I’d smiled. Curtsied. Waited until the sun went down.
Then I started planning my escape.
The crowd grew thicker as I neared the palace courtyard, the heart of the festivities. Nobles in jeweled masks danced through the alleys, trailing ribbons and scandal in equal measure. Children darted between legs, giggling and tossing confetti. Everywhere I looked: life. Color. Magic. It clung to the air like perfume, a promise that something better waited, if only I could reach it.
Banners hung from balconies above, golden thread catching the light—every house’s sigil blazing bright in honor of the royal wedding. The Tournament would begin soon. Swordplay, spellcasting, spectacle. Perfect distraction for slipping away.
I ducked into the shadowed archway near the edge of the Court and let myself breathe. So far so good. No one paid me any attention. No alarm bells rang. I doubted the Matron even realized I was gone. With any luck, she wouldn’t notice my absence until tomorrow when my betrothed came to collect me and I wasn’t there.
I wasn't brave. Just desperate.
The Death Mage I’d been promised to didn’t strike me as the sort to grant mercy. Once he realized I’d run, he’d send spells to find me. Or worse. Monsters. Hounds. Bounty hunters.
Better to spend the rest of my life on the run than live a life of cold silk and shadowed eyes. I couldn’t bind myself to a man who looked at me like I was already dead.
I refused to become property, no matter how handsome his face or how politely he offered me his hand.
I rubbed at my palm absently, remembering the jarring tingle that crawled over my skin the moment Jarrik touched me. Cold. Empty.
As if I’d summoned him, awareness raced through my blood like someone rang a bell inside my chest. Vibration and resonance sang through me, a song moving through me like an injection of magic. Not warm. Not cold. Whispers. Shadows.
Heat.My body jolted to attention as if a lover had just kissed my lips and pulled me close. Ifeltdesire. Awareness. Need. Awakening. Something warm and terrifying unfurled in my core. Reached out. Wanted.
A pull. A breath against the back of my neck, even though no one stood near me.
My heart stuttered. My nipples pebbled into hard, sensitive peaks. I struggled to pull air into lungs when every breath felt like breathing fire.
I looked up.
He stood atop the high stone wall that ringed the Tournament Court.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. His long coat whipped in the wind, black as the void, silver trim catching the sun like blade edges. His hair… it wasblue. Deep, midnight sapphire, tied back with a strip of black leather, a few strands loose across his face. A tattoo arced beneath his left eye—delicate, sharp, like a crescent blade dipped in ink.
He wasn’t masked. He didn’t need to be.
He stood like a shadow carved from storm and steel. Unmoving. Watching.
And he was watchingme.
I froze.
Our eyes met.
The breath left my lungs in a single, violent exhale.
His eyes were silver, ringed in black. Cold. Ageless. They glowed—not with fire, but with a shimmer like moonlight on bone. I felt…something. A jolt in my chest. A shiver beneath my skin.
Recognition.
It made no sense. I didn’tknowhim. I’d never seen him before. But some part of me—something buried deep in my blood and my soul—knewhim.
Not Jarrik.
This man was not my betrothed, although he wore the armor and markings of a Death Mage from The Spire. He was dangerous, but he was not Jarrik.
He was something else entirely. Older. More powerful.
Something worse.
