Chapter 1
The crown was heavier in the dark.
I stood alone at the window of Alexander’s chambers, one hand braced against the cold stone beside it, staring out at the kingdom below. The fires of Constatyre glimmered like dying stars across the valley, some in watchtowers, others in the villages beyond the castle walls. More than a few still burned where homes and fields had been lost. Even from this distance, I could tell which ones were meant for warmth and which ones were meant to keep fear away.
The room behind me was silent, though not empty.
It was impossible to call any room empty when it still smelled like the dead.
Cedar ash, peppermint tea, and old paper. Alexander’s presence lingered here, maddeningly intact. His desk remained exactly where he had left it, scrolls half-unfurled, maps pinned beneath paperweights, one chair slightly crooked as if he had risen from it only moments ago and meant to return.
He wouldn’t.
The title pressed against me more cruelly than the crown ever could.
My Queen.
My Lady.
Your Grace.
I hated all of them.
The only thing worse than hearing them was the way people had started saying them with ease.
As if I had always belonged here.
As if I had not spent nearly my entire life being tolerated in this castle only because I was a necessity to keep everyone else alive.
I dropped my gaze to my reflection in the glass.
My hair hung loose down my back, still damp from the bath I had taken hours ago and failed to enjoy. The white gold crown sat where I had left it, a thin ring of fangs and dark stones cutting sharply against the black of my dress. The candlelight caught on its points and made it appear like teeth.
Appropriate.
I looked every bit the creature they expected.
The Queen of Constatyre.
Hannibal.
Weapon.
None of those words felt like mine, though all of them belonged to me now.
Vera paced restlessly through the back of my mind, her emotions grinding against my own like teeth. She had been quieter since the funeral. Since Vasu. Since the war had shifted into something bigger than grief. Not calmer. Just... watchful. A low unease radiated from her now, prickling under my skin as if she sensed eyes on us from somewhere far beyond the walls.
The darker presence behind her—the one that never spoke, only pressed—had not settled once since the coronation.
Neither had I.
A knock landed softly at the chamber door.
I closed my eyes.
“Come in.”
The latch turned. I knew who it was before he stepped inside. He didn’t need to knock to enter his own room.
Ronan’s scent reached me first, oakmoss and cedar, followed by the familiar, dangerous steadiness of his presence. He moved quietly despite his size, crossing the room with the sort of grace that had begun to make me distrust silence itself. He stopped a few paces behind me.
“You’re still awake.”
I snorted softly, eyes still on the window. “That sounds hypocritical coming from you.”
“It is.”
I looked over my shoulder at him.
He had changed into dark clothes sometime after the court dispersed, though his shirt still hung open at the throat and his hair looked as if he had dragged his hands through it one too many times. His face was calm, but I could read enough in his eyes to know his Hannibal was awake. The red flecks in them glowed brighter than they had earlier, stirred by something deeper than irritation.
“You’re bleeding,” I said.
He glanced down at his forearm where fresh blood had dried along the bandage wrapped around it. “One of your captains disagreed with my suggestion to tear down the southern watchtower and rebuild it from the foundation.”
“That sounds like Captain Orin.”
Ronan’s mouth twitched. “It was.”
“And his sword reached your skin?”
“No. Seth’s claws did.”
“Mmmm.”
That earned the smallest huff of amusement from him. Not quite a laugh. Ronan didn’t laugh often. Smirk, threaten, provoke, glare—yes. But laughter always seemed to surprise him as much as anyone else.
The sound faded as quickly as it came.
He looked at me for a long moment, then crossed the remaining distance to stand at my side, his shoulders nearly blocking the window entirely. He rested one hand on the stone ledge beside mine, close but not touching.
“You should sleep.”
I turned my head enough to look at him.
“You first.”
“I have.”
That made me raise an eyebrow.
Ronan met it without flinching. “Briefly.”
I looked away before the warmth in my chest could annoy me further.
Below, a line of torchlight moved through the outer courtyard where guards changed watch. The southern wall was still little more than patched stone. Titus’ men had remained inside the castle grounds for now, though half of them were itching to return to Grayden and the other half seemed personally offended that Constatyre’s walls had fallen at all. Ronan’s men had been less vocal, but no less restless. Kael, Seth, and Tristan had taken to rebuilding, scouting, and intimidating the survivors in equal measure.
No one was settled.
No one trusted the quiet.
“He’ll hit the lower roads again before dawn,” Ronan said after a while.
I didn’t ask who. There was no need.
“What makes you so sure?”
“That’s what I would do.”
I shifted to lean my hip against the ledge, folding my arms over my chest. “You’re enjoying being useful.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “I’m enjoying not being bored.”
“That sounds more honest.”
“It usually is.”
The room fell quiet again. Not awkward. Not quite comfortable either. There was still too much between us for comfort and too much understanding for awkwardness.
It irritated me how easily Ronan fit into silence.
He turned his gaze toward the valley beyond the glass. “Kael sent word from the western ridge.”
The unease inside me sharpened at once.
“And?”
“Nothing visible.” His jaw tightened. “Too little visible.”
I understood what he meant immediately.
Lyle was close enough to take villagers in the night, leave banners where he wanted to be seen, and vanish before dawn. That kind of confidence came from knowledge. Scouts. Spies. Witches.
The last thought pulled cold through my spine.
“We should move the lower villages inside the walls,” I said.
