They wake me early again. The same knocking, the same procession of fabric and pins and unfamiliar hands. Today it’s not Lady Halewyne herself, but two of her attendants, precise and silent, moving through my room like the slow turning of a clock.
“We’ve brought new swatches,” one says. “For the engagement colors.”
“The House Halewyne favors deep wine and steel,” the other adds. “But your coloring will take softer tones. We must balance the two.”
I stand where they put me. Lift my arms when asked. Tilt my head.
They wrap me in cloth, hold bolts of fabric against my skin, murmur to each other about undertones and contrast and the way emerald catches candlelight. They circle me as though a decision can be sewn onto my body until it becomes true.
“You will be beautiful,” one says kindly.
I think of chains made of silk and polished gold.
I think of cages painted to look like sunsets.
“Smile a little,” she adds. “You look as though we’re fitting you for mourning.”
Maybe you are, I think.
But I show my teeth, because I have been taught how.
When they finally leave, promising to return with proper bodice mock-ups and embroidery samples, the room goes so quiet it almost hurts. My head aches from the constant gentle hands and the way they talked around my future as though I were a dress form and not a person standing inside it.
I can’t breathe here.
I need air.
The corridor outside my room is dim and cool. The morning is overcast; thin gray light leaks in through the narrow windows, softening the stone, blurring the hard edges. I slip out, pulling the door closed behind me as quietly as I can. No one is posted outside. Why would they be? My father assumes my obedience is a wall stronger than locks.
I walk with my head down and my shoulders set, the way servants do when they don’t want to be noticed. Years of practice make it easy. If anyone sees me, they’ll think I’ve been sent on some small errand.
I don’t have a destination in mind at first. Only away.
Away from the pins, away from Dorian’s shadow in my thoughts, away from the heavy mirror where I watched my own face vanish beneath other people’s choices.
My feet carry me along the familiar turn toward the eastern wing, but I don’t go as far as the salons or Father’s study. I turn down a side passage instead, one of the half-used arteries of the house that leads past old guest rooms and storage alcoves.
I used to play here as a child, before the rules tightened. Before doors began to lock.
The air smells faintly of dust and old wood. My heartbeat starts to slow, loosening its painful clutch on my ribs. I round a quiet corner—
—and the world splits open.
It starts with a sound.
A thin, high ring, like crystal struck in a cold room. It pierces my ears, too sharp to be natural, too bright to belong to this dull, gray corridor. My knees go weak. The stone tilts beneath my feet; the walls lean in.
I reach for the nearest windowsill, fingers scraping rough stone.
The Moonbrand flares to life beneath my skin, a searing, unavoidable bloom of heat that rushes up through my chest and into my skull. My vision strains, then fractures.
The corridor dissolves.
Light floods in.
I don’t close my eyes this time. It wouldn’t help.
Instead of blank stone and narrow windows, I stand beneath a sky slashed with four different moons. One black, one blood-red, one pale violet, one silver white. They hang too low, too close, their light falling in distinct rivers across the land.
Beneath each, a kingdom.
I see Drakenvyre as I’ve never seen it—towering citadels of black stone and narrow bridges suspended over a sea of mist, windows glowing cold blue. At the center, a throne carved from something darker than obsidian, empty and waiting. A hollow crown hovers an inch above it, as if held by invisible fingers.
Born without a soul, a voice whispers, not in my ears but inside my bones.
The vision lurches.
Now Valara, not as the maps show it, but aflame—mountains spearing the sky, rivers of glowing magma carving through jagged valleys. A palace perched on a cliff, balconies open to updrafts of ash and heat. A young man standing alone on a terrace, his hair like molten gold, his hand pressed to his chest as cracks of light spiderweb beneath his skin.
Burning from within.
The scene shudders again.
Theros rises—my homeland, but sharpened into myth. Steel-gray plains scarred by war, banners snapping in a bitter wind. Two boys run across a training yard, identical and laughing, red and gray eyes matching like mismatched jewels. One falls, struck down by unseen hands. The other screams, soundless, as blood spreads across snow like spilled ink.
One must die, or both will.
The world pivots.
Solvayne appears—a land of twilight forests and ancient ruins, everything washed in shades of blue and silver. A young man sits alone at a desk, quill moving furiously across page after page. Words loop into symbols, names, fragments of memories. His arms are inked in gold runes, some bright, some faded into near-invisibility.
