The enemy’s blood no longer stained my skin, but I could still feel it beneath my broken nails, stubborn as a scar. As if the war had permanently soaked into my pores, a constant reminder of what I’d seen…and done.

I was still adjusting to the jarring silence and the normalcy of life after war, found myself staring down at my somewhat clean hands, knowing–feeling the grime of death just beneath the chipped and raw edges of my fingertips.

A muffled muteness pounded in my ears as I sat at the private dinner table in my late mother’s vast quarters. It had served as my father’s private meeting room for years, one he reserved only for the most important and clandestine discussions.

Nothing felt real.

Less than thirty-six hours ago, my father’s men pulled what was left of me from a scorched and muddy grave. Bodies–so many bodies–littered the ground as they hauled my charred and wilting corpse across the battlefield.

The same could not be said of my two younger sisters, Marrowynn and Vaela. The King’s Mask and the King’s Ghost.

I glanced up at Maurice, my father’s right hand, from across the table, my neck making a gross cracking sound, as if I hadn’t moved in ages. As if it missed the constraints of my armor.

His usual stoic dark eyes glossed over, and I knew, deep down in the gallows of my gut, that something was wrong. I looked away, rolling my glance toward the giant painting of my mother that hung over the fireplace like some altar. Not a raven hair out of place, all tucked neatly into a crown of braids. The raging fire below cast a strange upward glow, highlighting her eyes–my eyes, violet and as rare as a hen’s tooth, she used to say.

I missed her greatly. Even though she left this world when I was just a girl, I always considered myself the luckiest of my sisters to have gotten those years. I was the oldest, after all. Marrowynn had yet to take her first step when the complications of Vaela’s birth took her from us.

I was just ten years old.

What would she say if she were here today to bear witness to the loss of two beloved daughters?

I was all that was left.

All there was to inherit my father’s war-torn throne. The one we all fought and died for.

Because I did. Die, that is. Out there, on the fields that now rot beneath the sun. For I was the King’s Sword, his secret weapon. To the world, I was an elite warrior. I could take hit after hit after hit and still win.

But that was only due to my true ability.

Marrowynn could bend the laws of…everything. I’d watched her turn arrows to rose petals, herself into a bird. The King’s Mask.

And Vaela…my baby sister. Just barely eighteen years old. A seasoned warrior with the ability to make herself invisible. The King’s Ghost.

And me, the King’s Sword… I… couldn’t die.

I mean, I suppose I could, if I truly wanted to. Have my parts scattered across the earth, never to reconnect. But I always wondered… would I know? Would my parts be alive? Just waiting for the moment they could connect and reform. Living an eternity of torture?

How many broken bones snapped back into place, to heal within minutes? My body should be covered in scars, but they never did last long. I was unstoppable; nothing could take me down.

Until now.

It was always just an ability to me. But now it felt like a curse. No one should have to watch the world burn alive under the breath of a dragon. Seconds, that’s all it took to end the war that had raged over my father’s kingdom for nearly a year.

The present felt intangible. Like I wasn’t really there, sitting at the table. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, an inhale fettered in my chest.

“Any news on survivors?” I asked Maurice, breaking the awkward silence we waited in. My voice sounded foreign to me. Ravaged by war.

He just shook his head.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Maurice sat ramrod straight, his eyes fixed on me again, mouth gaping.

“I’m so very sorry, Captain–” He sighed as the footsteps came to a halt. “Princess Allani–”

Maurice never called me by my royal title.

The doors burst open, and my father stalked in, flanked by two guards who took their places on either side of the exit as he crossed the room. Behind him, two emissaries from Morvane strolled in, dressed in their stupid cream-colored robes embellished with gold thread.

Father looked worse than I felt, an old soldier ripped from battle and covered in royal garb, his dark, uncut hair hastily slicked over beneath his too-heavy crown.

I could barely look him in the face after what he made us do this time. The ripple effect it had caused.

I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms, fixed on the center of the table as my father circled it in my peripheral vision and took a seat next to Maurice. I stole a quick glance, enough to witness the grim look on his aging face.

My stomach soured. I knew the look. It was the same one he had a year ago when he told us the fabric of our realm had ripped open, and a rival kingdom from the other continent had declared war on us. Not four months after the second war we fought and won on our own continent.

Our two masses of land were divided by a never-ending sea of islands that wrapped all the way around the equator. Lawless isles, nearly impossible to cross. I’d never known anyone to reach the other side and return in one piece. To reach the kingdom that just destroyed everything I ever knew in a single dragon’s breath.

How were we to know they had a fucking dragon? They were supposed to be long extinct.

I swallowed dryly, readying my mind for the news. Surely it was truly over. We couldn’t possibly be thrust back into the same bloody, gory madness I’d faced every day for the last year. There was nothing left. More than half of our world bloodied the ground, their charred corpses would be raked over for months.

My father eyed me warily, his fists–the flesh raw over his knuckles–clenched on the table before him.

I squared my jaw, my brow low. “Wanna just spit it out, old man?”

The king’s eyes widened as his nose flared and he threw his fist down on the table. “Old man–” His face was alight with anger, but he slowly loosened and cleared his throat. He gestured to our unwanted guests, who stood quietly to the side, refusing to sit.

