The silver goblet hovered in the High Inquisitor's hand like an offering to a god that didn't deserve worship.
The liquid inside shimmered pale, almost pretty—moonlight trapped in metal.
My throat remembered it before my mind did.
Cold rim. Burning swallow. My body folding in on itself while the world watched.
My knees went weak even though two temple knights still pinned my arms. Their grips didn't loosen. If anything, they tightened, ready for a struggle they could call "demonic resistance."
The High Inquisitor's smile was gentle. "Duke Rivenhart," he said, voice soft as a lullaby. "Prove your holiness to the empire."
Prince Adrian's eyes gleamed.
Liora's lashes trembled as she clutched his arm—her perfect portrait of fear. But I'd learned to watch her eyes, not her tears.
Her eyes were bright.
Hungry.
Kael stood chained a few steps away, wrists bound in sanctified silver etched with sunbursts. The links glowed faintly, like the metal was alive and pleased with itself.
His palm was still bleeding from stopping Adrian's sword.
A small, controlled wound.
Proof that even Kael could be made to bleed in front of witnesses.
He stared at the goblet like it was nothing.
Like it was a cup, and cups were beneath him.
Then his gaze lifted—over the goblet, over the Inquisitor's smile—and locked on mine.
Winter-river eyes.
Cold enough to drown in.
And suddenly I was back on stone, cheek pressed to the execution chamber floor, tasting blood and humiliation while a goblet approached my mouth.
My fingers twitched uselessly against the knights' iron grips.
*He did it once.*
*He can do it again.*
The High Inquisitor extended the goblet to Kael.
"Go on," he murmured. "Hold it to her lips."
The thin-faced priest stood near the altar, parchment in his hands, waiting to watch my body betray me.
The palace captain and the gray-robed clerk stood off to the side, pale and sweating, ledger clutched like a fragile shield. They had the sense of men who'd walked into something they couldn't unsee.
Mara stayed at my shoulder, close enough that I could feel her restrained fury. Her blade wasn't out down here. The temple had made sure of that.
Kael reached for the goblet.
The sanctified chains clinked as he moved, a quiet, satisfied sound.
The Inquisitor didn't step back. He looked delighted, like he'd finally found the right position on the board.
Kael's gloved fingers closed around the goblet.
His hand didn't shake.
His expression didn't change.
He turned toward me and walked.
Each step was measured, controlled—like he was approaching an execution block, not a fiancée.
The temple knights holding me shifted their grips, forcing my shoulders back to expose my throat and jaw. Presenting me.
As if I were livestock brought to slaughter.
Kael stopped in front of me.
Up close, the air around him felt colder. His coat smelled faintly of iron and winter smoke.
The goblet was inches from my face.
I stared at the liquid and fought the urge to gag.
Kael's gaze dropped to my bandaged palm.
Then to my mouth.
Then back to my eyes.
His voice was so low I almost didn't hear it.
"Don't swallow," he said.
My breath hitched.
For a heartbeat, my brain refused to accept the words.
Then rage surged, sharp and desperate.
*Don't swallow?*
Like he expected me to drink.
Like he expected me to obey him like a well-trained pet.
My lips parted—ready to spit a curse into his face—
Kael leaned closer, the chains around his wrists softly rattling, and his gloved knuckles brushed my jaw.
Not gentle.
Not romantic.
A grip that could become a hold.
But the touch dragged something electric up my spine anyway—because it was him, and he was too close, and my body was traitorous.
His mouth barely moved. "Trust me," he murmured, so quiet only I could hear it. "Or die."
Trust.
The word was a knife.
I hated him for asking it.
I needed him too much to refuse.
My eyes flicked past his shoulder to my father.
Lord Vale knelt near the altar, bound and bruised, trying to keep himself upright through sheer will. His gaze was locked on me—terror, apology, love, all tangled together.
If I died here, he'd die right after.
If Kael fell here, Adrian would crush me within hours.
I drew a tight breath and forced my face still.
Kael lifted the goblet.
The cold rim touched my lips.
The memory was so vivid I tasted poison before it even entered my mouth.
The High Inquisitor's voice floated behind him, pleased. "Yes. Like that."
Kael tilted the goblet a fraction.
A single drop slid onto my tongue.
Cold.
Bitter.
My stomach convulsed.
My body screamed at me to spit it out.
I held it for half a heartbeat—long enough for the Inquisitor to see—long enough for Adrian to think he'd won—
Then Kael's chained wrist jerked.
