To Burn the Royal Line

by Ellis Carrington

Heat 3 / 5Novella · 12 chapters26,625 words1h 56m read~2h 58m listen

Every has bled for her House before. But nothing prepared her for the Glass Court balcony at eclipse-dusk—ash drifting beyond the warded panes, the ember-ink writ hovering like a sentence, and Prince Yves Sloan standing across the obsidian dais with the cold patience of a man who has already taken everything she loves.

The throne’s terms are brutal and final: she will share her ancestral valley with the border prince who shattered her family in battle. She will smile through it. She will sign. When Every’s bloody palm hits the crystal rail and the wards crack open like a wound, the court sees a disgraced lady bending to her conquerors. What they don’t see is the counter-bargain she and Yves are quietly stitching into the very oath meant to chain them—a conspiracy stitched in ember-ink and whispered fury, built to protect exiles and strip the throne of its stranglehold on both their people.

Every doesn’t trust Yves. She doesn’t trust herself around him. Every stolen argument in a warded corridor, every charged silence in the ember gardens before dawn, every careful touch that lingers a breath too long is a risk she cannot afford—and cannot stop taking.

Court IntrigueEnemies To LoversDark Romantasy