CHAPTER 6 the iron keep

The carriage ride to the Iron Keep took three days.

I spent most of it in silence, watching the mountains change from soft green hills to jagged gray rock. Cassian rode beside the carriage on his black warhorse, never once complaining about the cold, never once asking to stop. He was a man built for hardship, and I found myself studying him through the window more than I wanted to admit.

By the time we crossed the final ridge, the sun was setting behind a fortress unlike anything I had seen before.

The Iron Keep didn't look like a home. It looked like a warning.

Massive black stone walls rose straight out of the mountainside, thick enough to survive a siege, cold enough to survive a war. Torches lined the battlements, their flames whipping violently in the wind. There were no flowers here, no soft gardens like the ones back at the Bloodmoon estate. Just steel, stone, and soldiers.

"It isn't pretty," Cassian said, riding up beside my window as the gates groaned open. "But it's never fallen."

"I didn't marry you for pretty," I said quietly.

Something flickered across his scarred face. Almost a smile.

The carriage rolled to a stop in the main courtyard, and the moment the door opened, I felt dozens of eyes land on me at once.

Soldiers lined the yard in neat rows, their expressions unreadable. Behind them stood the household staff, and at the very front, a woman in a deep violet gown watched me with a look sharp enough to cut glass.

She was beautiful in a cold, practiced way, her dark hair pinned into an elegant crown of braids, a silver dragon pendant resting against her collarbone. The same emblem as Cassian's.

"Lady Freya," Cassian said as he dismounted, his voice flat. "My cousin."

Freya's smile didn't reach her eyes. "So this is her. The little Bloodmoon princess." She circled me slowly, the way a hunter circles something wounded. "I expected someone more... impressive."

"I expected someone with better manners," I replied evenly. "We're both disappointed, it seems."

A few of the soldiers coughed to hide their laughter. Freya's jaw tightened, but she said nothing else, simply turned and swept back inside, her heels clicking sharply against the stone.

Cassian exhaled beside me. "She's harmless."

"She doesn't look harmless," I said. "She looks like a woman who's used to being the only queen in this castle."

He didn't answer that. He only offered his arm and led me inside.

The great hall of the Iron Keep was massive, lined with old battle banners and cracked stone pillars. That night, Cassian held a formal dinner to introduce me to his generals, twelve hardened men who had spent decades fighting along the border. They studied me the same way soldiers study an enemy formation, searching for weakness.

One of them, an older general named Baron, didn't bother hiding his doubt.

"With respect, Alpha," he said, setting down his goblet, "the eastern trade routes have collapsed twice this season. We need someone who understands logistics, not court etiquette."

"I do understand logistics," I said calmly. "Your grain shipments are failing because you're routing them through Thistle Pass, which floods every autumn. Move the convoys two days earlier and reroute through the lower valley. You'll cut your losses in half."

Silence fell over the table.

Baron blinked. "How would a princess know Thistle Pass floods?"

"Because I studied every territory bordering my father's kingdom since I was twelve years old," I said. "I may have hidden my crown for three years, General, but I never stopped being a strategist."

Cassian's eyes met mine from across the table, and for the first time since I'd met him, I saw something close to pride.

The generals exchanged glances. Slowly, reluctantly, a few of them nodded.

I thought, foolishly, that I had won them over.

Later that night, unable to sleep in the unfamiliar stone room they had given me, I wandered the long corridor toward the west tower, drawn by the sound of the wind howling through the old windows.

That was when I found her.

Lady Freya stood alone in the shadowed hallway, staring at a large portrait I hadn't noticed before. A woman in a pale blue gown, delicate and smiling, hung framed in gold on the wall.

"Who is she?" I asked before I could stop myself.

Freya didn't turn around right away. When she finally did, the cold smile from earlier was gone, replaced by something colder still.

"That," she said softly, "was Lyra. Cassian's first contract bride."

My chest tightened. "He never mentioned her."

"Why would he?" Freya tilted her head, studying me the way one studies something already broken. "She arrived here full of confidence too. She thought she understood this keep, understood him, understood her place at his side."

"What happened to her?"

Freya stepped closer, her violet eyes glinting in the torchlight.

"She died, Princess. Six months into her contract. Officially, it was a border skirmish." Her lips curled into something almost pitying. "Unofficially, no one has ever agreed on the real story."

The wind screamed through the tower windows, rattling the old glass.

"You should ask Cassian about it sometime," Freya whispered, leaning in close enough that I could feel her breath against my ear. "Ask him why he never speaks her name. Ask him where he was, the night she died."

Before I could respond, she swept past me down the corridor, her heels echoing against the stone until the darkness swallowed the sound completely.

I stood frozen in front of the painting, staring into Lyra's painted eyes, my pulse hammering violently against my ribs.

Behind me, a floorboard creaked.

I spun around, my hand instinctively reaching for the dagger hidden in my sleeve — only to find no one there.

The hallway was empty.

But the candle on the wall beside Lyra's portrait, the one that had been burning steadily just seconds ago, had gone out.