CHAPTER NINE
BRAVERY UNDONE
ran barefoot through the stone corridors, my silk robe fluttering behind meI like a desperate flag of surrender.
Valen’s words pursued me, vicious and mocking. My wedding night, a trap. My marriage bed, the stage for betrayal. And now the screams rising through my father’s fortress told me that death had already claimed too many.
But not Lysa. Please, not my little sister.
The cold stone bit into my bare feet as I flew past tapestries and sconces, their familiar patterns now witness to a night of blood. My breath came in ragged gasps, each one burning my throat raw. In any other moment I would be appalled by the lack of propriety in my choice of clothing, but modesty seemed absurd when Valen’s warriors were butchering my people. The silk clung to the places where his hands had been only minutes before, where I had surrendered to desire only to be rewarded with this nightmare.
The corridors weren’t empty. Servants scrambled past me, their faces masks of terror. A kitchen boy carrying blood-lined linens dropped them at the sight of me. The bastard princess in her wedding robe, hair wild, eyes wilder. No one stopped to help me. No one dared. In their eyes, I was the bride of the monster who was killing them all.
“The nursery,” I gasped at a fleeing chambermaid, grabbing her arm.
“Have you seen Princess Lysa?”
She yanked away from me, her face contorted with hate. “This is your doing,” she hissed, then disappeared around a corner.
Perhaps she was right. I had agreed to this marriage, believing Valen’s and my father’s promises of peace. Now it seemed I had merely opened the gates to our destroyers.
A distant clash of swords echoed from the great hall. Men shouting, the thud of bodies falling. How many Nocthari warriors had Valen truly brought?
It had seemed only a small contingent accompanied him to our wedding.
Now it sounded as if an army had materialized from the shadows.
I took a shortcut through the chapel, its stained glass windows casting patterns across the floor in the torchlight. Father Eidir lay face down in his own pool of blood, a shocked gasp pulling from my chest at the sight. I didn’t have time to stop, so I ran past without a second glance.
Control over my life… that’s what I had always craved. What bitter irony that in claiming it, I had lost everything.
The nursery lay towards the northern wing, far from the royal chambers where Valen had taken me. As I neared it, the sounds of struggle grew more distant, but a new kind of silence stretched before me. The hollow quiet of aftermath rather than peace.
I slowed as I approached the nursery door, which stood partially open. A dark stain spread across the threshold, black in the dim light but unmistakable nonetheless. My heart stuttered in my chest. I pressed a hand against the door, pushing it open with a creak that seemed to echo through the entire palace.
“Lysa?” My voice sounded foreign to my own ears, small and broken.
The room beyond answered only with silence. I forced myself over the threshold, into the nursery where I had spent countless hours reading to Lysa, braiding her hair, singing her to sleep.
The nurse lay sprawled across the floor like a discarded doll, her throat a gaping red smile. Her eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, reflecting nothing but the cold light of the moon. Blood pooled beneath her, a dark stain spreading across the pale stone floor. I stepped around her body, bile rising in my throat.
“Lysa?” I called again, slightly louder, though I knew that if she could answer, she would have done so already.
The nursery had been ransacked. Lysa’s toys scattered, her small desk overturned. The bookshelf I had filled with stories of brave princesses and clever queens lay toppled, its contents spilling across the floor like the entrails of some gutted beast. But it was the bed that drew my eye and froze
the breath in my lungs.
Lysa’s bed, with its canopy of pale blue silk, was empty. But across the cream-colored sheets spread a dark stain, a smear of crimson that seemed to mock the very concept of hope. I staggered toward it, my fingers outstretched but not quite touching the fabric. Too much blood for a child so small. Too
much blood.
“No,” I whispered, “no, no, no.”
I tore through the room, throwing aside fallen furniture, checking behind the curtains, under the bed, inside the wardrobe, anywhere a frightened child might hide. Nothing. No one. The stone walls seemed to close in around me, the air suddenly too thick to breathe.
The distant shouts grew louder again, the fighting spreading, perhaps reaching the royal apartments where the rest of my family would be hiding. I should have felt concern for them, but my heart had room only for Lysa’s absence.
I forced myself to my feet, my legs trembling beneath me. The blood on the sheets was still slightly wet to the touch.
But there was no body. No small, broken form. Just blood and absence.
Outside the nursery, footsteps pounded against stone. Running feet, too heavy for servants. Nocthari warriors, searching room by room. I had no time left to linger.
