Chapter 23 The Night Before the Bells.
The castle doesn’t sleep the night before the wedding; it seems every corridor hums with movement. Servants rush through the halls, whispering, carrying flowers, candles, lace. The air smells of roses and fear. Everywhere I go, people bow their heads too quickly, step aside too fast, and smile too long. They think tomorrow will make me human again. I almost pity them. Fools. From my balcony, the world looks as though it's painted — gold candlelight spilling through the windows below, music drifting faintly from the ballrooms. It’s all a performance. A kingdom rehearsing joy so hard they’ve forgotten what real joy feels like. Behind me, the fire crackles in the hearth. It burns low, but the warmth barely reaches. I don’t need it. My blood’s already too hot.
The beast is restless tonight. I feel him pacing just beneath my skin, claws tracing along my ribs, breath ghosting the back of my throat. His hunger thrums through me, not for food or war, but for something older, something more primal.
You don’t want this marriage, he murmurs.
“No,” I say aloud, voice quiet but steady.
Then why let them bind you to it?
“Because peace is worth more than pride.”
He laughs softly, the sound like embers hissing in rain. Peace bought with lies isn’t peace. It’s a surrender, and we should not have to surrender.
I clench my jaw. “I’m tired of being their monster.”
And yet they made you King for it.
His voice is smoke curling around every thought I try to hold steady. The worst part is he’s not wrong. The people obey me because they’re afraid. Not because they believe in me. Not because they love me. Fear is a throne of its own. I turn away from the balcony and cross the room. My reflection catches in the mirror — gold eyes bleeding through my own, faint shimmer of scales across my throat.
I reach up, touch the corner of my jaw where the skin glows faintly beneath the candlelight. “They’ll never see past it.”
They don’t deserve to.
“You sound proud of that.”
I am what they made me, he growls, deep and low. We were not born to bow. We were born to burn.
For a heartbeat, the fire flares, bright, sharp as though they're answering him. I breathe through it and force it down.
“Not tonight.”
He huffs, annoyed. You’d rather pretend to be tamed. A beast wearing a crown and calling it atonement.
My fingers curl against the window frame until the stone cracks beneath my grip. “Enough.”
The word comes out sharper than intended, and for a moment, the room stills. Only the wind answers.
When I finally exhale, the smoke that leaves my lungs is faint but real. “Enough,” I say again, quieter this time.
I cross to the desk. Parchments lie scattered there, pledges, oaths, the final preparations for tomorrow’s binding. I run a hand over the parchment bearing my bride’s name, still unrecognisable to me. I’ve read it a dozen times, trying to feel something. Anything... but nothing comes. I feel nothing towards it, and nothing towards her. There's just me, my beast and the faint sound of snow hitting the windows. It shouldn’t be snowing again. I move to the balcony doors and open them wide. The cold rushes in instantly, cutting through the scent of roses and smoke and sending a relieving cool through me. The courtyard below glows faintly silver beneath a thin layer of frost. I watch it fall, slow and silent.
The beast stirs again, softer this time. It calls to you.
“I know.”
Something in the cold knows us.
“I know,” I whisper.
The air feels different tonight; it's too still, too aware. The snow lands on my hands, melting on contact but leaving a phantom chill that seeps straight to my chest. In the distance, I can hear the faint toll of the night bells from the lower city. Each one feels like a countdown.
“What if tomorrow ends everything?” I murmur.
Then we begin again, he says simply. In flame.
A knock on the door breaks the silence. I turn and Marius stands at the threshold, face pale, hands twisting his cap. “Forgive the intrusion, Majesty. I— I wished to remind you that the dawn ceremony begins at first light.”
I nod once. “And the bride?”
“She arrived at the cathedral an hour ago. She will be presented at the altar.”
“Good.”
He hesitates. “Majesty… there are more rumours. The snowfall has spread. The southern forests are coated in white. Even the port towns have reported frost on the waves.”
My brows knit. “Impossible.”
“Yes, sire. But it’s happening.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks. The snow outside thickens, catching the firelight in drifting gold and silver.
“Go, Marius,” I say finally. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow will be long.”
He bows and leaves without another word. When he’s gone, I close the doors and shut out the cold, though it lingers in my bones anyway. The fire flickers low, and my reflection glows faintly red and gold in the glass — half man, half beast.
She’ll be afraid, the beast whispers, almost amused.
“I would be too.”
Then you should let me comfort her.
“That’s not what you do.”
Not yet, he says, and I can feel him smile inside the dark.
Something deep in my gut tells me he knows something I do not. He's hiding things from me. The wind howls suddenly through the towers, a sound like distant wailing, like the mountains themselves are warning me. The candles gutter and die one by one until only the hearth remains. I stare into the flames until they blur and I see it again, snow falling over black stone and roses curling into ash.
The beast exhales softly. Tomorrow, they’ll remember what we are.
And I know, with absolute certainty, that he’s right. Because tomorrow, when the bells ring, the world will see its king and its beast.