The man lounging on the throne only stirred very lightly at our arrival, then let out a prolonged yawn as if he were a large cat whose pleasant afternoon sleep had been unwelcomely disturbed. He stretched his arms out leisurely in a deliberately exaggerated display of languid disinterest. Then, with visible reluctance, as if the effort cost him dearly, he slowly opened his eyes to acknowledge our presence. His eyes were a striking amber color, I noticed immediately—uncommon even in the South, and quite beautiful in their own right.
At first he lazily directed his attention toward his brother Sathish, who remained frozen in his formal stance of greeting, maintaining the respectful posture. Then his amber gaze traveled deliberately over to me, studying me with what appeared to be complete detachment. His eyes didn't reveal any discernible emotions whatsoever. It was as if he were genuinely bored to absolute death by everything around him, and nothing in the entire world could possibly pique his jaded interest or rouse him from his overwhelming ennui.
But that carefully maintained facade couldn't possibly be authentic, I knew. This was the very same man who had systematically misused and abused the authority his cousin Arvid had entrusted to him during the emperor's necessary absence from the capital. This man was far from genuinely bored—he was actually deeply ambitious and intensely driven by his hunger for power. So right now, in this moment, he was merely pretending to be indifferent, performing a role. At least, that's what I firmly assumed based on everything I'd learned about him.
And my assumption was validated when I caught a brief flicker of obvious interest in those amber eyes, a spark he was actively trying to suppress and conceal beneath his mask of boredom. Hypocrite, I thought with cold satisfaction.
"The Queen of Draga, you say?" he said, finally rousing himself to sit up more properly. Even this movement was performed with deliberate, exaggerated laziness, every motion calculated to suggest he found this entire situation tiresome. He casually gestured to his waiting servants to assist him into a more upright seated position. They immediately and readily cooperated with practiced efficiency, moving to support him. But I noticed their eyes remained absolutely dead-set on the floor throughout, never once glancing up at their master's face.
And I definitely didn't miss the slight tremor that ran through the body of the young servant girl who helped support him as he shifted position. Fear, I recognized. She was terrified of him.
"Such an unexpected honor," he continued, his voice carrying throughout the hall. The timbre was remarkably similar to Sathish's voice—they were brothers, after all, sharing blood and presumably similar vocal characteristics. "What have I possibly done to deserve being granted with your distinguished presence here in my humble court?"
But beneath the superficially courteous words, there was a distinct undercurrent of arrogance in his tone, as if he were consciously trying very hard not to openly look down on me with his voice but couldn't quite suppress it entirely. The contempt was definitely there, lurking just beneath the surface. He was absolutely looking down on me, viewing me as beneath his notice despite his polite words.
But none of that condescension mattered in the slightest. The anchor for my teleportation magic had already been successfully set the moment I'd entered this room. I could leave—or bring others here—whenever I chose.
"Dear lord, I have been so terribly stolen from!" I suddenly wailed, allowing my carefully prepared tears to fall freely down my cheeks in glistening tracks. I started sobbing pitifully and crying with deliberately loud, theatrical volume that echoed through the marble hall.
The assembled courtiers in the audience chamber immediately grimaced visibly at my loud, unrestrained crying, their faces contorting with obvious displeasure. They began whispering urgently among themselves in low, disapproving tones, clearly not at all fond of what they undoubtedly viewed as inappropriate feminine wailing disturbing the dignified atmosphere of their court.
The man seated on the throne developed a deep frown that seemed almost painfully etched onto his previously smooth features, his expression souring dramatically at the sound of my emotional display.
"Whatever could possibly have been stolen from you, my lady?" he asked with strained patience, his voice tight. "And I would genuinely appreciate if you could maintain some degree of silence and decorum in my court—" he added pointedly, his displeasure now completely undisguised.
I continued to hiccup dramatically as if trying desperately hard not to cry anymore, struggling to regain my composure. I wiped at my streaming tears with the back of my hands in an exaggerated gesture of distress, playing the role of the wronged, heartbroken woman to absolute perfection.
"I was cruelly stolen from my rightful position and my legitimate rights as the Empress of Selon," I finally replied to him after deliberately allowing my voice to become steady again, the tears stopping as suddenly as they'd begun. "This theft occurred because my husband's bastard cousin—a man with no legitimate claim whatsoever—decided to take the imperial throne for himself through treachery and deception."
I made sure to add clear, unmistakable venom to my tone on those final words, letting my apparent hatred and resentment color every syllable.
Everything and everyone in the entire hall went completely silent in the wake of my bold declaration. It was a dead, heavy silence so absolute and profound that you could have clearly heard the single metallic sound of a pin dropping onto the marble floor and bouncing.
The expression on the face of the man occupying the throne distorted dramatically, his carefully maintained mask of bored indifference cracking completely. Instead of continuing to lean back casually against his cushioned seat as he had been doing throughout our exchange, he suddenly sat bolt upright on the very edge of his throne platform. He turned to look at his brother Sathish with clear, sharp disapproval written across his transformed features.
"My profoundly foolish brother has brought a dangerous lioness directly inside my court," he announced loudly to the assembled nobles, his voice dripping with mockery directed at Sathish's apparent inability to properly read and evaluate people. "He delivers a clear threat right to my doorstep, and then this same brother dares to repeatedly ask me why I haven't yet appointed him to the prestigious position of chancellor of the empire."
He let out a short, barking laugh of genuine amusement at the irony of the situation.
