He was unbuckling his armor, preparing for the night. Eldeiade never shared a room with me—only Greaves. After the second midnight assassin, I decided to give him a bed in my quarters rather than force him to sleep on the floor.
As his hands worked at the leather straps, he raised a dark eyebrow, daring me to confess my thoughts.
My fingers hurried to their task—I didn’t require his assistance. “Tallon’s negligence was unacceptable.” The words slipped out, sharp and unforgiving.
In the solitude of my rooms, I could speak freely, and if there was one person I could trust with the truth, it was Greaves. He’d been by my side since my reckless youth, always cleaning up the chaos I created, the trouble I got us into. He never faltered and remained steadfast whenever I needed him. In battle, he saved my life more times than I could recall—and I repaid that debt just as often.
“The ambassador didn’t seem offended,” he offered, setting his chest piece on the stand beside his bed.
I sighed, shrugging off my overcoat, then draped it over a chair. “She shouldn’t have been so forgiving.” I yanked at my tunic’s ties, frustration creeping in. “It’s the one duty he asked for. The single task he seemed fit for.”
When his mother died, I pushed Tallon to take a position in the palace. It was my attempt to move him through his grief. I wanted to give him purpose.
“You keep telling me he’s young. Let him mature,” he said.
In the mirror, I caught his indifferent shrug as he pulled off his tunic, revealing the scars he earned defending me. I kept offering the same excuse for my son, that he’d grow up—that his childish antics would fade with time. But I wasn’t saying it for Greaves alone. I thought that perhaps, with enough repetition, I might convince myself, too.
“Princess Nienna will age him,” he added. “Let her help him find his maturity.”
I shot a glare at his back as he slipped on a clean tunic and settled on the edge of the bed.
He paused, catching my stare, then sighed with resignation. “Don’t start,” he muttered.
This argument had circled between us since her arrival. Nienna carried herself with the tact expected of royalty, a confidence that gnawed at my soul like a plague. She was prepared—poised to inherit the weight of the crown. Somehow, she navigated the court’s tangled politics with ease, despite never setting foot beyond her island.
Nienna had the resilience of fire and the calm of deep waters. Her spirit, fierce and unyielding, clashed with Tallon’s attempts to break it—she defied him at every turn. She would never fade into the shadows while he ruled—and that defiance filled me with hope.
But she deserved more.
I arranged her betrothal to secure Draconia’s alliance and its powerful dragon fleets, all for Radaan’s protection. Tallon was my only option, the single heir I had. The generals and I knew the treaty with Vellos would only hold long enough for them to amass their strength for a fresh assault.
The war crippled both countries. Vellos wanted the space to breathe, to grow bold, bide their time for another strike. I wished for a lasting peace that might secure a better future, and Nienna was the only bridge to that promise.
What else was I to do for Tallon? After his mother died, I tried every path I knew—gentleness, which he rejected; bribery—he scorned me. I even turned to discipline, and he mocked it. In the end, I dealt with him the best way I could: I let him live his life as he pleased, and I lived mine.
If he threw away this alliance, I would keep my word and cast him to the Untamed Valley. Those northern wilds seethed with creatures twisted by pestilence, inhabited by only the hardest of souls. There, outlaws ruled by the sword—a brutal land for a reckless heir.
“She understands herrole,” Greaves murmured. “She’s a–”
I cocked my head, the movement slow and deliberate enough to cut his words short. “She is more than a tool.”
“A spitfire, but a tool all the same. She understands her worth, Kal, recognizes why she’s here—and now she knows Tallon. Let them forge their way. She is no Eldeiade; she won’t–”
“Enough.” I tore the tunic from my shoulders and tossed it aside. “See to my door.”
At my dismissal, he grumbled under his breath, then left, taking up his watch outside my quarters.
The sound of her name still cut me years after her death. No agony compared to the fate of marrying someone who loathed your every breath, who cursed your presence and ridiculed your voice.
Allowing Tallon to be raised under her venomous influence had been a mistake. Even so, I couldn’t wish a union as mine—a life of contempt hidden behind titles and vows—for him.
Or Nienna.
Jarion pleaded for his favorite ship engineer to receive training abroad. The council meeting veered far off course. It began with a motion to ease the fish tax—an attempt to bring more variety to the common folk—and somehow wound its way to the question of funding a family’s vacation under the guise of professional development.
But the engineer wasn’t the one who held my attention.
My gaze kept drifting to Nienna, who sat rigid with her hands clenched in her lap, her knuckles pale as bone. She maintained a soft smile, but her eyes were leagues away, locked on the foot of the table. Fyrn’sol and Tallon flanked her on either side, and she bristled as Fyrn dipped across her to murmur something to Tallon. He threw his head back, laughing loud enough to draw Hector’s icy glance. The southern general had no love for my heir and showed as much with a narrowed stare.
