Chapter 1
Ryus
The royal meeting room of the Virellan Palace didn’t smell like power. It didn’t smell like the grandeur of a kingdom or the weight of a throne. It smelled like old stone, lemon-scented floor wax, and the sharp, acidic tang of my own mounting impatience.
I sat in my usual chair, though “usual” had become a meaningless label in the three weeks since the world tilted on its axis. To my left, the high-arched windows framed a panoramic view of Solvire. Outside, flags were still at half-mast, snapping rhythmically against their poles in the biting Baltic wind. The sound was a mournful, constant reminder of the void left in the center of the country.
Inside the room, the sound was different—a low, clipped drone of council members arguing. Their voices overlapped like flies trapped against glass, buzzing incessantly about “stability,” “continuity,” and “coronation timelines.” They used those words like needles and thread, clearly believing they could stitch together a kingdom that had been torn wide open.
My gaze drifted to the head of the long, mahogany table. The chair remained unoccupied.
Empty.
King Leopold of Virellan. My father. My anchor. My tormentor.
Three weeks gone, and the air in the palace still felt impossibly thick, heavy with a grief that no one dared to acknowledge aloud. In the presence of the Council, they spoke of him in the past tense with practiced, clinical ease, as if the man who had held this nation together for thirty-two years was merely a line item in a ledger that needed closing.
I tried to listen. I really did. I kept my back straight, my spine rigid, and my hands folded precisely on the table, their knuckles white. I held my expression as unreadable as the marble statues in the foyer, a mask I had worn since I was old enough to understand what it meant to be an Ashford. But my thoughts were treacherous. They drifted to the way his voice used to boom in this room, a sound that could shake the very floorboards. I remembered the way he’d wink at me when a particular councilor went on a tangent, a silent shared amusement that made the stuffy meetings tolerable.
“A king’s spine is the pillar of the country, Ryus,” he had told me when I was twelve, his hand heavy and warm on my shoulder, grounding me. “If you sag, the ceiling falls. Never let them see you bend.”
Right now, the ceiling felt like it was made of lead.
“The people need certainty,” Councilman Hartsvedt insisted, his voice grating like sandpaper on raw nerve endings. He leaned forward, his spectacles slipping down his narrow nose. “A coronation must proceed swiftly. The markets are volatile, and our neighbors are watching for any sign of hesitation in the succession.”
“They need leadership, not just a ceremony,” another councilor snapped, his eyes darting toward me. “But Hartsvedt is right. Uncertainty is a dangerous thing in a monarchy. It breeds dissent.”
I felt my jaw tighten. I was twenty-seven years old. By the standards of modern European royalty, I was a child to these men. But I wasn’t unprepared. My father had seen to that with a ruthlessness that bordered on the cruel. He had marched me through history, through the bloody trenches of our ancestors’ wars, and through the delicate, silk-lined webs of international alliances. He taught me how to listen for the lie beneath the truth and when to strike without a hint of mercy.
I knew I could lead Virellan. I was more than capable of balancing the books, navigating the politics, and keeping the people fed and secure. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the price I would have to pay.
“My son is ready,” a voice cut through the bickering.
It was my mother. Queen Dia sat at the far end of the table, the opposite pole to my father’s empty seat. She was a woman of shattered glass and iron. Her chocolate-brown hair, usually vibrant, looked dull in the morning light, and the shadows beneath her eyes were deep enough to drown in. Her gowns—once tailored to perfection—now seemed to hang off her narrowing frame, a physical testament to the life that had been carved out of her. The love of her life had just died, and the sheer weight of that loss was visibly tearing her apart.
She was grieving more than any of us, yet she was the only one holding things together.
“The people will accept him,” she continued, her voice steady, cold, and flawless. “They trust the bloodline. They trust the work Leopold did. They trust Ryus.”
I lifted my gaze, meeting her light brown eyes. There was a plea in them, a silent request for me to play the part just a little longer. It was a request I’d been hearing since the funeral, and every time, it scraped against my soul. And then, she uttered the sentence I had been dreading—the final nail in the coffin of my autonomy.
“But tradition must still be honored in its entirety.”
The room went silent. The buzzing of the flies stopped. Hartsvedt, an old man with a long grey beard who thrived off the rigid comforts of tradition, straightened his tie, a predator catching the scent of the kill.
“A king,” Hartsvedt whispered, as if speaking a holy truth, “may not wield the full sovereign power of Virellan until he is wed. The Law of the Hearth. It hasn’t been broken in one hundred years. It is the fundamental stabilizer of our country.”
Something sparked in my chest—a hot, sharp flare of resentment that scorched my throat. I straightened, the leather of my chair creaking under the tension in my body.
“Council. Mother.”
My voice was calm, measured, stripped of all emotion. But the edge beneath it was sharp enough to draw blood.
“Do we truly intend to obey archaic laws written before the invention of the steam engine? A man—or a woman—does not require a spouse to lead a modern nation. My capacity to govern is not stored in a wedding ring or vows to a woman.”
The Head Councilor folded his hands over his stomach, his expression patronizing. “Tradition is not a weakness, Your Highness. It is the foundation. Without it, the tree of the monarchy has no purchase. The people do not just want a ruler; they want a future to trust in. They want the promise of the next generation. They want an example to live up to.”
I exhaled sharply through my nose, turning my head to look at my mother. “And you? You agree with this? You want me to find a stranger to occupy the seat next to me just to satisfy a medieval checklist? To parade a woman around until I find one who doesn’t bore me to death?”
Her lips pressed into a thin, white line. She looked at the councilors, then back at me, her eyes hardening. “We host a gathering. The Courting Season begins in a month. We invite the eligible noblewomen of the country—and perhaps a few select families from other countries. Let them meet you. Let the people see effort. Intent. You are the face of this nation, Ryus. You will act the part.”
“A parade,” I muttered. “You want a parade of debutantes. You want me to play the eligible bachelor while my father’s body is barely cold.”
“I want you to have a partner, Ryus,” she said, and for a second, the Queen disappeared, leaving only a mother who didn’t want her son to be as lonely as she was now. “If one of them catches your eye… perhaps a suitable match can be made. It is the price we pay for the sake of our country.”
I stood up before the conversation could turn into a formal motion. The chair scraped loudly against the stone floor, a jarring, discordant sound in the hallowed, silent room.
“Proceed as you see fit, Mother. If the Council requires a show, give them one. Organize your balls, print your invitations, and invite the world. But don’t expect me to pick a bride like I’m choosing a horse from a stable.”
I didn’t wait for their dismissal. I didn’t wait for Hartsvedt to start lecturing me on my duty. I turned and walked out, my shoes clicking a rapid, angry rhythm against the polished marble of the Long Gallery.
The palace felt smaller today, the air thin and suffocating. The “Walk of Echoes,” as the staff called the hallway leading to the private wing, was lined with the looming portraits of every male monarch who had ever bled for this throne. I stared up at the long line of kings—my ancestors, culminating in the man I had just lost—my chest tight with a grief that felt more like a cage. They all looked down at me with their painted, merciless eyes, their silent voices twisting into a taunt that echoed through the empty hall. You aren’t ready to be king. You are a boy playing dress-up in a dead man’s crown.
I stopped in front of the newest addition. It wasn’t even framed in gold yet. It was a portrait of my father, painted only a year ago. He looked strong. He looked like he knew every secret of the world and was amused by most of them. His gaze was piercing, directed at me.
“Dad,” I whispered, my voice cracking in the hollow silence of the hall. “Why did you leave me in this fucking mess?”
The portrait didn’t blink. The King remained silent, leaving me to handle the vultures alone.
