Page 94

KIERAN

The letter trembles against parchment like a blade poised to carve my own execution.

Formal renunciation of my inheritance, written in desperate hope that removing my political value might somehow derail my father’s plans. The ink gleams wet and black, waiting for me to commit treason with elegant penmanship.

But as my fingers close around the quill, something claws up my throat—not words but instinct, primal as breathing. My hand spasms. The movement sends frost spiraling across the desk in defensive patterns I learned before I could speak.

This tastes wrong. Reeks of trap disguised as escape.

Father’s lessons bleed through muscle memory: “The most dangerous snare is the one that feels like freedom.” Three centuries of surviving his games, and my body screams danger in a language older than consciousness.

My spine liquefies, vertebrae dissolving into arctic fire that burns without heat.

“Whispen,” I call to the chaotic spirit hovering near the ceiling, voice rough with growing dread. “If a prince were to renounce his inheritance during a political crisis, what would that accomplish?”

“Oh! Such a delicious question!” He spins with manic enthusiasm that sends golden sparks cascading through the air. “Renunciation creates the most wonderful vulnerabilities! Political isolation, complete dependence on external protection!”

Something snarls behind my sternum—rage trapped in a ribcage too small to contain it. “And who typically offers that protection?”

“The very people who benefit most from the prince’s desperate gratitude! Usually the same clever individuals who arranged the crisis in the first place!” His grin widens impossibly, needle teeth gleaming like promises of pain. “Create the problem, provide the solution, own the asset forever!”

Understanding detonates through my nervous system. The Spear erupts against my ribs, ancient metal screaming recognition of a trap three centuries in the making. Frost explodes across the archive floor in jagged spirals—territorial markings carved by betrayal too deep for words.

My father isn’t trying to prevent my renunciation.

He’s counting on it.

The archive door exhales open without sound. Air thickens like honey, charged with the scent of winter storms and absolute authority. Shadows pool at his feet like spilled wine eager to serve. Every surface in the room dims by degrees—not darkness falling, but light retreating in submission.

My father steps through the threshold, and reality bends around his presence. No dramatic entrance needed when you own the air itself.

He surveys the unsigned renunciation with satisfaction that makes bile climb my throat, corrosive with the taste of my own stupidity.

“My son.” His voice carries the same gentle warmth I remember from childhood lessons about power and its proper application—the tone he used while teaching me to survive by becoming exactly what he needed. “I see you’ve been busy.”

His gaze caresses the parchment like a lover’s touch, and something that might be pride flickers across features carved from ice and shadow.

“Father.” I don’t rise. Don’t show proper deference. Neither of us maps exits—we both know exactly where the real dangers lie, and they’re standing in this room wearing familiar faces.

“Such a dramatic gesture,” he continues, moving deeper into the archive. Frost retreats from his footsteps like beaten animals seeking shelter. “Public renunciation of your inheritance. Very passionate. Very... predictable.”

The word brands through skin, muscle, bone—molten metal rewriting my understanding with truth too sharp to survive.

“You wanted me to write it,” I say, each syllable carved from certainty that tastes like blood.

“Wanted? Oh, my dear boy, I was counting on it.” His smile widens to reveal teeth that gleam like fresh bone, predatory satisfaction radiating from every pore.

“Desperate love makes people so beautifully choreographed. You’ve spent the past six hours performing exactly as I knew you would the moment you realized what tonight’s trial would cost.”

Frost erupts across every surface, geometric patterns spelling out my emotional devastation in ancient script I never learned to read. The temperature plummets until my breath mists with each word, but the cold burning through my veins has nothing to do with magic.

“The renunciation isn’t rebellion,” I breathe, understanding settling into my stomach like swallowed glass. “It’s playing directly into your hands.”

“Precisely.” He settles into a chair like he’s holding court in his own throne room, shadows writhing around him in patterns that mirror my growing horror.

“When she chooses the Unseelie Court to save her life, when the debt magic binds her to our service, you’ll be her only ally.

Her only source of comfort in a very cold and unfamiliar world. ”

“Because I’ll be just as trapped as she is.”

