Everyone took their seats within the vast ceremonial hall—a chamber clearly designed for intimidation more than diplomacy.
Towering animal mannequins of sand-forged bears, lions, and other desert beasts loomed from strategic corners: fangs bared, claws extended, eyes glowing faintly with enchantments. Their shadows stretched across the sandstone floor like silent threats.
Low whispers rippled through the crowd like a restless tide. Citizens pressed their ears to the outer walls. The princes murmured among themselves. The nobles fidgeted, trying—and failing—not to stare openly at the foreign empress and her fearsome escort.
Then King Sinnabad rose.
"Once more, I welcome my guest, Queen Lola—"
He didn't get a chance to finish.
"You said this the first time," Prince Josh the second, cut in sharply.
Every head snapped toward the small prince.
The five-year-old sat casually beside his mother, legs crossed, expression flat—yet his voice carried through the hall with the authority of a commander twice his age.
"I assumed it was a mistake," Josh continued, "so I let it pass. But you're saying it again, and I need to correct you before you make a mistake you might not live to regret."
A suffocating silence fell.
"The title," he said coldly, "is Empress. She once ruled a kingdom large enough to swallow Sanaria whole in multiples, and still have enough left over to use as a palace back garden."
Gasps filled the room like thunder.
The crown princes froze. Courtiers stiffened. A few servants dropped to their knees, believing death was imminent.
They expected the king to explode. To rage. To draw his sword. To order the child beheaded on the spot.
Instead, King Sinnabad simply… smiled.
A disturbing, hungry smile.
His eyes—filled with lust and fantasy—never once left Lola's figure, even as her son insulted him.
"I apologize, my prince," King Sinnabad said smoothly. "And to my… Empress, Empress Lola."
The 14 crown princes exchanged horrified glances. Never—never—had their father apologized to a foreigner, let alone to a five-year-old.
Has he been bewitched?
Is he drunk?
Or is desire rotting his common sense?
No one dared voice the question.
The king raised his arms theatrically. "Now, to the matter of the day. I have a proposal for the Empress, and I will present it to her in private. Afterward, we shall announce the result and begin the celebration!"
A roar of excitement exploded from the citizens eavesdropping outside—cheers, screams, drums beating. The entire kingdom seemed eager for whatever spectacle was coming.
But among the visitors, not a single face shifted.
Not Josh.
Not Relia Amia.
Not Conrad, nor Shammah, nor Miko.
They remained statues—silent, analyzing, ready.
Lola leaned down toward Josh, her voice a sharp whisper. "Josh! You promised to behave. Why would you embarrass our host like that?"
He turned his gaze to her.
That gaze.
It was the same gaze her late husband used to give her—possessive, protective, burning with an intensity no child should possess. It made her heart stumble in her chest.
"You deserve respect," Josh said softly. "Anyone who publicly shames you… will feel my wrath."
The tone was wrong.
Too deep.
Too intimate.
Too adult.
It made Lola's breath catch.
She rose abruptly, cheeks warm, voice lost, and hurried after King Sinnabad to a more isolated chamber for their "private discussion."
The generals remained behind—forming a silent wall of living weapons.
Except one.
Naze.
He had vanished.
But none of the generals were worried.
They knew where he would be:
Already in the shadows, already watching the king, calculating every path to attack and instantaneous murder, should the slightest whisper of danger approach the Empress.
His sword might have been sheathed…
…but every sand grain in that palace knew it was only a heartbeat away from being drawn.
Inside the Great Hall ...
The moment Empress Lola vanished behind the heartwood doors with King Sinnabad, the atmosphere inside the hall did not merely tense—it tightened, like invisible hands choking the air.
Even the enchanted sand pillars seemed to hold their breath.
The crown princes exhaled in unison, each for different reasons.
Prince Chalibad—the eldest, tall and rigid like a spear carved from desert ironwood—dragged a shaky hand across his scalp.
"That child…" he muttered, still processing what he'd witnessed. "To speak to Father like that and still have his head… are we entirely sure he's human?"
Prince Deliibad, third in line and infamous for chasing opportunities like a wolf chases scent, looked anything but opportunistic now. He shook his head violently.
"H-human? I heard he's cursed!" he whispered, voice trembling. "A calamity child! They say he kills men who even look at his mother the wrong way!"
He swallowed hard, eyes widening in horror.
"What if he heard me calling his mother beautiful earlier? What if he—"
"He won't kill you," Chalibad muttered… then hesitated. "Probably."
Prince Movibad, the second prince—called Unfettered because no rule dared restrain his reckless spirit—leaned forward with a grin tugging at his lips.
"I like him," Movibad declared, amusement dancing in his eyes. "Small, rude, and fearless. That's the kind of boy who starts a war before breakfast."
Prince Comibad—the fourth prince, calm, sharp-eyed, thoughtful—adjusted his gold-trimmed robes, gaze steady and unsettlingly observant.
"It is not the boy that worries me," he said quietly. "It is how Father reacted."
Three sets of eyes snapped toward him.
"What do you mean?" Movibad asked.
Comibad's expression tightened ever so slightly.
"Father… apologized."
He paused, letting the weight of the words settle.
"And he smiled after being insulted. He wasn't smiling at the boy—he was smiling at the Empress."
Deliibad groaned softly.
"Don't tell me he plans to marry her. We already have more stepmothers than sand grains in the eastern dunes."
Chalibad sighed, shoulders sagging.
"Father has been obsessed since the prophecy," he murmured. "But if he touches her… if he forces anything…"
They all fell silent.
Because they remembered.
The whispered rumors.
The stories carried on the wind.
Tales from spies who had returned pale and shaken.
Stories of Prince Josh the Second—the little devil with the eyes of a man and the wrath of a god.
"Any man who touches the Empress," Deliibad whispered, "dies. That is what everyone says."
"And what the citizens fully believe," Comibad added.
Movibad tilted his head, raising a brow.
"So if Father drags her to his room…"
He traced a slow, deliberate finger across his throat.
"…the boy kills him?"
Silence.
Sudden. Heavy. Suffocating.
The great hall seemed to shrink.
The heat pressed in from all sides.
Even the enchanted lion mannequins appeared to stare at them with warning in their stone-carved eyes.
After a long moment, Deliibad breathed:
"This is no longer politics. This is a disaster waiting for a spark."
Chalibad nodded grimly.
"One wrong move from Father and… Sanaria might not survive what follows."
Prince Nahibad, the sixth prince—broad-shouldered, athletic, and always brimming with battle-readiness—stepped forward.
"Should we warn him?" he asked.
Comibad gave a humorless scoff.
"Have you met Father? He hears lust more clearly than advice."
A long pause.
Then Deliibad slowly shifted his gaze toward the shadowed edges of the hall—toward the balconies, the rafters, the places mortals rarely looked but killers always watched.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Speaking of danger… one of their generals is missing."
Chalibad blinked. "Missing? Who?"
"A blind man," Deliibad replied. "But somehow… I doubt blindness affects him the way it affects normal people."
He nodded subtly toward a dark alcove near the ceiling—where the faintest ripple of air betrayed a presence.
"If I am correct," Deliibad whispered, "we are not the only ones worried about the decision Father is about to make."