Riven's POV
I stare at the man who just said he bought me like I'm a horse at market.
"Your wife?" The word comes out strangled. "I don't—you can't just—"
"I can, and I did." Kieran Shadowmere steps fully into my cell, and even though I'm backed against the wall, he somehow makes the space feel smaller. "The King was quite eager to sell you. Almost too eager."
My brain can't keep up. One moment I'm waiting to burn at dawn, the next a stranger in black armor is claiming he purchased me from the King himself.
"I don't understand," I whisper.
"You don't need to understand. You need to move." He turns toward the door. "We leave now, before Lady Celeste realizes her prize is gone."
"Wait!" I stumble forward, chains rattling. "The guards—did you—are they—"
"Dead? No. Unconscious." He glances back, and there's something calculating in his dark eyes. "I don't kill without reason. Though I'm told I should make exceptions."
The way he says it makes my skin prickle. Like killing me would be reasonable. Expected, even.
"Why would you buy me?" I demand. "You don't even know me."
"I know enough." He produces a key and unlocks my chains. They fall away, and my wrists ache where the iron burned. "I know the King of Ashenvale offered me three additional territories if I'd execute you immediately. No trial. No questions."
My heart stops. "Three territories? For me?"
"That's what made me curious." The chains hit the floor with a clang. "King Aldric doesn't pay premium prices for nobodies. Which means you're someone's very inconvenient secret."
He studies me like I'm a puzzle he's trying to solve, and I don't like how exposed it makes me feel.
"I'm just a servant," I say, but it sounds weak even to me.
"A servant who destroyed half a manor with unregistered magic?" His eyebrow rises. "A servant the King wants dead badly enough to bribe a warlord? Try again."
I want to argue, but I can't. Because he's right—none of this makes sense. Why would King Aldric care about one servant girl with illegal magic? There must be hundreds like me. Thousands, maybe, all hiding like I did.
Unless Lady Celeste told him something. Something about my mother.
Your mother had magic too.
"I need answers," I say desperately. "Lady Celeste said my mother—"
"Was likely executed for being exactly what you are." Kieran moves toward the door. "If you want to live long enough to find out more, I suggest you follow me. Now."
He's already in the corridor when I force my legs to move. The unconscious guards are sprawled on the stones, breathing but still. I step over them carefully, half-expecting them to grab my ankle.
"How did you get past all of them?" I ask.
"I'm very good at what I do." He leads me through passages I've never seen before—servant corridors, but older, darker. "And what I do is win battles that seem impossible."
We climb stairs that spiral up and up. My legs burn, but I don't complain. Behind us, I hear shouting. They've discovered I'm gone.
"They're coming," I gasp.
"Let them come." Kieran doesn't even slow down. "My men control the manor gates. No one leaves without my permission."
"Your men? How many—"
We burst through a door onto the manor roof, and I forget the question.
The night air hits me like a slap. Below, torches swarm through Lady Celeste's gardens—dozens of them, maybe hundreds. Soldiers in black armor. The Warlord's army.
"You brought your army to kidnap me?" I can't decide if that's terrifying or impressive.
"I don't do anything halfway." He strides to the roof's edge where a rope ladder hangs down. "After you."
I look at the ladder, then at him, then back at the door we came through. Already I hear boots pounding up the stairs.
"If I go with you, what happens to me?"
"You marry me in three days. You become Lady of the Northern Territories. You learn to control that magic before it kills you." He pauses. "And you stay alive, which seems better than your current options."
"And if I refuse?"
His smile is cold. "Then I leave you here, and you burn at dawn. Your choice."
It's not really a choice at all.
The door behind us explodes open. Guards pour through, Lady Celeste right behind them. Her perfect face is twisted with fury.
"Stop them!" she screams. "She's mine! The King promised—"
"The King promised nothing." Kieran's voice cuts through the chaos like a blade. "I have his seal and signature. The girl belongs to me now."
"She's a criminal! A monster! She'll destroy you!"
"Then I'll die married." He gestures to the ladder. "Riven. Now."
I grab the rope and swing over the edge. My hands slip—I'm shaking too hard—but I force myself down, rung by rung. Below, soldiers wait with torches and hard faces.
Kieran follows, moving down the ladder like it's a casual stroll. Above us, Lady Celeste leans over the edge, her voice shrill.
"You'll regret this, Shadowmere! She's cursed! Her bloodline is—"
Whatever she was going to say gets cut off as Kieran drops the last few feet and lands beside me. His men close around us like a living wall.
"Mount up," he orders. "We ride for the border before the King changes his mind about our bargain."
A soldier brings horses—massive war horses that make me feel tiny. Kieran swings onto his like he was born there.
"I don't know how to ride," I admit.
"Then you'll learn quickly." He reaches down. "Up."
I take his hand—it's warm and callused and impossibly strong—and he pulls me up behind him like I weigh nothing. The horse shifts beneath us, and I grab onto Kieran's armor to keep from falling.
"Hold tight," he says. "It's a three-day ride to the Northern Territories, and we won't be stopping for comfort."
The army moves as one, flowing through the manor gates like a dark river. Behind us, Lady Celeste's screams fade into the night.
I should feel relieved. I should feel grateful. Instead, I feel like I've traded one prison for another.
We ride hard through the darkness, and I lose track of time. My arms ache from holding on. My magic stirs restlessly, confused by everything that's happened.
Finally, when false dawn lightens the sky, Kieran raises his hand. The army stops.
We're in the forest now, far from any town. Tents appear as soldiers make camp with practiced efficiency.
Kieran dismounts and pulls me down after him. My legs nearly buckle.
"Three hours rest," he tells his men. Then, to me: "Come."
He leads me to the largest tent. Inside, there's a bedroll, a small table, and a locked chest. Nothing else.
"Sleep," he orders. "We ride again at full dawn."
"Wait." I catch his arm before he can leave. "Why did you really save me? And don't say it's because the King offered you territories. I saw your face when Lady Celeste mentioned my bloodline. You know something."
For a long moment, he just looks at me. Then he reaches into his armor and pulls out a piece of paper—old, yellowed, with a face drawn in faded ink.
A woman's face.
My face.
"This portrait is three hundred years old," Kieran says quietly. "It hung in the Royal Archives until I stole it last month. The woman in the picture is Princess Elara Valdris, last of the royal bloodline that ruled Ashenvale before the current King's family murdered them all."
My mouth goes dry. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Because you look exactly like her." He folds the paper and tucks it away. "Because the King just tried very hard to have you quietly executed. And because that magic explosion of yours? I've felt that power signature before, in old battlefields where Valdris royalty died."
The tent spins around me.
"You think I'm—"
"I think you're the last living heir to the throne of Ashenvale," Kieran interrupts. "I think Lady Celeste knew it. I think the King knows it. And I think that's why you were worth three territories."
He moves toward the tent flap, then pauses.
"Get some rest, Princess. In three days, you'll be my wife. And after that, we're going to find out exactly who you are—and who wants you dead badly enough to pay a warlord to do it."
He leaves me alone with that impossible truth hanging in the air.
I sink onto the bedroll, my mind racing.
Princess? Royal bloodline? It's insane.
But it would explain everything. My mother's magic. Lady Celeste's cruelty. The King's desperation.
And if it's true...
If it's true, then I'm not just a servant with forbidden magic.
I'm the rightful Queen of Ashenvale.
And I just agreed to marry the one man powerful enough to either put me on the throne—or kill me before I can claim it.