I was numb the entire ride through the realm and into Summer Court. It all happened too fast. I couldn’t process it. My powers had been bound, I was legally married to Marcelle, Thorngate was splitting, including Fall Court, and this would leave Lucien to fight the Nightfall queen by himself.
The thing that hurt most of all, the thing that I couldn’t bear to think about, was my father’s betrayal. The man who had kept me safe my entire life just sold me to the real monster. In his mind I was sure he thought he was doing right by me. This deal Marcelle had brokered with the Nightfall queen seemed great on the surface. Avoid an upcoming war, who wouldn’t want that? But they were assuming she played by the rules, and I knew she didn’t.
I just prayed that my mother and sister were unharmed and that Marcelle had only been testing me when he threatened them.
The thought of Lucien waiting for me to arrive and marry him tomorrow cut into my very soul and carved a mark on my heart. His mother died, his father was a lost cause, and now he didn’t even have me.
We arrived at the Summer Court palace and I walked like a Necromere, devoid of life, through the castle gates with my head hung low as Marcelle led me to a room. The priest was still with us. Why the Hades hadn’t he gone? We were married. He could—
Fear seized me in that moment and my head snapped up to Marcelle.
“Marcelle, I need time to adjust—”
He cut me off. “The marriage must be consummated to be legal.”
I fully died inside then. Every bit of strength I once held as a powerful woman shriveled up and expired. Pulling for my power, I felt nothing. I felt for my rage but it was hollow. I was in shock. I was a shell of who I used to be. I must have blacked out, detached from what happened. There was a faint awareness of the priest confirming my purity, and then I barely felt it when Marcelle undressed me and lay me on the bed. He whispered into my ear that my mother and sister would be safe as long as I cooperated. There was a pinch of pain between my legs and then I got lost inside my head.
I remembered the day Lucien said that he saw me as he was passing by. I had been outside playing with Libby. She was practicing her wind power and was frustrated she couldn’t make the leaves pick up off the ground and make a funnel like I could. So as she tried and tried and then started to cry, I told her to take a break. She needed to relax and just feel the wind. I made the leaves dance around us as we twirled carefree among the breeze. She laughed and threw her arms in the air as the leaves swirled around us. It was a happy day. I had so many happy days to focus on.
Like the night Lucien first kissed me. I hadn’t expected to like him at all, let alone fall in love with him. But he’d crawled his way into my heart and now I was hungry for him, desperate at the thought that I would now never have him.
“Lucien,” I whispered.
Marcelle froze on top of me and then there was a hard smack across my cheek. I instinctively pulled for the wind, and nothing happened.
It was in this moment, with Marcelle’s quivering body on top of me, that my shock dissipated. My rage came back to me and I felt everything.
The blood-curdling scream that ripped from my throat scared us both. Marcelle yanked himself off of me, rolling to the side, and I propped up on my elbows, reeling my fist back and connecting with his perfect, upturned nose.
“You bitch!” he growled, and then a bright blinding light went off before my eyes, stealing my sight.
“I hate you! I will never be your wife,” I screamed, even though it wasn’t true. I was his wife. I said yes and now he’d taken my purity.
It was done.
I blinked rapidly. Whiteness. That’s all I saw. I yanked at the cuffs on my wrists but nothing happened except a searing pain. I was naked and screaming like a lunatic, when someone came up behind me and placed a cloak over my shoulders.
“Lock her in her room!” Marcelle yelled.
I felt like a feral animal who had just been caged. I reached out, blindly smacking whoever carried me and bucking in their arms.
“My lady, please calm down,” a male guard’s voice pleaded.
I couldn’t see. I was powerless and I’d just consummated my marriage to Marcelle.
Rage didn’t begin to cover how I felt.
I screamed, and thrashed against the giant guard who held me. I was naked with barely a cloak to cover me and I didn’t care.
“Princess, stop!” the guard hissed.
I wasn’t sure I could sleep at night if I didn’t fight right now. If I didn’t do everything possible to get out of here, I wasn’t sure I could live with myself in the future.
But despite every fist I threw, and kick, it was no use. I’d never needed to physically fight before. I always had my wind magic. I was too weak.
The guard threw me onto a bed and slowly my vision began to return. Shadows moved around the room and then a door slammed, and a lock slid shut.
The full desperation of what had just happened weighed on me, and then with it a wave of shame. Why did I allow that to happen? Could I have fought earlier and stopped it? Would Marcelle hurt my mother or sister?
I was powerless.
I was married.
Not to Lucien.
Sobs wracked my body as I wailed into the blanket. Clutching for the pillow, I brought it to my mouth and screamed. I mourned the loss of something I had saved for Lucien. I’d wanted to experience that with him… and now I never would. I alternated between sobbing and screaming for nearly an hour until, finally, I passed out.
