Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Men say that Starsfall rests when its royals return.
It doesn’t.
And I don’t either.
The corridors whisper. The torches burn low.
Shadows stretch across the walls like wounds that never close.
And Mallen—he doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look at me.
Just walks two paces ahead, every line of him wound taut with rage he’s trying to contain.
I should say something. I should lie again.
But I’m too cold, too tired, and too unsure of my own truth to remember what version I’m supposed to be telling.
The silence breaks when he stops.
“You’re limping.”
“I’m fine.”
He turns. Just slightly. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing.”
His gaze drops to the shredded fabric of my sleeve. His jaw hardens. “Let me see.”
I shake my head.
He doesn’t ask again. Just reaches for the nearest servant with a flick of his hand, voice cool and clipped: “Bring the healer. Now.”
They scatter.
I don’t sit. I don’t speak. I just watch the back of him—broad shoulders rigid, eyes fixed on the far wall, breath barely rising. He looks like a man ready to storm a battlefield. Or break apart.
The healer arrives quickly. Too quickly. Someone must’ve warned him.
He bows low. His hands are steady, but his voice isn’t. “My Lord. My Lady. May I…?”
Mallen gestures for him to begin.
The moment the fabric is cut, I see it in the healer’s face. The shallow slashes across my arm. The bruising near my wrist. The way the skin breaks like a lie unraveling. The healer murmurs a few words I don’t hear. I feel Mallen’s stare on every inch of exposed skin.
He doesn’t say a word. Not to me. Not to the healer. He doesn’t need to. The silence says all of it. He thinks Darian hurt me. And that I let him.
“I fell,” I say quietly. “The horse spooked. I got caught in the trees.”
Still nothing.
The healer wraps my arm. Presses gently at my ankle.
“Sprained,” he says. “Not broken.”
Mallen’s voice is quiet, but deliberate. “How badly?”
The healer’s pause is long. “Bad enough.” He pauses again. “It’ll heal in a day or two.”
Mallen’s shoulders tense.
There’s anger there. Jealousy too. A possessiveness I’m not sure I know what to do with.
I feel sick.
He wanted proof my ankle would not carry me, that I could not have fled, that Darian was not dragging me anywhere I did not choose. That I did not find a way to spend time with him. Proof from a stranger’s mouth, not mine. Not to catch me in a lie, but to stop imagining one.
And the truth in that hurts more than I want to admit.
The healer bows and flees. The door clicks shut. A servant knocks, and Mallen waves them away. The room is too full of truth to let anything else in. I don’t even realize I’m shaking until Mallen steps toward me. Not angry. Not cold. Just…impossibly still.
“Where did he take you?”
I flinch at the question. It shouldn’t hurt. But it does.
“He didn’t take me anywhere. The horse bolted. I fell. He was the only rider strong enough to keep up. Nothing else happened. I swear to you—”
“I believe you.”
He says it too quickly. Too easily.
“You don’t,” I say.
He closes the distance between us. Not looming. Not threatening. Just present. And aching.
“I believe you,” he says, slower this time. “I don’t believe him.”
The shift starts small. I barely notice it. And then it’s sharp, and suddenly it’s seismic. A shift that leaves a fracture in its wake.
It doesn’t matter whether he believes me. Not if my whole sense of self hinges on which man manages to sound more convincing.
Not if I keep bending with every wind that blows stronger than me.
I am not a leaf to be carried. I’m done being a pawn in the game men play for power.
It doesn’t matter what Mallen says. Or what Darian claims. It matters what I do—and being broken on my own terms is better than living at the mercy of someone else’s.
I straighten my spine, and the breath I draw tastes different.
Like something final. The sunset before a storm.
My breath catches. “He said things.”
A pause.
Mallen waits.
“He said you’re working with my father. That you’ve been lying to me. That you want the crown, and I’m the easiest way to get it. That if I choose you and we are married, you’ll either continue serving him—or replace him.”
Silence.
He doesn’t deny it.
And gods help me, I don’t know what that means.
My voice turns hollow. “Tell me he’s lying.”
Still, he doesn’t move. Just watches me. Like he’s searching my face for mercy he hasn’t earned. Or some sign I might absolve him of what he hasn’t said.
