The throne room of the Black Citadel was a cavern of obsidian pillars and molten light. Lord Tristan stood at its heart regal, tall, draped in black robes, his crown of jagged onyx reflecting flames that danced behind him.
His eyes, dark as a dying star, pinned Mira as she approached. She had bathed, changed, erased all traces of the child but he knew her too well.
"You were not at the council this morning," he said coolly. "Nor last night. You were… absent."
"I was unwell," Mira replied, bowing her head with practiced grace. "A fever."
"Malrec says otherwise."
Of course he does.
Mira didn't respond.
Tristan descended from the dais, his presence like a storm wrapped in silk. "He says blood magic was worked in your chambers. That you are hiding something from us."
"He sees ghosts where there are none," Mira said evenly. "He forgets that grief leaves echoes too."
Tristan stopped in front of her.
His hand was cold as it rose to touch her cheek. "You have always been my cleverest lie," he murmured. "But even lies leave trails."
Mira raised her eyes to him. "And what will you do? Bleed me for the truth? Or let me mourn the child I lost?"
Tristan's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his gaze. Pain? Doubt? Rage? It passed too quickly to name.
At last, he stepped back.
"No more secrets," he said. "Not even between us. If a child had been born… it would change everything. The court, the prophecy, the throne itself."
Mira lowered her eyes, her voice a whisper. "Then it is a mercy no child came."
But inside, she held tight to the only truth that mattered now:
The child lived and the realm would not be ready any time soon for her return.
Tristan's gaze lingered on Mira for a moment longer, cold and calculating now. The softness—if it had ever been real—was gone.
"I will find the truth," he said, his voice low, steady, unyielding. "Even if I must tear it from every shadow in this Citadel. You are not the only one who knows how to hide things, Mira."
A breath passed between them, heavy as stone.
He turned sharply, black robes sweeping behind him as he strode back to the dais. "Malrec will double the wards on your wing. And I will question every servant who breathed the same air as you in the last moon cycle."
"You insult me," Mira said softly.
"I protect the Realm," he snapped, turning back toward her. "From betrayal. From prophecy. From you, if I must."
The obsidian walls shuddered faintly then whether from the rising heat of the molten light or from something deeper, more ancient, even Mira could not tell. But before Tristan could speak again, the great doors of the throne room burst open with a clang that echoed like thunder.
A dozen guards parted to make way, kneeling as a tall figure strode in, sunlight clinging to his cloak like defiance.
"Enough of this witch hunt, Father," said the voice, clear and sharp as a blade. "Or has the throne turned you to suspicion before justice?"
Mira turned her head slowly, and her heart sank.
Prince Caelum, Tristan's eldest son and heir, stood framed by the smoke and flame, the spitting image of his father in youth—but with his mother's proud bearing and no trace of Tristan's cold restraint.
Tristan narrowed his eyes. "You arrive without summons, without word. What brings you crawling back from the borderlands?"
"The Realm trembles," Caelum said, descending the steps two at a time. "And I would know why. Rumors spill faster than truth—rebellion in the East, omens in the stars, and whispers that the Night Queen herself walks again."
His eyes flicked to Mira, unreadable. "And now I return to find my father interrogating the Lady of Fountains like a common spy?"
"She is no longer above question," Tristan said flatly.
Caelum stopped at the base of the throne, folding his arms. "Then perhaps we should question everyone. Including the High Priests who fan the flames of panic, or the courtiers too eager to speak of prophecy."
A beat of silence pulsed between them.
"I will not be defied in my own court," Tristan said, his voice edged with fire.
"Then do not give us reason," Caelum answered, steel beneath the calm.
The council chamber beyond the throne room was smaller, circular, with high slit windows that bled red light across the war table carved from dragonbone. A great map sprawled across its surface, weighted with obsidian markers, each denoting battalions, strongholds, and battlefronts. But now, more than half of them had been overturned or swept aside.
Lord Tristan stood at the table's edge, one hand braced on its scorched frame, the other clutching a scroll sealed in gold wax. His jaw was rigid. Behind him, the chamber's fire-pit burned too hot, casting wild shadows on the faces of the gathered nobles.
Prince Caelum stood opposite his father, arms folded, eyes dark.
"The line at Virestone is broken," Tristan said, voice clipped. "Their phoenix riders came at dawn. By noon, the fortress was ash. We lost five hundred men, including Commander Drayven and the eastern pass..." He flung the scroll across the table....."has fallen into their hands."
A murmur rose among the lords. Fear. Anger. One voice shouted, "How did this happen? The eastern border was sealed!"
"It was," growled Lord Marnak, hammer-fisted and loyal, "until someone from within opened it."
Tristan's gaze snapped toward him. "Speak plainly, Marnak."
"I speak of treachery," the warlord said. "There are spies in our ranks. And magic—sun-blessed, golden and pure. It's slipping past our wards like mist. Someone fed them our positions."
All eyes turned toward Mira.
She stood at the back of the chamber, hood drawn, face unreadable.
"She's served the Night Court for over a decade," Marnak continued. "Too long, if you ask me. She has no claim, no title yet she walks among us like a queen."
"I bleed for this Realm," Mira said coldly. "I have sacrificed more than any of you know."
"Sacrificed what, exactly?" he barked. "A child born in secret? Is that where your loyalties lie now?"
"Enough," Tristan thundered, his voice crashing over them like a storm. "You will not speak of that again. Not in this chamber."
But the seed had been planted.
Caelum leaned forward, voice low but dangerous. "So we are to trust only bloodlines now? Is that it? Shall we start purging half the court for not being born of the right womb?"
"You forget yourself," Tristan said sharply.
"I remember too well," Caelum snapped. "You built this Realm on unity between shadow and flame. Between moon and sun. And now your silence burns more bridges than the Dawn ever could."
Silence followed—charged and brittle.
A scout entered then, breathless and pale. "Your Grace… the banners of the Dawn have been sighted five leagues from the Black Peaks. They march with the Sun Queen herself."
Mira's blood ran cold.
Tristan didn't flinch. "Prepare the ravens. Summon the outer Houses. We ride at dusk."
"And the court?" asked High Chancellor Velien, voice tight.
Tristan looked up, his eyes cold stars. "They will either bend to me…....or be broken beneath her light."