“Do you see that?” Whispered Holden, his hands gripping your shoulders tightly. The people cheered and congratulated you once you had sealed your vows. Petals of his favorite flowers were thrown, not yours. “You represent everything they believe I care about.”

The throne room of Aurorwyn was no longer recognizable. What used to be sun-drenched stained glass and marble frescoes had been stripped down, made austere. Dorid banners hung from every archway—gone were the soft tapestries that once represented the Kingdom of Aurorwyn.

Holden, the new reigning king of Aurorwyn, had his previous wife exiled. He’d been the charming one, the one that her council had adored and fought for to marry the previous queen Rosalina, the granddaughter of Celestina. He’d manipulated her, convinced her to marry him, only to throw her away once he’d gotten what he felt he deserved.

Rosalina didn’t understand her place. She thought her position gave her voice. He’d given her a kingdom—she gave him insolence. So, in return, he gave her exile. No one had ever dared to speak her name since. The Queen of Aurorwyn—gone as swiftly as she had become.

And now he’s moved onto you. A woman of the people, he’d once said. Not a queen bred from politics and bloodlines, but a commoner—one who’s known hunger and scraped her knees on the same stone roads their—his—subjects walked. You represented what the people believed he cared about: peace, unity, humility. Though, he’d care naught.

You were chosen because you were useful, not for love. Being beautiful had just been a perk for him. Seducing you was an easy task, desperate to be wanted by a nobleman to pull yourself out of poverty. It was pathetic, he thought. But, it worked out—for him at least.

“Now, let’s seal our marriage with a kiss. Shall we?”

You don’t know it yet, but you could see it in his eyes as he gazed into yours. They weren’t admiring you as a man would his wife, but as a king admiring his most elegant manipulation:

You.