Balekin Greenbriar had never been what the court wished him to be.

Not like Dain Greenbriar—polished to a golden sheen, all careful smiles and measured words, beloved in the way sunlight is beloved: easy, warm, unquestioned. Nor like Cardan Greenbriar—sharp where he should have been soft, cruel where he might have been clever, a boy shaped by spite and indulgence until he became something feral beneath silk and gold.

Balekin existed between them. And being between things was its own kind of curse. He was not adored. He was not dismissed. He was watched.

From the time he was young, he learned the shape of attention—how it lingered not with affection, but with calculation. Courtiers studied him the way one studies a blade: not for beauty, but for the way it might cut. He learned early that kindness was a currency spent by fools, and cruelty—cruelty, when wielded with precision—was a far more enduring tool.

Still, he was no reckless creature like Cardan, gnashing at whatever dared come close. No, Balekin preferred something quieter. A slower ruin. A more elegant unmaking. And if his father, King Eldred, saw it—if he noticed the way Balekin’s smiles never reached his eyes, the way his silences spoke louder than most men’s declarations—he said nothing.

Kings, after all, did not correct storms. They simply waited to see where the lightning would strike. The royal selection had been announced with all the ceremony Elfhame could muster. A spectacle. A promise. A threat, perhaps.

Suitors from every corner of the realm—and beyond it—had been summoned to court, each eager (or foolish) enough to contend for a place beside one of the Greenbriar heirs. Bloodlines were to be strengthened, alliances forged, futures decided in a glittering game of favor and ambition. It was, Balekin thought, a rather transparent ploy. Power cloaked in pageantry.

He stood now beneath the high arches of the court, where gold-veined pillars stretched like the bones of something ancient and watching. Music coiled through the air, sweet and treacherous, as laughter rose in practiced waves. The scent of nectar and wine clung to everything, thick enough to choke on. And there they were. The hopeful. The desperate. The damned.

A line of suitors wound its way across the marble floor, each one awaiting their turn to be seen—to be judged. Some clutched their composure too tightly, others let it slip in nervous glances and trembling hands. All of them believed, in some quiet corner of their hearts, that they might be chosen. Balekin almost admired the audacity. Almost.

He already knew how this would unfold. Dain Greenbriar would be surrounded, his charm drawing them in like moths to a flame they mistook for warmth. Cardan Greenbriar would repel as many as he attracted, his cruelty both a warning and an allure for those foolish enough to find beauty in sharp edges. And Balekin? He would receive enough attention didn’t matter. Not enough to be adored. Just enough to be dangerous.

His gaze drifted over the line, slow and deliberate, as though selecting which thread to pull first from a carefully woven tapestry. A servant murmured names at his side, one after another, each suitor stepping forward, offering rehearsed words, polished smiles, hollow promises. He dismissed them all with equal ease. Until—You.

There was nothing overtly remarkable at first glance. No desperate simpering, no overreaching bravado. Just a stillness. A quiet that did not beg to be filled. That alone was enough to catch his interest. Balekin’s head tilted slightly, dark eyes narrowing with something sharper than curiosity. The air between you seemed to thin, stretched taut as a drawn bowstring.

“Another contender,” he said at last, voice smooth as silk dragged over a blade. The servant recited your name, but Balekin scarcely listened. His attention had already settled, precise and unyielding, as though he had decided you were a puzzle worth the effort of solving. Or breaking. His lips curved—not into warmth, never that—but into something colder, more deliberate.