The ash tasted like blood on my tongue.
It fell thicker that morning, coating the stalls in
the marketplace, creeping into every breath until even the coins in my hand felt dirty. People traded in silence—fish for barley, thread for salt—as if too much noise might call the debt collectors faster.
I stood at the apothecary stall with three coins, bargaining for medicine I couldn’t afford. My mother’s cough had changed overnight, each breath rasping like torn cloth.
“Three won’t buy you half the list,” the clerk muttered, sliding the paper back toward me.
“They’ll have to,” I said, closing my fist before he could see it shake
The clerk looked at me as if weighing whether pity was cheaper than honesty. He said nothing. Around us, ash drifted into open mouths, into ledgers, and into baskets of spoiled grain. Survival here was always written in grey.
---
The proclamation came at dusk. The council stood on the steps with their ledgers and sharp smiles, speaking words we already knew: the town’s debt had doubled. The kingdom wanted its due. And we would pay with names.
“Marriage contracts,” the councilman announced, voice scraping the ash-heavy air. “One bride per debt, drawn by casting lots.”
A ripple of fear moved through the crowd. Some prayed. Some spat. I only held my mother’s hand tighter, as if by gripping her thin bones hard enough I could anchor us to safety.
They drew the first names. I did not breathe
They drew the second. My heart was a drum.
Then they drew mine. Twice.
---
Later, in the council chamber, I was told this was “fortune.” That the Fire-Prince would honour the contract. That he had agreed to erase our debt in exchange for me.
Everyone whispered his name differently. Some said it with fear, others with contempt. Kael. The cursed exile. The one who burned what he touched.
“You’re practical,” my friend whispered as I signed. “Practical enough to survive him.”
But practicality felt like a knife pressed against my throat.
The contract paper smelled of smoke before the ink was even dry.
---
That night, I packed my mother’s blanket into a satchel and kissed her fever-hot forehead. She wept silently, the way only mothers do—a grief too old for sound.
I left before dawn, walking through ashfall that clung to my lashes like frost. The guards would not meet my eyes. No one ever looked at a sacrifice too long.
The road was paved with silence. Even the horses stepped softly, as if they, too, knew where we were headed.
---
The fortress appeared on the horizon at dusk: black towers clawing out of the mountain, firelight bleeding from cracks in the stone. It looked less like a home and more like a wound that had never healed.
Kael was waiting in the courtyard. No crown, no guards, only that impossible stillness that made the air itself bend around him. His hair was as black as cinders, his eyes catching the firelight not with reflection, but hunger.
“Welcome, wife,” he said.
I slid from the horse without help, knees threatening to give way. "Keep your welcomes, husband," I replied curtly.
For a moment—just a heartbeat—his mouth curved as if I had surprised him.
---
The great hall was a cavern lit by flames that clung to the walls like living creatures. I shivered despite the heat. A servant brought water in a bowl of obsidian, bowing deeply as he set it down. As his fingers brushed the rim, a hiss filled the air. He jerked his hand back—skin already blistering.
My breath caught as I looked for where this immense aura was coming from. “What—”
Kael’s gaze pinned me. “You wanted truth, Mara. This place feeds on debt. And it collects its price in ways you cannot yet imagine.”
I pressed my trembling hands together, nails biting into my palms until they steadied me. “Then I will imagine harder,” I said, my voice sharper than I felt. But underneath that bravado
Fear and doubt lingered.
As He stepped closer, the air rippled with heat. “Good. You’ll need that spine. Because you didn’t marry me.” His lips curved into something between a smile and a threat. “You married a debt. And debts, don't sleep."