The world had never been kind to Lyra Michelson.
It had been woven into the very fabric of her blood—this quiet, relentless cruelty. A price paid centuries before she was born, by a woman whose ambition had angered the old powers. A curse had been planted deep within the veins of her family, silent but deadly, waiting for the right hearts to beat in the wrong way.
Lyra had learned early that love was a dangerous thing.
She sat alone in the upper halls of the Michelson estate, her stormy grey eyes tracing the cold marble floors below. From this height, the grand house looked like a mausoleum — all polished stone and dead echoes. A place built to impress the world and suffocate the soul. The sunlight clawed its way through the tall stained-glass windows, casting sharp, bleeding colors across her olive skin.
Twenty years. Twenty years of breathing under the weight of a legacy she had never asked for.
Lyra Michelson. The cursed daughter. The family's unspoken shame.
She tugged the sleeve of her embroidered dress higher over her shoulder, instinctively hiding the small silver birthmark near her collarbone — the mark that had haunted every whispered conversation, every wary glance. It was shaped like a crescent moon, delicate and damning all at once.
No one spoke of it aloud. But they didn't have to. Lyra could feel it — in the stiffness of the housekeepers, in the careful avoidance of her peers at Consul gatherings, in the hollow way her mother looked at her as if seeing a walking, breathing threat to everything they had built.
Her mother.
Cold, regal, perfect.
Once, Lyra had imagined that if she worked hard enough—was obedient enough—she could warm her mother's frozen heart. But that hope had died long ago, buried beneath curt nods and averted eyes.
"You are a Michelson," her mother had told her once, voice sharp enough to cut bone. "You are not here to feel. You are here to endure."
And endure she had.
Endured the birthdays celebrated behind closed doors.
Endured the carefully arranged society appearances where her parents smiled like statues while people whispered about her behind lace gloves.
Endured the endless, aching loneliness of a life where even kindness could become a death sentence.
Because of the curse.
Because if anyone ever loved her—truly, deeply—they would die.
It had happened before. A boy once, years ago. A friend, innocent and kind, who had dared to sneak her sweets in the garden and laugh with her when no one was watching.
Dead within a fortnight.
Falling ill so suddenly that the doctors could only shake their heads and call it "an unfortunate, unexplained thing."
Lyra had known better.
After that, she had learned to build walls higher than the estate itself. To sharpen her tongue into a weapon no one wanted to cross. To watch, always watch, and never hope.
Her stormy grey eyes narrowed as she heard the distant murmur of voices downstairs.
Meetings. Always meetings.
Her father, cold and commanding.
His allies, members of the Consuls—the council that governed the bloodlines, magic, and marriages of their hidden world. Power brokers who wore tradition like armor and secrecy like a second skin.
She knew what they wanted.
A wife for Tristan Williams, the heir to one of the most powerful families still standing.
A marriage to secure alliances, to fuse bloodlines, to ensure that no crack in their fortress would be allowed to spread.
Lyra clenched her fists against her skirts. She had overheard enough whispers to piece it together.
Candidates were being chosen. Names placed on a gilded list like livestock at market.
And somewhere in her heart, buried beneath years of bitterness and loneliness, a small, dying hope twisted once more: Maybe not me. Maybe they'll choose someone else.
But deep down, she already knew.
Knew it the way one knows the coming of a storm by the taste of iron in the air.
Her name would be there.
Because a cursed daughter was still a valuable pawn if placed on the right board.
Because even a weapon could be wielded if it was beautiful enough, controlled enough, desperate enough.
And her father would see to it—because to him, Lyra was not a daughter.
She was an investment.
A Michelson asset.
And soon, she would be sold in chains forged from silk and magic and blood.
---
The sound of approaching footsteps shattered the silence like glass.
Lyra didn't flinch. She recognized the precise rhythm of those heels. Her mother never walked — she glided, as if the ground should be grateful to touch her.
Lady Evelyne Michelson entered the room without knocking, her posture a sculpture carved from expectation and polished cruelty. Dressed in soft ivory robes lined with pale silver thread, she looked like a goddess cast in marble — ageless, untouchable, and cold to the core.
"Fix your posture," Evelyne said, without looking directly at her.
Lyra slowly straightened from her perch on the windowsill, but didn't stand. Obedient, but defiant in the details.
Her mother turned to her at last, pale grey eyes scanning her face not with affection, but evaluation.
"You've been inside all day."
"I wasn't aware fresh air could cleanse bloodlines," Lyra said flatly, her voice sharp and quiet.
Evelyne didn't take the bait. She rarely did. "You should get some rest. Tomorrow will be... significant."
Lyra's throat tightened. "Is that a warning?"
"It's a courtesy."
With that, her mother walked past, trailing her perfume of sandalwood and roses behind her like a veil. But as she neared the door, she paused—just long enough to let the moment burn.
"The Williams heir arrives at noon," she said, almost lazily. "You will be ready."
And then she was gone.
Lyra didn't move. Couldn't. The name echoed like thunder inside her chest.
Tristan Williams.
She had never met him. Only heard stories.
The cold, brilliant heir of the Williams family empire — a man whispered about in the same breath as war and ruthlessness. They said he could bend men to their knees with a look. That he walked through crime-riddled streets like a king among corpses. That his smile meant someone was about to bleed.
And now... he would be her husband.
Lyra let out a slow, bitter laugh. It was so absurd it almost didn't hurt.
She had spent her life avoiding love. Killing it at the root.
And now they were handing her to a man who didn't even pretend to feel.
Maybe that was the point.
Maybe the only man they believed she couldn't destroy... was one who didn't possess a heart at all.
They called it neutral ground, but nothing about the Michelson estate was neutral.
Tristan sat in the back of the armored black car as it wound through the forest-lined roads, his fingers drumming softly against the leather seat. Outside, the trees stood like sentinels—tall, old, watching. Their silence wasn't natural. It was magical.
Enchanted wards. High-level protection. Old blood magic.
Not surprising. The Michelsons were one of the founding bloodlines—ancient, revered, and absolutely rotten with secrets.
He rolled his neck once, letting the tension settle like a weight across his shoulders. His father had insisted on this visit. Observe the girl. Determine compatibility. Get it over with. That was the script.
But Tristan didn't follow scripts.
He had read Lyra Michelson's file three times.
Twenty. Unmarried. No known romantic ties. No scandals. No magic offenses.
And yet… people around her had a tendency to die.
Untraceable. Unprovable. But undeniable.
He hadn't been afraid.
He was intrigued.
A flash of light skimmed across his palm, faint and silver. A thread of magic, too thin for the untrained to sense, curled from his wrist toward the sky and pulled—softly, insistently. Toward the estate.
He watched it, unmoving.
Fate, the old mages would call it.
He preferred warning.
"Five minutes," the driver said from the front.
Tristan didn't respond. He reached into his coat and pulled out the ring—onyx and obsidian, engraved with runes only three people alive could still read. He slipped it onto his finger.
Power pulsed through him like a heartbeat.
He didn't believe in curses. He believed in control. In choice.
But the second his fingers brushed the ring, the pull intensified.
As if something—someone—was already reaching back.
His jaw tightened.
He wasn't afraid of Lyra Michelson.
He was afraid of what she might mean.
Not for the syndicate. Not for the Consuls.
But for him.