LOGINLENAThe summit grounds were bright beneath the morning sun, but whatever calm the day might have offered was ruined by the fact that Kael was indeed following me but it was close enough to make it obvious to everyone else, but close enough that every time I slowed down or turned around, there he was watching, existing and. Ring impossible. After ten minutes, I stopped in the middle of a garden path and turned to face him.He stopped too.“This is ridiculous.”“No,” he said. “It’s necessary.”“It’s irritating.”“That too.”I folded my arms. “I’m going to a courtyard full of nobles in broad daylight, not marching into enemy territory.”“Those are often the same thing.”I stared at him for a moment, then sighed because unfortunately, that also sounded true. “Do I at least get to know where you’ve assigned the guards?”“No.”“Why not?”“Because if you know where they are, you’ll look for them.”“That is absolutely something I would do.”“I know.”That answer annoyed me more than it shou
LENAI did not sleep and it wasn’t because I didn’t try. Goddess knows I tried very hard, I closed my eyes, turned onto my left side, then my right, then onto my back, then back to my left again as if changing positions might somehow trick my brain into shutting down. It did not.Because apparently being told that someone had poisoned your dessert was not the kind of information a person could simply hear and then sleep peacefully through.Who knew? By the time dawn finally crept through the curtains, I had managed perhaps ten minutes of actual rest and even that had been interrupted by dreams involving tarts, knives and Kael glaring at me while I died in an extremely inconvenient manner.When I finally gave up and dragged myself out of bed, I looked exactly how I felt… terrible.I stared at my reflection while pinning back my hair and sighed. “You look haunted.”My reflection offered no useful feedback. After another moment, I leaned closer, checking for any sign that I had, in fact,
KAELI stayed in the study long after he was gone, staring at reports I wasn’t reading and hearing none of the noise from the corridor outside. My thoughts kept circling back to the same impossible point.Lena should have been sick.The fact that she wasn’t made the entire thing more dangerous, not less. If someone had poisoned her and failed, they might try again. If they realized she hadn’t noticed anything was wrong, they would assume they still had time.And Lena, being Lena, would probably accept another dessert from the same hand just to avoid seeming rude.I swore under my breath and pushed away from the desk.By the time I reached her room, the corridor was quiet.A single lantern burned near her door, throwing warm light across the stone. I knocked once, then opened it without waiting for permission because if Lena was asleep, she would forgive me eventually or she wouldn’t. Either way, I didn’t care.The room was dark except for moonlight spilling across the bed.Lena was un
KAELBy the time dinner ended, I knew something was wrong and it wasn’t because of Lena. If anything, Lena had been the only predictable part of the evening. She had accepted the tart with the same reckless lack of suspicion she brought to most things, then eaten it while half the table watched her as though they expected the floor to open beneath her feet.No, Lena hadn’t been the problem, Cara had.The moment she approached our table with that plate in her hand, the room shifted. Adrian had gone still, Raven had gone quiet, and Cara had smiled too brightly, too carefully, like someone performing kindness rather than feeling it. Then Lena had taken the tart, eaten it, and spent the rest of the meal making ridiculous comments while Cara watched her with an intensity that bordered on obsession.I had seen fear before, I had seen guilt too and Cara had looked like both.I said nothing during dinner because a summit hall filled with nobles was not the place to start a war over a suspicio
CARA“Then what exactly are you implying?”“I’m asking why you spent the entire dinner staring at Lena like you expected something to happen.”I opened my mouth, then closed it. I turned away from him and moved toward the table, pouring myself a glass of water just to give my hands something to do.“You’re being dramatic.”“And you’re avoiding the question.”I drank half the glass before setting it down. “You’re imagining things because you’re obsessed with her.”Adrian’s jaw tightened. Yes, let him be angry. Anger was easier to deal with than suspicion.“I’m not having this conversation again,” he said.“Then stop looking at her like she belongs to you.”The words slipped out before I could stop them and the room went still. When I finally turned, Adrian was already looking at me and the expression on his face made my stomach drop because it wasn’t anger, it was realization as if, in that moment, he had just understood something important… something I had never intended to say aloud.
CARABy the time dinner ended, I was certain something had gone terribly wrong. I kept my smile in place until the last possible second, until the nobles began leaving the hall and the servants started clearing the tables, until nobody was paying attention to me anymore. Only then did I turn and walk toward the corridor with what I hoped looked like calm dignity.The moment I was out of sight, I nearly broke into a run.My heart was pounding so hard it felt painful. This is impossible. No, not impossible. Worse than impossible. It was wrong, completely and undeniably wrong.I had watched Lena eat the tart, I had watched her take the first bite while Adrian sat there looking like he wanted to stop her and couldn’t, I had watched her finish half of it, then all of it, then sit there and continue talking as though nothing had happened.Nothing… no coughing, no dizziness, no blood, no collapse. Not even a hint that anything was wrong.She had eaten poisoned food and then spent the rest of
LENAThe scream tore out of me before I could stop it, raw and immediate, slicing through the silence of the corridor like something that didn’t belong in a place like this.For a second after it left my mouth, I couldn’t breathe.My throat tightened as the sound echoed back at me from the stone wa
LENAI woke up before the knock even came, it wasn’t the sound itself that disturbed me… it was the absence of quiet. The estate had a way of shifting at night, like it was never truly asleep, and I had started to recognize when that shift turned toward me. That morning, the air already felt watche
LENA“Excuse you?” I blinked. “It’s a compliment, you’re supposed to thank me,” he said, moving to stand beside me but not too close to make me uncomfortable. “I owe you nothing?” I deadpanned and he nodded, shrugging casually. “That’s fair.”A moment of silence passed, and while I contemplated
LENAThe words hit exactly where they were meant to.The hall had gone quiet enough that I could hear the crackle of candlelight from the chandeliers overhead. A dozen faces turned in my direction, some uncomfortable, others openly curious, all waiting to see what would happen next.I hated that fa







