Chapter 22
The door hadn't even closed behind me before I heard the shatter of glass.
Good. Let him rage. Let him break every bottle in this damned palace if it meant he'd stop looking at me like I'd carved out his heart and handed it back to him still beating.
Arl fell into step beside me, his boots silent on the marble. "That went well."
I shot him a glare.
He shrugged. "At least he didn't set anything on fire. Last time you argued, he burned down an entire—"
"Not now, Arl."
The halls of this Palace were too bright, too open—all gilded arches and windows that spilled honeyed light across the floor. No shadows to hide in. No room to breathe.
And worse, no time.
The sister returns soon.
I didn't know her, not really. The Aurora of this time had written about her in scattered journal entries— A the viper in velvet. Smiles like a saint, strikes like a scorpion. But the Aurora from my future? She'd never mentioned her at all.
Which meant one of two things: either the sister was irrelevant to the wars to come… or she'd died before they began.
"You're thinking too loud," Arl muttered.
"And you're hovering."
"Because you're about to walk into a council meeting and tell a king you're breaking a betrothal his entire court has been planning for years." He grabbed my arm, steering me into an alcove. "Are you trying to get us both executed?"
I wrenched free. "I'm trying to survive. You read the same texts I did. The alliance with his kingdom fails. Our people die. If marrying his sister instead buys us even a year—"
"Or it starts the war early." His voice dropped. "You heard what he said. If you push him away, he'll burn us."
A chill skittered down my spine. I heard him. I'd also heard the way his breath caught when I walked out—like a man drowning.
But the future was a blade hanging over my throat. I had no room for mercy.
"Then we'd better make sure he never finds out the truth," I said.
Arl went pale. "You can't mean—"
"That I'm not the real Aurora?" A humorless smile. "No. But there are other secrets to bury."
The bells rang. Time.
I straightened my sleeves, the fabric heavy with embroidered lies. "Come on. Let's go lie to a king."
The throne room smelled of incense and iron.
I noted the scent the moment the doors groaned open—thick as a burial shroud, clinging to the back of my throat. Incense to mask the rot. Iron to remind us all that blood had built this kingdom.
Yessies father sat slouched where I had left him, fingers steepled, watching me approach like a vulture eyeing carrion. His crown was a jagged thing, wrought to resemble flames. Fitting. The man had burned his way to power.
"Ah. The runaway bride." His voice rasped like a blade dragged over stone. "Come to beg forgiveness?"
I didn't kneel.
A murmur slithered through the courtiers. Arl, standing rigid at my side, sucked in a breath.
"I've come," I said, "to propose a better alliance."
The king's brows lifted. Behind him, the stained-glass window cast fractured light across the floor—a mosaic of a phoenix, its wings outstretched in warning.
"Better?" He leaned forward. "Than a union with my heir?"
"Than a union built on forgotten vows." I held his gaze. "Your son doesn't remember me. Doesn't trust me. And a king who can't trust his queen is a king already doomed."
A lie. The prince remembered enough to hate me for leaving.
The king's knuckles whitened around the armrests. "Then you suggest—?"
"Lyr."
The name dropped like a stone.
Silence. Then—laughter.
It came from the shadows behind the throne—a sound like shattering crystal. A woman stepped into the light, her gown the color of a fresh bruise, her lips curved in a smile that didn't touch her eyes.
"Oh, please," said Lyr, "tell me you're joking."
Up close, the resemblance to her brother was uncanny—same sharp cheekbones, same golden eyes. But where his stare burned, hers pierced.
I forced my voice steady. "I hear you've a talent for diplomacy."
"And you've a talent for betrayal." She circled me, her perfume cloying—night-blooming jasmine, undercut with something metallic. "First you abandon my the brother at the altar. Now you offer him my hand like a consolation prize?"
Arl shifted, his hand drifting toward the dagger at his hip.
Lyr noticed. Her smile widened. "Careful, little guard. Kings have died for less."
The king cleared his throat. "Enough." He studied me, his gaze weighing, measuring. "You'd truly bind yourself to Lyr instead?"
No. But the future demanded it.
"Yes."
Lyr's laugh died. Her eyes flickered—something unreadable flashing in their depths.
The king stood. "Then we'll discuss terms. But know this, girl—" He descended the dais, his shadow swallowing me whole. "Break this vow, and I'll peel the skin from your bones myself."
A shiver crawled down my spine.
Behind him, Lyr mouthed two words:
"Welcome home."
"One more thing...Yessie must marry my sister."
The enitire court gasped in anger.