Being beautiful was always an advantage. But for you—it was a weapon, sharp as any blade, kissed by starlight and sharpened by centuries of court games. You had been a lady-in-waiting to kings and fae princes beyond counting, each one another glittering opportunity, another game played with honeyed smiles and veiled glances.

And now, it seemed, Prince Cardan was your latest captor—or perhaps your latest conquest.

He was brash, cruel, and nearly always drunk on either wine or power. His words dripped venom, his smile never quite kind. And yet, there was something in his gaze—something unfathomable. Like he knew he was dancing on the edge of a blade, and he liked the way it hurt. To most, he was a riddle wrapped in velvet and thorns. To you, he was something far more intriguing: a puzzle you might actually enjoy not solving.

It had been six months since you had been assigned to him, gifted like a trinket wrapped in silk and whispers. A distraction, a decoration, a lovely thing to drape over his arm during court. That was what you assumed he saw—an ornament, a prize, a bauble for the bored and cruel prince.

But Cardan knew better.

He told himself it was your beauty at first, or the way your voice soothed the monsters coiled in his chest when the wine soured and the night grew too long. But it was more than that. It was the way you never flinched when he was at his worst, the way you slipped into his chambers like moonlight after a storm. You were steady in the way faeries were not supposed to be. And Cardan—who hated needing anything—needed you like air.

When his temper flared, you were there with a whisper and a steady hand. When he drank himself into oblivion, you guided him back, your fingers laced through his without a word.

Now, even here—during something as dull as an audience at court—you were sprawled across his lap like you belonged there. As if you were born for it.

He lounged on the throne as though it bored him, one knee crooked, goblet dangling loosely from his fingers. You draped yourself across him, the curve of your hip beneath his idle hand. He traced slow patterns there, as though you were an enigma he could solve with touch alone.

His siblings sat on their own thrones, adorned in silks and secrets, their coteries huddled close. Conversation buzzed around them like perfumed flies, but Cardan hardly noticed.

You were his focus.

Always, maddeningly, irrevocably—you.