Smoke still clung to her hair hours later.
No matter how many times she scrubbed her hands, soot filled the lines of her palms like ink that refused to fade. Holt’s voice echoed faintly in her memory, orders barked, guards summoned, servants questioned, but the words slid away as if muffled by water.

All she could think of was the bruise on her wrist.
Gold at the edge, black at the center.
A bruise that pulsed in time with a second heartbeat.

They had carried her from the kitchens to an antechamber washed in torchlight. The Queen’s physicians hovered, muttering about smoke inhalation, but when they touched her skin their fingers twitched, as though the faint rhythm beneath her pulse unnerved them.

From the far end of the room came the scrape of metal boots. The court fell silent.

“Remove everyone,” the Queen said. Her voice was ice cooled by patience, not mercy.

Servants scattered. Holt hesitated, bowed once, and shut the door behind him.

Queen Aelira studied Myrren without expression. “Two explosions in one week. One prince nearly burned, the other conveniently absent. Tell me, Mistress Vale, which of my sons, by blood or by bond, should I thank for your survival?”

Myrren’s mouth went dry. “I don’t know, Your Majesty.”

“No,” Aelira murmured. “You never do.” She turned slightly, and shadows stirred behind her, a figure half-hidden by the archway, black coat streaked with ash, gray eyes unreadable. “Lord Corven will see that you remain… safe.”

The word carried the weight of punishment.

Aelira’s gaze lingered on the bruise at Myrren’s wrist. “Chains of debt, Mistress Vale, are forged as easily as alliances. Be careful which you wear.”

Then the Queen swept out, leaving silence thick as tar.

Corven didn’t move until the last echo of her heels had faded. Then, quietly, “You’re shaking.”

Myrren rose too fast. The room tilted. “I’m fine.”

“Lies waste breath,” he said. The faint trace of smoke still clung to him, not from the fire but from something older. He stepped closer, his presence cooling the air. “She’s assigned me as your guard.”

“Guard?” She laughed, brittle. “That’s what she calls it?”

His silence answered well enough.

Through the open window, the courtyard below churned with rumor, servants hauling water barrels, nobles whispering curses in the kitchens. Lantern light flashed against the stone like heartbeat pulses, each glow mirrored in the bruise at her wrist.

Corven’s gaze fell there. “When did that appear?”

“After the blast.” Her voice caught. “It hurts.”

He reached for her hand before she could retreat. His fingers were colder than steel. The moment his skin met hers, the bruise flared gold threading through black, shadow laced with light. The tether pulsed, deep and slow, like a chain dragged through water.

Myrren gasped. “Saints!”

“Breathe,” he murmured. The command was soft, the kind of softness that could cut. Shadows coiled faintly around his knuckles, not threatening but  responding. “It’s only the bond.”

“That word again.” She tried to pull free, but the motion tugged something inside her chest. Two beats, two rhythms, refusing to separate. “This isn’t from the spiral. It’s from you.”

He looked at her as though that hurt more than the wound itself. “You think I chose this?”

A pulse rippled between them,  not quite pain, not quite longing, and her breath hitched. The tether hummed against her bones. Every heartbeat felt like an echo, one from her chest, one from his.

“Then unbind it,” she whispered.

“If I could,” he said, “you wouldn’t be standing.”

For a heartbeat, neither moved. The room smelled of smoke and iron,  the scent of things newly forged. Outside, the bells of Eirden tolled curfew, their sound rolling through the corridors like a verdict.

Corven released her hand last. “The Queen calls it protection,” he said. “But what she’s done is chain us both.”

And in the dim light, Myrren thought she saw the truth flicker across his expression, not anger, but fear.

By morning, the palace had rewritten the story.

Whispers slithered through the corridors like smoke through keyholes: the scentcrafter’s fire, the prince’s shield of gold, the shadow guard who arrived too late. Each retelling twisted the truth until Myrren’s survival sounded like conspiracy. She could taste the fear in the air and  sour as spoiled wine. She knew the Queen meant for it to spread.

Holt escorted her to the eastern colonnade where guards waited. “Orders,” he said, grim. “You’re to keep to your chambers unless accompanied by Lord Corven.” His eyes darted toward the shadows pooling behind marble pillars. “I’d rather fight ten poisoned lords than watch you walk beside him, but I’ve no say in it.”

“Does anyone?” she murmured.

He hesitated. “Aelira’s testing something. Don’t let her see it work.”

