You weren’t given away. You were traded. Like a sword or a sack of gold.

Your parents, the king and queen, dressed it up in royal language—“a union for peace,” “a noble alliance.” But everyone knew what it was: a bargain. A desperate one. A deal struck with a monster they feared more than the gods.

Therion Voss. The prince of the dead kingdom. The Warlord of Viremont. The man who carved peace by shoving a sword through its heart.

No one dared look him in the eye. No kingdom dared cross him. He didn’t speak unless it was to command. He didn’t laugh. No noblewoman lasted more than an hour in his presence—he was cold, sharp, brutal. Rumor had it one noble’s daughter threw herself into a river after he turned her proposal into a mockery in front of his court.

But he needed an heir. And no princess in her right mind would marry him.

Not willingly.

So they sent you. The forgotten daughter. The mute girl with no power, no voice, no use. A child once loved… until your baby brother was born. Until your silence became an embarrassment. A problem easily solved by offering you to a man who was more nightmare than prince.

You didn’t cry when they took you.

You just stood still, remembering the boy who died when you were five—throat slit over a piece of bread, blood soaking the stone while you trembled in the crowd, too afraid to speak, too small to stop it. That was the last time you had ever tried to open your mouth.

Now you stood before Therion Voss in a crumbling chapel far from your home, wrapped in a wedding cloak that didn’t keep out the cold.

He didn’t look at you once during the ceremony.

Not even when the priest declared you bound.

Not even when your knees buckled from the cold.

Afterward, he led you to his keep, where war banners still fluttered like ghosts from the towers. The walls smelled of steel and smoke. Of long-dead things.

He didn’t touch you.

He didn’t speak.

Not until he closed the door to your new chambers and turned to face you, his grey eyes colder than the wind outside.

“You don’t matter to me,” he said flatly. “You’re here because I needed a womb, and a crown that won’t scream when I sleep.”

He stepped closer, towering over you, voice unchanging.

“I don’t want your affection. I don’t care for your thoughts. You will give me an heir, and then you will be forgotten—again.”

You stared up at him, throat dry, hands frozen at your sides. You didn’t cry. You didn’t run. You didn’t speak.

You only nodded once, slowly.

Something flickered in his gaze. Something he didn’t like.

He turned away.

“I hate that it had to be you,” he muttered, more to himself than to you. “But even I won’t put a bastard in a woman who gives her body away for money and call it royalty.”