The crown mark burned.
It wasn't supposed to.Not yet.
The pain was a secret fire, a brand of shame and power seared into the hollow of her collarbone. Seraphina Thorne stood at the edge of the throne dais, her knuckles white as she gripped the cold marble railing. Below, the court was a sea of murmuring velvet and greedy eyes, a parliament of vultures circling a lioness they believed was finally wounded. She kept her chin high, her face a mask of royal ice, but inside, she was unraveling, stitch by terrified stitch.
The curse is waking.
"Your Highness." The voice of Lord Veylan cut through the din, smooth as poisoned honey. He stepped forward, his robes of state sweeping the polished floor. "The council demands an answer. The mark has stirred. The prophecy is clear."
Seraphina's gaze, the color of a winter storm, swept over them. The silver-haired ministers who had tutored her in statecraft, the velvet-robed nobles who had bowed at her coronation, the foreign envoys with their calculating smiles—all now watched her, waiting for the crack in her armor. She hated them. Not for their ambition, but for their cowardice. They had waited years for her to falter, and now they smelled blood in the water.
"The prophecy is a myth," she said, her voice not rising above a calm, steady pitch, yet it carried to the farthest corners of the hall. "A bedtime story to frighten children into obedience."
Veylan's thin lips curled into a smile that didn't touch his cold eyes. "And yet your skin burns, Your Highness. We can all see the flush it paints upon your neck."
A lie, but a dangerous one. The high collar of her gown hid the mark itself, but could it hide the heat that seemed to radiate from her very bones? She didn't flinch, didn't allow her hand to stray to the source of her agony. She couldn't—not without revealing the terrifying truth. The truth that last night, in the dead hours, the thorn-shaped brand had glowed in the darkness of her bedchamber like a shard of living ember. That she'd woken gasping, her silk sheets tangled and damp with sweat, her mind haunted by whispers from the cursed Thornwood, a place that called to her blood.
The curse was real. And it was hungry.
"Summon the Five," Veylan pressed, his voice dropping, becoming intimate and threatening. "Do not let pride be your downfall. Summon them before the Thorn consumes you utterly."
A ripple of palpable unease passed through the chamber. The Five. The words hung in the air, charged with ancient power and older fear. Guardians. Warriors. Men descended from the original betrayers who had bound this curse to her bloodline—men bound by their own blood to serve the crown. Men she had never met. Men she was supposed to trust with her life, her body, her very soul.
Seraphina turned her back on them all, a deliberate and powerful dismissal. "Leave me."
The court hesitated, the silence stretching taut. Then, cowed by the raw authority in her command, they began to retreat. One by one, they bowed and shuffled out, their footsteps echoing like funeral drums down the long corridors. When the last great oak door thudded shut, a profound silence fell, broken only by the mournful whisper of the wind through the stained-glass windows, painting fractured colors across the empty throne.
Alone, her composure shattered. A shuddering breath escaped her. She lifted a trembling hand and touched the mark through the fabric of her gown. It was warm. Alive. A parasite feeding on her magic, her life.
---
The first of them arrived at dusk, as if summoned by the dying light.
Seraphina stood in the castle's main courtyard, the sky a wound of orange and violet behind the jagged skyline. The air was crisp, carrying the scent of coming rain and cold stone. Then, the massive iron gates groaned open, a sound that spoke of ages and disuse. A single rider emerged, cloaked in shadows so deep they seemed to drink the twilight. His horse was a beast of war, sleek, black, and unnervingly silent.
He dismounted with a predator's grace, his movements fluid and utterly deliberate. He didn't need to announce himself.
Kael.
She knew his name as surely as she knew her own. It was etched into the curse that connected them. The air around him felt different—thicker, charged, as if a storm had decided to take human form. He walked toward her, his heavy boots crunching over the gravel, each step a promise of violence. He stopped a mere few feet away, close enough for her to feel the heat of his body, to see the details the shadows tried to hide.
"You summoned me," he said.
His voice was low, a rough caress, like stone being scraped against steel. His face was partially shadowed beneath his hood, but she saw the brutal, elegant line of a scar that traced his jaw. And his eyes—when they finally lifted to meet hers—were silver. Not gray, not blue. Silver. Liquid mercury, shining with their own cold, inner light.
"I didn't summon anyone," she lied, her own voice surprisingly steady.
Kael tilted his head, a slow, considering motion. "The mark did. Its call is a scream in my blood. I imagine it's a torment in yours."
She stiffened, every instinct telling her to retreat, to not show weakness. "You speak as if you know it intimately."
"I do."
He took a single step closer. She held her ground, her heart hammering against her ribs. The space between them crackled.
"I've seen this mark before," he said, his silvery eyes pinned to hers, seeing too much. "On my mother. I watched it glow. I listened to her whimpers in the night. I was there when it killed her."
