Craft Note: The previous chapter is a flash-forward/snapshot of a key moment in the narrative intended to serve as a litmus test for whether the story's premise, main character POV, and dynamic is right for you. This chapter marks the beginning of the story itself.

180 Days Before the Third Trial

The sun had long since set, and the moon was so heavily obscured by clouds that Gerard’s study was illuminated only by fire. The lantern on his desk sputtered and smoked, its oil long since burned low. The last log crackled in the fireplace, more embers than wood.

He ran a hand down his face, smoothing over the stubble that told him he should have gone to bed hours ago. He only had a few reports left to review before he could turn in for the night—part of the mundanity that came with being appointed Duke Gerard de Vanquise. 

The burdens of the title were numerous and most, paperwork notwithstanding, were heavy. That was just what it was to be a duke in the Northern Kingdom, the Land of Strife—named for its titular deity. 

But the position also came with its luxuries, little consolation that they were. 

The grand desk he sat behind was wider than any of the bunks he’d occupied as a battlemage. The de Vanquise manor—a castle, by any other name—was large enough to eclipse those of his noble-born counterparts. 

The adjoining door to his chambers creaked open and he looked up, cracking a smile when he saw who was standing in the doorway. 

Marlena de Vanquise, née von Drachenfels. His duchess. She was, far and away, what made the weight of his title worth it. He loved getting to see her as she was now, bare-faced, hair undone and tumbling down her back in dark brown curls, with her crushed black velvet dressing robe tied neatly over her nightgown.

The dark magic that had made him famous during the war might have eroded his soul and humanity, but he would do it again in a heartbeat. Her presence alone made him feel human again. 

He pushed his chair back to greet her, but she stopped him.

“Gerard,” she said, sounding cold and crisp in a way she usually reserved for company—a surefire sign she was on edge. She raised a crisp ivory envelope with an all-too-familiar wax seal. “It’s time.”

Gerard’s smile fell. “Don’t tell me…”

She nodded.

He dropped his forehead into his hands and muttered, “Elana’s summons.”

Marlena nodded again, still standing in the doorway. His duchess may have had a reputation for being an ice queen, but she was rarely one with him. Just as he too was a different person with her—beyond their shared walls, he was the infamous Duke Gerard de Vanquise, cold-blooded warrior. 

But not with her. Never with her. 

Now, Marlena’s face betrayed no emotion, and she looked every bit as cold as people made her out to be. She made no move to come closer, like she normally would have.

For a second, it felt like he’d gone back in time. She looked the way she used to around him, when they’d first been wedded. Ever regal. Ever composed. Unbearably distant. 

But Gerard had learned to see the subtle cracks in her facade, and all of her tells were showing: her posture was too straight, her hands too tense, her jaw too tight.

Marlena’s coldness was born from strong emotion, not a lack thereof.

“We knew this was coming,” she said stiffly. “We’ve delayed this for as long as we can.”

“Marlena, love.” He slumped in his chair. “We can’t go through this again.”

“She is sixteen years old, Gerard.” Her voice was clipped. “At this rate, by the time she graduates she will be twenty—well past the age of majority. It is a miracle the king even allowed her admission to be postponed this long.”

The Royal Magic Academy was the battleground on which all children of the nobility cut their teeth. Attendance was mandatory. There was no alternative.

Children who did not attend were branded illegitimate members of the nobility, hunted by the crown. Families tried and failed to find ways around it. It always ended in public execution.

Always.

Every student who set foot in the Academy’s halls was prepared to fight tooth and nail for their future standing. Graduating meant survival and legitimacy. Dominating meant power, elevation. Failing was synonymous with death.

It was a clever, cruel design.

The Academy was a tool to produce the next generation of the kingdom’s elites, but it also held the nobility in check. A certain level of status or sponsorship was required to attend, but titles ceased to mean anything once you were inside its halls. 

Anyone who had gained admission could raise their social standing, regardless of whether they were a duke’s child, a count’s, or a commoner’s. But any family could lose their successor in the blink of an eye—there were no protections there, no matter how highborn you were.

Gerard knew that better than anyone. As did Marlena. 

They had already lost five of their seven children to the Academy. Six, if he didn’t define loss as death. 

And now it was their youngest, Elana, who was being summoned.

Elana was the one who worried Gerard most of all. He had been dreading the day she’d be summoned since she was a child, when the physician had examined her and solemnly reported that her mana aptitude was a stunning zero—a level lower than even a commoner’s—in a society where magic determined every aspect of your social rank.

“She has no talent for magic,” he muttered, head still hung low. “You cannot actually think her ready for this, can you, love?”

