The kingdom of Ebonfall never knew true daylight. Even when the sun clawed its way across the horizon, the skies remained veiled in a permanent pall of ash. Shadows clung to the cobblestones, drifting like smoke from a fire that refused to die, and the people who lived within the city walls spoke in hushed tones, as though afraid the darkness would hear them.

To Cinder, it was suffocating—and yet, it was home.

Her bare feet padded softly across the stone corridor as she crept through the forgotten wing of the royal palace. The marble floors were cracked, the velvet drapes eaten by moths. No guards patrolled here; why would they? The nobles had abandoned this hall centuries ago when the great fire had gutted half the palace. But Cinder had learned long ago that in ruins, treasures hid where no one cared to look.

Her fingers, pale and ink-stained from her constant scribbles of visions, brushed the wall as she passed. The air was damp, carrying the scent of stone and something acrid—like burnt glass. Her skin prickled, warning her she shouldn’t linger. Visions pressed against the back of her eyes, like shadows behind frosted windows. If she closed them, she knew she’d see too much.

But she needed coin. She needed something to barter for herbs, for parchment, for the simple comforts that witches were denied. And so she searched among the palace’s forgotten skeleton.

Her cloak brushed against a shattered mirror, its shards glittering like stars spilled across the ground. She froze, breath catching. Glass was never just glass in Ebonfall. Each fragment pulsed faintly, as though echoing the beat of a bird’s wing.

The Glass Ravens, she thought with a shudder. Enchanted spies, fashioned by the stepmother herself. They watched. They remembered. They whispered secrets back to their mistress.

“Damn,” Cinder hissed under her breath, kneeling quickly. She pulled a strip of cloth from her satchel and wrapped it around her hand before scooping the shards into a pouch. Leaving them behind would be riskier. Better to hide them than let them fly home.

The silence pressed heavier as she worked. Somewhere in the palace, a clock tolled, the sound low and aching. Eleven. One hour until midnight, one hour until the kingdom’s curse would seize the night.

Her stomach tightened. She hated midnight. The world never ended there—but it always threatened to.

“Stealing from ghosts?”

The voice was low, velvet-smooth, and far too close.

Cinder’s body snapped taut. She spun, her cloak flaring, and her gaze collided with a figure leaning casually against the cracked archway behind her.

A man.

No—something more.

He was tall, his presence coiling through the shadows as though he belonged to them. His hair was black as spilled ink, his eyes a dark burnished gold that caught the faint torchlight. He wasn’t dressed like a guard. His attire was elegant but worn, the kind of richness that spoke of nobility who had long grown weary of showing it off.

Yet the dangerous curl of his lips, the way he watched her as though he could taste her heartbeat on his tongue—those were not noble.

Cinder’s pulse thundered. “Get out of my way.”

His smile deepened. “You’re trespassing.”

“And you’re spying.” She forced steel into her tone, though her insides twisted. His presence unsettled her—not because he was beautiful in a cruel way, but because something in her bones whispered that he wasn’t human.

He stepped forward. Shadows clung to him like loyal pets, wrapping around his boots, slithering across the floor. She backed away instinctively, her hand tightening on the strap of her satchel.

“You’ve been taking what isn’t yours,” he said softly, almost amused. “Broken glass, cursed trinkets… you don’t even know what you touch.”

“I know enough,” she spat back, though it was a lie. Half the relics she stole she only dared to keep for barter, never for use. Power always came with teeth.

His eyes glinted. “Do you?”

Visions surged without warning—flashes of fire, of blood, of this man’s face twisted into a monstrous snarl as wings unfurled behind him. She staggered, clutching her temple, a hiss of pain leaving her throat.

The man tilted his head. “You saw something, didn’t you?”

She froze. No one ever asked that. No one ever noticed the way her eyes clouded when visions struck. People dismissed her as strange, cursed, unlucky. But this stranger saw.

“Get out of my head,” she growled.

“I don’t need to be in your head to know what you are.” His voice dropped, heat curling through each word. “Witch.”

Her blood went cold.

No one spoke it aloud. Not if they valued their tongue.

She bared her teeth, clutching the pouch of glass shards tighter. “Say it again, and I’ll cut that smirk off your face.”

Instead of recoiling, he stepped closer. His shadow swallowed hers, his presence overwhelming. “You should be careful who you threaten in the dark. Sometimes the dark bites back.”

