The corridors of the packhouse felt heavier that night. Ariana walked them with her shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders, Kael’s warning still echoing in her head. Stay away from him.
Yet her mind refused to obey.
Lucien’s words, his gaze, lingered like shadows burned into her vision. The sharp curve of his smile, the softness of his bow, and the way he had said my lady as though it meant something beyond courtesy.
She hated herself for thinking about him. She hated the quickening of her pulse whenever his face rose in her memory. And most of all, she hated the dreams that had plagued her long before Lucien arrived—dreams of a man she couldn’t fully see, a hand extended toward her, marked with a strange symbol glowing faintly in the dark.
For months, she had dismissed those dream
