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Atrunk snaps shut, and I startle, glowering at the servants dashing around my room. I’m not sure I can still call it mine with upturned cupboards, scattered clothes and attentive guards. Half a dozen chests have been moved out, but the only things I would call mine have been discarded.

I stiffen when Rev picks up one of two swords resting against the desk. His fingers run over the blade I’ve sharpened and polished countless times. He throws it up in the air and catches it with the other hand, and I’m ready to march over and snatch it away, but I pull the sleeves of my kaftan down and stand still. Even when he twirls the blade and sends a beam of sunlight into my eyes.

“Why does my father think I’m in need of protection?”

Rev’s lips pull into a smirk, and he sheaths my sword with a loud click. “Who said anything about protection?”

A dozen questions are on the tip of my tongue, but anything I have to say gets silenced by my mother’s glare. Yet she doesn’t say a word. Not when she knows my presence in the palace will be ending in mere hours. She clicks her fingers and motions at my kaftan, not to anyone in particular, but a servant dashes to a closet so large it takes up most part of the wall. She pulls a kaftan from the depth of a shelf, and I have to stiffen a groan. Of a deeper shade, but it’s still gauzy green with emerald buttons running from the collar down to the hem.

“Get her into that already,” my mother says, her voice a command but no longer as assertive as when she was the most important person in the room.

The guards don’t even have the decency to allow me to change without their sharp gazes surveying the proceeding, but they make a point of looking at anything but me as servants rush to make the last preparations while I stand shivering in a underdress of pale green lace. One girl rubs the blood off my skin with a wet rag until it’s so red and stinging she might have left it there and no one would have noticed the difference. Another servant works on the emeralds of the kaftan. It takes her an eternity to clasp the five sitting above my collarbone. No sooner than she starts on the next that my attention drifts to the questions circling my mind.

The betrothal is a part of a bigger game. I’m just a pawn moved around by men with more power than I could ever have. I’m nothing but a reward for a governor who was dealt good cards and managed to cheat the emperor out of his jewel. I know nothing of the ploy unraveling with my betrothal, except for one thing. Magnar has high stakes in this game. After all, his personal guard—the one who has gained what little trust the emperor has to offer—is here to make sure I leave the palace with my betrothed.

A servant brings me back into the real world as she pushes another emerald pin to smooth down a rebellious lock that has escaped my braid, scratching my skin in the process. She cowers under my glare, and, for once, I can’t gather any remorse to even mouth an apology.

As another trunk snaps shut, Rev finally drops the sword.

“Princess,” he says, offering me a mocking bow.

“I thought you were here just to violate my privacy,” I slide my arm through his, “but you’ll be around long enough to oversee my departure.”

The smile that splits Rev’s lips erases what little twinkle there was in the darkness of his eyes. “I’ll be there until the very end.”

The guards click their heels together and, like tightly wound-up automatons, march to enclose us in a circle. Their armor clanks and jangles as we cross the palace without a word uttered. There are no longer any frivolous flirtations. Not while I walk toward the life of torment awaiting me.

A door bursts open, and Tylea appears on the other side. In a kaftan of flowing scarlet, she has her own escort of guards as accessories. I curse my luck when I notice Siro’s scornful glare.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” I say as soon as the wall of guards parts and Tylea joins my side.

Her eyes trail over my arm, hooked into Rev’s before snapping up to meet mine.

“Neither did I,” she answers, deciding not to bring up my closeness to Magnar’s personal guard. Until we are alone, at least. “It is so irritating to find your own rooms being turned upside down by servants after such a long day,” she adds with a sigh. “I can’t say I don’t find it most convenient, though.” I arch a brow, and she smiles. “Who will keep you out of trouble until you settle in, if not your favorite sister?”

I let her chirp about the trip as my insides churn with anticipation. With each step we make, we draw closer to the walls of stone and metal, wards and soldiers. Beyond, the empire spreads into the desert that knows no bounds.

No matter how unwelcoming, I’ve always wanted to tread through its shifting trails, to uncover all of the secrets buried deep under the sand, to dive into a life of adventure, but it’s not the path Evanae has charted for me in her endless cycle.

The guards come to a halt, and I would have run into Siro’s back if not for Rev stopping me with a gentle tug. The silence falls over us like a heavy blanket. Even Tylea quietens at my side, observing the high doors of metal and gears rising to the arched ceiling of colorful mosaic. The mechanisms look so complex, I can’t see how one could remember which lever to pull in which order.

“How long?” Rev asks.

The captain guarding the entrance to the palace doesn’t answer, but only nods at the corridor with his bearded chin. We all turn the way we came when a jangle of metal breaks the silence. The rattle grows louder until it’s the only sound bouncing off the walls.

Rev tilts his head, searching the vast corridors for the source of the noise, and pats my hand where my fingers have latched to the cuff of his shirt. I force my fingers to uncurl from the fabric just in time for the first guard to appear.

Dressed in a uniform a shade lighter than the midnight black, the only color is the green sash on his arm. Wrapped a few times around his hand and dragging loudly over the ground, a thick chain of glimmering metal winds its way up to a collar and spreads in a net to five other guards holding the other ends. Covered in rags and dragging her feet, a woman stumbles and falls to her knees. The captain pulls on the chain, hefting the prisoner back to her feet. Bruised and smeared with blood, another wound splits open where the metal of the collar digs into the bare skin of her neck.

Maker’s breath, stop torturing her. I don’t dare to utter the words, not with Rev still patting my hand as if I might lose my wits, run away, or both.

The soldiers come to a halt with the door rising an arm's length away from the woman.

The captain turns toward the prisoner. “Spears.”

Without dropping the chains, the guards click their heels together and bring forth spears, resting the shafts on their forearms. The blades hover less than an inch away from the already scarred skin of her neck.