TWICE CLAIMED

I am Princess Nilasha—the first imperial princess of the Midland Kingdom.

A title heavy with gold and blood, yet worth less than silence in my own palace.

I was sent to the faraway Northhail Kingdom to be married.

No—to be delivered.

To the kings.

Yes. Kings.

Twin brothers who had ruled for more than forty years, their reign unbroken, their lineage cursed by the absence of an heir.

They did not choose me for my royal blood, though it was pure.

Not for my dowry, though it was vast.

Not for my influence, my education, or even the beauty I was praised for in whispers and resented for in daylight.

I was chosen for one reason alone.

I was fertile.

Compatible.

A womb deemed worthy enough to carry the legacy the Northhail throne had been denied.

I had never seen my grooms’ faces. Their names were spoken like warnings, never introductions. Old, they said.

Brutal.

Perverse.

Kings who ruled with iron tempers and animal instincts. Men who no woman would choose—unless she had no choice at all.

And I didn’t.

My parents watched my departure without tears. My mother’s hands did not tremble when she fastened the clasp of my cloak. My father’s voice did not soften when he announced the alliance. There was no sorrow in their eyes—only relief.

Relief that the inconvenient daughter was finally gone.

Relief that the crown’s true jewel, their beloved second princess, would no longer live in my shadow.

Princess Kiera did not cry when I left either. She smiled.

Because while I was being sent north to marry monsters I had never seen, she was free to covet the man I had once been promised—Duke Titus of House Lambert. The noble heir. The handsome one. The future she believed should have been hers all along.

I was not sacrificed for the kingdom.

I was discarded.

As my carriage crossed the borders of Midland, I did not look back. Not because it did not hurt—but because I refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing me break.

If the Northhail Kings wanted my body for their legacy, then they would learn this truth soon enough:

I may have been sent as an offering…but I would not arrive as prey.

For years, I was obsessed with love.

Not love as poetry described it—but love as worship.

I looked at Titus as one might look at a god. I memorized his moods, anticipated his desires, bent myself into whatever shape would please him. I gave without being asked. I endured without complaint. I obeyed without question.

I was not his lover.

I was his devotee.

How many times did he abandon me without explanation? How many evenings did I wait alone while he rushed away because my sister had pricked her finger with a hairpin, or stumbled over a stone, or shed tears too delicate for the world to ignore?

I told myself it was sisterly concern. I told myself I was being noble.

I told myself lies.

How many times did my innocent little sister frame me with trembling lips and wounded eyes—only for Titus to look at me with disappointment and demand apologies for crimes I had never committed? I apologized every time. Lowered my head. Swallowed my dignity whole.

If Kiera desired something of mine—a dress, a jewel, a privilege—Titus did not ask. He ordered. And I gave. I always gave.

I thought that was love.

When bandits ambushed me—when rough hands tore at my clothes and filthy mouths whispered what they would do to me—I believed it was fate’s cruelty. I believed evil simply existed in the world.

I was wrong.

Titus sent them.

A punishment. A warning. Revenge for my sister’s tears—tears she had carefully rehearsed. He believed her when she claimed I had bullied her. Drugged her. Sent a servant to defile her.

Every word was a lie.

A lie she fed him.

And he believed it eagerly.

When the truth finally clawed its way into the light, I did not scream. I did not rage. I was thankful, I escaped the cruel fate that night but my loyal maid didn't.

I laughed.

A soft, broken sound born of realization.

Three years.

Three years of devotion reduced to nothing. Three years of love wasted on a man who never saw me as human—only useful, disposable, replaceable.

In that moment, I lost more than Titus.

I lost faith in love.

I lost faith in my parents.

I lost faith in the home that raised me to endure cruelty with grace.

They say my acceptance of the Northhail marriage is suicide.

But for me—

It is hope.

Perhaps in the brutal lands of the High Mountain Kingdoms, where kings rule like beasts and survival is earned with blood, I will finally find myself.

I lost who I was once.

And now—

I will reclaim her.

Even if I must become something fierce to do it.

The Northhail Kingdom was vast beyond measure and powerful beyond reason—a realm spoken of in lowered voices and unfinished sentences. Even the neighboring kingdoms, proud in their armies and ancient in their crowns, feared it.

Not because Northhail waged war.

But because it never needed to.

My grooms were not merely kings.

They were kings of kings.

Rulers whose authority did not end at their borders. Monarchs whose names were enough to still councils and unsettle thrones. They did not bow, did not bargain, did not explain themselves.

And entering their kingdom was no simple matter.

No envoy passed its gates without purpose. No treaty was signed without blood, oath, or consequence. The roads leading north were fewer than the stories about them—and every story contradicted the last.

Some claimed Northhail was carved from ice and stone, its mountains alive with beasts that wore crowns of bone. Others swore the kings were no longer fully human—that they ruled as men by day and monsters by night. None of the tales could be verified.

Because no one who entered spoke freely when they returned.

When the Northhail envoy finally arrived at Midland’s court, the palace fell silent.

He did not kneel.

He did not flatter.

He did not smile.

He stood before my father as one might stand before an equal—or an inferior—and delivered his message with chilling simplicity.

An alliance.

Not a request.

A demand.

My father’s greed ignited instantly, bright and blinding. His eyes shone not with caution, but with calculation. Every kingdom had sought Northhail’s favor for decades. Every ruler dreamed of securing its protection, its trade routes, its unspoken dominance.

And Northhail had refused them all.

They did not need allies.

They did not need reassurance.

They did not need anyone.

Which made their sudden interest terrifying.

And irresistible.

No council debate followed. No hesitation lingered. My father did not ask what Northhail wanted in return.

Because he already knew.

A kingdom that never asked had finally chosen.

And the price—was me.