The Fallen Princess: Unbound

Chapter Twenty

It was Christian. He leaned in the doorway like he owned the stone, one shoulder pressed to the frame, ankle hooked over the other in that lazy, arrogant way he’d perfected long before anyone thought him a king.

Light from the high window cut across him, gilding the edge of his dark hair, catching on the faint smudge of ink at his cuff as if to remind Zaria that even princes spent time signing things these days.

His gaze swept the room once. Zaria at the table with the book open before her, Koen standing too still at her side, and settled on the way her fingers hovered near the margin like she’d been caught reaching for something she shouldn’t touch.

“Zaria,” Christian drawled lightly. “What exactly are you up to this time?” She didn’t answer. Her hand curled in on itself, palm lifting away from the page. The single line burned behind her eyes anyway.

Christian’s mouth thinned at the edges when she stayed silent. The lazy angle of his shoulders didn’t change, but something in the room did. He pushed off the doorframe with a sigh and crossed to the table.

He dropped into the chair with more force than necessary, braced his elbow on the wood, and pressed two fingers briefly into his temple as though warding off a headache. “All right,” he muttered. “What are the two of you conspiring.”

Koen’s attention shifted from the book to Zaria, red eyes steady. He didn’t speak. Didn’t so much as clear his throat. The choice sat squarely with her. Coward, she thought at him, but there was no heat in it. Zaria drew in a slow breath and turned on the chair so she could see Christian properly.

“The book gave me something,” she began, voice tighter than she’d meant it to be. “A line.” Christian’s fingers stilled at his temple. “I’m listening.” She swallowed, then repeated it, each word landing heavy between them.

“To unbind many at once is to accept that part of yourself will not come back to you.” Silence followed. Christian leaned back in the chair, spine touching the wood, eyes going distant for a moment as if he were watching the words ripple through maps and halls and futures only he could see.

His hands folded loosely over his stomach. His jaw worked once. “Yes,” he breathed at last. “That could be a problem.” The shift when it came was small, almost nothing: his shoulders drawing in, his eyes sharpening, his posture losing every trace of lounge.

The Christian who looked back at her then wasn’t just her brother-in-law who flirted his way through half the noble houses and made even bitter councilors forget they’d meant to be offended. It was the man who would wear a crown within the year.

“This,” he said quietly, “does not leave this room.” Zaria’s fingers tightened on the edge of the table. “Christian—” “We both know, if Callen hears that line,” Christian went on, tone still calm, “he will not let you near a battlefield again. He’ll chain you to the nursery if he has to, and I don’t say that lightly.” Zaria’s protest died on her tongue.

“He loves you,” Christian cut in, more force behind the words now. “You are his wife. The mother of his children. The person who keeps him from burning down every room he walks into.” His gaze pinned her. “He is not built to stand calmly by while you choose to give up any part of yourself on purpose.”

Guilt crept up beneath her ribs, slow and thick. Zaria glanced at the book. At Koen, silent and watchful. Back to Christian. “So we lie to him,” she murmured, the words tasting wrong in her mouth.

Christian exhaled through his nose, expression twisting. “We… omit,” he corrected dryly. “For now. Until we know more. Until we have… something besides a single ominous sentence and your tendency to bleed for strangers.”

“That’s hardly fair,” she muttered. “It’s true,” he countered, no softness there. Then his gaze gentled, just a fraction. “The question is: is this even a choice you’re willing to make.” Zaria’s throat tightened.

He didn’t look away. “You know, of course, what Gulshan’s done,” Christian went on quietly. “To the oath-bound. To the elves. To dragons. To shifters. To anyone who happened to be standing where he wanted control.”

His jaw tightened. “But you don’t owe them, Zaria. Not the South. Not the Isles. Not Koen’s people. Not even us. They have never done you any favors, most have laid eyes on you.” He tipped his head slightly. “Knowing that, knowing you could turn away and no one would have the right to call you coward, are you still willing to pay a price like this to free them... To stop this?”

She hesitated. Just for a heartbeat. Her mind flicked through images she couldn’t fully feel but couldn’t escape either: Red eyes clearing and then filling with horror; The Isles burning; River’s name on her lips in a memory she no longer owned; Koen’s scars across his skin; Sophie and Ava’s grief they've yet to even own.

Her chest hurt. “Yes,” she whispered. “If that’s what it takes… yes.” Christian studied her for a long moment, something painfully proud and deeply weary moving through his eyes. Then he pushed up from the small table and crossed to her, the supremely annoying royal grace in his stride not quite undercut by the way he huffed as he went.

He rested his hand over hers on the tabletop, warm palm covering her knuckles, thumb brushing once in a gesture that belonged more to a brother than a future king. “Of course you are,” he murmured. “You’ve always had a heart too big for your own good.”

