The palace library was not silent.

It breathed. The hush inside was thick as velvet, muffling every step until even her heartbeat felt like an intrusion. Dust motes drifted through the air, suspended in shafts of candlelight that slanted from iron sconces along the walls. The scent was heavy: lavender sachets strung between shelves, beeswax rubbed into floors, parchment so old it carried the tang of mold.

Myrren closed the doors behind her and inhaled slowly. For a moment she let herself believe she had escaped—escaped the perfume-thick banquets, the jeweled sneers, even the echo of Thane’s kiss.

The kiss still lingered on her lips. Golden, steady, full of promise she had not meant to want. He had kissed her as though she were not a pawn in court games, but a woman he chose beneath the stars.

And yet, here, that memory felt fragile. Sunlight did not live in shadows.

Her gaze traced the shelves that rose higher than any she had ever seen. Thousands of books pressed close together, spines cracked, titles fading. She thought of the narrow stall in her childhood home, the scraps of anatomy scrolls she had copied by candlelight. Then, knowledge had been her rebellion. Now, standing in the library of kings, knowledge felt corrupted—hoarded, weaponized, poisoned.

Her fingers brushed across a brittle scroll. Ink bled faintly green at its edges. She lifted it, sniffed, and caught the sharp bite. Wormwood ink. Rare, volatile, never used for simple transcriptions. No one wasted such ink unless they meant to hide something dangerous inside the words.

The back of her neck prickled. This library was not a sanctuary. It was a trap disguised as memory.

“Myrren Vale.”

The voice struck from behind like the slamming of a gate.

She stiffened. The scent came next—steel, cypress, silence. A familiar absence that chilled more than presence.

She turned.

Lord Corven stood between the shelves. He belonged to the shadows, not the light, and yet the light seemed to bend around him, hesitant to touch. His raven-dark hair caught no glow, his storm-colored eyes unreadable.

“You should not be here,” he said, his voice calm, low, inevitable.

Her chin lifted. “This is the royal archive. Not your crypt.”

The faintest shift touched his mouth, something between mockery and interest. “Crypts are safer.”

The scroll crackled in her hand. “Should I take that as a threat?”

“As truth.”

She hated his voice. Not its sound, but the certainty in it—like a judge handing down verdicts he already knew she would not escape.

“Then perhaps,” she said tightly, “you should stop haunting me in corridors and libraries if you fear I’ll stumble into danger.”

He tilted his head, watching her as though she were a puzzle only he could solve. “You think I fear for you?”

Her pulse betrayed her, fluttering too fast. “You appear at every turn with warnings. If not fear, then what?”

“Necessity.”

He stepped forward. Shadows stirred at his feet, curling like dogs at command. The air shifted with them, cool and damp. They reached her before he did.

Something brushed her wrist.

Her breath caught. It was weightless, no more than silk against skin, and yet the sensation pulsed as though it were real. Cold, yes—but threaded with something that made her stomach tighten. Her body reacted before her mind could reject it, her pulse racing with a recognition she could not name.

She snatched her hand back.

Corven stilled, eyes on her, as though the recoil had told him more than any confession.

A sound broke the taut air: the scrape of wood against stone.

Serenya.

She moved at the far end of the aisle, stacking tomes with precise, noiseless movements. Pale hair shimmered in the lamplight, her eyes as clear and cutting as glass. She never looked at them, but Myrren felt her attention, sharp and cold, like the press of a blade against the throat.

“You keep strange company,” Myrren murmured, unsettled by the stillness.

“Serenya is loyal.” Corven’s voice carried no warmth.

Loyal to him. Not the truth. Not to her.

“Does she guard you,” Myrren asked, “or watch me?”

“Both.”

The certainty stung sharper than denial. Myrren clenched the scroll until her knuckles whitened.

“You see enemies everywhere,” she accused.

“And you,” he said, his gaze unwavering, “see too few. Already half the court eats behind food tasters. Servants collapse of fevers that touch no master. Banquets are whispered of as funerals are waiting. And still you walk as if courage is armor.”

Her chest tightened. “I was summoned.”

“So was I.” His hand hovered, close but not touching. Shadows brushed her wrist again, softer this time, and she hated—hated—that her skin seemed to seek it. The contrast burned: Thane’s warmth beneath stars, Corven’s cold tether here in shadow. One promised devotion. The other promised ruin.

“You cannot frighten me away.”

“I do not waste time on fear.” His voice dropped lower. “I waste less on hope.”

Her throat ached. She reached for the name that steadied her. “Prince Thane—”

“—cannot protect you.”

The words sliced between them, final as iron bars. Shadows stirred restlessly, coiling like chains.

Her heart pounded. “You will not speak of him.”

“Why not?” His tone was soft, almost coaxing. “Because you fear the words, or the truth beneath them?”

Her cheeks burned. “Prince Thane is nothing like you.”

For the first time, his stillness cracked. Not with anger, but with weariness. A sorrow deep enough to hollow the words. “No,” he said. “He is not.”

The words settled into her like lead. She turned sharply, sliding the scroll back onto its shelf. “If you came only to frighten me, Lord Corven, then you have wasted both our time.”

He did not move. But his voice followed, steady and low. “I came to warn you. The path you walk is not survival. It is a chain. One you will not break easily.”

Her fingers faltered against the leather spine. She forced them steady.

When she turned, he was gone.

Only Serenya remained. She slipped a final book into place, then turned her head. Her eyes caught the light like shards of ice. No words. No sound. Only that cutting glance—enough to leave Myrren shaken.

Then Serenya, too, was gone.

The hush closed in. Dust motes drifted lazily through air that seemed suddenly heavier. The wormwood ink still clung in her nose, sharp and bitter, a reminder that even knowledge could carry poison.

Myrren lifted her wrist and pressed it with her own fingertips, as though to prove she had imagined the shadow’s touch. But the tingling lingered. Cold. Unshakable. A memory burned into her skin.

And when she turned away, she could still feel shadows brushing her wrist like a phantom chain.