Episode 2

Her target was a ghost in the night, a silhouette moving with the preternatural grace of a predator through the palace gardens below. King Kaelan Ashworth. Even from this distance, she could see the arrogant set of his shoulders, the way his silver-streaked hair caught the moonlight like a banner of war. He was the architect of her ruin, the man who had ordered her family’s execution for a treason they never committed. Her hand drifted to the hilt of the dagger strapped to her thigh, a sliver of obsidian that felt like an extension of her own soul.

This was it. The culmination of years of training, of starving and stealing and selling her soul to the Shadow Court. One clean strike, and the debt would be paid. She began to move, a whisper of shadow against the crenellations, her soft-soled boots making no sound on the worn stone. She was a wraith, a nightmare given form, and she was coming for the king.

She was halfway across the rampart when a sound cut through the night, a low, guttural chant that was older than the stones themselves. It wasn't coming from the gardens below, but from the direction of the royal crypts, a structure built into the cliffside at the far edge of the grounds. The hair on her arms prickled. The Shadow Court had mentioned nothing about a ritual tonight. Their intelligence was supposed to be absolute.

Ignoring it was a risk, but stopping was a greater one. She had a mission. She focused on the king’s form, now pausing by a hedge of night-blooming jasmine, his head cocked as if he too had heard the sound. A moment later, he turned, and for a terrifying heartbeat, she thought he was looking directly at her. But his gaze was unfocused, distant, fixed on something she couldn't see. He was a man listening to a voice only he could hear.

Then, he spoke. His voice, though a murmur, carried on the still air with unnatural clarity. "I know you're there, little shadow. You might as well descend from the parapet before you fall."

Lyra froze. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a cage. He couldn't have seen her. He couldn't have. But the cold certainty in his voice was absolute. She was discovered. Her eyes darted to the left and right, calculating angles of escape. She could melt back into the darkness, lose him in the maze of the gardens. She was about to move when he spoke again.

"Don't. The guards at the gate have been given the order to loose a volley of fire arrows at the first sign of movement from the ramparts. A messy end, even for a creature like you." He turned fully, and the moonlight finally caught his face. It was a face she knew from wanted posters, but the cold, cruel king of the broadsheets was not the man before her. This man’s eyes, a startling shade of silver-grey, held a weariness that was ancient, and a flicker of something that might have been amusement. "And I would so hate to have you burned before we've had a chance to talk."

He was lying. He had to be. But the risk was too great. Slowly, deliberately, Lyra rose from her crouch. She didn't sheathe her dagger. She let it catch the light, a promise of violence. "The King of Vaelor, speaking to a common assassin. The court will be scandalized."

"The court," he said, his lips twisting into a semblance of a smile, "can go hang itself with its own silks. I have a proposition for you, little shadow. One that will benefit us both."

"I have no interest in propositions from a man whose hands are stained with the blood of my family." The words were out before she could stop them, laced with a venom she hadn't meant to reveal.

Something flickered in his eyes then, a raw, unguarded pain that was so genuine it made her breath catch. It vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by that same mask of regal indifference. "Your family," he repeated, the words tasting of ash. "Yes. I thought that might be the reason. The daughter of the Raven. I see the resemblance now. You have your mother's eyes."

He knew who she was. He knew her father’s name. The rage that had been a low-burning ember in her gut roared to life, a white-hot inferno. She was off the parapet and moving before she could think, a blur of dark leather and steel. She closed the distance between them in seconds, the dagger arcing towards his throat.

He moved with a speed that defied belief. One moment he was a statue, the next he was inside her guard, his hand closing around her wrist with a grip of iron. He twisted, hard, and she gasped as pain shot up her arm, forcing her to drop the blade. It clattered on the flagstones, a sound of utter defeat. He used her own momentum against her, spinning her around and slamming her back against the cold stone of the garden wall, his body pinning her there, his forearm across her collarbones.

She struggled, but he was unyielding. Up close, she could smell him—cold air, sandalwood, and something else, something metallic and sharp, like ozone before a storm. His face was inches from hers, his breath warm against her skin. "You have your mother's fire, too," he murmured, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "But you are not the only one who has learned to dance in the dark, Lyra. You are not the only one who has been wronged."