“Because you’ll be grateful.” His ice-blue eyes—so much like mine—hold satisfaction that sends arctic fire clawing up my throat. “Two lost souls finding solace in each other, both completely dependent on my continued goodwill for survival.”

The Spear brands through shirt, skin, sternum—ancient weapon recognizing the moment when protection becomes possession, when love becomes chains. Heat radiates outward until sweat breaks across my forehead despite air cold enough to shatter.

“She’ll hate me for it,” I whisper, the admission tearing from my throat like confession, like prayer, like the first honest thing I’ve spoken in years. “Getting her through magical compulsion rather than choice.”

“Initially, perhaps.” He waves one hand dismissively, frost following the gesture in elegant spirals. “But desperation has a way of softening even the most stubborn hearts. And you, my son, will be very dedicated to earning her forgiveness.”

“You’re destroying everything we could have been.”

“I’m ensuring you’ll have something to be.” His voice carries the flat certainty of someone who’s spent centuries perfecting psychological destruction disguised as strategy. “Love built on mutual choice is fragile, unpredictable. Love built on mutual need? That endures.”

“That’s not love,” Finnian snarls from his position among ruined books, Crown pulsing with golden fury that makes the air itself vibrate with rage. “That’s elaborate psychological torture.”

“It’s practical,” my father corrects with scholarly precision that makes me want to strangle him with my bare hands.

“The Wild Court heir needs powerful allies to survive what’s coming.

My son needs purpose beyond the crown he never wanted.

I’m simply... facilitating a mutually beneficial arrangement. ”

“By removing our ability to choose it freely.”

“Choice is a luxury for people who have time to make mistakes.” He stands. “The political landscape is changing, children. Powers are shifting. In such times, survival requires decisive action rather than romantic idealism.”

Through whatever fragile connection I’ve forged with Ash, I sense another pulse of her emotional state. Still that unsettling calm. Still that sense of someone who’s prepared rather than terrified.

And for the first time, a terrible thought claws through the devastation.

What if she knows exactly what he’s planning?

What if her calm isn’t acceptance...

What if it’s anticipation?

“You look troubled, my son,” my father observes, attention sharpening like a blade finding its target.

“Just wondering if you’ve considered all the variables,” I say slowly, shadows coiling tighter as suspicion crystallizes into something approaching hope—dangerous, desperate hope that tastes like rebellion.

His smile falters by degrees, perfect composure developing hairline cracks. “Meaning?”

“Meaning Ash isn’t exactly what you’d call.

.. predictable.” I let my gaze meet his with steady composure, ice spreading from my feet in patterns that claim territory, that mark boundaries he’s spent decades teaching me never to cross.

“She’s survived three years of systematic poisoning, infiltrated an Academy designed to expose her, and bonded with three of the most dangerous men in the Fae realm. ”

“Your point?”

“My point is that assuming she’ll react like a typical political prisoner might be... optimistic.”

For the first time since entering the archive, something shifts in his expression—uncertainty, barely perceptible, but I’ve studied his micro-expressions for three centuries of learning to survive his moods.

“The trial parameters are absolute,” he says with slightly less confidence, shadows retreating fractionally from his presence. “Solo manifestation, life debt activation, binding through magical compulsion. There are no variables to consider.”

“Aren’t there?” I step closer, frost advancing with each movement like an army claiming ground. “Because the woman I’ve come to know doesn’t accept impossible situations. She finds ways to win even when winning shouldn’t be possible.”

“You’re grasping at hope that doesn’t exist.”

“Am I?” I let my smile turn sharp enough to cut glass, shadows writhing around me with violence that makes the air itself recoil. “Or are you about to discover that trapping someone who’s spent her entire life turning disadvantages into weapons might not be as simple as you think?”

The silence that follows tastes like barely contained violence. My father’s ice-blue eyes narrow as he studies my face with focused attention, and for the first time, I watch frost crack across his perfect composure.

“What do you know?” he asks quietly, voice dropping to something intimate and lethal.

“Nothing,” I admit with complete honesty. “But I’ve learned to trust her judgment even when I don’t understand it. And right now, she feels like someone who’s exactly where she wants to be.”

“That’s impossible.”