The third council bell rang out like a sentence passed, low and cold across the stones. In the war-chamber above the hall, a firelight licked at a map of Eirden pinned with gold markers and curling ash. Prince Thane stood unmoving, his eyes hollow with sleeplessness, the hem of his cloak still scented faintly with Nightroot smoke, he had not changed since leaving her door. Shadows from the brazier cast spirals across the floor.

“You’ve been awake too long,” Holt muttered, arms crossed, watching Thane trace a border line for the third time.

Thane didn’t answer. His fingers hovered above the grainfields outside Graymere, then clenched into a fist.

“She’s not strong enough for this,” he said at last. “The Queen plans to parade her before the court, shaking, half-fevered and draped in their pity. It’s a sentence before the trial begins.”

Holt’s gaze flicked to the spiraling ash on the floor. “The Queen knows pity doesn’t last. Fear does.”

Thane’s jaw worked. Light kindled faintly at his collarbone, where the magic lived, too faint for a flame, too bright to ignore. It flared in pulses, timed with his breathing. “They’re turning her into a symbol.”

“She already is,” Holt said dryly. “To them, she’s a girl with poisons on her hands and shadows at her heels.”

“Because of him,” Thane snapped. “That shadow-fanged bastard. He bound her somehow. Every time I touch her, it’s like there’s something… resisting.”

“You mean her spine?”

The corner of Thane’s mouth twitched. Then vanished.

Holt stepped forward, voice quieter. “I know what you think you’re doing. Protecting her. Shielding her. But you can’t burn through every chain. Some people don’t want saving. Some people choose the dark.”

“She didn’t choose him.” The light flared brighter now, gold bleeding into the air around his hands. The edge of the map curled at the corners.

“No,” Holt said. “But she didn’t choose you either. Not yet.”

That landed. Thane’s breath hitched. The light guttered to a low, sullen glow.

“She should have told me,” Thane whispered. “About the tether. About the poison dreams. About him.”

“She didn’t know how,” Holt said. “None of us do, when love turns into chains.”

Thane looked up sharply.

Holt met his gaze, even. “You told me once that devotion was your strength. But sometimes… sometimes devotion’s just another kind of poison.”

Outside, the bell tolled again. Thane turned toward the door, expression unreadable, but the light binding his hands shimmered, dimming, then flashing once, gold as flame.

“If she’s mine to protect,” he said quietly, “why does it feel like I’m the one losing her?”

The guards opened the council doors without ceremony.

Myrren stepped in, pale from fever, but upright. Her hair was still damp from the compresses Ori had pressed to her brow, and her hands were steady only because she willed them so. The spiral token pulsed once in her pocket. Then again. Then a third time, slow and deliberate like a heartbeat she didn’t recognize.

Thane turned the moment he saw her, firelight dancing across his jaw, his eyes too bright.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” he said, striding to her side. His voice was low, velvet pulled too tight across steel.

She held his gaze. “I was summoned.”

“I didn’t summon you.” He reached to touch her arm, then hesitated, just long enough for the moment to shift. She saw it in his shoulders, in the twitch of his fingers. He didn’t want to hold her. He wanted to claim her.

“They said the Queen called for me,” she replied, watching the flicker of golden light winding at his wrists.

His hand finally landed, warm and strong on her wrist that she flinched.

Thane stilled. “Did he do something to you?”

“Who?”

“Corven.” The name fell from his mouth like a curse. “I know he’s been near you again. I felt it. Your silence. Your distance. The way your scent changed.. gods, Myrren, you used to smell like crushed rosemary and ink. Now it’s frost and cypress and..”

She pulled back.

“That’s not him,” she said, too fast. “That’s me. That’s what I’ve always been.”

He stepped closer. The spiral token in her pocket pulsed once more, sharp now. Painful.

“You’re not like this,” he said. “He’s altered something. Twisted it. I can feel it.”

Her breath caught. The light at his wrists was no longer warm. It was blinding.

“Thane..”

“I will burn down every shadow in this court to keep you safe.”

His voice didn’t tremble, but something in the room did. The spiral smoke from the brazier curled toward the ceiling, forming the faint shape of an ash spiral. Myrren blinked, and for a heartbeat, she saw rope around her throat, she saw herself swaying in council light.

She gasped.

“What did you see?” Thane demanded, stepping in.

But she couldn’t answer.

Instead, she said, “I’ve heard these words before.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Your vow. I heard it once before. Or I dreamed it. The same light, the same scent of smoke. And your hand…” She looked down. His fingers were still tight around her wrist. The pulse beneath her skin beat faster now, as if it were trying to escape.

“Let go.”

He did, slowly.

Behind them, a torch guttered with a sharp hiss. No wind stirred. And yet, Myrren thought something moved. Something watched.

Across the balcony, high in the dark, Queen Aelira stood silent, her hand resting lightly on the marble. Observing. Measuring.

Myrren turned back to Thane. His expression was still caught between rage and heartbreak. The light had dimmed again, but the damage clung to the air like smoke.

She stepped away.

The corridor outside the council chamber was colder than it should have been.

Myrren moved without speaking, without looking back. Her feet found the shadows out of instinct and out of habit. The spiral token in her pocket had gone still, but her wrist ached where Thane had touched her. Not from pain but from memory.

He’d meant to protect her. She had no doubt.

But devotion, unchecked, was just another kind of possession. And his had burned.

Behind her, she heard Holt’s voice, low but sharp ordering the guards to clear the hall. Papers rustled. Council bells murmured again in their tower cradle. And further down the corridor, a hush fell that didn’t come from silence.

She turned the corner and nearly collided with him.

Thane stood alone now, waiting, the golden edge of his cloak catching light from the wall sconces. His shoulders were squared, but his eyes were rimmed with wear.

“You left,” he said softly.

“You were holding too tight,” she replied. “I couldn’t breathe.”

He didn’t answer. His hand twitched as if it wanted to reach for her again  but didn’t dare.

Instead, he stepped aside to let her pass. She didn’t. Not yet.

Instead, she asked, “Do you remember what you said the night of the fire?”

He blinked. “Which time?”

“That you would burn for me. That you’d set flame to anyone who tried to take me.”

“I meant it.”

“I know,” she said. Her fingers curled around the fabric of her sleeve. “That’s the problem.”

He flinched.

Myrren stepped close, not enough to touch, but enough to feel the heat of his skin. His light was still there, humming beneath his veins. Beautiful. Dangerous.

“I wanted to believe you were my safety,” she said. “My harbor. My light.”

“I am.”

“No.” Her voice was soft. Steady. “You’re a fire. You were always a fire.”

The spiral token pulsed again, once and faint. A flicker at her spine, as if something shifted inside her. A thread loosening.

Thane’s hand came up, barely a breath from her cheek.

“Please,” he said. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to save you.”

She leaned close, just enough to let her breath touch his.

And whispered, “Do you love me… or the spiral you’ve made of me?”

His breath hitched.

A sound cracked the air.

Not loud. Not sharp. Just a soft, hairline snap like something in the wall, or the air between them, had split.

Thane jerked back. The light flared too fast, gold and blinding and for a moment, she couldn’t see his face.

Only the silhouette of the Queen, high on the marble stair behind him, watching with hands folded like folded wings.

Myrren turned and walked away.

The spiral token burned in her pocket like a second heartbeat.