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"Don't move."
The blade pressed cold against my throat before I could finish the breath. I didn't need to see who held it. I'd felt this exact pressure sixteen times before.
"Wrong room," I said. My voice came out steady. Practice does that. "I'm just a bride. Lost."
"Brides don't pick locks." The woman's grip tightened on my shoulder, forcing me down against the stone wall. "Brides don't carry Ashveil ciphers in their left boot."
My heartbeat spiked. She'd searched me. How long had I been out?
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Liar." She yanked my head back by the hair. The blade bit in, just enough to draw blood. "You've got ten seconds to tell me who sent you, or I open your throat right here and let you bleed out on Commander Ironfate's floor."
Commander Ironfate. Kael.
The man who'd killed me twelve times. The man I was supposed to marry in three days. The man whose war plans I'd come to steal.
Again.
"Five seconds," she said.
I could feel the phoenix ember stirring under my ribs. It had grown stronger with each death, each reset. This loop, it had woken up hungry. I could call it now. Burn her hand off. Burn the whole damn fortress down if I wanted.
But that would end the loop early. That would put me back in my bedroom in Ashveil Skyhold three months ago, waking up to the letter that exiled me all over again.
Seventeen resets. Seventeen failures.
Not this time.
"Wait," I gasped. "Wait. I'll tell you."
The pressure eased. Just a fraction.
"Talk."
"I'm not a spy," I said. "I'm insurance."
"Insurance."
"My father sent me here to die." The words tasted bitter, but they were true. True enough. "He needed an excuse to break the treaty. A martyred princess is better than a living one with no power."
Silence. Then she laughed, low and sharp.
"That's the saddest story I've heard all month," she said. "And I've heard some sad ones. You really think I'm buying that?"
"I don't care what you buy." I twisted against her grip, just enough to meet her eyes. Dark. Calculating. Former military, probably. "I care that you don't kill me before I can figure out how to survive the next three days. Because if I walk into that wedding, Kael Ironfate will find a reason to execute me anyway. He always does."
Her expression shifted. Just for a second.
"Always?"
Shit.
I'd said too much. The loop was bleeding through. I could feel the edges of it now, fraying around me like burnt silk.
"Forget it," I said quickly. "I meant—he's that kind of man. Everyone knows it. Cold. Precise. Kills first, asks questions later."
"You've never met him."
"I've read the reports." I held her gaze. "Seventeen skyholds burned. Four thousand dead. All in the name of Ironfate expansion. You think a man like that cares about a bride with no bloodline?"
She studied me for a long moment. Then the blade lifted.
"Get up."
I stood slowly, keeping my hands visible. The room came into focus around me. Stone walls. Iron-reinforced door. A single narrow window that looked out over the lower fortress. Kael's private study. I'd made it this far.
Farther than last time.
"What's your name?" I asked.
She didn't answer. Just circled me, predator-slow, taking in every detail. My travel-stained dress. The bruise on my jaw from the fall I'd taken scaling the outer wall. The way I favored my left leg.
"You climbed," she said. "Third tier, east side. That's a sixty-foot drop if you slip."
"I didn't slip."
"No. You didn't." She stopped in front of me. "So maybe you're not just a sad little princess after all. Maybe you're something worse."
"Maybe I'm someone who doesn't want to die."
"Everyone dies," she said. "It's just a question of when."
The ember flared hot under my ribs. I could feel it pushing against my skin, begging to be let out. Seventeen deaths. Seventeen resets. The phoenix was waking up, and every loop it took more of me with it.
Last loop, I'd cried when Kael put the blade through my chest.
This loop, I'd felt nothing.
That should have scared me more than it did.
"Who are you?" I asked again.
She smiled. Thin. Dangerous.
"Lya Darkfeather," she said. "Personal guard to Commander Ironfate. And the only reason you're still breathing is because I want to know what you were really doing in this room."
"I told you—"
"You told me a story." She moved to the desk, ran her fingers over the papers scattered there. "But you didn't touch any of these. Didn't even look at them. So either you're the worst spy in the Seven Cities, or you were looking for something else."
Smart. Too smart.
I needed her on my side. In three of the loops, Lya had been the one to catch me. In two, she'd killed me herself. But in one—loop nine—she'd hesitated. She'd asked questions.
She could be turned.
"I was looking for proof," I said.
She glanced up. "Proof of what?"
