Everthorn Manor slept beneath a veil of silence, the storm long passed, leaving the sky outside pale and cold. Only the duke’s study kept its vigil—firelight guttering low, shadows clinging to the corners like uninvited guests.
The room carried the weight of centuries: heavy oak paneling, shelves crowded with ledgers and histories, maps marked with wars won and lost. The stag’s antlers above the hearth gleamed faintly, their shadow stretching long across the rug. The air was thick with the smoke of burning oak and the sharp tang of wine left too long to breathe.
Corwin Everthorn stood before the hearth, his hand braced against the mantle, the other wrapped tight around a half-filled glass. He had not touched it in some time. His dark eyes fixed on the flames, their reflection dancing across his face, hardening the lines already carved deep by years of grief and command.
Elira sat in the high-backed chair opposite, her hands folded so tightly in her lap that her knuckles had blanched white. Her gown shimmered softly in the firelight, pale silk catching each flicker, though the woman within seemed dimmed, worn thin by years of silence. She had not spoken since she entered.
At last, Corwin broke the quiet.
“The guards tell me he raised his voice,” he said, low and bitter. “Raised his voice. To a man sworn to me.”
Elira’s gaze lowered to the rug at her feet. “He is a boy, Corwin. Fourteen. And you know his heart—too fierce for his own good.”
“They said he stood before her,” Corwin continued, ignoring the plea in her tone. His jaw tightened, his hand flexing against the glass. “Like a shield. Told the guard he didn’t care for orders. That he would not be moved.” His lip curled, part rage, part disbelief. “My son. My heir. Defying my word as though it meant nothing.”
Elira’s chest rose sharply, but she forced her voice steady. “They are children still. He misses her. He always has. It is not wickedness—it is love.”
Corwin turned to face her then, his eyes dark as coals. “Love?” His laugh was short, bitter, hollow. “That mark on her skin is not love. It is a curse. You remember what it did to Seraphine. You remember how it ended.”
The name hung between them like ash. The fire hissed, a log splitting with a sudden crack, and Elira’s eyes glistened though she blinked quickly, refusing the tears.
“I remember,” she whispered. “But she is still your daughter. Our daughter. You cannot—”
“I cannot let her take him from me.” Corwin’s words struck like iron. He slammed the glass onto the mantle, the wine sloshing dark against the rim. His shoulders shook once, though his voice did not waver. “I will not bury another. I will not let Emerson follow her into ruin.”
Elira rose, moving slowly across the rug, her slippered feet soundless. For a heartbeat she hovered behind him, her hand half-lifted as though she might touch his shoulder. But she let it fall, fingers curling into her gown instead.
“You love him so much it blinds you,” she said softly.
Corwin did not turn. His reflection glared back at him in the window, fractured and dark. “He is everything a son should be. Strong. Obedient. Untainted. I will not let her twist him with whatever madness festers in her blood. If I must keep them apart until the end of my days, then so be it.”
Elira closed her eyes. She thought of Alora’s green eyes flecked with gold, so like the goddess-painted glass in the chapel. Eyes that had looked up at her as an infant with nothing but trust. She thought of Emerson’s grin, fierce with loyalty, and how easily his laughter could light even the darkest room.
“You cannot keep shadows from touching one another,” she murmured. “Not forever.”
But Corwin’s silence fell heavier than any argument. He turned back to the fire, and the room closed in around them, lit only by the restless crackle of flames and the ghosts neither dared to name aloud.
The western wing of Everthorn was quiet, its long corridors muffled by thick carpets and tapestries. Here, the light burned dimmer, as though even the torches knew to soften in the presence of the duke’s heir. Yet that night, the hush was broken by the steady rhythm of boots. Two guards stood at the threshold of Emerson’s chamber, their halberds crossed to bar the way, their expressions flat with duty.
Inside, the boy paced.
The chamber was generous compared to his sister’s—wide windows, shelves stacked with books, a bed large enough for two. But confinement stripped the room of all comfort. The shutters had been drawn, the latch secured. A tray of food, left untouched, sat cooling on the desk. The walls, paneled in carved oak, pressed in close, each creak echoing too loudly.
Emerson stalked from wall to wall, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. His chestnut hair stuck damp to his forehead, and his cheeks were flushed with the remnants of anger. He had shouted at the guards when they first shut him in, pounding on the heavy door until his knuckles bled. Now his voice was hoarse, his fury quieter but no less fierce.
“They treat me like a child,” he muttered to the empty room. “Like I don’t know what I’m doing.” He threw himself into the chair, the legs scraping sharply against the floor. “As if loving my own sister is rebellion.”
The fire on the hearth snapped, casting long shadows across the chamber. Emerson grabbed the book he had smuggled earlier—the history he’d meant for Alora—and turned it over in his hands. The leather was cracked, its gilt letters faded, but he cradled it as though it were a treasure.
Slowly, carefully, he pulled a scrap of parchment from the drawer of his desk. With ink-stained fingers, he scrawled clumsy but determined words:
Still with you. Always.
He hesitated only a moment before adding a small flourish of their family’s crest—the thorned rose—beside his name. Folding the note tightly, he pressed it flat with his palm. His eyes darted toward the shuttered window, the locked door, the silent guards beyond.
“Let them try to keep us apart,” he whispered fiercely. “I’ll find a way through walls, through locks, through Father himself.”
He slid the note under the bedframe, tucking it between the carved posts and the wall. A servant would come in the morning. If luck favored him, the scrap would find its way down the corridor, slipped into the hand of the only person who mattered.
Emerson leaned back against the wall, his breath ragged but steadying. He tilted his head toward the ceiling, whispering into the dark as if someone might hear: “I promised her. And I don’t break promises.”