When he finally speaks, it’s low. Rough. “What do you feel when he looks at you?”
The question hits like a slap. Not because of the words. But because I don’t know the answer.
He sees it.
And his expression folds, slow and silent, like a wound breaking open.
“I see,” he says, and turns away.
“Don’t,” I breathe. “Don’t do that. Don’t leave me alone with this.”
He stops. But he doesn’t turn fully.
“I told you once,” he says quietly, “that I would never trap you. That I would never make you stay. That I would never ask you to choose me if your heart was somewhere else.”
“It’s not,” I say. “Not yet.”
A bitter smile flickers across his face. “That’s not the reassurance you think it is.”
I step toward him. My leg shakes under me.
“Darian is charming,” I say. “He chooses words carefully. He looks at me like I’m the only thing in the world he wants—and I know that’s not love. That’s strategy.”
Mallen turns his head a little further. Enough that I can see the muscle twitching in his jaw.
“He’s too perfect,” I say. “And he’s playing a game I haven’t figured out yet.”
Now he turns. Now he faces me. Now his eyes burn.
“So why did you ride with him?”
Because I wanted to? Because I was lonely? Because I don’t know what’s real anymore? Because some part of me wanted to believe him. Just for a moment.
He steps closer.
His voice is low. “I’ve never lied to you, Azhara.”
“But you’ve kept secrets.”
“Yes. To keep you safe.”
“How’s that working out?”
He looks at me—really looks. “Considerably less well than I would like.”
My breath hitches. “Just tell me.”
He reaches for my hand. Doesn’t take it. Instead, he waits.
“Things are moving beneath this court that would tear you apart if you even guessed at them. Your father is one of them. Darian is another. And yes—there are things I haven’t told you. Because once I do, you’ll be part of it. All the way in. No escape.”
My hand trembles.
“And you want to be Starsfall’s king,” I whisper.
Not a question.
“Yes,” he says. “But not because of power. Because of what I’ll protect. Because of what that changes. Because of you.”
I stare at him.
I’m not sure if I believe him. I want to. But that isn’t the same as trust.
I turn away first. He doesn’t stop me.
We lie on opposite sides of the bed, backs to each other, both lying still as if quiet could undo the damage.
I don’t sleep. I drift in and out, floating in a half-conscious mire of memories and fear, every heartbeat too loud, curled on the edge of the bed with my back to him.
The silence between us hums with everything we’re not saying.
I want him to reach for me.
I want him to stay away.
I want the truth, even if it destroys me.
When dawn smudges the windows with pale light, I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. My body aches. Bruises purple my arms like reminders of choices I can’t undo. I don’t look at Mallen. I know he’s awake. He always is when I am.
“Will you let me explain?” he asks hoarsely.
I stare at my hands. “I don’t know if you want to tell me the truth.”
He doesn’t stop me as I walk tentatively to the basin and wash myself with the cool, clean water.
Evie appears, and Mallen retreats to the further corner of the room.
She helps me wash. She dresses me slowly.
She braids my hair. When I’m done, he’s sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, hands steepled in front of his mouth. He looks like he hasn’t slept either.
Last night sits between us like glass. The night has carved him thinner; stubble shadows his face, a bruise blooms beneath his jaw, and a strip of linen disappears under his cuff. He looks older this morning. Haunted.
I press my palms to the table to keep from crossing the space. He watches the basin still, then me, then the distance between. His fingers lift as if to reach, then fall open, empty. He does not try to touch me. And I won’t comfort him. Not when I’m still bleeding inside.
He rises but stays where he is, shoulders squared, careful as if one step might startle me. He stands at the far edge of the rug, eyes searching mine.
“I lied once. You asked if I knew more than I was letting on. About your father. About what he was planning. I said no.“ He looks at me, and it hurts. “I was trying to shield you. But it was still a lie.”
The moment holds like glass. Too fragile. Too clear.
“So you don’t deny what Darian said,” I whisper. “That you’ve been following my father’s orders. That you have your own ambitions. That this—us—was never just ours.”
He swallows hard. “Please—”
“You don’t get to say that to me.” My voice is colder than I mean it to be. Truer than I want it to be.