Emotion stung behind her eyes. She blinked hard. “You are brave,” he added, quieter. “Braver than most of the men who’ll sing about this war when it’s over.” His mouth thinned. “And Callen is going to be absolutely wrecked when he finds out we all kept this from him.”

Guilt dug in deeper, a sharp, twisting thing. “I know,” Zaria breathed. “I hate it. I hate that I’m… choosing this for him.” “You’re not.” Christian’s thumb pressed more firmly against her hand. “You’re choosing it for them.” He nodded toward the vague direction of the southern ridge, the Isles, the wide, wounded world. “He will understand that eventually.”

“And until then?” Christian’s gaze slid briefly to Koen, then back. “Until then,” he answered, “he’ll be furious with me. I can live with that.” Zaria let out a rough laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. “He’ll be furious with me.”

“You?” Christian scoffed lightly. “He gets five minutes of anger with you before it dissolves into groveling and apologies for raising his voice. I’ll be the one he wants to punch.”

Koen, who had been silent through the entire exchange, finally spoke. “He will be angry with all of us,” he observed, tone flat. “But he’ll be alive.” His gaze flicked to Zaria. “So will the people you save.”

Christian’s hand squeezed hers once before withdrawing. “Listen to the elf on this one,” he muttered. “He’s annoyingly good at being right when it counts.” Zaria managed a faint smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Christian straightened, some of the weight gone from his frame, replaced by the familiar wariness of a man juggling far too many knives. “We have other things coming up that need your attention, too,” he reminded her.

“My coronation, for one. Father will have the throne under my boot by spring.” Zaria’s lips curved. “I’m surprised he agreed so easily.” “He didn’t,” Christian replied, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “He’s simply outnumbered.” He lifted one shoulder. “But one way or another, I’ll be crowned.”

His gaze gentled as it settled back on her. “And your son will be named Crown Prince before the hall. No more whispers. No more questions. Cillian will be my heir in law as well as blood.” Warmth flickered through the tightness in her chest at that. “He’ll try to eat the circlet,” she murmured.

“Let him,” Christian replied. “If anyone has earned the right to chew on the realm’s symbols, it’s that child.” The thought of Cillian—white hair, gold eyes, fists full of whatever he could grasp turned the conversation for a heartbeat into something lighter.

Then Christian’s attention dropped back to the open book, to the way Zaria’s fingers hovered. “Now that you know what it wants,” he said, business slipping back into his voice, “you have to learn how to do it. Can you even cast magic that wide.”

Zaria stared at the page. The idea of reaching over an entire battlefield, of pouring her light through hundreds, thousands, of minds and bodies, made something inside her curl with a mix of fear and fierce, stubborn resolve.

“I don’t know if I can,” she admitted. “But I don’t have another choice. If that’s the only way to break his hold on all of them at once…” “Then we treat it like any other impossible thing,” Koen interjected quietly. He stepped closer to the table, attention landing fully on Christian now. “We practice until it isn’t.”

Christian lifted one brow. “With what, exactly.” “We’ll need humans,” Koen replied. “Volunteers. Many of them.” His tone stayed clinical, but Zaria caught the flicker of distaste there at his own words. “We start small. We see how far she can reach before it starts to fray. We learn where the strain sits. In her. In them.”

“You’re talking about live testing,” Christian muttered. “On people.” “I’m talking about not finding out her limits for the first time in the middle of a war line,” Koen answered, unflinching. “Humans who understand what’s at stake will offer. Especially once the vassal treaties are public. They won’t be throwing themselves away. They’ll be helping make sure when she uses this, it works.”

Christian rubbed a hand over his face once, then dropped it, resignation and calculation warring briefly in his eyes. “Fine,” he ground out. “I’ll start quiet inquiries in the South. Volunteers only. No coercion.” His gaze cut to Zaria again. “And we stop the moment you so much as sway on your feet, understood.”

Zaria nodded. “Understood.” He looked between the two of them, the exhausted affection creeping back into his features. “You’re both going to be the death of me,” he muttered. “You’ll live,” Zaria murmured.

Christian huffed. “That’s the goal.” He stepped back toward the door, one hand already lifting to rake through his hair. “I’ll leave you to your scheming. Try not to break the world before supper.” He disappeared into the corridor, the faint echo of his footsteps fading toward the heart of the castle.

The study felt quieter without him, the sunlight thinner somehow. Zaria looked down at the open book one more time, at the single line that had just reshaped everything. Koen remained at her side, a steady, strange presence.

Another person who now carried the weight of the secret she’d just agreed to keep from the man she loved. Zaria exhaled slowly. “All right,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “Let’s figure out how to do the impossible gently.”

Koen’s mouth curved, a humorless ghost of a smile. “If anyone can,” he replied, “it’s the woman who keeps making impossible look like habit.” Zaria snorted, shook out her fingers, and reached for the next blank page.

The book did not care who hurt for it. But she did. And that, she thought, might be the one thing they had that Gulshan never would