The morning came draped in mist. The manor’s spires rose like pale teeth through the fog, the banners limp against the damp. I had hoped—foolishly—that the summons would not come, that perhaps my father’s anger had dulled into silence. But when the servant knocked, her hands were trembling around the silver seal.
“The Duke requests your presence. You are to accompany him to the royal palace.”
The words left no space for refusal.
By the time I stepped into the corridor, my father was already fastening his gloves, the black leather creaking softly against his knuckles. His cloak hung perfectly, no speck of lint, no sign of haste. There never was.
“You’re late,” he said without looking at me.
“I came as soon as I was called.”
He finally turned, gaze sliding over me the way one might appraise a horse for sale. “You’ll speak only when spoken to. Keep your head down. And for once, Alora, try not to look like you wish you were anywhere else.”
His tone was quiet, even mild—but I’d learned that was when it cut deepest.
“Yes, Father.”
He offered his arm because courtesy demanded it, not affection. I took it because disobedience was still worse. The air between us was the same distance it had always been: too narrow to breathe, too wide to cross.
The carriage waited at the gates, lacquered black, the Everthorn crest glinting faintly beneath the drizzle. Two horses stamped restlessly in the cold, their breath fogging the air like ghosts. When I climbed in, the cushions were chilled, perfumed faintly with cedar and something sharper—like iron.
We rode in silence. The rain tapped lightly against the glass, the rhythm slow and precise, as if trying not to offend.
Father broke the quiet first. “You will remember that Dorian serves the Crown Prince directly. His standing is higher than most would assume. Do not make another scene.”
My stomach turned. “I didn’t—”
He raised a hand. “You embarrassed him. Which means you embarrassed me. He speaks well of you despite it, and I expect you to make that generosity worth his while.”
I stared down at my hands, fingers twisting in the folds of my gown. “Why am I even going?”
“Because the prince has called the houses of Theros to reaffirm their loyalties, and Dorian requested that we be seen supporting the Crown. That is all you need to understand.”
He looked out the window again, but the next words came quieter—almost to himself. “You’ll smile when spoken to. You’ll hold your tongue. If you cannot win favor, you will at least not lose it.”
Outside, the landscape shifted from fog-shrouded fields to the paved, gleaming roads of the capital. The palace rose from the mist like a mountain carved of pale stone, its spires piercing what little sunlight managed to break through. Banners hung from its towers—steel-gray and crimson, emblazoned with twin serpents coiled around a sword. The air smelled faintly of rain and polished marble.
As the carriage slowed at the gates, I caught sight of others arriving—coaches marked with noble sigils, servants holding umbrellas of fine silk, the scent of oil and perfume heavy in the mist. The guards moved with the mechanical grace of men trained to be unseen.
One of them reached for the door handle. Father didn’t wait. He descended first, his every movement a display of control. I followed, the hem of my dress brushing against damp cobblestone, the cold biting through the thin leather of my slippers.
For a moment, I looked up at the palace’s façade—the arched windows, the intricate carvings of winged lions and coiled serpents—and felt the weight of it settle over me like a shroud.
Dorian was waiting near the entrance.
He stood perfectly at ease, hands clasped behind his back, dressed in the muted crimson and silver of the Theros court. His smile was effortless, his eyes warm in that practiced, hollow way I’d come to recognize.
“My lady,” he said, bowing just enough to honor my father, not me. “It honors the court to see House Everthorn represented so gracefully.”
My father inclined his head, expression cool. “You have our gratitude for the invitation, Lord Dorian. Her presence here is at your request.”
Dorian’s eyes flicked to me, a faint amusement in their depth. “Indeed. I thought it might… correct certain misunderstandings.”
The words made my stomach tighten. But I smiled, because that was what was expected of me.
He offered his arm, waiting.
My father nodded once. “Go. And remember what I said.”
I placed my hand lightly on Dorian’s sleeve. His arm was tense beneath the fabric, and his warmth felt wrong—too deliberate. As he led me up the marble steps, the palace doors yawned open, spilling golden light into the rain-soaked courtyard.
For a heartbeat, I glanced back. My father was already walking toward another entrance, speaking to a steward. The fog seemed to swallow him whole.
And then Dorian leaned close enough that his breath brushed my ear.
“Let’s not have any more unpleasant surprises today, shall we?”
I smiled again, the motion small and brittle. “Of course not.”
The doors closed behind us, and the hush of the palace swallowed the world.
The palace smelled of cedar oil, incense, and restraint. Every corridor gleamed—the marble polished until it reflected the chandeliers like a hundred false skies. Dorian led me through them with practiced ease, his steps too measured to be casual. I matched his pace because it was easier than tripping over the rhythm of a world I had long been kept from.
