"Not yet." The words didn't just hang in the thick, heated air—they stuck. They clung to her like ash in the lungs, like something sharp lodged between her ribs. Arin stood frozen, her wrists aching in their cold irons, every muscle tight with the desperate urge to do something. Hit him. Scream. Run.
Anything but stand here, trapped in this gilded pit of a palace, while he looked through her as if she were already a carefully constructed plan unfolding in his calculating mind.'What the hell does that even mean?' she thought, a frantic echo in her skull. 'Not yet'? Not yet what—his? His puppet? His pet? His next godsdamned victim?
Her jaw clenched, a muscle jumping in her cheek. "What do you mean, not yet?" she snapped, her voice cracking through the oppressive silence like a whip. It wasn't loud, but it was sharp. Too sharp for someone still in chains, still a prisoner.
Caldan didn't even blink. His molten gold eyes, still fixed on her, seemed to hold a vast, unreadable boredom. He just turned, slow and deliberate, as if she hadn't spoken at all. As if her sharp retort were merely background noise, an irritating but ultimately negligible buzzing.
"Maeve," he called, his voice flat. A single word, spoken with an air of absolute inevitability.
The velvet-draped door creaked open. It wasn't the same girl from earlier, the one with the languid movements and wine-stained lips. This one was older, much older. She was tall, lean, and worn in the way only knives are worn—smoothed by relentless use, still deadly sharp.
She was dressed in the severe black-and-silver of the royal house, a stark contrast to the prince's loose silks. Her iron-grey hair was bound in a tight, unforgiving coil at the nape of her neck, not a single strand out of place. Her eyes didn't seem to settle on Arin so much as they looked through her, cold and assessing.
She didn't bow. She didn't ask for clarification. She simply waited, a silent, unmoving sentinel.
Caldan gestured lazily, a dismissive flick of his hand, like brushing away ash from a sleeve. "She needs to be prepared," he said, his gaze still fixed on Arin, not on Maeve. "Bathed. Dressed. Nothing ridiculous. Silk, maybe."
Silk. The word hit Arin's gut harder than any fist. 'Prepared.' 'Nothing ridiculous.' It all clicked into place with a sickening thud. Her blood ran cold, turning to ice in her veins.
This wasn't a welcome. This wasn't politics. This was the moment she got turned into an offering, a carefully presented gift. The girl dragged out of the mud, scrubbed clean, wrapped in expensive silk—and then handed over to a prince like a plate of ripe fruit.
Of course. Her stomach churned with a sudden wave of nausea.
She let out a small, bitter laugh, a harsh, grating sound that scraped out of her like gravel. "So that's it, then," she said, looking at him directly. Her chin was high, her eyes bright with contempt, a raw, naked challenge. "All this… all this theatrics, for the usual."
No reaction from Caldan. None. He remained utterly still, radiating a chilling certainty. Arin hated how unmoving he was, how completely sure of himself and the outcome. It infuriated her.
Maeve stepped forward, moving like a ghost through the velvet-draped chamber. Silent. Precise. She was halfway to Arin before Arin's control snapped. "No," she bit out, stepping back, her chains clinking sharply.
"I'm not going anywhere with her," Arin declared, her voice firm, unwavering.
The air in the room changed, subtle but sharp. Like a violin string pulled taut, vibrating with unspoken tension. Caldan turned fully back toward her, one brow raised just a fraction. There was a sliver of amusement playing at the corner of his mouth—the worst kind. The quiet, knowing kind that understood exactly how little power she truly held.
"You'd rather I do it myself?" he said, his voice smooth and low, a silken threat. But underneath it, something darker curled, something predatory and truly dangerous.
Arin's heart slammed against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat. She hated the chill that rolled up her spine, hated how real the threat felt. Even though he hadn't touched her, hadn't moved from his spot. Even though he didn't need to.
She didn't answer. Wouldn't give him the satisfaction of a response, of any sign of fear.
Maeve, however, didn't wait. She stepped up beside Arin, her presence cool, methodical, utterly devoid of emotion. "Do what you're told, girl," she said, her voice like ice, authority without anger. "It'll go easier if you don't fight."
'Easier,' Arin thought, a sneer twisting her lips. Gods, she hated that word. It was the word people used right before they broke you. Right before they forced you into something you were not, made you into something else entirely.
She almost spat in the woman's impassive face. The urge was fierce, a burning ember of defiance.
But— Her mother's voice, a ghost of a whisper, echoed somewhere in the back of her skull. Not words, just the raw sense of her. Sharp. Watchful. 'Wait. Watch. Know when to strike, child. Choose your battles.'
Fine. Arin gave a tight, terse nod. Just once, a single, clipped movement of her head.
Maeve, without another word, unlocked the cuffs. The cold metal fell away with a faint clatter, leaving raw red circles on Arin's wrists. Arin rubbed them instinctively, the chafed skin stinging. It felt like a betrayal, a physical manifestation of her surrender.
She didn't resist as they led her down a long, winding hallway that shimmered with strange, violet fire. Flickering sconces, carved with grotesque faces, painted dancing shadows across the ancient stone walls. The walls here didn't feel like part of a palace; they felt… older. More ancient than kings. More ancient than the very concept of royalty.
She noticed everything. Her eyes, sharp and calculating, missed nothing. The floor sloped slightly to the left, a barely perceptible tilt. The third torch on the right was missing a gemstone in its base, a small imperfection in this palace of perfect cruelty. The window halfway down the corridor didn't lock properly, its latch slightly bent. She filed it all away, every detail, every potential weakness. Because if they thought they'd stripped her of her power, of her will—they were profoundly wrong.
