CHAPTER ONE: A TERRIBLE IDEA, DRENCHED IN RAIN AND BAD DECISIONS

Vire Crag was never meant to be romantic. It was meant to be an abandoned, crumbling mess. The old watchtower had all the romantic flair of a drowned rat in the sewer: walls that dripped water from sweat, a ceiling that leaked with malicious accuracy, and a thick air of damp bat shit, failure, and some centuries of bad architectural decisions.

Princess Seraphina Moonshadow, the heir to the Miralithian throne and master spy of the Whisper Cabal, was wading through the ice water that was now at her ankles, regretting her life choices with the same enthusiasm of receiving a root canal without anesthetic. If she botched this mission, her father might very well take her head. King Ardan wasn't known to trifle with failure, particularly when failure came in the form of ancient weapons of mass destruction.

"Perfect, absolutely fucking perfect," she grumbled, squeezing the water from her hair as if the water in the hair owed something to be repaid. "There's nothing more professional about a master spy than standing in a puddle of frozen slush hoping for an informant who's probably somewhere in a ditch."

The Crownfire Orb beat against her hip, lodged in enchanted cloth, but still somehow emanating disapproval like an annoyed parent. She had stolen it from Drakenborne's royal vault two months earlier -- a trip that had taken three disguises, one deceptively life-like fake mustache, and the seduction of an overly dull palace guard who had been far too interested in listening to her bullshit about butterfly migration patterns.

Her father believed the Orb held the secrets to controlling the moon glyphs that powered Miralith's defenses. The glyphs were failing -- the kingdom's protective barriers flickering like candles in a draft. What King Ardan didn't know was the Orb was something else entirely. Something ancient. Something that whispered and carried out dreams. Something that seemingly watched her with eyes she could never see as long as she was arrogant enough to unwrap it.

The meeting should have been straightforward: pick up a magical compass from her Tharrosi contact, verify that it wasn't fake, and return to Miralith. The compass would – assuming it was real – lead her to the ancient vault of Astorin, where there were weapons capable of turning mountains to gravel and seas to vapor.

But her contact was late. Not fashionably late. Dead-in-a-ditch late, like she said previously.

As the thunder rattled the tower's bones, she pressed her thumb against a small crescent-shaped indentation on the wall and whispered the activation phrase that would inform Branton that she had at least arrived safely. A faint blue light bloomed just beneath her skin – the same communication glyph she'd made three years earlier for some much different purpose. "Ugh, pathetic," she muttered to the nearest bat, which had the nerve to look concerned, before scratching its ass as though even bats had standards.

The glyph had been made originally to relay the all-clear to Prince Kaelrith Drakenhal that it was safe to meet in secret. A lover's code, from that long-gone summer in Tharros, when they had both moronically given up years of blood feuds for great sex and weapons-grade bad judgment. Now the glyph was repurposes for Branton, so the old man knew she was safe.

She was hit by a sudden memory: Kaelrith, eyes alight with mischief, pushed her against a shelf in the diplomatic archives, carelessly knocking priceless treaties aside as she wrapped her legs around his waist and-

"Focus, damn it," she hissed, checking her timepiece for the third time. Something wasn't right. Her contact was never late.

The Orb pulsed at her hip, warning like it's trained to do. Danger close.

Her stiletto formed in her hand as she merged with the shadows, muscles tensed to attack. Her heart quickened with excitement as she mapped points of attack and escape.

"Before you stab me," a voice shouted out of the darkness, "try not to hit the vital organs. Father would be so mad about blood on the ceremonial carpets back home."

All the cells in Seraphina's body registered that voice prior to her brain, surging heat through her despite three years of emotional scar tissue. She'd remade herself as her father's instrument, entombing the woman who loved across enemy lines.

"Oh, fuck me sideways," she snarled, slipping from shadow to half-light, knife still clutched white-knuckled in her hand.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the doorway.

Prince Kaelrith Drakenhal looked at her with the easy confidence of someone who had never had to worry about assassinations, diplomatic incidents, or desperate nobles who wouldn't quit asking for a sister's hand in marriage. Raindrops clung to his jet black hair and flowed down his face in long rivulets that should have been reserved for statues of heroes or the sort of lewd paintings palace servants hurriedly hide when visiting dignitaries conclude their bidding.