The great hall opened before us like the mouth of something alive. Arched windows caught the afternoon light and spilled it across the floor in bands of gold. Courtiers moved through that light like schools of jeweled fish, their silks whispering secrets I wasn’t meant to hear.
It was strange, being here again—the heart of the kingdom I’d been born to but never truly belonged in. When I was a child, I used to press my face against the carriage window whenever my father came to court. The marble towers had seemed like something divine then. Now, all I could see was how many shadows they cast.
Dorian released my arm as we crossed into the hall, but his hand lingered a moment too long. “Stand straight,” he murmured. “And don’t look at anyone too long. Curiosity can be mistaken for defiance.”
“Can it?” I asked quietly.
He smiled. “In Theros, everything can be mistaken for defiance.”
Before I could answer, a herald’s voice carried through the hall:
“The Duke Corwin Everthorn, and his daughter, Lady Alora Everthorn!”
The sound of my family’s name rippled through the crowd like a thrown stone. Heads turned. Some faces softened with surprise, others hardened with recognition. I caught fragments of their whispers—the daughter who was ill… the elder one, not the heir…—before I forced myself to breathe evenly and step forward.
My father was already ahead of me, his composure flawless. I followed, every motion rehearsed: one step, bow of the head, still hands, still heart.
The dais at the far end of the hall rose three shallow steps above the floor. At its center stood Prince Evander of Theros, crown of dark silver resting light upon his head, a long cloak trailing behind like the shadow of the throne itself.
He had grown since I’d last seen him, though not in the way boys become men. Evander had not so much grown as hardened. His hair, once unkempt, was now tied back with a soldier’s precision. The red and grey of Theros’s royal colors fit him like armor, the lines of his jaw sharper, the eyes—still that strange, twin-shaded gaze of his—more distant than ever.
He was hearing a petition when we entered, a merchant from the northern coast speaking of trade losses. Evander’s reply was calm, decisive. He dismissed the man with the kind of quiet authority that made the courtiers bow lower than the law required.
When his gaze found me, it was almost by accident—an instinctive flicker before his attention returned to my father. But the moment it happened, I felt it: a brief recognition, like a half-remembered chord. Then nothing. The wall between us slid back into place.
“House Everthorn,” Evander said when our turn came, voice smooth but not unkind. “We have not seen your family at court in some time.”
My father inclined his head. “Your Highness honors us with the invitation. The Everthorn name remains loyal to the crown.”
Evander’s gaze drifted briefly toward me again. I dropped my eyes in the proper show of deference, but I could feel the weight of his scrutiny—sharp, measuring. Not personal. Political.
“And your daughter,” he said. “Recovered, I trust?”
My pulse stuttered. “Yes, Your Highness,” I managed, forcing the words out evenly. “I am well.”
He nodded once, neither warm nor cold. “Good. We remember her fondly from the spring festivities—long ago.”
There was the faintest pause, as if he too recalled that distant day in the palace gardens, the one that ended my freedom. But the flicker passed quickly, smothered beneath duty.
“Lord Dorian speaks highly of your diligence, Duke,” Evander continued, returning to my father. “You have served Theros with distinction. Your counsel is valued.”
My father bowed lower this time. “I serve, as ever, at the pleasure of the Crown.”
Dorian’s smile returned, small and triumphant, as if the exchange itself were his reward.
The petitioners behind us began to murmur again, and Evander turned to the next order of business. That was our cue to step aside.
Dorian’s hand found my arm once more, steering me toward a waiting alcove along the hall’s edge. “You see?” he said softly. “All it takes is obedience.”
“I didn’t realize obedience was so fashionable,” I murmured before I could stop myself.
His eyes cut to mine, sharp enough to sting, but the smile stayed. “Careful, Alora. Wit without power is just noise.”
He released my arm but remained close enough for the distance to feel performative. Courtiers drifted by, glancing our way. Some nodded politely to him. Others looked at me with the kind of curiosity reserved for exhibits behind glass.
A lady in a gown of ice-blue silk leaned toward her companion. “The elder Everthorn” she whispered. “They said she’d been too frail for court.”
Her companion smiled faintly. “Apparently not too frail for marriage.”
Dorian heard it too. He turned his head just enough for his voice to reach them, soft as smoke. “I find frailty can be cured with the right attention.”
The women flushed and lowered their eyes. He looked pleased with himself. I wanted, irrationally, to step back—but every inch of this place was a stage, and I had been raised to know when to keep my mark.
Then the music changed.
It began faintly, from beyond the main doors—a herald’s trumpet announcing the arrival of another delegation. The sound swelled through the marble corridors, formal and somber. Courtiers straightened. The herald’s voice rang clear:
“His Highness Prince Caelen of Drakenvyre, and Lord-Marshal Varin.”
The room seemed to inhale. The air cooled as if a wind had passed through.
And though I did not yet see him, I knew.
The stillness that followed was unlike any other kind of silence.