The torchlight flickered—then dimmed entirely, snuffed out as though a hand had closed over the flame. Only the faint glow of the cursed moon through the broken windows lit the hall. In that glow, for a heartbeat, she swore she saw his skin shift, black veins crawling across his neck, his eyes burning brighter than molten gold.

Then it was gone.

Cinder’s breath stuttered. She stumbled backward, forcing distance between them. “What are you?”

His smile sharpened. “Curious, little thief?”

She swallowed, throat dry. Her visions pressed harder, whispering of chains, of blood-stained thrones, of lips that burned against hers though they belonged to a monster. She shoved them away violently. Visions were not truth. They were curses, nothing more.

“I’m leaving,” she muttered, pushing past him.

But he caught her wrist. His touch was searing, his grip unyielding. She gasped as sparks shot up her arm, her heart slamming into her ribs. He leaned close, his lips brushing her ear.

“Run, if you like,” he whispered. “But midnight is coming. And when it does—you’ll wish you’d never stepped into my palace.”

He released her.

Cinder didn’t hesitate. She bolted down the corridor, her cloak whipping around her ankles, her satchel clutched tight.

But even as she fled, she knew the truth. His eyes haunted her already. And worse—her visions hadn’t lied.

He was a monster.

And monsters always found what they wanted.

Cinder didn’t stop running until her lungs burned and the ruined halls gave way to a grand, half-forgotten chamber. Moonlight spilled through the shattered ceiling in fractured beams, illuminating the dust like falling stars. She leaned against a column, pressing a trembling hand to her chest.

What was he?

Her fingers still tingled from his grip, a phantom fire trailing through her veins. She hated the way her body remembered him, the way his voice clung to her skin like smoke.

Monster, her visions had whispered. Demon. Destroyer.

And yet, when his eyes met hers, something inside her—something buried deep—had stirred, not with fear but with recognition.

She shook her head sharply, trying to banish the thought. She wasn’t here to unravel the secrets of beautiful monsters. She was here to survive.

Still, his warning lingered: Midnight is coming.

The toll of the palace clock echoed faintly again, twelve iron chimes creeping closer. Eleven-thirty. Time was already slipping away.

She forced herself to move, her boots crunching over broken glass. Each shard shimmered faintly, whispering fragments of voices. The Glass Ravens were waking. If they escaped the ground, Seraphine would know.

“Not tonight,” Cinder muttered, crushing one beneath her heel. The shard bled a faint, ink-black mist before dissolving into ash.

She hated how easily destruction came to her hands. Hated the reminder of what she was.

A witch.

A curse.

A thief of futures she never wanted.

Her satchel felt heavy now, the shards rattling like bones in a coffin. She should leave the palace altogether, vanish into the alleys of Ebonfall before the curse of midnight locked her in. But something—a tug in her gut, the whisper of her visions—held her back.

The shadows shifted.

“You run fast.”

Cinder spun, heart slamming.

He was there again. Kael.

No footsteps had marked his arrival. No door had opened, no air stirred. He simply was, as though the darkness itself had sculpted him into being.

Cinder clenched her jaw. “I told you to stay out of my way.”

“And I told you,” he said smoothly, stepping into a bar of moonlight, “that you shouldn’t steal from me.”

The words pricked her skin like needles. “From you? You’re no king.”

His eyes burned. “Not yet.”

For a breath, she faltered. There was something in the way he said it—calm, assured, inevitable. As though his rise to the throne of shadows wasn’t a possibility but a prophecy already fulfilled.

Her chest tightened. Damn her visions—they pressed again, images unfurling behind her eyes before she could resist. She saw him crowned in obsidian, his skin marked with runes of fire, his mouth stained with blood and hers.

She gasped, snapping herself free, clutching her temple.

Kael watched her with unnerving patience, tilting his head. “What did you see?”

“Nothing,” she lied, forcing steel into her voice.

He smiled faintly, though it didn’t touch his eyes. “You’re terrible at lying.”

“I’ve survived this long, haven’t I?”

“And yet here you are, stealing scraps from a cursed palace.” His gaze flicked to her satchel. “Tell me, little witch—how much is your soul worth, that you’d sell fragments of it to the market for bread?”

Her throat tightened. Rage flared hot in her veins. He had no right to speak as though he understood her suffering, her hunger, her curse.

“I don’t owe you answers.”

