She had been chosen when she was just twelve winters old.
Éirinn of House Aisling—silver-haired daughter of a disgraced noble line, raised on ashes and old books—was selected by decree to be the betrothed of Crown Prince Cianán.
The court had whispered. Why her? Why not a daughter of one of the great houses?
But the prince was adamant. He had seen her once, during a diplomatic visit to the outer provinces. She had spoken to him not as a prince, but as a boy with dirt on his boots. She'd told him he looked bored, and he'd laughed for the first time in weeks.
So he brought her to the palace.
And for a while, she was adored.
She was seventeen when they wed.
And for a time, she believed in the fairytale: her prince who kissed her temple when no one was looking, who built her a garden filled with silver-leafed trees, who called her his "moonlight girl."
He loved her, she was certain. Or if not love, then something close enough to hurt.
Until he brought another woman into the palace.
A noblewoman from the rival O'Lorcan line—Lady Aithne. A diplomat, they said. A guest.
But Éirinn saw the way Cianán looked at her. Not love. Not lust. Something worse: familiarity.
A secret.
A fortnight after Aithne arrived, the prince collapsed during a feast.
One moment, he was laughing with his cousins over honeyed figs; the next, his goblet dropped from his hand, and he fell, convulsing, eyes rolled back, foam at his lips.
Panic tore through the room.
Éirinn rushed to his side, her fingers trembling as she tried to find his pulse.
"He's been poisoned!" someone cried.
The guards pushed her away.
And then… the whispers began.
A servant came forward.
He claimed Éirinn had ordered the wine for Cianán herself. That she had instructed the kitchens not to taste it. That she'd dismissed two of her usual attendants that day.
"I saw her," the servant insisted. "In the cellar. With a vial."
She remembered none of it.
But the vial was found—beneath her pillow.
A rare poison: Silent Thorn. Nearly scentless, nearly tasteless. Harvested from frozen moss in the north. And trace amounts had been discovered in the prince's blood.
It was enough.
Enough for suspicion.
Enough for conviction.
Not enough for mercy.
They dragged her in chains through the palace she had once called home.
Cianán survived—but barely. His recovery was slow, painful. While he lay in the infirmary, feverish and weak, his council ruled in his stead. The evidence was "undeniable," they said.
And with the crown prince too ill to speak in her defense, no one else dared.
The trial lasted just three days.
On the fourth, she was sentenced to hang.
She remembered the moment the noose slid over her neck.
Not the priest's last rites. Not the jeering of courtiers she once dined beside.
Just the absence.
The silence of betrayal.
She scanned the crowd for his face.
Cianán.
He stood on the balcony, pale and thin, wrapped in a cloak, his hand still bound in silk from his poisoning. But he looked at her.
He looked at her.
And did nothing.
He didn't speak.He didn't stop them.
He just turned away.
When the trapdoor opened beneath her feet, she cursed his name with her final breath.
Cursed the wine.Cursed the girl with ruby lips.Cursed the boy who kissed her in gardens.
And the world went dark.
But death did not hold her.
She awoke on cold stone, in a dim room lit only by a sliver of dying orange light. A single high window let in dusk, and dust spun in the air like ash.
She gasped.
But no sound came.
Her hand flew to her throat—rough, scarred, tender. The mark was still there. A perfect ring of pain.
The door slammed open.
And there he was.
Cianán.
But not the boy she remembered. Not the prince who once kissed her fingers in the rain.
He stormed toward her, rage simmering in his every step, and grabbed her by the neck.
"You should have died," he spat. "But that was too kind."
He held up a ring—gleaming with ancient light.
"The Healer's Sigil," he said. "A royal artifact. It brings back the dying."
He tightened his grip. "I used it on you. Not to save you. To make you pay."
She stared into his face and saw no love.
Only hatred.
Only betrayal.
Only the beginning.