"Your mother was supposed to be his bride."
Alistair's words followed me down the corridor like footsteps I couldn't outrun.
I stopped walking.
The silence around us seemed to tighten.
"That's impossible."
He said nothing.
"My mother is married to my father. She has two daughters. How could she have been promised to a prince three hundred years ago?"
"Because your mother is not the woman you believe her to be."
The corridor seemed to tilt beneath me.
I stared at him, searching his face for some sign that this was a cruel misunderstanding. There was none. Fear stirred first, sharp and instinctive, but beneath it came something more painful: the realization that every memory of my mother might have been built on omissions.
For sixteen years, I had lived in the same house as Margaret Vale. I had watched her brush her hair, prepare meals, and laugh with Jacinta.
I had watched her look at me with disgust.
And now this man was telling me she had a secret that stretched back three centuries.
A secret that had somehow led me here.
Part of me wanted to reject it simply because believing him meant admitting my mother had lied to me. Yet another part, the part that had spent years wondering why her hatred felt so personal, recognized the shape of a hidden truth.
"Take me to him," I said.
Alistair hesitated.
"Miss Rose—"
"Now!"
The words cracked through the corridor before I could stop them.
For once, I didn't lower my eyes or apologize. My hands were trembling, but I refused to let him see how close I was to breaking.
Alistair studied me, then opened the doors to the prince's chambers.
"Do not provoke him," he warned.
I walked inside.
The room smelled of smoke and cold iron.
Prince Lucien stood before the fireplace, dressed in black trousers and a fresh white shirt. His expression was unreadable, but the broken silver collar lay on the table beside him, its jagged edges glinting in the firelight.
He looked at me.
"Did Alistair tell you?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"And I want answers."
One eyebrow rose.
"You think you can demand answers from me?"
"No," I replied, surprised by the steadiness of my voice. "But I can refuse to leave until you give them."
For several seconds, he simply stared at me.
The fire popped behind him.
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
It was a short, humorless sound that made the hairs rise along my arms. I had wanted to unsettle him, but the sound reminded me that he was still the most dangerous person in the room.
"You have your mother's stubbornness."
My heart pounded.
The comparison should have comforted me. Instead, it made me wonder whether my mother's stubbornness had been the reason she survived—or the reason she had abandoned me.
"Tell me about her."
His amusement vanished so quickly it was as if I had imagined it.
"Your mother was born into a family sworn to protect my kingdom. Her bloodline carried an ancient gift, one that could either strengthen my curse or destroy it."
"Then why did she run away?"
"Because she discovered what marrying me would cost her."
I swallowed.
The room felt colder.
"What would it cost her?"
Lucien looked toward the broken collar.
"Her freedom. Perhaps her life."
The words settled between us like a death sentence.
A strange ache tightened in my chest.
My mother had escaped this place.
She had escaped the prince.
And then she had gone on to build a life in which I was treated like a prisoner. The contradiction made my anger falter. If this place had been so terrible, why had she never warned me? If she had loved me enough to flee, why had she left me ignorant and defenseless?
"Why did you choose me?" I whispered.
"Because the curse has awakened again, and your blood is the only thing that can end it."
I stared at him.
The answer should have made me feel important. Instead, it reduced me to an inheritance, a vessel carrying the consequences of choices I had never made.
"Then take my blood and let me go."
His expression hardened.
"It isn't that simple."
"Nothing ever is with you people."
He stepped closer.
The firelight caught in his golden eyes, making them look less human than before. I wanted to retreat, but I forced myself to stay where I was. Trusting him was impossible. Yet he had already protected me from the collar, stopped Alistair from dragging me away, and now insisted I had to remain alive. Those actions mattered, but they did not prove kindness. Keeping me safe could simply mean preserving the one thing he needed for his ritual.
"Your mother was meant to break the curse. Instead, she fled, and the curse claimed another victim."
"Who?"
He looked away.
For the first time, I sensed something beneath his coldness.
Grief.
It moved across his face like a shadow, gone almost before I could recognize it. The glimpse unsettled me more than his anger had. A monster would have been easier to hate. A grieving man could still be dangerous, but he could also be manipulated, wounded, or telling only the parts of the truth that served him. Lucien had answered my questions, but each answer seemed carefully shaped to make me fear the curse and depend on him. Even his grief might have been genuine—or another weapon he knew I would hesitate to challenge.
"Someone I loved."
Before I could ask anything else, a loud crash echoed from somewhere downstairs.
The windows shuddered.
Lucien's head snapped toward the door.
A servant's voice rang through the corridor, thin with panic.
"Your Highness! There's been an incident!"
Alistair hurried into the room, his face pale.
"What is it?" Lucien demanded.
"The council has arrived."
Lucien went still.
"How many?"
"All seven."