“Perhaps not.” His steps carried him closer. She refused to retreat this time. The distance between them dwindled until she could feel the warmth radiating from him—wrong warmth, like embers that burned instead of soothed.

“I should kill you for what you’ve seen,” he murmured, voice low, intimate, dangerous. “But I don’t think I will.”

Her lips parted, a retort on her tongue. But before she could speak, the palace clock struck again—twelve, the first stroke of midnight.

The world froze.

The sound cut off mid-echo, the air itself solidifying. The drifting dust hung motionless in the moonlight. The wind outside the ruined ceiling ceased. Even her breath caught in her lungs like stone.

Her eyes widened in terror.

No, not here. Not again.

Midnight freeze.

The curse gripped her body, locking her in place, but her mind still screamed. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, yet she saw—oh, she saw.

Kael stood before her, but he was changing.

His golden eyes ignited, flames searing from within. Black horns curled from his temples, splitting through his hair. Veins of shadow carved across his arms as talons replaced his hands. His back arched, bones breaking, reshaping into vast, leathery wings.

He was the monster from her visions.

The demon prince of nightmares.

His gaze snapped to hers, molten and hungry, as though even in this frozen world, he could see her, could feel her terror. He leaned close, his monstrous face inches from hers.

And in the silence of the frozen midnight, his whisper coiled into her soul:

“You’re mine, Cinder.”

The final stroke of midnight tolled.

The world shuddered, thawing. Dust fell again. Air rushed into her lungs with a ragged gasp. The shadows recoiled, folding back into him until he stood once more as a man, though his eyes still glowed faintly.

Cinder staggered back, coughing, her body trembling from the freeze. She clutched her satchel like a lifeline.

Kael only smiled, sharp and satisfied.

“Now,” he said softly, as though nothing had happened, “do you still think I’m no king?”

Her heart hammered like a trapped bird. Her visions had been right. He was not only a prince—he was the monster destined to rule.

And she… she was cursed to walk straight into his fire.

The taste of ash clung to Cinder’s tongue long after the tolling of midnight faded.

Her knees trembled, her hands still clutching her satchel of stolen shards as though it could shield her from what she’d seen. The echo of wings, black and vast, haunted her memory. She hadn’t imagined it—she couldn’t have. Her visions always blurred, but this had been real. She’d felt his shadow crawl across her skin.

Kael.

The name beat through her skull like a curse.

He stood only a few paces away now, silent, unshaken, watching her as though she were prey. The torchlight returned slowly, casting a dim flicker across his face. He looked almost human again—beautiful in that cruel, untouchable way—but she had seen beneath his mask.

And monsters did not go back into cages once freed.

“You saw too much,” he murmured, breaking the silence.

Cinder’s breath stuttered. Her instinct screamed to run, but the palace was vast, and he moved like smoke. He would catch her before she reached the doors.

She tightened her grip on the satchel, forcing defiance into her eyes. “You think you scare me?”

His lips curved faintly. “You’re trembling.”

“I’m cold.”

“You’re lying.”

Her pulse hammered louder. He was right, of course. Terror clawed at her throat, but she would never give him the satisfaction.

She spat at the ground between them. “If you mean to kill me, demon, then stop circling and do it.”

Instead of striking, he laughed—a low, dark sound that rippled through the chamber. Shadows quivered in answer, coiling along the floor like serpents.

“You’re interesting,” he said at last, stepping closer. “Most thieves beg. You snarl.”

“I’m not most thieves.”

“No,” he agreed softly. “You’re something else.”

He reached toward her, his hand a whisper from her cheek. She jerked back, fury flashing. But before she could snap, the air filled with a faint rustle.

Cinder froze.

The sound was unmistakable: wings.

Not feathered wings.

Glass.

Her stomach plunged. She whirled toward the ceiling just as a shard of mirror detached from the broken chandelier above. It twisted midair, reshaping into the sharp beak and glittering eyes of a raven. Then another. And another.

The Glass Ravens had awakened.

“Damn it,” she breathed.

The creatures swooped, their wings slicing the air like blades. One dove toward her head. She ducked instinctively, swinging her satchel. The pouch of shards collided with the raven, and it shattered into smoke with a shriek—but three more took its place.

Kael moved faster than sight. His hand shot up, catching one raven by the throat. The creature screamed, writhing, shards splintering from its body. With a twist, he crushed it into nothing.

Cinder’s eyes widened despite herself. Even in human form, his strength was… unnatural.

