Chapter 1

Alcina has always known that her most significant value is her disposability.

Alcina was born into the great House Clair. It is a famed and noble House known for its gifted bloodline. Is peerless in its long tradition robust and hallowed abilities.

But delinquent to that fame, Alcina was born with neither a gift nor any other outstanding virtue.

She had known, early on, that her primary function in this life was to be the spare.

Alfred, her older brother, who, even among their revered bloodline, stood out with his tremendous gift as the most powerful telepath to exist in historical records. He would be the heir, and Alcina, his much lacking spare.

These are the facts, as they have been decided long, long ago.

Alcina knows this.

Alcina knows she is a useless and powerless runt who could bring no prestige to the name of the House that values reputation over all other things.

She's known that the most fabulous lot she could hope for in this life would be to hopefully be married off in some negotiation or another.

If she's lucky, it will be an important one; in that way, the marriage may bring some favor to her House.

If she's unlucky, it will be to a wealthy but otherwise invaluable family. Which will not benefit her House other than the fact that she would no longer be their burden.

Her most significant value is being a bartering chip, which is not even a precious one.

So, in some ways, her current circumstances are a fortune beyond what she could have hoped for in life.

An alliance that her House of Clair desperately desires. It is an honor above any station in life she could have ordinarily achieved.

That being wed or to cast off, as her mind keeps whispering traitorously, to Lord Brendan, who is apparently the heir of the most powerful House Warner.

Alcina's parents, indeed, have never considered her with such appraising eyes as in the last three months of the negotiations.

But nevertheless, there is a part of her, a not insubstantial part that cannot help but reel in disbelief and horror, that her parents could have truly bartered her off to Lord Brendan, the Shadowed Beast.

Lord Brendan was "gifted" with the most horrifying, frightening - monstrous – power to ever obtain by anyone.

He who rules over the darkness, over the shadows, wraiths, and those nightmares of which human fears are made.

Lord Brendan, who had been cast out by his own House and kingdom as an abomination, who they say is the most terrifying existence in all the land.

Existence, they say 'not man' because no one has ever referred to him as a man.

Instead, he is someone who undoubtedly was birthed from the hideous and vile things of the world, for how else could he wield the dreadful as his birthright?

They say that Lord Brendan is the most reviled and feared presence to have ever been born and that even to meet his gaze is the equivalent of succumbing to a fate worse than death.

Since his birth, Lord Brendan of House Warner has become synonymous with those frightful specters children fear in the night.

And now, Alcina is to marry this man.

She has not been able to sleep, not a single restful night. Ever since she first learned of the news. She is considered as a bargaining chip from her family to obtain power and is cast-off to marry the world's most feared man as a husband.

She does not know, even now, which is worse: that her fate is to be wed to the man that is referred to as the black nightmare by his own people, or that her parents found Alcina so unlovable that they could so quickly cast her off into the monster's lair.

Alcina had known all her life that her parents found her a disgrace upon their House. That she, reprehensibly ordinary and ungifted as she is, was only ever destined to be cast off.

But the heart is a fragile and stupid thing, for a lifetime of knowing her parents found her worthless, had still not prepared her to face the stunning reality that they honestly did not care for her, even in the slightest.

That they could care so little for her, to willingly toss her to the Shadowed Beast. In their eyes, power is more valuable than their own daughter.

At the least, she still has her two brothers - Alfred, her older brother by blood, and Nordin, her brother's intended.

Nordin hails from the wealthiest noble House in nearly all of The Ethereal Isles, whose family coffers alone could fund a third of the war. Nordin had been Alfred's closest confidante all throughout their youth, and now, the two are betrothed, to be wed this coming spring.

Being a gay couple, they faced a lot of criticism. They overcame everything and convinced the family that they both were meant to be. But what worked in their favor is that Nordin is a powerful man who can bring prestige and power to the House of Clair.

So with a lot of argument and silent treatment, they finally accepted their love for each other. Now Alfred and Nordin are the most envied couple in the Heartlands.

Alcina had never allowed herself the idiocy to ever dream of being permitted a love like theirs.

One of her few virtues is her ability to understand reality for precisely the damnable bitch that it is.

And her reality is not the one that would ever afford her the circumstances of such a fairy tale.

Alcina had been raised as Alfred's empty spare, but for every bit that her parents did not care for her, Alfred and Nordin cared twice as much.

That is to say, Alcina may not have known the love of her birth parents, but she had grown up with all the parental love and affection she could ask for, given to her by the two men she regards as both her older brothers.

In direct contrast to her parents, Alfred and Nordin have been nearly violently opposed to the engagement.

For the first time in their lives, Alfred vehemently opposed their parents when they announced their decision to wed Alcina to a nightmarish brute.

Even after the engagement ultimately proceeded above his protests, he has since been working tirelessly for eight weeks to find a way to break the engagement.

Nordin, likewise, has been staying beside herself with outrage and grief, in turns.

Alcina could almost find Nordin's rapidly cycling mood swings funny, but she was also in a similar state of panic and terror.

Alfred will not inherit the Throne for several years more.

However, the unfortunate but blisteringly truthful reality is that he and Nordin, for all of their future political power, are currently no more than mere pieces on the chessboard for the Duke and Duchess of House Clair's control.

House Clair has ruled the Heartlands - one of the five territories that comprise the land of The Ethereal Isles - for over three hundred years.

They have been one of the most politically prominent and influential houses and closely aligned with House Walton for nearly all of that time.

This family had, for centuries, ruled over all of The Ethereal Isles as the holders of the Red Throne.

House Walton, however, has long had a genetic predisposition for mental instability, precipitated by their fervent efforts to keep their "blood pure" that worsened as time went on.

The last ruler - the "mad king" - suffered from a bout of insanity in his final years, eventually compelling him to set fire to his home, trapping his own family within.

The Mad Massacre, having occurred only two years ago, eliminated the entirety of the Walton bloodline; the Red Throne is, to this day, still empty, and the power vacuum continues to grow larger and larger.

In the south, House Johnson and House Albrecht have already allied themselves and made evident their intent to place one of their own on the Red Throne.

House Arison, whose mountain territory is practically impenetrable, and House Warner, who holds the most tremendous military force of all the houses, are long-standing allied houses.

The Heartlands is a prosperous territory, but it is the one that has seen the stirrings of internal turbulence in the last few years, as lower classes grow discontent with social inequalities.

House Clair, then, must come out on the winning side of the war, or else the risk is they will collapse altogether.

The war for the Red Throne will spare no bystanders, and House Clair must secure the alliance with the Arison and Warner Houses if they are to remain in firm control of their own territory.

Shaky political alliances will not do; the Arison and Warner Houses have already been close allies for generations.

And Lord Brendan and his father, the ruling Alpha of the pack from House Warner, old and weakening, is poised to assume control of his kingdom any day now, and therefore the individual with whom the alliance must be forged.

This marriage is the only binding strong enough to secure House Clair's stability in the alliance.

Alcina may have only ever been raised as the spare to be discarded, but she is no fool. She knows that there is no way out of this.