Chapter 1
MAE
I had never known the weight of true regret. Not until that night.
Sure, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes. A poor shoe choice on a rainy day or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But I had no idea regret was heavy enough to crush you into a version of yourself that you no longer recognized.
That it could push down on your chest, forcing the air from your lungs until you’re hunched over and gasping.
That it could sit on your shoulders and make every step forward nearly impossible.
That it was heavy enough to manifest into something corporeal, capable of standing in front of you and mocking you with the truth.
That it could say You chose the wrong person. And it cost you everything.
The starry sky shimmers through the translucent barrier that keeps the house hidden. I’ve been staring through it, willing the moon to move, to descend behind the trees and make room for the dawn. Like every night, it stares back at me.
Whenever I can’t sleep, I sit on the cabin’s porch, waiting for my skin to cool, for my heart to stop racing, for the memory of my dreams to slip away.
They don’t go easily. They never do.
The moment sleep takes me, visions of my wedding fill every corner of my mind. Delicate ivory lace soaked in crimson. Marik’s cruel grin and his cold, slender fingers as he reaches for the crown. Holly writhing on the floor as his flames consume her. William, and the acrid smell of burning flesh.
If those don’t wake me first, Cora firing a bolt of lightning at my chest usually does the trick. Or a cambion sinking its teeth into my ankle, or Elle’s neck, ripped open and gushing blood the color of the night.
I used to wake to Asmo shaking me, whispering hushed It’s okays as he held me in the dark. It’s the only time I’ve let him touch me since I married his brother.
Since the day I lost my kingdom.
The wind whips past and I pull the blanket tighter around me, the worn deck boards groaning beneath me as I shift in my chair, as if they, too, are exhausted.
The front door opens. “Can’t sleep?”
The question is a courtesy. Everyone knows I can’t.
They’ve all heard my screams whenever I try.
Now, they’re all too familiar with the creak of the floors as I shuffle from my bed, of the soft click of the front door behind me, of the rhythmic back-and-forth of the rocking chair in the dead of night.
“Me either.” Ivan settles into the chair beside me, dressed in his usual all-black outfit reserved for his nightly trips into town. He rubs the white stubble lining his jaw as he leans back.
“Learn anything new?” I ask.
Every night, as soon as the moon rises, Ivan steps through the barrier that protects our sliver of safety from the outside world, and portals into town to grab the daily paper.
Tonight, like every other night, he will spend hours analyzing each line, hoping to learn anything about Marik’s next move.
So far, there’s been nothing. It appears like everything within the kingdom is normal. Farming numbers, local events happening, updates on the weather…Even the gossip columns that Cally loved have been noticeably boring.
All the newspapers have been glaringly silent about the events of the wedding. Given the number of witnesses present, I find it nearly impossible there wouldn’t be a single mention of what happened.
Cally, for one, would never be quiet about this.
No, my best friend would be raising hell in the streets every day, screaming about what Marik and Cora did.
My stomach clenches as I think about the only logical reasons there are for her silence.
Between a cell or a grave, I’m not sure which option is better.
Yet another thing that haunts my dreams.
Ivan sets the folded Glenn Gazette in his lap. “Haven’t looked yet.” The bags under his eyes get darker every night without an update. The last month has aged him a decade.
He always joins me on the porch when he returns from town, both of us staring into the dark woods as he talks about everything and nothing, chasing the memories that haunt my dreams away with every word.
A throat clears behind me.
Asmo leans against the door frame, dressed in a plain black shirt and a pair of fraying cotton pajama pants, his midnight hair tousled and sleep still in his dark eyes.
It’s only been a month since the wedding, but his cheekbones are sharper than they were when we first met.
A lack of food and an abundance of stress have begun to wear us all thin.
Ivan stands and tucks the newspaper under his arm. “Guess I better head inside and get started on this.”
“You know, I don’t have to be supervised out here,” I grumble as Asmo replaces Ivan in the chair beside me. “I’m fine.”
But the words taste like metal on my tongue. I’m probably the farthest I’ve been from fine in…well, ever.
Asmo is silent as he stares into the forest. Probably a good choice, as I’m sure he wants to refute my statement.
It’s like this every time we’re alone. Neither of us wants to acknowledge what happened between us, nor where we stand with each other.
If I’m being honest, I prefer it this way.
I’m only just now able to think about Marik’s betrayal while keeping my pulse steady.
And every time I think about my relationship with Asmo, all I can think about is Marik.
How every word, every touch, was a calculated move to slither his way into my heart and onto my throne.
How can I trust anyone, let alone his brother, after that?
Even so, Asmo’s presence calms me in a way nothing else has been able to.
He’s been beside me every night since the wedding.
In the days after, when I was lying on my deathbed, he only left me when necessary.
He slept with his head draped across my stomach, his hand gripping mine.
