**Chapter 13 – The Offering**
The scroll trembled in her hand.
*The blood moon rises in six nights. The Offering must not survive it.*
Amaris read it again. And again.
The words didn't change—but their meaning deepened with every breath. The word *Offering* burned behind her eyes. Her fingers clenched the parchment so hard the edges tore.
She looked up at the prince. His face gave nothing away, but his eyes—his eyes told her everything.
He had known. Not the whole message. But enough to fear this day would come.
"Is that what I am?" she asked. Her voice barely rose above the storm outside. "An Offering?"
The prince didn't answer. Instead, he crossed the room in three strides, shut the door behind him, and turned the lock. Thunder cracked outside, but the silence between them was louder.
"I didn't want you to find out like this," he said finally.
"Then how should I have found out?" she asked. "On the altar?"
"No one is putting you on an altar," he snapped, stepping toward her.
She backed away, scroll still clenched in her fist. "Then explain it. Because this—this isn't prophecy. This is sacrifice."
"There are things buried in this kingdom's history," he said. "Dark things. Rituals. Bargains made with old forces when our ancestors were desperate."
"With what?"
"Not what," he said. "*Who.* The Eldergods. They were given something in exchange for peace, for power. A blood promise."
"And now they've come to collect."
He said nothing.
Her blood ran cold. "You think I'm the final payment?"
"No." He looked up, jaw tight. "You're the one who can *end* it."
Her breath caught in her chest.
"You knew who I was. Didn't you?"
"I suspected," he said. "We searched every bloodline. We thought it might be a child from the Outer Lands, someone forgotten. But then you walked into my court."
"And you married me anyway."
"I married you because you didn't kneel," he said. "Because when every other bride smiled and submitted, you stared at me like I was mortal."
She laughed—cold and bitter. "So what am I to you now? A prophecy? A pawn?"
"You are mine," he said, voice like iron. "And I protect what's mine."
The words echoed. She had heard them before. From him. From others. Promises made and broken.
She sat on the edge of the bed. Her hands trembled. The scroll slipped from her grasp.
"What happens if I survive the blood moon?"
"They lose control," he said. "The cults, the priests, the creatures bound in the lower catacombs. If you live past the ritual night, the cycle breaks. Their grip ends."
"And if I die?"
He said nothing. He didn't need to.
Amaris let out a long, slow breath.
"Then teach me how to live."
His expression shifted—part grief, part pride.
"I will."
—
That night, neither of them slept.
She returned to her tower chamber, but her guards were doubled. She could feel the palace watching her, the walls whispering secrets between the stones. Servants glanced away when she passed. Courtiers bowed too low. And beneath their breath, the word moved like smoke:
**Offering.**
She wasn't just a bride now.
She was something between myth and martyr. A key. A weapon. A threat.
The prince met her each morning before the sun. Her training grew harder. Longer.
He didn't go easy on her anymore.
He taught her how to fight blindfolded.
How to move through silence like smoke.
How to slip poison into a goblet and fake a royal smile.
Every night her body ached. But every morning, she rose stronger.
The prince watched her with quiet fascination. He stopped correcting her stances. He stopped softening his blows. By the fifth night, she knocked the blade from his hand.
"Good," he murmured. "Again."
—
On the sixth night, the palace began to shift.
Not just the people.
The stones.
The *air*.
Shadows grew deeper. Flames burned blue instead of gold. One servant claimed her reflection whispered her name in the mirror. Another claimed rats danced in the walls chanting old prayers.
Amaris believed all of it.
Because she felt it too.
That something had woken beneath them.
Something ancient.
Something hungry.
—
She started seeing it in her dreams.
A temple made of bone. A sky full of screaming stars. A woman with her face but hollow eyes, lying still beneath a red moon.
She woke gasping, hands clutched to her chest, every night the same.
And still, she trained.
Still, she read the scrolls he gave her—histories banned by the high priestess, records of the old gods, the rituals of blood and binding.
She learned of *The Crimson Pact*—a vow sealed by her ancestors and his. A union not of love, but of blood and submission. Every century, a child born of both lines must be offered to the gods to maintain the balance.
And if they refused?
Plague.
Fire.
Collapse.
Now she understood the fear in the court's eyes.
She wasn't just a threat to their beliefs.
She was a threat to the order they'd protected for generations.
—
On the seventh night, she woke to silence again.
Not peace.
A *hole* in the sound.
She reached beneath her pillow and gripped her dagger.
She moved like the prince had taught her—slow, sure, silent.
A figure moved near the balcony.
She didn't hesitate.
She leapt forward, blade pressed to their throat.
Then froze.
It was the youngest maid.
The one who used to braid her hair.
"I—I was only bringing tea," the girl stammered.
"At midnight?"
"I was told… you'd need strength for tomorrow's training."
The girl trembled in her grip.
Amaris didn't lower the blade.
Not until the prince burst in seconds later, sword drawn.
He looked at the tray. The cup. Still steaming.
He didn't say a word.
He just lifted the lid.
Inside the tea—red powder.
Faint. Dissolving.
Poison.
His jaw tensed.
"Who gave this to you?"
"I—I can't say," the maid whispered. "He said if I spoke, my brother would—"
"Who?" Amaris pressed.
The girl sobbed.
"Captain Lorne."
Everything in the room changed in that moment.
The prince sheathed his sword slowly. His eyes were ice.
"Put her under protection," he told the guards. "No dungeons. No harm."
Then to another guard: "Find Lorne."
"Alive?"
The prince's voice dropped.
"Alive. Or in pieces."
—
As the guards vanished into the night, Amaris stood by the balcony, staring at the blood-colored storm clouds gathering above the hills.
"I'm not going to survive this, am I?" she said softly.
The prince stepped beside her.
"No," he said. "You're going to burn it all down and walk through the ashes."
She turned to him.
And for the first time, kissed him.
Not out of affection.
Out of war.
Because if she was going to die, she would die as the weapon they feared.
And if she lived…
The gods themselves would beg her to kneel.