The palace had a way of suffocating its guests. Even inside the chamber assigned to her, Myrren smelled too much: perfumes soaked into curtains, smoke from the braziers, damp stone under layers of velvet. No matter how many candles flickered, the air still carried mildew, as though the palace itself rotted beneath its finery.

She had not slept since the banquet. The noblewoman’s collapse replayed in her mind—the bitter almonds on the air, the weight of every gaze, Thane stepping into the silence like sunlight. His voice had steadied her, but also bound her to him in ways she did not ask for.

And now the Queen’s silence stalked her more than the nobles’ jeers. Silence was sharper than accusation. Silence gave space for daggers to be readied.

Ori breezed in without knocking, arms laden with a basket. Soap, bread, and the faint sweetness of apples clung to her. She had bullied her way through the guards somehow, muttering about laundry duty, and now she kicked the door shut with her heel.

“You look like a corpse,” she announced cheerfully, plunking the basket on the table. “Eat before you fall over and I have to carry you back to the alleys myself.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Ori ignored that. “The palace whispers louder than crows. They’re already saying you poisoned that noblewoman, though I told them your idea of danger is forgetting to label your jars. Saints, Myrren, you could glare poison into a cup faster than you could brew it.”

Myrren’s lips twitched despite the dread curling in her chest. “That’s hardly reassuring.”

“It’s true.” Ori reached to smooth Myrren’s hair, only for Myrren to flinch away. “Fine, fine. Brood in shadows if you must. But I’m not leaving you alone. Not tonight.”

She unpacked her satchel instead. Vials glimmered in the candlelight, neatly arranged by habit: lavender oil, vinegar distillate, crushed rue in a small corked jar. She reached for the next—

And froze.

A vial sat among them that she had not packed.

It was slim, stoppered in black glass, and marked with a faint spiral scratched into wax. Her spiral. The sigil she had once carved into her earliest experiments, back when she was foolish enough to think herself a genius child. She had burned that set of vials years ago. None should have survived.

Her chest constricted. She lifted it carefully, nostrils flaring. The faintest trace of frostmint clung to the cork. Not natural mint—her masking agent. The very one she had tested in secret notebooks before she learned that curiosity could kill.

The room tilted around her. Someone had planted this. Not just poison. Her poison.

Ori noticed her silence. “What? What is it?” She peered closer, then gasped, snatching her hands back. “Saints alive. That’s yours.”

“Yes.” Myrren’s throat tightened. “From before.”

“Then we burn it.” Ori darted toward the hearth, but Myrren caught her wrist.

“No.”

“Are you mad? If the guards find that—”

“If we destroy it, we prove guilt.” Her voice was sharp, cold. “Evidence gone is evidence confessed. No one will believe I burned it out of innocence.”

Ori’s eyes filled with panic. “Then what? You’ll keep it sitting pretty until some lord demands your head?”

Myrren’s grip loosened. She hated the fear in Ori’s face. “We need to know who placed it. If I burn it, the trail vanishes. If I keep it…” She trailed off. Her own reasoning felt as fragile as glass.

Ori’s breath shuddered. Then, softer, she whispered, “I’ll stand with you. Even if the noose is waiting.”

A knock shattered the moment. Sharp. Heavy.

The door opened before either could move. Prince Thane entered, Captain Holt at his side.

Thane’s presence filled the chamber as surely as sunlight did. He looked restless, his golden hair tousled as though he had paced half the palace before coming here. “Mistress Vale. Forgive the intrusion. I came to be certain you were safe.”

Safe. Myrren almost laughed.

But Holt’s gaze had already locked on the vial in her hand. His hand fell to his sword. “That does not look like chance.”

Ori made a strangled sound.

Myrren wanted to hide the vial behind her back, but too late—the soldiers in the corridor had seen, whispers hissing down the hall. Accusations sharpened faster than blades.

“She brought her own poisons—”
“It was her formula all along—”
“A traitor sheltered in the palace!”

Thane stepped forward before Holt could speak. His voice rang out, steady and commanding. “Enough.”

The corridor hushed.

He turned, a golden gaze sweeping the onlookers. “If Mistress Vale intended us harm, we would already lie cold upon the floor. She saved lives last night. She names truths none of you dare breathe. Do you think such a woman would skulk with vials in the dark?”

The nobles faltered, whispers curdling into uneasy silence.

Thane’s attention shifted back to her. His hand brushed hers—lightly, reverently—closing her fingers over the vial. “This is no proof of guilt. It is proof of a plot. Someone wants you silenced.”

Her breath tangled. His defense was warmth, sunlight—everything her logic told her to resist. He stood so close she caught his scent: cedar polished with oil, underpinned by exhaustion and fear.

She wanted to believe him. Saints, she wanted to.

But the vial burned cold in her hand.

Another presence stirred in the doorway. Scholar Eryndor Veyl, keeper of archives, slipped inside with quiet steps. His eyes, shadowed and unreadable, lingered on the vial. He murmured almost to himself: “Old formulas return. Some never stay buried. And some kill faster the second time they surface.”

The words sliced through her like frost.

Before she could demand more, he inclined his head and withdrew as silently as he had come, leaving only riddles behind.

Ori muttered, “Cryptic crow.”

But Myrren could not shake the weight of his tone. He had recognized the sigil. Recognized more than he said.

The room emptied slowly. Holt dismissed the curious nobles, muttering threats about swords and silence. Ori busied herself clearing bread from the table, but her hands shook.

Finally, only Thane remained.

“Myrren.” His voice gentled, using her name for the first time. “Do not fear. Whoever seeks to frame you will find themselves trapped instead. I will not see you hanged for another’s crime.”

Her heart stuttered. His vow was sunlight pressed against her shadows. She almost confessed everything—about her past experiments, about the child who had died gasping on honeyroot tonic. Almost.

But the words caught in her throat. To speak to them would shatter what fragile safety he offered.

So she swallowed the confession and whispered, “They’ll use me against you.”

“Then let them try.” His hand lingered at her elbow, steady and warm. His next words came low, dangerous with sincerity: “I would rather fall beside you in truth than stand alone on a throne of lies.”

Her chest ached. He was a prince, but in that moment, he sounded only like a man willing to be ruined for her.

Her lips parted—on the edge of admitting something, anything—when Ori gasped.

Shadows moved under the chamber door. Slow, deliberate footsteps halted outside. A pause, like a predator deciding whether to strike.

Thane’s hand went to his sword.

The knock that followed was not heavy this time. It was soft. Too soft.

The vial on the table glinted in the low light, its spiral mark staring back like a verdict.

If they were baiting her, then someone wanted her hanged—

—or wanted Prince Thane bound to her fate before the noose snapped tight.

And outside her door, danger waited.