"That this wedding is a trap." I took a step closer. "That Kael Ironfate has no intention of honoring the treaty. That he's planning to use me as leverage to force Ashveil into full surrender."
Her expression didn't change. "And did you find it?"
"No."
"Because it doesn't exist," she said. "The Commander doesn't need leverage. If he wanted Ashveil, he'd just take it."
"Then why agree to the marriage?"
"Because the Council of Seven ordered it." Lya's voice went flat. "Because even war commanders have to pretend to play politics sometimes. Because your father offered you up like a sacrificial lamb, and the Council thought it would make a nice symbol."
She wasn't wrong. But she wasn't right either.
"There's more to it," I said. "I can feel it."
"Feel it." She laughed. "You sound like one of those mystic frauds in the lower markets. Next you'll tell me the stars told you to break into a military commander's private study in the middle of the night."
"The stars didn't tell me anything." I met her eyes. "But seventeen loops did."
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
Lya went very still.
"What did you just say?"
The ember flared. I could feel it climbing up my throat, burning behind my teeth. The loop was cracking. I could taste ash on my tongue.
"Nothing," I said. "I didn't—"
"You said loops." Lya crossed the distance between us in two strides. "Seventeen loops. What does that mean?"
"It means I'm tired." I tried to step back, but she grabbed my wrist. Her grip was iron.
"You're not tired," she said. "You're scared. And I want to know why."
The door crashed open.
We both spun. A man stood in the doorway, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in the dark steel gray of Ironfate command. Not Kael. This one was younger, sharper around the edges. His pale eyes locked on me.
"Lya," he said. "Step away from the bride."
"Varen." Lya didn't let go of my wrist. "This isn't what it looks like."
"It looks like you caught a spy." Varen stepped into the room. "And you were about to let her go."
"I was interrogating her."
"You were having a conversation." His gaze flicked to me. Cold. Calculating. "That's not protocol."
I knew this voice. Loop four. Loop seven. Loop thirteen.
Varen Ironfate. Kael's second-in-command. The man who'd pushed for my execution in six different loops, even when Kael had hesitated.
The man who wanted me dead more than anyone.
"Protocol can wait," Lya said. "She's claiming—"
"I don't care what she's claiming." Varen pulled a blade from his belt. "The Commander wants to see her. Now."
My blood went cold.
"Kael's awake?"
"He's been awake." Varen smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "He's been waiting for you."
No. No, this was wrong. In every loop, Kael slept through the night. I had until dawn to get in, get the plans, and get out. That was the pattern. That was the rule.
But the loop was changing.
I could feel it shifting under me like ice cracking on a frozen lake.
"Move," Varen said.
Lya's grip tightened on my wrist. For a second, I thought she might refuse. Might tell him to back off.
Then she let go.
"Fine," she said. "But I'm coming with you."
"Suit yourself." Varen gestured with the blade. "After you, Princess."
I walked. One foot in front of the other. Down the corridor. Past the iron-banded doors and the narrow arrow slits that looked out over nothing but sky and stone.
The fortress was a maze. I'd learned it by heart in the first five loops. But this path was new.
Varen was taking me somewhere I'd never been.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"The war room," Varen said. "The Commander thought you might appreciate the view."
The war room. Where the maps were kept. Where the real plans were made.
Where Kael had executed me in loops three, eight, and fourteen.
My pulse hammered. The ember pushed against my ribs, hot and insistent. I could feel it begging me to burn my way out. To let it loose.
But if I did that, the loop would reset.
And I'd wake up back in Ashveil with nothing.
Again.
We stopped in front of a pair of massive doors. Varen pushed them open.
The war room was exactly as I remembered. Long stone table. Maps pinned to every surface. Candles burning low in their iron holders.
And Kael Ironfate standing at the far end, his back to us, staring down at a map of the Seven Cities.
He didn't turn.
"Leave us," he said.
Varen hesitated. "Commander—"
"I said leave."
Varen's jaw tightened. But he obeyed. Lya followed, throwing me one last unreadable look before the doors closed behind them.
I was alone with Kael.
The man who'd killed me twelve times.
The man I was supposed to marry in three days.
The man I'd sworn would fall first this time.
"Seraph Ashveil," he said. Still not turning. "You're early."
"I couldn't sleep," I said.
"So you decided to break into my study."
"I got lost."
"You climbed a sixty-foot wall." He finally turned. His eyes were the color of smoke and steel. "That's a very specific kind of lost."