I cast one last glance at the ruined nursery, at the nurse who had died trying to protect my sister. Then I was moving again, out the door and down the corridor, away from the approaching footsteps. If Lysa lived, there were few places she might go. The royal family had contingencies for attacks.
Secret chambers, escape routes.
I knew of one, hidden behind the old throne room, accessible through a servants’ passage in the north corridor. A final refuge for the royal family in times of siege. If Ira had managed to gather her children, that’s where they would be.
I turned toward the north wing, my bare feet now numb against the cold stone. Outside, a red glow had begun to stain the night sky, fires in the city beyond the palace walls. Valen’s betrayal was not limited to the royal family,
it seemed.
All of Vareth was bleeding tonight.
The sound of steel clashing against steel grew louder as I approached the main corridors. Twice I had to duck into alcoves as Nocthari warriors passed,
their armor splattered with the blood of my countrymen. One carried a severed head by its hair. A servant I recognized… Elara, the servant who had fled from Nocthar and informed me of their wedding customs. I pressed my fist against my mouth to keep from screaming.
This was my doing. My marriage, my surrender, my failure to see the monster beneath Valen’s handsome face. I had opened my legs and my kingdom to slaughter, all while believing I had finally captured some semblance of control.
If Lysa lived, I would find her. If she was already gone, I would ensure Valen paid for every drop of her blood with oceans of his own. These thoughts propelled me forward, through corridors increasingly thick with smoke and the metallic tang of death.
I slipped into the servant’s passage, avoiding the main hall where the sounds of fighting seemed concentrated. The corridors here were narrower, the stone darker with age. I counted the alcoves as I passed them, trying to remember the whispered conversation from years ago. Something about a statue, a mechanism hidden in plain sight...
There—a weathered stone carving of Vareth’s founder, his stern face staring imperiously down the corridor. I ran my fingers along its base, feeling for anything unusual. My thumb caught on a small depression, and I pressed hard. A soft click, then a section of the wall beside the statue swung inward, revealing a narrow passage.
I slipped inside, pulling the hidden door closed behind me. A steep spiral staircase led downward, faintly illuminated by narrow slits in the outer wall that admitted thin beams of moonlight. I descended carefully, one hand on the damp stone wall for balance.
At the bottom, a heavy iron-bound door blocked the way. I could hear voices behind it. A woman’s clipped, controlled tones that I recognized immediately as Ira’s, and Cordelia’s sharper, more strident responses. My stepmother and half-sister were alive, then. But what of Lysa? What of my father and his sons?
I pounded on the door with my fist. “Open the door! It’s Mireille!”
A sudden silence fell on the other side, followed by hurried whispers.
Then a familiar male voice called, “Princess? Is that you?”
“Darius,” I breathed, relief washing through me. At least one person I trusted had survived. “Yes, it’s me. Open the door!”
The sound of a heavy bar being lifted, and then the door swung inward.
Darius stood framed in the opening, his guard’s uniform spattered with blood, a deep cut marring his left cheek. His eyes widened at the sight of me, barefoot, dressed only in my wedding robe, wild-eyed and desperate.
“Princess,” he said, reaching for me. “Thank the gods you’re alive.”
I pushed past him into the chamber beyond. It was smaller than I’d expected, with rough stone walls and a low ceiling supported by thick wooden beams. A few torches cast uncertain light over the room’s occupants.
Queen Ira, standing rigid and pale near the far wall, Cordelia beside her, her perfect features arranged in an expression of haughty disdain despite the tear tracks on her cheeks, and a handful of guards, Darius’s men, their weapons
drawn and ready.
No king. No young princes. No Lysa.
“Where is she?” I demanded, my voice cracking. “Where is Lysa?”
Queen Ira’s lips thinned to a bloodless line. “You dare show your face here? After you brought this upon us?”
I flinched as if she’d struck me. How dare she accuse me of such a thing?
Especially after telling me to behave for my future husband, to please him.
“You aren’t welcome here,” Cordelia shrieked, taking a step toward me.
Her golden hair had come loose from its elaborate wedding style, hanging in tangled strands around her face. “Not when your monster of a husband is slaughtering our people. Not while his seed still cools in your treacherous womb.”
I recoiled at Cordelia’s words, each syllable a knife between my ribs. Bile rose in my throat, but I forced it down. I had no time for their accusations.
“Where is Lysa?” I demanded again, my voice steadier now despite the trembling in my limbs. “I found blood in her nursery. Her nurse is dead.”
