Chapter 4 #2
He doesn’t remind me of what I could have chosen.
Doesn’t mention peace or politics, or war.
He doesn’t say my magic could have cost less than it does now.
His restraint says it all. His hand presses into my spine just slightly—not possessive, but anchoring.
And despite everything, I breathe a little easier.
The doors open ahead. The music starts. The Reaping begins.
We face the palace’s Grand Square, a lamplit basin of stone and water held within the palace walls.
Balconies brim, banners lift, the fountain scatters torchlight into shards as the twilight colors dazzle.
The cheers rise like a song, but I stand apart from it, untouched.
Their joy moves around me but never through me—like a warmth I can no longer feel.
Maybe it’s because I know this ritual is built on blood and silence.
A charade we all endure, because its truth would destroy us all.
Mallen and I descend the stone steps, pausing before the marble columns that flank the palace gates.
Beyond them, the procession winds its way uphill.
Ten cloaked figures, swathed in Larksbind blue, glide like wraiths through Starsfall’s sunset streets.
I watch them as I cross the threshold and take my place beside my father.
One step behind him, as is expected. As required.
“You are late, Azhara.”
His voice is mild, a velvet sheath. It cuts anyway. The court tilts to listen.
If I give him my maid took her time, he will break her.
If I say it was my fault, he will find a way to make me pay for it later.
So I find a third way. The one learned at his knee.
The dance Mallen taught me the steps to: use praise as cover, silence as a blade, make the room your witness, and let him love his own reflection.
“Am I, Father?” I lift my chin and turn into the torchlight so the jewels do their work. “Perhaps the procession should wait for its prize to appear. You want me perfect.”
Silk hushes. Goblets still. On my other side, Mallen sets his weight, a quiet shift that reads like a shield finding the ground. His jaw cuts hard, eyes on the king, and the smallest nod tells me that my father saw the move and will not challenge it.
“The next time, be here on time,” my father says.
“Of course,” I answer, smooth as poured wine. “The procession shall have what you want.”
He turns away to let the crowd breathe again. Mallen does not touch me. His hand relaxes at his side, not quite to the hilt, not quite away. The moment passes like a knife sliding back into its sheath. Evie keeps her skin.
My pulse will not settle. The seam in the marble draws my attention and lets me count my breaths. My hands want to shake, and I refuse them. Mallen keeps his gaze forward, the line of his body quiet and ready, and still I feel the heat of his attention like a palm between my shoulders.
“Stop trembling,” my father hisses.
“Azhara’s unsteady after yesterday’s ordeal,” Mallen says, just loud enough to carry. “She won’t faint tonight.”
The court will believe any tremor in my hands belongs to the knife that nearly found my throat.
They are always hungry for a story dipped in blood.
Mallen knows better. He reads it in the way I cannot quite meet his gaze.
This shaking is not fear. It is the aftershock of what just happened.
And of his hands on my skin, the memory of his mouth, the echo of a promise that rooted too deep and has not stopped ringing.
“I didn’t realize you were so upset, dear girl,” my father says at last, his voice pitched to the lords. He takes my hand and pats it, playing the doting parent. “Always trying to be brave. Forgive me for not noticing your distress.”
I manage a brittle smile and glance at Mallen, my throat tightening around words that can’t quite escape it. Heat stirs low in my chest, unsteady and unexpected. Not just relief, not quite affection. Gratitude, edged and bright. He did not have to speak. He did.
His choice has kept me safe. Whatever we are now, it is already unraveling me, and still I want more, even if it burns past saving. So I stand beside him, wondering not just who I am, but who I could be. What version of myself might survive this Reaping.
Threnos plays its part well. Everyone knows my father loathes Larksbind.
Every fiber of his being thrums with contempt for them.
He wants us to think of them as hollow. Empty.
Void. Most of Starsfall has fallen for my father’s lies.
But I know Larksbind is full. Full of everything this kingdom can’t be trusted to hold.
So once a year, he’s forced to smile for their emissaries as he extolls the virtues of peace. A performance the court is well-versed in applauding. An act the court sees as proof of my father’s benevolence instead of duplicity. Wisdom, not malice. Redemption, not revenge.
But there is another performance few know is playing out. The one in which my father is a loving parent. A man who protects his only child. Who praises her, indulges her, adores her.
