If there was ever a place built to humiliate a woman like Seraphina Dorne, it was the Grand Hall of House Lunaris.
Sixty chandeliers hung above her, each alight with enchanted fire that changed color depending on who entered beneath them. Nobles with clean names and old money were welcomed by soft blues and silvers. Anyone remotely scandalous turned the flames a vicious shade of crimson.
As Seraphina stepped across the threshold, the fire blazed scarlet.
A hush rippled through the ballroom, barely a pause, but long enough for her to feel it scrape against her bones like the snap of a judge's gavel.
"Lady Dorne," the herald called, too loud and far too delighted, "daughter of the late Marquess Dorne and Lady Elira of the Southern Wastes."
Oh, so they were going to mention her mother.
She pressed her fingers into the silk of her skirts, smiled like a girl entirely unaware of the whispers forming, and kept walking.
Seraphina had never wanted a Season. She hadn't asked for a debut, or gowns threaded with moonspun lace, or the obligation to stand beneath enchanted chandeliers that practically screamed bastard. But her father had died with debts and disgrace, and the crown had sent a letter:
You will attend the Season. You will marry well. And you will be watched.
She didn't know which part annoyed her more.
By the time she reached the lower steps of the dais, Lord Highcaster the King's liaison was already sneering at her like she'd tracked mud in on a wedding veil. He offered his gloved hand only out of duty.
"Lady Dorne," he said stiffly. "Your late arrival nearly disrupted the pairing ceremony."
She returned his smile sweetly. "Oh, I didn't realize punctuality was important to magical soulbinding rituals. Perhaps I should've brought a stopwatch."
A few ladies nearby smothered laughter behind jeweled fans.
"Charming," he muttered, then gestured for her to join the other debutantes.
Six young women stood in a line, glowing like porcelain dolls enchanted to breathe. Their expressions varied from terror to smug serenity but none looked thrilled to see her.
She was used to that.
The bond ritual was meant to be symbolic. Magical, yes, but only lightly. Nothing binding, until this year.
This year, the King had decreed all highborn women of marrying age were to attend The Binding Selection, a new tradition involving the pairing of eligible ladies to men of "important magical lineage."
A noble matchmaking service with consequences.
Each woman would be led to a selection of enchanted rings. The one that pulsed with warmth would signify a bond to someone present at court. That bond? Temporary. Unless fate, or the crown, decreed otherwise.
And unfortunately for Seraphina, fate had a cruel sense of humor.
She reached the ring table. They shimmered, arranged in velvet-lined boxes with nine rings, no labels. Just magic.
She hovered her hand above the first. Nothing. The second. Still cold. Third nothing.
On the seventh, she felt it.
A pulse. Heat, like someone exhaling against her palm. It shot through her hand, then up her arm, like the ring had recognized her.
Her mouth went dry. Her skin prickled.
The ring was forged of blackened iron and shaped like thorns winding around a single bloodred stone.
"That's... not part of the original set," Lord Highcaster muttered, suddenly pale.
Before anyone could stop her, the ring leapt from the velvet and slid itself onto her finger.
The flames above them turned black.
And every chandelier in the ballroom shattered.
The screaming started as the shards rained down. Magic flared like wind ripping through candles. Lords ducked. Ladies cried out. Guards surged forward, and then halted.
Because from the far side of the ballroom, a man had stepped forward.
He was tall, broad, and draped in midnight. His black coat was high-collared, military-cut, and fastened with runes no one wore anymore. He moved like smoke and silence.
Someone whispered his name.
"Elion Thorne."
The cursed Duke of Blackmere.
Exiled. Untouched. Dangerous. Said to carry a blood-bound magic that killed every woman who tried to claim his name.
He didn't speak. He didn't smile. He simply lifted his hand.
And the same ring now on Seraphina's finger glowed on his.
Matching. Bound.
An impossible bond.
A cursed one.
Later, she'd remember thinking: At least he's handsome.
Even later, she'd wonder why her heart had hammered not with fear...
…but with something dangerously close to curiosity.
Seraphina hadn't moved.
