Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Starsfall was never empty. I’ve heard the stories.
Once, it thrummed beneath your feet. Magic clung to the wind, heavy and sweet, humming in the marrow of your bones as it sang songs of birthrights and endings.
Its clay pulsed with power drawn toward the heart of the world, its rhythm in harmony with the stars.
Its breath was as steady as the constant waves that crashed against our cliffs.
It shaped the beasts we lived beside, seasoned the grain we ate, and shimmered in the water we drank.
You didn’t question the wonder—it simply was.
Then it was gone. The land stilled. The air turned hollow. The only magic left now is the rot I spill into it. The daemon-breeding corruption that arose when my father held back my magic as I took my first breaths.
It didn’t have to be this way.
Starsfall’s magic was never meant to be spent, only guided. Balanced.
We had Larksbind. Their power was quiet. Enduring. The slow, incorruptible tether my father wanted to control, not break.
The gods grew weary of his lust for power, so they created an instrument of ruin. A weapon made from flesh. A curse my father says my birth brought into the world.
He claims I should never have been born. That the gods themselves realized their error and tried to snuff me out before I even drew breath. That I clung to my mother’s life like a parasite and bled her dry from the inside.
I was stubborn. Unyielding. Unrepentant.
And with every day, I came closer to life while she drew nearer to death.
My father rarely speaks of how he fought to save us both.
His fire burned brighter than any man’s, bright enough to scorch the gods themselves.
But my darkness eclipsed even that. In the end, he made the only bargain he could: all of Starsfall’s magic, drained in a single moment, to cage what I was becoming.
My mother’s life traded for mine. One soul for another. The gods like things even.
Balanced.
He gave up more than magic that day. He gave up Larksbind.
Everyone knows Larksbind isn’t a source of power—it’s the brake. The binding stone. It absorbs magic, holds the excess, and tempers the wild. It’s the dam keeping Starsfall from drowning itself. That’s why he wants it. To move the balance. To become untouchable.
I always knew that. We all did. My father went to war not because he feared Larksbind, but because he feared what it kept from him.
But maybe even this is a lie.
Darian told me, plainly. If Larksbind falls, no one will be left to hold back the tide. Not him. Not me. Not anyone. The magic will rush in and raze everything. And my father will be free to wield it all. To twist the storm into a menace worse than darkness.
My curse is tied to that balance. While I remain unclaimed, my power sleeps.
If someone from Larksbind takes me, their blood binds the chains tighter.
Unknowingly, unwillingly, they’ll keep me from tearing our kingdoms apart.
My father claims he’s found a way to keep his power despite the Reaping’s terms, but at least the world would stand a chance.
But if they’re from Starfall—if I choose a man and a future without Larksbind’s control—my magic will detonate like a star dying. Beautiful. Enthralling. Catastrophic.
That’s the real prison.
It’s not the gilded cage my father keeps me in. Or the two men pulling me in separate directions. It’s the choice. The consequences. The slow, devouring spiral of the hell I’ll unleash just by choosing wrong.
Choose Darian, and I choose one war.
Choose Mallen, and I face another.
“The Reaping isn’t your fault,” Mallen says, voice low, the usual steadiness strained. His eyes are fixed on me, green storm clouds flickering. “Not all truths are absolute.”
I don’t answer. His words don’t comfort. They’re an anchor being thrown too late.
He’s reading my silence, as always. A muscle ticks in his jaw. “Tell me how to fix this, Azhara. Anything. Just say it.”
I turn slowly and lean against the cracked wall, placing cold stone at my spine. He mirrors me across the room, rigid and still, but I see it—the crack in the mask. The faint tremor in his hands. The coil of envy unraveling in his eyes.
He’s always been control incarnate. Steel sheathed in calm. But now that calm is fraying. I can see it in the line of his shoulders, in the way his fingers keep curling into fists and then flexing open again.
Mallen is not a boy. He is a blade—and blades do not bend, they break.
“You swore you wouldn’t keep me in the dark,” I say quieter than I mean to. “Once. When I was foolish and believed in hope.”
His expression doesn’t change. He looks haunted. “I never hid what would take your choice.”
“Just the names you erased and the warnings you kept.”
He looks away, jaw tight. His composure wavers again before he reins it back in.
“You think I wanted this? You think I wanted to see him—with you, the way they cheered him, the way you smiled? I’ve spent my life restraining myself—for your sake and for Starsfall.
