Princess Adelina I have been someone’s possession my whole life. My brother took the throne when I was seven.
For forty years, he has reminded me exactly where I belong, with pain, fear, and punishments no one dares question.
Now he’s trading me to a prince I’ve never met, and my body is the price of an alliance. So I run.
I would rather drown in the Celestial Sea than spend the rest of my life wondering if the next man who claims to protect me will only build a prettier cage. But the prince follows.
And the strange pull I felt the moment our eyes met only grows stronger with every mile between us. I don’t know what it is.
I only know it keeps pulling me toward him, and I cannot tell whether it is leading me to freedom or into another cage.
Prince Kaedryn I was sent south to collect a bride and forge an alliance. I’m the Shadow Prince of Elyrion, heir to the throne, and I learned long ago that attachment is a blade you hand your enemies.
I do not want a Celestial Bond. The stars do not care what I want. The bond wakes the instant our eyes meet, and when she runs, it drags me after her. I tell myself the pull is duty.
I have always been good at lying to myself. My magic reaches her in ways neither of us asked for, and I have never hated my own power more. Because someone broke her long before I found her.
Every time she flinches, I wonder if fate has made me another monster.
Some bonds are written in the stars. Others are forged in shadows.
