It happened the first night.
Elara had been back in the palace less than twelve hours when the first blade came for her throat.
She sensed it before she saw it—just a whisper of wrongness in the air. The silence was too thick. The shadows too still.
She turned from the open window just as the assassin dropped soundlessly from the rafters.
Steel flashed.
Elara moved.
The dagger sliced through the air where her neck had been a heartbeat ago. She twisted sideways, catching the assassin's wrist with a well-practiced grip. He was fast—faster than any guard she'd trained with at the Academy.
But Elara was faster still.
She shifted her weight and slammed her elbow into his jaw. The man stumbled, not expecting resistance from a girl who was supposed to be royal, soft, and broken.
Mistake.
"Who sent you?" she hissed, kicking his knee out.
He said nothing.
Of course he wouldn't.
She ducked the next strike, grabbed a candlestick, and smashed it into his temple. He dropped.
Elara stood over the unconscious man, heart pounding. Her hand trembled slightly.
Not from fear.
From fury.
> "You made it one night back at court before they tried to kill you," she muttered to herself. "Impressive."
She pressed the hidden sigil beneath her desk. A whisper of ancient magic shimmered through the room as a golden light pulsed once on the door—locking it. No guards would come. No sound would escape.
That was the beauty of the Oath-sealed rooms.
She had five minutes before the spell wore off.
Moving quickly, she knelt beside the body. The assassin wore all black, no crest. But the poison vial tucked into his belt was labeled in a familiar symbol—a Thorne mark.
Her mother's house.
Coincidence?
She doubted it.
A knock sounded on the door.
Not the usual knock.
Three slow taps. A pause. Two more. Soft. Deliberate.
She stood and opened the door.
Prince Caelum Drayce stepped inside like a shadow made flesh.
He glanced at the unconscious man on the floor, then at her.
"You're better than they said," he murmured.
"Disappointed?" she asked, wiping a smear of blood from her cheek.
"No," he said. "Intrigued."
He knelt by the body, flipping the assassin's glove. "Blackthorn embroidery. House Thorne craftsmanship. Your mother's people."
"I noticed."
Caelum rose, eyes unreadable. "They didn't just send you here to warm the court benches, did they?"
Elara crossed her arms. "And you didn't come to welcome me home."
His lips curved into something between a smile and a warning. "You're not safe here, Princess. Someone wants you dead before the week ends."
"They can try again tomorrow," she said coldly.
Caelum stepped closer. Too close. She didn't flinch.
"You're playing a dangerous game."
"I didn't come to play," Elara replied. "I came to take."
For a breath, they simply stared at each other—predators sizing up the other.
Then Caelum said softly, "If you're going to survive, you'll need an ally who doesn't mind blood on their hands."
"And why would you help me?"
His expression darkened. "Because you're the only one in this palace who might burn it all down."
She didn't trust him. She wasn't supposed to.
But gods help her... she might need him.
And so, with her mother's ghost in one ear and her own rage in the other, Elara offered the first of many lies.
"Then let's make a deal."