His traveling cloak was definitely a little worse for wear in the rain, though he appeared to show up to a king's ball instead of an imported meeting in an old tower. The bastard probably rolled out of bed looking like that too.

"Surprise," he offered her that half smile that had prompted a thousand poor decisions that summer of '39. "Miss me?"

"Like I miss Duke Thrustington's poetry recitals," she shot back with a tartness that barely disguised the slight quaver in her voice. "What in the nine frozen hells are you doing here?"

"I'm just enjoying the ambiance. Getting completely soaked and knackered from these mountains in the process." He strode in, flinging off the water pooled on his cloak, fiercely and dramatically. "I have to say, I do appreciate what you've done with the place. The perfectly placed puddles and destroyed roof – very avant-garde!" He moved in that loose, fluid way he always made her catch her breath, that way he owned a space as if he belonged there. Although he appeared to be calm, she knew that he was eyeing the exits, monitoring for threats, and taking counts of weapons. The warrior prince beneath the charming exterior was always watching, always ready.

"You've gotta go," she said flatly. "Right now."

"Mmm, can't. I'm planning on getting spectacularly wet in this tower and then making some questionable life decisions with the nearest available royalty." He glanced around with mock confusion. "You wouldn't happen to know where I might find a princess with a thing for pointy objects and sharper comebacks? That's my favorite."

She felt heat roll through her at a vivid memory: The Royal Cartographer's workshop. Maps covered every flat surface. Kaelrith's lips burned on the back of her neck while he pulled her up onto the table, her legs wrapped around his hips, his voice like gravel to her ear as they-

"I'm meeting a contact," she replied, struggling to keep her voice steady as the heat radiated from her cheeks to her core. She squeezed down on the part of her that was still pining for Kaelrith-the part of her that wasn't the Whisper Princess, heir to Miralith, or the daughter of King Ardan. "A contact that is very jumpy, very skittish, and will absolutely not show up with a Drakenborne prince loungin' around like he owns the place."

"Ah, so that's why you're in luxury accommodations," he replied, having pulled his eyes from her and resting them on a bat hanging from the sagging remnants of the ceiling. "Your hospitality needs a little work, darling."

"I am not having a garden party, Kaelrith. This is business. Serious business." She gestured toward the large bag, where the Orb pulsed quietly, almost demanding her attention. "And my contact is disturbingly late. So, something must be very wrong."

"So, you have the Astorin compass," he said casually, as if discussing the weather. "And the Crownfire Orb you took from my father's vault."

She froze. The Orb pulsed again in warning against her hip.

"How did you-"

"Know about the compass that is supposed to show mythical weapons that can wipe out armies, or the ancient artifact that is currently hiding in your satchel?" He shrugged. "Drakenborne intelligence is not entirely incompetent, despite what popular belief might suggest."

She fought down the urge to choke him. "You need to go. Right now. Something is off – my contact has never been this late, and the Orb is... acting strange."

"Your contact isn't coming."

There was something in his voice that made her stop. "What did you do, Kaelrith?"

"Nothing." He raised his hands defensively in a calming motion. "But Cyric's men ambushed him about two hours past near the eastern ridge, which I have reason to assume is where you planned to meet instead of this godforsaken tower."

"Cyric?" The name sent ice hammering into her spine. Cyric – spymaster, diplomat, and professional pain in her ass. A man of such dazzling beauty that she sometimes forgot he was a calculating brutality incarnate. "Gods damn it!" Her voice cracked halfway through the curse, anger twisting into something rawer. She turned away from Kaelrith, took three hard steps, and stopped, her back to him. Her hand came to her own mouth, as if pressing back the sensation.

"The contact's name was Tenmo," she said finally, quiet but tight. "He was... reliable. Careful. He never missed a mark, never flinched. He had a daughter. She lives with her grandmother in the slums. She draws birds on everything. He showed me one once - a hawk in red chalk. Said it reminded her of me."

Kaelrith's expression shifted, his posture changing from defensive and to somewhat open, regretful even. He didn't speak. He made no attempts to comfort her or crack a quip, he let her feel her emotions alone this time. Smart man.

Seraphina took a breath that shuddered, the cold catching in her lungs. "I promised him this would be quick. Clean. I told him I would take care of the danger."

