The palace had grown quieter.
Quieter thanit had ever been.
Once, King Jameson's court had rung with music, laughter, and the steady hum of life. Now, under Mansis, it breathed only in whispers. Servants bowed lower, eyes fixed on the floor. Guards spoke in murmurs, their armor gleaming like teeth in the torchlight. Even the tapestries seemed to sag, as though the walls themselves had grown weary of their master.
King Mansis sat upon the throne, his fingers drumming against the carved armrest. The hall was empty save for Silas, who stood at his right hand, and a pair of scribes waiting to record the king's will.
"The foreign king leaves tomorrow," Mansis said at last, his voice echoing against the vaulted ceiling. "And with him goes our chance to secure the south. Tell me, Silas —" His eyes shifted, cold and sharp. "Do you know why he departs so soon?"
Silas bowed slightly, the motion graceful despite the bruises hidden beneath his collar. "Because he believes this city is haunted, Majesty. By ghosts of your brother's reign."
"Ghosts," Mansis repeated, his lip curling. "The same ghost that walks in the alleys and strikes from shadows."
He rose from the throne, pacing. "He's turning my people against me. Every act of mercy they see in their dreams, they attribute to him. Every whisper of rebellion, they believe he leads it. He's not just a man anymore — he's an idea. And ideas," he spat, "cannot be hanged."
Silas watched him carefully. "Then we burn the people who dream them."
Mansis stopped pacing. Slowly, a smile crept across his face — sharp, dangerous, cruel. "Yes," he murmured. "Perhaps you're right."
He turned toward the scribes. "Issue a decree. At dawn, every man or woman found harboring an outlaw will be branded. Their property seized. Their children—"
"Majesty," Silas interrupted, his voice smooth, calm. "Fear is useful, but it cuts both ways. Too much, and you breed martyrs."
Mansis' eyes narrowed. "You presume to advise me?"
Silas's head dipped. "I serve you. And I've learned that some blades cut deeper when the wound is not seen."
For a moment, Mansis only stared at him. Then he laughed; a dry, brittle sound. "You and your riddles, Silas. Very well. Find the shadow, then. Kill him. Bring me his head before the month turns, and I'll double your lands."
Silas bowed again, though there was something in his smile that the king did not see — a flicker of contempt, fleeting but real.
Later, when the hall was empty, Queen Nina entered.
She moved like a wisp of smoke — silent, graceful, her face half-shadowed beneath a veil. Mansis had not summoned her, but she knew how to step into a storm before it struck.
"Your Majesty," she said softly.
He looked up from his papers. "My ever-dutiful queen. Come to comfort me in my hour of betrayal?"
"I came," she replied evenly, "to remind you that fear can make kings fall faster than daggers."
He chuckled, though his eyes were hard. "You sound like my brother. Perhaps I should lock you in his crypt."
Her smile was faint, unreadable. "And deprive yourself of your only friend?"
That made him pause. He leaned back in his chair, studying her. "Friend. An interesting word. Tell me, Nina — do you believe in friendship, in loyalty, after all that's happened?"
"I believe," she said quietly, "in survival."
Their eyes met — a clash of frost and flame. For a moment, the air between them thickened, heavy with what neither dared say. Mansis rose, walked toward her, and stopped so close she could smell the wine on his breath.
"You think I don't see you, my dear," he whispered. "You think I don't notice the way you watch me. The way you flinch when I speak of executions. You forget — I can smell deceit."
"And yet you never saw it in yourself," she murmured.
His hand shot out, gripping her jaw, forcing her to meet his gaze. "Be careful, Nina. I can forgive insolence in courtiers. Not in queens."
She held his stare — and smiled. "Forgiveness is a virtue you never learned."
For a heartbeat, it seemed he might strike her. But then, with a hiss of laughter, he released her and turned away. "Go," he said. "Before I remember what mercy costs."
She left the hall with her head high and her pulse trembling.
Outside, in the shadow of the corridor, she stopped — one hand pressed to her chest, steadying her breath. Through a narrow archway, she saw Silas watching from the far end, his expression unreadable. He inclined his head slightly. It was not respect — more a hunter's acknowledgment of another predator's patience.
Nina walked on.
That night, in the city below, Darian Duskbane listened to the same wind that whispered through the palace towers.
He sat beside a dying fire in a safehouse tucked behind a ruined granary. The walls were cracked, the roof patched with tar, but the floor was dry and the air still. Around him sat four others — men and women bound not by birth, but by cause.
Brann, the grizzled veteran with one arm.
Mira, the barmaid who'd escaped the tavern fire.
A wiry courier named Talven.
And Lira — the princes' nurse — who had risked everything to bring him messages from the palace.
Darian's great frame filled half the room. The flickering firelight carved his face into planes of shadow, his eyes like coals beneath a brow furrowed in thought.
Lira laid a folded scrap of parchment on the table. "From the Queen," she said.
Darian opened it carefully. Inside, the coded symbols marked their now-familiar pattern. He translated them silently:
The serpent thrashes. The hound bites. The crown shakes. Wait for the signal.
He looked up. "She's still inside," he said quietly. "Still buying us time."
Mira frowned. "But for how long? If Mansis suspects her—"
"He already does," Darian said. "That's why she's more dangerous than he knows."
Brann leaned forward. "You think she's planning something?"
Darian nodded. "She'll give us an opening. When she does, we strike."
He looked around the table, meeting each gaze in turn. "But until then, we wait. We build. We keep our blades sheathed and our names silent."
Lira hesitated. "And if Silas finds you first?"
Darian's mouth curved slightly — not quite a smile. "Then I remind him why he should have stayed in the tunnels."
Back in the palace, Queen Nina sat alone in her chamber, a candle flickering beside her. The shadows of its flame danced across the stone walls like restless ghosts.
She had not removed her veil. Beneath it, her eyes were tired — not with fear, but with the weight of knowing too much.
She moved to her desk and drew out a piece of parchment, her hand trembling slightly as she began to write:
To those who still remember Jameson's light,
Know this — the darkness that sits on our throne fears its own reflection.
When the bells of Harta toll thrice without prayer, the reckoning begins.
From behind the wall came the faintest noise — a footstep, soft, but deliberate. She froze, extinguished the candle, and slipped the note into a hidden seam of the desk.
The door creaked open.
Silas stood there, his expression polite, almost apologetic. "Forgive me, my queen," he said. "The King worries for your safety."
"I'm sure he does," she said coolly. "And you, Sir Silas — do you?"
He smiled thinly. "I worry for everyone. It's part of my charm."
He stepped closer, his gaze sweeping the room — the desk, the extinguished candle, the untouched wine. Then he looked back at her. "You keep late hours."
"So do you," she replied.
He bowed slightly. "Then we are alike."
"I pray not."
His smile didn't falter, but his eyes darkened. "Good night, my queen."
When he left, the silence he left behind felt heavier than before.
Below the palace, beneath a city that no longer slept, Darian gazed toward the river and the distant towers piercing the fog.
Somewhere up there, she was risking her life for him. For justice. For a butcher's boy who had become a knight.
Darian clenched his hands, his knuckles white. "Hold fast, Nina," he murmured to the night. "When your signal comes, I'll bring the storm."
The wind shifted, carrying the faint toll of a bell — distant, uncertain.
The first sound of reckoning.