📍 Chapter 61 – Queens Don't Kneel
Blood stained Zara's hands as she pressed a folded cloth against Lord Rulin's chest. His eyes fluttered, unfocused. The hallway around them was too quiet now — the kind of silence that comes after chaos, like a room trying to catch its breath after screaming.
She kept whispering to him.
"Stay awake. The healers are coming. Just hold on."
But even as she spoke, her voice was strained. Her arms trembled. Her back ached.
Her child stirred inside her — not with a kick, but with something deeper. A tug of instinct. Her body was trying to protect something greater than herself.
Zaire had vanished into the palace to deliver the ledger. Varyn would be waiting. They'd expose the Queen. Stop the coup. End this.
But Zara knew better.
This wasn't the end.
This was the beginning of the storm.
---
Footsteps echoed down the corridor — fast, sharp, deliberate.
Zara reached for her dagger and held it low.
Three figures appeared around the corner.
Not guards.
Women.
Dressed in long servant robes, but their eyes were wrong. Focused. Too sharp. One carried a velvet pouch. Another had what looked like a thin cord of rope, hidden partially beneath her sleeve.
Assassins.
Zara stood up slowly, keeping her body between them and Lord Rulin.
"I'd turn around if I were you," she said calmly.
The tallest woman smiled. "He's already dead. Why waste the effort?"
"He's not dead," Zara said. "But you will be if you take one more step."
No fear in her voice.
Her pulse, though, was another matter.
She could feel it thudding in her throat.
She tightened her grip on the dagger.
The women didn't charge.
They fanned out.
Left. Right. Center.
"Cowards don't send swords," Zara said. "They send ghosts in gowns."
One of them snarled. "You talk too much."
"Maybe," Zara whispered. "But you came for the wrong woman."
The assassin on the right lunged.
Zara ducked and slashed low, drawing a line of red across the woman's thigh. She screamed and staggered back.
The middle one struck next—hands fast as vipers. Zara twisted, barely dodging the blow to her face. She stumbled, caught herself, and struck with the hilt of the dagger, landing it hard against the woman's jaw.
The third tried to circle behind.
Zara spun, kicked backward, and slammed her elbow into the woman's ribs. A crack. A cry.
But her legs buckled.
Pain shot up her side.
She gasped and steadied herself on the wall.
Her child.
She touched her stomach protectively.
Not now. Please, not now.
She backed against the wall, dagger raised again. Her arms trembled from the effort. She was strong—but she wasn't built for this kind of fight.
One of the women tried to stand.
Then—
A voice cut through the air like a sword.
"Enough."
Leva.
She appeared in the corridor like a ghost herself. Dressed in deep plum robes, her face pale, her expression unreadable.
The assassins froze.
Leva walked between them like she owned them.
"She's not yours," Leva said softly. "Not today."
One of the women hissed. "You don't give us orders."
"I do now."
Zara stared in shock as Leva raised her hand — and three guards appeared from the opposite end of the corridor.
Real ones.
Leva gave a slight nod.
"Take them. Alive."
The assassins fought.
But they were outnumbered, and this time, caught off guard. They were disarmed within minutes, dragged down the corridor screaming curses.
Zara slumped to the floor beside Rulin, panting.
Leva knelt beside her, gently checking her wrist.
"You're bleeding," she said.
"I'm pregnant," Zara whispered. "And I just fought three assassins. What do you think?"
Leva actually smiled. "Then you're the most dangerous woman in this palace."
---
Zaire returned fifteen minutes later.
He found Zara sitting with a bandaged wrist, Lord Rulin conscious but weak beside her, and Leva standing guard like a silent wall.
"What happened?" he demanded.
Zara stood slowly. "Assassins. Sent by your mother, I assume."
Zaire's face went blank with rage.
"She sent them *here*?"
"They disguised themselves as healers," Leva said quietly. "I intercepted them before they got to the infirmary."
Zaire turned to her. "Why are you helping us?"
Leva didn't blink. "Because I want to live."
Zaire stared. "That's it?"
Leva tilted her head. "And because I like her." She nodded toward Zara.
Zara sighed. "We got the ledger. We have the names. The payments. Even the plan for the poison."
Zaire nodded. "It's done, then. I'll bring it to the five nobles tonight. And tomorrow, the Queen will fall."
---
But of course, it didn't go that simply.
Nothing ever did.
---
That night, as the private council gathered under high secrecy, Zara stayed behind with Leva and Varyn.
She sat in the war room, hands resting gently over her stomach, listening as Varyn read the full list of conspirators from the Queen's ledgers.
The room fell silent afterward.
"You've survived every trap she laid," Varyn said. "That should terrify her."
"It won't," Zara said. "She thinks I'm still just a girl who married the wrong prince."
"You're not."
Zara looked at him. "I'm a mother. That makes me more dangerous than she'll ever be."
---
At midnight, Zaire returned.
His face told her everything.
"They voted?" she asked.
He nodded. "Unanimously."
"And?"
"She'll be arrested by morning. Quietly. She won't see it coming."
Zara exhaled.
Finally.
Zaire crossed the room and dropped to his knees before her again, resting his head gently against her belly.
"You saved the kingdom," he whispered. "Both of you."
She ran her fingers through his hair.
"We're not finished yet," she said. "But we're close."
---
That night, as she drifted off beside Zaire, her hand curled protectively over her belly, she whispered a quiet promise to the child inside her.
"You'll be born into a kingdom I bled for. And I'll never stop protecting you. Not even if I have to burn this palace down myself."
And the child kicked.
Strong.
Alive.
Ready.