The fire burned low, its glow flickering across his clenched fists and stubborn jaw. Though the guards outside shifted their weight and muttered of duty, the boy inside remained unbroken—chained by walls, but not in spirit.
—
Morning broke pale and gray, the kind of light that made the walls of my chamber seem narrower, pressing close as if even the stones wished me small. I had slept little, tossing restlessly beneath thin blankets, the echo of last night’s whispers and footsteps still fresh in my ears.
By the time the latch of my door clicked open, I was already sitting upright, hair unbound and tangled down my back. A line of servants poured in like a tide, arms laden with fabrics, boxes, polished silver trays gleaming with jewels. The air shifted—suddenly thick with lavender oil and the rustle of silk.
“Rise, my lady,” one of them said briskly, already drawing the shutters wide. Light spilled in, cruel and cold.
Before I could protest, they had stripped the blankets from my bed, replaced them with gowns draped in neat rows—seafoam, ivory, crimson. My chamber, small and spare as it was, seemed to shrink further beneath the weight of color and shimmer. It was as though they meant to drown me in finery.
And then my mother entered.
Duchess Elira was serene as always, her pale gown falling in unwrinkled lines, her chestnut hair pinned with quiet precision. She moved through the chaos with the calm of a queen, her eyes cataloguing every detail. For one heartbeat, her gaze flicked to me—green to green, mother to daughter—and something tightened there. But it was gone in the next breath.
“You will attend the ball tomorrow evening,” she said, as if announcing the weather. “Foreign princes will be present, as well as the lords of half the realm. Everthorn must be represented properly.”
I swallowed hard. “Tomorrow?”
“Yes.” She gestured to the dresses, her voice clipped. “These were sent up from the seamstress at dawn. You will be fitted today, jewels matched by evening. There will be no delay.”
Her words slid over me like cold water. My fingers curled into the fabric of my nightgown, the thin cotton twisting beneath my nails.
The maids swarmed, lifting gowns, pressing fabrics to my skin, arguing softly over shades and hems. A pale lavender silk was draped over my shoulders; a crimson brocade was laced against my waist. Each pin prick, each tug at my sleeves, made me flinch. I felt less like a girl than a mannequin, something to be displayed, reshaped, owned.
My mother’s eyes never left me. She said little, only giving the occasional nod or shake of her head as if I were a portrait being corrected, a frame adjusted until it pleased her sight.
At last, she spoke again. “You will not speak unless spoken to. You will smile when introduced. And when the time comes, you will dance if asked. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Mother.” My voice sounded hollow even to me.
Her expression softened a fraction, the barest quiver in her mouth. For a moment, I thought she might touch me, might brush my hair back as she once had when I was small. But her hand fell to her side, clenched into her gown instead.
“Good.”
When she turned away, the air seemed to deflate. The seamstresses continued their work, fastening jewels at my throat, twining strands of pearls into my hair. I caught sight of myself in the narrow mirror propped against the wall: pale skin, wide eyes, lips pressed thin beneath the weight of expectation.
I looked like someone else entirely.
Beneath the fabric, against my back, the mark throbbed faintly. The Moonbrand’s glow was weak in the morning light, but I felt its heat, as though it mocked the ribbons and lace binding me. I shifted, uneasy, but the maids took it for fussing and tightened the laces further.
I thought of Emerson then. Of his voice raised in anger, his vow carved into the air like iron. I did not know where he was now, whether he was locked behind his chamber door or under our father’s cold gaze. I only knew he was not here.
The Moonbrand pulsed again, sharper this time. I clenched my fists, staring into the mirror at the stranger in pearls.
“Still with you,” I imagined him whispering.
And for a moment, I almost believed it.
When the last pin was set and the pearls unstrung from my hair, the seamstresses bowed and slipped out, their arms full of gowns and discarded ribbons. The chamber grew still again, save for the faint crackle of the hearth and the whisper of fabric brushing my skin as I shifted.
My mother lingered at the door, her hand resting lightly on the frame. Her profile was serene, but her eyes were shadowed, unreadable. She had watched me the entire morning with that same expression—distant, measuring, as though I were both daughter and stranger.
“You will do well tomorrow,” she said, her voice even, controlled. “Everthorn’s name will stand among kings, as it should.”
Her gaze softened for the smallest heartbeat—so faint I might have imagined it. And then she turned, her gown trailing across the stone floor as she slipped from the room. The door closed with a soft, final click.
I stared at the latch long after she was gone.
The chamber, stripped of servants and finery, seemed suddenly too small, too close. The gowns they had draped across the bed glowed in the dim light, silks and satins like the skins of creatures waiting to swallow me whole.
The silence pressed harder as night crept closer. I blew out the candles and slipped into bed, curling beneath the thin blanket. But sleep would not come. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw the glittering hall, faceless suitors lined in shadow, my father’s sharp gaze pinning me like a hawk’s talon.
I thought of Emerson, shut away somewhere in the western wing. My chest ached with the distance.
And then the Moonbrand stirred.
A pulse beneath my skin, faint at first, then sharper, hotter. I pressed my hand against my collarbone through the fabric, feeling the heat spread like fire through my veins. The room seemed to tilt, the shadows deepening, the air thickening as if something unseen leaned close to listen.
My breath hitched.
The glow dimmed again, retreating beneath the surface, but it left me trembling in the dark. I turned my face into the pillow, forcing myself still.
Tomorrow, I would wear jewels and silks. Tomorrow, I would smile and bow and dance. Tomorrow, I would belong to them.
But tonight—tonight the mark reminded me that no cage could hold me forever.
The thought was half comfort, half curse, and with it, I finally closed my eyes.