The ring still pulsed on her finger like a heartbeat that didn't belong to her. It was warm, wrongly warm, like a mouth pressed too close to bare skin. The moment it sealed, something foreign slid into her chest. Not pain exactly. Not pleasure either. Just presence.
Like someone else was watching from inside her own bones.
She blinked and found Elion Thorne watching her, too. Unblinking. Still.
She hated the way her skin heated under that gaze. Not because it frightened her.
Because it didn't.
"Lady Dorne," Lord Highcaster said again, voice cracking with disbelief, "you are dismissed. That ring is not part of the ritual set. Whatever this is…"
"It's a binding," Elion spoke, voice low, graveled, and smooth all at once. Like thunder whispered through velvet.
Gasps spiraled across the room.
The Duke never spoke at court. He wasn't seen at court. His title still held weight, but only because no one dared try and take it. Not while the Blackmere lands remained cursed, shrouded in fog, and silent as the grave.
"A mistake," the King's man barked. "A trick."
Elion tilted his head. "Do I look like a man who tricks?"
"I don't think he does," Seraphina said sweetly, finally stepping forward. Her voice carried too easily, thanks to the accursed ballroom acoustics. "In fact, I think he looks like a man who hasn't tricked anyone into anything in a very, very long time."
That earned a ripple of nervous laughter. Which she fed on.
"Lady Dorne," Highcaster snapped, "this isn't a jest."
"No, it's a magical soulbond forged by unknown forces in front of half the nobility," she replied. "I'm positively terrified."
Elion's mouth twitched. Barely.
But she caught it.
---
Later, she was escorted not 'arrested', mind you, into a quieter wing of the palace. Not a prison. Not a guest suite, either. Just a room with thick stone walls, a high window, and too many enchantments in the doorframe.
She paced. And waited.
The ring didn't come off.
No matter how she tugged, twisted, or tried to cut it. At one point she burned her fingertip with a candle, just to see if pain would loosen it.
Nope. Still there. Still warm.
Still connected.
Because she could feel him.
Not clearly, not like a conversation or a vision but a sensation. Something like leaning toward a fire without realizing it. She could tell when he was near. Could feel the weight of him like gravity had taken a liking to her.
When the door finally opened, Seraphina had just settled into an armchair she did not have permission to use.
"You took your time," she said.
Elion stepped inside. Alone. No guards. No weapons. Just his shadow, trailing behind him like a tame beast.
He shut the door. Clicked the lock with two fingers.
"You shouldn't be calm."
"You shouldn't be here."
"You're not scared."
"I'm not." She leaned back. "Should I be?"
His eyes were pale gray, nearly silver. They didn't blink much. "Everyone else is."
"Of course they are. You're Elion Thorne. Cursed. Deadly. Haunted by demons and the ghosts of your many dead lovers. Or something equally tragic and poetic."
He didn't laugh. Not even a smirk.
But he did walk closer.
And the moment he entered her space, the ring flared again.
Their bond… responded.
Like a string pulled taut between them. One wrong word, one wrong breath, and the entire thing would snap and by the gods she knew what that meant.
Seraphina's heart pounded. Not because she was afraid.
Because she was alive.
More alive than she'd ever felt.
"Your ring chose me," she said quietly. "Or mine chose you."
"They chose each other. That's older magic. Uncontrollable."
"Then I suppose we're both very lucky."
Elion tilted his head. "I'm not."
"You're not what?"
"Lucky."
The silence between them deepened. It wasn't awkward. It was something else. He looked at her like he'd seen her before. Like maybe… in some twisted, ancient way… he had.
Seraphina stood slowly. "I'm not marrying you."
"I don't remember asking."
"And I'm certainly not bedding you."
Something flickered in his eyes. That same dangerous quiet.
"Not tonight," he said.
Her breath hitched.
Gods. That shouldn't have been attractive. But it was. The nerve of him. The calm, cursed confidence. The way he said not tonight like he was prophesying something rather than suggesting it.
She hated how her stomach turned to heat.
She hated him a little, too.
Which meant, of course, she was doomed.