He laughed. “Not yet? Fine. But you’ll learn. The crown doesn’t make requests; it makes heirs.”
My breath started to come faster now. I stepped backward, and the papers in my sleeve shifted.
Kaelen’s eyes dropped. Then narrowed.
“What are you hiding?”
I shifted my body away from him.
But he lunged at me.
In one brutal motion, his hand closed around my throat and pushed me against the desk. Hard enough to choke and sufficient to make my breath catch. Enough to remind me how little space there was between power and pain.
“You will sign,” he growled. “Because if you don’t, I’ll tell the entire court what you are.”
He leaned closer, brushing my nose with his, the anger in his eyes burning.
“I’ll say you’re cursed and that the fire inside you is false. A stolen gift. Do you know what they do to false-gifted here, my little peace offering?”
I tried to pull free. But he held fast.
“They hang them. Strip them bare in the square. Burn them, like that sweet little priestess you passed on the road. I’ll put your pretty head on a pike and call it justice.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks.
“You’re not a queen,” he hissed. “You’re a fragile little flame flickering in my hand. And I’ll snuff you out if you ever try to burn me.”
He let go.
I stumbled, coughing and gasping.
He shoved the quill into my hand. Pointed.
“Sign it.”
I looked at the page. My vision blurred.
“Do it.”
My hand shaked uncontrollably.
His voice shattered the air.
“SIGN IT!”
His fist crashed against the desk, and behind me, crystal shattered like ice beneath a boot.
I jumped and I cried out. Hot, quiet tears rolled down my cheeks as my hand moved with trembling fingers. My name came out jagged, like a wound bleeding across the page.
A crooked line. A shaking hand. The name Wynessa of Elyrien was scrawled in ink and grief.
Before I could step back, Kaelen dipped a thin, black-handled spoon into the flame, letting crimson wax melt until it shimmered like blood. With eerie precision, he tilted the spoon over the parchment. The molten wax dripped in a slow, deliberate stream beside my name, thick and glossy, a perfect circle blooming across the page like a wound. The scent of it rose; sharp and sweet like burning rose oil.
Then he pressed the seal down hard.
The hiss of cooling wax filled the silence, the sigil of Caerthaine stamping itself into the soft red. He held histerrifying gaze, a relentless pressure against me, whilst pinning me between his body and the solid barrier of the desk.
When he lifted it, the mark remained. It was clean, deep, and final.
