Opening
As tensions sharpen inside and beyond the palace walls, Paedyn Gray plays a dangerous double game—charming princes while hunting secrets for the Resistance. Her bond with Kitt Azer deepens just as her path collides with his brother, igniting a charged intimacy and a shifting battlefield that tests loyalties, bodies, and hearts.
What Happens
Chapter 36: A Seed of Doubt
In the castle kitchen, Paedyn and Kitt toss chocolates and banter with an ease that feels like friendship—and weighs like guilt. Paedyn leverages Kitt’s confessed desire for freedom to suggest they slip into Loot together, framing it as a future king’s duty to know his people. Her real aim is sharper: probe for unguarded exits and locate the tunnels, a calculated push in the game of Deception and Hidden Identities.
Kitt admits there are ways out and promises to consider it, but King Edric arrives and freezes the moment. He dismisses Kitt and corners Paedyn, sneering at her chances in the Trials and forbidding her influence over his sons—an overt display of Power and Oppression. He forces her to say the phrase she hates: “Thank the Plague.” The humiliation hardens Paedyn’s resolve; winning becomes a mission of Revenge and Justice.
Preparing for the next ball, Adena outfits Paedyn in a scarlet dress slit high enough to flash her father’s dagger. With Ellie’s help and Lenny’s teasing “Princess,” Paedyn heads into a night where politics, performance, and temptation blur.
Chapter 37: The Drunken Prince
In the garden-lit glow, Paedyn and Kitt dance easily—until Blair Archer cuts in. Paedyn steps away and collides with a wine-soaked Kai Azer, who erupts into cackling laughter, drawing eyes from every terrace. Concerned, she drags him beneath a willow and dabs at the stain while he confesses he drank because he saw her with his brother. The willow becomes a sanctuary where Forbidden Love and Romance prickles to life as Kai traces her lip with his thumb. She stops him—no touching while drunk—and, convinced he’ll forget, says he may touch her when he’s sober. He leads her back to the floor. She praises his real smile, and he offers his full name: Malakai.
Crushed in the crowd and corseted tight, Paedyn spirals into a panic attack. The moment sobers Kai instantly. He hustles her beneath the willow, loosens her laces with swift, competent hands, and waits while she steadies. He reties the dress carefully, then escorts her toward her room, admitting he could get used to being a gentleman—for her.
Chapter 38: Brotherly Bonds and Brawls
From Kai’s perspective, the night blurs with drink as he and Kitt watch their parents dancing; Kitt notes it’s the happiest their father has seemed in years. Talk turns to Kai’s Enforcer missions, including the hunt for an Ordinary child. Kai quietly reveals his line in the sand: he will not kill children. He banishes them with their families instead, a private act of conscience that pits Duty vs. Morality.
The brothers circle around Paedyn. Kitt admits she intrigues him—he wants to know her “for longer.” Kai, lavender clinging to his wine-stained shirt, refuses to unpack his own feelings, muttering he isn’t drunk enough for it. Trumpets cut the conversation short: the guests are herded to the training grounds for a surprise. Tealah announces an impromptu brawl with randomized pairings. As Kai joins the contestants, Kitt claps him on the shoulder: don’t die.
Chapter 39: A Slummer’s Pride
Lenny hustles Paedyn to the yard, where weapons are forbidden and pride becomes a weapon of its own. Matches explode: Kai drops Braxton despite the alcohol; Andy shifts to a wolf and thrashes Ace. Paedyn draws Blair. Before she enters the ring, Kai pulls her aside and murmurs the only strategy that matters: stay light, distract her.
Blair toys with Paedyn, telekinetically slinging blades until one slashes Paedyn’s cheek. Paedyn commits to the distraction plan. She surges forward, gets lifted and slammed, then feints: a thrown knife and a rock split Blair’s attention long enough for Paedyn to tackle her. Two hard punches break Blair’s nose. Enraged and humiliated—beaten physically by a “Slummer”—Blair hurls Paedyn off and storms away. Paedyn laughs from the dirt, blood on her cheek and triumph in her grin; even in “defeat,” she cracks Elite superiority and proves she’s dangerous.
Chapter 40: Plummet Mountain
Kai wakes on a mountainside with a pounding skull and a note inked on his hand: She said I could touch her when I’m sober. He, Andy, Blair, and Braxton have been drugged and dumped on Plummet Mountain for Trial Two. A message orders them to reach the summit in twelve hours in teams.
