Prologue
I am twenty now.
Elona stood stock-still in the middle of the dark bedroom and let the thought settle over her. Everything in the room was exactly as she remembered it. The empty bed was absurdly wide for one person to sleep in, its coverlet worked with lavish embroidery, and on the table sat a basket of costly foreign fruit beside a silver cup. The king had never stinted her in beautiful, precious things.
For Elona de Parsion, at twenty, was a king's daughter who deserved to be loved—the princess of the Kingdom of Parsion.
She crossed to the mirror, black as a window at night, and looked at herself. She was a beautiful princess, with pale platinum curls and sky-blue eyes, and even a plain nightdress falling to her ankles could not dim that beauty. The long white column of her neck, the slender round of her shoulders, the breasts rising soft beneath the silk: all of it was proof that she had grown into a woman men would want. The noblewomen of the court used to murmur behind her that a man's touch would only make her bloom the more fully.
She was not a body that had never known a man.
"Elona."
The bedroom door opened, and with the moonlight a man's shadow spilled into the room. At the sound of his voice alone she thought she might burst into tears, and her hand flew to her mouth before she knew it. But the moment she turned and saw him, tears streamed unchecked from her blue eyes.
"Kazan!"
How long had it been since she had spoken that name? Elona ran the length of the bedroom and threw herself into his arms. The man called Kazan caught her hard against him with one arm and shut the door in haste. In the room, grown darker still, there was for a while nothing but the sound of their mouths meeting.
"Kazan, Kazan..."
"Shh. Come farther in."
Kazan took her hand and drew her toward the bed. The instant they sat facing each other upon it, he pulled the curtain across one side so they could not be seen from the door. Whenever they met in secret in her bedroom, he always did that. Elona stared, unblinking, at the way he moved—exactly as he had moved in her memory.
Kazan was twenty, the same age as she, an Ashatran with skin the color of copper. Tall, his body hard and well knit, with jet-black hair and red eyes, features cut clean and a low voice pleasant to hear, he looked as perfect as if a god had shaped him. It was only natural that countless women of Parsion had carried him in their hearts.
But the only woman who had ever given him true love was Elona.
"Elona, please. Answer me honestly."
Kazan cupped her tear-soaked cheek and whispered, desperate.
"Are you really getting married? To the King of Bahalen. You."
Marriage. The instant the word struck her, Elona's heart seemed to freeze. Kazan's beautiful red eyes wavered, unsteady, and only then did she understand what day this was.
"I didn't want the betrothal. Father announced it on his own."
"I know you wouldn't have wanted it. But if things stay as they are... you'll end up marrying that king, won't you? And you don't care if it comes to that?"
Elona began to feel as if she could not breathe. On this day, at this very hour, in the past, she had had this conversation with Kazan. She could not answer at once. Her lips trembled, silent. She had to answer. She had to tell him that the only person she loved was him, that she would never marry another man.
That was what she should have said.
"What choice do I have? I'm a princess. Marriage is for Father to decide..."
The words tore out of her with no regard for her will. She wanted to clamp a hand over her own mouth, to close her fingers around her own throat. But her body would not obey. Stubbornly, it went on reenacting the past.
"Kazan, you knew a day like this would come. Please don't torment me over it."
Elona held her head stiffly high and looked at him. Grief laid itself over the shock on his face, and then despair covered that. The voice that followed shook with pain.
"How can you say it so easily? How..."
"And you—how can you demand it of me so easily?"
Elona shoved away the hand he had laid on her. Drawing back to the far side of him, she flung the question at him like an accusation.
"Don't marry? Then I can never leave this place for the rest of my life! Brother Antonio is going to be king, and he'll torment me until I die. Is that how you want me to live?"
Prince Antonio, her half-brother, had abused her steadily since she was small. Cruelty was in his nature, but his hostility toward his younger sister went beyond all reason. Once a man like that became king, the life ahead of her would plainly be hideous.
Kazan, who knew that better than anyone, did not give ground.