He was so close. She could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the faint scar that bisected his left eyebrow. She hated him. She hated him with every fiber of her being, with the ghost of her father's laugh and the echo of her mother's scream. But her body was betraying her, the heat of his touch seeping through her tunic, her breath coming in shallow gasps that had nothing to do with her struggle.

"Let me go," she hissed, "so I can finish what I started."

"You misunderstand me." He didn't relent. "I don't want to be your enemy, Lyra of the Raven. I want to be your blade."

The words were so unexpected, so utterly deranged, that her struggle faltered. "What?"

He leaned in closer, his lips nearly brushing the shell of her ear. His voice was a desperate, intimate whisper. "The men who truly killed your family are the same ones who are trying to kill me. I have been waiting for someone with your skills, your rage, your… unique motivation. I can give you the heads of your enemies on a silver platter. All I ask in return is your service. Your loyalty, for one year. And in that time, we will uncover the truth together."

She could feel his heart beating against her chest, a frantic counterpoint to her own. He was telling the truth. She was a master of reading people, of smelling a lie, and there was none in his silver eyes. He was desperate. Cornered. He was offering her the world on the point of his own sword.

And she hated him for it. She hated him for making her feel this—this infernal, impossible attraction to a man she was sworn to kill. She hated the way his body felt against hers, the way her anger was now tangled with a raw, electric desire that was more potent than any poison she had ever brewed.

"What's to stop me from taking your offer and then slitting your throat the moment you're useful to me?" she breathed, her lips brushing against his jaw.

He pulled back just enough to meet her gaze. A slow, predatory smile spread across his face, a smile that was both beautiful and terrifying. "Because, my dear Lyra," he said, his voice laced with a dark promise, "I would be a fool to trust you. And I have been a fool for far too long. We are going to be bound, you and I, in a way that will make betrayal a death sentence for us both."

He released her, abruptly. She stumbled forward, catching herself on the garden wall. Before she could lunge for her fallen dagger, he was speaking again, his voice now loud and clear, echoing in the night.

"I, Kaelan Ashworth, King of Vaelor, in the sight of the Old Gods and the New, do hereby invoke the Rite of the Blood Oath. By my blood and by hers, I bind us, body and soul, in an accord of vengeance and of vassalage, until the debt is paid in full or my own life is forfeit."

"No!" she screamed, but it was too late. He had already drawn a small, wickedly sharp knife from his belt and sliced it across his own palm. He didn't even flinch. He just watched her, his eyes burning with an unholy light as he held out his hand, blood welling up in the cut.

Her own hand was moving to her dagger before she could stop it, but it wasn't her blade she sought. It was the edge of her own tunic, her fingers fumbling for the small, bone-handled knife her mother had given her. A part of her, a tiny, rational part, knew this was a trap. But a larger, more primal part of her was horrified to realize that it was exactly what she wanted. She wanted to be bound to him. She wanted to be close to the man who made her feel so alive with hatred.

His blood was warm and slick against her palm as she met his hand with her own. The moment they touched, a jolt of pure, raw energy shot through her, like a bolt of lightning that seared her veins and stole the air from her lungs. The world tilted on its axis. The sky above them seemed to bleed from black to a deep, angry crimson. The stones beneath her feet groaned as if in pain. A power, ancient and malevolent, surged up from the ground, wrapping around her ankles, her hips, her chest, and constricting like a serpent.

She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She was drowning, falling, being unmade and remade all at once. In the swirling chaos of the magic, she saw him, his face contorted in an equal measure of agony and ecstasy. And in that moment, she knew. She knew they were no longer two separate people. They were two halves of a cursed, bloody whole. The binding was complete.

The world snapped back into focus. She was on her knees, gasping for air, her hands scrabbling at the cold stone. Kaelan was on one knee before her, his head bowed, his breath coming in ragged pants. The cut on his palm was already beginning to close, the skin knitting together as if it had never been broken. She looked down at her own hand. A faint, silvery scar was forming there, a perfect mirror of his.

"What…" she choked out, her voice hoarse. "What have you done?"

He looked up at her, and the weariness was back in his eyes, but it was now laced with a profound, soul-deep sorrow. "The only thing I could do to keep you alive, Lyra. The only thing that will keep us both alive." He offered her his hand, the hand of her enemy, the hand of her new master. "Now, we have work to do."