In the novel he was the villain who set the imperial palace alight on the Coronation Feast and died for it. And the fiancee whose name is written on that contract is me. With the appointed day already counting down, can I quench the flame he swallowed one ember at a time and write a different ending?
I woke up already engaged to Eden von Cardian. In the novel I'd finished cover to cover, this man is the villainous archduke's heir whose flame crest runs wild, burns half the empire to ash, and sends him to the scaffold. The days left until his scheduled ruin are counted exactly, and every foreshadowing sits in my head, set in print. Here, knowing the original isn't prophecy. It's a fire extinguisher. Each ember traces back to the event that lit it, and I have to go back to that event, cover it or expose it or stand in its way, and put them out one by one. But in this world rank and reputation are currency, so every ember I smother shaves something off what I own. And there's one more problem. Every time Eden smiles, one more line appears that the novel never had. The more those lines accumulate, written into life outside the printed page, the more useless the ending I know becomes. Do I save him before the last fire starts, or do I trust the lines he writes himself?
- The night Eden burns the betrothal contract with a sneer, and you catch the faint tremor in the hand that holds the ash. The first crack under the villain's arrogance.
- One line remembered from the novel is enough. You know where he means to set the next fire before he has told a soul, and you step into his path by candlelight.
- On the night of ruin, before a burning throne, the man written to die as the empire's final villain takes hold of your wrist instead of his sword and says the thing no page ever gave him: "You are the one thing I will not burn."
The night Eden burns the betrothal contract with a sneer, and you catch the faint tremor in the hand that holds the ash. The first crack under the villain's arrogance.