Only Mallen sees the cracks. Only he knows what festers beneath the golden crown.
My stomach coils with dread. I don’t need to glance at Mallen to know his disquiet. He radiates it, a storm tethered only by discipline. My father, of course, assumes my discomfort is leftover fear. He prefers me brittle. Weak and malleable. Easier to control.
He turns and extends his hand.
The court sees a father offering reassurance. I see the grimace that flits across his face when our palms touch. Hear the disgust in the hiss of breath he swallows down. And I see him wipe his hand on his robes when he thinks no one is looking. Like touching me made him unclean.
I step forward, cast in my role, and smile through clenched teeth.
I wave. I thank the gods and the people of both nations, and give the blessing that reminds us that while magic rolls like a storm in Starsfall, its winds die at Larksbind’s borders.
Then I descend to the midpoint of the palace steps and brace myself for the part I loathe most.
The tributes.
One by one, the men will step forward. One by one, they’ll offer themselves for my hand, unaware they are sealing their own doom. None will survive. None meant to. Maybe they are aware of what awaits them. Perhaps that would be a mercy.
Mallen joins me, his presence a shadow at my shoulder. When the routine shifts subtly, his brow arches—a small, private warning. Follow the rule. Remember what we are. What we were in the woods and the water. Remember that I let him touch me. Kiss me.
That no one else may.
No one else may touch me.
The first man steps forward. He lowers his hood and bows. He’s young. Far too young. A soldier, judging by his build. He murmurs his name and vows his fealty before retreating after I accept.
Four more follow. Two fishermen. A merchant. A smith. All older than the first, but still too young to die for a ceremony that means nothing.
Then comes the sixth.
He lifts my hand in both of his and presses a kiss to my knuckles, holding the contact too long.
I recoil instinctively.
And then, he is airborne.
Mallen has him by the throat, suspended in midair like a child’s doll. The man kicks, gasps, and claws at invisible fingers, but it’s hopeless. Mallen doesn’t falter. Or forgive.
“Mallen,” I whisper, barely audible.
“Don’t. Touch. Her.”
The words boom like a god’s command. The courtyard stills. All eyes turn to the man holding death in his palm. Mallen’s expression is unreadable, but the weight of his fury is unmistakable.
There is no chaos in him—only resolve.
He lowers the man with surgical precision and releases him with a final flick of power. The man stumbles, collapses, and then scrambles back to the others, his face pale with terror.
The remaining suitors hurry through their vows as I accept their offerings. One noble. Two soldiers. None dares to meet my eyes.
Then—the final man.
He kneels.
He does not remove his hood.
He’s broader than the others. More assured. The set of his shoulders speaks of command, not submission. He speaks his prayer, recites the words, and then lifts his chin.
“Your answer, Princess?”
I stiffen. Protocol dictates that the suitor reveal himself first.
“Your hood,” I say.
“Your answer,” he repeats.
The voice is smooth. Confident. Mocking. And loud enough that Mallen hears what the rest do not.
Mallen moves. Quiet as snowfall, deadly as winter. His sword slides free, and the tip rests lightly—lovingly—at the man’s throat.
He does not flinch.
“She will not ask again,” Mallen murmurs. “Remove your hood. Or be removed.”
Gasps ripple through the crowd. Rejecting a tribute would be tantamount to declaring war. No one has ever dared.
I don’t look at the court. Or at my father. Only at the man who kneels before me, as he laughs. A slow, rich sound. Deep. Familiar.
“You are not the timid little mouse they say you are,” he says.
Then he draws back the hood.
And I stop breathing.
His face is flawless. Beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful—honed, perfect, lethal. His lips curve in a lazy smile. Golden hair spills over his collar like silk. His eyes, when they meet mine, glint with knowledge.
He knows who I am.
He knows I’m already afraid.
“My offer, Princess?”
I take a step back. My hands shake.
I look at Mallen.
He is still. A pillar of calm. But I know that stillness. It is the quiet of an ocean before it drowns a city. The hush before a sword sings, before ruin breaks loose from its leash.
He is beyond fury.
And the smile on the stranger’s lips deepens—as if he’s been waiting all this time for me to notice him.
“Larksbind sent their prince?” I whisper.