Kai’s team—him, Andy, Blair, Braxton—reeks of the king’s design: former opponents forced into cooperation. They climb through bitter wind and bickering until a nest of massive snakes erupts. During the scramble, a snake bites Andy. Kai borrows Blair’s power and lashes the serpents away, then checks Andy’s pallor and trembling leg. She insists she can walk; he refuses. He crouches, hauls her onto his back, and starts up the stone, carrying more than just the team’s chances.
Character Development
The section peels back armor—emotional and literal—revealing loyalties in flux and private codes that defy public roles.
- Paedyn Gray: Weaponizes charm to nudge Kitt toward the tunnels; endures the king’s degradation and converts it into drive; suffers a panic attack that exposes buried trauma; outplays Blair with grit and strategy instead of power.
- Kai Azer: Drops his mask in drunken honesty; shows swift, tender competence during Paedyn’s panic; admits a moral boundary as Enforcer; carries Andy, stepping into protective leadership under pressure.
- Kitt Azer: Opens to Paedyn and absorbs a seed of doubt about the crown’s isolation; admits growing feelings, setting a collision course with his brother.
- King Edric: Wields humiliation as control; engineers team dynamics to inflame conflict; treats the Trials as spectacle and social enforcement.
- Blair Archer: Flaunts superiority, then cracks when Paedyn bloodies her; forced into reluctant teamwork on the mountain, her pride stings more than her injuries.
- Andy: Resilient and steady; even wounded, she becomes the teammate Kai refuses to leave behind.
Themes & Symbols
Masks slip, but identities remain perilous. Deception threads through Paedyn’s calculated rapport with Kitt and her own performance at court, where the ballroom turns into a stage of personas. When Kai drinks, the mask falls—revealing a man whose actions contradict his job—and the willow tree becomes a sanctuary for truth. Power structures bite back: the king’s coercion, the public brawl, and engineered teams underline how control operates through humiliation, surveillance, and forced spectacle. Meanwhile, conscience complicates duty; Kai’s refusal to execute children redraws the moral map from inside the regime.
Symbols underline these tensions. Paedyn’s red dress—a blaze of visibility with a flash of her father’s dagger—embodies defiance wrapped in elegance. The willow shelters honesty in a world of eyes. The brawl literalizes social hierarchy as blood sport, while Plummet Mountain compresses rivalries into survival, turning enemies into reluctant lifelines. Even the inked note on Kai’s hand reframes desire as consent and memory—a promise he chooses to keep.
Key Quotes
“Thank the Plague.”
- Forced by the king to utter a phrase she despises, Paedyn’s humiliation crystallizes into resolve. The line spotlights the monarchy’s ritualized cruelty and marks the moment survival becomes a mission for justice.
“Stay on your toes... Distract her.”
- Kai’s advice acknowledges Paedyn’s strengths: speed, improvisation, and nerve. It’s not about out-powering an Elite; it’s about out-thinking one—an approach Paedyn executes perfectly.
“She said I could touch her when I’m sober.”
- Inked on Kai’s hand, the memory binds restraint to desire. It turns intoxicated flirtation into a sober, consensual promise—and keeps Paedyn present with him on the mountain.
“I find myself wanting to know her for longer.”
- Kitt’s confession deepens the triangle and foreshadows fraternal conflict. His words also show how Paedyn’s authenticity—real or performed—reaches past the court’s polite facades.
“I like your real smile.”
- Paedyn’s compliment pierces Kai’s performance. Naming his “real” self invites him to step out from behind the Enforcer mask—and he does when it matters.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters pivot the story from flirtation to consequence. Paedyn plants doubt in Kitt while edging closer to the tunnels, even as the king marks her as a threat. The brawl exposes raw fault lines—class contempt, public spectacle, private allegiance—then the second Trial weaponizes those tensions, forcing enemies to depend on one another. The romance accelerates alongside politics: Kai’s moral line and tender competence recast him as more than the crown’s fist, while Kitt’s confession locks in the love triangle that will test blood and loyalty. Paedyn’s panic and her triumph over Blair deepen her character: vulnerable, strategic, unyielding. Together, these chapters set the emotional stakes and tactical alliances that will shape every choice to come.