I WAS awoken to the sound of the hinges on the door squeaking. For a moment I forgot where I was, then the nightmare of my reality all came rushing back to me. My heartbeat spiked in my chest as I looked frantically at who was about to enter my room.
Please don’t be Marcelle.
When I saw an unassuming handmaid, I relaxed a little. The door closed behind her and she bowed deeply to me. Her blond hair was tied into two braids and she didn’t look a day over seventeen winters old. She wore the Summer fae crest on her brown apron, which she smoothed with her hands as she approached me.
“Hello, Princess Madelynn.” Her voice was soft and calm. “My name is Birdie and I’ve been assigned as your lady-in-waiting.”
“Birdie?” I didn’t mean to say that out loud but it was a peculiar name.
She smiled, approaching the bed timidly. “My mother died in childbirth, so my father named me after her favorite thing—bird watching. I know it’s not a common name, but I love it.”
Her childlike innocence hurt my chest in that moment. Because it reminded me of myself a few days ago.
“I don’t need a lady-in-waiting. I’m never leaving this room.” I fell back into the bed and rolled over to give her my back. If I was going to be forced to bed Marcelle and then be locked up like a prisoner with my powers bound, then I wouldn’t let him insult me with a lady-in-waiting like I was some honored guest of the palace or a real wife.
I could hear her swallow hard, and for a full moment she didn’t say a word. I believed I’d stunned her and I felt badly if I hurt her feelings, but I couldn’t play Marcelle’s games and live with myself.
The bed dipped then, and suddenly she was hovering over me, her mouth to my ear. “The vote was held overnight. Summer, Spring, and Fall have separated from Winter. Marcelle is the new king of Hazeville, and once your coronation is held you will be our queen.”
I wasn’t sure I could be shocked any more until that very moment. A whimper lodged in my throat and I couldn’t keep the sob from escaping. My father voted to leave Thorngate. Lucien just lost three courts… if the queen attacked… Winter would be overwhelmed.
Her hand rested on my arm and squeezed lightly. “I overheard King Marcelle talking to an advisor. He said he wants tabs kept on your mother and sister, that if you do not cooperate in this new role as his wife and queen… he will make them have an… accident.”
I whipped around so fast that she jumped backwards.
“Why are you telling me this?” I looked at her skeptically, my mind racing as I thought up all the ways Marcelle could hurt my mother and sister. I shouldn’t have fought back last night, it was stupid of me, but it wasn’t in my nature to just lie down and take injustice with a smile.
She sighed. “I was serving in the dining hall the night you arrived with King Thorne. I was taken with his genuine apology, and I don’t agree with how Marcelle has handled things. You were already promised to King Thorne and he just… it’s clear you are here against your will and that doesn’t sit right with me.”
It seemed that against all odds, I had one ally in this place. I reached out and squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”
She gave me a small smile. “Hopefully, I can make your time here as our queen more comfortable.”
Time here as our queen. A lifetime. That’s how long I would be here. I had married Marcelle Haze and it still hadn’t set in.
How the Hades had all of this happened so quickly? Did Lucien know yet? Surely word reached him about the separation. To know that three of your four territories had betrayed you would kill him, but not as much as me not showing up for our wedding.
A sob formed in my throat and I fell back into the pillow. A warm comforting hand was on my back then and I sniffled, pulling up from the pillow to look Birdie in the eyes. “Have you heard anything about King Thorne?”
She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Now that we’ve separated, no messengers are getting in or out of Winter. Fall and Spring have closed their borders and Winter is now considered… an enemy.”
I gasped. “An enemy? The king who has kept us safe for years and we make him an enemy?”
Shame burned into her cheeks as she cast her face down. “No one wants war with the Nightfall queen. Marcelle made a deal—”
“I know about the deal.” I sat up and looked down at my new lady-in-waiting. She was only a few years younger than me and yet seemed so much more naïve. “Do you really think Zaphira will spare us? The queen who has publicly declared her desire to wipe all magical creatures from Avalier?”
Birdie swallowed hard. “I suspect not.”
“No. Marcelle bought you time. That’s all. And in that time the Nightfall queen will grow stronger than ever before,” I growled. “Marcelle has doomed you all.”
We didn’t speak again after that. She went about tidying my new room quietly and then gave me a bath and brushed my hair.
I liked her, I did, but I wanted Piper. I wondered if my dearest friend had gone to Winter Court and told Lucien what happened. Did she even know what happened? Surely she’d seen Marcelle bring me out in cuffs and throw me into a carriage with the sun crest emblem. It wasn’t that hard to speculate. I wondered if Lucien lashed out in anger that I’d taken another man, his rival, and then had sent her away. I wondered if possibly Piper would come for me here to at least live by my side as I walked through this new Hades of a life.