"Then we run. I'll take you out of here, and once we find a place to settle..."
"Don't talk nonsense. Brother will find us somehow, and he'll kill us."
"We can get away safely! Don't you trust me?"
"How could I trust you? You're nothing but a slave!"
She should never have said it. Regret surged through her, too late, but Elona only glared at Kazan, her breath coming hard. She knew now what was about to happen.
Sorrow and rage welled up in the eyes of the man who had been pleading with her so fiercely. Like a beast cast off by its master, he swallowed down a pain of betrayal that had nowhere to go. Elona understood that her words had cut a wound into his soul that would never heal.
"Elona... you really are cruel."
I know. I was wrong. She wanted to say it, but somewhere along the way her voice had failed her. Kazan's mouth, come close before she noticed, covered hers and bore down hard. In the instant the unexpected kiss startled her, he caught her by the waist and dragged her down with him. Laid beneath him before she could think, she shoved frantically at his chest.
"Kazan, what are you—"
"This is all you want from me, isn't it?"
He growled the words and crushed her under his weight. As if he meant to devour her, he bit her ear until it hurt.
"All you want from me is my body. Don't even think of denying it."
"N-no, I—ah—!"
From below, her nightdress was shoved up. Kazan's trousers rasped rough against her bare legs and left red marks behind. Something hard pressed suddenly against her thigh, and Elona shook her head.
"Don't. Not here... this is the palace!"
A crack—the sound of a palm against a cheek—and everything stopped. It had been closer to a shove than a blow, so it could hardly have hurt, but when he did not move at all, fear took hold of her. Thinking back, she realized that in all the years he had lived as a slave, this was the first time she had ever raised a hand to him. At a loss, she reached up and stroked his cheek.
"Kazan, did it hurt?"
"Yes."
He answered without hesitation. Then, as if in pain, he screwed up his face and buried it against her breast. His tears fell without a sound and soaked into her clothes.
"It hurts so much."
Elona lay as she was, locked around him. Through the thin nightdress over her chest she felt his breath breaking and scattering, labored.
"I... I could do anything for you..."
She knew those words were no lie. Kazan had saved her life and nearly died in her place. Because he wanted to stay beside her, he had given up the one chance at freedom he was ever offered. He had loved her alone, with the whole of his life. And how had it ended?
For the first time, Elona's mind overcame her body and spoke the truth.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Kazan."
She clutched him tight and whispered it.
"For letting you die... I'm truly... truly sorry..."
She pressed her lips to his soft hair and sobbed. At some point she could no longer feel Kazan's breath. She could no longer feel his weight. Because Kazan had never been in her arms at all. Because that night of regret had already passed, seven years ago. Because all of it was only a thing in a dream—a past that would never come again.
Because one day after that night, Kazan had been murdered by Prince Antonio, and had left the world.
Elona wiped the heat from her eyes and woke.
Twenty-seven. The war was in its last days.
She dried her tears and pushed herself up. The nightmare had left her dizzy, and she sat on the bed a moment, catching her breath. The cramped little bed, barely wide enough for a single person to lie down, gave a pitiful creak. Water. I have to drink... She reached for the kettle on the side table beside the bed. It had begun to smell faintly of rust, and it was empty. Elona let out a sigh heavy with worry and turned her head toward the window. It ought to have been morning, yet beyond the glass it was dark.
Water and food had already stopped coming to the place where she was confined, five days ago. The last maid to visit had brought her news of the war, her face pale, and the news had been very bad.
"They say the Ashatran army is striking the royal city, Princess. They say nearly all our knights are dead, at the hand of that merciless king..."
"What does His Majesty mean to do?"
The Majesty of the present was her half-brother Antonio, who had succeeded to the throne. Seven years ago he had murdered Kazan and shut Elona away in the room at the top of the West Tower. The maid answered in a hopeless voice.
"He said he would hold the capital and fight on. And along the walls they've barred every gate, so no one can get out..."