Tamed

Chapter 1

Chapter One

The lock gave beneath her fingers with a soft click, smoother than she’d expected.

Cassara didn’t breathe. Not yet.

A gust of wind tugged at her coat as she slid through the narrow garden door, careful not to let it creak on the hinge. Beyond the frost-rimed hedgerow, the manor grounds stretched quiet and pale under the full moon, bathed in silver light.

She moved low, swift, steps silent against the cobbled path.

The outer gates would be watched, but the perimeter sensor on the western wall had a known lag—seven seconds between pulse intervals.

She’d timed it. Tested it. And unless the old bastard had upgraded his security system in the last two days, she had exactly one shot.

There was no room for hesitation.

The pack on her shoulders bumped against her spine as she broke into a run, sharp, controlled strides as she skirted the ivy-covered wall, heartbeat thudding like a war drum behind her ribs. It wasn’t the first time she’d snuck out, but it was the first time she had no intention of returning.

Not unless she won.

She dropped into a crouch as the sensor flared, silver threads slicing the air above the wall’s edge.

One. Two. Three. On the fourth beat, she launched herself upward, boots scraping for purchase on the stone as her gloves caught the carved edge.

Six. Seven. She vaulted over as the pulse flared again, just behind her heels.

A hissed breath. A triumphant grin. And then—

“Going somewhere?”

Cassara froze.

The voice came from the shadows to her right—smooth, cool, and far too amused.

She didn’t turn. Not yet. Her stomach tightened with dread, with fury, with the slow-burning certainty that she’d been played.

Of course he’d known.

Of course he was waiting.

She turned slowly, every muscle locked in silent defiance.

Her father stepped into the moonlight like a judge into the chamber, hands folded behind his back, his coat pristine, his face unreadable.

No accusation. No fury. Just that steady, suffocating disappointment he wore like armor.

Cassara’s breath caught in her throat. Not because she feared him—never that—but because of what his presence meant.

He hadn't been sleeping.

He’d been waiting.

"You always did have a flair for drama," he said, eyes flicking to the pack on her shoulders. “Was it going to be a clean break? Or were you planning to leave a note?”

Cassara clenched her jaw. “Didn’t think you’d care.”

A pause stretched between them, filled with the rustle of wind through frostbitten ivy. Her father studied her the way a scholar might examine a flawed artifact: cold, detached, calculating. He took a step forward, and though Cassara didn’t move, her spine straightened, chin lifting instinctively.

“I care about the family name,” he said. “Which you are dragging through the mud. Again.”

“You mean by not marrying the boy you picked out?” Her voice sharpened, laced with heat. “Or by applying to Vallemont without your permission?”

“Both,” he said, without missing a beat.

Silence again. She hated how still he could be, how unaffected. Like none of this mattered, not really—not the threat of exile, not her dreams, not the fact that he’d cornered her like a criminal in her own garden.

“I’m not Mother,” Cassara said, the words cutting through the cold air between them. “I’m not going to die out there.”

His expression faltered.

Just for a breath. But it was there.

A flicker of something behind his eyes—grief, worn thin by years but still buried in the lines of his face. It passed quickly, tucked back beneath iron composure, but the crack in his armor lingered.

“She thought that too,” he said. “But where is she now?”

Cassara swallowed. “Then let me prove I’m not her.”

His gaze held hers, steady and sharp. “You want Vallemont? Fine. You’ll go. But you’ll do it on my terms.”

Her chest tightened. “What terms.”

“If you’re not top of your class by the end of the year,” he said, “you come home. No protest. No excuses. You’ll marry Julian and resume your duties as the heir of Allencourt.”

Her mouth went dry.

It wasn’t a challenge. It was a life sentence, framed in velvet and iron.

For Cassara, Vallemont wasn’t just an escape. It was the only path that hadn’t already been written for her in ink and blood. It was reputation, legacy, freedom, a place where power wasn’t inherited, it was earned.

The academy took the best. It forged leaders. Warriors. Strategists. Field tamers who could walk with beasts no one else dared approach. Cassara didn’t just want the crest. She wanted the skill, the command, the knowledge to be more than ornamental.

She wanted to train as a combat tamer—not to stand beside someone powerful, but to be the one they turned to when things fell apart. For years she’d studied the curriculum in secret, memorized the elite programs, watched the victory parades from the shadows of embassy balconies.