“Azhara…”
“I’m not yours to keep in the dark.”
The words settle between us, soft as falling ash. And just as final.
“I never wanted this,” he says, voice raw. “You think I wanted to lie to you? You think I wanted to make impossible choices? You think I want to keep secrets, knowing that it hurts you?”
“No,” I say. “I think you want to win.”
That lands hard. He exhales like the air’s been knocked from him, staggered by the truth I’ve never said aloud.
“I want to save you,” he says, softer now. “And yes—I want to win. Not a throne. Not power. Your heart. Your trust. I want you to choose me. Freely. Without fear.”
“But you’re not giving me a choice,” I whisper.
His voice is a rasp. “I am.”
“No, Mallen. You’re giving me fragments. Half-truths. Carefully arranged pieces. You’re trying to walk me to a conclusion without telling me what I’m really choosing.”
His silence says enough.
I step toward the balcony, needing space. And air.
He speaks, low and desperate. “If I tell you now, it could destroy everything. Everything I’ve been working toward. Everything I’ve done to protect you from him.”
“You’re talking about the man you still serve,” I say.
He flinches. “It isn’t like that. It wasn’t.”
“But it was something,” I press. “And you don’t trust me enough to tell me.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“I don’t want to live like this,” I say. “Not when I can’t decide what that life looks like.”
He steps toward me. “Azhara—”
“No more, Mallen.” My voice breaks. “No more secrets. No more lies. Either you tell me the truth, or you let me go.”
He’s breathing hard now, staring at me like he’s trying to memorize the shape of this moment. “If I lose you—”
“You already have.”
The words slice clean through him. He closes his eyes, shoulders caving inward, as if the pain might buckle him. When he opens them, the green of his eyes is unsteady—desperate, more than a little ruined.
“I have never—will never—lie to you,” he says, every syllable deliberate. “Please believe me. I cannot tell you this. This would trap you, and I will never, ever do that.”
“I deserve to know what’s happening to me.”
His voice cracks. “I do believe that. Gods help me, I do.”
“Then prove it.”
We stare at each other for a long time.
He doesn’t speak.
I shake my head and turn away. His footsteps follow me, but they’re hesitant, slow.
“I love you, Azhara,” he says behind me. “I will never stop fighting for you.”
“Then you should’ve started by fighting with me.”
His breath catches. I don’t look back.
Later, when I ask to go to the gardens, he tells me no. When I ask for the library, he refuses again, gentler this time. Every denial is another stone laid in the wall between us. His protection feels like a prison now. His silence a kind of cruelty.
When I stand by the window and stare down at Threnos, he places a hand between my shoulders.
“I love you more than I thought possible,” he murmurs.
I don’t answer.
He kisses the crown of my head like a benediction. “Even if you hate me, even if you never forgive me, I will protect you. I will never stop.”
And then he’s gone.
The guards he commands keep watch.
The city is golden in the morning sun. The spires of Starsfall’s capital shimmer like they’re made of glass. Threnos looks peaceful. Beautiful. But I know what it’s built on and what lives beneath the stone.
When he returns in the evening and asks if I want to bathe, I nod without speaking.
He escorts me to the royal baths and stands like a sentinel as I walk the room’s perimeter, checking for hidden threats I can’t see. His eyes plead with me to let him stay.
I say nothing.
He leaves.
I undress slowly, peeling away layers like old skin. I sink into the water, hot and laced with crushed herbs. The heat burns, but it’s a welcome pain. It reminds me that I’m still here. Still thinking. Still doubting.
The steam curls around me like mist, and I let it carry my thoughts toward the high, domed ceiling.
Darian’s words repeat like a curse. Mallen wants to use you. Mallen wants to rule. Mallen will betray your father, or work with him, or become something worse.
But Darian isn’t innocent either. I remember the way he said my name—like it was both a question and a promise. The memory stings more than it should.
And I’m just a girl caught in a war of shadows, with no way to tell who’s telling the truth, and no time left to find out.
I sink lower into the water.
If this is what power feels like—this constant doubt, this gnawing dread—then maybe I was never meant to have it.
But I’ll still fight for the right to choose.
Even if it means choosing to walk away from both of them.
Even if it means standing alone.