CHAPTER 7 WHAT THE CANDLE KNEW 

I didn't scream. I didn't call for the guards. I simply stood there, staring at the thin curl of smoke rising from the dead wick, my heart slamming against my ribs like a war drum.

Someone had been standing close enough to hear every word Freya whispered.

Close enough to snuff out a flame without me noticing.

I forced my hand to stop shaking and pulled my hood over my head, moving quickly down the corridor toward the east wing, where Cassian's study sat behind two heavy oak doors. I didn't care that it was well past midnight. I didn't care that a proper contract wife would have waited until morning to ask questions.

I knocked once, then pushed the door open without waiting for an answer.

Cassian sat behind his desk, a stack of border reports scattered in front of him, a single candle burning low beside his elbow. He looked up, and whatever he saw on my face made him rise immediately from his chair.

"Aurora. What happened?"

"Who was Lyra?"

The question landed like a blade dropped on stone. Cassian went very still, his gray eyes darkening in a way I hadn't seen before, not even when he spoke of war.

"Where did you hear that name?"

"Your cousin," I said, stepping further into the room. "She showed me a portrait. Told me Lyra was your first contract bride. Told me she died six months into her marriage to you, and that no one ever agreed on how."

Cassian's jaw tightened. He walked to the window, his back to me, his broad shoulders rigid beneath his dark tunic.

"Freya shouldn't have told you that."

"Then tell me yourself."

For a long moment, he said nothing. The wind rattled against the glass, the same violent howl that had chased me down the corridor minutes ago.

"Lyra was my contract bride two years ago," he finally said, his voice low and careful, like a man walking across thin ice. "Her family ruled a territory along the southern border. The marriage was meant to secure a trade alliance, nothing more."

"And?"

"And six months in, she was found dead in the training yard. Officially, a rogue wolf slipped past our patrols and attacked her." He turned to face me, and the pain etched into his scarred face looked ancient, worn smooth like a stone battered by years of tide. "Unofficially, there was no rogue. There was no attack. There was a knife, Aurora, and it wasn't a wolf's claw that put it in her chest."

My breath caught. "You think someone in this keep murdered her."

"I know someone did." His hands curled into fists at his sides. "I just never found proof of who."

The candle flame between us flickered violently, though no wind had touched it.

"Why didn't you tell me this before the contract was signed?" I demanded. "You brought me into a house where a woman was murdered and said nothing?"

"Because I intended to protect you from it," Cassian said, his voice rising for the first time since I'd met him. "I doubled the guard on your wing the moment you arrived. I assigned two of my most trusted soldiers to watch your corridor at all times. I was not going to lose another wife to whatever monster is hiding inside these walls."

The word another rang through the room like a struck bell.

I stared at him, searching his face for a lie, for some crack in his composure that would tell me he was hiding something darker. But all I found was raw, desperate fear, the same fear I imagined had lived quietly behind his eyes for two long years.

"I don't frighten easily," I said finally, my voice steadier than I felt. "But I'd like to know exactly what I've married into, Alpha. All of it. No more half-truths."

Cassian nodded slowly. "Tomorrow. I'll show you everything I've gathered on Lyra's death. Every report, every suspect, every dead end."

He crossed the room and, for the first time, reached out to gently grip my shoulder, his palm warm through the thin fabric of my sleeve.

"Whatever is happening in this keep," he said quietly, "I swear on my bloodline, I will not let it touch you."

I wanted to believe him. Some foolish, softening part of my chest wanted desperately to believe him.

That was when the door burst open.

One of Cassian's guards stumbled inside, his face pale as bone, blood soaking through the sleeve of his uniform.

"Alpha," he gasped, gripping the doorframe to stay upright. "Forgive the intrusion, but—"

"What happened?" Cassian was already moving, crossing the room in three long strides.

"The stable hand," the guard said, his voice shaking. "We found him twenty minutes ago near the west tower. His throat was—" He stopped, swallowing hard, his eyes flicking briefly, fearfully, toward me. "He's dead, Alpha. And there was a note pinned to his chest."

Cassian's whole body went rigid. "A note addressed to whom?"

The guard reached into his pocket with trembling fingers and held out a small, blood-smeared scrap of parchment.

Cassian took it, unfolded it, and I watched the color drain completely from his scarred face as his eyes scanned the words.

"What does it say?" I asked, my pulse roaring in my ears.

Slowly, wordlessly, he turned the parchment around so I could see it myself.

Written in dark, dripping ink, in handwriting I did not recognize, was a single sentence.

The Princess should have stayed hidden.

The candle on his desk guttered once, twice, and went out completely, plunging the room into darkness.