Chapter 4 — The Prince's Warning
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Part 1 — The Keeper of Rites
By the time night fell, the palace had folded itself into a different world. Daylight polished it into gold, but darkness made it a fortress of secrets. The torches along the corridors flickered against murals of battles long won, moons carved in stone, and faces of emperors who had all looked too confident for men already in their graves.
Sera hurried at my side, her lips tight. "Mistress Aelith summoned you again. She says there are more rules you must know."
"More than don't touch, don't bleed, don't speak his name?" I muttered.
Her look cut me sharp. "Mock them if you want. But rules are why you're still breathing."
We entered the rites chamber, where the old woman sat waiting. Mistress Aelith's hair spread like white fire around her, her eyes gleaming pale as polished bone. She didn't rise when I bowed.
"The Mark burns brighter than I've seen in years," she rasped. "The moon has tethered you fast. But the brighter the flame, the longer the shadow."
She tapped the open book before her. New rules, written in dark ink that had not faded with time.
Rule the Seventh: If the Prince dreams aloud, you must not wake him.
Rule the Eighth: If you hear your name spoken in his voice while he is absent, do not answer.
Rule the Ninth: If the curse calls for blood, offer none that is yours.
I read them once, twice, and still they made no sense. "How do you even follow a rule you can't prove?"
Mistress Aelith's laugh was thin. "You don't need proof. You need obedience."
The Mark on my wrist pulsed in agreement, as if it belonged to her and not me.
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Part 2 — The Corridor of Shadows
Sera guided me back toward my chambers, her footsteps quick, as if afraid of what might happen if we lingered in the wrong place. But the path curved into a long, dim corridor, one I hadn't walked before. Its windows were open to the night air, and moonlight spilled across the floor like cold water.
I stopped. "This isn't the way."
Sera froze too late.
At the far end, a figure waited. Tall. Still. Certain.
The Crown Prince.
Sera dropped to her knees. "Your Highness."
Kael didn't look at her. His eyes were on me, steady and consuming. "Leave us."
Sera hesitated. "But—"
"Now," he said, and the word cracked like thunder.
She bowed lower, then slipped away, her presence gone like a candle snuffed out.
Silence stretched. My heart kept time with the Mark's pulse, hot and insistent.
Kael started forward, each step deliberate, measured. Shadows clung to him as though the torches feared his nearness. When moonlight touched him, it drew his edges sharper, sculpting menace into beauty.
"You did what no other could today," he said, voice low. "The dove lived."
"I didn't mean to prove anything."
"You already did." His mouth tilted faintly, not a smile but something crueler. "The court trembles. My mother pretends calm. And me?" He stopped close enough that my breath caught. "I am curious."
The Mark seared, alive under his gaze.
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Part 3 — The Test of Touch
His hand lifted. Bare.
Every rule I had been taught roared in my skull: Do not touch him. Do not touch.
"Do you know what happens if you break the rules?" he asked.
"They said I'll die," I whispered.
He leaned closer, shadows drawing around us like a cage. "Not just die. You'll unravel. First the flesh, then the bone, then the soul. You'll watch yourself disappear, piece by piece, until nothing is left."
My chest tightened. My instincts screamed to run, but my body betrayed me—it wanted to know if he was right.
Kael's hand hovered between us, waiting. "Shall we see if the moon lied?"
"Why?" I asked, my voice thin. "Do you want me dead?"
His eyes flickered—pain, rage, I couldn't tell. "I want to know if I am cursed to kill everyone… or cursed to live alone."
Before I could answer, his knuckles brushed mine.
The Mark exploded with heat, silver light bursting between us. Pain lanced up my arm like fire braided with lightning. I gasped, but I didn't scream.
Kael's gaze burned into me, unblinking. "You endure more than the others. The first bride fainted at a single spark. The second bled from her nose. The third begged for mercy. And you… you grit your teeth and stay."
"I'm not staying because of strength," I hissed. "I'm staying because fear roots me."
"Good," he said, releasing me. "Fear is the only honest ally you'll ever have here."
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Part 4 — The Warning
He stepped back, though the air he left behind still felt heavy.
"You will keep the rules, Eva," he said. "Not because they protect me. Because they keep you from becoming another ghost in this palace."
His gaze dropped to the Mark, still glowing hot and angry on my wrist. "The moon chose you. That choice binds us. But even the moon grows bored. If she tires of you…" His mouth curved into something like a smirk, only darker. "…then she'll call you back herself."
I clenched my fists. "And if I don't want to play this game?"
His eyes hardened, steel over storm. "Then you'll lose before you take your first step."
He turned sharply, cloak snapping like a shadow breaking free, and strode down the corridor. The silence he left felt heavier than his presence.
Sera returned moments later, pale and trembling. She glanced at my wrist, still glowing faintly. "What did he do?"
"Warned me," I said softly. "In the only language he knows."
Her lips pressed thin. "Then listen. Because the palace doesn't forgive the careless. And neither does the Prince."
Outside, thunder rumbled though the sky was clear, as if even the heavens echoed the warning.
And I understood: fear was not weakness. Fear was survival.
Part 5 — Whispers and Watchers
Sera guided me back toward my chambers, but the silence of the halls pressed harder than footsteps. Behind carved screens, I could hear the flutter of voices—courtiers whispering, guessing, fearing.
"…she touched him and lived…"
"…the curse must be weakening…"
"…or the girl is already marked for death, and we are just waiting…"
Their words slithered after me, too soft to confront but sharp enough to cut.
At the corner of a gallery, a pair of noblewomen stood frozen, their jeweled veils glittering in the torchlight. One tilted her chin high, eyes cold. "Pretty doesn't mean she'll last."
The other smirked. "None of them do."
Sera pulled me faster, her fingers digging into my wrist. "Don't listen," she hissed.
But I already had.
When we reached my chamber, the guards opened the doors without a word. Before I stepped inside, I turned back. The corridor stretched long and empty, yet I felt eyes lingering. Watching. Weighing.
The palace wasn't just walls and rules. It was teeth.
And I was in its mouth.
Part 6 — The Prince in the Shadows
Sleep mocked me that night. I lay awake, staring at the embroidered canopy while the Mark pulsed faintly on my wrist, as though it shared a heartbeat with someone else.
When I finally closed my eyes, a whisper slithered across the chamber.
"Eva…"
I sat up, pulse hammering. No one was there. The room was still, the torches steady, the curtains unmoving. But the voice had been clear, unmistakable—Kael's.
Rule the Eighth: If you hear your name spoken in his voice while he is absent, do not answer.
My lips pressed together, dry and tight. I wanted to shout back, demand why he haunted me even when absent. But the book's rules burned in my memory.
I swallowed the impulse. Silence was survival.
The air grew colder. The Mark flared once, then dimmed. The whisper faded, leaving me alone again.
But I could not shake the feeling that he was close, perhaps closer than the walls admitted. Watching, waiting. Testing me.
The Prince didn't need chains to bind me. He only needed shadows.
[End of Chapter 4 ]