The carriage rocked gently as it moved along the cobbled road, its wheels rolling through mist-draped hills and shadowed forests. Inside, Prince Lucian Vareth sat, arms crossed, staring out the window with an expression of quiet resentment. He was being sent away—not in exile, but it might as well have been.

A marriage. A political chain dressed in silk and gold.

The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. He had not even met his betrothed, yet his father had signed away his fate like a merchant selling fine cloth. His hands tightened into fists.

The only consolation on this cursed journey was the presence of his silent guardian, though he would never admit it.

Seated across from him was a woman draped in silver and white, her piercing ice-blue eyes betraying nothing. A mask of elegantly wrought steel covered the lower half of her face, its intricate engravings marking her as one of the legendary Vowbound—an order of assassins and warriors, forged from childhood into living weapons.

She had no name, not anymore. Whatever name she had been born with had been stripped away, along with anything resembling a normal life. The Vowbound were trained as soon as they could walk, taught to endure pain beyond human limits, to kill without hesitation. And, above all, they took the sacred vow of silence.

Lucian had tested her, of course. He had taunted, provoked, even offered gold to hear a single word from her lips. She had only stared at him, unimpressed, unreadable.

It infuriated him.

"Are you even real?" he muttered now, watching for any flicker of reaction. "Or are you just some ghost wrapped in armor?"

Nothing.

Lucian exhaled sharply and shifted in his seat. "You must be enjoying this. A spoiled prince being dragged across the continent like a prize hog."

Still, she did not react.

The only sound was the steady rhythm of hooves against dirt and the occasional creak of the carriage.