Chapter 4

Caden entered like a storm, the cold fury around him almost visible.

He crossed the room in three strides, seized Seraphina's wrist, and hauled her off the bed — dragging her without a word toward the door.

"What are you doing?!" Ivy lunged forward, but one look from him stopped her cold.

Caden dragged Seraphina into Roselyn's room.

Roselyn lay in the bed. When she saw Seraphina, she struggled to rise, her voice thin: "Your Highness — this is my fault. I should never have said those things to you..."

Caden shoved Seraphina forward. "Apologize to her."

Seraphina looked at him. "I did nothing wrong."

Caden's jaw tightened. "You pushed her into the lake and you call that nothing wrong?"

The grip on her wrist crushed tighter — nearly enough to grind bone.

Seraphina laughed.

It was a quiet, strange laugh.

"Caden Vale. You may be second to none in this kingdom — but I am still the Princess. We have nothing to do with each other. You have no authority to command me."

Nothing to do with each other?

Caden's expression went flat and cold.

"Don't play innocent. I've already petitioned the King. I will take you as my mate after the ceremony. I'm to be your husband — is that authority enough?"

He yanked her toward him — barely using force — but Seraphina was already so weak that she simply crumpled to her knees on the floor.

Her knees hit the ground hard. The scabs that had barely formed split open again. Black swam at the edge of her vision.

She didn't cry out. She just stared down, watching blood bloom slowly outward from the wounds.

He loved the world. He loved his devotees. He loved the people. He would spare tenderness for a bird, for an ant.

The only person he had never loved — the only one he had always found so easy to hurt — was her.

Roselyn grew frantic. "No — you can't make Her Highness kneel before me, it's my fault, I—"

She dissolved into a violent coughing fit.

Caden rushed to her side. "Stay still. Don't strain yourself."

Roselyn sagged against him, catching her breath. Then her eyes drifted — and Caden followed her gaze to the small pouch hanging at Seraphina's waist.

He paused. Then he saw the blood spreading across the floor.

In one swift motion, he reached down and unhooked the pouch from Seraphina's belt. He pressed it into Roselyn's hands.

"Consider this her apology. Help the Princess up. Let that be the end of it."

Seraphina let out a quiet breath of a laugh. That pouch was the only thing Caden had ever given her.

She'd carried it against her skin for three years. Well. Things she should never have kept in the first place.

She pushed away the hands trying to help her, swayed to her feet on her own, and walked out.

Caden watched her back until it disappeared. His brow furrowed deeper.

She hadn't said a word.

He'd expected, at minimum, anger. Tears. He'd expected her to spin around and confront him, the way she always used to — eyes red, demanding to know why.

She used to make jealous scenes over the most trivial things. Once, because he'd lit a single candle blessing for Roselyn during a ceremony, she'd sulked until he lit ninety-nine more.

She had treated every small gift he'd ever given her like a treasure. He'd once offhandedly praised a line of poetry — she'd copied it out a hundred times and bound it into a little book. He'd absentmindedly snapped off a branch of winter plum — she'd put it in water and refused to throw it out for an entire month, even as the petals dried and fell.

Now this... blankness. As if he no longer mattered to her at all.

Something constricted in Caden's chest, strange and sharp.

But Roselyn stirred against him, and he pushed the feeling down.

He was about to marry the Princess. If he didn't correct her behavior now — while he still had some authority as the priest — he would have even less control once he was only an ordinary man. Roselyn would suffer for it.

He could not afford to go soft.