Chapter 1
I was raised to believe that duty is more important than love, but even duty shouldn’t taste this bitter.
The tea in my hands has long gone cold, untouched since it was placed before me. I stare down at the pale amber liquid, as if it might offer some kind of answer, some kind of escape. The tea does not care that I am to be wed today. It does not care that my life, my choices, my future have all been stolen from me under the pretense of honor and obligation.
I should be grateful, they say. My father’s voice echoes in my mind, sharp as steel:A queen does not need to love. She needs to obey.My mother’s voice is softer but no less cruel:Happiness is a fleeting thing. Duty is eternal.
Cassian sits across from me at the long dining table, relaxed in a way that makes my stomach twist. He holds his own cup with the ease of a man who has already won, fingers tapping absently against the delicate porcelain. His smugness is a sharper wound than I expected it to be.
I should have poisoned that tea when I had the chance.
Cassian has always been poised, unreadable, a man who treats war and politics as a game where no one but him knows the rules. But today, there is something different about him. A glint in his golden eyes that should not be there. A smile that feels too settled on his lips, as if he is enjoying a joke no one else has heard.
He has never smiled at me before. Not like this.
“Are you nervous, my bride?” His voice is smooth, practiced, the same voice he has used in courtrooms and war councils.
I hate the way he saysmy bridelike it is a title I have already claimed.
I lift my chin. “Would it matter if I were?”
Cassian leans forward, setting his cup down on its saucer with a quiet clink. The sound is too delicate, too at odds with the man himself.
“Of course it would matter,” he says, resting his arms on the table. “I would hate to think you are dreading this day.”
The laughter that builds in my throat is bitter, but I swallow it down. I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing how much I despise him.
I have spent years preparing myself for this, for the inevitable fate of being married off like a pawn. There was no other path for me, not as the only daughter of House Alomora. My father brokered this deal long before I could protest. Marry Lord Cassian Verspertine and secure peace between our families. That was the command, the duty placed upon my shoulders.
Love was never part of the bargain.
But hatred was.
Cassian has spent years waging war on my family, whittling away our lands, our allies, our resources. He is a man who has never lost, and now he has been handed the last piece of his victory.
Me.
My fingers tighten around the porcelain. If I press any harder, I might shatter it. My breath is steady, but my heart is not. The room feels smaller than it did a moment ago, the walls pressing inward.
I push my chair back and stand. “If you will excuse me, my lord.”
Cassian does not stop me as I leave the dining hall. He does not need to. His laughter follows me, soft and knowing, as if he already expects me to return.
I do not go far.
I need air. I need space, somewhere that does not smell of duty and resignation.
The palace gardens are empty at this hour, the morning air crisp against my skin. I follow the worn stone paths, letting my hands brush against the ivy-covered walls, the hedges still damp with dew.
I do not want to be here.
I do not want to belong to him.
I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of roses and damp earth. The air is still, the world quiet. But then, something shifts.
A pulse. A flicker in the air.
I open my eyes.
At the base of an old oak tree, half-buried among the roots, there is a box.
It should not be there. I have walked these paths countless times before, and never have I seen it.
Slowly, I step closer.
The box is small, carved from dark wood, its edges worn as if it has passed through many hands. Strange symbols are etched into its surface, curling like vines, like whispers.
I kneel, reaching out, my fingers hovering just above the lid.
A gust of wind rushes through the garden, sharp and sudden, stirring the leaves around me.
The ground shifts.
A creaking sound fills the air, deep and old, like the groan of a door being forced open after centuries of neglect.
Beneath the roots, where there was once only solid earth, a path has appeared. A dark, yawning opening that leads somewhere far beneath the garden.
I should turn back.
I should tell someone.
But my hands move before my mind can stop them.
I lift the lid of the box.
The air shudders. A whisper curls around me, soft and cold.
Come.
I step forward.
The descent is slow, the path winding downward, the air growing cooler with every step. The stone beneath my feet is smooth, untouched by time, as if it has been waiting for someone to walk this way again.
Candles flicker along the walls, though I do not know what lit them. At the end of the path, there is a chamber. And within it, an altar.
A deck of cards rests upon its surface, waiting. The moment my eyes land on it, the shadows shift.
I am not alone.
A figure stands at the edge of the candlelight, watching me with unreadable eyes.
A man—no, not a man.
Somethingelse.
Something far older.
He steps forward, emerging from the candlelight’s flickering edge, and the air tightens around me. He is tall, impossibly so, his frame wrapped in layers of dark fabric that shift like smoke. His presence fills the room, making the stone walls feel closer, the space too small to contain him.
His skin is pale, not in the way of a sickly man, but something untouched by the warmth of life. There is an unnatural smoothness to it, like polished stone, with a faint shimmer beneath the surface. It is not the glow of health but of something ancient, something waiting beneath the surface. His hands, long-fingered and poised, rest lightly at his sides. His nails are black, not painted, but as if they have always been that way, sharp enough to belong to a predator.
His eyes are the worst of all. Black, endless, with no whites to break the abyss. The longer I look, the more I think I see something shifting inside them, slow and deliberate, like unseen figures moving in a darkened room. I cannot tell if they are watching me, or if he is watching me through them.
His hair falls past his shoulders, dark as ink, but there is something wrong with it. The strands do not catch the candlelight as they should. They do not sway with his movements. Instead, they ripple, moving as if guided by a force unseen, like smoke twisting through still air.
He smiles, slow and deliberate, revealing teeth that are almost human.Almost. They are too sharp at the edges, too perfect, meant for something other than speaking.
His voice is deep, smooth as silk and sharp as the edge of a blade. “Pick a card, little bride.”
The words coil around me, settling into my skin like a whisper I will never be able to forget. His lips barely move when he speaks, as if words are a formality rather than a necessity. As if he could press his thoughts into my mind if he wished.
He smiles, dark and knowing, as if he has been waiting for me far longer than I have been alive.
The air crackles around us as I look at the deck.
I should not. I should turn and run, flee back to the surface where my fate, my duty, my prison awaits.
But I do not run.
I reach for a card.
And as soon as my fingers brush against it, the world shatters.
