The Shadow King's Bargain

A Throne Worth Burning For, Veil Between Worlds RomantasyBy Lucienne Marr

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Length6h 56m

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*You're wearing the wrong mask.* Brynn's fingers stop an inch from her face, the silk-and-bone mask half-raised. Benedict Vane stands two steps behind her in the alcove, mismatched eyes catching the lantern light, brass monocle gleaming, the smell of wormwood and crushed beetle shells coming off his tinctures. The mask he gave her carried a raven on a broken circle. The one in her hand shows a willow with its roots exposed. Different sigil. Different dead family. It would have set her down in front of the one woman in that hall who knows every surviving branch of every noble lineage. *I'm testing whether you pay attention. You passed. Barely.* Brynn is a spy out of the lower warrens, wearing a glamour that smooths her jaw, darkens her hair and erases the thin silver scar across her left palm. The Dusklight Fête has been running for seventy-two years, and tonight she is meant to dance on a blade without cutting her feet. The job is a listening bug, and the plan changes at the last moment. Not under the table. On the wax seal of the envoy's wine bottle, so it travels to his glass, then his lips, then his tongue, and she hears everything he says for three days. She manages it in about three seconds, by way of a spilled tray and a lapful of red wine. Then his hand closes around her wrist. Not hard. Faster than she could have dodged. *Your apology is linen-wrapped and hollow.* *Your hands are steady. Your voice is calm. But your pulse is racing, and you're looking at the wine bottle, not at me.* Theron Vale is the Frost envoy. He lets her plant it. He lets her go. He tells her they will discuss it later. What Brynn actually has at stake is her sister. Linnet coughs blood into a handkerchief, swallows medicine she says tastes like the promises Brynn made to get it, and has been writing letters to a Frost Court healer for three months. Benedict is the one who gave her the healer's name. And what Benedict eventually wants is a poisoning at a wine ceremony, traded for a sister in a room with no windows. *Tell Brynn I'm not afraid. Tell her to do what she has to do.* Brynn swaps the vial for water. After that come a cave and a fever, two people confessing the worst thing each of them ever failed to do, a cabal that has been wearing faces on both sides of a cold war, iron chains, and a throne room where a woman from the warrens says her real name aloud in front of two courts. This is a fae court romantasy of espionage and oaths: a spy who will not make the kill she is ordered to make, a king who once hid behind a column and never forgave himself for it, a sister who refuses to be a bargaining chip, and a new court founded on a law about consent. The romance is closed-door.

Espionage Betrayal Political Intrigue Revenge Found Family Forbidden Love Conspiracy Hero Psychological Magic