Forgetting everything loved… one by one by one.
The sky overhead trembles.
The four moons shudder and flicker, their light twisting until all four rivers of color converge on a single point.
On me.
No. Not me.
A woman.
She stands in the center of a vast, mirrored lake, bare feet resting on the surface as if water is the only ground she has ever known. Her hair spills around her in waves of moonlight and gold. Her eyes are my eyes, and not my eyes—older, deeper, filled with a grief that has forgotten how to heal.
The crescent mark over her heart burns like a brand.
“Maerial,” the world breathes.
The name tears through me like lightning.
I double over, clutching my chest, though I know this isn’t truly my body standing here. It doesn’t matter. The pain is real, bright-edged and sharp. The mark feels as though someone is pressing a white-hot seal directly against my skin.
The woman—Maerial? Me? Both?—raises her hand.
Blood drips from her fingers, falling into the lake. Where it touches, the water boils. Four rivers spill outward, carving their way back through the visions I just saw—through Drakenvyre, through Valara, through Theros, through Solvayne.
Each river wraps itself around a crown.
“I cursed them,” the woman says. Her voice is my voice and not my voice, layered, echoing, timeless. “I broke their lines. I cut their futures and salted the wounds.”
The crowns crack.
The kingdoms shudder.
People scream.
I stumble back against the wall, except there is no wall in this place of visions, only light and sound and history tearing itself open.
“You did this,” a smaller voice whispers.
It’s my own voice, but younger. Five, maybe six. The age I was when they first began locking doors.
The visions warp.
Seraphine appears again, mark blazing on her chest, eyes too wide. Her hair is wild, her skin cracking with silver light. She reaches for me—or for herself. I can’t tell which.
“We are not strong enough,” she gasps. “Our bodies are not built for this. We weren’t meant—”
Her words drown in a flood of noise—shouts, cries, the clash of steel. Father’s face appears behind her shoulder, younger and haunted, his sword trembling in his hand. Blood splashes across the floor. Her voice cuts off.
I scream, but nothing comes out.
The lake of light shatters.
I see myself instead—older than I am now, or maybe simply exhausted. I stand on a high tower balcony in a gown the color of stormlight, a veil trailing behind me like spilled water. There is blood on the sleeves. The air smells like smoke and iron.
Below, people scream.
Torches surge through the narrow streets.
The palace burns.
Someone—Emerson?—calls my name from very far away, voice breaking.
I reach for the railing.
Silver light erupts from my hands.
The vision jolts, jolts again—
And then everything collapses.
Stone rushes back all at once.
The overcast corridor slams into place around me, colorless and too bright. My knees buckle. I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the cold floor, cheek pressed to rough stone, fingers clawed into the fabric over my heart.
Pain pulses there, fierce and residual, a ghost of burning.
My breath comes in short, ragged pulls. Sweat beads at my temple, chilling quickly in the draft from the nearest window. The world blurs at the edges. For a long moment, I’m not entirely sure what century I’m in.
“Not mad,” I whisper to myself. “Not mad. Not mad.”
It feels like a lie.
Bootsteps sound at the far end of the hall.
I jerk my head up too fast; the corridor spins.
A figure appears in my wavering vision, skirt brushing the floor, a dark shawl wrapped around narrow shoulders.
Mother.
She sees me at once.
For the smallest fragment of a second, her face opens completely—fear, alarm, something like old, buried instinct rising up past the walls she keeps so carefully in place. It’s gone by the time she reaches me, smoothed into the distant, porcelain composure she’s worn for years.
“Alora,” she breathes, stopping just short. “What are you doing on the floor?”
“I slipped,” I say.
The lie rushes out automatically.
Her gaze drops to my hands, still fisted in the fabric over my heart. Her eyes linger there, too long.
“Did you?”
I swallow. “I’m fine.”
“You’re pale.” Her voice is low, almost scolding, the way women instruct their daughters not to show too much ankle in public. “If someone sees you like this—”
“They’ll say I’m delicate,” I cut in. My throat feels raw. My head aches. “They say that anyway.”
Something flickers in her expression.