She turned to Kaelrith again, her face pale but hardening. "And now he's dead. Because I let my guard down. Because I bought this plan would work. And what's Cyric got to do with all this?"

"Everything, perhaps." Kaelrith reached into his tunic and withdrew a folded missive. "Three days ago, I received this. Allegedly from you. But, uh…"

She accepted the parchment and read the flowing script with a rising sense of horror. That was not her handwriting but it was a damned good replica. The mark of her personal seal in the corner was an exact copy of hers. Curious.

"I sure as hell didn't send this," she said, her stomach knotting. "Someone is setting us up."

"Someone close enough to both of us to forge your seal, predict my actions, and cut off your contact," Kaelrith's expression darkened. "Someone who might know about the Orb."

The implications hit her like a physical blow. "Cyric."

"The very same."

She began to pace the floor, her analytical mind whirling. "This doesn't make sense. Why gather us? Why not just attack me and steal the Orb?"

"Perhaps he needs both of us for some reason. The Orb is dragonblood-sensitive, right?"

She stared at him, "How do you know that?"

"I've dreamed of it, a black sphere, pulsating like a heart, calling me with a voice I could almost comprehend. Sometimes I would wake up and my sheets would be burned at the edges."

The Orb pulsed once against her hip, as if to respond to him.

"Shit," she said out loud, the reality began to wash over her like a cold wave. "He needs a dragonblood heir to unlock it - that's why he brought you here!"

"And the only person to successfully steal something from Drakenborne in the last ten years to acquire it." Kaelrith's golden eyes were forced to hers. "We've been played, like pieces on a board."

She swallowed hard. If Cyric got both the Orb and Kaelrith, the devastation he could cause would wreak havoc on both their kingdoms, and all past accounts of the Crownfire - rivers of molten flame that carved valleys through the mountains-- were not mere bedtime stories, they were nightmares.

They exchanged glances and in that moment all the danger, the sheer mystery and impossibility of the fate they had just succumbed to - completely evaporated. Just Kaelrith, standing too close, looking into her eyes with an intensity that constricted her throat. His scent - woodsmoke and leather and rain - enveloped her in its bittersweet familiarity after so many years apart.

"We have to go," she whispered, her voice barely a whisper. "Now."

He stepped forward, closing that uncommitted space between them. "Of course. Right away." He didn't move, however, his gaze focusing low, lingered on her lips.

"Kaelrith."

"I know. Bad idea. Wrong time." His voice was rough. "But I've thought about you every damn day, no, burned for you every damn day…for three years."

Something snapped inside of her - a rumble in her carefully built walls. She had spent those three years trying to forget him, trying to convince herself that those weeks in Tharros had been a mistake of weakness when they were the only time she had ever felt like she was truly alive.

"Have you lost your mind?" she gasped, even as her treacherous body leaned closer to him like a flower bending toward the sun. "We shouldn't be in this place. Cyric could arrive at any moment. We must redirect-"

He kissed her.

This was not a soft reminder of what had once been. This was a tempest born after all these years of toil - hungry, reckless, unavoidable, sinful. He had taken her lips with the certainty of a man who knew exactly what he was doing and gods know how she felt, she wanted it as well.

She gasped into his mouth and he took the chance; he kissed her again even harder, so that she was in danger of collapsing on her knees. His hands found her hips, pulling her even closer to him, as hers found their way into his damp hair. He tasted like rain and longing and bad choices that she was more than content to repeat.

The Orb pulsed wildly against her hip, telling her she was too far gone to listen. Kaelrith held her against the wall, his chest pressed against hers with sweet pressure. A hand slid under her tunic, scorching hot against her rain-chilled skin as it moved up to fill his palm around her breast. She arched into his touch, a ravenous sound torn from her throat as his thumb danced around her nipple through the thin fabric of her binding.

"Damn, I've missed touching you," he whispered into her neck, his voice rough with desire. "Missed how you respond to me. Like this." His teeth grazed the tender place beneath her ear, and her entire body trembled.

Her hands were not still either. She pulled at the laces of his tunic, needing skin against skin. He groaned as her fingers sketched the hard planes of his chest, the sound echoing through her like a physical caress.

A far corner of her brain-the part of her brain that had learned to survive, to calculate, to follow orders - screamed warnings. To be discovered thus would be more than scandal. It would be her father's wrath, her inheritance lost, likely death for treason.

