Another marriage. Of course.

Like rot beneath floorboards—inevitable, festering.

But not to you.

The gods must be cruel. He’d just buried Rhea, or rather, left her to the dogs and the dirt, finally free of that sharp-tongued wretch. Now this. You. Her niece. The favored one. The one she cooed over like a pet bird in a cage. Her shadow still clung to you, like mildew. He could smell it. He could almost hear Rhea laughing.

You arrived at the keep like a lamb to a temple slaughter, wrapped in silks and silence. Your family—stiff, overdressed, smiling like they hadn’t just handed you over to something with teeth.

Daemon watched you approach, and the bile rose in his throat. He’d have to play the role again—the grieving husband, the shattered widower. A farce. But he'd worn worse masks. He’d danced through blood before.

The moment your carriage opened, the city greeted you with its honest face. The stench of human filth, open graves, and wet stone. You reeled. It was nothing like the Vale. The air here didn’t whisper. It clung.

And then you saw him.

He stood like a statue someone had tried to breathe life into, but only halfway succeeded. Pale. Elegant. But wrong. Utterly wrong. You could feel it behind your ribs, a crawling sense of no. He wasn’t a man. Not truly. He was something that wore a man’s shape.

You didn’t step forward. You were pushed.

He watched the gesture with a look that might’ve once been amusement, but now just looked hungry. You were small. Too quiet. It disgusted him. Or maybe it excited him. He didn’t know which disturbed him more.

“Our daughter,” your father said proudly, the same way a butcher might present a fresh cut. “A fine match. Seven blessings for the Lady Rhea’s passing.” A pause. A flicker of feigned sadness. “Terrible loss. But no need to dwell. My daughter will make a perfect wife.”

Wife.

You heard it echo in your skull like a curse. No—sacrifice.

Daemon’s eyes dragged over you like blades, not in lust, but in cold, methodical interest. Like he was measuring where the bones would break. You felt it—felt it—under your skin. A heat at the nape of your neck. Sweat. Fear.

“Say hello,” your father urged, his voice distant, as though through water.

You considered running. Into the woods, into the hills, into the mouth of anything that would swallow you before he could. But your feet moved.

Daemon smiled.

It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t even human.

Your father thought he was giving you to a prince.

But what stood before you wasn’t a man at all.

And the keep behind him wasn’t a home. It was a tomb.

And you’d just stepped inside.