THE OATH OF TWO CROWNS: The Arranged Marriage They Hated, and the Love Nobody Planned

Stacy Gyan Romance

THE OATH OF TWO CROWNSThey were promised to each other before they were born. They hated the arrangement. But nobody planned for them to fall in love.CHAPTER ONETwo Cradles, One OathThe storm that swept across the Kingdom of Val on the ninth night of winter cared nothing for crowns, and neither did the two babies born beneath it.In the northern stronghold of Valmere, where the mountains stood like black teeth against the sky, Duchess Lysandra Vaner lay exhausted among the furs of her bedchamber and listened to the thin, furious cry of her newborn son. Her husband, Duke Aldric Vaner, stood at the window watching lightning split the peaks. He was the lord of the north, master of its iron mines and its mountain passes, a man known for a face carved from the same stone as his fortress. But when the midwife placed the child in his arms, the stone cracked."Kealen," he said hoarsely. "His name is Kealen."Far to the south, in the golden city of Valvera, where the sea wind carried the scent of orange groves into the palace, Princess Maren Serbio gave one final cry, and a second wail rose to meet the thunder. Her husband, Prince Oswin Serbio, ruler of the southern coast and its great harbors, laughed aloud like a boy at his own wedding."A daughter," the physician announced."Aria," Maren whispered, as a tiny fist curled around her finger. "Her name is Aria."Two babies. Two storms. A mountain range and nine hundred miles apart. And before the week was out, their futures would be bound together.The trouble, as every lord in Val understood, was the Draven family.Marek Draven had been a minor baron of the eastern marches, a man nobody noticed until the day nobody could stop noticing him. In fifteen years he had bought, bribed, and bullied his way into control of the eastern grain roads, three river ports, and the loyalty of half the knights in the realm. He was patient and cold and entirely without mercy. And King Hadrian, old and ailing, with no son to follow him, had grown too weak to hold the great lords in check.For four generations, the Vaners of the north and the Serbios of the south had despised each other. They quarreled over tolls, borders, and brides, and over who had saved the kingdom in the last war. But every time they weakened one another, Draven quietly picked up the pieces.Six days after the storm, Duke Aldric rode south with a small guard and a heavy conviction he did not enjoy.Prince Oswin received him in a sunlit hall of white stone, with a table laid for a feast neither man would touch."You have come a long way to be insulted," Oswin said, "so I assume you did not come to insult me.""I came to end our feud," Aldric replied, "before Draven ends it for us."For two hours the old rivals spoke with a frankness they had never allowed one another. They laid out the arithmetic of their ruin. If north and south stayed divided, Draven would own both within a generation. Alliances sworn between lords were only words, and words could be broken when interests shifted. Treaties burned. Bargains soured."Something stronger than a treaty," Oswin said slowly.Aldric looked at him. "I have a son. You have a daughter. Neither has yet seen a week of life."The silence stretched until the fountain in the courtyard seemed deafening."A betrothal," Oswin said at last. "Sworn at birth.""Bound by blood and sealed by the Crown. Their children would inherit both lands. There would be no north and no south. Only one house that no third power could divide."Oswin walked to the window. Below, the orange trees rolled down toward the harbor in neat dark rows. He thought of his daughter, a small furious creature with a voice like a trumpet, and of the life other people were about to draw for her."It is a terrible thing you ask," he said."Yes," Aldric agreed. "It is also the only thing that works."They swore the oath nine days later in the royal throne room before King Hadrian himself. The words were written on vellum, sealed in red wax, and locked in the Crown vault. Duchess Lysandra and Princess Maren, told afterward, each felt something cold settle in her chest. But the lords had already decided. The kingdom had spoken.In two different cradles, in two different castles, Kealen Vaner and Aria Serbio slept on, entirely unaware that they had already been promised to each other.Kealen grew up in a house of stone and silence.Frostkeep, the seat of the Vaners, clung to a mountain ridge above Valmere, all high windows, long corridors, and echoing halls. Tutors taught him swordsmanship at six, statecraft at eight, and the cold art of the unreadable face before he could properly buckle his own boots. His father believed that a ruler was forged, not born, and he forged his son accordingly.Kealen learned early to hide what he felt. When he fell from his pony at seven and broke his wrist, he did not cry, because Vaner men did not cry. His mother found him in the stable afterward, cradling his arm and trembling with the effort of holdi

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