"We shouldn't," she breathed, even as she wrapped a leg around his hip and drew him near. "This is-"

"Exactly what we both need," he finished, rocking against her in a way that had her seeing stars. His hand drifted lower, fingers teasing at the waistband of her pants. "Tell me to stop, and I will."

She should order him to desist. For her kingdom. For her own safety. For the vow she'd made to uphold.

"Don't you dare," she spat, drawing him back to her.

The whole tower shook violently, the stone screeching against stone in a humanlike grinding of teeth. They parted - instinct overwhelming desire.

The Orb pulsed violently at her hip, as if a living creature attempting to burst free. The air thickened about them, raising the hairs on her arms.

"What the --" began Seraphina, but Kaelrith was already taking a step back, his gaze upward.

The ceiling beams creaked in agony. A twisted fault tore apart the ancient cement, pouring debris in their wake. A distant noise from underneath them had the sound of the earth itself awakening: a low growling snarl they felt in their very bones.

"The Orb," Kaelrith gasped, the serious expression once more seizing his face. "It's reacting to my blood." He was appalled and amazed.

Sitting atop the crossbeam high above them stood a huge black eagle, its wings spread wide against the shaking walls. It shifted its eyes to look in their direction with eyes unimaginably wise and staring into their very hearts so intensely that Seraphina felt laid bare.

"We must stop," she declared, voice barely audible over the cacophony of a building's demolition. She pressed a hand to the satchel and felt the frantic thumping inside the satchel. "We've made a mistake,"

Kaelrith stood back and ruffled a hand through his soaked hair. "Shit. The records had stated that it would only need to be initiated slowly."

"The records were wrong." She straightened her attire, attempting to compose herself. "Or lacked vital details."

The eagle let out a sound-a low rumble, not a shriek, and it was close to annoyed. When it did, the shaking of the tower stopped.

"Damn bird" Kaelrith growled, his gaze still locked to it.

The eagle tilted its head, as if indignant.

"The Orb is unstable," he changed to a practical tone, "Cyric is coming. We need a plan."

"What type of plan?" she questioned, still attempting to steady her pounding heart.

"We give them what they expect to see," he said to her, already unbuckling his weapons belt. "Star-crossed lovers caught in the act. It explains why we're both here, creates confusion, and gives us a tactical advantage by surprise."

She stared at him. "You want us to pretend we've been..."

"Fucking like rabbits in a condemned tower?" His grin was pure wickedness. "Exactly. But I mean, it's barely pretending at this point."

"You're insane."

"That's not what you were moaning about a couple minutes ago."

It was absurd. Humiliating. And tactically brilliant, which was the most infuriating part.

"Cyric will never buy it," she protested weakly.

"Cyric will absolutely buy it because it's almost true," Kaelrith insisted, looking smug.

Seraphina breathed a sigh. She let her hair go, unfastened her blouse, and opened a few judicious buttons with swift, practical gestures.

"Make it look real," she said, pinching her cheeks for color. "But keep your hands where I can see them. We're actin', not picking up from where we stopped."

"Spoilsport." Kaelrith's smile was sin incarnate as he backed her into the wall, one hand straying to her throat in a claimant's caress that brought heat lapping through her in spite of peril. "Trust me, princess. Convincing is my specialty."

A silken voice drifted up from below. "Princess! Prince! I can hear you're both up there. Do come down these stairs and greet me properly. It's dreadfully wet out here, and I've traveled such a long way for this little reunion."

Seraphina's blood went cold. "Cyric."

The voices grew louder. Footsteps on stone. The creak of rotting stairs. Clank. Clank. Fuckin clank.

Kaelrith's mouth crashed against hers in a kiss of performance and promise – urgent and desperate and not entirely false. One hand tangled in her hair, the other slipping under her partially unbuttoned shirt, skin exposed to anyone entering the room.

The door swung open.

Cyric stepped out with dancer's fluid grace. Silver-blond hair fell over shoulders draped in midnight blue silk, features finely sculpted and yet imperious. Raindrops glittered like diamonds on his skin, and heterochromatic blue and green eyes seemed to contain ancient knowledge and timeless amusement.

"Ah," he murmured, his voice as smooth as honey drizzled over velvet. "What a lovely scene you've set before me."

