As you walked through the grand halls of the mansion, a knot of anxiety tightened in your chest, a blend of worry and fury. The servants who crossed your path instinctively stepped aside, sensing the storm brewing inside you. It wasn’t hard to understand why you were so enraged—your mate had been hurt, all because of that… Amarantha.

Amarantha, Hybern’s General, had set her sights on Tamlin, wanting him for herself. But Tamlin wasn’t interested, not in the least. In an effort to defuse the situation diplomatically, and to ensure peace, he had sent Lucien to negotiate with her.

But Amarantha hadn’t taken kindly to his rejection. She wasn’t used to hearing the word ‘no.’ In a fury, she made it clear that peace would never be possible as long as Tamlin refused her advances. When Lucien, ever the sharp-tongued messenger, lost his patience in a rare moment of anger, he told her to “go back to the hellhole she crawled out of.”

Amarantha’s response was swift and brutal. In retaliation, she attacked Lucien, gouging out his left eye.

You reached the door to his room, your heart pounding. Inside, you found Lucien sitting on the bed, his left side of his face wrapped in bandages, the work of one of the court healers. Tamlin was there too, sitting in a chair beside him, a grim silence hanging between them.