The remaining birds circled, their eyes gleaming with reflected moonlight. They weren’t ordinary spies—they fed on memory. If even one escaped the palace, Seraphine would know everything.

Cinder cursed under her breath. She had to destroy them.

Drawing a deep breath, she pressed her hand to her chest. The words of the old language—the language of witches—burned her tongue as she whispered them. Her palm lit faintly, veins of silver crawling up her wrist.

The ravens shrieked at once, sensing her power.

Kael’s gaze snapped to her, hungry and sharp. “You’ve been hiding more than stolen glass.”

She ignored him, thrusting her hand outward. Light seared through the chamber, slamming into the ravens mid-flight. They screamed, their bodies splintering into shards that rained across the marble.

Silence fell, broken only by her ragged breathing.

The ashes of shattered ravens glittered across the floor.

Kael’s smile was slow, dangerous. “Witch,” he whispered again, but this time, his voice carried reverence as much as mockery.

Cinder’s chest heaved. The silver glow faded from her veins, leaving her weak. She swayed, steadying herself against the column. She hated using her power. It always drained too much. It always reminded her of what she was.

Kael stepped closer, eyes glinting. “You should fear me, Cinder. But instead, I find myself fearing you.”

She glared at him, though her body trembled from exhaustion. “Good. Then stay out of my way.”

Before he could reply, another sound echoed through the chamber—the click of boots against stone. Sharp. Calculated.

Cinder’s breath hitched. She knew that sound. It wasn’t a guard’s march. It was quieter, deadlier.

An assassin’s stride.

From the shadow of the archway stepped a woman cloaked in black, her hood drawn low. Her movements were sleek, graceful, a blade hidden in silk. Her eyes—when they flicked up to meet Cinder’s—were an unnatural silver, glowing faintly in the dark.

Nyx.

Cinder didn’t know her yet. But she would.

“Messy,” the assassin said coolly, surveying the shards littering the ground. Her voice was low, melodic, but edged with steel. “Seraphine will be displeased.”

Cinder stiffened. Her stepmother’s name on the assassin’s lips felt like ice water.

Kael, however, only smirked, his eyes never leaving Cinder. “Let her be displeased. I’ve found something far more interesting tonight.”

Cinder’s stomach coiled. She didn’t like the way he said it—like he had already claimed her, like she was a prize to be catalogued.

But worse was the assassin. Nyx’s gaze lingered on her too long, as though weighing her worth. There was hunger there—not of flesh, but of secrets.

Cinder swallowed, wishing her visions would show her what came next. But the future remained a blur of smoke and broken glass.

And she had the sinking feeling that her life had just shattered into even sharper pieces.

Cinder had learned long ago that silence was often sharper than words. The assassin’s pause now, the measured stillness, cut like a knife.

Nyx’s eyes swept the chamber again, not just at the broken ravens, not just at the half-burned torches, but at her. That lingering silver gaze felt like fingers digging under her skin, searching for cracks.

Cinder forced herself upright, sliding the satchel higher onto her shoulder. If Nyx was Seraphine’s hound, she would not bow to her. Not here. Not in front of him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Nyx said at last, her voice smooth but not careless. “The palace devours little thieves who think themselves clever.”

Cinder gave a sharp smile, though her heart thudded painfully. “Then perhaps I’ll let it choke.”

For the faintest moment, the assassin’s mouth curved—something between amusement and disdain.

Kael stepped forward, lazy as a cat circling prey. Shadows licked at his heels, and though his body looked human again, Cinder could still taste the monster beneath his skin.

“Careful, assassin,” he drawled. “This one has sharper teeth than she looks.”

“Then she won’t mind if I test their edge,” Nyx murmured.

Her hand brushed her hip. A dagger glinted beneath her cloak, thin as a sliver of moonlight.

Cinder’s throat dried. She’d fought guards, even wolves when hunger pressed her too far. But assassins? They didn’t waste movement. They didn’t fight unless they already knew they’d win.

Kael, however, moved between them. Not protectively—no, Cinder wasn’t foolish enough to mistake him for a savior—but like a man unwilling to share his prey.

“She’s not yours to cut,” he said.

Nyx’s brow lifted, barely. “And since when does a prince of shadows lay claim to a gutter witch?”