Kaelrith and Seraphina had departed with shocked surprise. He stood a half pace before her, protecting her as she struggled to adjust her clothing. One of the guards, a bearded giant with a scar down his lip, openly stared at the bared flesh of her exposed breast. His tongue darted across his lower lip, and he made a low, admiring noise at the back of his throat.

The room temperature rose just a bit. Kaelrith moved with practiced nonchalance, inserting himself more fully between Seraphina and the guard, one hand coming to rest on his sword hilt. The glance he sent the man threatened such mayhem that the guard took an involuntary step backward, his leer dissolving into something near military neutrality.

"Cyric," Kaelrith nodded, as if they were meeting in a palace drawing room instead of a crumbling tower. "You're a long way from Tharros. Strange night to go walking to abandoned towers."

"As are we all." Cyric moved further into the room, followed by silent guards whose hands rested on gleaming swords. His gaze swept over them both, missing nothing. "The Dragon Prince and the Whisper Princess, in... diplomatic relations. How very enlightened of your respective kingdoms."

"What brings you to this lovely shithole?" Seraphina asked, composure regained, though she noticed how Kaelrith still kept himself between her and the guards.

"The same thing that brings us all to such unlikely places." Cyric's smile revealed nothing. "Necessity."

"And what necessity would that be?" Kaelrith asked.

"The need to save two great powers from destroying themselves for trinkets and misunderstandings." Cyric walked to the window, looking out into the rain-filled night. "Your kingdoms teeter on the edge of war. Drakenborne armies gather along the northern border. Miralithian assassins probe the southern duchies. And all the while, certain artifacts of power pass into new hands in ways that serve no one but those who gain from strife."

He spun to face them both, grasping them in his angry gaze. "You have something that isn't yours, Princess. Something that was never supposed to be awakened."

"I don't know what you're referring to," she replied evenly.

"The Crownfire Orb," he said, the words falling into the room like stones into still water. "An artifact older than our civilizations, containing power that, in the wrong hands, would reduce the continent to ash. In the right hands it could reshape the world."

Seraphina held tightly to her satchel. "If it existed, why would you be so concerned as to who owns it?"

"Because your two warring nations stand in the way of Tharros," he had answered, impeccable composure unshaken. "And I would not see mine home a war-ground for legions beyond the comprehension of mankind."

"Making use of all that civic-spiritedness of yours," Kaelrith retorted.

A malevolent glint flashed in the twisted eyes of Cyric – and vanished as quickly as it had existed. "The Orb needs both of you. The one who took it, and the blood to unlock it. I've brought you here simply to give a more intense study to the work of it. Under the watch of Tharros, of course."

Above, the eagle changed position, claws scraping against wood. Cyric's eyes jerked up, his smooth forehead furrowing into a frown for a moment.

"What a peculiar animal," he grumbled. "I didn't know eagles bred in these hills."

"They don't," Kaelrith replied, seizing the opportunity of the interruption to step closer to Seraphina. "Perhaps it's lost."

"Perhaps," Cyric's attention returned to them. "Now, to the point. I offer you something. You turn over the Orb to the care of Tharrosi, and in return, you both get safe passage home and diplomatic immunity for your transgressions. And I won't tell daddy."

His cold, lovely smile. "And then, of course, imagine the shame that your respective courts would endure were they to find out about this affair. The Dragon Prince and the Whisper Princess, scratching at each other in a destroyed tower as their kingdoms fight. That would be… regrettable."

Seraphina felt Kaelrith's tension beside her. Ambient temperature increased noticeably again – a physical manifestation of dragonblood responding to his mood.

"Is that a threat?" Kaelrith asked, his tone surprisingly even.

"A plain fact," Cyric replied. "I am, of course, a loyal servant of peace."

The eagle screeched loudly, flaring the wings wide in a motion that seemed purposefully deliberate. One of Cyric's guards automatically brought up his crossbow.

In that instant of distraction, Seraphina acted. Her boot came down on the nearest mercenary's knee, sending him crashing to the ground with a disorienting crunch. With the same movement, she pulled out her stiletto and cut another's hamstring.

Kaelrith moved with equal speed, grabbing a torch from one of the mercenaries and jamming it into the nearest wooden support beam. The dry wood beneath its wet surface caught like tinder.

Chaos erupted. Men shouted. Smoke billowed. The eagle shrieked again, diving through the chamber in powerful swoops that forced the guards to duck and scatter.