Do you know what it cost me not to tear him apart in front of them all? ”
There it is. Not boyish jealousy. Something older. Fiercer. Less about wanting and more about keeping.
I should be afraid of that, but I’m not.
“We can’t fix this,” I say. “Not unless you tell me everything that’s going on. I know this Reaping is different. The rules aren’t the same. What else is my father changing? What are you keeping from me?”
He flinches. Just once. But he hides it well. “You asked for my help once,” he says softly. “Ask again. Let me keep you safe. Let me make things right.”
The offer stings. Because I want to believe it. Because a part of me still hopes he might. That’s the most dangerous part of all.
“I cannot trust you unless you trust me, Mallen. I cannot breathe.”
He exhales, ragged, and his hands go to his hair like he’s about to rip it out. He catches himself, but barely. His body is taut with restraint. As though there’s a fault line running through him, and he’s terrified of what happens if it cracks.
When he speaks again, his voice is hoarse. “Then let me give you what I can.”
I don’t answer. I won’t give him that. Not now.
He stares at me a moment longer, as if memorizing the last light before the sun goes down.
Then he turns. “Wait here.”
He’s gone before I can stop him.
A moment later, four palace guards file into the room. None meet my eye. One clears his throat and gestures toward the window with forced politeness.
“If you’d kindly…step away.”
I comply, slowly. Not for them, but because I know Mallen sent them. And I want to see what price he’s paying to keep hold of me.
I pick up a book, letting my eyes scan the lines without absorbing a word. My mind is elsewhere. On what Darian said. On what he didn’t. On the possibilities he offers, and the flaws he’s trying to hide in his perfection.
When Mallen returns, he’s breathless and holding out my cloak like a peace offering.
“We’re going out,” he says.
I blink. “We’re what?”
His grin is too tight. “Your father agreed. Eventually.”
“My father doesn’t agree to anything.”
“I lied,” Mallen admits. “Told him it would make you seem more appealing to Darian. He liked my idea.” His smile falters. “Don’t ask what else I said. I’d rather not think about it.”
He steps forward and catches my hand before I can withdraw.
His grip is too firm, as if he’s afraid I might vanish.
I should ask him what he offered my father to persuade him to grant me this rare indulgence—one of the few times I’m permitted beyond these walls.
I’m not allowed to roam Threnos freely. Not unless it’s for ceremony, or the Reaping, or the bloodsport Mallen calls training.
“You used to smile on our walks,” he says. “You were free. With me.”
I almost believe him.
But when I say, “This doesn’t fix anything,” I mean every word.
He nods, slowly. “I know.”
We leave my chambers in silence. Guards shadow our steps through the gilt-marble halls, past the colonnades veined with ivy and ashstone, past the paintings of heroes from Starsfall’s past; the ones even kings bowed before.
The palace feels colder than it should, like it knows we don’t belong to this moment.
Outside, the wind bites against my skin, crisp with late-autumn frost. We stop at the top of the palace steps.
The city sprawls below, dim and restless, silver torchlight flickering in the bones of its avenues.
A hush gathers around us, heavy and expectant.
His voice is quieter now. “This is what today costs.”
The flick of Mallen’s eyes tells me to glance left, and when I do, I meet Darian’s gaze across the palace courtyard.
A breath catches in my chest as the look between us lingers longer than it should.
Mallen’s hand moves, brushing at my cloak with more force than necessary, his fingers tight against the fabric.
“I don’t coat my flaws in gold,” Mallen says quietly, brushing my hair back. “I’ve shown you the truth of me. Even when it cost me.”
Darian’s jaw tightens. He looks away.
“This isn’t helping.”
My voice lacks conviction. The heat of being wanted burns up my neck and spreads over my cheeks, and it’s not because they’re fighting.
It’s because it’s over me. I’ve rarely been the center of anyone’s gravity before.
I’ve never had anyone want me like this.
Now, there are two of them, and I’m standing too close to lightning to know if I’m burning or becoming the fire myself.
A curve threatens Mallen’s lips. “Your father insisted on teasing Darian. Forgive me for taking a little pleasure in having you be mine for the day.”
He doesn’t sound smug. Just like a man trying to convince himself it’s true.
Darian watches everything. There’s no weapon on him now, but I doubt he needs one. He’s already bled for me. Already killed. He’s gauging Mallen’s every movement, not with suspicion but readiness.