The morning came heavy with silence.
Lucian sat at the edge of his narrow bed, fingers loosely clasped together, the faint lines of sunlight spilling across the stone floor. The vow from the night before throbbed quietly in his chest, sharper than the pulse in his veins. He had whispered it to himself while the corridors slept: No more delays. If I am to live, I cannot simply endure. I must make them bend.
He had endured too long already. The smothering suspicion in Alaric's cold eyes, the vicious sparks of Alistair's obsession, the weight of the court that branded him guilty no matter how cleanly he smiled. Survival was not endurance. Survival meant taking the blade away from their hands and turning it in his own.
His thoughts moved through them carefully, like a chessboard set in his mind.
Alaric. Untouchable. Too cold, too proud. Any slip of miscalculated touch would snap the prince's patience. Lucian could not afford to bleed yet.