Dorian stiffened beside me, jaw tightening. The court’s whispers rose like the sea after calm.
“Drakenvyre’s prince… here?” someone murmured. “They say he feels nothing at all.”
I didn’t move. My heart was already answering something older, stranger.
When the doors opened and he stepped into the light, I almost forgot to breathe.
The palace doors opened, and cold followed him in.
Even through the crowd, he was unmistakable. Pale hair gleamed like carved frost beneath the chandeliers, the faint silver gleam of it seeming to drink the light rather than reflect it. His eyes—those strange, translucent violet mirrors—did not wander as others’ did; they saw, calculated, measured. The air around him seemed to still, as though the room itself forgot its movement for a heartbeat.
He moved with unhurried grace, neither proud nor humble, simply certain. The other nobles bowed. Even Evander, from his throne, inclined his head the barest measure—a courtesy offered not to a man, but to the weight of a kingdom.
Beside me, Dorian stiffened. I didn’t have to look to feel the tension roll through him. The memory of that underground den, of the moment Caelen’s quiet voice cut through the smoke and fear, hung between us like a blade unsheathed.
I could feel Dorian’s gaze flick toward me. I kept my expression perfectly still.
Caelen passed beneath the skylight. The natural light caught his hair, his face, his coat trimmed in faintly shimmering steel thread—the same kind of thread I’d brushed when clutching his collar in the dark. And for a moment, though I stood half-hidden in the court’s edge, his eyes found mine.
The world stilled again.
No recognition crossed his face, yet the faintest tilt of his head told me it was no accident. My breath caught. Something deep beneath my skin—beneath bone and blood—answered. The mark over my heart flared, a pulse of heat so sudden I nearly staggered.
I pressed my hand against it through the fabric of my gown. The lace burned cold beneath my palm, and the world seemed to flicker—voices bending, light bending—until I wasn’t certain if I stood in the hall or in some reflected world beneath it.
For a moment, the marble floor rippled like water. I saw flashes—silver eyes, divine and endless. A woman’s voice, fractured and distant, whispering my name as if from inside a mirror.
“Alora… or Maerial? Do you remember which you are?”
A gasp escaped me before I could contain it.
Dorian’s hand shot to my elbow, steadying me—or claiming me. “Alora,” he hissed under his breath. “Compose yourself.”
But the sound of my name only deepened the echo. The Moonbrand’s light—normally faint, hidden beneath fabric and charm—flared so sharply that a faint shimmer escaped the edge of my bodice like moonlight through water.
Dorian froze. For the first time, I saw something raw flicker in his eyes: fear.
The air turned colder.
Prince Caelen had stopped speaking with the courtiers near the dais. He didn’t move toward me, not exactly, but his gaze was anchored—fixed on the faint glint of light that betrayed me. For an instant, I thought he could hear the pulse of the mark, or feel the same strange thread tying us together.
Evander’s voice broke the tension.
“Prince Caelen,” he said, calm and precise, “you honor Theros with your presence.”
Caelen inclined his head, that stillness never breaking. “Honor is a word that demands caution, Your Highness. I bring no gifts—only my father’s goodwill.”
A ripple of restrained laughter moved through the court, quickly stifled.
Evander smiled faintly, though his eyes remained cold. “In Theros, truth is often gift enough.”
The two princes studied one another—a conversation of hierarchy and secrets playing out beneath politeness. But I could barely hear them. My pulse was a drumbeat in my ears. The Moonbrand throbbed under my skin like something alive, whispering things I couldn’t understand.
Dorian’s grip tightened painfully. “Breathe,” he said, his voice low. “If you faint here, you will undo everything your father has built.”
I forced air into my lungs, trying to drown the heat beneath my ribs. My vision steadied by degrees. The marble stopped shifting. The whispers in my head receded—but not fully. They left traces, like a song you can’t forget the words to.
When I dared to look up again, Caelen’s gaze was still on me. No surprise, no alarm—only that same unwavering study. His guard leaned close, whispering something I couldn’t hear. Caelen gave the smallest nod in reply.
Dorian noticed it too. “He’s watching you,” he muttered, almost to himself. “He shouldn’t even remember you.”
My heart gave a painful lurch. “What do you mean?”
His jaw tightened. “Nothing that concerns you.”
But his hand didn’t leave my arm, and his smile—the one he turned back toward the other courtiers—was a mask stretched too tightly over anger.
Evander’s voice rang again through the hall.
“Prince Caelen, perhaps you’ll join us tomorrow for the council banquet. The court would welcome Drakenvyre’s insight.”
Caelen bowed slightly. “If the council desires it, I will attend.”
And then his gaze flicked back to me one last time—just once, sharp as the edge of a blade—and in that single glance, the pulse beneath my heart steadied.
As if the mark itself had quieted in his presence.