Seraphina's breath caught in her throat, a sharp, painful knot. She hadn't expected that. Such a raw, personal confession. There was no grief in his tone, only a flat, brutal fact. Kael didn't flinch. He was watching her, studying the slight tremor in her hands, the rapid pulse at the base of her throat—a predator assessing his prey.
"I am not your mother," she said, layering her voice with frost.
"No," he agreed, a dark acknowledgement. "You are the last. The final Thorne. Which means your death is the end of the line. The curse wins."
She didn't ask what he meant. She didn't want to know. The truth of it was a cold stone in her belly.
---
Later, in the private sanctuary of her chambers, she stared into the roaring hearth and tried to forget the color of his eyes. She had given him a room in the distant east wing, far from her own. But his presence lingered, a phantom pressure in the castle. She could feel it in the very stones, in the air she breathed. Like smoke, it had seeped into everything, a scent of pine and danger that refused to clear.
She poured a deep red wine into a crystal glass, her hands finally steady, and drank slowly, letting the alcoholic warmth battle the cold dread settling in her veins. Beneath the silk of her nightgown, the mark pulsed—a constant, throbbing reminder that her time was running out.
A knock, firm and uncompromising, broke the silence.
She turned, the fine hairs on her arms rising. "Enter."
The door opened, and Kael filled the frame. He had shed his travel-stained cloak, revealing a lean, powerful frame clad in simple, dark leathers. He didn't bow. Didn't offer a greeting. He simply stepped inside as if he already belonged there and walked to the hearth, staring into the flames as if he could read his future in them.
"You shouldn't be here," she said, her voice huskier than she intended.
"I know."
"Then why are you?"
He turned from the fire, his silver eyes capturing hers in the dim light. "Because you're afraid. I can smell it on you. A sweet, tempting fear."
She laughed, the sound bitter and sharp enough to cut. "You think I fear you?"
"No," he said, taking a slow step toward her. "You fear what's coming. You fear the bond. You fear losing yourself. You fear the pleasure as much as the pain."
Her breath hitched. He saw too deeply, too easily.
Kael moved closer, until she had to tilt her head back to maintain her defiant stare. "The mark will consume you unless it's bound. It will burn you out from the inside until you are nothing but a hollow shell, a puppet for the Thorn's will."
"I know the prophecy," she snapped, setting her glass down with a sharp click.
"Then you know what must be done."
"I am not ready," she whispered, the confession torn from her.
Kael reached out. He didn't move fast, giving her every opportunity to pull away. His fingers, calloused and warm, brushed the skin of her collarbone, just above the hidden, burning brand. She froze, every nerve ending screaming at the contact.
"It's already begun, Seraphina," he said, her name a rough prayer on his lips.
His touch was warm. Not burning. Not painful. It was… grounding. An anchor in the storm of her terror. It was the first real, non-hostile touch she'd felt since the mark flared, and her traitorous body leaned into it, craving more.
She looked up at him, her mask of ice finally melting to reveal the confusion and desire beneath. His face was inches from hers. His breath fanned her cheek, smelling of smoke and wild pine. His eyes were no longer unreadable; they held a dark, possessive heat that mirrored the fire in her blood.
"You're not what I expected," she whispered, the words a surrender.
"Neither are you," he breathed, his gaze dropping to her lips.
His hand lingered, his thumb stroking a slow, hypnotic circle on her skin. Her own breath came in soft, shallow pants. She hated that she wanted this. Hated that her body thrummed with a need that overshadowed her fear.
Kael leaned in. His lips brushed hers—soft, tentative, a question.
And she answered.
The kiss was not desperate, not wild. It was slow. Deep. Real. A claiming and a surrender all at once. A soft sound escaped her, a muffled gasp of shock and relief as her fingers uncurled from her sides to fist in the soft leather of his tunic, pulling him closer. His other hand slid to the small of her back, pressing her flush against him, anchoring her to the solid, unyielding strength of his body. For a breathtaking moment, the world disappeared. There was no court, no curse, no council of vultures. There was only heat and breath and the frantic, echoing sound of her heartbeat—or was it his?
Then, he was the one to pull away, breaking the kiss with a reluctance that made her chest ache. His breathing was as ragged as hers.
"I'll protect you," he vowed, his voice gravelly with emotion.
She swallowed, her lips still tingling from his. "Even if I don't trust you?"
Kael's mouth curved into the barest hint of a smile, a stark, beautiful sight on his severe face. "Especially then."
He turned and left as silently as he had arrived, leaving the ghost of his touch on her skin and the taste of him on her lips.
Seraphina stood alone in the flickering firelight, her body humming, her mark burning with a new, different fire, her heart a wild, unsteady drum in her chest.
The curse had awakened.
And so, she realized with a shiver of terror and thrilling anticipation, had a part of her she never knew existed.
---