The cold of the palace marble still lived in her bones, a reality as physical as the heat of the flames that had consumed her centuries—or was it weeks?—ago. She swallowed the last of the sob, swallowed the pain that was a live animal in her chest, swallowed the unspoken love that remained an incurable, open wound.
He had promised to remember.
And he had.
Not with his conscious mind, but with something deeper, an invisible thread they had woven together in that dusty library. His recognition was the final proof that she had not been a dream. Her existence had left a mark.
With a clarity that left her dizzy, Elara saw that this truth changed everything.
And at the same time, it changed absolutely nothing.
Because she was still here, in the Founder's body. She still had an entire empire to seed with the chosen kernels of her own future ruin. Kaelen, in this past, might see her ghosts, but he was also, unknowingly, a vital instrument in her design. His pain, his loyalty, his love—all of it would be fuel for the historical machine she was building, lie by lie.
She rose slowly, using the edge of the table for support. In the mirror, the Empress stared back. Her storm-grey eyes were red-rimmed, but hardened by a new resolution. The terrified princess was locked back in her core. But she was there—a center of truth in the eye of the hurricane of lies.
With a deep sigh, Elara turned her back on her own reflection. There was no more time for ghosts. There was a performance to maintain, history to write in letters of blood and iron.
She pulled the silk cord that summoned Lyra. The chime of the silver bell cut the quiet, severing the last thread of that private collapse.
As she waited, she went to the window. The night was clear, the moon bathing the towers of the Primordial Sun Chapel. She stood there, a solitary silhouette against the glass, tracing with her eyes the path Kaelen would have taken.
Unknowingly, in becoming that defined shape against the light, she became a spectacle for other eyes.
From the flat roof of the library tower, a pair of dark, almond-shaped eyes had followed her since she left the Grand Hall. They had watched her escape to the balcony, the conversation with Kaelen, her return and her crumbling. And they watched, with sharpened interest, the exact moment private pain transformed into the icy posture of sovereignty.
The creature tilted its head with a distinctly avian curiosity, and with a sharp talon inscribed on a small wax tablet: The spirit wavers. The Founder is two. Sometimes the shadow is more real than the form. Report to the Weaver.
Inside the chamber, a knock at the door made her heart jolt. Elara stepped away from the window, the robe dragging on the floor. She passed her hands over her face, as if to smooth away any trace of emotion, and straightened her shoulders.
"Enter," she commanded. Her voice was now the Founder's, clean of tremor.
The door opened. Lyra entered, and her look was not one of routine subservience, but of sharp curiosity. Something had changed. Someone had been watching.
The gameboard, Elara realized with a cold spike in her spine, had more players than she had calculated.
Waking was a flood of sound. The sound of her own guts, a roar of panic, echoing in her ears. Elara opened her eyes to the velvet canopy above. The morning light was pale.
But before the visual, it was a pressure at the base of her skull that claimed her. A sensation of dense presence, like a river beating against the walls of a cave that was her own bone.
Anya.
The Founder's consciousness was not was contained, fermenting. A shared, fragmented dream still clung to her mind: visions of a battle, the taste of blood and snow. And over it all, a cold fury—the fury of building an empire on piles of enemies.
The morning routine was armor. Lyra and the others dressed her. The day's gown was less opulent, but no less declarative: a state robe of iron-grey, the solar falcon embroidered in dull silver. Each layer was a weight, a reminder of the role.
As she drank bitter tea, her eyes fell on the document waiting on the tray. The Decree on Regulation of Civilian Magical Flux, Edict Seven. The first legal seed.
Her hand, as she picked up the parchment, did not tremble. She was surprised.
The text was dry and juridical. Its essence, however, was clear: it limited the use of powerful magic by commoners to services licensed by the Crown. In practice, if you weren't noble, you could not use your magic to defend your lands. You would have to enlist or pay an exorbitant fee.
In the present, this would generate revenue.
In the future, two hundred years forward, this law, expanded by amendments she herself would introduce, would be the basis for magically disarming the minor houses that backed the Montgraves, leaving them isolated before the final coup.
She was about to sign the beginning of the end of the house of the man she loved. The taste of the tea turned to ash in her mouth.
