On the eve before Allera and Brentley’s wedding, celebrations had already started at the castle. All the king’s important council members, dignitaries, emissaries, and their families, plus Soren’s three oldest offspring—ranging in age from six to nine—came to feast with us in the dining hall.

I wasn’t a fan of the extra crowd, the boisterous noise, and rowdy cheers that went up. The few people I was used to interacting with—either Allera, Brentley, or Nicolette—were all busy. Brentley was escorting Allera around the room to introduce her to everyone while Nicolette led some kind of chasing game with Soren’s children.

Feeling as separated from everyone else as I’d ever felt, I made my way out of the keep to check in on the soldiers who’d become my friends in the back bailey.

They had a low campfire burning, and about half a dozen of them were sitting around it talking when I strolled up.

“Hey, if it isn’t the high and mighty prince in his preppy pants come to visit,” one called in teasing welcome. “What? Are you already tired of all the big important nobles flooding into the castle to celebrate the fancy wedding tomorrow?”

“Something like that,” I murmured, taking a seat among them and picking up a twig on the ground lying between my feet so I could break it in half and toss it into the flames.

“Well, we were about to head off toward the tavern for some ale and women, if you wanted to join us.”

I glanced up. The ale would be welcome, but the women… I found myself shaking my head before I’d even thought my answer through. Tavern life didn’t feel like the place I belonged either.

“Maybe some other night,” I said, not really meaning it. A part of me knew I’d never go back to wenching and drinking with the guys again.

They ribbed me a little for bowing out, then stood and went on their way to get drunk in the arms of strangers they’d probably forget by morning.

I sighed and glanced up at the stars.

Was this my future, then? Not feeling as if I fit anywhere?

Pushing to my feet, I kicked at the fire until it was nothing but embers, and I returned to the keep, where I dragged myself up to my room. Alone.

Vienne had been in her usual seat tonight, two chairs down from the king’s right. She hadn’t seemed as if she had much of anyone to talk to either. The queen had been milling throughout the crowds, mingling with anyone willing to pay her attention, and Soren had been huddled up with a group of council-looking men, discussing who-knew-what.

I ached to just go sit by her and ask her about her day. She had rubbed her stomach a lot throughout the evening, more so than usual. And her face looked slightly swollen. I swear, she winced in pain once. I wondered if anyone had asked her if she was feeling okay.

If she didn’t feel well, I hoped she turned in early too, just as I was doing, and took care of herself. She needed the repose since she hadn’t been taking her morning naps in the East Salon since the castle had turned to wedding preparations. I didn’t want her falling ill due to exhaustion.

When I entered my own room, I stripped from my meal attire and put on something comfortable to lounge in but more than I typically slept in. For some reason, I thought Allera might visit, maybe share some pre-wedding jitters with me or maybe just talk about her first husband. I flopped onto my back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling of my room, waiting. With the back of my wrist covering my brow, I remembered back to the days at High Cliff, right after she’d first met Jazon.

We’d been quite a team, the three of us, scouring the countryside as if it were our own personal domain. When Jazon and I had gone off to war, I should’ve known everything would change. But like some kind of damned ignorant fool, I hadn’t even had a clue.

When I slipped off to sleep, it wasn’t any wonder that I dreamed about him, remembering the night he died. I was still clutching his shirtfront, begging him to stay alive when I was ripped from my dream by an intense heat slashing across my abdomen.

I jerked awake, sitting upright with a gasp. Sweat rained down my brow and coated my face, soaking the tunic I was wearing. I had no idea what time it was, but it felt late, like the middle of the night. There was no muffled music coming from below, which meant the wedding eve celebration had definitely died down.

Patting my belly, I frowned at my abdomen in confusion when I realized nothing was wrong with it, only for white hot coals of pain to spear through me again, immediately followed by a painful gong of awareness through my temple, right where my mark tingled.

“Oh God, no!” I gasped, finally realizing what was happening.

Vienne.

She was in pain.

Great pain.

Without thinking, I flew out of bed and dashed toward the door. I was halfway down the hall before I stopped myself and decided I couldn’t go to her in the middle of the night by myself. I had to… I just needed a reason to…

Allera! That was it.

Backtracking to my sister’s room, I pounded on her door before barging inside.

She groaned and started to sit up in bed. “Urban? Wha…?”

“Something’s wrong,” I said, grabbing her arm and manually pulling her off the mattress.

