The bells did not ring in celebration.
They tolled like mourning chimes, slow and hollow, echoing through the mist-wrapped hills of Lysaire.
Winter had come early, settling a gray hush over the crumbling stone walls of the capital. No snow had fallen, but the air held a bite, and the sky hung like damp silk. The people gathered without smiles. A foreign man was marrying their last princess.
He stood unnaturally still before the altar, draped in a black velvet cloak spun from cloth no one in Lysaire could name. His dark eyes, like riverstone polished smooth by time, did not search for hers. They stared into something far older, far colder. No one knew where he came from. Only that the king had chosen him. Only that the princess had not.
She arrived, veiled and silent.
Princess Elira, daughter of flame and frost, moved like royalty trained to dance on broken glass. Her crimson braid coiled beneath her silver crown. Her face was unreadable. But her eyes—those ancient Lysaire eyes—burned. Not with affection. With fury held in chains.
Above the vaulted court, perched in shadow, a creature watched. A raven, some thought, until its silver-threaded feathers caught the light. Bone-pale eyes blinked slowly. It did not caw. It only observed—just as it had in kingdoms before this one, kingdoms now turned to dust. Its name was forgotten by men, but not by him. It belonged to the stranger.
The vows came like echoes: brittle, ceremonial, joyless.
He took her hand. She did not flinch, nor did she grip back.
The High Seer's voice wavered as he spoke the rite in the old tongue, sealing a bond neither heart had asked for. They kissed—dry, formal, cold.
In the crowd, an aging noblewoman trembled. Her lips moved silently, remembering a line from a dream she'd once dismissed:
> "When fire weds shadow, the last crown shall fall."
The stranger said nothing. But in that moment, his fingers tensed slightly around hers. Not from nerves. From memory.
That night, as dusk cloaked the castle in candlelight, no songs were sung. The walls of Lysaire seemed to lean inward, listening. The kingdom had gained a prince.
But not a savior.
In the silence of their wedding chamber, he sat by the fire, eyes on the hearth's dying flame. The princess stood near the door, back straight, crown tilted slightly askew—like it knew it didn't belong. Neither spoke.
And then, softly, he whispered a name into the shadows.
It wasn't hers.