The moon hung like a polished blade over Frostspire, its light slicing through the castle's icy ramparts. Aurelia von Einsbern stood on the balcony, her fingers clenched around the frost-crusted railing. Below, the Shattered Pass yawned like a wound in the mountainside. Ice prickled at her fingertips, spreading delicate fractals across the stone, as if the cold could freeze the memory of her father's words: "The Count of Blackmoor's son will secure our southern flank. You will honor this."
Footsteps whispered behind her. Lyrielle emerged, her shawl glowing faintly with embedded healing runes. The scent of moonweaver blooms—Arutoria's favored gift—drifted from her sleeves. "You've been quiet since dinner," she said, leaning against the balustrade. The warmth in her voice felt foreign here, where even the wind carried Leofric's expectations.
Aurelia didn't turn. "What is there to say? Duty is duty."
Lyrielle's hand hovered, then withdrew. "Duty need not be a prison. You could—"
"Could what?" Aurelia's ice flared, encasing the railing. "Beg Father for mercy? Plead for a suitor who values more than my lineage?" Her laugh was brittle. "You of all people know he trades in soldiers, not sentiment."
Lyrielle's gaze softened. "You sound like William."
Aurelia stiffened. William. The brother who'd returned from the abyss with power that bent the world to his will, who answered to no one, not even Leofric. The brother she envied and resented in equal measure.
"At least William chooses his chains," she said bitterly.
Lyrielle's breath fogged the air. "And you? What do you choose?"
For a moment, the question hung between them, sharp and unanswerable. Then Aurelia straightened, ice shedding from her hands like shattered armor. "I choose to survive. As we all do."
She left Lyrielle in the moonlight, her footsteps echoing through corridors lined with ancestral tapestries—frozen wolves howling at a storm they could never outrun.
The training grounds lay silent under a starless sky, the air still humming with the ozone tang of William's lightning. A raven landed on a scorched practice dummy, its beak clacking as it dropped a sealed letter into his palm. The wax bore the Blackmoor crest: a stag pierced by a dagger.
"So the Count of Blackmoor has decided to side with Garios," William thought, his eyes skimming the elegant script. The letter was from the count's eldest son—Aurelia's reluctant suitor and, unbeknownst to all, William's most valuable spy.
Father grows impatient. He plans to pledge our forces to Lonalion after your Proving. Aurelia's hand is the seal. You promised me the county. Honor it.
William's mouth twitched. The boy was desperate, his ambition thinly veiled as loyalty. Good. Desperation made for malleable allies.
A spark leapt from his fingertips, igniting the parchment. He watched the stag emblem curl to ash. "Patience," he murmured, though the raven had already taken flight.
Aurelia's marriage was a noose tightening around House von Einsbern's throat—one William intended to cut. Let the count pledge to Garios. Let him send his armies. By the time the Lonalion banners reach Frostspire, the son would be count, the southern flank secured, and Aurelia… free.
Rowena jolted awake, her sketchbook sliding to the floor as spirits swarmed her bedchamber—translucent, panicked things with voices like wind through cracks. "He plans to kill the Count of Blackmoor," they hissed, their forms flickering with the memory of ash and burning parchment.
She clutched her blankets, their whispers drilling into her skull. William? The brother who'd returned from the mountains with storms in his veins, who collected trinkets like apologies for sins he wouldn't name. Kill the count? Her familiars coiled around her wrists, trembling.
"Why tell me?" she whispered.
The spirits wailed, dissolving into motes of light. "You are kind. You are weak. You will not act."
Rowena stared at the empty air, her chest tight. If she told Leofric, William would be branded a traitor. If she stayed silent, blood would stain Frostspire's snow. She opened her sketchbook to a half-finished drawing of William—lightning arcing from his fingertips, eyes hollow as the night he'd returned.
She shut it with a snap. Some secrets are too heavy to share.
William found Arthur Duskborn in the castle's undercroft, the stone knight hunched over a workbench, chiseling a rose from obsidian. The air smelled of crushed herbs and damp earth.
"You're late," Arthur said, not looking up. "I'd have thought the Late Knight valued punctuality."
William leaned against the wall, shadows pooling at his feet. "The count's son needs leverage. Proof his father's death was caused by Garios."
Arthur's chisel stilled. "And you want me to…?"
"Plant it. Your mother's diplomats visit Verdantreach next week. Slip this into Garios' study." William tossed him a forged letter—Garios' seal, a promise to betray Blackmoor after the Proving.
Arthur turned the parchment over, his jaw tightening. "And Aurelia?"
"She'll never wed him. The count's son will rule, and your stone roses might finally catch her eye."
The obsidian rose cracked under Arthur's grip. "You're cruel to dangle that."
"Cruelty's a luxury I can't afford." William turned to leave, lightning crackling in his wake. "But gratitude? That I can promise."