She glances down the corridor, checking for witnesses. There are none. The house is quiet here; no servants linger without a reason. Slowly, as though breaking a very old rule, she lowers herself to sit beside me on the cold stone.
My heart stutters.
We haven’t sat this close in years.
She doesn’t touch me.
She folds her hands in her lap, stares straight ahead.
“When you were born,” she says at last, voice barely above a whisper, “I thought you would save us.”
The words land like a blow.
I turn my head slowly to look at her.
Her profile is as I’ve always known it—high cheekbones, elegant nose, dark hair threaded with silver now at the temples. Her mouth is pressed into a thin line, carefully held.
“Save us from what?” I ask.
“From your father’s ghosts.” Her eyes close briefly. “From what he did. From what he fears he will do again.”
Seraphine’s face flashes behind my eyes.
“The mark,” I say softly.
She flinches, infinitesimally. “Do not say that in the open.”
“There’s no one here.”
“There are always ears,” she replies. “Walls remember. Floors remember. Servants are bought for less than a whisper.”
I swallow, throat tight.
“You knew,” I say. “About me.”
“From the first breath,” she answers.
There is no hesitation.
“I held you,” she continues, voice shaking now with something too small to be called emotion and too big to ignore. “You were so quiet at first, and I was afraid you wouldn’t cry at all. Then you looked at me and—”
She stops.
Her fingers curl slightly in her lap.
“You looked at me like you knew me,” she says. “With eyes that were too old for a newborn. .”
I can feel the mark burning phantom-hot under my dress, as if remembering its own birth.
“Your father saw it,” she whispers. “Saw her again.”
Her.
The goddess in the lake. The woman with my face and not my face. Maerial.
“He didn’t touch you at first,” Mother goes on. “He just… stared. I have never seen a man break so quietly. He instructed the midwife. He ordered the servants. He rewrote your entire childhood in the span of one hour.”
I can’t feel my fingers.
“He told me we must never love you too much,” she says.
The words cut deeper than anything Dorian has ever said.
“‘Attachment makes it harder,’” she quotes hollowly. “‘When the time comes.’”
My stomach turns.
“When what time comes?” I ask, though I already know.
Her eyes finally meet mine.
They are full of tears she refuses to let fall.
“When he has to make a choice,” she whispers. “Between you and the house. Between you and the realm. Between you and his own sanity.”
Silence roars in my ears.
“He knows what it cost him to kill his sister,” she says. “He won’t survive doing it again. But he will, if he believes he must. That is who your father is.”
My vision swims.
“And you?” I ask.
It comes out sharper than I mean it to.
She swallows, throat working.
“I thought,” she says slowly, “that if I stepped back, if I did not hold you too close… I would not break when he decided. That I would be able to endure it. For Emerson’s sake. For the house. For the kingdom.”
Her composure cracks for a heartbeat.
“I was wrong,” she says hoarsely. “It broke me anyway. Just slower.”
I don’t realize I’m crying until a tear slides cold down my cheek. I wipe it away angrily.
“So you abandoned me to prepare for my death,” I say. My voice is quiet. It shakes. “That was your solution.”
She flinches as if struck.
“I never stopped loving you,” she says. The words are so soft I almost don’t hear them. “Not for a single breath.”
“You hid it well,” I whisper.
Her hand twitches, as if she means to reach for me, then stills.
“If I loved you loudly,” she says, “he would have seen it. He would have been reminded that you are not just a mark. You are his daughter. It would have made it harder for him to be… decisive.”
“Good,” I snap. “I wish it were impossible.”
She closes her eyes. A tear escapes despite her best efforts, tracking down her cheek and leaving a shining line.
“I thought,” she whispers, “that if I played along… if I supported this union with Dorian… perhaps it would protect you.”
My laugh comes out broken and small.
“By giving me to a man who wants to own me?”
“By making you someone else’s responsibility,” she says sharply, then lowers her voice again. “By taking the decision out of your father’s hands. If you are locked in another man’s house, he cannot… do what he fears he must.”
Heat flares under my ribs, anger thick and choking.
“So either way,” I say, “I’m locked up. You just prefer the cage that doesn’t bleed directly onto Father’s conscience.”
“Don’t,” she whispers. “Please.”
“What do you expect me to do?” I demand, voice rising despite myself. “Smile? Sew myself into the gown they’ve chosen? Let Dorian ‘shape’ me into something manageable while my father sleeps easier at night knowing he won’t have to raise a sword?”