A dangerous silence settled over the room.
Somewhere beyond the door, footsteps began to gather.
Then Lucien turned to me.
"Listen carefully. Whatever happens, you must not tell them about the collar."
"Why?"
"Because they won't hesitate to kill you to protect their secrets."
His warning struck me with a fresh kind of fear. Until then, I had thought of the council as another source of answers. Now I understood that they might be worse than the prince—not because they wanted me, but because they could decide my death was convenient.
Yet I couldn't ignore the other possibility. By keeping the collar secret, Lucien was also keeping the council from learning how vulnerable he was. His warning might save my life, or it might preserve his advantage. I had no way to tell which, and he offered no explanation beyond the threat.
He seized a dark coat from the chair and headed for the door.
I followed.
"Wait! You still haven't told me everything!"
He stopped without turning around.
For one terrible moment, I thought he would refuse to answer. The old instinct to believe no one returned, but so did my determination. If everyone around me was hiding the truth, I would have to force it into the light myself.
"Your mother wasn't the only one who ran away, Rose."
My stomach tightened.
"What do you mean?"
He looked back at me.
His golden eyes locked onto mine.
"Someone helped her escape."
"Who?"
The answer came softly, but it struck harder than any shout.
"Your father."
---
The council chamber was filled with men and women dressed in dark ceremonial robes.
The air reeked of ash and something metallic, like blood left too long in a sealed room.
At the far end stood seven enormous chairs carved from black stone.
Six were occupied.
The seventh sat empty.
Its seat was dusted with pale frost.
As Lucien entered, every council member rose.
The scrape of their chairs against the floor sounded like blades being drawn.
Then their eyes turned toward me.
An elderly woman with silver hair stood from her chair.
"So," she said, examining me with open disgust. "The human girl has finally arrived."
Lucien moved in front of me.
"Her name is Rose."
The woman smiled coldly.
"Names are irrelevant. What matters is whether she possesses the blood we need."
Her words confirmed what I had already begun to fear: to them, I was not a person. I was evidence, leverage, and perhaps a sacrifice. Whatever trust I had been tempted to place in Lucien shrank further, because he had brought me into this room knowing exactly how they would see me.
She approached me and reached for my wrist.
Lucien caught her hand before she could touch me.
His fingers closed around hers with a sharp, warning force.
"Touch her again, and you will leave this chamber without it."
The woman withdrew, her smile disappearing.
For a heartbeat, nobody breathed.
I should have felt relieved by his defense. Instead, I wondered whether he was protecting me because he cared what happened to me—or because my blood was too valuable to waste. He had placed himself between me and the council, but he had also been the one to bring me before them. His protection felt real, yet it existed inside a cage he controlled.
Then she leaned toward him.
"The collar has broken, hasn't it?"
Nobody moved.
Lucien's silence was answer enough.
A murmur swept through the chamber, low and hungry.
The elderly woman turned to me.
"Do you know what you've done, child?"
I shook my head.
She looked at Lucien, then back at me.
"The curse can no longer be contained. And unless the prince completes the blood ritual before the next full moon, he will lose his humanity forever."
A cold numbness spread through my legs.
My knees weakened.
The revelation should have made me pity Lucien. Instead, panic rose first. His fate was now tied to mine, and every person in this chamber seemed prepared to decide what my body owed him.
"How long do we have?" I whispered.
The woman smiled.
"Seven days."
The words seemed to echo from the black stone walls.
Seven days. The number was small enough to feel like a trap and large enough to keep me from surrendering immediately. I had seven days to learn who was lying, what the ritual required, and whether escape was still possible.
Then she delivered the final blow.
"And if he becomes a beast permanently, every living descendant of your mother's bloodline will die with him."
The chamber fell silent.
I stared at Lucien.
He didn't deny it.
His silence frightened me more than the council's threat. If it was true, my family was in danger. If it was false, he was allowing them to use my fear against me. Either way, I could no longer afford to trust his silence. He had warned me about the council, defended me from them, and still refused to contradict their most terrifying claim. Perhaps he was trying to protect me from panic. Perhaps he was letting panic drive me toward the ritual.
Seven days.
My life had been stolen by my parents, and now my blood had tied me to a cursed prince.
But as I looked into his golden eyes, another question burned inside me.
If my mother had escaped this fate, why had she given birth to me?
And why had my father, of all people, helped her?
Behind me, the empty chair creaked.
I turned sharply.
No one was sitting in it.
A thin line of frost crawled across the floor toward my feet.
The sight froze me in place, but it also hardened something inside me. Fear had brought me here. Fear had kept me obedient. It would not be the thing that decided what happened next.
Perhaps I hadn't been sold to the prince by accident.
Perhaps I had been born for this bargain.
And if that was true, I would find out who had made it—and whether I could break it before it claimed me.