Every time I woke up screaming, he was there to brush my hair back, slick with sweat and tears from reliving nightmares that had come true.
Although I grumble about not needing Asmo to watch over me, I appreciate his silent, steady presence.
Mostly, I appreciate his silence. Sometimes, he asks me if I want to talk.
The answer is always no. When we’re around the others, he’s his usual snarky self.
The normalcy of it has been another comfort.
“Just because my magic doesn’t tell me you’re lying, doesn’t mean I don’t know you are,” Asmo says.
“Wow, that sentence was horrifying.”
He snorts. “My sentence structure is the least horrifying thing about this entire shitshow, princess.”
“Did Mummy and Daddy allow you to speak so poorly?” I quip in a haughty tone, hoping to direct the conversation away from me.
He doesn’t bite. “You’ll have to talk about it someday.”
I’d rather face near death again than talk about my feelings with the male who rejected me, then had to rescue me from his brother. I’ve been grappling with the embarrassment of being tricked by Marik and conned by Cora for weeks now. Embarrassment, just like regret, weighs more every day.
Asmo’s right—I will have to talk about it someday, but I’m content to wait until I’m back on the throne I never wanted.
“There’s something I keep thinking about,” I say.
Asmo’s chair creaks as he leans back. “Hm?”
“Where do you think the witnesses from the wedding are? Everything I’ve seen in the papers…
It’s like nothing happened, right?” He nods slowly.
“I don’t understand how nobody’s come forward.
And what about the High Houses? Koa? August?
Their families were there, fighting with us. Why aren’t they saying anything?”
“Do we know for certain the witnesses are alive?” Asmo’s voice is quiet, but it cuts through me all the same.
Although he echoes my earlier thoughts, voicing the theory feels like a loss. I refuse to give that idea any weight. Cally has to be alive. I won’t think about the alternative. “I saw them leave.” Their looks of terror as they fled are yet another thing I can’t forget.
“Doesn’t mean they left the court, princess.” His voice is low. Somber.
The nickname feels patronizing this time, and I hate that I love it. It always brings me back to the first time I met him. It’s so easy and familiar to fall back into this aspect of our relationship.
“You think Marik would do that?” I can’t say the words. Even thinking that the person I chose to marry might be responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians has my lungs constricting.
Asmo shrugs, but his eyes darken. “I don’t know my brother like I thought I did. After everything he’s done so far…I’d say it’s within the realm of possibility.”
There were children there, mothers shielding their babies from the living nightmares that crawled from the hells. Shame is a constant companion when I think about my involvement in this, but it threatens to consume me now.
“Have you thought about Ivan’s theory?” Asmo asks.
I’ve been thinking about it all day, pacing the yard in front of the cabin until the grass was flattened and the sun began to dip behind the trees.
Ivan first brought it up yesterday, all of us seated in the cramped living room after yet another day of nothing.
Holly chewing slowly, her scarred face averted from the rest of us; Asmo staring at me, me trying to avoid his gaze; Luca frowning into his bowl of tinned beans, the best fare this deserted cabin has to offer.
“I believe Elle is pretending to be you on the throne,” Ivan had blurted as we all ate our dinner. “She’s the only one who could pull that off. With her antlers and a glamour over her hair, it could work.”
I shook my head. “She wouldn’t.”
“No. Not voluntarily,” he responded gravely.
Bile burned in the back of my throat. The thought of Marik forcing Elle to do anything… “Couldn’t anyone just glamour antlers?” I asked desperately.
Asmo tossed his hand up. Antlers appeared from both sides of his head, but they looked…off. I reached for them, but my hand only grasped air. “Point made.”
With another wave of his hand, the antlers disappeared. “Glamouring something like your hair or your facial appearance is easier, but to glamour something that was never there before—like antlers—is too easy to disprove. Marik would never risk it.”
Now, I say, “Elle would never do it.”
Asmo offers me a half-smile. “I don’t think Marik will give her much of a choice, princess.”
A shiver works its way down my spine. Marik is one of the best manipulators I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting, second only to Cora, the witch who pretended to be my aunt for the last twenty-five years of my life.
Not just any witch—the First Witch. The most powerful witch in the kingdom’s history.
Now Elle is in Marik’s and Cora’s hands. And it’s all my fault.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I say lamely. Shoving everything away is the only way I’m able to survive right now.
Marik played me like a fiddle. I was so fucking stupid and na?ve, and it’s endangered everyone I’ve ever cared about.
Cally is gone, Elle is trapped, and I have no idea how to fix this.
Every time I think about it, hot shame floods me, and my brain feels like it’s seizing inside my head.
So, I don’t. Any time it comes up, I shut down, and shut it off.
Asmo’s mouth hardens into a straight line as he stares at me silently. I can’t stand the disappointment in his eyes. I turn back to the forest, the air between us filled with words left unsaid. I sink further into my chair as regret returns, even heavier than it was this morning.