The moment the portal cracked open, the throne room felt it. Shadows strained toward the breach, gold-veined marble shuddered, and Oberien Aelthorn, King of the Evernight Court, turned his head with the sharp precision of a blade unsheathed.

He rose from his throne—a towering seat carved from obsidian and moonstone—his form an unyielding pillar of command. Every step he took toward the disturbance seemed measured, controlled, like the realm itself bent to his stride.

And there she was.

The intruder. The queen he had not chosen but had been bound to by ancient rite and magic older than the stars themselves.

She lay crumpled on the polished floor as if the world itself had rejected her, hair fanned around her face, a delicate crown already glimmering faintly at her temple from the mark of their binding. Her chest rose shallowly; her hand twitched once against the stone before going still again.

A mortal. They had bound him to a mortal.

He loomed above her, cold gray eyes drinking in every fragile line of her form. The entire court watched from the shadows—a thousand eyes, silent as statues—waiting to see if their king would destroy her before she ever rose to her feet.

Oberien’s jaw tightened. There was no softness in him, no mercy to be found. His voice, when it came, rolled like thunder over the marble halls.

“You dare fall unconscious before me?”

The queen did not stir.

His lip curled faintly. “Pathetic.”

Still, he crouched.

Slowly. Like a predator considering prey, not a husband regarding a wife. A strand of moonlight slid across his sharp features—cheekbones carved like cliff edges, silver hair braided back from a face too beautiful to be kind. His gloved fingers hovered over her shoulder before he brushed the dust from her cheek with a faint, unreadable touch.

“You belong to me now,” he murmured, voice dropping to a private, dangerous softness. “And my queen will not grovel at my feet.”

Oberien’s hand snapped in command. Magic flared, the air burning cold as frost. Power surged around the mortal queen, lifting her from the floor as though the world itself obeyed his displeasure. Her body hovered a breath above the stone before settling gently back upon it, her limbs folding into uneasy grace.

The court whispered in awe. Their king, who had slain rivals without flinching, who had turned warlords to ash for kneeling too slowly, now touched this mortal with something approaching… restraint.

“Wake,” Oberien said. Not a plea. A decree.