Reubinon Market, Pellarmus.
Eight days after the attack.

I stood on the dock next to a pile of trunks and boxes and waited. The sun eased over the horizon and I just watched, wondering if this was the last sunrise. I'd thought about last sunrises so many times, but not often had I considered it when it wasn't my life. My last sunrise.

No.

Today, I thought about my brothers. About how Ambrose would fight till his breath for Ellora—for their unborn child. I thought about Kace and how we hadn't been given the time to talk. And there so much left to say. There hadn't been time for him to really ask for my forgiveness. And there hadn't been time for me to tell him that he already had it.

I couldn't even get myself to think past those three people. Ambrose. Kace. Ellora. If I thought about Deidre and her son, Sam, I'd start to spiral. And I couldn't allow that. I was hanging on by a thread as it was. I needed to stay calm. I needed to be ready to plead my case to Darragh today.

The planks of the dock creaked as someone stepped up to my side. Isla. She shoved her hands into her coat pockets and glanced my way. We didn't speak. There wasn't anything to really say.

We were mourning different things—together.

Annalise had not come to the docks to say goodbye to Isla. Of course, it wasn't too late. I could almost see the thought in Isla's gaze as she watched the sailors preparing the ship that would take her away from her home.

"Is he nice?" I asked, my voice hoarse from the tears I'd shed in the darkness of my bedroom last night. After everyone else had gone to sleep. After Nadia had come to talk to me and she'd said it was miscarriage. Britta had had a miscarriage.

She'd known, Britta had known and so had Darragh. According to my friend, Britta was as fine as she could be expected to be. Broken-hearted, both of them. Britta was between the bathing room and her bed. Weeping. Darragh had locked himself in his study and had forbidden anyone but his wife—who wanted to mourn alone—from entering.

It seemed that today was a day full of too much heartbreak.

When Isla didn't answer my question, I asked, "Do you think you could learn to care for him?"

She didn't tear her eyes from the rising sun as she said, "Justinian...He is kind to his servants. And he doesn't talk down to me. He doesn't treat me like property. We—Last night, he told me that he wanted ours to be a marriage between equals."

"And what do you want?"

She hesitated. "I wish—I wish she would at least come and say goodbye."

"Maybe she will."

Isla shook her head. "No. No, she won't." She sighed heavily and shoved dark curls from her eyes as she explained, "She left yesterday morning. When I told her I was leaving and marrying the king of Haniver, I gave her enough money to allow her to go wherever she wanted. She's—She's always sort of wanted to go south and set up a clinic in one of the smaller towns—somewhere without so much noise. Now..." she shrugged, "Now she can."

"Did she say goodbye before she left?"

She sniffled and shook her head. "I got a note. The servant delivered it to my room after she'd already gone. That's it. A damn letter."

I didn't have the heart or the right to ask what Annalise had written, so I just told her, "You did the right thing by telling her, Isla."

"It hurt to tell her, but..." Those green eyes slid to me. "But I'm glad that I did. You were right, she deserved to know I was leaving. And—And there's at least some close—what is the word? Ending?" she said it in Pellarsh and then shook her head, "close...?"

"Closure?" I offered.

She nodded. "Yes. At least there is some closure to it."

It fell silent between us. I wrapped my coat tighter around my shoulders and tugged up my hood, trying to shield from the cold wind coming in off the sea. The sailors called to one another, ropes were tied off, boxes thumped to the wooden decks, steam rolled from the tall steel stacks. And yet the world around us felt dull, colorless, devoid of life.

All I could think about was the fact that my brother might already be dead. They might be gone forever. And that just didn't seem right. I was the one who was supposed to die first.

I'd always expected that they would mourn me. Ambrose was supposed to light a candle and say remembrances for me. We'd all sort of believed I would die in the Culling. Even in my wildest dreams, living to be eighteen had been a fantasy. I was supposed to be a corpse.

A girl made of lies living on borrowed time.

So, I'd never even bothered to learn the prayers—the remembrances we were supposed to recite for the dead. I'd assumed I'd be long gone before I'd ever need to utter them.

And yet.

I swiped at my cheeks, trying to hide my tears from Isla as I said, "Thank you for being my friend, Isla. Even if it was only for a few weeks."

She turned to me, the sharp angles of her face sharpening as she took in my expression. The scent of clove cigarettes enveloped me as her arms wrapped around my shoulders and she hugged me tight to her. "Oh, Monroe. Our friendship will not end here."