Cyric alone remained unmoved, watching the mayhem with detached interest. "How disappointingly predictable," he sighed.

"The passage!" Kaelrith yelled over the noise, backing toward the north wall as fire raced along the ceiling. They had discovered a hidden passage underground and to the hills last time they met in the tower.

Seraphina was already moving, shoving the hidden stone that revealed the narrow escape tunnel. "Move!"

He grabbed her satchel, tossing it to her before following her into the tunnel. Behind them, Cyric's silken voice rose above the tumult.

"A temporary setback only. Do remember that everything happening now was set in motion long before any of us drew breath."

The tunnel was tight, dark, and reeked of mold, but it was blessedly free of Tharrosi mercenaries. They moved quickly, Kaelrith's natural heat guiding her through the darkness. Seraphina knocked over an ancient statue to block their path behind. They hurried along the path’s twists and turns until they saw the cracking of lightning at the exit.

"That," he remarked as they stepped out onto a small ledge halfway down the mountain, "did not go according to plan."

It still rained, albeit more lightly now, as the storm moved to the east of the mountains.

"I don't know," said Seraphina, shifting her satchel. "We're alive, and not captives, and Cyric doesn't have the Orb."

"Your success standards are appallingly low, princess."

"Part of the job." She gazed at the perilous route that would take them away from their assailants. "We need to separate. You head south to Drakenborne. I'll head north to the border vault."

"The vault? You can't go in there alone, not with Cyric's forces looking for you."

"I have no choice. The Orb cannot remain in my hands now, and I cannot risk taking it back to Miralith." She glared at him. "This is bigger than us, Kaelrith. Bigger than our kingdoms. If Cyric gets his hands on it-"

"I know." His face was solemn. "But at least let me escort you to the vault safely."

"And then what? We say goodbye again? Pretend this never happened? Go back to being enemies? Besides, I don't need your or anyone else's perceived safety."

Something flashed in his golden eyes – determination, defiance, refusal to accept the inevitable. "We find another way. Together."

The word hung between them, impossible and tempting. Together. As if such a thing could ever be theirs. As if blood feuds and politics and the weight of two crowns weren't crushing down on their shoulders.

"There is no 'us together,'" she said, the words painful but necessary. "There never was."

"There could be."

"Don't." She stepped back, putting space between them. "Don't make promises neither of us can keep."

He grabbed her hand, his fingers sending electricity through her rain-cold skin. "I would burn kingdoms to the ground for you, Seraphina."

The raw honesty in his voice terrified her more than Cyric's threats, more than his mercenaries' weapons. Because she believed him. Because she knew, with bone-deep certainty, that Kaelrith Drakenhal would incinerate the world if she asked it of him. And part of her – the part that had never truly recovered from that summer – liked it.

That was the worst realization of all: that despite everything her father had done to shape her into his instrument, some part of her still wished for a different life. One in which she wasn't the Whisper Princess, her blood-stained hands were clean, and she could just be a woman who fell in love with a man who had golden eyes and a killer smile.

"Don't ever say that," she breathed.

"I'll keep saying it until you'll believe me." His thumb stroked the scar in her hand. "I'll keep saying it until you'll understand that some things are worth any price."

"You're impossible."

"Yet somehow irresistible."

The eagle flew overhead, its cry sounding decidedly frustrated.

"We must go," she said, already walking down the north path. "Now."

"Seraphina." His voice halted her. "Whatever occurs, whatever Cyric has in mind... be cautious."

She looked back over her shoulder, committing his face in the moonlight to memory – the gold eyes that perceived too much, the smiling mouth that came too readily, the determination in every line of his face.

"And you, dragon prince." She attempted a smile. "Don't burn down the rest of the buildings."

"No promises. It's kind of my signature move."

They looked at each other a last time, then separated – she northward, he southward, separated by duty and destiny and the indissoluble bond of their common past.

As she walked carefully along the treacherous mountainous road, the Orb rested against her hip, a comforting and reassuring weight safely tied in her backpack. Ahead of her, the great black eagle flew effortlessly, swooping down once and then once more, before disappearing into the wide and dark sky above, leaving her in awe.

And Seraphina wondered, not for the first time, if some fires were indeed meant to burn until there was nothing left but ash.