The air in the throne room was thick.
I stood at the center of the storm, my borrowed crown too heavy, my stolen heart beating a traitor's rhythm against my ribs. Every pair of eyes burned into me—accusing, grieving, hating.
Then Yassie entered.
The moment the doors groaned open, the room seemed to collapse inward.
His footsteps echoed like funeral drums. His eyes—God, his eyes—were raw and red-rimmed, the skin beneath them bruised purple from sleepless nights. He moved like a man already in his coffin, his once-proud shoulders bowed under the weight of my betrayal.
His brother stood like a specter at his side, he had dragon blood…
I'd considered him—considered using him—as if any of this could be solved by trading one broken man for another.
Yssies fathers smile was a knife. "Ah. The runaway queen returns. Have you come to twist the blade deeper?"
My tongue felt like ash.
Yassie didn't look at me. Not once.
"Do you accept Queen Aurora's terms?" the king demanded.
Silence.
Then—
"Whatever my king commands."
His voice was hollow. Dead. The sound of a man who'd already buried his own heart.
The king's grin widened. "Even after you swore to poison any who took her hand?"
I flinched.
Yassie finally lifted his head. The look he gave his father shattered something in my chest. "She's taken enough poison from me already."
The words landed like a death sentence.
I wanted to scream. To fall to my knees and beg forgiveness. But Aurora's heart beat steady in my chest—her heart, her will, cold and resolute where I was crumbling.
When Yassie stepped forward to lay his sword at the throne, the steel shrieked against marble like a dying thing.
"I will wed the queen's sister."
"You would truly—?"
"I would see her happy." His voice broke. "Even if it destroys me."
The decree burned in my hands as I signed away his future. Somewhere, in whatever hell my soul had pushed hers into, Aurora was sobbing.
Then Yassie was beside me—close enough that his scent, familiar as my own breath, wrapped around me one final time. His whisper scorched my ear:
"I would have burned kingdoms for you."
He walked away without looking back.
The silence was a living thing, choking, suffocating—
Until Lyr shattered it.
"I'll take her."
Every head snapped toward the shadows where he lounged, all coiled grace and sharp teeth.
The king's lip curled. "You? A concubine's bastard?"
Lyr prowled forward, the dragon crest on his chest gleaming like a threat. "I've come of age, Father." His golden eyes locked on mine. "And unlike my brother, I don't intend to love her gently."
Yassie's fists clenched.
I forced a laugh. "You're not half the man your brother is."
Lie.
Lyr was wildfire and ruin—everything dangerous and beautiful. Everything that called to the darkest parts of me.
His smirk promised retribution. "No, little queen. I'm so much more."
The king was still apologizing when the doors exploded inward.
Sey stood wreathed in shadows, his eyes black with fury.
"Mine."
The single word shook the castle to its foundations.
And in that moment—with Yassie's grief choking the air, Lyr's hunger stripping me bare, Sey's rage shaking the walls—
I realized too late:
I hadn't stolen Aurora's crown.
I'd inherited her war.