She was the second son’s daughter. The candle at the end of the table never reached her. Her grandfather called her “Cod”—the most useless thing in the Greyson family.
Then Victoria came. A knight’s daughter from the North. She brought a sword, cut off the eldest grandson’s braid, flipped the banquet table, and burned the old rules to the ground.
The grandfather gave two choices: divorce Victoria, or leave with nothing. Thomas chose nothing.
Five of them. One broken fishing boat. A dot on the map called Grass Mountain.
Three years later, the smell of their meat crossed three seas. Five years later, a royal charter landed on their dock. And the boy who broke her wooden sword was dragged away in chains for poisoning an envoy.
Chris took the shark ring. Chloe took her paints to the capital.
“I’ll stand backstage,” she said. “And light the lamps one by one.”
The day the family portrait went up, a letter arrived. One line: “Did you think William was the only one who wanted you gone?”
