Chapter 2

Night fell.

Ash slipped into my chambers, quiet-footed, and smoothed the covers across my bed. Then she drew something from inside her sleeve — a luminstone, pale and glowing.

"His Majesty had it sent over, my lady. I've polished it myself. It'll keep the room bright all night. Not a shadow anywhere."

I looked at the stone and felt something shift, briefly, in my chest.

Caelian had crossed to the northern coast and dove for three days straight to find it, the first day I came back.

I could feel the soul-thread then, as Ash moved around the room — warm and fine as a strand of silk pressed into the center of my palm, always there.

Since the first time they threw me into the black tower, it was that thread that told me someone in the world still knew where I was.

Then Lord Aldric stepped inside, head bowed.

"Your Majesty. The king has called the Shadow Consort to his chambers tonight. He asks for the luminstone — he says Lina's eyes are the same as the late queen's, and he wishes to see her clearly. He thought the light might — enhance the evening."

Ash's face went tight. "That stone was found for Her Majesty because she can't bear the dark. If you take it, what does she have?"

Aldric looked uncomfortable. "His Majesty said — more candles can be lit. Enough candles will do the same."

"Give it to him."

One look from me, and Ash pressed the stone into Aldric's hands, her jaw set.

That night, the candles burned high and the room was full of light — none of it reaching the place inside me that had been dark for years.

Because once, they had thrown me into the black tower and left me there for three years, calling it madness, calling it necessary.

The darkness without edges. The cold that lived in the bones. The feeling of one's own soul tearing at the seams — these things do not leave a person, no matter how many candles burn.

It wasn't long before Caelian came storming in, knocking the nearest candle from its stand.

"Elara. I sent Aldric for the luminstone. You sent back everything in the room. What is that supposed to mean?"

I looked up at him. "Nothing complicated. I thought it cleaner to send everything at once. Saves the back-and-forth. Saves me from looking at it."

His anger shifted. Something underneath it softened.

"Tonight was wrong of me. I only wanted to make you react. I wanted you jealous. I wanted you to be the way you used to be."

I said nothing.

He stepped closer and took my face between his hands, turning it up toward his.

"Lina is not Sera. I know the difference."

"You know who I love. Don't you?"

His voice dropped, and there was something almost small in it, something that had come a long way down from where he usually stood.

Once, that look would have undone me completely. I would have pressed my face into his chest and swallowed every hurt and told myself it was enough.

But now I could feel the mark at my wrist.

Devotion index: 50.

I took his hands from my face.

"You should go back to her. Tonight is her night. If you stay here, by morning they'll be calling me a jealous queen who can't let her king alone."

The only sound in the room was the faint spit of the candle flame.

He stood there looking at me. A long silence.

Then he laughed — a short, self-mocking sound — and walked out.

After that, Layne and Caelian seemed to reach some unspoken agreement. They began showering Lina with everything they had.

Layne entered her into the family registry as a legitimate daughter. He elevated her father and brother in rank.

Caelian commissioned a new wing of the palace for her. Gifts arrived daily, a continuous stream.

It felt deliberate. Like they were staging it for my benefit.

I couldn't say when the performance became something real.

The mark burned steadily warmer.

Until the day it didn't.

Layne Morne's devotion index has reached 100.

The chamber doors crashed open. Layne strode in with his hand on his sword, fury written across every line of his face.

"Elara. You vicious, scheming—"