I'd forgotten how tall he was. How still he could stand. Like a blade waiting to drop.
"I wanted to see the fortress," I said. "Before the wedding."
"And what did you see?"
"Stone. Iron. Soldiers." I held his gaze. "What I expected."
He studied me for a long moment. Then he moved, crossing the distance between us in three strides. I forced myself not to step back.
"You're lying," he said quietly.
"I'm not—"
"You're terrified." He stopped inches away. Close enough that I could feel the heat of him. "Your pulse is racing. Your hands are shaking. And you're looking at me like you've seen me before."
The ember flared. I swallowed hard.
"I've seen your portrait," I said.
"Portraits don't look back." His hand came up, slow and deliberate, and touched the side of my throat. Right where Lya's blade had cut. "You're bleeding."
I couldn't breathe. His fingers were warm. Too warm.
"I fell," I said.
"You didn't fall." His thumb traced the cut. "Someone held a knife to your throat. Who?"
"Does it matter?"
"It does if they're still alive."
The threat in his voice was so casual it almost sounded like a promise.
I pulled back. His hand dropped.
"Why did you want to see me?" I asked.
"Because I dreamed about you," he said.
The world tilted.
"What?"
"I dreamed I killed you." His expression didn't change. "Seventeen times. Seventeen different ways. And every time, you looked at me like you'd been waiting for it."
No.
No, this wasn't possible.
The loop was mine. The memories were mine. He wasn't supposed to remember.
"That's just a dream," I said. My voice sounded far away. "Dreams don't mean anything."
"Don't they?" He stepped closer again. "Then why do you have a scar on your chest that doesn't exist?"
My hand flew to my ribs. To the place where he'd put the blade through my heart in loop six.
There was no scar. There couldn't be. The loop erased everything.
But his eyes said otherwise.
"I can see it," he said softly. "Even though it's not there. I can see all of them. Every mark I left. Every time I killed you."
The ember exploded.
Flames burst from my skin, white-hot and screaming. The candles blew out. The maps curled and blackened.
Kael didn't move.
"There it is," he said. "The thing you've been hiding."
I couldn't stop it. The phoenix was awake, and it wanted out. I could feel it tearing through me, burning away everything that wasn't fire.
"Stay back," I gasped.
"No." He reached for me.
The flames roared higher. The stone under my feet cracked.
And in the fire, I saw his face.
Not the man in front of me.
The other one. The one from loop six. The one who'd whispered I'm sorry before he drove the blade home.
The one who'd cried after.
"You remember," I said.
Kael's hand closed around my wrist, right through the flames.
He didn't burn.
"I remember," he said.
The door exploded open. Varen stood there, blade drawn, eyes wide.
"Commander—"
"Get out," Kael said.
"She's—"
"I said get out."
Varen stared at us. At the flames. At Kael's hand wrapped around my burning wrist.
Then he turned and ran.
The flames died.
I stood there, shaking, staring at Kael's hand. His skin was unmarked. Not even a blister.
"How," I whispered.
"I don't know." He let go. Slowly. "But I think we need to figure it out. Before one of us kills the other again."
Footsteps echoed in the corridor. Shouts. Soldiers coming.
"They'll execute me," I said.
"Probably," Kael agreed. "Unless—"
"Unless what?"
He looked at me. Really looked at me. And for the first time in seventeen loops, I saw something in his eyes that wasn't ice.
"Unless you tell me how to stop dreaming about your death," he said.
The doors burst open.
Varen stood at the front of a dozen armed soldiers, all of them staring at the scorched floor, the blackened maps, the smoke still curling in the air.
"Arrest her," Varen said.
Kael didn't move.
"Commander," Varen said. "She just attacked you. She's a threat to the fortress. To the treaty. To everything we've—"
"She's my bride," Kael said.
Silence.
Varen's face went white. "Commander, you can't be serious. She's a phoenix. She's—"
"I know what she is." Kael's voice cut like a blade. "And I'm keeping her."
He turned to me.
"Aren't I?" he said.
It wasn't a question.
It was a challenge.
I looked at him. At the man who'd killed me twelve times. At the man who'd just reached into fire and held on.
At the man who'd just chosen me over his own second-in-command.
"Yes," I said.
Kael smiled. Slow. Dangerous.
"Good," he said. "Then let's talk about these dreams."
He held out his hand.
I took it.
And somewhere, a thousand miles away, in a room I'd never seen, a figure opened their eyes and