A month.
For one month, Nyrielle had been a ghost in her own life, a perfect, porcelain doll playing a part in a monstrous theater. The girl who had knelt on the furs in Vaeren's tent, broken and terrified, was gone. In her place was Lady Nyrielle Dareth, the dutiful future bride, her smile as serene and empty as a winter sky, her composure a flawless sheet of ice.
No one saw the cracks beneath the surface. No one saw the screaming, terrified girl who clawed at the inside of her own skull every night.
She had learned her lesson well. Obedience was survival. Loyalty—or the perfect performance of it—was her only shield.
