I had buried hope in the cold grave of my heart, yet grief clawed it open again, raw and relentless.
Three days had passed since I returned to the palace, drenched in blood and despair, the last of my soldiers gone, and my mother—the only warmth I had ever known—dead. They hadn't even let me mourn her properly. Her body had already been dressed in the royal death silk, laid to rest behind walls I hadn't been allowed into. The physicians said her heart simply gave out. I knew better.
I stood alone in the silent crypt beneath the palace, candles flickering on ancient stone. My fingers trembled as I laid my forehead against her tomb. There were no tears. I had none left. Just a vast, aching silence.
"I'm sorry, Mama," I whispered. "They killed you to reach me. But they will not find me so easy."
I rose from my knees with the weight of vengeance draped over my shoulders like armor. That same night, I summoned what remained of my shattered network.
"From this day," I said to the shadows gathered in my chamber, "you are no longer nameless. You are the White Shadows. And we will not simply survive. We will watch from behind every curtain, listen beneath every floorboard, and strike when they least expect it."
The White Shadows bowed low, cloaked figures disappearing into the night. Every one of them had lost someone. And now, every one of them had purpose.
I played the pawn with perfection.
The next morning, I requested an audience with her—the king's wife, the woman who had visited me with silks and honeyed words. She was not yet queen, and perhaps she never would be, but she wore ambition like perfume.
She welcomed me into her private garden, a maze of rare flowers and towering hedges, where servants whispered and scattered at her gaze.
"Delbeyrah," she purred, rising in a dress of ivory spider-silk that shimmered like frost. "You came."
I smiled as I had practiced, soft and uncertain, the perfect image of a lost daughter seeking warmth. "I did. I… needed someone. And you were kind to me."
She offered her arms, and I let her pull me into an embrace. Her perfume was heavy, floral, too sweet. I fought the urge to pull away.
"Come," she said, guiding me to a marble bench. "Let us speak as mother and daughter."
I let her talk, nodding at her tales of court politics, how hard it had been to gain the nobles' favor, how the king never spoke of his past. I asked her questions that made her feel wise. I offered trust by the ounce, always withholding the whole.
Inside, I cataloged everything—the names she dropped, the guards who lingered too long near her chamber, the strange sigil on her tea flask. I wasn't the broken girl she hoped I was.
I was the storm pretending to be the breeze.
That evening, under the guise of mourning, I dressed in dark velvet and walked the palace halls alone. I knew where to look now. The White Shadows had returned with whispers.
There was a locked study in the west wing, said to belong to an old advisor long gone. But servants saw the door opened at night. Someone used it.
I waited until midnight.
The corridor was silent, cloaked in deep blue shadows. I slid a thin blade beneath the old iron latch and slipped inside. Dust lay thick on the desk, but the hearth was warm.
Papers were hidden in the floorboards, letters sealed in red wax. I pocketed one before the distant echo of footsteps drove me out the window and into the garden below. I landed in the hedges, breathless, heartbeat roaring in my ears.
Back in my chambers, I broke the seal.
The letter was encoded, but not beyond my reach. By dawn, I had its meaning: a singular force—greater than whispers or scattered hands—was behind everything.
They called themselves The Ember Ring.
They were no longer fragmented—no longer just nobles or generals or foreign merchants. They had merged their power into a single secret council, unified by ambition, greed, and a shared fear of me.
The nobles' circle, the foreign saboteurs, the rogue generals—they had always been arms of something larger. The Ember Ring had drawn them all together, forging a network that fed on corruption and shadows.
And now, I knew they saw me not as a nuisance.
But as an existential threat.
Their next meeting was in four nights. Location undisclosed. But the letter bore a name I knew.
Keal.
My throat tightened.
I had trusted him. Trained beside him. Fought beside him.
I needed proof.
That night, I dispatched the most silent shadow that wasn't dead yet : Nira, a former street thief with eyes like obsidian and hands that could open any door.
"Follow Keal," I told her. "Do not speak. Do not be seen. Bring me truth, not guesses."
She vanished into the dark.
Two nights passed with no word. Then, just before the third bell of the third night, Nira slipped into my room, blood on her shoulder, breath ragged.
"You were right," she whispered. "He meets them in the crypts beneath the old stables. But it's not just nobles. It's one of your guards. One who stands outside your door. They're all part of the Ember Ring now."
The candlelight flickered across her face, casting her features in sharp angles.
"And Delbeyrah… they know where you sleep."
A chill sank into my spine.
Everything around me was a game of daggers. One wrong breath, one careless word, and it would all collapse.
I walked to my mirror, staring at the girl in its reflection.
Seventeen. Hunted. Alone.
But I was no lamb. I was fire wearing flesh.
And before they burned me, I would reduce them to ash.