The flower.
Pressed flat between folded cloth, its faded pink petals still held the shape of her hands. She’d given it to me in the mountains, after I’d nearly drowned pulling her from the river. She’d called it a frostbloom. Said it only grew where life fought hardest to return.
I stared at it now, cradled in my palm.
She smiled when she gave it to me. Like I was worth something.
But I wasn’t.
I should’ve walked away from all this. From her. From the moment the superiors assigned me to guard a girl too good and too soft for a world like this.
But I hadn’t.
And now she had promised herself to a man who only wanted her light so he could cage it.
My fingers closed slowly over the petals.
What would it feel like, I wondered, to hold her hand without fear?
To reach for her without guilt, without duty tangled in every touch?
I’d watched her today. Watched her pretend.
She was good at it.
But I saw the tension in her fingers. The way her shoulders locked when Kaelen leaned too close. The way she didn’t eat, didn’t blink too long, didn’t breathe too deep, was as if she made one mistake, the floor would fall out from under her.
She looked like she belonged to him. To Caerthaine.
But I knew better.
She belonged to wildflowers and storm light. To the morning sun and mossy stones. To whatever spark still smoldered in her chest. The one the gods had marked, and the fire hadn’t claimed.
The gods had touched her. And she didn’t even know what she was becoming.
A slow breath escaped me.
I ran a thumb over the edge of the petal, then tucked the cloth carefully back into the lining of my coat, beneath the leather strap where no one else would see.
She’d given me something fragile.
I would keep it safe.
Even if it was the only part of her I could ever hold.
Chapter Thirty-One
Wynessa
I woke to an unfamiliar perfume lingering in silk sheets and spent hours being measured, brushed, and pinned by women who never smiled with their eyes. Meals passed in silence or half-concealed whispers. Courtiers bowed too low or not at all, and every hall echoed with the quiet that meant you were being listened to. They showed me how to curtsy, how to smile without showing teeth, how to wear rings I hadn’t chosen, and speak words I didn’t mean. I’d thought the court of Caerthaine would be grand, but it was something else entirely, like being dressed in someone else’s skin and told to dance before it hardened.
There was a knock. Before I could answer, the door opened and four women filed in, silent as a shadow line. Not Elyrien handmaids. These were Caerthaine court attendants; older, sharper in their movements, dressed in subdued hues of slate and deep blue. Their polite smiles didn't reach their eyes, instead remaining vacant and unreadable.
“Make her ready,” one of them said softly. “His Highness has requested elegance.”
The word tasted like saltwater in my throat.
Jasira stepped forward, voice firm. “She’ll need a moment to change. Alone.”