Then he was gone, swallowed by the sound of boots and bells.

Corven appeared without sound, the way mist appears, present before you realize it has gathered. The tether stirred before she turned to face him, tugging like an invisible leash. Every step he took answered in her bones.

“You could at least pretend to knock,” she said.

His mouth curved faintly. “You’d smell me first.”

She should have been angry, but the truth stole the breath from her retort. She did smell him with  steel and cypress, faint threads of rain. The scent tangled with the smoke that still clung to her hair until she could no longer tell which was his and which was hers.

They walked the length of the gallery in silence. Beyond the arched windows, the gardens shimmered with frost, the statues glinting pale in dawnlight. The tether pulsed with each step, steady as a second pulse between them.

Halfway down the corridor, memory fractured.

For an instant she was back in the Graymere storm,  Corven’s cloak around her, his breath at her ear, his whisper: “This bond will burn the court down.” The image was so vivid she stumbled.

He caught her elbow before she fell. “Myrren?”

She stared at him, eyes wide. “You said that once before.”

“I didn’t.” His tone was gentle, almost pleading. “Not yet.”

“Not yet,” she echoed. The words lodged like splinters. “You keep speaking as if time owes you something.”

He released her slowly. “Time owes us nothing. It only repeats.”

His restraint cracked just enough for her to glimpse what lay beneath,  exhaustion, longing, and a terror he would never admit. He looked as if he’d spent lifetimes watching her die.

“Why me?” she whispered.

“Because the spiral chose you.” A pause. “Or because I did. I can’t tell the difference anymore.”

Her pulse tripped, a rhythm not her own. The bruise at her wrist throbbed, gold bleeding into shadow. She thought of Thane’s hand on her face the night before, his promise blazing: I won’t let them near you again. The words had sounded like devotion then. Now they felt like a chain.

She took a step back, needing distance the tether refused to grant. “You shouldn’t speak to me like that. The court already thinks..”

“The court thinks what the Queen tells them.” His gaze flicked to the high windows where banners hung motionless, each embroidered with the spiral crown. “She’s watching to see which of us breaks first.”

“And if I do?”

He smiled without humor. “Then she’ll know which poison works.”

The bells carried through the gallery again,  three low tolls. Corven glanced toward the throne wing. “She summons me. You’ll stay here.”

“I’m not your prisoner.”

“No,” he said quietly. “But I am.”

He turned to go, and for the briefest instant she saw shadow-chains coiling at his wrists, flickering in and out of sight like smoke. When he vanished down the hall, the tether snapped taut enough to make her gasp.

The bruise on her wrist burned black, then gold, then black again.

And in the echo of his retreating steps, she thought she heard a whisper she could not tell was memory or prophecy:
He will bind you before you can breathe.

By dusk the palace burned with candlelight too bright to soothe.
Myrren waited by the window, arms crossed, the tether restless beneath her skin. Each pulse felt borrowed, a heartbeat that wasn’t hers.

When Corven entered, the air stilled. “You disobeyed,” he said.

“I walked.” Her voice was thin. “Is that treason now?”

He stepped from the shadows, half-lit, half-dark. “The Queen sent for Thane.”

Her breath caught. “Why?”

“To see which of us you’ll follow.” His tone was calm, but his eyes held fatigue older than the kingdom. “She knows light and shadow can’t coexist. She wants to watch you choose.”

“I’m done being tested.”

“You were never the test,” he said. “You’re the constant.”

The tether throbbed, gold veined with black beneath her sleeve. She pressed it, but the pulse only deepened.

“You’re hurting,” he murmured.

“Because you won’t tell me the truth.”

“If I did, you’d hate me.” His nearness unsteadied her. The air between them shimmered with unspent words. “The spiral bends time. The Queen bends truth. And between them..” he exhaled, almost touching her cheek “We keep bending toward each other.”

She wanted to deny it, but the tether answered for her, beating in time with his breath.

“Thane said he’d keep me safe,” she whispered.

Corven’s expression flickered, grief and desire twined. “Don’t let him bind you before I do.”

The words landed like a chain snapping shut.
Light flared through her bruise with gold bleeding into shadow,  then vanished.
Far below, bells tolled once, twice, the sound rolling through stone like thunder.

Myrren pressed a trembling hand to her heart. The echo of his vow lingered there, dark and bright at once.

Outside, rain began to fall, soft and  relentless.
Inside, the tether pulsed again, as if answering his promise.