The necklace around Callie's neck had warmed against her skin.

She hadn't taken it off since Darian had placed it on her that morning. The silver band was thin enough to slip beneath the high neckline of her servant's robes, yet heavy enough for her to feel it with every sip, every heartbeat, every breath. The small obsidian stone at the front rested precisely on her pulse, like a second heart made of night.

Darian had left her in the royal wing after the revelations in the archives, with a single order:

"Prepare yourself. Tonight I will reward what you have become."

She had spent the day in silent agony.

Every errand—carrying linens through the corridors, serving water to visiting envoys, kneeling to retrieve fallen scrolls—had been tinged with the memory of his voice, the weight of the necklace, the certainty that he had seen her read Elysia's final letter and yet had chosen to claim her even more fiercely.

As night fell, her body was a live wire.

Her nipples ached beneath th