“W…what?” she squawked, tripping after me and grabbing my arm to balance herself. Finally, she woke enough to ask, “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

I shook my head. “It’s not me. It’s her. Something’s wrong with her. I can feel it through the mark.” I pulled her from the room and started leading her down the hall. “You need to go make sure she’s okay.”

“What? Urban!” We’d just left our wing of the castle when she finally woke enough to dig her heels in, forcing me to stop. “Don’t be crazy. It’s the middle of the damn night. I’m getting married in the morning. I can’t just knock on her door right now and ask… I wouldn’t even know what to ask!”

“Are you okay?” I supplied for her before nodding insistently as I dragged her up a staircase toward Vienne’s room. “And, yes, you can. All you have to do is ask if she’s okay. Simple as that. Blame it on a strange dream you had or something. I don’t fucking care. But we’re checking on her. Right now.”

“Urban…” But before she could come up with a way to talk me out of such a crazy quest, a muffled scream echoed down the hall and around a corner just as my abdomen exploded with cramping pain.

“Shit.” I doubled over, grabbing my gut, before I pushed past it and straightened again. “That’s her. She’s hurt.”

I took off sprinting away from my sister.

“Urban!” Allera raced after me. “Wait!”

I didn’t slow down. Not until I reached the corridor that led to Vienne’s bedchamber. When I found the hallway already crowded with people, I skidded to a halt and swallowed, fearing the worst.

Soren, Brentley, Nicolette, and even Caulder, along with a handful of servants, milled outside Vienne’s door, talking quietly amongst themselves. When they lifted their heads at my arrival, I pressed a hand to my heart and shook my head, not ready to hear the bad news.

And yet I had to know.

“What’s going on?” I croaked from a hoarse throat.

“The baby’s coming,” Brentley said, approaching to take Allera’s hand as soon as she caught up to me and paused at my side, gasping for breath from her run. “I’m sorry, my sweet,” he said to her. “Did we wake you?”

Allera began to shake her head, only to glance my way and say, “It’s quite alright. Is there… I mean, is there anything we can do to help?”

I stared fixedly at the closed door that led into Vienne’s room. I even took a step toward it, needing to go in there, to check on her.

She was in pain.

But Allera clutched my arm hard, stopping me.

When Brentley frowned between us, Allera offered him an uneasy laugh. “You know,” she said quickly. “I… I’ve actually helped deliver many babies at home. In High Cliff. I’m sure I can be of assistance somehow. May I… I mean, is it alright if I offer my aid in there?”

I glanced incredulously at her. She’d never helped deliver a single baby in her life. But I guess if there was no way I was allowed to go into that room, she would try to go in for me.

I kind of felt like hugging her for her consideration.

“Well… Uh… I know Yasmin, two healers, and a couple maidservants are already in there, but…” Brentley glanced toward Soren just as another scream rent the air.

The sound tore through me with a fury, momentarily blinding me and stealing my breath as more pain than before arced through my midsection.

I swear, Allera’s hold on my arm was the only thing that kept me standing.

“Yes,” Brentley said, nodding suddenly toward Allera. “Yes, I believe they could use all the help they can get right now. Thank you for the offer.”

“Of course.” Allera glanced up at me, worry in her gaze, before she let go of my arm and hurried toward the doorway where Soren stepped to the side to let her in.

When he glanced my way, he scowled slightly, probably wondering why I was here for the birth of his child.

Brentley returned to Caulder, where they discussed whether it would be a good idea or not to postpone the wedding.

“I don’t see why you need to postpone it,” Soren said, shaking his head. “If you insist on having it at all, just get it over with already.”

“But Vienne won’t be able to attend if they have it tomorrow,” Nicolette said. “She’ll be on bedrest for at least a fortnight after giving birth.”

“As if that’s a valid reason.” Soren snorted. “All the guests are already here. It’d be stupid to reschedule just because of her. Might as well not have it at all.”

I glared at him, pissed that he was such an ass, and because he acted so cavalier about Vienne’s pain. Why did he not seem worried? Why did no one seem worried?

They were all fucking idiots.

A low moan came from Vienne’s room. I gulped, trying not to vomit all over the floor.

Finally, Nicolette showed some concern, but not for Vienne.

“Urban?” she asked, instantly moving closer. “You don’t look so well. Are you okay?”