I nodded against her shoulder. "Still. Thank you."

"For what it is worth, I am sorry that your brothers are in danger. I do not know them, but I know you," she pulled away and studied my face. "I know you, and I worry for you. You shouldn't lose hope. Not until you know for sure."

"Do you think Darragh will have changed his mind? Do you think he'll agree to send troops?"

Isla studied me for a long moment before she said, "I don't believe our friendship is the sort that requires lies."

"It isn't."

"Then I won't feed any to you. Instead, let me ask you this: Do you think our troops could reach them in time, even if they'd left yesterday?"

I pressed my lips together and looked out at the hazy horizon before us. We both knew the answer to that question—we both knew, but I couldn't bring myself to say it. I needed that stray bit of hope. When it was all said and done, I wanted to be able to feel like I done something, or tried to do something. Even if it was hopeless.

Isla spoke again, her voice nearly drowned out the by lapping of water against the sides of the nearby ship. "Just because Darragh will not send troops does not mean someone else didn't hear your brother's message. There are factions of resistance in other parts of Erydia. It—I would not count them out just yet. It is possible someone might have heard and gone to their aid."

Possible, maybe. But likely?

My heart was too hot. It ached in all the wrong ways. The tether on my ability grew taut—it began to fray. And that darkness, the slippery, bottomless depths of it, seemed to speak to my soul. If Darragh will not help, then Darragh cannot be trusted. And why should Darragh get a throne when it is rightfully mine? Why should he take and take and take and give nothing back—I rolled my wrist, cracking still joints and suppressing the urge of call fire to flesh.

I shoved down that roiling blackness and chained in against my spine once more. It would not speak like that. Those were not my thoughts, not my desires. And whether it was the goddess herself or an assembly of past goddess-touched girls, I didn't care. All I knew was that I would not give it to it.

That oily, poison would not take control of my body. It would not speak for me or act for me or breathe for me. It would stay silent. Forgotten. Dead.

The dock creaked behind us as a set of steady footsteps approached. Isla separated a step from me and turned to find Darragh standing there. He wore a simple jacket and a knit cap that was nearly the same shade of green as his eyes—eyes that were red rimmed and swollen.

He didn't look at me, only held Isla's steely gaze as he said, "Were you going to leave without saying goodbye to me?"

Isla opened and closed her mouth. "I—I—" she stepped closer to her brother and spoke in quiet, rushed Pellarsh. His expression softened a bit at her use of their native tongue. They spoke back and forth for a few minutes, their conversation ranging from angry to tearful and back multiple times.

After Isla shoved her brother in the chest and they looked like they might really fight, I decided to step away and give them some privacy. Even if I couldn't understand what they were saying, it felt like I was intruding on something I shouldn't. So, I moved further down the dock towards the small market at the other end.

I strolled a good distance away, past the tables of fish and the stalls of ropes and nets, until I'd found different booths, these filled with cloth and spools of thread, small brass trinkets, little instruments, and all matter of handmade jewelry. It was early enough that the stalls weren't all open and those that were, weren't entirely set up to sell.

Rosey-cheeked women with children slung on their hips moved about, positioning their wares and displays. They chatted with one another, sometimes in a language I' understood and sometimes not. They yelled across the wide walkway about the days catch or what their husband was up to or what they were cooking for dinner that evening. Children hurried by in small groups, heading for school. Young women caught their young men by the arms and kissed their ruddy faces before they were sent off to set nets or run their own market stalls.

It was so normal and yet so different from anything I'd ever experience. Even in Linomi, the smells and people and things had all been overwhelming—and tinged with a sort of inherent darkness that this place lacked. Reubinon, Pellarmus wasn't one of the larger cities in this country, but it was home to one of the palaces and it seemed to be peaceful. This was a place that did not know war or starvation or the Culling.

"Miss Benson?"

I spun in a sharp circle, my fists already raised, my feet moving into a fighter's stance. The young man standing there lifted his hands to block his face and staggered back a step. This dark hair, almond shaped eyes and tanned skin weren't familiar to me, but there was something in his stance—and in the herd of guards that swarmed us—that told me exactly who he must be.

