Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Verena
ISLID INTO MY WORN LEATHERS, comfortable and soft from the years of use, the kind that remembered the shape of me.
I lit a sprig of sage on the way out of my cottage, letting its fragrance mingle with the dawn air as it trailed after, following me through the door.
The sky melted above, spilling in washes of quiet fire, setting the waking village in hues of dawn. Colors that looked spun from a dream, painted careless across a world that did not deserve them.
Csolenia told another story—
The village square stood in its sorrow, weathered walls dressed in tattered posters. Faces half faded. Names blurred by rain. Each sheet clung until the wind ripped it free, only for another to be nailed in its place.
Missing, missing, missing.
Never found.
Hope lingered in the ink like a prayer, but even prayers frayed when no one came home.
Because the truth walked closer than any of them wanted to admit.
Monsters hid in the forest. Monsters hid in plain sight. And those who wandered too far from the village? They were never coming back.
The Luamis palace rose before me, the harrowing view of its walls glimmering against the sunlight, bathing it from every angle.
As though it had been refurbished not for a king, but to impress the gods.
From a distance, the castle truly shone. A washed white fortress, radiant and inviting, where light itself had taken root in stone. A new parapet wrapped the grounds, its fresh walls smoother than the rest.
Its gate stood ajar, welcoming. A clever deception. A hunter letting prey drink freely from his hand, only to snap its neck the moment it leaned in. The peril of it revealed itself only once you had stepped too far inside.
And by then there was no escape.
I slipped quietly through the garden gates, the air there still carrying the weak perfume of what once thrived.
Most of the flowers had withered, petals curled in on themselves like secrets too heavy to bear.
Though a few still clung stubbornly to life, dull purples bruising into blue, bursts of orange and pink lifting their faces skyward, desperate to be devoured by the sun.
They reminded me of Princess Elvira, the way they appeared so fragile and delicate. And yet, in every sense, she radiated life and beauty, fighting to bloom where life had caged her.
I bent low, ripping a handful of flowers from their roots. Whatever beauty remained, I claimed for her.
The stone path wound on, pulling me deeper into the gardens. I lifted my hood, shielding my face from the eyes of the remaining gardeners as I passed.
Technically, yes, I was employed by the palace and the king, but slipping in through the back garden was not exactly on the approved list of entrances Callum had drilled into me with that damned rule book.
I’d tuned him out somewhere between page three and his tenth sigh.
This morning, I half expected guards strung across the fortress like ornaments. Instead, the grounds were empty, almost quiet. Until I spotted one lone sentry stationed by a side door.
I dropped my hood, strolling toward him, casual.
He sighed the moment he saw me, the sound of a man already defeated. I gifted him my sweetest I’m perfectly innocent smile.
“Ms. Vale—” His voice was low and graveled, stripped of any illusion of patience. “You and I have both been informed, many times, that you are not to enter through the garden any longer.”
The sun behind the wall cast him in shadow, turning him into little more than a silhouette. Only the gleam of the regal lion, a predatory emblem against the blue of his uniform, stood out.
“I’m insulted you think we aren’t on a first-name basis yet, Duke.” My hand flew to my chest as though he’d stabbed me straight through the heart.
He didn’t buy it.
His lips pressed together, the makings of a scowl threatening, but softness flashed in his sky-washed eyes before he smothered it away.
From inside, a cluster of guards passed the door, boots clanging against the stone.
Duke leaned down toward me, armor rattling as he shifted the shield he carried. The metal plate, barely three feet in length, was nothing compared to the breadth of his frame.
No helmet today. Lucky me.
The light finally caught his skin as he stepped from the shadows, warm and rich, gilded in deep mahogany.
“With how often I’ve let you break the rules, we might as well be on first-name terms,” he murmured, “seeing as we’ll likely be sent to the dungeons together.”
Ah, a man after my own heart. Nothing more romantic than rotting behind bars together.
I’d always guessed Duke was about Callum’s age, four centuries, give or take. But the Awakening had frozen him in youth, gifting him muscle masquerading as grace, leaving him no older in appearance than his mid-twenties.
The Awakening came to every Fae on the eve of their eighteenth year, whether they were ready or not. A birth within a birth.
For three days, the body collapsed into a sleep so deep it was mistaken for death. Their skin cooled, their pulse slowed until even the most frantic parent could not find it.
