Cassian's POV
The silence woke him.
Cassian knew his sister's routine better than he knew his own heartbeat. Every night at eleven, Seraphina would play her violin for exactly thirty minutes. The same sad melody, over and over. A song their mother had taught her before she died. It was the only time Seraphina let herself feel anything real.
Tonight there was nothing.
He sat up in bed, listening. The castle around him was dark and quiet. Midnight had already passed. His chest tightened. Something was wrong. He could taste it like poison on his tongue.
Cassian threw off his blankets and moved through the stone hallways in bare feet. His guard, Elias, slept outside his door. Cassian stepped over her without waking her. He was good at moving silently. He'd had fifteen years to practice.
Seraphina's chambers were on the other side of the east wing. The hallways seemed longer than usual, colder. Cassian's heart was beating so hard he thought it might break his ribs. When he reached her door, he didn't knock. He just walked in.
The room was empty.
Not just quiet. Empty.
Her clothes were gone from the wardrobe. Her jewelry box stood open on the vanity with nothing inside. The books she always kept stacked on her nightstand had vanished. Even her pillows looked different, rearranged like someone had searched through them.
Cassian couldn't breathe.
He stood in the middle of his twin sister's bedroom and couldn't remember how to breathe. His hands started shaking. Not from fear. From anger. From the terrible, sick knowledge that something catastrophic had just happened.
On her pillow sat a single piece of parchment.
His name was written on the front in Seraphina's perfect handwriting. Cassian picked it up with trembling fingers. The parchment felt so light, like it couldn't possibly contain anything important. But his sister's entire life was written across it.
I'm sorry. Please understand. Let Cassian take my place.
That was all.
Five words. That was all she'd left him.
Cassian read it again. Then again. His mind wouldn't work properly. It kept stumbling over the same impossible sentence. Take her place. Take her place where? In what? Why would she ask him to do something so completely insane?
And then it crashed over him like ice water. The wedding. In two days, Seraphina was supposed to marry Crown Prince Damian Vale of the Southern Kingdom. The wedding that every political advisor said would either save both kingdoms or destroy them. The treaty hung on her marriage like a blade waiting to fall.
Their father, King Alaric, had been obsessed with it for months. He'd spent half the royal treasury on the ceremony. He'd written to the southern queen personally. He'd made Seraphina practice her vows until she got them perfect.
And now she was gone.
Cassian sank onto her bed. His legs wouldn't hold him up anymore. Seraphina wouldn't just leave without a reason. His sister was duty and honor and all the things he couldn't be. She wouldn't abandon her kingdom for nothing.
But the note said please understand. Not I'll come back. Not I'm safe. Just please understand.
He didn't understand anything.
The footsteps came so fast Cassian barely had time to stand. Heavy footsteps. Boots on stone. Not guards. Only one person walked like that. Only one person moved through the castle like he owned it because he did.
Their father.
King Alaric appeared in the doorway like a curse made real. He was still wearing his council robes, which meant he'd come straight from the throne room at midnight. His eyes swept across the empty room, across Cassian standing in the middle of it, across the note in Cassian's shaking hands.
And then Alaric smiled.
Not a worried smile. Not the kind of smile a father made when his daughter had vanished. This smile was cold and satisfied. Like he'd been waiting for this. Like this was exactly what he wanted. Like everything had gone according to some plan Cassian didn't understand.
Cassian's stomach dropped so far he thought it would fall through the floor.
"What have you done?" Cassian whispered.
Their father didn't answer immediately. He just kept smiling that terrible smile and walked further into the room. He looked around slowly, taking in every empty space. When his gaze landed on Cassian again, something dangerous flickered in his eyes.
Alaric reached out and took the note from Cassian's hands. He read it slowly, like he was savoring every word. His expression didn't change. He wasn't surprised. This wasn't news to him.
"You knew," Cassian said. It wasn't a question anymore.
"Knew what?" Alaric asked, his voice smooth as silk. He folded the note carefully and tucked it into his pocket. "That your sister would run away? That she would abandon her duty? That she would shame her entire family?"
"That's not what happened," Cassian said. But doubt was creeping in. Something in his father's confidence made him wonder if he was right. "Where is she? What did you do to her?"
Alaric stepped closer. He was a big man, broad through the shoulders, with a presence that filled rooms. He'd always used his size like a weapon. He used it now, standing over Cassian like a mountain ready to crush him.
"The location of your sister is no longer your concern," their father said softly. "What concerns you now is very simple. In two days, the Southern Kingdom is expecting a bride. That bride is supposed to secure a treaty between our kingdoms. That bride is supposed to prevent a war that would kill thousands of our soldiers."
Cassian shook his head. "Then send her. Send Seraphina. If she's—"
"Your sister," Alaric interrupted, his voice dropping even lower, "made her choice. And now you're going to make yours."
Cassian tried to step back but there was nowhere to go. The bed was right behind him. He was trapped.
"I don't understand," Cassian whispered, but he was beginning to.
"Of course you don't," his father said. He reached out and gripped Cassian's chin, forcing him to meet his eyes. His fingers were strong enough to hurt. "But you will. You see, the South is expecting a bride in two days. They're expecting a princess of the North. And suddenly, that princess has vanished. That looks like betrayal, Cassian. That looks like weakness."
Understanding crawled up Cassian's spine like something alive and hungry.
"No," he breathed. "No, I won't. I can't."
"You can and you will," Alaric said. He released Cassian's chin and stepped back slightly, but the threat in his posture remained. "You're going to put on your sister's wedding dress. You're going to travel south to Golden Vale. You're going to marry Crown Prince Damian Vale and secure this treaty."
Cassian tried to move past his father but Alaric simply raised one hand and blocked his path without effort.
"And if you refuse," Alaric continued, his voice dropping even lower, "I'll declare war on the Southern Kingdom. I'll tell everyone that Seraphina betrayed us. I'll make sure every person in two kingdoms knows that the North's princess abandoned her people. Your sister's name will be mud, Cassian. Her memory will be burned like garbage. Thousands of soldiers will die for her shame."
The words hung in the air between them like poison.
"Your sister trusted you," Alaric said, his tone almost gentle now. That was somehow worse than anger. "She asked you to take her place in that note. So now you have a choice, boy. Take her place and save her reputation. Or refuse and watch me destroy everything she ever was."
He turned and walked toward the door, his robes swishing softly against the stone floor. At the threshold, he paused.
"You have until dawn," Alaric said without looking back. "The servants will come at five. They'll prepare you. You'll be on the road south by six. You won't come back until you've done your job."
He turned back one final time, and the expression on his face was pure contempt.
"Don't disappoint me, Cassian," he said. "After everything I've tolerated from you, this is the one thing you're actually useful for."
Then he was gone.
Cassian stood alone in his sister's empty room, holding her note, and felt something inside him shatter into pieces. He looked down at the parchment again. At her handwriting. At the request that had just become a prison sentence.
Let Cassian take my place.
The problem was, he realized with the kind of sharp, cold clarity that only came with complete despair, that he didn't know if Seraphina had written this note willingly.
And more importantly, he didn't know if she was still alive.
The door burst open behind him.
Elias stood there, out of breath, her eyes wide with alarm.
"Cassian," she gasped. "Your father just left the throne room. He's called for seamstresses and servants. He's ordering a carriage to be prepared at dawn. He's telling everyone you're leaving for the South."
Elias stepped inside and locked the door behind her.
"He knows you're here," she whispered. "He knows about Seraphina. And Cassian, he's smiling like he's won something."