Justinian, Crown Prince of Haniver, waved away his guards, his expression cautious, but not unkind as he said to them, "I startled her, it was my own fault. Please, back away. I wish—" He turned to me then, taking in my loose stance and the way my fists were still slightly raised. His lips twitched and amusement lit his eyes as he said, "I only wish to speak to you."

I stepped back; my shoulders slumping slightly as I tried to calm my racing heart. I wasn't in Linomi. I was safe. I was fine. This man—this prince—wouldn't hurt me. Everything was alright.

My throat was too tight, my pulse too quick. And he was looking at me, waiting for me to speak.

Workers and shoppers at the stalls around us had started to gawk, their attention locked on the armed guards and the smiling young man standing before me. Justinian didn't seem phased by their stares or my silence, he only gestured to the path ahead of us and said, "Care to take a stroll?"

He took off without waiting to see if I'd agree. I watched him go, my hands still in fists at my side. The guards fanned out around me, not pushing me, but getting close enough to me that I moved towards their prince out of a desire to separate myself from them.

By the time I'd caught up with Justinian, he was standing in front of a stall full of handmade beaded necklaces. The woman tending the booth offered me a tight smile and shifted from having a conversation with her friend in Pellarsh to speaking to me in Erydi.

She reached for a necklace with cobalt blue beads and held it out to me. The specks of silver imbedded in the clay glittered in the light of the rising sun as she said, "You like?"

I nodded but held up a hand. "It's lovely, but I'm just looking."

Justinian fiddled with the beads of a lavender and opal bracelet. "Tell me, would Isla like something like this?"

I raised a brow. "Did you follow me here to ask for advice on gifts for Isla?"

He laughed, as if surprised by my boldness. When the woman tried to hand the bracelet to Justinian to examine more closely, he waved her off and continued down the path. "No, that isn't the only reason. But you do seem to be her friend."

I fell into step next to him. "We are friends."

He frowned as he glanced my way. "She told me of your brothers and Darragh's reluctance to send aid."

I watched as fog lifted off the cobblestones ahead of us, revealed a slopping street and more market stalls. My throat constricted and I found it was an effort to keep my voice steady as I said, "What of it?"

"She asked me to send troops." I nearly tripped over my own feet as I whirled to look at him. My lips parted but he held up a hand, rings glittering at his knuckles as he said, "I would not refuse her if it were possible. But I couldn't get men into Erydia or Vayelle, not in enough time to be of any use to your family."

I hated the pleading my voice as I whispered, "Couldn't—Couldn't you try?"

Justinian started walking again, his hands clasped behind his back. "I—Miss Benson—May I call you by your first name? It's Monroe, yes?"

I nodded.

He smiled. "Monroe, I would gladly aid you, if only because Isla asked and I—I would truly like to be able to make her happy. But I'm afraid that request is one I cannot fulfill."

My eyes burned. "Then why tell me at all?"

"Because, I think you should know that she a friend to you—and not just publicly. People like us—princes and princesses—we know how to play the game. Especially in front of others. I—I do not know much about you, Monroe. And I'm willing to admit that I probably know even less about my future bride, but I do know that she cares about you. The fact that she came to me and asked privately for my help—for help for you—says a lot about how she feels."

I nodded and turned my face away so he wouldn't see the pain written there. I knew that I should be thankful for Isla's attempt at getting help, but at the moment I could only see the failure of it. No one was going to help. And it very possible that it was already over—already done. My brothers and all of my friends in Third Corps might already be dead.

I swallowed and said, "I'm thankful for Isla's friendship. She—She has always been very kind to me. I wish I had more time to get to know her."

His brow furrowed and he shook his head. "She isn't dying." He shoved dark hair from his face and said, "You are always welcome in my country. There will always be a place in Haniver for you, should you wish to have it. I'm sure that is what Isla would want."

"What—" I hesitated, unsure if I should ask my next question.

Justinian nodded to me. "I'm listening?"

"What are your intentions with her?"

He laughed and then sobered when he saw my expression. "I—Oh, I'm sorry. It's just—Darragh didn't even ask that."

"Darragh is worried about a war and secure allies. I'm worried about Isla."

He cleared his throat and nodded, as if that there explanation enough. "Well, I plan to marry her and make her queen."

"Right away?"

He laughed. "No. Not right away. Probably not for a while. I'd—The alliance with Pellarmus was my father's idea. I'm not opposed to it, but I'm also not in a rush to get married. And I won't become king until my father dies or steps down. Neither of which will happen in the next few years."

