Page 90 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

Altruism was antithetical to survival where I came from. “Thank you,” I replied. Then, more quietly, “I think.”

“It is a compliment,” he’d responded. “Every good leader I’ve ever known has a similar spirit.”

Leader? That didn’t exactly apply to me, but I’d let it go without argument.

“A crown is…heavy, Lunette,” Nisien added softly, without preamble. “Let your anger burn but remember to acknowledge the world as it is.”

His parting words followed me into the night, eventually bleeding into my fitful slumber. I dreamed of Owain in the cabin, sleeves rolled to his elbows, fixing something like a common laborer instead of a prince. He’d smiled when he saw me, that infuriating gentleness softening his face as he crossed the room and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

“You’re exhausted, Luna,” he murmured, concern in every syllable.

Even in dreams, the air between us thrummed with restless, waiting energy.

“Always tired since you left,” dream-me admitted, uninhibited within the safety of fantasy.

His expression faltered. “There were no good choices.”

“I understood leaving, but what you’re doing to me now?” Anger cut through the longing so quickly it startled me. “You could’ve chosen differently.”

Pain flashed across his face with such raw intensity that I nearly reached for him. “Could I really?”

Dawn roused me from that sleep, a transition that only shifted my exhaustion around rather than relieving it. I sat up, disoriented in the unfamiliar tent, reaching for something that wasn’t there—Owain’s name a painful knot lodged in my throat that I couldn’t quite swallow back down. His final question occupied my thoughts for hours afterward.

Our group crested the rise above Tir Larethia just as the sun hit midday. In the lowlands, the trees still blazed with their autumnal colors, while the air hung thick and humid. So unlike my mountainous home. I shifted in the saddle, muscles protesting the movement, even as I marveled at the sight.

Sprawled below us was a city. No border village clinging to life by torn fingernails. It was a permanent place of power, built of stone and brick.

An oval of pale tan and honeyed beige stone shot into the sky. From above, the buildings arranged in broad squares and straight avenues softened into crooked lanes the farther they drifted from the center, looking less planned and more a consequence of life growing too abundantly to be contained. Even from afar, the market squares were alive with the bustle of people.

The keep rose at the heart of it all. Six round towers stood sentry around a castle, each crowned with a gleaming bronze helmet dome that mirrored the midday sun in fiery streaks. The castle itself was broader and taller than the battlements that surrounded it.

A solitary drawbridge, spanning a dark moat, offered the only access to a gatehouse heavily fortified with iron.

It was gorgeous. It would’ve been much easier to hate this place if it were ugly.

Beyond the city walls, vineyards lined the surrounding hills in disciplined rows that curved with the land, the leafless vines promising abundance by late summer. Outbuildings and watch posts—cut from the same honeyed beige stone as the city itself—punctuated the fields in a loose, circular pattern.

Each was marked with bands of gleaming white paint. The architects of these structures had planned for more than beauty—those pale surfaces drank in the sun’s fury from the gleaming domes, breaking the heat while serving other functions that kept the city safe.

The young hunter who’d been feeding Muffin these past days slowed his horse beside mine. He and the rest of the soldiers hadn’t even glanced at my ears after that first day. It could’ve been acceptance or their orders. Either way, I appreciated it, just as much as his next words: “Welcome to Tir Larethia, Lady Lunette.”

I swallowed past the tightness in my throat, eyes tracing the pale stone city that now owned me.

“It’s very…tidy,” I said. The most magnificent city in Avanfell, and I’d called it tidy. Truly, no bard would ever immortalize my eloquence. I was utterly flustered, my senses reeling from the unprecedented sight of so many people and so many things gathered in one place.

“Yes and no, lady.” He snorted softly. “Best place in Avanfell, though.”

Muffin rolled over in his nest of fabric at the sound of conversation. He was still exhausted from clinging to Nisien’s armor for an entire day’s ride. While the shine of gold might’ve initially caught my veska’s eye, he’d stayed put because Nisien had petted him at every opportunity. It made me think of his moody relationship with Owain…

Traitor.

An absolute mercenary of a creature. I’d raised a critter with zero principles. All it took was someone with warm hands and gold-plated armor to sway his love.

Nope.

I wasn’t going to think about Owain’s hands. Or his chest.

But Fate didn’t care about my wishes. The road to the city gates felt heavy with foreboding as the sharp ache in my chest returned, as though something inside me knew I was riding toward the one person I was least prepared to face.