The goblet tipped hard.
The shimmering liquid spilled—*not* down my throat.
It splashed across Kael's sanctified chains.
The effect was immediate.
The silver etchings flared bright as a wound.
The liquid hissed like boiling water.
A sharp, stinging smell filled the chamber.
Kael's jaw clenched, but he didn't make a sound.
The Inquisitor's smile faltered for the first time.
"What—"
Kael snapped his wrists apart.
Metal strained.
A link—already bent from his earlier resistance—gave way with a sickening crack.
One cuff loosened.
Not fully free, but enough.
Enough slack for a man like Kael to turn a leash into a weapon.
The temple knights reacted a heartbeat late.
Kael moved in that heartbeat.
He swung the goblet—still half-full—into the thin-faced priest's face.
Silver met bone with a wet crunch.
The priest staggered back, blood spraying across white robes.
The parchment slipped from his hands and fluttered to the floor.
Mara inhaled sharply beside me, like she'd been waiting for permission to breathe.
Kael seized the priest by the collar and yanked him forward.
"Drink," Kael said.
The priest choked, eyes wide, trying to speak a prayer through broken teeth.
Kael tilted the goblet and forced the liquid into his mouth.
The priest gagged, sputtering, moonlight spilling down his chin.
Kael released him.
The priest stumbled, clutching his throat.
For one heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the priest convulsed.
His eyes rolled back.
Foam bubbled at his lips—exactly like the knight upstairs.
He dropped to the stone floor and writhed, the sound he made thick and animal.
My blood ran cold.
Because it wasn't holy.
It was poison.
The High Inquisitor stared down at his dying priest with mild curiosity—like he'd expected this, like the priest was disposable.
Then he lifted his gaze to Kael and smiled again.
"A pity," he murmured. "Corruption spreads quickly."
Kael's expression didn't change, but his eyes turned murderous. "You call that holiness?"
The Inquisitor's smile softened, almost indulgent. "Holiness reveals what already exists, Duke. That priest must have been tainted."
Adrian's mouth curved. "How unfortunate."
Liora pressed a hand to her lips as if she might faint. Her eyes flicked once to the priest's body, then away—too fast.
No grief.
Only calculation.
Kael turned his head slightly, voice cutting. "Captain. Clerk. Did you see?"
The captain's face had gone paper-white.
The clerk's hands shook so badly the ledger quivered.
Kael's gaze pinned them. "Record it."
The clerk swallowed hard. "R-record… what, my lord?"
"The church administered poison in a palace dungeon," Kael said flatly, "and called it purification."
The High Inquisitor chuckled softly. "How dramatic."
Kael's eyes didn't move from the clerk. "Write. It."
The clerk's pen scratched frantically.
Adrian's expression cooled. "You think this will matter?"
Kael's gaze slid to him, slow as a blade. "It will when the emperor asks why his palace became a temple slaughterhouse."
Adrian's eyes narrowed.
The Inquisitor's smile thinned by a fraction.
So they did care.
Not about lives.
About narratives.
About what reached daylight.
The temple knights finally surged toward Kael.
"Seize him!" one shouted.
Kael pivoted.
The loosened cuff gave him just enough freedom.
He swung the broken chain like a flail.
Silver links whipped across the nearest knight's throat with a brutal snap.
Not lethal—Kael held back by a hair—but enough to drop the man gasping to his knees.
The second knight lunged.
Kael caught him by the wrist and twisted.
Bone popped.
The knight screamed.
Then Kael shoved him back into the altar hard enough that candles rattled.
The High Inquisitor lifted a hand, calm as ever.
The temple knights froze.
Not because they were afraid.
Because they were trained to obey his hand like a leash.
The Inquisitor's pale eyes rested on Kael's loosened cuff. "So strong," he murmured. "So defiant."
He glanced at me, still held by two knights. "And yet your bride remains in our hands."
The words were soft.
They hit like a fist.
Because he was right.
Kael could break bones and still lose.
My throat tightened.
I forced myself to do the only thing I could: think.
Kael had told me not to swallow.
I hadn't.
The drop was still sitting like ice on my tongue, bitter and wrong.
I swallowed saliva carefully and spat onto the stone floor at my feet, keeping my face blank.
The High Inquisitor's gaze flicked to my mouth.
He saw it.
He smiled slightly, like he approved of my fear.
Then he turned back to Kael.
