For three days, we lived on a knife's edge. The dust cloud on the horizon had resolved itself into the unmistakable shape of an Imperial Legion, a smudge of doom that grew larger with every sunrise. By day, I was the dutiful daughter, arranging flowers for a festival that felt like a funeral dirge. By night, I threaded between the palace corridors, turning the King's own treasury into the city's salvation. The work was a fragile shield against the terror that hummed beneath the palace stones.
My family had fractured under the strain. Akram had retreated into a world of silent, aesthetic dread. I would find him in the royal aviary for hours, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the iridescent plumage of a sunbird, as if the bird were a memory he was trying to recall rather than a living thing before him. I would leave him there at dusk and find him in the same spot at dawn, the light changed but his posture unaltered, as though the night had passed without touching him.
Then there was Ermias. The Captain reported that the disgraced Elder moved through the city with an unnerving calm, as if he didn't see the walls being fortified or the public ledgers being erected. He couldn't get to my father directly, but I knew he was weaving a web. His malice needed a hand to wield it.
I watched them from a balcony as they spoke in the gardens. Kareem, so young when our mother died, had grown up in a court without warmth, without love. He was a hollow thing, filled only with a desperate need for our father's approval. He saw no one else as a person because he had never been treated as one himself. As Ermias spoke, his words a conspiratorial whisper, I saw Kareem's posture straighten, his face alight with a vicious purpose. Ermias had given him more than just a plan; he had given him a path to my father's favor.
The sharp knock on my chamber door shattered the morning's fragile peace. A young guard, his face pale as bleached bone, stood in the doorway. It was Kaelen, a man loyal to the Captain. "A Council has been called. His Majesty requires your presence, Your Highness."
The throne room was filled with a chilling silence. My father sat on his throne, his knuckles white where he gripped the armrests. Kareem stood at his side, a triumphant smirk on his lips. The Captain of the Guard was there, his face drawn taut, along with Elders Theron, Qasim, and Lykos, who looked like men already standing on the gallows. And there, at the center of it all, was Ermias.
"Princess," Ermias said, his voice dripping with false deference. "Thank you for joining us. We are just discussing the matter of the city's imminent betrayal."
He began with a sickening kindness, praising my "deep concern" for the city's welfare. He held out hope that I was merely a pawn, misled by more sinister forces. Then he turned his attention to Nadim, painting him as a charismatic criminal who had bewitched the city with his "dark arts," a cancer that had spread from the prison to the very heart of the Council.
With the King's eyes locked on him, Ermias's voice became a blade. He pointed a long, accusatory finger at Lykos. "You, old soldier, so easily swayed by a convict's talk of tactics. Did he promise you a command in his new order?" He turned to Qasim, who flinched. "And you, merchant. Did he offer you a cut of the treasury you so readily helped him and the Princess loot?" His gaze fell on Theron, his voice softening with false pity. "And you, pious Theron. Did he twist your precious laws so cleverly that you mistook treason for righteousness?" Finally, his eyes settled on the Captain. "And you, Captain. Sworn to protect the King, yet you became the personal bodyguard to a felon, allowing him to roam the city and poison the minds of the people. Your betrayal is the deepest of all."
The Elders and the Captain stood frozen, their faces paling under the sting of his perfectly constructed lies.
Finally, he turned to me. "And our dear Princess, in her innocence, was used to fund this treason," he announced. "She has been systematically draining the royal treasury."
"Lies!" Theron boomed, finding his voice. "The Princess has acted with the full authority of the Council, under the provisions of the Civic Safety Act!"
Ermias simply smiled. "Ah, yes. The paperwork." He gestured to the doorway, and two of Kareem's guards entered, dragging a trembling, weeping Lukan between them. The exchequer clutched a stack of ledgers to his chest like a shield.
"Lukan," Ermias said gently. "Please inform His Majesty what the Princess ordered you to do with the funds for his monument."
"She… she made me redirect them," Lukan sobbed, collapsing to his knees. "Stone for the walls, timber for barricades, grain for the granaries… She cited the Civic Safety Act! The seal was correct! The procedure was… irregular, but lawful!"
It was all my father needed to hear. He rose from his throne, his face darkening to a bruised purple. "Lawful?" he shrieked. "There is only one law! My will! You have all conspired against me! Traitors!" He pointed a trembling finger at us. "A scaffold. In the main square. I want the entire city to watch you die at dawn!"
But as my father's furious gaze fell upon me, it faltered. The rage in his eyes broke against something older—a flicker of memory, the shadow of evenings when I was small enough to sit on his knee and trace the lines of his signet ring. His mouth worked soundlessly. He turned away from me, then back again, as though the very sight of my face was a wound he could not decide to touch or to cover.
"She has conspired," he muttered, almost to himself, gripping the armrest so hard the wood groaned, "and yet… she is the blood of the late Queen." His voice rose, thick with a confusion that unsettled the court more than his fury. "What king would I be, to kill my own daughter? And what king would I be, to spare her?" He pressed a hand to his brow as though the crown had suddenly grown heavier.
Kareem stepped into that hesitation with the poise of a predator closing in. "Father, your justice must be clear—but so must your love for the Royal House. Let the others hang. Let the city see the penalty for treachery. But her? Give her the dignity her station demands. Not the crude mockery of a public scaffold, but the quiet grace of a silken cord, high in the tower. Let it be known you acted not in cruelty, but in sorrow."
My father's eyes closed, his head bowing as if he were listening to some inner council. When he looked up again, the war between grief and wrath had found its uneasy truce. "Yes," he whispered, tasting the word like a bitter medicine. "Dignity. She will have a royal death."
Kareem stepped smoothly into the silence again. "Wise Father, your judgment is swift and just." he said, voice smooth as poured oil. "She will have grace and finality. A sorrowful necessity that preserves the dignity of the Royal House."
Ermias stepped forward, bowing low. "A just and merciful sentence, Your Majesty. As for the convict Nadim, a scaffold is too noble. I request the honor of dealing with him myself. The assassins I sent before were amateurs. This time, I will send professionals. He will not see the sunrise."
My father waved a dismissive hand, his mind already consumed with the spectacle of our executions. The guards moved in. Two of them approached the Captain, their movements slow, their eyes downcast. They did not bind his hands. He met their gaze, and a silent, grim understanding passed between them. He walked out of the throne room a prisoner, but still their commander.
The Elders were a study in collapse. Qasim fell to his knees, weeping and pleading for his life and fortune. Lykos stood ramrod straight, his jaw set, a soldier meeting his end with stony defiance. Theron closed his eyes and began to chant a prayer to the sun in tragic resignation.
I did not weep. I held my head high as two of Kareem's personal guards took my arms. They led me not to the dungeons, but toward the high tower, the scaffold prepared for me alone. Our desperate, brilliant plan was in ruins. We were no longer conspirators. We were condemned.