The letter was written in the dark.
Not by candlelight — Lyra didn't deserve warmth that night. Only the frost that crept in through the broken window, the wind that clawed at her skin, and the silence that howled louder than her grief.
Ink smudged. Fingers trembling. A name scrawled like a curse.
Prince Thorne of the Southern Wastes.
She didn't beg. Not this time. She offered a contract — short, blunt, almost cruel in its simplicity.
One year. Marriage in name only. Protection, power, and political leverage.
No love.
No lies.
And then…
She waited.
Not for hope.
Not for an answer.
Just for the silence to end.
-----
Three nights later, it did.
He arrived without warning. No procession. No herald. No fucking ceremony.
The capital didn't even realize who walked through its gates until the guards at the southern wall started whispering: A shadow rides a black horse. A prince with no kingdom. The Wastes move again.
And Lyra? She felt it before she heard it.
Like a shift in the air pressure.
Like thunder you couldn't see — just sense, somewhere in your ribs.
When she looked out the arched window of her chambers, the storm was already here.
He didn't look like a prince.
No silk. No jewels. No polished smile.
Thorne was iron and leather and blood. His coat was caked with sand and ash, his boots worn from war, and his eyes — gods, his eyes — were a darker thing entirely.
Not cruel. Not cold.
Just silent. Like the kind of man who'd watched empires fall… and never looked away.
He stood in the middle of the Vellorin estate's great hall, the smell of steel and travel clinging to him like smoke. Guards backed off instinctively. Servants scattered. Even Caelum, ever the polished noble, hesitated on the stairs, eyes narrowing at the sight of him.
Lyra descended slowly, not in a gown, but in a simple black tunic belted at the waist. Her hair loose, her face bare. No mask.
She didn't flinch when their gazes met.
Didn't smile. Didn't bow.
She stopped on the last step and said the only thing that mattered:
"You came."
His voice was low and rough, like it hadn't been used in days. "You asked."
A beat passed. Then another.
The tension in the hall was a living thing — thick, breathing, watching.
Lyra tilted her head, her voice quiet, but steady. "Was it the offer that intrigued you? Or the war it promised?"
Thorne's mouth curved — not a smile. Something meaner. "Both."
They spoke in private — behind a closed door that Caelum lingered near, jaw tight, fingers twitching like he wanted to knock but didn't have the spine for it.
Thorne remained standing as Lyra poured wine, her hands calm but her throat dry.
"You're bold," he said, accepting the cup. "Writing to me."
"I'm desperate."
His brow rose. "You don't look desperate."
She stared at him then — really looked. The lines beneath his eyes, the scar that sliced across his knuckles, the subtle tremble in his fingers that told her this man had seen things most would not survive.
She decided she could trust him… if not with her life, then with her vengeance.
He sipped, then set the cup down with a thud. "So. The contract. No love. No lies."
"Correct."
"And if I say yes, what do you gain?"
Lyra stepped forward, her heart kicking hard behind her ribs. "Your name. Your army. The kind of power that makes men afraid to touch what's mine."
"And what do I get?" His gaze was sharp now. Heavy. "A pretty wife with a grudge?"
She smiled, sharp and cold as glass. "You get me."
He was silent for a long moment.
Then, he nodded. Once. Like it was a death sentence he'd just accepted.
"I'll sign."
She had expected a pause. A negotiation. Demands.
But he gave none.
Only a warning.
"Don't lie to me," he said as they sealed the deal with blood on parchment. "I don't care what you do — manipulate, seduce, kill if you must. But if you lie to me…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
He didn't need to.
Because in his eyes, she saw it — a graveyard full of broken truths, and the bodies of those who tried to deceive him.
That night, the court buzzed like hornets.
Prince Thorne of the Southern Wastes had arrived. And he was to marry Lady Lyra Vellorin in a fortnight.
They said she'd gone mad.
They said she'd finally snapped, crawling into bed with a butcher to spite her golden sister.
They said she must have been possessed, enchanted, cursed.
But none of them knew the truth.
None of them knew what it was like to die alone, choking on smoke and betrayal.
None of them had burned and come back.
Lyra had. And now?
She was done playing nice.
Let them talk. Let Evelyne rage. Let Caelum choke on the sight of the man who'd claim the woman he once discarded.
Let them all watch.
Because Lyra Vellorin was no longer the forgotten daughter.
No longer the sacrificial pawn.
She was the storm they tried to drown.
And she had just chosen her first weapon.
His name was Thorne.