“We should,” Ronan agreed. “They’ll resist.”
“They don’t get to.”
That made him glance at me.
There was no amusement in his face now. Only that same sharp, unreadable awareness that seemed to strike him every time I said something that reminded him I was not merely surviving this crown—I was starting to wear it.
“You’re settling into it faster than you think.”
The words made my temper rise before I even understood why.
“No,” I said, more sharply than intended. “I’m not.”
Ronan’s gaze stayed on mine. “You are.”
I pushed away from the window. “I am doing what has to be done. That is not the same thing.”
“It is to everyone else.”
His voice remained low. Controlled. Which made it worse.
I turned fully toward him. “Do you know what they called me today?”
He did not answer.
“They called me queen like it was simple.” My voice thinned with strain. “Like there isn’t blood still on these walls. Like I didn’t stand in the great hall and accept a kingdom because there was no one left to refuse it to.”
Ronan didn’t move.
“Like I am some noble thing,” I went on, hatred rising now—not for him, but for the words themselves. “As if I wasn’t made to tear men apart. As if the only reason half this court sleeps at all is because they believe I’ll do it again. Like this monster in my head doesn’t sway my decisions.”
The room had gone dangerously still. I didn’t realize I was breathing hard until I stopped talking. Vera had gone silent behind my eyes, listening intently. Ronan took one step closer, only one, pulling my Hannibal closer to the surface.
“You think that makes you unfit to rule.”
“I think that makes me exactly what I’ve always been.”
His gaze dropped briefly to the crown, then returned to my face. “You are what you choose to restrain.”
The words hit harder than I wanted them to. Maybe he saw something shift in my expression, because the edge in him eased. Only slightly.
“You are not him,” he said quietly.
This time I knew exactly who he meant. Lyle. The name alone sharpened everything inside me. My hand curled around the edge of the stone ledge until my knuckles ached. “No,” I said. “I’m not.”
Ronan nodded once. Then the chamber door burst open without ceremony.
Valen strode inside, damp with rain and carrying enough fury in his expression to make the room contract around him. His cloak hung half-fastened, one side darker with mud. The scar across his palm flashed pale as he shoved the door shut behind him.
Both Ronan and I straightened.
“What happened?” I demanded.
Valen crossed the room in quick strides and dropped something onto Alexander’s desk. A bracelet. The thin silver band exacted every bit of my attention.. My breath caught.
Ronan’s posture changed immediately, all the stillness in him hardening into something predatory. He moved first, reaching the desk before either of us. His hand closed around the bracelet with startling care.
It was snapped clean through. Blood stained the inside, not much, but enough.
“Where?” Ronan asked, voice suddenly too calm.
Valen looked at me first, not him. “Half a mile west of the southern road,” he said. “One of Titus’ patrols found it caught on a bramble line. There was blood, but not enough for a body.”
My stomach turned. Tristan’s scent drifted from the bracelet. Ronan’s fingers tightened around the broken metal until the edges bit into his skin. I saw the exact moment his Hannibal rose behind his eyes, red swallowing black in one violent sweep as his bones creaked.
“Ronan.” I stepped toward him.
He didn’t look at me. Silence fell like a blade.
Tristan. The quietest of the three. The largest. The steadiest. A Hannibal strong enough to make seasoned warriors step aside without thinking. Gone—if only for an hour, if only into the woods—and already Lyle had found him. Or taken him. Or worse.
I looked to Valen. “Was there anything else?”
He nodded once. “A message.”
Of course there was. He reached into his cloak and pulled free a strip of gray cloth. Across it, written in something dark and already dried, were four words.
Choose.
The chamber seemed to tilt beneath me. Vera snarled so sharply in the back of my mind that my vision darkened with it. Ronan stared at the message without moving.
Valen’s voice came low and bitter. “He left it pinned to a tree.”
My pulse slammed hard against my ribs as understanding sank in cold and precise.
“He wants us to go after Tristan and leave Constatyre undefended.” I said.
“Yes,” Valen replied.
Ronan finally looked up. There was nothing calm left in his face. Valen and Ronan both seemed to understand it at the same time I did, both tensing. Valen’s choice was obvious, as was Ronan’s. Mine was not. I watched the realization move between them like a blade being drawn.
He was not just baiting us.
He was baiting them.
“Get Kael and Seth,” I said. Neither of them moved. My voice sharpened. “Now.”
Valen went first, already turning for the door. Ronan remained still for one heartbeat more, staring down at Tristan’s broken bracelet in his hand as if he might crush it to powder. Then he inhaled once, deeply, and looked at me.
“I’ll bring them.”
Not I’ll find them. Not I’ll try. He was promising me something else. That he would stay in control, for now. I nodded once.
When the door shut behind him, I stood alone in Alexander’s chambers with the smell of old cedar, happy memories, and a new war opening beneath my feet.
My eyes drifted to the window. Somewhere out there in the dark, beyond the southern road and the tree line, Lyle was smiling. I could feel it. The crown pressed heavier against my skull. Not because I was tired, because he had finally made his first move against all three of us at once.
I stepped toward the desk and picked up the strip of cloth, reading that one single word again until it burned my eyes. Choose.
Faintly, from somewhere deep in the castle below, a horn sounded once- short and urgent. Not alarm. Summons. The kind sent when scouts returned with news too dangerous to shout through halls.
I didn’t wait.
I turned and left the chamber at a run.
