Chapter 24 · He Steps Into Her Fire

Rowan didn't make it to the chapel.

He got three corridors in before the contract started dying in his pocket. He felt it go—sharp, cold, like a tooth cracking. He pulled the folded parchment out. The ink was bleeding gray. The marriage clauses were already smoke.

Thirty days.

They'd burned through twenty-nine.

He looked back toward the Ash Court's iron doors. Wantang was in there. Alone. The flame was already lit.

Find the vial, she'd said. But if he ran to the chapel now, if he tore apart the offering shelves and found the real draught—what then? The tribunal guards wouldn't let him through those doors. Contract spouses weren't allowed in the soul trial. That was the law. That was the whole point.

The parchment crumbled at one edge. The bloodline clause—the one his mother had made him swear to preserve—curled black.

Rowan closed his fist around it.

Then he turned and walked back.

The guards saw him coming. One stepped forward, halberd angled.