The Glass Court Oath

by Elowen Hart

Heat 4 / 5 · 21+Novella · 12 chapters32,307 words2h 20m read~3h 35m listen

The ward-pane should not crack. But it has — a single ember-blue fracture threading through the inheritance glass of a disputed estate on the edge of the ember gardens, and for one breathless moment the drifting ash shapes two names together: Dahlia Nash, ash-born glasswright, and Sablebbb Hale, exile commander, enemies by every measure that matters inside the Ashen Palace.

The law is older than either of them and crueler than both. Only a freely spoken, uncoerced joint vow at eclipse can claim the estate. Any falsehood, any shadow of compulsion, will scar the glass and forfeit everything to the Ashborn treasury. So they are locked inside the palace glassworks through the long, ash-silvered night — she convinced he is the court’s favorite blade, he certain she is its willing instrument — and ordered to recast the ward together.

But the glass is sentient, and it is watching. Court officials press for clauses that would chain them. Ember clergy weave kill-switches into the sigils. Exile allies demand Sablebbb seize control at any cost. And beneath every argument and accusation, something far more dangerous than politics begins to smolder between them: the unwilling, furious recognition that the only person in the Ashen Palace who understands the price of a stolen home is standing on the other side of the trestles.

Court IntrigueEnemies To LoversDark RomantasyArranged Marriage