“And whose fault is that?” Queen Ira’s voice was ice, her eyes narrowed to slits. “My daughter may likely be dead because of you. Because you opened your legs to that monster and invited him into our home.”
My fingernails bit into my palms. “I did what you demanded of me. What Father demanded. This marriage was to bring peace —“ “Peace?” Cordelia’s laugh was brittle, bordering on hysteria. “Where is this peace, bastard. We should have known that the Blood King of Nocthar wanted nothing more from you but access to our kingdom.”
My chest rose and fell with her words, and I felt any hope I had harbored for a somewhat cordial marriage dissolve. For she was right, we should have known. I should have known a king would never want me for anything more
than a means to an end.
Cordelia’s smile grew, her eyes turning truly wicked as she noted my reaction. “Oh, poor little bastard. You actually thought he might want you,” she whispered, getting closer to my face. I felt her spittle hit my chin as she spat her next words. “You will never be wanted by anyone.”
Darius stepped between us before I could strike her, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. “Princesses, this bickering serves no purpose. The palace is overrun. We must focus on escape.”
I wanted to scream, to rage. Instead, I let out a bitter laugh with my next breath. “Escape where?” I asked, scanning the room again for any sign of my father or brothers. “Where is the king? Where are the princes?”
Grief flickered across Ira’s face then—a spasm of pain so raw it transformed her cold beauty into something almost human. “The king was in the council chamber when they came. The boys were in their rooms. We don’t know if they escaped.”
“And Lysa?” I pressed, dread climbing up my throat.
“We don’t know,” Darius answered when neither Ira nor Cordelia would.
“The attack came so suddenly. We barely had time to get the queen and princess to safety.”
I stared at them in disbelief. “You left her? You left a three-year-old child alone?”
“We did what we could,” Darius said, but the shame in his eyes told me he knew it wasn’t enough.
“What you could?” I echoed, my voice rising.
“Don’t you dare judge us,” Cordelia hissed. “Where were you when they came? Oh, that’s right, in your bridal bed with the butcher who’s killing our family!”
The accusation landed like a physical blow. I felt a warmth in my chest, an uncomfortable heat that I recognized as guilt mingled with rage. Yes, I had been with Valen. Yes, I had surrendered to him, had even begun to think that perhaps our marriage might be more than a political arrangement. What a fool I’d been.
“Stay here, then,” I said, turning back toward the door. “I’m going to find her.”
“You can’t leave,” one of the guards said, moving to block my path. “We have orders to protect the royal family.”
“I am not of the royal family,” I snarled. “I am King Aeldrin’s bastard
daughter, King Valen’s wife. So move.”
The guard looked uncertainly at Darius, who still stood with his hand on his sword hilt, conflict clearly written across his face.
“Mireille,” he said softly, pleadingly. “Stay. Please. It’s not safe out there.”
“It’s not safe anywhere,” I replied. “And Lysa needs me.”
“She’s probably already dead,” Ira said, her voice flat and emotionless.
“Like my sons. Like my husband.”
I whirled to face her. “And you’ll hide here like a rat while your daughter’s body grows cold? What kind of mother are you?”
Ira drew herself up, her regal bearing intact even in this underground hole. “The kind who survives. The kind who will see these heathens pay for what they’ve done.”
I looked from her to Cordelia, who stood with her chin raised despite the fear I could see trembling in her shoulders. They probably would survive.
Roaches, the two of them.
But Lysa, small and trusting Lysa, needed someone who would do more than survive. She needed someone who would fight.
“Protect the queen and princess,” I said to Darius, the words dripping with bitter irony. “I have to find my sister.”
“Mireille, don’t,” Darius caught my arm, his grip gentle but insistent.
“Please.”
For a moment, I thought I would scream, not due to the tenderness in his eyes or our shared history. But how he could expect me to leave Lysa to die.
This man, with whom I had shared countless stolen moments, finally proving he truly did not know me at all.
“I have to find her,” I said, my voice broken, but unyielding. “She’s only three, Darius. She’s alone and terrified, if she’s even still—“ I broke off. I couldn’t finish the thought. “I have to go.”
I pulled away from him and pushed past the guard, who made no real attempt to stop me. As I stepped back into the stairwell, Darius called after
me once more.
“Mireille!”
I paused, not looking back.
“Be careful,” he said. “And... if you find her... bring her here. I’ll make sure she’s protected.”
I nodded once, sharply, but knew I would not bring her to Darius or her
mother. I would ensure she got out of this palace, even if it killed me in the process.