The words landed like stones in Cinder’s stomach. She clenched her jaw, every nerve screaming not to reveal how the insult bit her. Gutter witch. If Seraphine’s hound suspected… if she carried word back—

Cinder’s mind flashed unbidden to the vision she’d once dreamed as a child: fire licking across the palace gates, her own hands shackled in silver.

Nyx’s lips curved faintly, sensing the tremor she hid. “Ah,” the assassin whispered, almost delighted, “so it’s true.”

Cinder’s chest tightened. She needed to get away. Away from Kael’s too-sharp smile, away from Nyx’s piercing eyes. Away from the shattered ravens that glittered like tiny eyes across the marble, reminding her that Seraphine’s spies might still be watching.

But Kael was studying her now with something fiercer than amusement. Hunger. Curiosity. A darkness that didn’t ask—it demanded.

“You should leave,” Cinder snapped, forcing steel into her voice, “both of you.”

Her command earned laughter—Kael’s low, amused rumble, Nyx’s sharper, quieter edge. Two predators circling while she stood trapped between them.

“You have spirit,” Nyx said softly, almost as if speaking to herself. “That won’t last.”

“Perhaps,” Kael murmured, stepping so close the torchlight caught on his jawline, painting him in cruel gold. “But perhaps she’ll outlast us all.”

Cinder refused to step back, though his shadow threatened to swallow hers whole. She met his eyes, forcing him to see the fury coiled in her instead of the fear.

For one fragile heartbeat, something unspoken passed between them. Not trust. Not even desire. Something rawer. Recognition.

Then the sound shattered.

Boom.

The palace bell tolled once—louder than it should have, wrong somehow. Not the hour. Not the call to worship. Something else.

Nyx stiffened, head snapping toward the sound. “They’re moving him.”

The words meant nothing to Cinder. But Kael’s expression sharpened, shadows curling tighter around his wrists like chains aching to break.

“Him?” Cinder asked before she could bite her tongue.

Neither assassin nor prince answered.

But Cinder’s mind twisted with the fragments of her visions—steel bars, a boy’s hollow eyes staring through cracks of stone, a single candle flickering in a tower without doors.

A chill slid down her spine. Thom. She didn’t know his name yet, didn’t know his face, but she felt it—like a splinter pressing beneath her skin. Someone was trapped in these walls.

Nyx’s gaze darted back to Cinder, narrowing. Perhaps she saw too much in her silence. Perhaps she suspected the threads of visions Cinder carried.

“You’ve seen things,” Nyx said quietly, stepping closer. Her silver eyes gleamed like the edges of knives. “Haven’t you?”

Cinder forced a laugh, sharp and ugly. “All I’ve seen tonight is a prince who hides claws and an assassin who talks too much.”

Nyx’s smile was thin. “Then perhaps I’ll cut the truth from you later.”

Her cloak swirled as she turned, vanishing back into the archway like smoke dissolving into shadow. No sound of footsteps. No lingering scent. Only absence, colder than her presence had been.

Cinder sagged against the column, her knees weak.

But Kael was still there. Still watching. Still smiling that smile that wasn’t kind at all.

“You felt him too, didn’t you?” he said softly.

Her chest seized. “What?”

“The boy.” His eyes gleamed, and his voice dipped lower, like he relished pressing on the bruise. “Locked away. Forgotten. Did your cursed little sight show you his tower?”

Cinder swallowed hard. The satchel strap bit into her shoulder. She hated him for knowing, hated him for speaking it aloud.

“You think me cruel,” Kael continued, voice velvet, “but I am not the one who built his cage.”

“And you did nothing to free him,” she snapped.

His smile sharpened. “Not yet.”

The words sank into her like ice water. He was planning something—something dark, something vast—and she, against her will, was being drawn into it.

Cinder wanted to run, to fling herself into the night and forget the way his shadows whispered promises she didn’t dare name. But her cursed visions were rarely wrong, and they told her this: her path had already entangled with his.

She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze head-on. “Stay out of my way, Kael.”

Instead of obeying, he leaned closer, his voice a brush of smoke against her ear.

“Witches,” he whispered, “always say that. But in the end, you’ll walk beside me—or burn.”

Shadows coiled at his heels, swallowing the remnants of broken ravens as he vanished into the dark, leaving Cinder alone with the shards of midnight and the echo of her own ragged breathing.

And in the silence, far above, she swore she heard it again—faint and desperate—

A boy’s voice, whispering from the tower.

“Help me.”