“Yes,” she says.
The word stuns the breath out of me.
“Yes,” she repeats, quieter. “If it keeps you alive.”
Alive.
Alive like Seraphine?
Alive like a woman slowly losing her mind in a house where everyone is waiting for her to finally break enough to justify killing her?
I push myself to my feet, the motion too fast; the corridor tilts. Mother moves as though to help, then stops herself, hands fisting at the fabric of her skirt.
“Alora,” she pleads. “Listen to me.”
“To what?” I ask.
“If you fight this,” she says, “they will tighten the leash. If you show them what you are—whatever it is waking inside you—they will not hesitate. Your father will act. And Emerson—”
Her voice breaks.
Fear slams into my chest like a fist.
“What about Emerson?” I whisper.
She looks away.
“He loves you too much,” she says. “He will stand between you and anyone who tries to harm you. Including his own father.”
A cold, clear image unspools in my mind then—Emerson, small and furious, standing in front of me with a wooden sword. Emerson now, grown taller, eyes hard, facing down our father with a real one.
“They will not let him,” she says. “They will break him to break you. If you love him… be quiet. Be still. Marry where you are told. Survive. That is the only mercy left to any of us.”
Somewhere deep inside, something gives way.
It’s not loud.
No cracking sound, no flash of light.
Just a silent shift, like ice finally admitting it will melt when spring comes.
I look at my mother—the woman who brought me into this world, who has watched me from a calculated distance ever since, who believes survival means lying down in the shape of the chains they’ve chosen for me.
I love her.
I pity her.
I will not be her.
“I can’t,” I say quietly.
“You can,” she insists. “You must. For Emerson’s sake if not your own.”
A strange calm settles over me, cold and absolute.
“For Emerson’s sake,” I say, “I have to leave.”
She goes very, very still.
The corridor seems to hold its breath.
Her fingers tremble against her skirt.
“If you run,” she whispers, “they will hunt you.”
“I know.”
“They will call you a traitor.”
“I know.”
“They will use Emerson to flush you out.” Her voice breaks on his name.
I swallow past the lump in my throat.
“They already have him,” I say. “At least this way he has a chance to get away from this place too.”
She stares at me, eyes wide and stricken. For a heartbeat, I see the woman she might have been if fear hadn’t cut her spine out—fierce, furious, willing to set the world on fire for her children.
It passes.
“You are my daughter,” she whispers. “I should tell you to obey. I should drag you to your father myself. I should… I should—”
She cannot finish.
We stand there in the half-light, two women caught in the same web, one already numbed by it, the other bleeding and suddenly, quietly resolved.
She takes a sharp breath.
“When you go,” she says, so softly I barely hear her, “do not go by the main road. He’ll have men watching. Take the river if you can. And—” She swallows. “There is a village three days to the east where my mother was born. The people there still remember our name with something like kindness. If you reach them, you might find someone willing to hide you for a night.”
My heart stutters.
I stare at her.
“You’re helping me,” I whisper.
“I am not,” she says quickly. “I would never. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her eyes shine. “And if anyone asks, I told you to be obedient, and you ignored me.”
A laugh escapes me, wet and stunned.
“Yes,” I say hoarsely. “You did.”
We stare at each other another long moment.
“Go back to your room,” she says at last. “You look… wrong. If Dorian sees you like this, he’ll press harder. And your father will start counting how often you lose your footing.”
I nod.
I take a step away, then another.
“Mother,” I say.
She doesn’t answer.
“I love you,” I say anyway.
Her shoulders tense.
“I know,” she whispers. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
I turn and walk back down the corridor before she can see me cry again.
The Moonbrand thrums beneath my skin with each step, no longer a passive warmth but a steady, awakening beat.
I do not know when Emerson plans to move.
I do not know if we will survive what comes.
But as I slip back into my narrow room and close the door, the thought of staying—of tying myself to Dorian, of waiting for my father’s sword or my own mind to break—feels more deadly than anything that waits outside these walls.
I press my palm over the mark at my heart.
“For Emerson,” I whisper.
The Moonbrand burns in answer.
Not painfully.
Not gently.
Just… ready.
And for the first time, I am ready to burn with it.