BOUND TO THE SHADOW CROWN

The walls of the eastern tower had been crumbling for six years, ever since the fire. Thessaly picked at a loose stone with her thumbnail, watching it flake away like dead skin. Appropriate, really. This whole place was rotting from the inside out, and she was just another piece of decay nobody wanted to look at too closely.

"Thess! Thessaly, where are you?"

Isleen's voice echoed up through the empty corridors, sharp with panic. That wasn't normal. Isleen only sounded like that when—

Thessaly was already running.

She took the spiral stairs two at a time, her worn boots slapping against stone that had once gleamed white marble. Now everything was gray with ash and time, covered in the kind of grime that never really came clean no matter how hard you scrubbed. She'd tried. Gods, she'd tried.

The lower halls were chaos.

Servants scattered like frightened birds, arms full of whatever they could carry. Silver candlesticks. Rolled tapestries. A woman Thessaly recognized from the kitchens was clutching a bag of flour to her chest like it was made of gold. Maybe it was, now. Maybe everything they had left was worth more than it used to be.

"Isleen!" Thessaly grabbed her handmaiden's arm, spinning her around. "What's happening?"

Isleen's eyes were red-rimmed, her dark hair falling loose from its usual neat braid. She'd been crying. That sent ice straight through Thessaly's stomach because Isleen didn't cry, hadn't cried even when they'd gone three days without food last winter.

"They came for Malachi," Isleen whispered. "Shadow soldiers. They're taking him to—"

She didn't finish. Didn't need to.

Thessaly pushed past her, ignoring Isleen's grabbed hand, her shouted warnings. The great hall was just ahead, and she could already hear voices. Her brother's voice, raised in anger. The lower, colder tones of someone used to being obeyed.

She burst through the doors.

The hall looked even worse filled with people. At least when it was empty, you could pretend it was supposed to be that way—some kind of aesthetic choice. But with twenty soldiers in dark armor standing at attention, with her mother backed against the far wall looking small and breakable, with Malachi on his knees in chains...

The rot was obvious. The shame was impossible to ignore.

"Thess, go back upstairs." Malachi's voice was steady despite the blood on his lip. Always the prince, even now. Even with his hands bound and his future measured in hours. "This doesn't concern you."

That almost made her laugh. Nothing ever concerned her, according to her family. She'd spent nineteen years being told she didn't matter, that her lack of magic made her less than human in a world where power was everything. They'd hidden her away like dirty laundry, kept her in the eastern tower where guests wouldn't see her, wouldn't ask uncomfortable questions about the broken princess who couldn't even light a candle flame.

But she was done being invisible.

"Let him go." Thessaly walked forward, chin up, trying to look like she had any authority at all. "Whatever he's accused of, I'm sure it's a misunderstanding."

The soldier who'd been speaking to Malachi turned to look at her. His armor was different from the others—more ornate, with a silver insignia she didn't recognize. An officer, then. Someone important enough to be dangerous.

"And you are?" His voice was bored.

"Thessaly Ashenheart. Princess of Lumenvale." The titles felt like dust in her mouth. Princess of ruins. Of ash and memory and nothing else. "This is my brother, and I'm asking you to—"

"Your brother is accused of conspiracy against the Shadow Realm," the officer interrupted. "Plotting with insurgents. Harboring enemies of the king. The evidence is substantial."

"The evidence is fabricated!" Malachi jerked against his chains. "I've done nothing except try to survive in a kingdom that doesn't exist anymore!"

"Silence."

One word, and Malachi's mouth snapped shut. Not by choice—Thessaly could see the strain in his neck, the way his jaw clenched as he fought against whatever magic was forcing his compliance. Her stomach turned. This was real. They were really taking him, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it.

Unless.

The idea hit her like a physical blow, and for a moment she couldn't breathe around it. It was insane. Suicidal. Exactly the kind of dramatic gesture people made in stories right before everything went catastrophically wrong.

But Malachi was all they had left. Their father had died in the war. Half their people were scattered to other kingdoms or dead themselves. Their mother looked like she might shatter if someone breathed on her too hard. And Thessaly...

Thessaly had spent her whole life being the one who didn't matter.

Maybe it was time to change that.

"Take me instead."

The words came out steady. She was proud of that, at least. Proud that her voice didn't shake even though every instinct was screaming at her to run, to hide, to go back to her tower and pretend she hadn't seen this.

The officer's expression didn't change. "I'm sorry?"

"Take me instead of my brother." Thessaly stepped closer, close enough to see her reflection in his polished breastplate. She looked small. Pale. Unimportant. Good. "I'll go with you willingly. No resistance. Just... leave him here."

"Thess, no." Malachi's voice was rough. "Don't be stupid. You can't—"

"Can't what?" She looked at him, this brother who'd barely spoken to her in years except to remind her to stay out of sight when they had visitors. "Can't be useful? Can't actually do something that matters?"

"You don't know what you're offering." Her mother's voice was thin, wavering. "The Shadow King doesn't take hostages out of mercy, Thessaly. If you go with them—"

"Then I go." Thessaly turned back to the officer, pulse hammering in her throat. "Is it a deal? Me for him?"

The officer studied her for a long moment. She could feel him measuring her worth, calculating whether a magicless princess was a fair trade for a prince who could barely hold his kingdom together. Probably not. Probably she was offering something worthless for something valuable, and he'd laugh in her face any second now.

"The king did express interest in... speaking with the Ashenheart family." The officer's tone was careful, diplomatic. "He wasn't particular about which member we brought back."

Hope and terror hit simultaneously. "Then it's a trade. Me for Malachi."

"Thess—"

"Deal," the officer said.

Just like that. One word, and Thessaly's life stopped being her own.