"That's good."

He grinned. "Is it?"

I shook my head, realizing how it must sound. "Well—It's just—All of this came as a big surprise to Isla. She'll..." I shrugged. "I think it's only natural that she'd need some time to get used to the idea."

"Did she tell you that I want us to be equals, she and I?"

I nodded.

"I meant that. My parents had that sort of marriage. My father worshipped my mother until her dying day. And they were good friends. Good rulers. I've grown up wanting those things for myself. I realize that it's different for me, since I didn't get to choose Isla and she didn't get to choose me. But I still think we could be friends. And maybe one day more than that. But I won't push her."

It fell silent between us as I weighed what I wanted to ask next. "What... What about heirs?"

His smile widened. "Full of questions, aren't we?"

I pursed my lips. "I'm just wondering."

"What about heirs?"

"Will you force her to—"

"I will not force Isla to do anything she does not want to do." There was enough bite in his answer that I knew he hadn't liked my presumption of his character.

"I'm sorry," I said. "It's just that in Erydia—with the Culling—there isn't a choice in it. We're expected to marry and produce heirs. I wasn't sure if...I've read of lot of Culling accounts and I know that there were many marriages that were unhappy. Lots of girls who were forced into motherhood long before they were ready. I didn't—I didn't... I just care about Isla. I didn't mean for the question to reflect my feelings for you personally. I'm only speaking from my own limited experience with arranged marriages. The Culling...I've read a lot of accounts where it was clear that the girl—the queen—was forced to be with the king. Physically, I mean. The protection of a crown doesn't seem to follow women into the bedchamber."

"I have no intention of caging Isla or forcing her to do anything she doesn't want to do. She is her own person. Outside of the treaty her brother and my father have signed, she is a free young woman. She must marry me eventually and rule at my side, but I expect nothing more of her. Of course, I'd love children. But not now. Not in the next ten years. And certainly not if Isla doesn't want them too."

We paused next to a stall selling art supplies. I ran a fingertip across a small leather-bound sketch book. It was the sort that Kai would have bought. The leather was dyed red and carved with intricate little gold swirls. The man running the booth tried to speak to me in Pellarsh but quickly changed to Erydi when he saw my expression of confusion.

He named his price and, for a moment, I wanted to buy it. But I quickly shook my head and thanked the shop owner, complimented his craftsmanship and continued on my way. Justinian followed behind me, his hands still clasped at this back, his smile just as wry as it had been before.

"You, Prince Justinian," I said to him, "are not like other princes."

He laughed at that. "Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"Yes." I nodded. "You remind me of Cohen, and he's also not like other princes."

"Do you know very many princes?"

I shook my head. "No, I don't. At least not personally. But—But every Culling account had a prince and every single one of them took their prize to bed as soon as she was won."

His smile faltered at that. "And what of your prince—your king—across the sea? Isn't it his fault that your brothers are in danger?"

For a moment, I considered lying. I considered defending Kai to him. But I was tired and afraid and, if I were honest, I did partially blame him for what was happening in Vayelle. Even if Kai had not given the order himself, he would know what was happening in Third Corps. He would know that my brothers were there. He may have even heard that broadcast from Kace.

And so, I said to Justinian, "Yes. Yes, it is his fault."

He did not push me for anything else. For all the questions I'd asked him, he demanded nothing else of me. And for that, I was grateful.

I didn't completely understand the prince of Haniver, but I agreed with what Isla had said. He was kind. And he didn't seem to be the sort who would control her or dampen the flame that seemed to always simmer in her soul. For that alone, I liked him.

His voice was light, teasing, as he said, "You never did tell me what sort of gift Isla would like...?"

I looked around the market, searching for one thing in particular. When I found it, I nodded to the stall, which stood a few yards away from us.

I offered Justinian a small, nervous smile as I said, "Here, let me show you."

***

So, The Culled Crown is getting traditionally published in fall of 2022 and I'm literally so excited and also very overwhelmed and it's just ahhhhhhhhhhh. So, if you want to follow along on this journey (and boy, is it a journey!) you better go follow me on Instagram. Our baby, Monroe, is gonna be in a bookstore!

If you enjoyed this chapter: leave this emoji 🎉 in the comments.

For more information on The Culled Crown series and other projects, follow me on Instagram (@briannajoyc) or check out my website (www.briannajoycrump.com).