I nearly drop the locket. For a moment, the room around me fades, and I'm left with only the steady, impossible rhythm pulsing against my skin. A heartbeat. My mind stumbles, rejecting it. This isn't real. It can't be. I press my thumb harder against the metal, waiting for the sensation to vanish like a trick of memory or a cruel illusion.
But it doesn't stop. Beat after beat, steady as my own pulse. Rhys. He's alive. After all these years, after everyone insisted he was dead after they told me to let go, to move on… he's out there, somewhere.
I force a small, brittle laugh, trying to hide the storm brewing in my chest. "This feels good."
The locket's weight pulls me back, back to a night that feels more like a dream than a memory. A night when Rhys and I were young and reckless when we believed the world held nothing we couldn't conquer.
We'd been twelve, the night we snuck out to see the circus. The traveling show had set up just outside the city walls, its tents and fire-lit torches visible from my bedroom window. Rhys and I were forbidden to go, of course. It was "unseemly" for children of nobility to mingle with commoners, and my mother had made her disdain for the spectacle painfully clear.
But Rhys and I… we'd always had a way of finding trouble.
I remember how he helped me climb out my window, his hand steadying mine, his smile so full of mischief that I couldn't help but grin back.
Together, we crept through the shadows, darting from alley to alley, until we reached the makeshift encampment. The circus was like nothing I'd ever seen—a riot of color and sound, with firebreathers, acrobats, and dancers whirling through the dark. The air was thick with the smell of roasted chestnuts and smoke, and everything felt wild and alive.
But it wasn't the acrobats or the fire-breathers that captured our attention. It was the fortune-teller's tent, a shabby little structure at the edge of the camp, marked only by a single lantern flickering by the entrance.
Rhys grabbed my hand, pulling me toward it. "Come on," he whispered, eyes shining. "It's a mystic. You've never seen one, right?"
The tent was dimly lit, smoky, and smelled of incense that stung my eyes. At a small table draped in worn velvet sat the fortune-teller—a woman with dark eyes that seemed to gleam in the half-light. Her hair was wrapped in a faded scarf, and her fingers were adorned with rings that glinted as she shuffled a deck of worn cards.
"You are not of this place," she'd said as we stepped in, her voice low and raspy. "Not of this world, not yet."
We shared a look, half-amused, half-intrigued. "What does that mean?" Rhys asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
The woman looked at us, her gaze lingering on me, then on Rhys. "It means," she murmured, "that you walk paths others fear to tread. But tread them, you will. Together and apart."
Rhys, ever the skeptic, raised an eyebrow. "Does that mean we'll be powerful?" he asked, his tone half-joking. "Like… rulers?"
She didn't smile. Instead, she reached beneath her table, her movements slow and deliberate, and brought out two small silver lockets. She placed them on the table, one in front of each of us. "These will bind you," she said, her eyes glinting. "They will know your hearts, no matter how far you stray from one another. And they will carry the pulse of the future you cannot avoid."
Rhys picked up his locket, turning it over in his hands, frowning. "What does that mean?"
"It means," she said, her voice dark and ominous, "that you both have terrible fates ahead of you. But you will be powerful. More powerful than you can imagine. Enough to tear down the world… or save it." She continues. "In the process, you'll need each other's hearts"
I felt a chill run down my spine, but Rhys just laughed. "Sounds dramatic," he said, trying to make light of it. But he clutched the locket all the same as if he could already feel its weight.
The fortune-teller leaned forward, her eyes piercing into mine. "Remember this night, young Rosé," she said, using my name in a way that made the hair on my neck stand on end. "Remember this bond you share with your brother. It will bring you both strength… and sorrow."
We left the tent in silence, the weight of her words pressing down on us. Rhys and I didn't speak of it afterward, but we both wore the lockets, kept them close, and sometimes when we were far apart, I'd press my fingers to mine and feel a faint, steady heartbeat. His heartbeat. A reminder that, no matter what paths we walked, we were bound by more than blood.
Until the day he vanished, and I tore through everything, desperate to feel his heartbeat one more time.
Now, years later, I hold the locket again, feeling the impossible pulse beneath my fingers, and it's as if a missing piece of myself has been returned.
"Rosé?" Xavier's voice pulls me back, and I realize I'm clutching the locket so hard it's digging into my palm. Christina's sharp gaze is on me, assessing me, but I force myself to stay calm.
"It's nothing," I say, slipping the locket into my pocket. My hand presses over it, steadying the wild beat of my heart. Rhys is alive. I always knew it.
Christina's eyes narrow, but for once, she doesn't push. She tilts her head and sets her teacup down with a loud clink.
"Speak," she says, her voice sharp. "What is it?"
"It's just similar to one I used to have," I lie, struggling to keep my face neutral. Xavier seems convinced, but Christina gives me a long, measuring look, like she's trying to read the truth off my face.
"Oh," she says finally, either believing me or deciding to let it go—for now. She turns back to the newspaper, a smirk tugging at her lips. "Well, whatever it is, don't get too sentimental, darling. Sentimentality is unbecoming."
"I'm hardly sentimental."
I can foresee her choking on that damned tea, after hearing the news of her lover's beating heart.
"And I'll be away for this summer too," I announce, my tone deliberately light. I put the locket deep in my pockets.
"Oh! Where are you even going?" I hear protesting when I turn and stride out of the room, my heart pounding, the weight of the locket pressing against my leg with every step. I move quickly, ignoring the opulence around me—the crimson carpets, the chandeliers hanging from vaulted ceilings, the marble statues of long-dead nobles staring down with empty eyes. All I can think about is Rhys. And finding him.
I reach Xaden's office and pause, hearing voices raised on the other side of the door. The muffled argument filters through, words sharp and tense.
"You can't send a flower into a wolves' den!" A voice rings out, rough and incredulous. "At least have the decency to justify it!"
"Clearly wolves aren't herbivores waiting to devour a flower," Xaden replies, his tone as cold and cutting as steel.
I push the door open and step inside, my presence startling them both into silence. Xaden turns to me, surprise flashing across his face before he schools his expression into indifference. But the sardonic smile stays, clearly annoyed by my interruption.
"Some flowers hunt, Sir Gillion," I say to the officer and walk right up to Xaden's desk, but instead of stopping a respectful distance away, I lean over it, invading his personal space. My face is inches from his, my gaze steady and challenging.
"I'll do it," I say, my voice low and dangerous, almost a whisper. "But let's get one thing straight, my play, my rules and my way. Are we clear?"
I watch as he instinctively shifts back in his seat, just a fraction—enough for me to know I've made him uncomfortable. My gaze lingers on him for a beat longer, then I straighten.
"And if you can't handle that… find someone else."
There's a charged silence as Xaden stares up at me. "Diego," He says with unwavering eyes. "Tea... no, something strong, for Lady Emberthorn,"