But the man standing next to me—Sathish, who had seemed so pleasant and courteous just moments before—didn't join in that laughter at all. Instead, he trembled violently all over, his entire body shaking as barely controlled anger took complete control of his spasming muscles. He turned to stare at me with profound betrayal evident in his distorted, contorted face. The pleasant, blushing man from just a few minutes ago had become genuinely ugly with the force of his madness and rage at being used.
"You brought her in exactly where she most wanted to be, you absolute fool," Darush said from his throne with complete nonchalance, as if discussing something of no particular importance.
He was quite perceptive, I had to acknowledge. I could see why he desired the throne with such intensity, and why all these old, experienced nobles gathered around him had chosen to support his illegitimate claim rather than remaining loyal to Arvid. The man had genuine political intelligence.
I allowed myself to smile openly at him, dropping all pretense. "The lord currently occupying the stolen throne is absolutely correct," I answered enthusiastically, matching his directness with my own. "I am precisely where I wanted to be all along."
I made sure not to forget to add a happy, almost gleeful energy to my words, as if this were all an exciting game I was thoroughly enjoying.
The man calling himself regent also smiled back at me briefly, seeming to appreciate my honesty. But his expression quickly transformed, his face settling into a hard, thin line as he reassessed the situation and the threat I represented.
"My lady is fundamentally wrong in her characterization, however," he said, his deep voice carrying clearly through the silent hall. "I did not steal this throne from anyone—I simply took back what was always supposed to rightfully be mine by blood and tradition."
He leaned back again into his cushioned seat, resuming his earlier languid posture. He leisurely reached for and took a measured sip from an ornate golden goblet positioned near him on one of the low tables. He didn't bother to set the vessel back down afterward, instead just idly swirling the liquid around inside while he spoke, watching the motion with apparent fascination.
A distinctive aroma wafted from the goblet even though I had deliberately dulled most of my enhanced senses to avoid sensory overload. The wine it contained definitely wasn't made from traditional grapes, I could tell immediately. It had been fermented from something else entirely—some tropical fruit native to this region, I assumed based on the sweet, exotic notes in its scent.
"You see, my father was the legitimate eldest son of the previous emperor of Selon," Darush began, clearly preparing to justify his actions with a well-rehearsed grievance. "By ancient tradition and established law, he was supposed to automatically be designated as the imperial crown prince and then, in the natural course of events, become the next emperor after his father's death. But unfortunately, he was born with certain deformities of appearance."
He paused deliberately for effect. "These deformities occurred because his parents—his father the emperor and his mother the empress—had been biological siblings who married each other to keep the bloodline pure, as was the old custom. So my father's birthright and legitimate claim to the throne was arbitrarily taken from him and instead granted to the second prince, a man born from a mere concubine rather than the empress. That second prince was the previous emperor, Arvid's father."
Darush's voice took on an edge of resentment. "Now, this second prince was supposed to give back the rights to the empire's throne to his elder brother's direct lineage after his own death, restoring the proper succession. But instead, he stubbornly and selfishly named his own biological son—Arvid—as the imperial crown prince, perpetuating the theft. Is that fair, my lady? As you can clearly see with your own eyes, neither myself nor any of my siblings were born with any deformities whatsoever. Shouldn't we be given a legitimate chance at succession based on our own merits? How could they simply take that opportunity away from us based on our father's appearance?"
He continued speaking, his tone carefully calibrated to suggest he had been deeply wronged by this historical injustice. But his eyes told a completely different story—they revealed clearly that he didn't actually care at all about what I thought of his justification. This was merely a performance for the benefit of the assembled nobles.
"It was only natural and completely appropriate that the previous emperor assigned his own capable son as his heir," I stated firmly, cutting through his self-serving narrative. I beamed at him with a bright, cheerful smile that didn't reach my eyes. "After all, you lot simply aren't deserving of such a high and important seat of power."
I spoke loudly and clearly, letting my voice resonate throughout the marble chamber so that every single person present could hear my words perfectly.
There was a genuinely deafening silence that immediately followed my bold declaration. Nobody moved even slightly or made the smallest sound. Every eye in the room was suddenly glued to the man on the throne, carefully studying his reaction to this unprecedented insult, waiting to see how he would respond to such direct provocation.
"I see," Darush said finally after a long, tension-filled pause. His voice had shifted to something almost playful, though there was a dangerous undercurrent beneath the lightness. "How refreshingly honest of you."
"I am Darush, my lady, in case introductions weren't properly made," he continued with false courtesy. "And if you're genuinely interested in power and position, I would be more than happy to make you my new empress consort."
He smiled broadly at me, but I absolutely didn't miss the venomous, threatening edge that had entered his voice. "That way, I could personally teach you how to be a properly obedient woman who knows better than to speak her mind so freely. I could show you how to endure the attentions of the many different men that you would inevitably have to please in order to maintain your position."
His smile widened into something cruel. "I sincerely hope you're physically sturdy and resilient, because my last wife didn't even manage to survive and last three months under my care before she died."
After those horrifying words were spoken aloud, there erupted a wave of crude, absolutely disgusting laughter that echoed around the hall, escaping from the throats of the elderly nobles present. They laughed as if he'd told an amusing joke rather than confessed to effectively murdering his previous wife.
The sound felt utterly gruesome and revolting to hear. It was like witnessing a writhing group of fat worms wiggling around obscenely in a fresh pile of feces—something fundamentally wrong and deeply disturbing. How utterly horrible and depraved, to casually discuss a woman's prolonged suffering and eventual death caused directly by their abuse as if it were merely an entertaining playtime that had unfortunately come to an end too soon?
These men were monsters wearing human skin.
And I was going to enjoy watching them fall.