“Maybe it was spite,” she muttered, the words slipping free before she could catch them. “Or maybe your stupid voice wouldn’t let me die.”
Jakobav stared at her for a long moment, something unreadable shifting behind his eyes, and then with a sigh and the faintest twitch at his mouth he said, “Bryn’s a menace, but he has kept men alive who should’ve been corpses. Warriors with twice your wounds and half your stubbornness. He can handle you.”
Ella squinted at him. “Was that supposed to be funny?”
He did not blink. “It was hilarious.”
It wasn’t, but it was something.
Prince Jakobav, brutal commander, heir of Dravaryn, had made a joke.
Before she could reply, before she could even roll her eyes, he rose suddenly and stalked for the door.
A heartbeat later, his voice cracked like thunder, shaking the walls.
“Bryn!”
Ella sank into the furs, heat prickling behind her eyes. Most of the haze had worn off, but his mouth, his hands, his voice speaking her name lingered like a brand.
Gods.
She was so fucked.
9
THE FATES’ DESIRE
Ella had dreamt of her parents, which was a mercy after the last vision of the man with green eyes and the scent of jasmine clinging to him. Her father’s gaze had met hers, creased not with worry but with laughter. Her mother’s hand had wrapped around her own, and for a fleeting moment, she’d felt safe and whole, until waking cut it short and left the memory unfinished.
Her pain had dulled to a tolerable ache, but her mind burned bright and restless, circling thoughts too treacherous to ever be spoken aloud. Bryn drifted into those thoughts, and she realized why she’d warmed to him so quickly—because he reminded her of her father, not the king cloaked in duty, but the man behind closed doors who was playful and irreverent, forever pulling her and her mother into laughter. The memory struck and left her steeped in guilt.
They had to understand why she’d left. Surely the fates had made them understand. The rest of Orchid, though, probably thought she’d been captured or was already dead. Either way, they’d likely mourned and moved on.
She’d been gone for years, wandering Dravaryn’s wilds without her flame, without her family, without even the comfort of hearing her own kingdom’s name spoken aloud. When she’d first crossed Orchid’s border, the pull north had been strong. She’d followed it blindly, and it had taken her less than a week to cross the continent. She’d been certain the prophecy would reveal the relic the moment she arrived in Dravaryn.
It hadn’t.
Instead, this kingdom swallowed her whole.
She moved from village to village, surviving off stolen food and luck, learning their customs, imitating their harsh vowels, keeping her head down so no one noticed the foreigner among them. She chased whispers, bartered for rumors, escaped more than one tight corner without the fire she had been born to wield. And still, nothing. No sign of the relic. No hint of what she was meant to find next.
It wasn’t until a dream, vivid and violent, that she finally saw the castle. She hadn’t recognized it at first—no one did. Dravaryn kept its heart hidden from the world. But she pieced the clues together one by one until she knew exactly where she had to go. Breaking into the fortress had taken months of planning. And it still hadn’t gone as planned. She’d nearly died for nothing. No relic. No answers. Just failure and a bed she didn’t belong in.
Gods, she missed home. She missed her parents. She missed Nira most of all. Her best friend would have been the first to know how tangled her feelings were about Jakobav—how she didn’t trust him, and yet he occupied far too many of her thoughts. Nira would’ve given the best advice.
She pressed her palms hard against her eyes, knowing wallowing wouldn’t bring her answers. The prophecy hadn’t dragged her into this cursed fortress simply for her to bleed out on a stranger’s bed.
Forcing herself upright, she pushed to her feet. Each step was a dull ache, yet the pain only intensified her resolve. She hadn’t survived this long to falter; she had to find the thing the fates had whispered of, whatever it was: relic, omen, or beast.
The words came back to her then, the ones she’d first read beneath the orchids on the night she fled. A bloom had risen from soil where no flower should have grown, pale and trembling as though alive, and when she plucked it, the petals had dissolved into parchment in her hands.
When realms entwined are sealed away,
The path grows dark, the skies turn gray.
A child shall rise through smoke and fire,
She’ll find the relic that the fates desire.
