laugh when I thought I couldn’t. Now, in a month, I’ll be his queen.
I lower my gaze, shoulders stiff as I move toward my seat. Not on the dais beside him, not yet, but below it, where his brother, Mael, already sits.
Eleanor’s shuffling steps trail behind me as we cross the plaza.
The silence that follows our entrance is sharp. The low hum of conversation dies out, the scrape of boots against stone stills, and all eyes turn to stare in our direction.
I keep my chin up, fighting the instinct to shrink beneath their gaze.
Then, a whisper cuts through the quiet. “What’s that she’s carrying? A shame, truly. You’d think she’d at least try to have respect for the occasion.”
The words rake against my skin. A slow, crawling heat rises in my chest. The urge to react, to meet their gaze, to say something sharp enough to draw blood thrums beneath my skin, but I swallow it down.
They expect me to falter. I do not.
Instead, I let silence be my armor. My fingers tighten around the bones, but I do not slow. I do not waver. Let them watch. Let them whisper.
One day, when I am their queen, they will bow before me.
I keep walking, but just as I pass the cluster of women from which the whisper came, another voice slices through the hush—cool, effortless and laced with venom.
“The real shame, Daphne, is that your tongue outpaces your brain. Perhaps you might eat more and speak less.”
A choked sound follows, whether from shock or indignation, I don’t know, nor do I care. I don’t turn, don’t risk feeding their satisfaction, but a slow flicker of amusement curls in my chest.
Eva, my fierce friend, is near, even if I don’t see her. The thought is enough to steady me, to steel my spine just a little more.
Only once I lower myself into the seat beside Mael does the space around the plaza finally exhale, the noise resuming as if my arrival had been a passing spectacle, nothing more.
Mael looks at me as I settle beside him, a smirk tugging at his lips. He is Ryker’s opposite in every way. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, lacking his brother’s golden radiance. A reflection of the mother he never knew, the queen who died giving him life.
“I fear your new pet might need a little water,” he murmurs, nodding toward the skeleton in my lap.
Behind me, my duenna lets out a sharp noise of disapproval as she finds her place at the rear of the dais. Always behind, always watching.
Having Ryker’s brother nearby eases something in my shoulders. Not because I expect protection, but because Mael is chaos incarnate, and right now, I need someone else’s scandal to drown out my own.
I turn the skeleton slightly, letting the flowers catch the light. “I gave it a little milk this morning,” I say, low and grave. “It didn’t seem to want it.”
Mael chuckles. “My poor brother,” he says, eyes flicking to Ryker.
“So convinced you’re his polished little bride-to-be.
Sweet. Obedient. Safe.” He leans in, his voice velvet-smooth, laced with mischief.
“He’s known you all these years and still has no idea who you are.
But I see you. You like the weight of life and death in your hands.
” He pauses, then adds, almost lazily. “Careful, Raylane. That sort of appetite has a way of growing.”
My head snaps toward him, a flare of defensiveness burning hot in my chest. Ryker knows exactly who I am, he just chooses to see the best in me. But isn’t that what one should want from a husband?
A sound from the center of the plaza pulls me away before I can speak. I turn slowly toward the noise, and my heart clenches.
The Red Hunter.
Zyrel Falcon walks like he owns the stones beneath his feet, broad-shouldered and brutal. No title. No reward for his services.
Just a man who built a life on dragging cursed girls to the poles to satisfy his sick cruelty.
The sigil of Thul'Barak, the God of Change and Beasts, coils over the thick muscle of his bicep—a spiral of fangs tightening inward, the symbol of consuming change. He wears it openly, though Calcatra bows to a different god, Demetria, now.
Behind him, stumbling, is Brienne, pulled by the thin chain around her neck.
The snare rod is a carved wooden staff with a looped metal chain-cord at the end that can be tightened around a person’s neck or body to control them from a distance.
It seems designed for catching rabid animals, rather than young girls.
Hot rage bursts in my chest at the sight. As if hurting her isn’t enough, he has to humiliate her too.
I want to leap from my seat and scream into their smug faces how wrong they are. How wrong all of it is. But propriety—and my station—demand silence. And so I stay seated while the harsh words claw inside me, desperate to tear free.
Brienne’s gown, once gold and elegant, is now streaked with filth and blood. Her arms hang limp, heavy gloves shackled at the wrists to conceal the Crimson Tether curse darkening her fingertips. Her hair, once pure white, now burns red in tangled strands.
Noises of derision are spat from the crowd. Once, she stood amongst those court ladies, regal and proud. Now she is barely standing at all.
My pulse quickens. I tear my gaze from Brienne and look up at Ryker.
He meets my eyes, touches his lips, and rubs his fingers together. Our secret ritual, a way for him to send me a kiss from afar, knowing we could never touch lips until we were wed.
I recognize his silent promise. One day soon, we will make it better, together. It should comfort me. It doesn’t.
Under Ryker’s father, the old king, duennas locked every unwed noblewoman’s door after dusk and were the only ones allowed to hold the keys.
There were no mixed carriages unless married, no private letters— every word passed through the family seal desk and was copied for the archives.
