Chapter Five — The Invitation
The palace didn't sleep.
It only changed its face.
By midday, the chill of the courtyard was gone, replaced by the rustle of silk skirts along marble floors and the clatter of boot heels in corridors where sunlight pooled like molten gold. Somewhere, unseen clerks scratched quills against parchment. The air smelled faintly of ink and polished wood, of conversations I wasn't meant to hear.
I thought I'd be left in my chamber, free to pretend the world outside my door didn't exist. But before my tea had even cooled, a young servant appeared, head bowed.
"My lady, His Highness invites you to luncheon in the west gallery."
Invites. The word was all velvet over steel.
I followed him through hallways that felt different now — not just corridors, but arteries, carrying the pulse of a body I'd been swallowed into.
The west gallery was not a room so much as a hallway pretending it had a right to be endless. Tall windows opened onto the gardens, sunlight slanting in to gild the floor. At its center stretched a long table set for exactly two. Porcelain dishes so fine I could see the light through them waited beside silver cutlery sharp enough to open skin.
Kael was already there, the red of his cloak spilling across the back of his chair like something still warm. He sat with the kind of stillness that was never mistaken for idleness. His gaze lifted as I entered, and it felt — absurdly — like stepping into the second half of a conversation I hadn't realized we were having.
"You didn't eat breakfast," he said, as though it were fact.
I stopped a few paces from the table. "How would you know?"
"I know," he replied simply, and gestured to the chair opposite him. "Sit."
The porcelain clinked faintly as I took my seat. Servants I hadn't noticed poured wine the color of garnets, laid platters between us, and vanished without a sound.
We didn't speak much at first. The food was good — too good — and hunger softened my caution for a few mouthfuls. I hated that he might see it, that his eyes might catch how quickly I forgot to guard myself when my stomach was full.
Kael ate with the same unhurried precision he seemed to apply to everything. No wasted movements. No distraction. Every cut of his knife felt deliberate, as if the shape of each bite mattered.
Halfway through, the light shifted. A shadow moved at the far end of the gallery.
Him.
The knight walked without armor now, but carried the same deliberate weight. His steps were unhurried, the easy confidence of someone who knew no door in this place would be closed to him. Brown eyes flicked toward me for only a moment — a moment long enough to read something under my skin — before dropping in a bow to Kael.
He moved on without a word.
"You know him," Kael said, not looking up from his plate.
"I've seen him."
"That's not what I asked."
I set my fork down. "Should I know him?"
Kael's mouth curved slightly, the kind of smile that wasn't meant to comfort. "You will."
Before I could answer, a footman appeared, bowing low. "Your Highness, the Lady Serenya is summoned to the queen's chambers."
The air shifted. It was small — a narrowing of Kael's eyes, the faint stilling of the hand that held his wine — but I felt it.
"The queen rarely summons anyone without reason," he said.
"Then I should probably find out the reason."
I stood. So did he, though it felt less like courtesy and more like calculation.
As I turned to follow the footman, Kael's voice reached me low and quiet, meant for no one else. "Whatever she offers, whatever she promises — remember whose board you're on."
The warning coiled through me.
The queen's summons was not something I could refuse. But as I walked the long stretch of gallery toward the double doors, I was conscious of two weights pressing against my back — one sharp as a blade I couldn't see coming, the other steady as a hand I wasn't sure I wanted to pull away from.
The footman led me up a winding staircase, past stained glass windows spilling shards of color across the floor. My own reflection caught in a panel of polished bronze: pale gown, hair pinned just so, a face that still didn't look like it belonged here.
At last, we stopped before a set of doors so tall they seemed more wall than wood. Gold leaf curled along the panels in patterns that might have been vines… or chains.
The footman knocked once, and a voice — rich, cool, unmistakably female — answered, "Enter."
He pushed the doors open, and I stepped into the queen's chambers.