CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Astra

Two weeks pass like water through my fingers, and I finally understand the weight of being caged in gold.

I can’t leave the palace. Can’t venture beyond the carefully mapped territories Lucian deems “safe.” My world has shrunk to a handful of rooms, corridors that lead nowhere, and the suffocating realization that I have nothing to do.

Nothing except tend my plants.

The herb garden Lucian gave me is my sanctuary—the one place where I have complete freedom to move, to create, to exist without feeling like I’m being watched by invisible eyes. Here, among the moonbell, silverleaf, dragonfern, and carefully cultivated nightshade, I can pretend I...