They bathed her in silence. Three women, older, silent, like a trio of watchful crows. They didn't speak to her. They didn't flinch when she flinched, when the warm water stung her open wounds. They just scrubbed and poured and rinsed, their hands impersonal, efficient.
She let them. She detached. She wasn't in her body. She was somewhere else—watching, calculating, planning. The warm water pulled the dirt and dried blood from her skin, a strange sense of cleansing. Her dark chestnut hair was combed until it didn't feel like hers anymore, until it hung soft and unfamiliar. When they brought the oil, thick and sweet and cloying, she almost gagged at the sickly scent.
They dressed her in black silk. The fabric slid over her skin like a whispered promise, or a secret. Red embroidery, vivid against the dark silk, curled around her collar—dragons, of course. The coiled, scaled symbols of this cursed dynasty, their eyes stitched in tiny, glittering gold threads.
It clung to her hips, accentuating her lean frame. It exposed her shoulders, leaving her bare skin vulnerable. It was meant to be beautiful. It only made her feel like a well-dressed corpse. A lamb adorned for slaughter.
"Lovely," Maeve said, her voice flat, as she brushed a speck of lint from Arin's shoulder. There was no warmth in the compliment.
"He can choke on it," Arin muttered, her voice low, a soft snarl.
Maeve didn't respond, her expression unreadable. She simply turned and led Arin to a door. It was different from the others—black wood, etched with a strange, unfamiliar crest. Maeve opened it with a ring of heavy, jangling keys, the sound echoing in the silent corridor, and nodded once.
Dismissed.
Arin stepped inside.
And stopped.
No prince. No imposing throne. No lounging girl with wine-stained lips and tangled silk. Just silence. And… the scent. Iron. Smoke. Old blood.
The room was dim, lit only by the flickering glow of amber sconces on the walls, casting long, dancing shadows across the ancient stone. At the very center of the chamber stood a solitary pedestal, carved from the same black stone as the palace walls.
On it: a box. Dark wood, carved in angles that seemed to hurt the eye, like something that shouldn't exist in the natural world. Like it belonged in a dream. Or a nightmare.
Beside it, resting on a square of black velvet—a dagger. Simple hilt. Old. But the blade, even in the dim light, gleamed with a wicked, undeniable sharpness.
And above, painted starkly in a faded, disturbing crimson across the wall:
"I must die, and yet I live.*
I must vanish, and yet be seen.
I must fall, so I may rise.
What am I?"
A riddle.
Arin stared, her mind a whirlwind. Her brain—always quick, always seeking patterns—snapped into motion. Not because she was calm; the fear was a cold, sharp blade, but it was familiar. It focused her, honed her senses.
This wasn't seduction. This wasn't some strange, twisted form of courtship. This was a test. A trap, perhaps. But the kind that meant something, the kind that had stakes higher than her mere survival.
She stepped toward the pedestal, drawn by an invisible force, her bare feet silent on the cold stone. Her fingers hovered over the dagger, over the mysterious box, but didn't touch.
She repeated the riddle under her breath, tasting the words, feeling their rhythm, searching for the hidden meaning.
"I must die, and yet I live." That line twisted something deep in her chest. Like a story half-told, a memory just out of reach.
"I must vanish, and yet be seen." Camouflage. Deception. The very skills her mother had taught her.
"I must fall, so I may rise." A cycle. A descent before triumph. Loss before gain.
She closed her eyes, the words echoing, resonating with something primal within her. Then, a single word formed on her lips, a whisper, a guess, a truth.
"Shadow," she whispered.
Click.
The sound was soft, almost imperceptible in the vast silence, but it was there. The dark wooden box on the pedestal opened with a faint sigh, its carved panels retracting.
Inside, nestled on a bed of dark silk, was a ring. Solid gold, intricately etched on the inside with letters she didn't know, symbols that pulsed with ancient power. Power hummed from it, low and constant, like a sleeping thing waiting to be woken, waiting for the right touch.
She didn't touch it. Not yet. Her gaze remained fixed on the ring, a sense of deep unease settling over her.
The air behind her shifted. A subtle change in pressure, a barely perceptible disturbance. A breath on her neck, cold and silent.
She turned, her movements quick, practiced.
He was there. Caldan.
Close enough to touch. Close enough to kill. He had moved without a sound, a predator's perfect stealth.
She met his gaze, molten gold locking with piercing grey.
"You solved it faster than I expected," he said, his voice low, quiet, a hint of something unreadable in his tone. He reached out, his fingers brushing the open box, but he didn't touch the ring.
She didn't smile. Just held his gaze, refusing to yield.
"You're not here to please me," he said, and this time there was something behind it—something weighty, a heavy truth that settled in the air between them.
"You're here to bleed for me."
Her breath caught in her throat. Not fear, not quite. More like a sharp understanding, a chilling clarity. This was the game. This was her price.
She looked at him, into those burning gold eyes, and her voice came out steady. Hard. Unbroken.
"Then give me the damn knife."
He held it out, the wicked sharp dagger, hilt first. His eyes held hers, a silent challenge passing between them.
She took it. The cold steel settled into her palm, a familiar weight. It felt like home, a dangerous comfort.
"I want details," she said, her grip firm on the hilt. "And answers. And a very, very good reason not to turn this on you right now."
His lips curved into a slow, chilling smile, his gold eyes gleaming with a predatory light.
And then—
"Stage my murder," he said, his voice dropping to a low, intimate whisper, a dangerous secret shared in the quiet room. "Make the kingdom mourn me. Or I'll find someone sharper."