KAI:
The heels snap his ankle.
Not completely. Not a full break. But the sharp pain shoots up his leg as his foot twists sideways on the marble floor and Kai staggers forward, catching himself against the wall.
The instructor does not help him.
"Again," she says flatly. "You move like a soldier. Princesses do not march. They glide."
Kai forces himself to straighten. His left ankle screams. He takes a breath and tries again, placing one foot in front of the other in the ridiculous pink heels that Elena apparently wore to royal functions. His body wants to fall back into his natural stride, powerful and controlled. Feminine grace is not something warriors learn.
He falls twice more before the instructor is satisfied.
By midnight, Kai's feet are bleeding. Blisters have formed on his heels. His toes ache in a way that makes him question whether pain has a limit. He sits in his chamber, feet soaking in cold water, and realizes this is only the beginning.
The suppressant injection comes next.
Master Chen arrives before dawn with the syringe. Kai's arm is already bruised from yesterday's dose. The physician does not comment on it. He simply finds a new vein and pushes the needle in.
The world tilts.
Kai's vision blurs immediately. His stomach lurches like he is falling from a cliff. Weakness floods his body, draining strength he did not know he was about to lose. His head pounds so hard he thinks his skull might split open.
"The side effects are normal," Master Chen says, steadying him as Kai collapses into a chair. "Your Alpha body is fighting the suppressant. It takes three days for your system to accept it. After that, it becomes routine."
Routine. Right. Routine torture.
Kai tries to speak but can only manage a groan. The nausea intensifies. He crawls to a basin and vomits until there is nothing left in his stomach.
When he emerges from his chamber two hours later, his instructor waits with a new task. Voice training.
"Princesses speak softly," the woman says. She is tall and severe, with gray streaking her hair and eyes like flint. Her name is Margot and she seems to genuinely hate him. "You rumble when you talk. You sound like a man giving commands. You need to sound uncertain. Delicate. Like you are asking permission to exist."
Kai tries. He fails spectacularly.
His voice comes out rough no matter how much he softens it. The suppressant has made him weak but not feminine. Just sick and fragile.
"Again," Margot demands. "And this time, make me believe you have never thrown a punch in your life."
He practices for hours. By evening, his throat is raw. By morning, speaking at all feels like swallowing broken glass.
But between the torture sessions, Kai finds Elena's letters.
His mother left them in a hidden compartment in his chamber. Dozens of letters that Elena wrote to Crown Prince Liam over the past two years. Letters that were never sent because Elena never wanted to appear too eager or too interested. Letters that were meant to be studied, memorized, understood.
Kai reads them hunched over a desk, fighting nausea and pain, trying to absorb his sister's mind.
Her handwriting is elegant. Flowing. Each letter connects to the next with care that speaks of someone who has been trained to write beautifully. He practices copying it until his hand mimics hers exactly.
Her words are carefully chosen. Elena does not gush or seem emotional. She discusses politics with intelligence. She mentions books and art and philosophy. She sounds like someone interesting but also controlled. Safe. Not threatening.
One letter makes him pause.
I wonder what you are hiding, Your Highness. Everyone hides something. I have learned that the people who seem strongest are often the ones carrying the heaviest secrets. I hope you will feel safe enough to trust me one day, if this marriage comes to pass. I hope you will not have to hide forever.
Kai reads it three times. His heart is beating too fast.
Elena knew something. Even before she discovered Liam was Omega, she sensed he was hiding something. She was reaching toward him. Trying to offer him a path out of his isolation.
And then she ran.
The final forty hours blur together in a haze of pain and exhaustion. Margot teaches him how to sit with proper posture, how to make his walk graceful instead of powerful, how to smile without showing teeth, how to tilt his head in a way that seems submissive rather than observant.
The suppressant injections continue twice a day now. Master Chen says the doubled dose will make the transition faster. It also makes Kai feel like he is dying.
His head spins constantly. His vision blurs at the edges. He loses track of time. At one point, he is not sure if he has eaten anything or if that was yesterday. The weakness is not just physical anymore. It is starting to break something in his mind.
On the morning of the second day, Kai stands in front of a full length mirror.
The person looking back is not him.
Princess Elena stares out of the glass with Kai's eyes but Elena's face. They share the same bone structure, the same coloring, but the way the hair is styled, the way the dress hangs, the way the entire body carries itself is completely different.
This girl in the mirror looks soft. Fragile. Uncertain.
This girl looks like she has never held a weapon in her life.
Kai touches his own face and feels like he is touching a stranger.
"You look perfect," his mother says from the doorway.
Kai turns. His mother's eyes are red. She has not slept. She looks like she is watching her child die.
"I do not feel like myself," Kai whispers.
"I know," his mother says, stepping inside and pulling him into an embrace. "But that is the point. You cannot be yourself. You have to become her completely. When you walk into that throne room, when you stand beside the Crown Prince, when you make the vows that bind you to him, you have to be Elena. Not Kai pretending to be Elena. Actually become her."
Kai holds his mother because if he lets go, he might break completely.
"The carriage leaves in one hour," she says. "The guards are waiting. The route is planned. You will be in Sun Crest by nightfall tomorrow."