“These are Morvane emissaries. With their king and queen dead,” he allowed a short pause of respect, but I knew what it was. Emphasis. You may have ended the war with a dragon, but we took out your leader. “The prince will be prepped and readied to take the throne.”

My chest tightened. “What…so this isn’t over?” I threw frantic glances at every person in the room, even the nervous-looking emissaries. “All of that…all we lost…for nothing?”

Maurice tilted his head in pity. “Allani-“

I slammed my hand on the table. “No! They just reattach a head to their snake and get to go on as if they didn’t come here and spend a year destroying our world?”

“It’s not that simple,” my father added, tiredly.

“The fuck it isn’t!” I bellowed and shot to my feet, sending the heavy chair flying behind me. “They need to pay,” I said, jabbing a finger in the direction of our silent guests.

“As much as I hate to admit it, daughter, they ended the war.”

My eyes bulged. “With a fucking dragon!”

“Allani!” His fist hit the table, making everyone jump, and he stared daggers at me.

I sent a challenging look right back. “How is that even fair? Huh?”

My father sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re to be married.”

The world spun away, and I fumbled backward. “What?” The word was barely a whisper, but I shook away the emotion, the weakness, and steeled my veins. “Married! Like hell, I am!”

“Allani!” Maurice exclaimed at the same time my father roared, “You’ll do as I command!”

Every servant and guard tensed, pretending not to overhear the disaster unfolding before them. I sat down and gripped the wooden arms of the chair, taking a moment to compose myself.

“I don’t need a man to help me rule the kingdom, Father,” I reasoned. “When the day comes, I’m more than capable of ruling on my own.”

The emissaries finally sat down as food–plates of stew atop beds of rice–were placed before us on the table, and I thanked my server before shooting a look at the king. “Who in the world would you even be marrying me to?”

He exchanged an apologetic look with Maurice and cleared his throat. “Prince Gerrick.”

My stomach soured. He wasn’t serious. “Prince…Gerrick?” A fresh image flashed through my mind. The warrior prince, concealed behind a striking gold helmet that covered most of his face, just as my black one had, his sword clashing with mine. A cold sensation gripped my throat. “Y-you…want me to marry the enemy?”

My father rolled his eyes. “Allani–”

“You want me to marry the very people that slaughtered your daughters?” I wanted to toss the fucking table across the room. “That threatened to take your kingdom? The one I fought and nearly died for?”

“We killed his parents,” he bellowed.

My eyes went wild. “By your orders!”

“What would you have me do? His kingdom is even larger than ours. All those people…they need more than a young prince. They need a king and queen, someone to bridge the space between our continents and end this ridiculous fucking centuries-long feud. I don’t possess the resources to govern both worlds.”

Lies. He had the resources and then some.

“Then send them back over the Aetherwall!”

One of the emissaries cleared their throat. “W-what’s left of our army…the people who came with us…no one is without injury. We need to rest and recover for a few months before making the arduous journey home.”

Their people weren’t safe here, not after what they’d done.

I sat back and crossed my arms like a child. “I’m sure we have a healer who can whip up some magical salve for your men and send you all on your way,” I replied with venom.

Father’s moustache twitched as he contemplated his next words, his eyes glued to mine across the table. “A union was the only true way we could stop the war.”

“No, what stopped the war was a dragon reducing your daughters to ash.”

No one said a word.

Maurice took a very loud slurp of his stew. The emissaries just eyed it as if it were snot. Stuck-up fucking Morvanians.

As my father picked up his spoon and took a mouthful, the emissaries reluctantly did the same.

My pulse rang hot and heavy in my ears as I watched my father with hawk-like precision, trying to read his every move. He’d taught my sisters and me to read him, showed us secret movements, keywords, and more over the years. There had to be more at play here. He wouldn’t just amrry me off like that. Not his precious Sword.

“I’m sure we can have a civil conversation about this,” he said to the room. The emissaries nodded. “The Morvanian prince has been severely injured and marred.”

I rolled my eyes. Oh, great, not only am I to marry the enemy, but a mangled one at that.

The king continued, “He’s resting and healing in peace in the East Tower of Westmere, top floor, away from anyone who may disturb his recovery.” His brown eyes flashed at me.

There it was. The code I was looking for.

I focused on breathing calmly while I ate the stew and considered his words. I’d never take food for granted again, not after the onslaught of dried meat and potatoes and stale bread during back-to-back wars. At least the ale was good. And plentiful. An entire year of moving from camp to camp, zone to zone, across a map spanning hundreds of thousands of miles changed me.

A year ago, the rival kingdom used a weakness in the Aetherwall–a magical ward on the frozen bridge that connected our two continents–to cross over with an army that nearly decimated ours.

But people from all over our continent rose to the occasion and rushed to the battle. We were winning. We had them on bended knee and my sister’s blade to the throats of their king and queen. It was over. We’d won. But…then a massive black dragon filled the sky and torched everything in sight, even their own people.

But now their prince, their only heir, lay in a wing in our castle, broken, mangled, and vulnerable.

East Tower of Westmere, top floor, away from anyone who may disturb him.

I raised my gaze to meet my father’s ignited stare from across the table while everyone else calmly ate their stew. A slight, unnoticeable nod of his head, two silent taps of his middle finger on the table, and I understood all too well what my true instructions were.

I wasn’t to marry the prince of Morvane.

I was to kill him.

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