Chapter 4 In Which the King Refuses to Die

Goosebumps rose along my arms. Every muscle in my body locked up, but somehow I kept my hand on his chest. The fire crackled behind me, but the sound faded beneath the pounding of my own heartbeat.

“How…” I swallowed hard. My throat had gone completely dry. “How long have you known?”

Vane did not reach for his sword. Instead, he drew a short steel knife from his belt and held it out to me by the blade, offering me the bone handle.

“Take this,” he said. “That dagger on your thigh is brittle. If you hit a bone, the stone will shatter before it reaches my heart. Use this instead. The steel will do the job.”

I stepped back, my hand dropping from his chest. I stared at the knife in his hand, my mind spinning. “Is this a game to you? You think my life is a joke?”

“No,” Vane said, setting the knife on the edge of the mattress. “I just dislike poor tools. If you are going to try to kill me in my own bed, I would prefer you did not embarrass yourself.”

“Why?” I managed, fear finally catching up with me. “Why give me a better weapon when you know why I came here?”

“I know why you agreed to this marriage, Isolde,” Vane said, walking back to the table for his wine. “You think you are saving your valley from a tyrant. But did your father ever tell you why I killed Alistair?”

“Because you wanted to break us,” I said, my hand moving toward the hem of my skirt, my fingers wanting the stone blade despite his warning. “You wanted every lord in Oakhaven to cower because we asked to keep our harvest. You killed him because you could.”

Vane took a sip of his wine, his back to me. “I killed him because your cousin Alistair died three months ago in the northern passes.”

I stared at him, an empty laugh escaping my throat. “What are you talking about? I was standing right there. I grew up with him. I know his face, I know his voice, I watched him bleed on our floor.”

“You watched something wearing his skin die,” Vane said, turning to face me. “They are called the Skinned. They come from the old places in the mountains. They kill a man, take his memories, and walk around in his body.”

My stomach turned. “That is impossible. That is a story told to keep children from wandering into the woods.”

"Do you think I would have executed him without proof?" Vane asked.

"Proof?" I stepped toward him. "You executed a lord's son in front of the entire court. What proof could you possibly have that he was one of the Skinned?"

Vane stared into his cup, his shoulders dropping slightly.

"The Skinned are careful. They have the voice, the jokes, the walk. They remember the facts of a person's life. But they don't understand the memories behind them. If you watch closely, they always make mistakes."

He set the cup down, his fingers lingering on the silver rim.

"I have had scouts watching your father's territory for months, Isolde. Not to spy for war, but to look for signs of them. For a long time, they found nothing. Then, three weeks ago, reports about your cousin began arriving."

He looked up, his golden eyes suddenly intent. “He greeted the old tax collector like a dear friend, even though our records showed the real Alistair had hated the man since he was a boy. He forgot a promise he had made to one of our informants two weeks earlier. My men noted that he could recite the name of a battle he fought, but when questioned by his own veterans, he couldn't remember the faces of the men who had died beside him.”

I searched his face, looking for a lie, any sign of trickery. “And if you had been wrong? If it really had been him?”

The room grew quiet, save for the crackle of the wood in the hearth.

"Then I murdered an innocent man," he admitted. "And I will carry that for the rest of my life."

He looked away.

"But I wasn't wrong. That creature was whispering in your father's ear, Isolde. It was pushing Oakhaven toward a war your people would have lost in a week. It wanted the valley soaked in blood."

“This is madness,” I whispered, shaking my head. If he was telling the truth, then the boy who had smiled at me across the dinner table for the last month was a monster. “You expect me to believe this? To just take your word?”

Vane reached up and pulled open the collar of his shirt, pushing the cloth down past his shoulder. My eyes widened the moment I saw the scar.

A pale mark ran across his collarbone. The skin around it was grey, and thick, dark veins branched out from the wound like webs beneath his skin. As I watched, a faint purple light pulsed deep within them, matching the throb of a heart.

"My brother tried to kill me a month ago," Vane said. "When I drove my sword through his ribs, he didn't bleed. He just... started to rot. I watched his body turn gray and crumble before his armor even hit the floor."

“My cousin didn’t turn into that,” I whispered. “When he died, he looked human.”

Vane’s expression hardened. “Because their disguises do not always fail immediately. Sometimes the skin they wear holds for a few moments after death. Long enough to fool anyone watching. Long enough to make you believe they were human until the very end.”

"They're already inside my walls, Isolde. They're in my guard. They sit at my table. I don't know if the man who wakes me in the morning is a loyal soldier or something waiting to slit my throat."

My eyes stayed locked on the purple light beneath his skin. The cold no longer came from the winter; it was the realization that the impossible had been real all along.

“If you do not trust anyone,” I asked, raising my gaze, “then why marry me? Why bring a southern girl who hates you into your bedchamber?”

Vane closed his shirt, hiding the scar, and crossed the space between us. He did not reach for my neck this time. Instead, he took my hand, enclosing it between his palms.

“Because the old histories say the Skinned can take any shape they choose,” he said. His thumb brushed across my knuckles. “Except one. They cannot take the shape of the southern queen. There is something in your blood that their magic cannot overcome. They can never become you.”

I ripped my hand from his grasp and stumbled back a step, needing the space.

“You are risking your life, your entire kingdom, on an old legend?”

His hand fell to his side, but he didn’t move toward me again. “I am trusting the only thing the Skinned have never been able to break. You are the only person in this keep I know is real, Isolde. You are the only one who cannot be replaced. We have no choice.”