One hour.
Sixty minutes until he stops being who he has always been and becomes someone else entirely.
Kai pulls back from his mother's arms. He looks at himself in the mirror again. Princess Elena looks back with fear in her eyes.
There is a soft knock on the door.
A servant enters, bowing deeply. She looks nervous. Wrong. Like she has never been in this room before.
"Your Highness," the girl says, not looking at Kai directly, "a messenger has arrived from the western gate. He says it is urgent. He asks to speak with you privately before you leave."
Kai's blood goes cold.
The western gate. Where Elena escaped.
"Who is this messenger?" his mother asks sharply.
"He will not give his name," the servant says. "But he says he was with Lady Elena when she left. He says he has information you need to know before Princess Elena arrives in Sun Crest."
Kai and his mother exchange a look.
"Bring him to the private garden," Kai hears himself say, his voice soft and uncertain in Elena's way. "But only him. No guards."
His mother grabs his arm. "This could be a trap."
"I know," Kai says. "But if this man was with Elena, if he knows what happened to her, I have to speak with him. I have to know what she was running from before I marry the man she was trying to escape."
Within minutes, Kai is in the private garden where no guards can hear. The suppressant makes him dizzy as he walks, makes his legs feel weak. He is vulnerable in a way he has never been before.
A hooded figure steps out from behind a stone statue.
The man pulls back his hood and Kai recognizes him immediately. Captain Derek Frost. Kai's oldest friend. His second-in-command in the northern army. The man who has fought beside him for years and knows him better than almost anyone.
Derek's eyes widen when he sees Princess Elena staring back at him.
Then his face breaks with understanding.
"By the gods," Derek breathes. "You became her. You actually did it."
"How did you know?" Kai asks.
Derek steps closer, keeping his voice low. "Because I was at the western gate when Elena left. I was on duty. And she asked me to help her escape. She said she had discovered something that would destroy the peace treaty, something so dangerous that if she stayed, war would come no matter what. So I let her go."
"Where did she go?" Kai demands.
"She went to the mountains," Derek says. "She said she was going to a monastery where she would be safe while you found out the truth."
"The truth about what?"
Derek looks directly at him, and Kai sees fear in his friend's eyes. Real fear.
"About Crown Prince Liam," Derek says. "Elena discovered he is not what Sun Crest thinks he is. She discovered his secret. And Kai, when she told me what he is, what his kingdom has been hiding, I understood why she had to run. Because if you marry him, if you get close to him, if you are even in the same palace with him, you could discover the same thing. And that discovery could destroy everything."
"I already know what he is," Kai says quietly. "I know he is Omega."
Derek's shock is complete.
"How?" he whispers.
"Master Chen told me before I left," Kai says. "I know what I am walking into."
"Do you?" Derek steps even closer. "Do you really? Because Elena did not just discover he was Omega. She discovered something worse. Something that made her think the entire royal family of Sun Crest is involved in a conspiracy. She discovered evidence of a plot, Kai. A plot that involves your betrothed."
Kai's heart stops.
"What kind of plot?" he asks, but he already knows he does not want the answer.
Derek pulls out a folded letter from his pocket. The handwriting is Elena's.
"She gave this to me in case something happened to her," Derek says. "She told me to give it to you. She told me you would need to know the truth before you got too close to the Crown Prince. She told me to warn you that Sun Crest is not a kingdom at peace. It is a kingdom preparing for something. Something that Elena's marriage was supposed to help with."
Kai takes the letter with shaking hands.
"Your sister believes," Derek says, "that Crown Prince Liam is not just hiding what he is. He is part of a plan to use your sister to destabilize Frost Vale. She thinks she was being married off not to unite kingdoms, but to be used as a tool in a conspiracy. That is what she was running from, Kai. That is what you are walking into."
Kai opens Elena's letter and reads her words.
Kai, if you are reading this, I am sorry. I am so sorry. But I could not marry him knowing what I know. I could not be part of what is coming. The Crown Prince is not evil, I think. But his kingdom is planning something, and I was supposed to help them. If you have to take my place, if you have to marry him anyway, please be careful. Please do not let him close. Please do not trust him. Because the man you are about to marry is part of a plan that could destroy everything we love.
The letter falls from Kai's hands.
Behind him, a clock chimes the hour.
Time to leave.
Time to marry a man who may be part of a conspiracy.
Time to become someone else completely.
And now, walking into a darkness Kai does not understand, carrying secrets upon secrets, with a warning from his sister echoing in his mind.
Derek grabs his arm. "Do not go. Let me help you disappear. Let us run like Elena did."
Kai looks at his friend. He looks at the letter in his hand. He looks at Princess Elena's reflection in a nearby fountain.
"I have to," Kai whispers. "Because if I do not go, war comes anyway. And Elena will still be hiding. And I will still not know the truth."
He picks up the letter and hides it in his dress.
"Protect our people," Kai says, repeating Elena's final words. "That is what she asked me to do. Even if it means marrying a man who might be my enemy."
The carriage waits at the palace gates.
Kai climbs inside without looking back.