The air in the Empress's audience chamber had not lost its bite when Lyra stumbled out. It clung to her skin like a chill that would not thaw, even beneath the noonday sun. Guards lined the colonnade as if sculpted from stone, their armor gleaming too brightly, their faces too empty. Each step she took away from those black-lacquered doors felt wrong, as though invisible strings tugged her back toward them. The Empress's voice still coiled through her skull, honey laid over steel: Serve me, or be crushed by the weight of your own secret.
Her heart had not steadied when she saw him waiting.
Kieran leaned against a marble pillar as if it were the back of some tavern bench, arms crossed, the faintest ghost of a smirk pulling his mouth. He was dressed too sharply for casual indifference, the silver threading of his robes catching the light in a way that made him appear carved rather than clothed. His eyes tracked her with a predator's patience, as though he'd been here not for minutes but for hours, content to watch her squirm in the dark before pouncing.
"You took your time," he said.
Lyra tightened her grip on the folds of her servant's skirt. "The Empress… speaks slowly."
"Or perhaps she saw something in you worth lingering on." His words were casual, but there was weight in the way he straightened, the way his gaze pinned her as if to say, and what exactly did she see, Lyra?
She hated the way her throat clenched. She hated more the thought that the Empress might have whispered about shadows, about power, about things Lyra had no right to carry inside her bones.
But what came next was worse.
Because Kieran, with the same maddeningly calm expression, pushed away from the pillar, walked closer, and said loudly enough for the guards to hear, "There you are, fiancée."
The word struck harder than any blade.
Her breath snagged. Every guard within earshot straightened subtly, and she could feel their eyes flick like needles between prince and servant.
Lyra forgot how to move, how to breathe, how to exist.
Fiancée?
"What," she croaked, the sound splintering as it left her lips.
Kieran's hand brushed hers, not enough to grip, not enough to reassure, only enough for the guards to see the illusion he had just spun. His expression didn't soften; it sharpened. "Play along," he muttered beneath his breath, the words slicing so low she almost thought she imagined them.
She did not.
Lyra's instincts screamed to recoil, to rip her hand away, to demand what absurd trick this was. But she had felt the Empress's gaze like a brand upon her neck only minutes ago, and that memory shoved her into stillness. The guards were watching. The palace always watched. And she, she could not afford another enemy.
So she stood, pale and frozen, while Kieran's lips curved into the sort of half-smile that made him look untouchable, as if this had been inevitable.
The moment they were alone in the adjoining corridor, she tore her hand back as if burned.
"Have you lost your mind?" The words came out strangled, part fury, part terror.
Kieran did not stop walking. His stride carried him like a blade sliding from a sheath, smooth and inexorable. "On the contrary. I've just saved your life."
"By shackling me to yours?" Her voice broke upward, the outrage barely keeping ahead of panic. "Do you understand what you've done? Do you understand what the Empress will do with this?"
His head tilted, his gaze flicking toward her in brief amusement. "I do. Better than you."
Something inside her snapped. "I don't need your protection. I never asked,"
"You don't need it?" He stopped abruptly, and she nearly collided with him. He turned fully this time, eyes catching hers with a force that made her breath hitch. "The Empress had you cornered. I saw it the moment you stepped out of those doors. She would have plucked you apart thread by thread, if not now then soon. What would you have done, servant girl, if I hadn't intervened?"
The title cut, though his tone carried no scorn, only cold truth.
Her mouth opened, then closed. Words fluttered and died on her tongue.
Because he wasn't wrong.
Because Seraphina's smile still lingered in her skull like a spider's web, tightening.
But admitting that would feel like surrender, and she could not, would not, bend to him.
So Lyra said nothing.
The silence stretched, taut and trembling, until Kieran exhaled, a sharp sound of frustration. "You should be thanking me."
"Thanking you," she repeated, her voice low, dangerous with disbelief.
"Yes. Because now, no one dares touch you. Not while you're under my name."
Her laugh was hollow. "And what happens when they realize it isn't true? When they find out your supposed fiancée is just a servant you can't prove affection for?"
Kieran's lips curved again, but this time the smile did not reach his eyes. "Then you had better learn quickly how to make it convincing."
That night, the palace burned with rumor.
Servants whispered in kitchens and laundries. Nobles raised their brows in lacquered halls. Courtiers leaned in too closely with their wine cups. A prince's engagement was no small ripple, it was a storm, and Lyra's name had been hurled into its center.
Zara found her before the torches had been snuffed.
"Tell me it isn't true," Zara demanded, dragging her into a shadowed alcove, her eyes wide and wild. "Lyra, tell me you aren't bound to him, that arrogant snake,"
"I didn't choose this," Lyra hissed, clutching her friend's wrist. "He, he said it, and now it's out there. I don't know why, I don't know what game he's playing, but I had no choice."
Zara's face twisted, equal parts fury and fear. "Then he's trapped you. You can't escape this now."
The words struck deep, because Lyra already knew they were true.
The Empress summoned her again the next day.
This time Seraphina's smile was sharper, her delight poorly hidden behind silk and gold. "A clever move by my son," she purred. "Or perhaps by fate itself. Imagine, a lowly servant raised to such heights overnight. How… curious."
Lyra bowed, each vertebra stiff.
The Empress's gaze slithered down her, dissecting her very bones. "I will permit this engagement," she said at last, "for now. But be warned, child. If you stumble, if you disgrace the name you wear, it will not be my son who suffers. It will be you."
Lyra left the chamber with her stomach churning, her breath a stone in her chest.
The chains had closed around her, invisible but unbreakable.
And yet, beneath the fear, something else stirred, a spark of defiance, a whisper from the shadows that had become her blood.
If I must play this role, then I will learn the game. And I will not lose.
That night, as the palace slept uneasily on its rumors, Lyra lay awake.
The memory of Kieran's hand brushing hers haunted her. Not for the comfort, it had not been comfort, but for the way it had been calculated, performed, undeniable. He had tethered her to him with a word. And she could not decide whether to hate him more for the chain… or for the faint, treacherous relief it brought.
Because for the first time since shadows entered her veins, someone else had drawn the fire of the world's gaze away from her, if only slightly.
But at what cost?
Her eyes burned open in the dark. The night pressed close, thick with silence.
Somewhere within the palace, voices whispered, alliances shifted, daggers were sharpened.
And in the stillness, Lyra felt the truth settle heavy in her chest.
She was no longer invisible. She was no longer safe.
She was the prince's fiancée.
And tomorrow, the world would want proof.