The Crown Council convened in the Lesser Throne Room. Elara sat at the head. At her immediate right was Councillor Orin, the eldest, his face a map of creases, his eyes small and bright as beads under grizzled brows.
Kaelen was also there, as Commander of the Northern Guard, set to give a report. He stood near the door, a column of black wool and silver. She didn't need to look to feel his gaze. It was a physical weight on her profile.
"The rebellion of the Magicless persists," Kaelen's voice echoed clearly in the room. "They use ambushes. The winter favors them."
"And your requisition for reinforcements?" asked the Master of Coin.
"Denied," Kaelen replied.
A thread of frustration, almost imperceptible, ran through his voice. It was enough for Elara. She recognized the tone. The feeling of beating your fists against a blade.
I will make this worse, she thought, guilt a hot coal in her gut. My seeds will drain the resources further. More men will die under his command because I need the right families to grow weak.
"The decree, Your Highness," Councillor Orin pulled attention back to the parchment, his voice a dry drag. "It awaits only your sanction and the seal."
All eyes turned to her. The air went static.
She picked up the quill. The ebony shaft was cold. The silver inkwell held blood-red ink. A color for things meant to last.
It is only the first, she told herself, the strategic mind taking control. One adjustment among hundreds. No one here can see the abyss.
But another part of her, the princess who had studied ethics, screamed in silence. You are condemning whole families. You are taking the only defense some of them have.
She looked up. Kaelen's eyes found hers. There was no accusation. Only observation. A quiet intensity, as if he were trying to decipher a text in a forgotten language.
It was in that moment the pressure at the base of her skull throbbed. A fragment of Anya's cold fury, the brutal satisfaction of crushing resistance, bubbled to the surface.
She opened her lips to utter the formal words, but what came out was a mixture.
"Very well," she said, her voice firm. "Let us put this… protocol into production and observe its results."
The room went quiet.
Elara froze inside. Protocol into production. Results. Administrative terms from her future. Terms a founding empress would never use.
She saw the Master of Coin frown. Two commanders exchanged a quick glance.
But it was Councillor Orin who reacted. His eyes sharpened. His gaze left the parchment and fixed on her.
Kaelen, by the door, straightened almost imperceptibly. His eyes were now fixed on her, no longer analytical, but alert. He too had heard the dissonance.
Elara's heart hammered. Heat rose to her face. She forced a more natural tone.
"I mean to say," she continued, without leaving too large a pause, "the decree is to be implemented immediately. And its effects on revenue and order are to be monitored."
It was a correction. Not perfect, but plausible. The Master of Coin nodded. The others followed.
But Councillor Orin did not nod. His eyes did not let go.
And Kaelen kept watching her, his expression now inscrutable, but the energy around him had shifted.
The rest of the council passed in a fog. She sanctioned the decree, her pen scratching the parchment with a terribly loud sound. The hot wax seal was pressed, the solar falcon marking the fate of thousands.
The session was adjourned. The councillors filed out. Kaelen remained a moment, his eyes meeting hers. There was a question there, naked and raw. He opened his mouth, but then clenched his jaw, gave a salute, and left.
Elara stayed behind, pretending to examine another document. Anya's voice in her mind now sounded like a low laugh.
As she rose, a shadow fell beside her.
Councillor Orin had not left. He had stood in the gloom. Now he approached with a slowness that was more threatening than a charge.
"Your Highness," his voice was a dry whisper.
Elara turned.
"Councillor. Something else?"
He came closer than protocol allowed. He smelled of old ink and archive dust. His dark eyes dug into hers.
Then his wrinkled, yet strong, hand grasped her forearm over the sleeve. It wasn't violent, but it was intentional, intimate.
He leaned in, and his whisper, warm and laden, breathed against her ear.
"You are not the one you used to be, are you?"
The question hung in the air, icy and sharp.
Before Elara could formulate an answer, he released her arm, stepped back, and gave a slight nod of his head.
"Have a productive day, Your Highness," he said in a normal voice.
And then he turned and walked out, his shuffling step echoing. He left Elara paralyzed in the center of the room, the arm where he had gripped her burning, his question echoing in her mind, more terrifying than any prophecy.