The council bell had stopped ringing, but its echo threaded the halls like smoke. Myrren moved through the spiral corridors with care, shadows still clinging to her wrist. She kept her head lowered, her gown modest, unremarkable. Not that it helped.

“Shadow-marked.”

The word slithered through the breath between conversations.

“I saw it myself. The bruise glowed.”
“Tethered to the Ward, they say.”

Another familiar voice. Lady Ceryse Frostmint, the kind of venom that always bloomed in sunlight.

“It always begins with a scentcrafter. First the poisons. Then the shadows.”

Myrren froze.

That was word-for-word. Exactly what Ceryse had said during the trial discussion after the banquet in Spiral Hall. She remembered the tilt of Ceryse’s fan, the citrus oil on her gloves.

And yet here it was again. Same phrasing. Same pause.

“Wrist was pulsing,” someone whispered. “Magic scars, they said. But not Lightbound.”

Kael?

No, Kael wasn’t here. Was he?

Myrren stepped closer to a pillar, letting its shadow cloak her. Her pulse tripped. The hallway was filled with courtiers drifting toward the council chamber, voices hushed with forced discretion. But every other phrase seemed… placed. As if she’d heard them before.

“She’s already chosen. That’s what the Queen believes.”

“Corven walks behind her like a shadow.”

“Thane won’t save her this time.”

Her chest tightened.

Across the corridor, Lord Varien Frostmint stood beneath one of the spiral-carved sconces, his posture stiff. When he turned to whisper to a woman in dove-grey, Myrren caught the phrase: “If she survives this loop, it’ll be a miracle.”

Loop.

She backed away, her breath short. The stone walls pressed close, the corridors spinning tighter. Beneath her fingertips, the spiral token in her pocket throbbed once, like a heartbeat.

“Myrren.”

She turned too quickly.

Thane.

Golden, polished, perfectly placed. His cloak immaculate, his hair kissed with sun. And in his eyes, concern that shimmered like glass.

“They’re only trying to scare you,” he said gently, stepping closer. “You don’t have to listen.”

But he had said those exact words once before. After her second poison trial. Months ago. When she still thought devotion was safety.

He took her hand. “Come with me. You need air.”

She looked down.

Her wrist mark flared where his fingers touched it, a flicker of light. And under it, the pulse of shadow.

Thane led her out into the garden courtyard just off the council chamber. A place she barely remembered from another spiral. The air was crisp. Overripe blossoms drooped against frostbitten vines.

“They’re scared,” he said softly, brushing her knuckles with his thumb. “You shine too brightly. And they don’t understand what they can’t control.”

She stared at him.

He had said that, too. Weeks ago, at the edge of the poisoned fountain, after her first public diagnosis. Even his tone was the same: reverent, warm, full of belief. Too full.

He touched her cheek. “You know I would never let them hurt you.”

The words struck like a cracked bell.

Myrren stepped back.

“Have you said that before?”

His brows drew together, not in guilt, but confusion. Or perhaps fear.

“What do you mean?”

She didn’t answer. Her fingers curled into her sleeve. The mark beneath her skin felt hot.

She turned toward the corridor and caught movement at the arch.

Corven.

Just beyond the hedge, shadow-coiled, arms folded. He didn’t step forward. He didn’t need to.

The tether tugged, barely a pulse, but it was enough to make her breath stutter. She looked away too quickly.

Thane noticed.

“He’s not your protector.”

“Neither are you.”

The words left her mouth before she could catch them.

Silence. Then:

“Is that what you believe now?” Thane asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know what I believe. Only that everything feels… rehearsed. Like we’re playing parts we don’t remember auditioning for.”

He reached again for her hand, but she pulled it back.

“They’re already saying I’m shadow-marked. That Corven owns me. That the spiral has chosen.”

His voice sharpened. “You don’t belong to any of that. Not the court. Not the spiral. Not him.”

But she heard what he didn’t say: You belong to me.

She exhaled, and the frost in the air caught the spiral of her breath.

Behind her, Corven had vanished.

Myrren reentered the palace through the servant’s archway, the halls colder now, despite the growing morning. Whispers bloomed with the sun. By the time she reached the outer antechamber of the Queen’s council, a half-circle of nobles stood cloaked in tension and perfume.

Lady Aurelia’s voice floated sharp and sweet above the others. “I heard the mark responded to shadowbinding. Not Light.”

Myrren froze. Behind her, Ori stiffened.

“Was that…?” Ori whispered, pale.

“It was,” Myrren said. “Aurelia said those same words the day after the Seer’s spiral trial.”

A pause. Then Ori again, softer. “I remember.”

Myrren’s chest constricted.

She wasn’t the only one anymore.

Ceryse stepped forward. “I warned them. First the poisons. Then the shadows.”

The exact same cadence. The same hand gesture. The fan snapped shut on the final word.

Ori gasped.

And for the first time, Myrren saw it, not just a spiral of memory, but performance. Like the court had been trained to repeat. A loop they didn’t know they walked.

She turned away quickly, bumping into someone.

Corven.

His hands caught her shoulders to steady her. His touch lingered too long, familiar as her own breath.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “They’re watching.”

“I know.” His voice was low, cut with quiet sorrow. “But they always watch. That’s the point.”

Her fingers curled against his chest. The tether pulsed faintly, as if aware they were being seen. As if it, too, was acting its part.

She looked up. “You’ve done this before. Haven’t you?”

His silence answered.

“Do they know?”

He glanced past her, toward the nobles. “They never do. That’s how the spiral holds.”

Aurelia turned. “How convenient that he appears now. Tell me, does Shadow always answer when she calls?”

Myrren tried to pull back. Corven held her just long enough for every noble to see. Then he let her go.

Lady Frostmint’s voice snapped like glass. “The mark glowed, they say. The spiral moved beneath her skin.”

The token in her pocket burned.

“She’s been touched,” Aurelia said, voice rising. “By poison. By shadow. By fate.”

Ori gripped her arm. “We need to leave.”

But Myrren couldn’t move.

Because she remembered this moment.

The exact placement of the nobles.
The spiral sconce flickering against the wall.
The sentence Aurelia would say next.

“She will break the court. Just as the last one did.”

And then it came.

“She will break the court,” Aurelia said. “Just as the last one did.”

Ori’s breath hitched. “She said it again.”

Myrren swayed.

She reached out and touched the spiral sconce with her bare fingers.

Stone. Cold. Unmoving.

But her mark burned.

A scene flashed behind her eyes, not memory, but echo: a spiral garden cloaked in ash. Nobles screaming. A crown falling. Thane reaching. Corven too late.

“I’ve lived this,” she whispered.

Aurelia’s voice pressed closer. “The Queen will demand trial. Let her explain the mark. The shadows. The boy.”

Another, deeper male voice joined “Let her explain why the same words are said again and again.”

That wasn’t part of the original scene.

Myrren turned toward it, toward the source.

It was Holt.

Standing in the doorway, pale as parchment, eyes wide with something between fear and awe.

He had heard it too.

“I..I don’t…” Holt began. “That’s what they said. That day. Exactly that.”

Silence fell across the chamber.

Ori whispered, “It’s not just the spiral.”

Myrren’s heart beat once, hard enough to shake the breath from her chest.

“It’s the script,” she said. “We’re trapped inside it.”

The mark on her wrist flared with light and shadow locked together.

And from the council chamber beyond, the Queen’s voice rang clear and cold:

“Bring her in.”