They walked the palace halls like two shadows pulled from opposite worlds.
Lira clung to Kaelith's arm, her bare feet whispering over polished marble. Every corridor shimmered with torchlight, but she felt no warmth. Only the weight of eyes—servants, guards, nobles—watching her. Whispering already. About the traitor who should've died. About the Crown Prince who had claimed her instead.
"I think I'm going to pass out," she muttered.
Kaelith didn't glance at her. "Do it in my chambers, not here."
Typical. Stoic. Infuriating.
But she kept walking, because she had nowhere else to go—and no body of her own to return to. Lira Morgan had died in Los Angeles. Now she was Irinel Valehart. At least in face. In name.
The rest… was uncertain.
Kaelith stopped at a towering door carved with twin dragons. With a push, it opened into his chambers—a vast, vaulted space aglow with floating crystal orbs and the golden light of a crackling hearth. A storm of velvet, stone, and shadows.
He gestured to the settee. "Sit."
She collapsed onto it. Her legs trembled. Her wrists still throbbed from the shackles.
Kaelith vanished through an archway, returning moments later with a decanter. He poured amber liquid into a glass and handed it to her.
She sniffed. Brandy? Poison?
She drank anyway. Fire slid down her throat and lit her chest. Not enough to drown the fear.
"Tomorrow," he said, removing his gauntlets, "the court will wake to find the Dragon Prince has declared his intention to marry the Empire's most reviled woman. You."
She stared at him. "You're really going through with this?"
"I already have." His tone was iron. "Anything less would've left you vulnerable."
"And this makes me… safe?"
"For now."
She watched as he unfastened the high collar of his armor, revealing a black tunic etched with the crest of House Dravenhart—a bleeding sun wrapped in dragon wings.
"Why me?" she asked quietly.
Kaelith looked up. "You already know."
His words coiled in her chest.
He stepped closer, kneeling—not in deference, but deliberation. A warrior folding into stillness.
"When I entered that chamber," he said, "the curse I carry stilled."
She blinked. "Curse?"
He touched his chest lightly. "Dragon blood. It burns. Constantly. A punishment for what I am. It never quiets. Until you."
Lira's heart stumbled.
"You're not Irinel Valehart," he said.
The words dropped like a sword between them.
She should have denied it. Instead, she whispered, "I'm not."
"Then who are you?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "I died in a different world. Woke up in hers. And now I'm—this." She gestured at the velvet gown, at the foreign chamber. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to be."
Kaelith studied her for a moment. "Then become someone new."
A knock shattered the silence. He answered it with a wordless motion, admitting a gray-robed healer who bowed deeply.
"See to her," Kaelith ordered. "No records. No reports."
The healer obeyed without question. He worked in silence, applying cool salve to her wrists, checking her pulse, murmuring spells that eased the pain in her joints. Lira barely felt it. Her mind was elsewhere—back in that execution chamber, back in the car, back in the fire.
She wasn't even sure where she ended and Irinel began.
The healer left with the same ghostly grace he'd arrived.
The Dragon's Skin
Alone again, Kaelith unfastened his cloak. Beneath the armor, his shirt clung to him like a second skin. When he rolled up his sleeves, Lira saw them: scars like cracked porcelain, glowing faintly ember-orange along his forearms.
Dragon scales, she realized. Half-formed, fighting their way out.
He caught her staring. "The curse prefers me in pieces."
Lira's fingers twitched with the absurd urge to touch the scars, to see if they burned. "And I…?"
"You're the first thing that's ever made it sleep." His voice was gravel and smoke.
He tossed the cloak over a nearby chair. It settled heavily, still warm from his body—still clinging to something more ephemeral.
Her scent lingered on the fabric. Subtle. Clean. A trace of rose oil and rain. It stopped him cold.
Kaelith didn't comment, but his jaw tightened. He turned his head toward the fire, but his hand curled once against his thigh.
A small, involuntary betrayal.
Lira didn't notice. But the scent did.
It lingered.
Kaelith returned later with a bundle of clothing. "You'll wear this tomorrow." He placed it beside her: a sapphire gown threaded with silver, soft slippers, a fur-lined cloak the color of frost.
"I'm dressing for my own sentencing," she muttered.
"No," he said. "You're dressing for war. And appearances matter."
She didn't argue. She was too tired.
The Next Morning
The Grand Assembly Hall glittered like a shrine to power. Crystal chandeliers hung from glass-vaulted ceilings. Banners rippled from the balconies. Nobles stood in tight clusters, draped in jewels and suspicion.
Kaelith led her down the center aisle, every step echoing like a drumbeat. Lira's heart pounded in her throat. Her sapphire gown swayed with every step. Too fine for her. Too much for someone who had just yesterday been strapped to a slab.
He stopped at the raised dais.
She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until he leaned in and said, low, "Breathe. Before I ruin your life."
She inhaled sharply. "What—?"
Kaelith turned from her and addressed the court.
"Lords and Ladies of Virelia," he called, "you came to see a traitor die. Instead, you will witness something far more dangerous."
Every voice fell still.
"I see no traitor here. I see a woman condemned by whispers, not evidence. A scapegoat. A survivor."
A ripple of gasps. One noble dropped a goblet. Another choked.
"I have invoked my Right of Draconic Claim. Lady Irinel Valehart will not be executed. She will be my bride."
The court exploded.
Shouts. Cries. Fury. Panic. It swelled like a tidal wave—but Kaelith stood firm, arms folded behind his back.
"I invoke my birthright," he said, louder. "Challenge it, and you challenge the dragon within me."
No one moved.
High above, the Empress watched with eyes like shards of winter. Her lips curved in a smile that never reached her eyes.
She did not stop him.
The declaration stood.
Kaelith turned to Lira, his voice dropping. "You're under my protection now. Use it well."
And then he walked away.
That Evening
The prince's wing was quieter than the court, but no less stifling.
Lira sat alone in the bedchamber, the fire burning low. She had bathed. The maids had brushed her hair until it shone. The healer had bandaged her wrists again. A velvet cloak lay folded on the armchair. Tea steamed untouched on the table.
And beside the fire, draped across the edge of the bed like a promise too heavy to hold—
The engagement gown.
Blue like a noble's blood. Threaded with power, stitched in expectation. Every fiber screamed she didn't belong in it.
Lira stared at it for a long time.
She thought of the execution table. Of the voices that called her traitor. Of the prince who'd saved her—and bound her to him.
She thought of the life she'd left behind. The woman she used to be.
And the one she would become.
"I won't be a pawn," she whispered.
The gown glimmered in the firelight.
"If I'm wearing that," she said, "it's going to be on my terms."
The tea remained untouched. But her eyes were clear now.
Not Irinel. Not Lira.
Someone new.
Someone dangerous.