“It doesn’t matter if she is or isn’t,” Marlena replied. “Elana has to go, Gerard. There is no alternative here.”

“There must be another way.” Gerard shook his head. “We would be sending her to the slaughter.”

“Gerard de Vanquise.” Marlena crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes at him. “Tell me—did I marry a coward? She may not have inherited your magical aptitude, or mine, but she is still our daughter. She has a quick wit and a strategist’s mind. She’ll make it.”

“I’m certain there must be a way for her to live comfortably elsewhere,” he mumbled. “Maybe somewhere far overseas, in an abbey.”

Marlena glared at him. “Those children die, Gerard. I’m not staking her life on a naive wish that she stay undiscovered.”

Gerard groaned, covering his eyes.

In their otherwise harmonious marriage, discussions about Elana’s future were always a point of contention. Marlena was as set on abiding by the kingdom’s stringent rules as Gerard was on trying to find a way around them. 

She’d been raised among nobles, stolen in war, and paraded around court as a trophy. That her marriage to Gerard had turned out to be a loving one was a happy accident. She knew better than most what it cost to defy the greater power.

“Isn’t it better to survive in exile than die at the Academy?” he asked.

“You doubt her so much that you would banish her to gods-only-know-where, with no hope of ever returning home, only for her to be dragged back by the crown and put to the guillotine?” Marlena’s voice was ice cold. “That’s the future you want for our daughter?”

“Marlena,” Gerard sighed. “Of course that isn’t what I want for her. But the Academy has already taken so much from us. Brienne. Tobias. Marcella. Rhys. Dion.”

He didn’t need to say the rest. She already knew. He couldn’t bury Elana too.

The ever-composed Marlena faltered, her mouth wobbling before she hid it behind her hand. After a beat of silence, she managed to say, “It was the Maker’s will.” Her voice wavered as she said it. And her hands curled into fists. “And we are powerless to change it.”

“My love,” Gerard began, softening his voice. “If we can spare Elana that fate, do we not owe it to her to try?”

“No, Gerard. We’re not taking that risk.” In the blink of an eye, Marlena’s icy expression had returned. “As the king’s advisor, you know better than anyone how ruthless he is.”

“Of course I do,” he sighed, running a hand over his face. “That’s why I know he’ll make no exception, even for me. Even his own children attended the Academy. You remember what happened with—”

He stopped at the look on her face. Of course she did. Neither of them could ever forget.

Gerard shook his head. “But if we fake her death, perhaps we can hide her well enough—”

“Why are you so convinced that her fate at the Academy is to fail?” Marlena asked, sounding every bit the noblewoman she was. Unlike him, she had been born and raised into nobility, and she wielded that imperiousness like a weapon. “Do you think she doesn’t know how little you believe in her? If we don’t have faith in her, Gerard, who will?”

“Marlena, love,” Gerard sighed again and extended a hand to her. This time, her posture crumbled, and her iron mask with it. He cracked a weak smile. “Come,” he pleaded. “I can feel your anxiety from here.”

She went to him without hesitation, crossing the threshold of his study like she had a thousand times before. She moved around the ornate leather furniture without having to look, her bare feet as quiet on the mahogany floors as they were on the woven rug.

When she was within arm’s reach of the desk, Gerard pulled her in by the waist. Marlena softened as he encouraged her to settle sideways over his lap. He could feel the restless jitters she had been masking.

She didn’t try to pretend she wasn’t anxious, not with him. 

“I have to believe she can do it,” she said, burying her face in the crook of his neck. “I have to.” 

He plucked the envelope from her hands and dropped it onto his desk. 

“I know, darling,” he murmured, stroking Marlena’s hair. “I know.”

“She’s our last heir, Gerard. If we lose her, the duchy dies with us,” Marlena mumbled.

That was the least of her fears, and they both knew it. She was talking to herself just as much as she was to him, trying to strengthen her own conviction. 

Marlena was every bit as unwilling a participant in their dilemma as he was, even if she wore it differently.

“Moreover,” she continued, somehow managing to sound haughty despite being curled into his lap. “I refuse to hamstring her confidence by so much as suggesting she try to escape. She is unbearably clever. She has all the makings of a great tactician.”

“That’s your doing, dearest,” he hummed. He was the only one she ever allowed to see her more fragile, conflicted side—and she was the only one he showed his softer side to. “You’ve tutored her so diligently.”

“She is fully capable,” she said, in a soft whisper. “She can do it.”

Gerard didn’t voice his doubts, kissing his wife’s hair instead. “I know.” 

In truth, he didn't know—couldn't know.

That was the worst part.