Updated Nov 6, 2025 • ~9 min read
They didn’t speak about Tempest for the rest of the day.
Draven disappeared into his study to handle “court business,” which Raven suspected meant disposing of evidence and preparing for the inevitable Guild response. She spent the afternoon in her chambers, reading poetry she didn’t really see, thoughts circling endlessly.
He’d killed for her.
Not in self-defense. Not because Tempest threatened him directly.
Because she’d threatened Raven.
The Guild had trained her to see people as targets or obstacles. Never as individuals who’d choose violence to protect her. The concept was foreign, unsettling.
And something else she didn’t want to examine too closely.
Near midnight, unable to sleep, Raven found herself walking the shadow gardens. The darkness felt comfortable now, after seventeen days in the Shadow Court. She could almost sense the shadows watching—Draven’s awareness, always present, always protective.
“Can’t sleep?” His voice came from the darkness, and she didn’t jump.
“Too much thinking.” She kept walking, and he materialized beside her, falling into step. “About the Guild. About Tempest. About why you killed her.”
“I explained why—”
“I know what you said.” She stopped at the fountain, the same one they’d sat by in the market. “What I don’t understand is why. Why protect someone who’s been trying to murder you for seventeen days? Why care enough to kill a skilled assassin who might have actually succeeded where I failed?”
Draven was quiet for a long moment, shadows swirling around him thoughtfully.
“You’re the first person in five hundred years who sees me as a challenge instead of a god,” he said finally. “Everyone else either fears me or wants something from me. Power, influence, protection. They see the prince, the throne, the centuries of existence. They don’t see me.”
He sat on the fountain edge, and Raven sat beside him, close enough to feel the cold radiating from his fae magic.
“But you?” He continued. “You walked into my court with one goal—kill me. No hidden agenda. No political maneuvering. Just honest, straightforward homicidal intent. It was refreshing.”
“That’s a deeply unhealthy thing to find refreshing.”
“I’m five hundred years old and functionally immortal. Healthy stopped applying centuries ago.” His smile was self-deprecating. “And then you kept failing in the most interesting ways. Learning instead of repeating tactics. Questioning instead of just obeying orders. Laughing when I made jokes. Reading poetry. Caring about pointless beautiful things.”
He turned to face her, and his eyes glowed softly in the darkness.
“You started seeing me as a person instead of just a target. And I started seeing you as more than just an interesting challenge. You became…” He searched for words. “Someone who matters. Someone whose laugh I wait for. Someone who I want to protect, even if protecting you means killing other assassins.”
Raven’s throat tightened. “I’m still supposed to kill you.”
“I know. And if that’s what you choose, I’ll accept it.” His expression was open, vulnerable. “But I’d rather have thirteen more days with someone who sees me as a person than three hundred more years of people who only see the Shadow Prince.”
“The Guild will send more assassins.”
“Let them. I’ll kill them all if necessary.” He said it matter-of-factly. “Any threat to you is a threat I’ll eliminate. That’s what it means to be under Shadow Court protection.”
“Why?” She needed him to explain it in words she could understand. “Why does someone like you care about someone like me?”
“Someone like you?” He tilted his head. “You mean someone brilliant who learned court politics in a week? Someone skilled enough to actually cut me with iron blades? Someone who makes me feel alive for the first time in decades? That kind of someone?”
“Someone who’s nobody. A Guild weapon with no past, no family, no purpose except killing.”
“You’re not a weapon.” Draven’s voice turned firm. “You’re a person who was used as a weapon. There’s a difference. And you’re not nobody—you’re Raven Storm. Assassin, learner, person who discovered she likes poetry and music and pointless beautiful things. That person? She’s extraordinary.”
He reached out slowly, giving her time to pull away, and touched her face gently.
“You’re the first person in five hundred years who I can talk to. Really talk to. About loneliness and boredom and what it means to exist when existence has lost meaning.” His thumb brushed her cheek. “You understand because you’ve lived it. Different circumstances, same emptiness. We recognize each other.”
“That’s not love.” Raven said it, but it came out uncertain. “That’s just two lonely people finding each other.”
“Maybe.” He smiled. “Or maybe that’s exactly what love is. Finding someone who understands the empty places inside you and chooses to stay anyway.”
“I don’t know how to do this.” The admission hurt. “The Guild trained me to kill, not to feel. I don’t know how to care about someone I’m supposed to murder.”
“Then we figure it out together.” He dropped his hand but stayed close. “I don’t know how to care about someone without them wanting something from me. We’re both learning.”
