Chapter One: The Poisoned Crown
Aurenya's POV
The queen's gown was spun silk, dyed midnight, shimmering violet under fractured light. It felt like a funeral shroud. Every seam whispered expectation, pressing me six feet under. Tonight wasn't the beginning; it was the suffocating climax of a performance I'd endured since the courtiers first bowed. Queen of these Lycan Courts. The title was a gilded cage. Every jeweled pin stabbed deeper, anchoring me to a throne that was never mine.
The Great Hall yawned before me, a vast, hungry mouth. Crimson and gold drapery cascaded like blood and fire. Majestic? Imposing? It felt like the inside of a gaping wound, raw and bleeding, while I sat dressed in its finery. Rot festered beneath. I was part of the scenery. A painted doll beside the King. Decoration. Nothing more.
Chandeliers hung like frozen, jagged stars, refracting candlelight and the hall's falseness – the smiles, the toasts, the intricate dances of power. The air itself was a battlefield: roasted venison and duck fat clashing with cloying jasmine, rose, and patchouli, masking the decay. I suffocated behind my polite smile. Two years. Two years of this gilded prison. Two years of a marriage that was exile in plain sight.
I remembered entering this hall. Young. Eager. Naïve. My hand tucked into Zevran Caelthorn's arm. He'd smiled then. Warm. Human. Dangerous.
That man was gone. Erased.
Now, he leaned towards Lord Edrick Morran, murmuring words that drew blood disguised as wit. Edrick's laugh was a forced, hollow thing. Zevran's answering smile was a razor – beautiful, cruel. Familiar. I used to crave it. I'd thought understanding him, loving him silently, loyally, would make him see me again. See the woman beneath the crown.
But kings cage queens. They don't worship them.
Months without a touch. Not a brush of fingers, not a kiss, not shared warmth against winter's chill. The bed was a chasm. I'd forgotten the sound of his true laughter, the kind that didn't wound. So I sat. Straight-backed. Chin high. The perfect, regal illusion. The court devoured it.
Then, the servant.
Young. Cedar-skinned. Trembling. He set the ruby-wrapped silver goblet before me. His eyes flicked up. Not a glance. A desperate flash. Towards the King. Away. Guilt. Sorrow. A silent scream.
The world shifted. The music faltered – a half-beat slow, a note flat. Firelight flickered as if chilled by an unseen gust. The air thickened. Instincts, long buried under silk and duty, roared to life.
Poison.
The certainty was ice in my veins.
But queens don't flinch. Queens don't show fear. Not even with death at their lips.
I lifted the goblet. The wine shimmered, dark as heart's blood. I drank.
Bitter. Metallic. Like licking rusted coins. Oily, clinging to my tongue. My stomach heaved. I swallowed.
The warmth bloomed first. Slow, insidious smoke curling beneath my skin. Then it deepened. Fire. Twisting through my veins. Vision blurred. The violins warped into discordant shrieks, drowned by oblivious laughter and clinking glasses. I blinked. The room swam. My hand lay heavy, unresponsive.
I looked to Zevran. He didn't glance my way. Why would he? I was stone on a pedestal. Admired. Ignored. Replaceable.
Pain stabbed my spine – sharp, cold. Legs trembled beneath heavy skirts. Breath hitched. Lungs seized.
Silent. Still, silent.
My heart stuttered – frantic gallop, then a terrifying drag. Still, head high. No one noticed. No one ever did.
I opened my mouth. Tried to call his name. Not love. That ghost had died months ago, choked by frost. Instinct. Primal need. Help me.
Nothing. Throat clamped shut. Voice drowned.
One tear. Hot. Silent. Shameful.
Then – I fell.
The goblet shattered on marble. Crimson wine exploded like arterial spray across pale stone. Gasps ripped through the hall. Chairs screeched. A distant scream: "The Queen!"
Too late.
I hit the ground. Hard. Limbs leaden. Vision tunneling, edges burning inward. Pain flared in my hip. Cold invaded my fingers. My chest fought for air, a desperate, failing bellows.
I saw him.
Zevran. Standing.
Not rushing. Not shouting for healers. Not kneeling. Not bending.
His eyes met mine.
In that suspended second – the void between collapse and chaos – I searched his gaze. Anything. Fear. Shock. Anger. Pain.
I found stillness. Measured. Cold. Detached. Like observing a cracked goblet fall. Annoying. Easily replaced.
Hands grabbed my shoulders. Another tried lifting my head. Shouts. Barked commands. The scent of pine and ash as someone knelt. Movement blurred – guards, healer's robes, Lady Alira's dramatic hand pressed to her lips. A muffled sob. A stifled laugh – cruel amusement tasting the air.
I couldn't move. Couldn't scream POISON!
My heart raced, faltered, slowed. The rebellion within was tidal.
Faces loomed – horror, curiosity, delight thinly veiled. I saw their minds churning. Queen collapsed. Crown unguarded. Power shifting.
But his face. Zevran's face. The chilling stillness held me. Unblinking.
I loved him. The admission was ash in my dying mind. Shameful. After the silence. The distance. The council meetings where I was 'Colleague,' not wife. The echoing emptiness of our chambers. I loved the ghost of the man who kissed my knuckles and whispered of shared power. The man who looked at me with something like awe.
I'd waited. Tried kindness, cleverness, silence, obedience. Became the perfect queen, the perfect tool, the perfect ghost of myself.
It meant nothing.
Zevran Caelthorn loved control. Loyalty. Power that bent and didn't speak. I was no longer useful.
The marble chilled my cheek. Blood-wine scent filled my nose. Clarity, cold and sharp, pierced the fog.
Maybe it wasn't an accident.
Maybe the crown never held space for two.
Maybe this was the cleanest cut.
Vision narrowed to a pinprick. Shadows danced. My lungs were infernos. Each breath agony. Each second an eternity.
Between one faltering heartbeat and the next, a final wisp of thought:
Maybe he planned it.
My throat convulsed. Iron flooded my mouth.
I wasn't afraid. I'd been dying daily. Fading beneath silk, duty, the flawless mask. Mourning the laughing girl in the mirror with every unshed tear, every unspoken truth, every untouched night. Tonight, death just moved faster.
Limbs: stone. Hands: limp. Eyes: too heavy.
As the world tipped into darkness, noise fading, cold seeping into bone, I grasped
one last feeling – not memory, not hope:
A whisper.
Maybe next life, I won't be invisible.
Then—
Nothing.