Three days had passed since the assassination attempt. Three days since I shattered the mask of the perfect heir.
Three days of carefully crafted silence.
Not a single noble confronted me. Not one dared bring up the attack. But I saw it—in the narrowed eyes at court, the hesitant curtsies, the sudden drop in invitations to "casual" gatherings meant to test my pliability. They were retreating.
Plotting.
Waiting for me to falter.
So I did what my ancestors never would.
I started listening.
Late into the night, I walked the outer corridors of the palace alone. Not through the golden halls, but through the servant tunnels, the storage vaults, the forgotten balconies that overlooked the city's lowest wings.
I heard things.
A young kitchen boy whispering about missing salt rations in the Lower Wards.
A maid crying quietly over a friend who had vanished after questioning a tax decree.
A stablehand who murmured about the night he saw a nobleman disposing of something heavy into the Skywater.
Things no one wanted me to hear.
Things no queen was meant to care about.
But I did.
Because the crown they forged for me was too heavy. Too old.
And if they expected me to rule with blind eyes and deaf ears, they'd misjudged their monster.
"Why do you walk these halls alone?" Rael asked, stepping from a hidden alcove like he belonged to the shadows.
I didn't startle. I was used to his sudden arrivals now.
"Because no one thinks to look for a queen in the dark," I said.
His eyes searched mine. "That's where the knives wait."
"Then perhaps it's where I belong."
We stood there in the soft, torchlit hush.
He didn't move.
I didn't breathe.
"I heard about the port closures," I said. "Supplies aren't reaching the southern provinces. That's why the orphanage fires started. No coal for heat. Just open flame and desperation."
"Most rulers would not concern themselves with coal and orphans."
"I am not most rulers."
A long silence.
Then, softly, he said, "You are becoming something dangerous, Lazaria."
"Good."
"I didn't mean it as a warning."
My pulse quickened.
I stepped past him toward the balcony, looking out over the floating lights of Caeloreth. So beautiful. So sick beneath the silk.
"Tell me something, Rael," I said without looking back. "If I burned this empire to the ground… would you still stand beside me?"
His voice came like gravel and thunder.
"If you burn it for the right reasons… I'll light the first torch."
It began with silence.
The kind of silence that slips into a throne room like a ghost—unseen, but cold on the skin.
My fingers tapped once on the carved ivory armrest. "Say it again," I said.
The Minister of Borders swallowed. "There was an explosion in Aerhold, Your Grace. A trade tower leveled. Fifty-seven dead. No survivors. And… no signs of a skyship malfunction."
A planned detonation. An act of war.
I rose slowly. "Who would dare attack our trade towers?"
He hesitated.
Rael answered for him from the shadows.
"Your cousin."
I turned.
"What?"
Rael stepped forward, face unreadable. "Prince Thalan has moved forces near the eastern skyrail. His crest was seen on an escaping skiff just before the tower fell."
I stared at the map sprawled across the council table. Aerhold. A critical port. My cousin—once third in line—now ambitious, embittered, and exiled to a post he loathed.
"Summon the High Council," I said. "And lock down the port cities. Nothing leaves the empire."
Myria, seated in silence until now, lifted her head. "Lazaria… this would be declaring civil war."
"No." I met her gaze. "They declared it the moment they sent fire instead of words."
She nodded once. "Then we will make sure your fire answers louder."
As the others departed to prepare, Rael lingered behind. His eyes found mine again.
"You've made your first move as queen," he said.
"I made it as a sister betrayed."
"And what will you do… if he comes here?"
I didn't hesitate.
"I'll show him why Mother called me her second-born blade."
He studied me for a long moment.
"You're changing," he murmured.
I turned my head slightly. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"No," he said softly. "But change always comes at a cost."
I moved to the window then, looking out at the skyships mobilizing below, dark clouds gathering behind them like a mirror of the unrest forming inside me.
For the first time, I saw it clearly—the future they had never meant for me.
A throne built on ashes.
A name sung through teeth gritted with fear and respect.
Lazaria Velmira Noctis. Queen. Sister. Storm.
And if Prince Thalan wanted a war—
I would give him one he'd never survive.
I used to think the throne was made of gold.
It isn't.
It's bone.
Bone and memory and the ghosts of every queen before me.
Today, I sat on it not as a daughter or a sister—but as the sovereign of a kingdom already beginning to bleed.
The council chamber buzzed with tension. Lords and strategists debated on maps like gods carving lands with ink and indifference. I watched, silent, memorizing every twitch of false concern, every sideways glance meant to measure how fragile my reign truly was.
They still saw a girl in a gown, not the storm I'd become.
Until I spoke.
"We do not wait for Prince Thalan to burn another tower," I said, cold and clear. "We take control of the eastern skyrails. Now."
General Varreth frowned. "Your Grace, such an action would provoke—"
"He already provoked us," I cut in. "Fifty-seven of our people are dead. He made his move. I'm making mine."
A silence spread, thick and unsure.
Then Rael stepped forward from behind me, his voice the weight of unyielding steel. "Her Majesty is right."
I glanced at him, surprised. He had never taken my side in public before—not like this.
Varreth grunted. "And what would a guard know of empire?"
Rael's mouth curved into something like a smile. "Only how it falls when ruled by cowards."