But this was not dying, it was a transformation. The soul was tested in those hours. And when their eyes finally snapped open, when the deep sleep broke like glass, the change was undeniable.
Power throbbed beneath their skin, settling into bone and blood as if it had always been there. From then on, they belonged to it as much as it belonged to them. A binding no oath could sever.
The Awakening was not only the arrival of magic, it was also the claiming of it. The raw, unfiltered essence of who the Fae were meant to be.
Weapon, healer, nature, elemental. Some emerged with gifts rare as flame, others with the common elements.
But none were unchanged.
One had even been damned.
Duke’s glare cut down to me as he straightened, his towering presence a wall I’d crash into repeatedly. His eyes seemed to weigh whether he should drag me to the dungeons himself or keep letting me tempt him closer to trouble.
I lifted my hands in innocence. “Last time. Promise.”
He lowered his shield with a groan, rolling his eyes skyward. “Next time, I will tell Callum, understood?”
But I caught it, the hint of play in his gaze, the gentleness that gave him away. He wouldn’t tell Callum. Not this time. Not ever.
I snapped off a sloppy salute. “Yessir.” A lie, and we both knew it. My shoulder brushed his arm as I slipped past him, into the belly of the palace.
A halo of sun fire devoured everything as it poured through the windows in sharp ribbons, flooding the halls, spilling down the corridors in streaks.
Stained glass fractured it into shards of color, vivid shadows dancing across the ivory walls like ghosts that had been painted over in gold.
Everything was laid bare in the palace of light. And yet, it all felt hidden.
A cloying sweetness lingered in the air, the smell of polished herbs and florals. Pretty enough to mask the sterility that choked beneath it.
Every gilded vase, every gleam of spotless stone was meant to remind us—
Luamis was a sanctified, eternal shine where life thrived. But only when it served him. And he never let us forget it.
Here, beauty was curated. Light was merciless. And truth? Truth had no place to hide. Because it had been scrubbed clean.
“You know, V, it’s a good thing we’re such wonderful friends.” Elvira twirled across her chambers, light as a feather adrift on a breeze.
She looked like a dream dressed in a white lace satin, spun from honey and the sun.
Her voice lilted, teasing, as she wagged a finger in my direction. “Showing up late to guard a princess is not good demeanor. Never mind doing it as often as you do.”
I sprawled across the velvet couch, tossing Callum’s dagger into the air, the blade flashing silver with each turn. I caught it with lazy precision, never breaking eye contact. Elvira huffed, clearly unimpressed.
“Yes,” I groaned. “Gods forbid I wasn’t here to watch you swoon over your own reflection all morning, my sweet Elva.”
My tone was tender, mocking in equal measure.
She knew better than to doubt me. Knew I would burn the world down before I let harm brush against her.
I was small when Gemma first brought me along to the palace when she was called to heal, preparing me for the day I would hopefully work at her side.
I hated those visits. The marble was always too cold, the halls too quiet.
But then there was Elva.
She was only a young girl then, golden-haired and shy-smiled, tucked away in rooms that felt too big for her.
Somewhere along the way, it stopped being visits and became a life. We grew up together, becoming bound so tightly that I could no longer tell where she ended and I began.
Inseparable. That was the word, but it doesn’t quite hold the truth. Elva wasn’t just a friend anymore.
She became a piece of me.
Stilling mid-step, her pupils thinned. “I don’t swoon.”
Elva defined beauty without even trying. Her hair, the color of sunrise born in thread, tumbled delicately down her back. And her eyes, sea green and impossibly bright, betrayed the truth of her mother’s bloodline.
Aquantilia. The royals of brilliance. The chosen of Luamis.
“You do,” I said. “Loudly. With sighing. It’s all very theatrical.”
She twirled again, ignoring every word. “Someone has to balance out all your brooding.”
Despite the five years between us, Elva stood nearly eye to eye with me. Though in every other way, we were opposites.
Built from different gods.
Where her freckles shimmered across her cheeks, her arms, even the tops of her feet, mine were too dark—beauty marks that looked less like blessings and more like stains.
I arched my brow. “Brooding?”
“Yes,” she said. “Brooding, sulking, glowering. You’re very good at it, by the way. Terrifying half the court before breakfast.”
I grinned, flashing teeth.
Grumbling, she tossed her head back in mock despair. “Gods, save me. One day you’ll frighten off any suitors I have left.”