And if she could rise to the top at Vallemont, if she could claim that place by merit and will, then no one—not her father, not Julian, not the name she’d been born into—could decide her fate ever again.

She hadn’t risked everything to chase a dream.

She’d done it to prove she deserved to shape her own future.

“And if I am top?” she asked, voice low.

“Then I’ll tear up the contract myself.” His voice cooled again, retreating to its usual edge. “But if you fail, Cassara—if you disgrace this house again—you don’t get to run. You fulfill your obligations.”

She hesitated. “So this is what it takes to make you proud of me?”

He turned without answering.

Whatever softness had surfaced, it vanished in an instant. “Don’t be late. The airship departs at nine.”

Then he was gone, boots crisp against the stone, coat catching in the wind as the garden door closed behind him.

Cassara didn’t move.

Not as his footsteps faded down the path. Not as the garden door clicked shut behind him. The wind tugged at her sleeves, colder now, though she barely felt it. Her pack sat where she’d dropped it, one strap tangled in the roots of the hedge, a smear of dirt darkening the edge of her coat.

Twenty-one years of her life had led to this: one chance to prove she was more than a bargaining chip in her father's political games.

She’d thought she was ready.

Ready to leave, to start over, to cut herself free from this place and everything it expected of her. She hadn’t imagined he’d let her go so easily. She hadn’t imagined he’d twist the knife so cleanly.

Top of her class.

Not just survive, not even excel. Win. Outperform every legacy, every scholarship prodigy, every politically groomed golden child in the first-year cohort. Fail, and the bars would close around her again—smooth, gilded, and inescapable.

She swallowed hard and rubbed a hand over her face. Her gloves smelled like iron and cracked leather.

Julian.

She hadn’t let herself think too much about him. Not since the last time they spoke, when he’d tried to convince her it wouldn’t be so bad. As if being kept, paraded, and sealed off from the world was some kind of prize. As if her freedom were negotiable.

He still thought he was her future.

Cassara’s gaze drifted to the garden wall—the same one her mother had walked past, years ago, before boarding the airship that carried her to the front lines.

There had been no body. No farewell. Only a sealed letter and the scorched remains of a crest badge that didn’t even look like it had been hers.

Her father never talked about her.

Not really. Not the way Cassara remembered her. He carried her memory like a locked file—opened only when it served a point. He’d loved her once, maybe. But all Cassara saw now was the aftermath. The silence. The expectations.

“I’m not her,” she’d said to no one.

But maybe part of him still believed she would be.

Cassara sank onto the low stone wall beside her pack and tilted her head back toward the sky. The stars were sharp tonight, scattered like broken glass across the dark. She searched them for something—an omen, maybe. A sign.

Nothing answered.

The manor was still wrapped in shadow when Cassara descended the steps, pack slung over one shoulder, boots echoing softly against the stone.

She hadn’t slept, simply returned to her room and waited until the sky had begun to pale, streaks of soft gray and lavender stretching over the eastern horizon.

Dawn hovered just out of reach, the world caught in that breathless moment before it turned gold.

There was no sign of her father waiting to send her off.

She hadn’t expected him to be there.

Still, some small, traitorous part of her had hoped.

Instead, it was the household staff who stood waiting in the entryway—lined in quiet rows, their heads bowed slightly in respect.

Old Gerren offered to carry her trunk, which she’d left by the door hours ago.

A young scullery boy handed her a tin of steaming tea with trembling fingers before scuttling away again.

None of them spoke beyond hushed goodbyes, but their presence said enough.

They had known her since she was small, taught her how to tie her first riding harness, mended the knees of her uniforms, cleaned the shattered glass when she’d thrown a paperweight at Julian’s head.

At the front of the line stood Madame Brielle, her governess since she was six. Her spine remained impossibly straight despite the soft tremor in her hands.

“Do write,” Brielle said, brushing invisible lint from Cassara’s collar. “Even if it’s only to say you’re alive.”

Cassara gave a faint smile. “I’ll try.”

The older woman’s mouth twitched, caught somewhere between fondness and sorrow. Her eyes searched Cassara’s face, as if memorizing it for the last time.

“You have your mother’s fire,” she said. “She would’ve been proud.”

The words struck deeper than Cassara expected. She didn’t trust herself to reply.

She only nodded, stepped back, and turned toward the waiting car at the end of the drive.