The room froze.
And just like that, the tide shifted.
Myria suppressed a grin behind her hand.
The rest of the council fell in line.
After the session ended, I escaped to the eastern wing gardens. I needed air. Space to breathe.
Rael found me there, standing beneath the lantern trees, their blossoms silver in the dusk.
"You surprised me today," I murmured.
"I spoke the truth," he said. "And the truth needed weight."
"Do you believe in me?" I asked, quieter than I meant.
He turned to face me fully. "I don't follow rulers. I follow fire."
"And what do you see when you look at me?"
He stepped closer—so close I could feel the heat of him, the danger beneath his stillness.
"I see the spark that will either save this empire… or set it ablaze."
His hand brushed mine—just barely. Barely enough to burn.
And then he walked away.
Leaving me in the garden with my pulse racing, and the kingdom beneath my skin trembling.
The first time I learned to smile while bleeding was at a coronation.
The second was today.
By dusk, the Grand Hall had transformed into a theatre of silk and false laughter. A feast held under the guise of unity, masking the tremor of war vibrating through the empire's spine.
I wore crimson. Not because I liked it—but because it reminded them whose blood would spill if they dared challenge me.
Rael stood at his post beside the throne, unreadable. He hadn't spoken to me since the garden, but I could feel him. A quiet force. Like gravity. Like danger that had chosen not to kill me—yet.
Lady Aranel approached, all honeyed words and teeth. "Your Majesty, what a triumph of a gathering. You've turned dread into a celebration."
"Not dread, my lady. Anticipation," I said, sipping the wine I hadn't touched all evening. "It tastes the same—until it doesn't."
Her smile faltered just enough to satisfy me.
Behind her, two nobles argued over trade routes. Another discreetly passed a bribe masked as a gift. I saw everything. I remembered everything.
I wasn't just wearing the crown tonight.
I was the crown.
When I finally escaped, it was to the war room, where maps still lay waiting and candles burned low. I didn't expect him to follow me—but of course, he did.
"Why do you always find me when I most want to be alone?" I asked without turning.
Rael's voice came low behind me. "Because that's when you're most honest."
I stared at the pin pushed into Aerhold's map point. "He's daring me to be ruthless."
"You were born ruthless," he said quietly. "You've just never had permission to be."
I turned to him.
The air between us tightened. His presence was sharper in the dark. Not a soldier. Not a man. Something forged from ruin and obedience and silence.
"You look at me like I'm not what they see," I whispered.
"You're not."
"What do you see, Rael?"
He took a step closer. "A girl forced to carry a blade before she could lift her voice. A woman they caged with expectations, but who never stopped watching for the lock to break."
I looked at his mouth—at the part of him that never smiled.
And then I said something I never intended to.
"I think I trust you."
His eyes locked on mine like a sword drawn in moonlight.
"Then you're either braver than I thought…" His voice dipped. "…or more dangerous."
I didn't move.
Neither did he.
But something cracked open in the silence between us.
Not love. Not yet.
But recognition.
Two weapons, polished differently—finally seeing the reflection in each other.
I didn't cry when I was crowned.
Not when they bound my hair in the ceremonial braids, nor when the weight of the empire pressed cold against my skull.
But now, in the dead hush of my chambers, I felt it rising—the tight burn behind my eyes, the ache between my ribs. Not grief. Not fear. Something lonelier.
I unfastened the pins from my shoulders, one by one. The gown crumpled to the floor like shed skin. My body bore the marks of statecraft: bruises from training, a cut near my hip from sparring, scars from years pretending I wasn't soft where it mattered.
I moved to the mirror.
There she was.
Me.
Not the princess. Not the queen.
Just Lazaria.
Rael's voice echoed in my mind—"You've never had permission to be ruthless."
He was wrong.
I didn't need permission.
I needed to survive.
There was a knock at the door. Three short, precise raps. Him.
I opened it without asking why.
Rael stood there, eyes sweeping over me in my simple linen shift, no armor, no crown. Just flesh and bone and exhaustion.
"You shouldn't be here," I said.
He stepped in anyway. "And yet."
I didn't stop him.
He didn't touch me. He never did, not without purpose.
Instead, he reached for the discarded gown and began folding it. A silent act. Almost reverent.
"I heard from Myria," he said. "Thalan's ships crossed into Faryn skies."
"Then we prepare."
He looked up at me then. "No. First, you rest."
I let out a quiet laugh—bitter and small. "Queens don't get to rest."
"You're not just a queen tonight."
"What am I, then?"
His answer was almost a whisper.
"Human."
The word hit harder than I expected.
I sat on the edge of the bed, fingers digging into the sheets. "Do you think I'm strong enough?"
"No."
My eyes snapped up to his.
"I think you're already breaking," he said calmly. "But I also think you'll choose to break in the direction that saves everyone but yourself."
"Is that loyalty or warning?"
"It's truth."
I nodded slowly. "Stay."
He didn't hesitate. He removed his weapons, leaned them carefully by the door, and sat in the chair by the hearth like a shadow keeping watch.
I laid down, finally, and for the first time in days, closed my eyes.
And I knew—I wasn't safe.
Not from war. Not from Thalan.
Not even from him.
But I was less alone.
And maybe that was enough to fight tomorrow.