"Enough," the Inquisitor said softly. "You have performed well. You proved you can administer purification."
Kael's eyes went razor-sharp. "I proved you're poisoning people."
The Inquisitor ignored him. "Now we prove something else."
He stepped closer to the altar and placed his hand on the sunburst carving.
The room's candles flared brighter.
The air thickened.
A low hum rose from the stone, like the chamber itself was waking.
My skin prickled.
Mara tensed beside me.
Kael's posture shifted—subtle, dangerous. "What are you doing?"
The Inquisitor smiled gently. "Branding."
The word dropped my stomach into my shoes.
In my last life, I'd been purified.
I'd been executed.
But I'd never been branded.
This was new.
This was what changing fate earned me.
The Inquisitor's hand lifted again, palm outward.
The sanctified chains around Kael's wrists flared.
Not just glowing.
*Burning.*
Kael's jaw clenched.
A sound escaped him—small, harsh, involuntary.
The first real sign of pain I'd ever heard from him.
Silver light crawled up the chains like fire climbing a rope.
It reached his skin.
And the skin answered.
A sunburst sigil began to bloom on his wrist—bright, searing, carving itself into flesh without blade or ink.
Kael's shoulders went rigid.
He fought to stay standing.
The Inquisitor's voice was calm. "This is the Sunbrand. A holy tether. It binds the impure to obedience."
My blood went cold.
Obedience.
A leash.
For Kael.
Adrian's eyes gleamed with satisfaction, as if he'd been waiting for this exact revelation.
Liora's breath hitched—excitement disguised as fear again.
Kael lifted his gaze to the Inquisitor, voice like gravel. "You can't control me."
The Inquisitor's smile widened. "All men can be controlled. They only differ in what it costs."
Kael's breath came slower, heavier.
The brand kept burning.
Then the light crawled higher—up his forearm, up toward his throat.
Kael's free hand clenched.
His eyes flicked to me.
For a heartbeat, the winter water in them cracked.
Something raw moved underneath.
Not tenderness.
Not softness.
Something that looked terrifyingly like recognition.
Like memory.
His mouth barely moved.
"I remember," he whispered.
My heart stuttered.
Remember what?
My death?
The execution chamber?
The poison?
Before I could speak, the light reached his throat.
The sunburst flared bright enough to blind.
Kael's body jerked once, hard.
Then the glow settled into a crisp mark at the base of his throat—like a collar burned into skin.
The sanctified chains fell still.
Kael's breathing steadied.
Too quickly.
As if pain had been replaced by something else.
The High Inquisitor stepped back, satisfied, and nodded at Adrian.
"Prince Adrian," he said pleasantly, "you wanted proof Duke Rivenhart is not beyond holiness."
Adrian's smile returned. "I see it."
The Inquisitor's pale gaze slid to me. "Now. We conclude."
He lifted his hand and pointed—not at me.
At Kael.
"Prove your purification," the Inquisitor said gently. "Execute the demon-bride you claimed."
Silence slammed down.
My blood turned to ice.
Kael didn't move for a heartbeat.
Then his head turned slowly toward me.
His eyes met mine.
And the winter river was gone.
What looked back at me was colder.
Empty.
Obedient.
The temple knights holding my arms loosened slightly—not freeing me, just repositioning me, like they were presenting my throat.
Mara's hand twitched toward her hidden blade, but a temple knight slammed an elbow into her ribs, pinning her.
Mara hissed, breath knocked out.
My father made a broken sound near the altar, trying to crawl forward. A temple boot shoved him back down.
Adrian watched with open satisfaction now, no need to hide it. "Do it, Duke."
Kael took one step forward.
The chain links clinked softly.
His hand went to his sword hilt.
My lungs locked.
This was it.
The scene repeating itself—executioner and condemned—only this time I was awake enough to see every mechanism turning.
Kael drew his blade.
The sound of steel leaving its sheath was clean, familiar, horrible.
He advanced.
One step.
Two.
The tip of his sword lifted, aligning with my throat.
My heart hammered so hard I felt it in my teeth.
I forced myself not to flinch. Not to plead. Not to look away.
Because if Kael was truly leashed—
Then the only way I survived was by doing what I'd promised myself at rebirth.
Becoming dangerous.
Kael stopped so close the cold of his blade kissed my skin.
His empty gaze didn't flicker.
The High Inquisitor's voice was soft, pleased, absolute.
"Now," he said, "finish her."
And Kael's sword began to press in.