The rain had stopped before dawn, leaving the corridors slick with ghosts of sound.
Myrren walked until the scent of him like the storm, the smoke, the impossible quiet and thinned from her skin. Every step back toward the golden wing felt like betrayal underfoot.

The tether pulsed once, faint as a heartbeat swallowed by stone.

Somewhere beyond the inner court, bells marked the first light. Somewhere closer, she felt Thane’s light stirring, warm, searching and too bright. Even through walls and warded air, his fire always found her.

She pressed her palms to the cold marble of the stairwell, willing her own scent to steady, to become only lavender and ash again. The dawn light was unforgiving; it showed what the night tried to hide.

When she reached her chamber door, warmth flickered beneath it, something familiar, golden, and restless.

He was already there.

Thane stood by the hearth, still in his court uniform though his cloak hung undone, as if he had come straight from the throne hall and never slept. Firelight made him look carved from sunrise and ruin.

“Myrren.” Her name left his mouth like a vow and a verdict both.

She froze on the threshold. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I could say the same.” His gaze swept her, from the damp hem of her dress, the faint tremor in her hands, the scent she hadn’t managed to scrub away. Something in his expression shifted, hurt first, then something darker. “You smell of rain.”

“I was outside.”

“No.” His voice softened, dangerously gentle. “Not rain.”

The air thickened. Light flared low around him, golden at first, then cracking white where it touched the shadows of the room. The warmth brushed her cheek, too close to burn, not close enough to comfort.

She took a step back. “Thane..”

“Where were you?”

The question landed like a blade between them.

She tried to keep her tone even. “With the Queen. She sent for me.”

His eyes caught the firelight, bright and  unblinking. “And yet you smell of the lower wing. Of cold stone. Of.. ” He cut himself off, jaw tight. The light at his fingertips flickered like a candle fighting wind.

Her pulse tripped. He feels it. The tether’s ghost must have brushed his Lightbinding like static, like betrayal.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she said, too quietly.

“You do,” he murmured. “Because I feel it. Something shifted.”

She wanted to deny it, to say his magic was reacting to exhaustion, to the sleepless strain of court but he was already closing the space between them.

The light around him trembled, gilding her skin with heat. “You smell of storms,” he said, voice rough. “Whose?”

The silence that followed was unbearable. She could hear only her heartbeat and the faint hum of the tether beneath her skin, answering like a second pulse.

The light at his palm flared once bright enough to make the shadows recoil.

He didn’t release her gaze when the knock came.

“Your Highness?” Holt’s voice, steady as iron. “The Queen requests your presence in the east gallery. The morning audience awaits.”

Thane didn’t look away. “Tell her I’m already here.”

The guard hesitated, then footsteps retreated.

Myrren’s stomach hollowed. The Queen’s summons… she’d known he’d come.

“Thane, you can’t ignore her..”

“She’ll wait.” He moved closer, until the fire’s reflection burned gold in his eyes. “You think I don’t see it? How she uses you to test me? How every whisper that reaches my ear smells of her design?”

His voice dropped, low and rough. “Last night, she spoke of trust. Said loyalty was proved not by crown or blood but by knowing who shares your bed in truth.”

The words hit like a slap. Myrren flinched. “You think I..?”

“I think something touched you that wasn’t mine.”

The room tilted. She tasted iron at the back of her throat his magic saturating the air. Candles bent toward him, wicks curling from the pull.

“Stop,” she whispered. “You’re burning too bright.”

But he couldn’t. The fire wanted a confession.

On the table, a vial lay half-finished: the Queen’s antidote, a frostmint distillate she’d been perfecting since the last poisoning scare. The liquid caught the stray flare from his palm and hissed. Steam coiled, sharp with herbs and acid.

“Myrren.” His hand slammed against the table beside the vial. “Answer me. Were you with him?”

Her breath faltered. “You’re not asking as a prince.”

