Chapter 1: Chapter 1
The music was a living thing, a thrumming pulse that vibrated up through the marble floor and into the soles of Arthur’s expensive shoes. He tasted champagne and Kathlyn’s cherry-glossed lips, a sweet, sticky combination. They were tucked into an alcove, half-hidden by a potted fern that trembled with the bass from the string quartet. The ball was a whirl of silk and laughter, a spectacle of old money and new connections, but in this shadowed corner, it was just the heat of her body through the thin silk of his dress shirt and the frantic beat of his own heart.
Her fingers were in his hair, messing up the product he’d so carefully applied. He could feel the sharp edges of her bracelet against his neck.
“You’re distracted,” she murmured against his mouth, her breath a warm cloud of champagne.
“I’m not,” he lied, trying to lose himself in the moment, in the simple, animal comfort of it.
But he was. A sliver of cold unease had lodged itself in his chest an hour ago, and no amount of alcohol or Kathlyn’s attentive company could dislodge it. It was the smell of the hothouse lilies, maybe. Overpowering. Cloying. It didn’t smell like flowers; it smelled like decay.
He kissed her again, deeper this time, a deliberate act of suppression. He focused on the slide of silk, the whisper of her gown, the approving murmur of the crowd just beyond the fern. This was his life now. This security. This ease.
And then it happened.
Kathlyn shifted, pressing closer, and the gardenia perfume at her throat caught the air in a specific, devastating way. It wasn’t just gardenia. It was dust and heat and the coppery tang of fear. The world didn't fade so much as it shattered.
One moment he was Arthur, twenty-four, heir to a fortune he hadn’t earned, kissing a beautiful girl at a ball his parents were throwing.
The next, he was someone else. Somewhere else.
The smell of crushed rye grass and blood. The weight of a wool tunic, coarse and soaked with sweat, stuck to his skin. The notched grip of a sword in his palm, the leather straps worn smooth by a fear he could never admit. Alistair was next to him, his breath fogging in the dawn chill, his face a mask of grime and grim determination. "Steady, brother," he’d said, his voice low and rough. "Just another day in the sun." The joke was so bleak it was almost funny. Then the horn sounded, a raw, blaring note that tore the morning in two. The air filled with the thunder of hooves and the first, sickening thwack of metal meeting flesh. He saw the arrow before he heard the bowstring, a dark sliver against the lightening sky. He screamed a warning—
“Arthur! God, you’re crushing my hands!”
He jerked back, gasping. The ballroom rushed in—the crystal chandeliers, the swirling gowns, the vapid melody of the quartet. Kathlyn was staring at him, her eyes wide with alarm and annoyance, cradling her fingers. He must have grabbed them without realizing.
“What is wrong with you?” she hissed, glancing around to see if anyone had noticed.
He couldn’t speak. His heart was a wild drum against his ribs, a frantic echo of that warhorn. He could still feel the ghost of the sword in his hand, the phantom weight of a shield on his arm. The taste of blood was in his mouth, real and metallic.
“I… I need air,” he stammered, his voice unfamiliar to his own ears.
He didn’t wait for her reply. He turned and pushed through the crowd, a man in a tailored tuxedo fleeing a battlefield no one else could see.