The southern sky did not bleed the way our northern horizons did. In Leracal, when the sun dipped low against the glacier shelves, it stained the snow in shades of deep carmine and violet, a violent and familiar beauty that reminded a warrior exactly where his blood belonged. Here in Arnata, the sky simply faded into a pale, breathless amber, stretched thin like sheepskin parchment over an unforgiving desert. It was the season of the white night—a long, ghostly twilight where the darkness never fully settled, leaving the world suspended in a perpetual, exhausting haze.I stood by the arched balcony of the western pavilion, my hands resting heavily on the cool balustrade. The stone was smooth, polished sandstone, entirely unlike the rough-hewn granite of my homeland. My palms, calloused from years of gripping the hilt of a broadsword on frozen battlefields, felt out of place against such delicate architecture. Everything here was designed to hide the edges of things. The pillars were wrapped in heavy silk drapes; the floors were carpeted with thick, woven tapestries that muffled the sound of approaching footsteps; the air was thick with the cloying scent of burning myrrh and jasmine. It was an environment designed to make a man forget that he was a soldier, or a hostage, or a piece of political currency traded to secure a fragile peace.I pulled the heavy wool collar of my northern mantle tighter around my throat, a habit I could not seem to break despite the stifling southern heat. To the Arnatans, I was an anomaly—a towering barbarian from the jagged steppes, a creature of frost and iron trapped in their birdcage of gold and glass. They called me a consort, a spouse to the young Crown Prince Shuruka, but we both knew the truth. I was a living shield, a bargaining chip, and a warden all at once.A soft, rhythmic rustle of silk broke the silence of the corridor behind me. I did not need to turn my head to know who it was. The footsteps were too light, too hesitant to belong to any of the palace guards or the scheming viziers who prowled the court.