But no, the borders were closed as Birdie just said. No one would be getting to me. I felt the tears spring up again and bit them back. The time for crying was over. Now was time to plot my way out of here.
Three things I was sure of.
- I loved Lucien Thorne. He would never forgive me for marrying Marcelle and giving him my purity, but I couldn’t betray Lucien by playing queen to his enemy.
- I had to get out of here and get my mother and sister into Winter Court, where I would beg Lucien to protect us. Even if I had to be stripped of my title and work as a handmaiden to whatever new wife he chose.
- In order to accomplish all of this, I needed to kill Marcelle Haze.
With my newfound plan mapped out, I decided playing nice was the easiest way to get Marcelle to trust me again. Maybe he would even uncuff me and allow me to have my power back. Then I could use it to suck the air from his lungs until he turned blue and died. Something I now daydreamed of every moment.
My other idea was to smuggle a knife into my room, then request a night alone with him, to bed him. But he was stronger than me, and I was afraid he would wrestle the knife from my grip and then he’d never trust me again.
No, I had to play the long game and get him to uncuff me, releasing my power back.
Birdie left for a while, and when she came back she brought a whole handful of high-quality dresses. When I saw her putting them up in the closet, I was relieved that I could have my own room and not have to sleep next to Marcelle or… bed him every night.
“So I get my own room?” I asked her.
She smiled a bit naughtily at me. “I’ve informed Marcelle’s head of staff that you have started your monthly bleeding and will therefore need your own room for the next week. It will give you some time to… adjust.”
Relief washed over me at that. I had to bite the inside of my cheek just to keep from crying. She was truly what I needed in this moment, someone fighting for me when I couldn’t fight for myself. I didn’t need time to adjust, I needed time to plot Marcelle’s murder. But I wouldn’t tell her that. The fewer people who knew what I was up to, the better.
She’d just given me one week to earn Marcelle’s trust enough to get him to take these cuffs off of me. Or for me to find a poison to place in his drink. I wasn’t picky how he died, just that he needed to.
“Can you pick out a dress? I’d like to join my new husband for dinner,” I told her.
She looked surprised at that but nodded. She dressed me in a light blue silk dress that I was horrified to find was custom made for me. Apparently the day my father had sent a messenger to announce my betrothal to Lucien, Marcelle had the palace seamstress prepare for my place as his wife. He’d planned this the entire time. Wasn’t that the first thing he’d said to me when he’d seen me? That if he knew I was accepting proposals he would have given one to my father? He showed his cards right there and I didn’t see it.
Now… how to make him think I wasn’t faking my newfound compliance? Why would I want to have dinner with a man I’d just clawed at and punched the night before?
When I was dressed and Birdie had done my makeup and hair, I asked her to fetch Marcelle so that we could have a private chat before dinner. I was going to have to layer in some truth or he wouldn’t fall for this new plan of mine.
When his knock came on my door a few minutes later, I crossed my arms and put on an angry scowl.
“Come in,” I called sharply, and the door opened.
When he entered, he wore an almost identical expression. Mild irritation. But then his gaze drank in my hair, makeup, and dress and he softened a little. He shut the door behind him and the realization hit me that for the first time ever I was alone with a man in a room, without a chaperone, because he was my husband.
I swallowed hard. “You went about this all wrong!” I snapped at him. “You should have just told me you wanted to wed when I was here with Lucien. I had no idea your desire to become my husband. You blindsided me.” My true anger was far more than I was displaying but he needed to see a little of it or he wouldn’t believe my wanting to turn things around.
His brows knotted together. “And if I had told you, would you have accepted my proposal instead? I saw the way you defended Lucien. You cared for him. How he pulled that off, I have no idea.”
I scoffed. “How the Hades do I know what I would have done? I was never given a choice. I did care for Lucien, yes. He was nice to me and I was under the impression I would be spending the rest of my life with him, so I stood up for him. Had I known you were a possibility, it might have changed things.”
He pursed his lips as if he wasn’t sure what to think about this turn of events. His brows lifted a little, dislodging their knot.
“I have been informed that the three territories have split from Thorngate and I am now to be queen of Hazeville, by your side, until the day we die,” I declared.
He nodded curtly. “Yes.” He looked proud. “I would like to arrange your coronation for tomorrow evening.” Smug bastard, he had no idea of the damage he’d done.
I nodded, but in my heart I hated that I would become queen of Lucien’s betrayal.
“Well then, we might as well try to repair the damage you did in losing my trust, as I don’t fancy hating my husband for the rest of my life,” I told him.
He smirked a little. “I have to admit, hearing you call me your husband brings me great joy.”