I shook my head and brushed her hand away when she reached out to check my brow for a fever. “I’m fine,” I mumbled, only to glare at Soren when he rumbled out a laugh over something he’d just said to Caulder.

Something about my inability to handle the sound of childbirth.

“And you seem awfully nonchalant about the fact that your wife is suffering right now,” I growled, unable to control my glare or the venom in my tone.

Soren glanced at me, his surprise tangible. Then he narrowed his eyes and shrugged. “Probably because I’ve been through this before. My first wife supplied me with three before dying on the birthing bed.” He shrugged again as if her death were no big deal. “Pushed out too many strapping boys, I suppose.”

I wanted to punch him. Right in the face. But I also thought I might pass out. The idea of Vienne in distress because her babe was too big and strapping to birth filled my limbs with panic.

If Soren had killed his first wife by putting a too-large baby in her, then why the hell did no one seem concerned at all about the fact that he might be doing the very same thing to his second?

I flashed my teeth at him and actually took a step in his direction, but a piercing pain lit through my mark and then to my stomach, sending me to my knees. My vision went black as the deluge of agony made me grunt and gnash my teeth.

I reached out blindly, vertigo swamping me. My hand found the wall, keeping me barely upright and on my knees. But by God, it felt as if my brain was trying to rip itself out of my skull, right through my temple.

“Urban?” Nicolette’s voice came from what sounded like far away but was probably only right beside me, because a second later, soft, worried fingers clutched my arm. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

I couldn’t answer, too trapped in the torture to comprehend speech. Clutching my head as waves spiked through me in unrelenting gusts, I could only hold on through the worst of it.

“My God. Brentley, his skin’s ice cold, and he’s white as a ghost. Should we fetch a healer?”

“Bjorn?” Brentley’s concerned voice filled my other ear. “Can you talk, mate? What’s going on?”

I shook my head. “No,” I gasped. “No.” I looked at him, barely seeing his face through a thick fog. “I think… I think… She’s dying.”

Brentley merely squinted. “What?” He shook his head. “Who? Who’s dying?” His eyes widened with alarm. “Allera?”

“Oh my God, Brentley. Look.” Nicolette’s face filled with horror as she pointed at me. “His love mark. It’s fading.”

“What?” Dread consumed me as I gaped at Nicolette, watching the horror on her face.

Beside her, Brentley gasped as he gaped at my mark before he stumbled a step backward away from me as if I were infected. “My God. What’s happening to you?”

“It’s fading? It’s really fading?” I asked. “No! No…” I clawed at the mark, worried they were right. If my mark was fading, then Vienne was dying.

And then, just like that, it was gone. The pain disappeared as if it’d never been there, and I shook my head as if trying to capture phantom traces of it.

Through the doorway of the bedroom, the sound of a baby’s wail lit the hallway. But Vienne…Vienne was no longer screaming out her birthing pains. Any sense I’d ever felt from her was gone.

Everyone exchanged startled glances, before Soren gave a proud smile.

“Well there we go,” he announced, “I’ve a fourth to add to my brood,” only for Queen Yasmin to scream her sister’s name with a terror that turned my bones to jelly.

My stomach dropped. “No,” I whispered, stumbling to my feet.

It couldn’t be true.

The door to her room burst open, and a wild-looking Allera appeared in the entrance, her hair ragged and tears streaming freely down her face. When she caught my eye, her entire frame wilted.

“Urban,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”

“No,” I said a little more loudly this time, before I bellowed, “NO!”

I surged into the room, streaking past my sister.

“Urban!” Allera tried to grab my arm, but there was no stopping me. Not at a time like this. I brushed her off, lying, “I can still feel her. The mark’s not completely gone yet. There’s still a chance.”

The truth was I felt nothing from my mark. Not any longer.

But Allera looked to my left temple, and her eyes widened. With hope? I think so, because she grabbed with my arm, trying to pull me and shove me at the same time toward the bed. “You’re right. Hurry. Hurry! See what you can do.”

I stumbled past her, only to lurch to a halt when I beheld the limp and pale, lifeless woman on the bed, smeared and splattered with blood.

A few feet away, two women quietly cooed over the bundled infant, already getting it to quiet its wails.

The queen had stopped screaming and stood on the other side of the bed, covering her mouth with her hands, a look of shock and horror contorting her features. And Vienne… Vienne looked as if she’s been drained of all life.

Because she had.

My one true love was dead.