I raced back toward the nursery, a desperate idea taking root where only despair had grown before. In the moment of shock and panic, I couldn’t think. Now, my mind was sharper. All palaces had their secrets, hidden spaces, forgotten passages, and no one knew Lysa’s rooms better than I did.
If she had escaped the initial attack, if she had remembered our games of hide and seek, I knew where she would be hiding. Hope was a dangerous luxury on this night of bloodshed, but I clung to it anyway.
The palace had grown quieter, a silence more terrifying than screams. It meant the killing was nearly done, the survivors few. I pressed myself against walls, ducked behind tapestries, and held my breath as armored boots marched past intersecting corridors. Once, I froze as two Nocthari soldiers dragged a struggling servant toward the great hall. I could have called out, distracted them, perhaps saved her. Instead, I remained hidden, my mission too vital to risk. Her eyes met mine for just a moment as they hauled her past my hiding place. I would carry that accusatory gaze to my grave.
When I reached the nursery again, the nurse’s body remained where I’d left it, though now her skin had taken on the waxy pallor that follows death. I stepped around her, careful not to disturb her final dignity. The bloodstained bed still dominated the room, its crimson message no less horrifying for a second viewing.
“Lysa,” I whispered, low enough that only someone listening for it might hear. “Lysa, it’s Mireille.”
No reply. I hadn’t truly expected one. If she were here, she’d be too frightened to respond to just a voice.
I moved systematically through the space, my eyes scanning the walls, looking for the subtle irregularity that even I sometimes missed.
There, near the corner farthest from the door, a section of wainscoting that didn’t quite match the rest. It was our secret, Lysa’s and mine. A hidden space I’d discovered months ago—a forgotten servant’s passage, perhaps, or a builder’s oversight. I’d shown it to Lysa during one of our afternoon visits, making it our special hideaway, lining it with pillows and stocking it with
treats and small treasures. I’d shown her how to access it, making her practice until her tiny fingers could find the hidden catch without hesitation.
“A princess needs her secrets,” I’d told her, never imagining those words might someday save her life.
I knelt beside the wall panel and pressed my fingers against the decorative molding, feeling for the small depression that would release the latch. My hands trembled so badly that I missed it twice before the mechanism finally clicked and the panel swung inward with a whisper of wood against wood.
Darkness greeted me. I leaned forward, peering into the black void of the small cubby. “Lysa?” I whispered, my heart hammering so loudly I feared it would drown out any response.
“Lysa?” I called again, louder now. “It’s Miri. Are you in there?”
A faint rustling sound from the darkness. Then, so quiet I almost missed it, “Miri?”
My heart nearly burst. “Yes, it’s me. It’s safe to come out now.”
More rustling, and then a tiny hand appeared at the crack, followed by a small face smudged with dust and tears. Lysa blinked up at me, her honey- gold curls flattened on one side, her nightgown torn at the hem. She looked impossibly small and fragile, but alive. Gloriously, miraculously alive.
“Miri,” she said again, her voice steadier now. “Bad men came.”
I gathered her into my arms, pressing her close against my chest where my heart beat wildly with relief and lingering fear. “I know, sweet one. I know.”
She pulled back just enough to look up at me, her small face solemn in the moonlight as she placed both hands on either side of my face. “I hid,” she said. “Like in our game. I was trying to be brave like you.”
A sob caught in my throat. “You were so very brave,” I managed, smoothing back her tangled curls. “The bravest in all of Vareth.”
“Nurse told me to run,” she continued, her eyes wide and earnest. “And then the man came, and—“ Her voice faltered, small hands clutching at my robe. “I ran like she said. I remembered our hiding place.”
“You did exactly right,” I said, kissing her forehead. “Exactly right.”
I stood with Lysa in my arms, her slight weight a precious burden. She wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist, clinging like a small monkey. Her body trembled against mine, the delayed shock of what she’d witnessed beginning to take hold.
“Where’s Papa?” she asked. “And Mama? And Delia?”
I hesitated. How could I explain that her mother had saved herself and abandoned her youngest child to fate? That Cordelia’s concern had been for herself alone?
“They’re hiding, too,” I said finally. “But we need to find somewhere safer for you.”
Lysa nodded against my shoulder, trusting me completely. I could not, would not, fail her again.
I peered out into the nursery, then the corridor beyond. The palace remained unnervingly quiet, but I knew it was the silence of occupation, not abandonment. Valen’s men would be securing their conquest, seizing valuables, taking stock of captives. We had little time.
