Chapter 2 The Prince’s Unexpected Arrival

Garrick stared at me as though I were a ghost that had wandered into his house. Behind him, Luna Mirabel drew her dagger, the silver blade catching the lamplight. I could not move. For nineteen years I had feared that woman’s hands, her voice, even the sound of her shoes on the stairs. Now I understood she had been afraid of something too.

“How much did you hear?” Garrick asked. His calm frightened me more than Mirabel’s weapon. I looked from his face to the study window, measuring the distance to the garden below. The drop would probably break an ankle, and the guards patrolled the walls after dark.

“Enough,” I whispered. “You told me my parents abandoned me.”

Mirabel stepped forward, but Garrick caught her wrist. “Put that away. We have a royal visitor arriving tomorrow, and a missing servant would invite questions.” He turned back to me with an expression I had seen him use on frightened horses. “There are things about your family you don’t understand, Zivelle.”

“Then explain them.” The words escaped before I could swallow them. “Who were my parents? Why did the king want me dead?”

Mirabel laughed bitterly. “Listen to her, Garrick. One scholarship letter and she thinks she can interrogate us.” She pulled free of his grip and pressed the dagger against my throat. The metal was cold enough to make me gasp. “You will go downstairs, finish your chores, and forget what you heard.”

I stood perfectly still, conscious of a curious warmth spreading behind my violet eye. It had happened before, whenever fear became too much to bear, but tonight the sensation was stronger. Mirabel’s fingers tightened around the hilt. Then, without warning, she recoiled, dropping the dagger with a sharp cry.

“What did you do?” she demanded, clutching her burned palm.

I looked down at my empty hands. “Nothing. I didn’t touch you.”

Garrick seized my arm and dragged me toward the servants’ stairs. His grip bruised, but his expression was no longer merely angry. “Lock her in the cellar,” he told Mirabel. “Until I speak to the council, no one is to see her.”

The cellar smelled of damp stone and rotting vegetables. Mirabel pushed me inside, slammed the heavy door, and turned the key. I waited until her footsteps disappeared before sinking against the wall. The darkness felt alive around me. Somewhere above, the house carried on as usual, with clinking glasses and distant laughter, while everything I believed about myself lay in pieces.

My parents had not abandoned me. Someone had murdered my family, and the people who raised me knew why. I pressed my palms over my eyes, trying to remember anything from before Thornveil, but there was only a confused impression of music, a woman’s perfume, and a voice calling a name I could never quite hear.

A faint tapping interrupted my thoughts. At first I mistook it for a mouse inside the walls. Then a loose stone shifted beside the shelves, and a narrow face appeared in the gap. It belonged to Nessa, the youngest kitchen maid, who had occasionally slipped me bread when Cook was distracted.

“I heard what happened,” she whispered. “Rosella says you attacked the Luna.”

“I didn’t.” I crawled toward her, hope rising despite myself. “Nessa, can you open the door?”

“Not without the key.” Her eyes glistened in the dim light. “But I brought something.” She pushed a small bundle through the opening, along with a folded piece of paper. Inside were two rolls, a flask of water, and my academy acceptance letter, carefully pieced together.

I stared at the scorched edges. “How did you get this?”

“The messenger gave me another copy before he left. He said the academy expected you at tomorrow’s welcome ceremony.” Nessa hesitated, then lowered her voice. “He also said you should never trust anyone wearing the royal crest.”

Before I could ask why, boots sounded overhead. Nessa vanished, sliding the stone back into place. I hid the letter beneath my dress just as the cellar door opened. Garrick stood at the top of the steps, accompanied by two guards carrying iron restraints.

“You’re leaving tonight,” he announced. “A carriage will take you somewhere safe.”

“Safe for whom?” I asked. I had never spoken to him like that before, and the guards exchanged startled glances. Garrick descended slowly, his mouth tightening with each step.

“I kept you alive when others wanted you buried,” he said. “Do not mistake my patience for weakness.”

The guards fastened the restraints around my wrists. The metal bit into my skin, and the strange warmth in my eye vanished at once. Wolfbane, I realized from the bitter smell rising off the shackles. It was used to weaken dangerous shifters, not girls who had never possessed a wolf.

They marched me through the rear courtyard, where a black carriage waited beneath the trees. Its curtains were drawn, and a driver sat motionless beneath a hood. Garrick opened the door himself, revealing a stranger dressed in royal black. He wore no crown, only a signet ring engraved with a snarling wolf.

The stranger studied me in silence. His face was young, almost beautiful, but his golden eyes held a coldness that made me want to retreat. I knew those eyes from portraits displayed in every pack hall. The prince had arrived a day early. I had imagined meeting him once, years ago, when Rosella showed me a painting of the royal family. Back then, I had thought princes rescued people from cruel households. Looking at him now, I wondered whether the stories had conveniently left out the frightening parts.

“Kyron Duskryn,” Garrick said, bowing low. “As promised, the girl.”

Kyron did not acknowledge him. Instead, he leaned forward, his gaze settling on my mismatched eyes. His expression changed, and something fierce flashed across his face. He reached out, caught my chin, and inhaled sharply.

“Impossible,” he whispered. Then his eyes lifted to Garrick. “Why does she smell like my mate?”