I was going to vomit, instead I just sighed and held up my cuffed hands. “After this, and your threats to my mother and sister, it will take a lot to bring me great joy.”
Marcelle’s face relaxed even more as if he was pleased with how this conversation was going. “Surely I have something to offer you that can bring you happiness?”
Take these cuffs off of me and leave my mother and sister alone! I wanted to scream. But that would show my hand too soon.
I chewed the side of my lip. “I hear Summer Court has the prettiest jewels in all the realm.”
To even think I wanted diamonds at a time like this was insane, but he bought it.
“I will have my palace jeweler take you to the vault. Anything you like is yours.”
I looked unimpressed. “Some chocolate cake wouldn’t hurt either.”
Marcelle reached for my hand and it took everything in me not to recoil. Pulling his lips to my knuckles, he kissed them. “Consider it done.”
I nodded. “Alright then, I’ll see you at dinner?”
“See you at dinner.” He left with a smile and I hated myself for what I’d just done. But spitting in his face and getting thrown in a dungeon wasn’t going to get me out of here. I was going to do whatever it took to survive this.
DINNER WAS BORING. It was just Marcelle and I. I was hoping for some courtiers, but no, Marcelle wanted to speak about all of his achievements and things he’d done since he’d seen me last at the Midsummer Festival when I was thirteen.
“I still remember what you wore that night,” he said, and I tried not to react at the shudder that went down my spine. I had no idea he’d been pining for me this entire time.
“I remember your orange and cream outfit as well. The embroidered sunburst on the back was something,” I told him. I did remember his outfit, because it was hideous and Piper and I spoke of it for two days.
Marcelle smiled at that, looking delighted.
This plan was working far better than I had hoped. I figured three more days and I would casually try to use my magic to lift something off the table, as if forgetting it didn’t work, and let him see my disappointment. Then he would offer to take off my cuffs. Until then, I had to play the part.
We were just tucking into the main course when one of Marcelle’s Sun Guardsmen entered the room looking panicked. He strode quickly to the king’s side.
“My Lord, I have delicate news.” He looked to me.
Marcelle glanced at me also as if weighing things in his mind. I just rolled my eyes as if I didn’t care either way and shoved a piece of bread in my mouth.
“Speak freely,” Marcelle said.
“A cold is sweeping over the land.” His news nearly made the bread lodge in my throat. “The winter king has learned of your marriage and his army rides to Spring Court, presumably to come this way.”
I froze, unable to fake any sort of response.
Marcelle stared at me. “How taken with you was he? Would he freeze the realm again knowing you might also die?”
I didn’t know what to say. “I honestly don’t know what he would do. Now that I am married to you, he must have written me off and could freeze me to spite us both.” It was an honest assessment, one I hated to admit I believed. He could do that. He would feel so betrayed.
Marcelle nodded and then looked to his guard. “Distribute the emergency stored firewood. Ordain a curfew. No one outside after dark. If the temperature plunges, we will be ready.”
Emergency firewood? He had planned for this? Probably since the Great Freeze.
“Send the Sun Guard to Spring Court to join in their defenses. We can burn up the Winter Soldiers before they even set foot here.” Marcelle grinned.
Burn them up. My heart hammered in my chest. If Lucien was busy fighting his own people, the Nightfall queen could choose this moment to attack and take down Winter Court. I just hoped she didn’t get wind of it.
The guard ran off and then Marcelle turned to me. “His true colors are showing. After that whole speech about feeling sorry for the Great Freeze, he is about to make the same mistake.”
It hit me then that Marcelle might have hoped this would happen. That Lucien would find out Marcelle had stolen his betrothed and that Lucien would react in a way that would further divide him against the people of Summer.
“Well, for our sakes, I hope not.” I hugged my shoulders, wondering if I had imagined the sudden cool breeze that rushed into the room.
Marcelle reached out and grasped my hand, pulsing warm sunlight power into my arm. I wanted to yank my hand back but forced myself not to.
“You have nothing to fear at my side,” he promised.
He had no clue. He really didn’t know what Lucien was capable of. Could his Sun Guard burn Lucien’s Winter Soldiers? In the daytime maybe. But if Marcelle thought he could win in a battle against Lucien himself, he was sorely mistaken.
The winter king could kill Marcelle from a hundred miles away, freezing the entire Summer palace and everyone in it.
So why didn’t he?
A small part of my mind wondered if it was because Lucien didn’t want to hurt me. He knew I was here and so he didn’t want to freeze me too. But then why send a cold wave across the realm?
A chill rose on my arms because the temperature was definitely dropping. Was it a signal? To let me know he was coming?
I sighed. I could only dream of such a thing, but sometimes dreams were all we had to cling to.
