Chapter 22 My Throne, My Palace, My Prison.
The palace smells like roses again. I told them no red, but apparently, “a touch of traditional colour” was too tempting to ignore. Now crimson petals line the corridors, scattered across the marble like blood disguised as something beautiful. The servants rush past in anxious flurries, carrying bolts of silk, gold-thread banners, trays of polished cutlery. Laughter rings through the halls, light and brittle, cracking at the edges when they remember whose wedding this is. My wedding. I sign another decree and push it aside. My hand aches from the constant writing, the endless stream of documents that prove I am, in fact, still human enough to sign my name.
“Majesty?” Marius’s voice breaks the quiet. He stands near the doorway, half-hidden behind a column of flowers that makes him sneeze. “The decorators ask if you would prefer the draperies to match the palace colours or the bride’s crest.”
“I don’t care.”
He hesitates. “They’re quite insistent, sire.”
I lift my gaze, slow and deliberate. “Marius.”
He pales. “Understood.”
I rise, crossing to the tall windows that overlook the courtyard. The world outside is a flurry of movement, with carriages arriving, banners being raised, and the castle alive with a kind of forced joy. It looks exactly as a celebration should, which only makes me feel the falseness of it more deeply. Somewhere below, a young servant girl catches sight of me and freezes, dropping her tray. Her eyes go wide as the contents scatter across the stones. For a moment, we just stare at each other through the glass, and then she flees.
The beast inside me exhales a long, low breath that fogs my reflection. See? They all run even when we stand still.
“She’s a child,” I mutter.
And you’re a dragon. The distinction is irrelevant.
I press my palms to the window frame, letting the cold bite through my gloves. “You make it sound so simple.”
It is simple, he growls softly. We are what we are. You hide it like it’s shameful.
“Because it is,” I say quietly.
He doesn’t answer, but I feel his disapproval simmering like heat under my ribs.
Marius coughs delicately behind me. “Majesty… the stonemasons have finished reinforcing the western balconies. The ministers are requesting your attendance at this afternoon’s rehearsal.”
“Rehearsal,” I echo dryly. “For vows neither of us chose to make.”
“It will reassure the nobles.”
“Of course it will.” I turn slightly, giving him the faintest smile, but I know it doesn't reach my eyes. “Nothing says stability like forcing a bride to stand beside the monster she’s been warned about since childhood.”
He flinches again, and I almost regret it. Almost. When he finally leaves, I step out onto the balcony. The courtyard below glows with late sunlight. It’s warm, too warm, the air thick with the perfume of roses and the hum of preparations. But above the golden haze, I see the faintest drift of white. Snow. Again. A single flake lands on my sleeve, melts instantly. But I know what I saw. The beast rumbles low, uneasy. The mountain shouldn’t be cold.
“I know,” I murmur. “It’s unnatural.”
Or an omen.
“Of what?”
He doesn’t answer. Just growls softly, the sound curling through my chest like thunder behind clouds.
I stay there until the sun dips lower and the snow stops. The warmth returns as quickly as it left, and the world pretends nothing happened. But the scent of cold lingers.
Later, I attend the rehearsal like the dutiful king I pretend to be. I stand in the courtyard among the nobles, their silks gleaming, their smiles practised. The quartet plays the same brittle melody they’ll play on the wedding day, every note straining not to break. The priests murmur their blessings, the servants bow, and I stand there while they rehearse the ceremony that will make me “less beast, more man” in the eyes of the world. They don’t know I can smell their fear. It’s in the air like smoke and drips from them like nervous sweat. They’re afraid I’ll ruin the only story that gives them hope: that the monster can be tamed, that if they marry me off, I might stop reminding them what true power looks like when it’s honest to itself. My hands curl at my sides, and I can feel the heat bleeding through them before I force it back down.
Not here. Not now. I tell my dragon.
When it’s over, I dismiss the priests and the attendants. The last of them scurry out, whispering blessings that sound more like prayers for survival.
Only Marius lingers. “You’ve done well, Majesty,” he says cautiously. “They were impressed.”
“Were they?”
He nods. “They said you seemed almost… calm.”
Almost. He leaves on that note, perhaps wisely. I stay behind. The courtyard is empty now, littered with rose petals and fading sunlight. I walk the length of the aisle they’ve built for a woman who probably doesn’t know what she’s walking into. The obsidian altar gleams at the end, the same stone that built my throne, my palace and my prison.
I stop there, resting a hand against it.
The beast stirs again. You hate this.
“Yes.”
Then why endure it?
“Because the kingdom needs peace.”
He snorts. Peace built on lies doesn’t last.
“Nothing lasts,” I whisper.
The air moves differently for a moment, it turns cooler, sharper, brushing the back of my neck like a ghost’s breath. I look up and see the light has changed again. Thin flakes drift lazily through the air, impossible but real, melting the moment they touch the ground.
I close my eyes. “Who are you?” I ask the silence. “And what are you trying to tell me?”
The beast doesn’t answer this time. Neither does the wind. But when I open my eyes, the altar gleams faintly beneath the snow. White on black. Fire and frost. The same contradiction that lives inside my bones. It feels like prophecy, and it leaves me cold.