POV: Soraya
If walls could whisper, Ashra’s would already have me executed.
By the third day, the fortress has learned my name, guessed my story wrong, and decided I’m cursed. The rumors cling to the air like smoke. No one says them to my face at first, but they float just loud enough for my wolf to hear.
“Zehrael,” a kitchen boy breathes as I pass.
“Storm-marked,” a laundress murmurs.
“King’s stray,” a warrior scoffs.
Vienne walks beside me through the market hall, pretending not to notice the way people edge aside as if my shadow is contagious. “You’re popular,” she mutters.
“I’d hate to see what you call unpopular,” I reply dryly.
The Ashra inner market lives under a great open ceiling, sunlight pouring down in hot stripes. Stalls of pottery, dried meats, spiced teas, and leatherwork line the stone walkway. It should be comforting—color, noise, life. Instead, every glance feels like a stone thrown.
“Don’t listen,” Vienne says. “They’re spooked. Zehrael stories eat at them at night.”
“What stories?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Moon witches. Blood sorcerers. Wolves who can walk through another’s mind and tear it apart from the inside. They don’t understand it, so they’re afraid.”
“Good,” a voice cuts in from our left. “Fear keeps people from making stupid mistakes.”
We both turn.
A warrior leans against a pillar, arms folded. His hair is braided back tight, his armor polished to a mirror shine. Two others stand near him, their focus pointedly on me.
“That’s her?” one asks. “The Saren girl? The one they say made Raevan break protocol?”
“Carried her in his arms, they say,” the other chuckles. “Maybe the curse isn’t on her. Maybe it’s on him.”
Heat creeps up my neck.
Vienne’s jaw tightens. “You have a problem?” she asks.
They ignore her.
“You were Kharad’s prize first,” the braid-warrior says to me. “Now Raevan’s ward. Funny, how cursed things keep finding owners.”
Anger sparks, sharp and hot. “I’m no one’s property,” I say.
He smirks. “Everyone’s something to someone. Whore, witch, weapon—”
“Enough.”
The new voice cuts clean through the market noise.
People fall silent in ripples. Heads bow without thinking. I don’t have to turn to know who it is; my wolf straightens before my body does.
Raevan steps through the crowd, flanked by two guards who suddenly look decorative. He’s bareheaded, hair tied back at his neck, simple black tunic stretched over his shoulders. The collar gleams at his throat. His eyes find the warrior first, then flick to me.
“Is this how Ashra greets guests now?” he asks quietly.
The braid-warrior drops instantly to one knee. “My king— I didn’t— we were only—”
“Only what?” Raevan asks. His tone never rises, but everything in him sharpens. “Insulting someone under my protection? Calling her property? Calling me a fool?”
A muscle jumps in the warrior’s jaw. “I meant no disrespect—”
“You did,” Raevan says. “You just thought no one important would hear it.”
His gaze sweeps the hall. Every stall owner suddenly finds their produce fascinating. Children are pulled closer to parents. Even the air seems to hold its breath.
“Listen well,” he says, voice carrying without effort. “Soraya of Zehrael stands in Ashra as my guest. She is not a prisoner, not a toy, not a curse. Anyone who treats her otherwise answers to me.”
The words hit like thrown daggers.
Part of me wants to sink into the floor. The other part—smaller, stubborn—straightens.
The braid-warrior nods, face pale. “Yes, Raevan.”
Raevan’s gaze lingers on him a moment longer, then he turns to leave— And stops. Because Azhara has arrived.
She glides into the hall from an upper stair, crimson skirts whispering over stone, a small entourage behind her. People bow without being told; she’s not queen yet, but she wears expectation like a second skin.
“Such theatrics,” she says lightly. “It’s a market, not a courtroom.”
“Ashra’s laws apply everywhere,” Raevan answers.
Her gaze slides to me, flicking over my plain clothes, my tense stance beside Vienne. “Do they?” she murmurs. “Because some of us remember what Zehrael blood did the last time it walked these halls.”
Whispers surge again.
“Moon-tainted,” someone breathes.
“Born of traitors,” another mutters.
Vienne steps half a pace closer to me.
Raevan’s jaw tightens. “Old wars aren’t her sins,” he says. “If you need a target, choose me. I brought her.”
Azhara’s smile is small and sharp. “You always do like collecting broken things,” she says. “And expecting the rest of us to pretend they don’t drip.”
My hands curl into fists.
“It’s fine,” I say before he can answer. “I’m getting used to being everyone’s favorite problem.”
A few people chuckle nervously. Azhara’s eyes narrow.
“Tell me, Soraya,” she says, voice sugar-slow. “Did you bring Kharad as much chaos as you bring us? He doesn’t usually throw away pretty hostages. You must have done something very special to be exiled.”
A shard of memory stabs—my mother’s blood on the salt floor, my father’s voice ordering my banishment.
I force myself to meet her gaze. “Ask Kharad,” I say. “If you can stand the stench.”
Vienne huffs a laugh she pretends to smother. Someone at the back snorts. The brief, startled sound of amusement cuts through the tension—then dies when Azhara’s attention snaps in that direction.
Raevan steps forward, placing himself more clearly between us and the crowd.
“That’s enough,” he says. “This is a market, not a spectacle. Return to your business.”
No one moves at first.
His eyes harden. “Now.”
The hall lurches back into motion as if a spell breaks. People duck their heads, rushing to tasks. Whispers shrink to faint threads. The offending warrior retreats like a man reprieved from beheading.
Raevan turns to me. For a heartbeat, the king’s mask slips; concern flickers through his expression. “Are you all right?”
“I hate this,” I say bluntly. “All of it.”
“I know,” he says quietly. “The attention will fade.”
“Or shift,” Azhara murmurs. “To whoever tries to clean up after you.”
He ignores her.
“This will pass,” he repeats, to me. “Once they see you’re more than stories.”
I want to ask what he thinks I am. Guest? Asset? Mistake?
Instead I nod, because too many eyes still track us from the corners.
“Vienne,” he adds, “don’t leave her alone on the lower levels yet.”
Vienne salutes lazily. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He walks away then, pulled by a dozen waiting duties. People part like water for him. For Azhara, too, when she descends the stairs and falls into step beside him, their figures cutting a sharp, beautiful picture against the stone.
The crowd watches them.
Somewhere in that picture, I am the smudge everyone wishes wasn’t there.
Vienne lets out a slow breath. “Congratulations,” she says. “You survived your first Ashra public humiliation.”
“Feels like the first of many,” I reply.
“Oh, absolutely,” she says. “But for what it’s worth? You didn’t flinch.”
I did. Inside, I shattered in three different directions.
I lean on the railing, staring down at the market I’m supposed to call a safe place, and know with a sick twist in my gut:
Being Raevan’s protected guest paints a target on my back loud enough for the whole fortress to hear—and I hate every second of it.