They sat in comfortable silence, the sound of shadow-water from the fountain mixing with distant night sounds.
“Tell me about the five hundred years,” Raven said finally. “What’s it like, living that long?”
“Exhausting.” He leaned back, looking up at stars that existed in the perpetual twilight. “The first century was exciting—learning magic, understanding power, becoming who I was meant to be. The second century was challenging—taking the throne, learning to rule, establishing the court. The third century was satisfying—I’d mastered everything, built something that would last.”
He paused, and shadows dimmed around him.
“And then centuries four and five were just… existing. Maintaining what I’d built. Playing the same political games with different nobles. Killing assassination attempts. The novelty wore off, and I was left with endless time stretching ahead with nothing new to experience.”
“Until I showed up.”
“Until you showed up.” His smile returned. “And suddenly there was challenge again. Question marks instead of certainties. Someone who surprised me daily. You gave me a reason to want to wake up each day—either to defend against your attempts or to teach you something new or just to see what you’d discover about yourself.”
“That’s a lot of pressure to put on an assassin.”
“You handle pressure well.” He stood, offering his hand. “Walk with me? I want to show you something.”
Raven took his hand—when had that become automatic?—and let him lead her deeper into the gardens. They walked through paths that shifted under starlight, past flowers that glowed and trees that whispered secrets.
He stopped at a section she’d never seen before. A small grove where shadows were thicker, darker, almost tangible.
“This is the heart of the Shadow Court,” he explained quietly. “Where the magic is strongest. Where the court’s power originates. Only the ruling prince can access it.”
“Why show me?”
“Because if you kill me, you inherit this. All of it. The magic, the responsibility, the connection to every shadow in the realm.” His expression was serious. “I want you to understand what you’d be taking on. It’s not just a throne and political power. It’s literally bonding with the shadow itself.”
Raven felt the power thrumming through the ground, the air, the darkness itself. Ancient magic, older than Draven’s five hundred years. Older than the court.
“How do you bear it?” She asked quietly. “All that power, all that awareness?”
“Carefully. And with purpose.” He turned to face her. “The Shadow Court isn’t evil, despite what other realms say. We’re balance. We keep secrets that need keeping, maintain knowledge that would be dangerous in the wrong hands, protect darkness that has value.”
“That’s why you can’t die.” Understanding clicked. “If you die and someone unworthy takes the throne, this power could be corrupted.”
“Exactly.” His smile was proud. “You understand. That’s why I need to know—really know—that if you kill me, you’re ready for what comes after. You won’t just be a queen. You’ll be the Shadow itself.”
Raven looked at the darkness swirling around them, felt the weight of centuries pressing down. “And if I’m not ready?”
“Then I teach you until you are. Or you choose not to kill me, and we find another way forward.” He moved closer. “Thirteen days left, Raven. I’ll break your binding magic, free you from the Guild. And then you decide—take my throne through combat, rule beside me as equal, or leave entirely and build whatever life you want. Your choice.”
“Those are very different options.”
“They are. And any of them is acceptable as long as you choose freely.” His hand came up, touched her face again. “I just want you free. What you do with that freedom is yours to determine.”
They stood in the heart of shadow magic, surrounded by power and possibility. Raven felt the binding magic in her bones, felt the Guild’s control, felt the contract burning at the edges of her consciousness.
Thirteen days to freedom.
And then she’d have to choose who she wanted to be.
Weapon? Queen? Something else entirely?
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For protecting me today. For showing me this. For caring enough to kill for me.”
“Always.” He said it like a vow. “You’re worth protecting, Raven Storm. Even if you don’t believe it yet.”
They walked back through the gardens in comfortable silence, and Raven tried to process everything. In seventeen days, she’d gone from assassin on a mission to something else entirely.
Someone who mattered to a lonely prince.
Someone who’d been protected by the most dangerous fae in existence.
Someone who had choices instead of just orders.
Thirteen days left.
And Raven Storm was starting to believe that maybe, possibly, she was worth more than just the blade the Guild had tried to make her.
Maybe she was worth the protection.
The care.
The freedom he was offering.
The question was whether she’d choose to take it.
Or whether she’d choose him instead.
Because standing in shadow gardens with a prince who’d killed to protect her, Raven was starting to suspect those two things weren’t mutually exclusive.
You could be free and stay.
You could choose yourself and choose someone else.
You could be weapon and person and partner all at once.
The Guild had never taught her that.
But Draven was showing her daily.
Thirteen days to figure it out.
She had a feeling it wouldn’t be nearly enough time.
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