The palace at night smelled different than it had in daylight. The roses faded. The gilded perfume dulled. Beneath it lingered the sour tang of damp stone, smoke from guttering torches, and the faint metallic bite of wards humming along the corridors.

Myrren moved carefully, clutching her satchel close. She had been dismissed after the throne hall spectacle, told a chamber was prepared for her in the eastern wing. Yet she could not shake the feeling that unseen eyes followed her. Her footsteps echoed too loudly against the stone, her breath too shallow. The palace was not sleeping—it was listening.

And then—she felt him.

The scent reached her first: steel, cypress, and something colder, like ink bleeding into water. She turned.

Lord Corven leaned against a column, half-shadowed, his black attire blending with the unlit stretch of corridor. His gaze was steady, storm-colored, unreadable. Where Thane’s smile warmed, his silence chilled.

“You should not be here.” Myrren’s voice was sharper than she intended. The palace was dangerous enough without shadows stalking her steps.

He tilted his head slightly, as if amused, though no smile touched his lips. “Neither should you.” His tone was calm, but the words carried weight, like chains settling into place.

Her fingers tightened around her satchel strap. “I was summoned.”

“As was I,” Corven said softly. “But summons can be snares.”

Something in the way he spoke—measured, deliberate—unnerved her more than open threat. He stepped forward, the torchlight glancing off his hair, the air around him heavy with silence. For a heartbeat, she felt it: a pull, like the room itself bent toward him. Her lungs resisted the air, as if shadows thickened around her.

She forced herself to meet his eyes. “Then we are both caught.”

His stare lingered. Myrren thought she glimpsed something beneath the calm—a question, or perhaps recognition—but then it was gone. At last he inclined his head, almost a bow, but too shallow to be courtesy. Then he turned, melting back into the dark as if the shadows themselves had opened to swallow him.

The corridor was empty again. Yet the scent of cypress and steel clung to her skin.

When she reached her chamber, a slip of parchment awaited her on the small desk by the window. No seal, no name. Only a smear of faint gray powder clinging to the fibers. She lifted it carefully, nostrils flaring.

Steel. Cypress.

She unfolded the note.

Do not trust him.

Her chest tightened. The words scrawled in uneven ink, hurried. But which him? Thane, whose smile lit rooms brighter than torches—or Corven, whose silence smothered them? Her hand trembled as she set the note down.

The shadows in the corners of the room seemed suddenly deeper.

A knock startled her. Ori slipped inside, cheeks flushed from the climb up too many stairs, hair frizzed from steam and soap. She looked out of place against velvet curtains and carved wood, but her presence steadied Myrren more than gilded walls ever could.

“You’re wandering already?” Ori scolded gently, hands on her hips. “Saints, Myrren. You’ve been here an hour and I hear you’ve already shamed nobles, caught a prince’s hand, and caught the Queen’s eye. Do you want me to start digging your grave now or later?”

Myrren tried to muster a smile, but it faltered. “I wasn’t wandering. He found me.”

Ori’s brow furrowed. “Who?”

“Lord Corven.”

Ori paled slightly. “Shadow prince? Don’t go near him. People who cross his path end up missing—or worse, they end up silent.” She dropped her voice, eyes darting toward the door. “There are stories, you know. They say he doesn’t even need a blade. That he walks with silence itself, and it swallows people whole.”

Myrren swallowed, throat tight. “I don’t believe stories.”

“You should.” Ori stepped closer, lowering her voice. “I saw his companion tonight. The woman with eyes like glass? Serenya, they call her. She follows him like a shadow. I’d swear she was watching you.”

Myrren’s breath hitched. She had glimpsed a pale figure near the shelves, silent as smoke. Now the image sharpened in her memory—the assassin’s stillness, her gaze cutting sharper than any blade. Serenya hadn’t spoken, hadn’t moved, but Myrren remembered the way her presence had chilled the air, like stepping into a crypt.

Ori shivered. “She doesn’t talk, they say. Doesn’t need to. Her silence does the killing for her.”

Before Myrren could answer, a distant commotion echoed from the courtyard. Shouts. The clang of a bell. She and Ori rushed to the window. Below, clusters of torches bobbed along the streets beyond the gates. Servants hurried to whisper to guards. The sound swelled, a tide of unrest pressing against the palace walls.

Myrren opened the window wider and caught it—the sour stench of sweat, hunger, and smoke. Riot-scent. The reek of desperation that no perfume could disguise.

“The artisans’ quarter,” Ori whispered. “They’re rioting over bread again. I heard rumors, but—” She broke off, watching as a cart of grain was dragged into the street and overturned, its contents scattering like sand. A roar went up from the crowd.

The scent hit Myrren harder than sight. Smoke and flour dust, sweat and fear—layered into one acrid stench of collapse. Nobles on balconies above shouted down, ordering guards to restore order, their jeweled hands clutching railings as if gold could keep hunger at bay.

Myrren’s stomach knotted. The famine wasn’t distant rumor anymore. It was at the palace gates. And if the nobles feared poison, the city feared starvation. Both were weapons. Both could topple crowns.

“Do you see now?” Ori murmured, voice trembling. “The palace isn’t safe. Not from poisons, not from shadows, not from hunger. And you’re standing in the middle of it.” She gripped Myrren’s wrist fiercely, as if her hold alone could anchor her friend against the tides.

Myrren stared at Ori, struck by how much she risked even speaking such truths aloud. The palace devoured servants for less.

Later, alone, she turned back to the note. The faint powder on its fibers still clung to her skin, the scent sharp and lingering. She rubbed her thumb over the words until the ink smeared, but the message would not fade.

Do not trust him.

Her heart pounded. Which him? Thane, whose golden warmth already threatened her defenses—or Corven, whose silence had unsettled her to her bones?

Her mind replayed them both: Thane’s hand steady on hers, sunlight breaking through storm. Corven’s shadow pressing close, chains disguised as silence. The scents of both lingered on her senses—rose oil against steel, sunlight against cypress.

The note burned like acid in her palm.

And in the stillness of her chamber, she whispered the question no one could answer: “Which man’s name did it condemn?”