“No.” His jaw set. “I’m asking as the man who’s watched your light dim every time he breathes near you.”

The accusation burned through her composure. “You think love makes you my keeper?”

“It makes me your shield.”

“It makes you blind!”

For a heartbeat, there was silence, and then the vial cracked, glass splintering under the heat radiating from his Lightbinding.

Frostmint vapor surged up, biting her lungs with cold and sweetness.

He stepped back, horrified, light stuttering. “I didn’t mean..”

But the damage was done. Her sleeve smoked where a drop of boiling tincture had touched. The scent of scorched lavender filled the chamber.

Myrren pressed a cloth to her wrist. “Even your light can poison,” she whispered.

The words hung between them, heavier than any accusation.

Outside, bells tolled the Queen’s morning procession. Servants’ footsteps echoed nearer. Thane’s expression flickered in guilt, then defiance, then that fevered devotion she’d once mistaken for safety.

“You shouldn’t speak that way,” he said hoarsely. “They’ll twist it.”

“They don’t need to,” she murmured. “You already have.”

He caught her wrist before she could turn away. His touch was too hot, too human.

“Tell me,” he whispered, breath ragged. “If I’m wrong, if there’s nothing between you.. then why does the air itself change when you leave me?”

Her heart lurched. The tether pulsed once, answering in silence.

He felt it. She saw the realization strike his face, a prince sensing a power he couldn’t name, only rival.

The fire guttered low again.

“You’ve bound yourself to him, haven’t you?”

Myrren couldn’t breathe.
The words You’ve bound yourself to him hung like smoke, impossible to dispel.
She stepped back, but the wall caught her. Light shimmered over the plaster, fractured and pulsing. His fire was losing control.

“Thane,” she said softly, “listen to yourself.”

“I am listening.” His voice shook with something worse than rage. “I can hear my own fire calling your name and it burns. Saints, it burns like I’ve been branded.”

His hand clenched at his chest. Light seared between his fingers, lines of gold bleeding through his skin. The scent of scorched cedar filled the room.

“Stop it,” she pleaded. “You’re hurting yourself.”

“I don’t care.” He took another step, the air trembling with heat. “Tell me what he did. Tell me what you gave him.”

“Nothing.” The lie tasted like ash.

He reached her, too close, too bright and cupped her jaw, his thumb trembling against her cheek. “You’re lying.”

Her breath caught. She wanted to deny it, to push him away, but the warmth of his touch dragged something aching from her chest. “You don’t own the truth, Thane.”

“No,” he said, almost gently. “But I would burn the world to keep it from him.”

The confession was both vow and threat. His fire surged again, brighter, casting their shadows long across the wall. She felt the heat lick her skin, tender as pain.

Behind his words, a whisper stirred the same one that had haunted her dreams since the Seer’s chamber:

In the spiral of light and shadow,
One shall break,
One shall bind…

Her heart twisted. Not again.

She pressed her palm against his chest, feeling the magic throb under his ribs. “You said your fire was meant to protect,” she whispered. “But look what it’s doing.”

He caught her hand, pressed it harder to his heart. “It’s the only thing keeping you alive.”

“Or the thing that will kill me.”

His eyes flickered with gold fading toward white, fever bright. For a moment, he looked terrified of himself. Then the fear hardened into resolve.

“If you stray,” he said, voice cracking but steady, “I’ll never forgive you.”

The words struck like a brand. Myrren flinched as the fire behind him flared once, an echo of the tether’s pulse, light answering shadow. The scent of burned frostmint filled the air.

He let her go and stepped back, breathing hard, eyes wide as if waking from a vision.

Outside, the Queen’s procession bells fell silent.

Inside, the last candle guttered, leaving only smoke and the faint shimmer of light crawling across the floor like the remnants of a chain neither of them could see.

Myrren stared at the scorch mark his hand had left on the table, spiraled, perfect, glowing faintly gold.