Male servants never attended to women, no matter how urgent the task, even when a horse bucked or a carriage wheel splintered, servant girls were sent to fix it, fumbling through work meant for trained hands.
Then, at my urging, Ryker loosened the rules with his first decree, and the girls seemed to breathe again. But freedom breeds proximity, and proximity tempts fate. That’s how Brienne met her riding master. And that’s why I can’t shake the guilt of having made it possible.
It shouldn’t be this way, freedom shouldn’t come with shame.
Then, the air in the courtyard shifts, this time heavy with reverence. The Chastity Warden approaches the pole, and dread curdles in my stomach.
He is a slender man wrapped in green robes. The sigil of Demetria, Goddess of Forest and Time, is stitched over his heart: two mirrored leaves forming an hourglass, their stems twisting.
A thick leather whip coils through his arms.
As he stops behind Brienne, his thin fingers reach for the monstrous wig perched atop his head, woven from the red strands of every cursed woman he has punished like a crown of suffering, built lash by lash, cry by cry.
A question pierces me, parasitic and sharp. Are my mother’s locks tucked somewhere in that nest of madness?
I shove the thought aside. Not now. But the promise I made to myself a long time ago is ironclad. I will find the one responsible for her ruin. And I will make them pay it threefold.
The warden snips a lock of Brienne’s red hair and tucks it away. Disgust courses through my veins at the gesture, and I grip the edge of my seat until my fingers ache.
The kingdom had long since scoured the red color from daily life: no red in clothing, no red in furnishings, no red at all.
The shade was too vivid a reminder of the Crimson Tether curse, and so it was despised.
Before me lies a sea of white silks, golden wigs, black coats, but not a hint of red to be seen…
except for Brienne’s hair, the fiery blossoms spilling across my lap and that damned wig on the warden’s head.
Zyrel steps forward. Without ceremony, he unlatches his snare rod and hauls Brienne to the iron pole. With brutal efficiency, her gloved arms are yanked above her head and fixed to the hook at the top.
My heart slams against my ribs in a violent rhythm, each beat laced with helpless anticipation.
Zyrel rips the back of her dress, baring her pale skin.
Brienne’s scream cuts through the square, high and raw.
And just like that, the month before my marriage no longer feels near, it stretches into an impossible distance.
My grip on the chair loosens until my stiff fingers finally let go.
The cry shatters the stillness I’ve been hiding behind.
The fury I’ve kept locked beneath duty surges free, rushing through me like fire in dry grass, until all that’s left is rage and the need to act.
How many more girls will suffer in the weeks before I become queen?
How many more deaths will stain my conscience before my family’s name and the crown together give me enough power to challenge the Church?
“Just close your eyes,” Mael murmurs from my side, as if he’s plucked the thoughts from my mind, as if he understands why my breath trembles. “It’ll be over soon.”
But that’s the problem. It won’t be soon enough.
Even after Brienne goes quiet, her scream still rings in my ears.
It burns through every excuse I’ve ever made for why I had to stay quiet, to be patient.
Sitting still becomes unbearable, and before I know it, I’m on my feet.
Heat floods my chest, thought blurs, and I’m moving—finally doing what I should have done long ago.
I think I hear Mael laugh, soft and disbelieving, but I don’t turn back. I don’t stop for my duenna’s shrill protest, nor do I pause to consider what I am doing. My legs are already carrying me forward, toward the pole, toward the warden, toward the raised whip.
No one stops me.
The distance is too small, the guards are too stunned, too slow to grasp what I mean to do. I’m not even sure of my intent myself. I only know that Ryker and I spoke of change. And I refuse to wait for it a moment longer.
The warden remains unaware, his focus riveted to Brienne’s exposed back. He raises his arm, the whip coiled and ready, the leather glinting like a serpent in the sun.
I throw myself at him.
Not with finesse, there’s no strategy in it.
Just raw momentum, shoulder-first. I crash into his side and catch his arm mid-swing.
The force of it jangles up my spine, and I feel the blow start to land anyway.
Brienne screams and thrashes, as it clips her across the ribs, a shallow lash, but not what he intended.
He stumbles a step, whip arm suspended in the air, face twisted in fury and disbelief. I meet his eyes, panting, and realize I’m still clutching the blooming carcass in my left hand. My right grips his wrist tightly, my knuckles white.
“There will be no lashing today,” I say.
The words leave me with more authority than I feel. I have no right to speak to them, though. I bear no crown yet, have no divine permission, no power sanctioned by the Church or throne.
And yet I believe Ryker will stand beside me. He will shield me. He must.
I turn my head, seeking his eyes, needing his affirmation more than I care to admit.
Ryker is already on his feet. But the look he gives me isn’t one of reassurance. There’s something heartbreakingly panicked in it, as if I’d thrown myself before a pack of wolves.
It strips the breath from my lungs and sends a chill through my bones. But I don’t have time to make sense of it before an animalistic roar splits the air behind me, low and primeval, the kind of sound that silences thought.
Dread claws through my gut as the guards turn toward the sound, stepping back in unison.
The crowd goes still. Even the warden lowers his whip.
Because the Archpriest has arrived.
With him, his Godbeast, the dragon gifted by the divine to enforce his will. And I realize, too late, just how grave a mistake I’ve made.