"You can't..."
"I am the king." Simple. Absolute. "I can."
"She's innocent! She saved my life!"
"She is a variable I cannot control. A connection to a world that nearly destroyed you. And I will not risk my son's life on the hope that a street orphan's loyalty is stronger than the gold someone might offer for information about his movements."
I felt Azurene's reaction through the bond before I registered my own. She went rigid against my chest, her scales pressing hard into my skin. Through our connection I sensed her recoiling; not from my father, but from the cold certainty in his voice. The absolute absence of doubt.
"You would murder a child." My voice came out strange. Hollow. "Because she's my friend."
"I would remove a threat to my son. Yes."
"She's ten years old."
"The people who took you last night included children younger than her. Should I have spared them?"
The memory surged up; the rat-boy with his hands raised, pleading, the sword coming down. I closed my eyes against it but it didn't help. The image was burned into the inside of my eyelids.
"That was different."
"Was it?"
"They were trying to hurt me. Cas would never..."
"You don't know what she would do. You don't know what anyone would do when offered enough gold or threatened with enough pain. I have ruled this kingdom for twenty-six years, Valerian. I have seen men betray their brothers for a promotion. I have seen women sell their children's futures for a comfortable match. I have seen loyalty shatter against the edge of a knife more times than I can count."
He leaned forward. Just slightly. Just enough that I could see the lines at the corners of his eyes, the grey at his temples that hadn't been there when I was younger.
"Your friend may be everything you believe she is. Kind. Loyal. True. But I cannot take that chance. Not with you."
"Father, please." My voice cracked. I felt tears burning behind my eyes but I couldn't let them fall, couldn't show that weakness, couldn't give him any reason to think I was too young to understand. "I'll do anything. I'll stay in the palace. I'll never sneak out again. I'll follow every rule, attend every lesson, be the perfect prince. Just don't hurt her. She didn't do anything wrong."
Vhagar studied me. For a long moment something flickered behind his eyes; something that might have been regret, or sorrow, or the ghost of the father who'd told me bedtime stories in this same room.
Then it was gone.
"If you see her again, she dies. This is not a discussion."
He stood. The chair scraped against the floor; a small sound that seemed very loud in the silence.
"Rest. Heal. When you are well enough, we will discuss your future lessons and movements. There will be changes."
He walked to the door.
"Father..."
"I love you, Valerian." He didn't turn around. "Everything I do is to protect you. One day you may understand that. Or you may hate me for it. Either way, you will be alive."
He left.
Through the doorway, I caught one last glimpse of Aurellia. The great silver dragon was coiled in the corridor, her massive head turning to look at me as her human passed. Her eyes met mine.
Sad. Ancient.
Powerless.
She knew what her human had done. Could feel it through their bond the same way I felt Azurene's distress through ours. And she couldn't change it any more than Azurene could.
The king had spoken. The dragon would follow.
That was how it worked.
I don't know how long I sat there after he left.
Azurene pressed against me, her body wrapped around mine as if she could shield me from what had just happened. Through the bond she sent waves of comfort; warmth, love, the desperate reassurance that we were still together, that nothing could separate us.
But it wasn't enough. Nothing was enough.
He'll really do it.
Yes. Azurene's voice was quiet. He will.
He'll have her killed. A ten-year-old girl. Because she's my friend.
Because he loves you.
The words made me flinch. I didn't want to hear about love right now. Didn't want to think about how my father could sit at my bedside, speak those words with that calm certainty, and still believe he was doing the right thing.
But I couldn't deny what I'd seen in his eyes. He meant every word. Not out of cruelty or malice, but out of something worse; conviction. He believed, absolutely and completely, that killing Cassandra was the right choice if it kept me safe.
You have to stay away from her, Azurene said.
I know.
If you see her again...
I know.
Silence through the bond. Then, softly: I'm sorry.
I stared at the ceiling. The same ceiling I'd stared at for ten years. The same room, the same walls, the same gilded cage I'd been trying to escape since I was old enough to understand what escape meant.
I'd wanted adventure. I'd found Cassandra.
And now I had to lose her to keep her alive.
She'll think I abandoned her.
Yes.
She'll think I used her. That the friendship was a lie.
Yes.
She'll hate me.
Maybe. Or maybe she'll understand, when she's older. When she knows more about how the world works.
She'll never know why. The realization settled into my chest like a stone. I can't tell her the truth. If I tell her my father threatened to kill her, she'll do something stupid. She'll try to fight back, or run, or... she's Cas. She doesn't back down from anything.
So what will you do?
I closed my eyes.
The answer was already forming, ugly and necessary and sharp-edged with a cruelty I hadn't known I was capable of. If I pushed her away, she'd come back. If I told her the truth, she'd get herself killed trying to defy it. The only way to save her was to make her want to stay away.
I had to break her heart.
I had to become the kind of prince she'd always hated; the kind who saw commoners as toys, friendships as inconveniences, loyalty as something that flowed only upward. I had to take everything real between us and twist it into something ugly enough that she'd walk away and never look back.
I have to lie, I said through the bond. I have to lie to her face and make her believe it.
Azurene didn't respond. She didn't need to. Through our connection I could feel her grief; not just for Cassandra, but for me. For the boy I'd been before last night.
That boy would never have considered this. That boy had believed in truth and friendship and the basic goodness of the world.
That boy was dead.
He'd died in that building, surrounded by bodies, watching his father's guards cut down teenagers who'd made a lethal miscalculation. He'd died in this room, listening to his father promise murder in the same gentle voice he used for bedtime stories.
What remained was someone new. Someone harder.
Someone who understood, for the first time, that love and cruelty weren't opposites. That the people who hurt you most were often the people who loved you most. That power meant choosing who lived and who died, and that choices like that left marks on the soul that never quite healed.
I would push Cassandra away. I would make her hate me.
And I would wear that mask; cold, princely, cruel; until it stopped being a mask at all.
The first mask, Azurene whispered. Not the last.
No.
Not the last.