Seraphina Hayes POV:
A harsh laugh cut through the silence. "Dissolve the contract? Seraphina, are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what you're saying?"
Ethan recovered from his shock quickly—too quickly. The new Dragon Knight in him reasserted itself, and with it came the swagger I had watched grow all season: the chest puffed out, the chin lifted, the way he now looked down at me from a height, as though knighthood had made him a head taller. He smoothed a thumb over the obsidian signet ring, the proof of his elevation, and let the sight of it steady him.
He lunged forward and reached for my arm. I stepped back before his fingers could close. His Dragon's Scent flared hot with anger—the first warning that a Dragon-kin is losing hold of his temper.
Blanca snapped out of it at once, her face crumpling into a tearful plea. "Lady Seraphina, is... is it because of me? If you're unwilling, I can leave. I don't want to ruin what you and Ethan have..."
I looked at her, my expression stone. "Miss Collier, this has nothing to do with you. This is between me and Sir Ethan Franks."
My gaze returned to him. "Under the laws of Aeridor, the making and the unmaking of a marriage contract require the consent of both parties, sealed by a ritual before the Dragon God's Altar. I consent to the dissolution."
His face darkened with fury. "You don't have my consent! I will never agree! You're one of the Dragonless! Where would you go if you left House Franks? Back to your bankrupt merchant family?"
The words were meant to cut, but they had lost their edge. Somewhere in the past three years, I had already bled out everything he could wound. "That is my business," I said evenly.
"Your business." He let out a sneering laugh, shaking his head as if I'd said something foolish. "Look at you. A Dragonless woman, alone, no name, no blood worth mentioning—and you think you can lecture me? I stood before the king, Seraphina. The king! He pinned this ring on my hand with his own. Do you think the courts of Aeridor will take the word of a merchant's daughter over a Dragon Knight?"
There it was—the man I had fed and clothed and raised into the light, wearing his new rank like a crown, sneering down at the wife who had bought him that crown. The arrogance was almost too much to look at. Almost.
I said nothing. I turned and walked toward the door, my steps firm.
"Seraphina! Stop right there!" he roared behind me. "Do you think I can be threatened by a childish tantrum? I'm telling you, don't even think about it!"
I didn't stop. I walked out of the hall and pulled the heavy oak door shut on his shouts and Blanca's practiced weeping.
I didn't go to our bedroom. Every stick of furniture in that room was a monument to our false peace. I went instead to the west wing, to the study—the small kingdom where I had kept the books.
Celeste was waiting at the end of the corridor, her face drawn with worry. "My lady..."
"Celeste, build up the fire," I said, my voice steady.
Inside the study, I opened a hidden compartment behind a row of books and drew out a heavy wooden box, sealed with the Winslow Guild's wax stamp. It was my mother's ledger box, and the accounts inside were written in the guild cipher—a code no one outside the family could read. The Franks could have torn the house apart and never understood a word of it.
I lifted the lid. My fingers moved over the familiar pages, entry after entry: the cost of Ethan's Dragon-blood potions,Ethan's mother, Lady Virginia's new jewels, Ethan's sister, Miss Lydia's social season in the capital.
For years my dowry had vanished like a river into the desert, and I had told myself it was for the family's honor, my duty as its lady.
Then my eyes stopped on an entry from last summer. "Collier Family Debt Repayment—five hundred gold pieces." The signature at the bottom was Ethan's.
I stared at the name, my blood going cold. Last summer Ethan had told me he needed the money to bribe officials in the capital, to smooth his way into the knighthood trials. And it was that same summer that Blanca had begun appearing at our home more and more.
My heart hammered as I turned the pages. More surfaced: costly gowns for Blanca, logged as "training equipment." Repairs to the Collier house, disguised as "estate maintenance."
This had not begun yesterday. It was a long-planned theft. His whole family, in league with Blanca, had been feeding on my dowry like parasites—living on what I provided, and laughing at the foolish merchant's daughter who paid for it.
A pure, cold rage rose in my chest. I slammed the ledger shut. The sound cracked through the quiet study.
Celeste jumped. "My lady, what's wrong?"
I forced my breath slow, pressing the fury down where I could use it. "Celeste, gather all of my jewelry and the gold coins my mother left me."
She froze. "My lady, what are you doing?"
"Leaving," I said, my voice quiet and final. "And not one moment longer."
I would get back what was mine. No—what they had squandered, I would make them repay, twice over.
But I knew the ledgers alone would never force Ethan to sign. The word of a merchant's daughter weighed nothing against the honor of a brand-new Dragon Knight. I needed someone higher. Someone even a freshly minted knight would have to fear.
A name rose in my mind—a name that made the whole capital tremble.
I walked to my desk and, from a locked drawer, took out the last thing my mother had ever given me: a small, ancient-looking dragon sigil. Take it to the North, she had told me, if ever you find yourself with no way out.
The sigil was cool in my hand. The dragon carved into it was stern and merciless, a stark contrast to the tame, docile dragon on the Franks' crest.
I closed my fingers around it, a daring plan taking shape.
Ethan thought I had nowhere to go.
He was wrong.