“We have to be very quiet now,” I whispered to Lysa. “Like shadows.
Can you be a shadow with me?”
She nodded, her small face serious. “I can be the best shadow.”
“That’s my brave girl.”
I set out with Lysa in my arms, my bare feet padding silently over stone that felt like ice against my skin. Now, with Lysa’s safety at stake, such comforts seemed laughably trivial.
We moved through the darkened palace like wraiths, pausing at each corner to listen for approaching footsteps. Twice we ducked into alcoves to avoid Nocthari patrols. Once, we hid behind a great wooden chest as a group of servants was marched past, hands bound, eyes downcast. I recognized a kitchen maid, a chamberlain, a laundress who had sometimes slipped sweets to Lysa. Their faces were blank with shock, their futures uncertain.
Lysa buried her face against my neck, her breath warm and quick against my skin. I stroked her back, a silent reassurance that felt hollow even as I offered it. What comfort could I truly give when my own husband had wrought this destruction?
We needed to reach the stables. If any place might offer a means of escape, it would be there. And if fortune favored us, Isolde might be there as well.
“We’re going to find Lady Isolde,” I murmured as we descended a narrow servants’ stair that would lead us closer to the outer courtyards. “She is going to take you somewhere safe.”
Lysa’s arms tightened around my neck. “You’re coming too?”
I hesitated. “I’ll try, little one.”
It wasn’t a lie, not exactly. I would join them if I could. But even as the thought formed, I knew the truth. Valen would hunt me to the ends of the earth. I was his wife now, his possession, his conquest made flesh. If I fled, he would pursue, and anyone with me would suffer his wrath.
But Lysa might escape if I didn’t burden her flight with my presence.
Valen wanted the kingdom, and if he had me, maybe he would overlook the three-year-old who fled. With just Isolde, she might reach safety, even find sanctuary with one of Vareth’s allies, if any remained.
But if I joined, none would take them. It would be a death sentence to house the fleeing wife of Nocthar’s King.
We reached the small door that led to the kitchen gardens, and beyond them, the stables. I eased it open, relieved to find the latch unbroken. Outside, the night air carried the scent of smoke and something worse—the charnel reek of death. Flames licked at portions of the palace roof, sending plumes of black smoke to obscure the stars. But the gardens themselves were quiet, apparently overlooked in the first wave of violence.
I hurried through them, keeping to the shadows of fruit trees and tall hedges. Lysa was silent in my arms, her small body tense with fear or cold or both. The stables loomed ahead, their bulk a darker shadow against the night sky. No light showed from within. Perhaps the Nocthari hadn’t reached this far yet.
We were halfway across the open space between the last of the garden hedges and the stable doors when a figure emerged from the darkness ahead.
I froze, my heart hammering in my chest. There was nowhere to hide, no cover to seek. I tightened my grip on Lysa, preparing to run, to fight, to do whatever necessary to keep her safe.
The figure moved closer, swift and purposeful. A woman, I realized, her cloak billowing behind her like dark wings. A familiar face emerged from the hood’s shadow, drawn with worry but achingly welcome.
“Isolde,” I breathed, relief making my knees weak.
She stopped abruptly, her hand flying to her mouth. “Mireille? Oh, thank the gods.”
We collided in the middle ground, Isolde’s arms encircling both Lysa and me in a fierce embrace that spoke of fear and relief mingled into one overwhelming emotion. She pulled back, her gray-green eyes scanning my face, taking in my disheveled appearance, the stark terror I couldn’t hide.
“I was with Tomas when I heard the commotion,” she said, her voice low
and panicked. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. The palace is overrun with Nocthari soldiers. They’re saying the king has been captured, that —“ “I know,” I cut her off, conscious of Lysa’s attentive ears. “Isolde, you have to get her out of here. Now. Take her far from Vareth.”
Isolde’s gaze fell to Lysa, who merely clung to me tighter. “Of course,” she said without hesitation. “Tomas has the horses ready. We were praying we would find you.”
“Just Lysa,” I insisted. “I can’t go with you.”
Her head snapped toward me. “No. Mireille, don’t be absurd. You can’t stay here —“ “I have to.” I gripped her wrist, hard. “Valen will hunt me. He’ll never stop. But Lysa—“ I looked down at my sister curled into my chest. “She’s just a child. She might escape his notice if she’s with you. You can pass as mother and daughter. Find sanctuary in Eastmark, or beyond the mountains.”
