Shackled By Shadows (Bound by the Broken Crown #1)

Prologue

It has been said that power attracts the worst and corrupts the best and that everyone pays far too high a price.

This prince learned that truth in the worst kind of way.

The council chamber is empty now, the doors sealed behind him, the echoes of raised voices still ringing in his ears. Torchlight flickers along the stone walls, throwing fractured shadows across the floor. He barely notices. His attention is fixed upon his hands.

They tremble beneath hidden scars.

He curls them into fists, willing them still. The effort sends a dull ache up his arms, settling heavy in his chest. Breathing feels deliberate now.

They say from the darkest of times, the most unlikely heroes tend to rise.

The thought almost makes him laugh.

The weight he bears is not noble. It is suffocating. It presses down on him from every direction, duty, expectation, loyalty, until there is no room left for the male he once was.

The crown he wears does not break all at once.

It fractures slowly and quietly, a single piece at a time, as a decision that’s made in silence, a truth left unspoken. A line crossed and never to be uncrossed again.

No one can see the way his hands shake in the empty chamber. No one can hear the name he swallows like a confession, forcing it back down until it burns. No one will know that every step he takes forward is built on something he has already lost.

Oberon drags in a slow breath and straightens, forcing the cracks back into place. He smooths his expression, squares his shoulders, and reshapes himself into something functional, something sharp enough to survive what comes next.

When he finally turns toward the doors, there is nothing left to betray the fracture beneath the crown.

History will remember the choices he has made.

But it will never remember the price he had to pay.