“We play the parts they expect,” Vane continued. He stepped into my space, his hand sliding firmly to my waist. “To the world, we are a disaster. We fight. We argue. We give them every reason to believe this marriage was a hateful mistake. But when the doors are locked, we hunt them together.”

I could only stare at him, my mind struggling to make sense of his words. I pulled back as far as his grip would allow.

“We?” I echoed, the word tasting completely wrong in my mouth. “As in… you and me? I came here to put a knife in your throat, Vane. I don’t know you, and I certainly don’t trust you. Now you want us to be partners?”

“I don’t need your trust, Isolde. I just need you to stay alive and play your part,” he said, unfazed by my outburst. “You want to keep your father alive? You want to protect that little green valley of yours? Then you will help me kill the things trying to burn it down. There is no one else.”

“And how exactly do you expect this to work?” The absurdity of it finally broke through my shock. “You expect me to sit at your table, play the dutiful bride, for bloody what? The entire court saw you butcher my cousin. My own guard is outside those doors waiting for me to give the signal that you are dead. If I suddenly become your perfect, compliant queen, everyone will know something is wrong.”

“I don’t want a compliant queen.” A dangerous glint flickered in his eyes. “Neither does my court. They expect the Scourge of the North to have taken a bitter, resentful captive. If we seem too peaceful, the Skinned hiding among my people will realize I’ve found a way to expose them. They’ll strike before we uncover their den.”

I studied him, looking for the tyrant who had haunted my father’s stories, but the anger died in my throat. Beneath the harsh northern exterior, all I found was a tired king trapped inside his own castle, surrounded by ghosts. He was right. If those monsters won, Oakhaven would fall anyway.

I swallowed the lump in my throat before I spoke. “But what about tomorrow? The guards will expect to see blood, or at least a broken woman.”

“They’re listening now.” His gaze flicked toward the oak doors. “They have been ever since the bolt slid shut. They’re waiting to hear whether the southern lily has been crushed.”

Before I could ask what he meant, Vane moved.

He kicked a low wooden stool over. It crashed loudly against the floorboards, the sound echoing violently in the quiet room.

“What?”

“Make them believe you hate me,” he muttered, his hand tightening around my waist and pulling me firmly against him. “Give them a show, Isolde.”

A sharp breath escaped me as understanding dawned.

I threw my head back and let out a piercing cry, shoving both hands against his chest.

“Get away from me!” I yelled, letting all the terror and anger of the last six days pour into my voice. “I will see you rot in hell before I ever submit to you!”

Vane looked quietly satisfied. One corner of his mouth lifted before he reached up, tangled a hand in the auburn hair Freya had just brushed, and forced my head back.

“You belong to the North now, princess,” Vane roared back, his anger convincing “Learn your place!”

I raised my hand to strike his face, to make the act look real, but Vane caught my wrist mid-air.

Before I could wrench free, he leaned down and crashed his mouth against mine.

My first instinct was violence.

I bit down hard enough to make him wince, my hands striking his chest once, twice, again. The blows were useless against his solid weight. The glass dagger strapped to my thigh might as well have been a child's toy for all the good it did me. All I could do was claw at him, furious at the sudden helplessness of being trapped in his arms.

But as his kiss deepened, the anger tangled with something I couldn't name.

His fingers slid into my hair, one hand cradling the back of my head while the other held my neck firmly enough to keep me from turning away. His thumb pressed against my jaw, forcing my face upward. He tasted of bitter northern wine and rain.

I tried to strike his chest again, but the strength left my hand halfway through the motion. Beneath my palms was the rough wool of his coat, the warmth of his body beneath it, and the uneven rhythm of his breathing.

I should have pulled away.

Gods, why wasn't I fighting harder?

Instead, my fingers curled into the fabric of his coat.

My heart pounded against my ribs, each beat a betrayal I couldn't explain. For six days, I had wanted nothing more than his death. I had imagined his fall a hundred times.

And yet here I was, pressed against him, his heartbeat just as wild as mine.

His grip never loosened, but something changed. He still held me firmly, still had the strength to overpower me, but there was something in the way he looked at me that I couldn't understand.

For one impossible moment, I forgot the enemy standing in front of me. I forgot the stories I had been raised on, the hatred I had carried, and the reason I had come to the North in the first place.

The world I knew cracked apart.

Not because I had stopped hating him.

I hadn't.

Not because I wanted this.

I didn't.

But because, for one terrifying moment, everything I believed no longer matched what I felt.

When he finally pulled away, neither of us moved.

I could barely catch my breath, and judging by the way his chest rose and fell, neither could he. His eyes stayed on my face, impossible to read, and I hated that they mirrored the same confusion twisting through my own mind. The faint taste of blood lingered on my lips from where I had split his lip. I wiped it away with the back of my hand, scrubbing harder than I needed to, as though I could erase the proof that it had happened.

Vane watched me for another moment before stepping back. His hand slipped from my wrist, leaving behind a warmth I wished I could ignore.

A wry, humorless smile flickered across his mouth before he lifted his gloved hand and wiped away the blood staining his lower lip.

The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared, the familiar coldness returning to his features.

“That should give the guards something to talk about at breakfast."

He turned away without another word and walked toward the washbasin in the corner, leaving me alone by the fire, my lips still burning and my hands trembling.