Isolde’s lips parted, face crumpling with understanding. “You’re going back to him. After what he’s done.”
“I have no choice,” I said, the words bitter on my tongue. “He’s my husband. And as long as he has me, he might not look too hard for you.”
“He’ll kill you,” she whispered.
I shook my head. “No. He could have done that already. He wants me alive.” For reasons I still didn’t fully understand. Reasons that made my skin crawl when I remembered the hunger in his eyes, the possessive grip of his hands.
Lysa stirred in my arms, her small face turning up to mine. “Miri? Are you not coming?”
I knelt, setting her gently down but keeping my arms wrapped around her.
Her warmth, her scent, the softness of her hair—I pressed them all deep into my memory, desperate to anchor this moment in a place where time could not touch it.
“I’m sorry, little one,” I said, forcing a smile. “But Lady Isolde is going to take you on an adventure. You’ll ride horses and see mountains, and eat berries till your fingers turn red.”
“I want to stay with you,” she said, her lower lip trembling.
“I know,” I choked. “And I want nothing more than to stay with you. But sometimes...” I swallowed hard, willing my composure to hold. “Sometimes we have to be brave and do hard things.”
“Like hiding from the bad men?”
“Yes,” I said, tucking a loose hair behind her ear. “Exactly like that. You were so brave, and now I need you to be brave for a bit longer. Until I can come for you. Can you do that for me?”
She hesitated as new tears trailed down her cheeks. “You promise? You promise you’ll come?”
My heart shattered, but I forced a smile over the jagged pieces, wiping the tears from her skin. “I promise.”
She stared up at me with eyes too wise for three years old. Too sharp, as if she knew what I wasn’t saying. Slowly, she lifted her hand, her little finger pointed toward me. “Pinky promise?”
The smile slid from my face, and I felt something fracture within me.
Something I knew, with certainty, would never be repaired. Still, I curled my pinky around hers, sealing a vow I knew I couldn’t keep. Not in this life.
She nodded solemnly, and she whispered so quietly I almost missed it.
“Pinky promises always come true.”
Pulling her close so she couldn’t see my tears, I pressed a kiss to her forehead, lingering just long enough to memorize the feel of her. Then I handed her to Isolde, who gathered her close with a gentle firmness that reassured me even as it broke me further. Our eyes met—hers full of sorrow, mine full of surrender.
“Flee Vareth immediately,” I told her. “Don’t look back.”
Isolde nodded, tears streaming freely down her face. “I’ll protect her with
my life.”
“I know you will.” I squeezed her hand.
A muffled shout from the palace reminded us of the precariousness of our position. Isolde glanced toward the sound, then back at me.
“There’s still time,” she said. “Come with us. Please.”
For a moment, I wavered. The thought of freedom, of escape from Valen, from the horror he had unleashed, was so, so tempting. But then I imagined him hunting us, his fury when he found us, what he might do to Lysa and Isolde to punish me.
“Go,” I said, standing and stepping back. “Now.”
Isolde held my gaze for one more heartbeat, then nodded. “May the gods
protect you, Mireille.”
“And you,” I whispered back.
I watched as she lifted Lysa into her arms and ran toward the stables, where her lover waited with horses that might carry them to safety. At the
door, Isolde paused and looked back. I raised my hand in farewell, forcing myself to remain standing, to appear stronger than I felt.
Lysa’s small face peered over Isolde’s shoulder, her tearful eyes locked on mine until they disappeared into the darkness of the stable. A moment later, I heard the soft thud of hoofbeats on packed earth, muffled by cloth wrapped around the horses’ feet, a trick Isolde’s lover must have learned in his youth.
Only when I was certain they were safely away did I allow myself to sink to my knees, the wet ground seeping through the thin silk of my robe. Tears I had held back for Lysa’s sake now flowed in rivers down my cheeks.
I had done all I could for them. Now I had to face what remained of my life, the husband who had destroyed everything in a single night of betrayal.
I rose on shaking legs, my tears drying as quickly as they came, and turned back toward the palace, toward Valen. Each step felt like moving through deep water, my body rebelling against the direction my mind had chosen. But I forced myself onward, back toward the monster I had married, the man who now held the fate of whatever remained of Vareth in his blood- stained hands.
I would face him not as the trembling bride who had succumbed to his touch, but as a daughter of Vareth. One with ice in her veins and vengeance in her heart.
If I could not escape him, I would find another way to survive. I would become whatever I needed to be, and one day, I would make him pay for what he had done.
