“Maris,” he had said, silver eyes gleaming with a thousand unsaid things, “will you bind fate to mine?”
No demand. No command. Just a question —and yet, everything in her twisted with the weight of it. Her hands trembled where they clutched her gown. Her pulse fluttered beneath her skin like a captive bird, frantic and confused.
A proposal. In front of the court that once watched her with disdain, now watching her with something that might’ve been hope… or hunger.
Did she have a choice? Would he have asked if she didn’t?
Maris’s gaze flicked across the marble chamber. Lord Draeven stood stone-faced but nodded in solemn approval. Valea, arms folded and expression unreadable, tilted her head ever so slightly —a silent encouragement from the only woman who’d never once softened for her. Riven and Corin both stood tall beside the throne, their ever-vigilant wives just a step behind.
Leneth gave Maris a wink and the ghost of a grin, whispering to Serya—who looked close to tears.
It should’ve comforted her. That she was no longer alone. That she had carved out a place here.
And yet…
He hadn’t asked her in private.
He hadn’t mentioned the thought in passing, hadn't uttered words to confess his love.
She felt the ring before she saw it, a delicate thing of moonstone and white gold, resting on a velvet cushion held out in Kael's hands that hours before had held her. The gem pulsed like a heartbeat in the candlelight.
Her heart was a thunderstorm. He’s offering you the crown. His name. His eternity.
But is he offering his heart?
Her stomach flipped traitorously. Because gods help her —part of her wanted it. Part of her had wanted it from the moment he first called her mine in a voice that threatened to burn the world.
She looked at him.
Kael was as still as death, clearly trying to hide his nerves before her —his eyes never left hers. Silver and cold —but she had felt warmth in those eyes when no one else had looked at her like she was more than a pawn.
She saw the faint flicker of something not quite vulnerable, but not armor either. Waiting.
Hoping?
The moment stretched like a blade between them, every watching eye forgotten except his. And in her chest, a voice, hers, or another’s whispered:
This is not the end. This is the beginning.
Chapter twenty-nine
The Tether Tightens
-Alarik-
Alarik stood at the edge of the borderlands remains, where the world frayed like the end of a severed rope.
He could feel her.
Not just in the way his magic threaded through dreams or how he’d bound whispers to her starlit thoughts. This was deeper, more primal— linked to his soul. A note struck on a chord of fate itself. She was changing again.
It had started two nights ago, the violent spike of fear that crashed through his senses like a scream underwater. He’d nearly fallen to his knees in his chambers, clawing at his chest as though the panic were his own.
But it hadn’t been. It was hers.
And now? Now there was something else.
A subtle shift like the breath before a storm or the moment before a tether snapped.
