She did not rush. She did not stumble. She simply rose, smoothing the indigo fabric of her dress with deliberate care, lifted her chin and met their gaze directly. They could take her, but she would go on her terms. At her pace.
"I assume you are here for me."
The captain of the guard cast a wary glance in my direction as he stepped forward, his hand resting on his sword hilt in a gesture that was half-threat, half-prayer. "Yes, my lady. I am to escort you to be prepared for this evening's events."
He was right to be wary. There were only a dozen of them. I could have cut through them like wheat before they'd drawn their blades. Tyreal wouldn't stop me, I felt him shift his weight beside me, that small telltale movement that meant he'd already counted every threat, ready to defend me against the odds.
But she did not look to me for help or salvation or anything at all.
Instead, she walked toward them.
The guards parted around her like water, uncertain how to handle a prisoner who moved as though she were choosing to leave rather than being taken. One of the bolder of their company reached for her arm and instantly withdrew his hand when she turned her head just enough to acknowledge him with a look that could have frozen blood.
I did not move. Not because it was the wise thing.
Every fibre of me, every instinct honed across eight centuries of combat, of war, of being the sharpest edge in the God King's arsenal, screamed at me to step forward. To block the path. To put myself between her and them.
"Brother." Tyreal's voice was barely a murmur, so low only I could hear it. A warning. Or perhaps an understanding. He knew what I was thinking. He always did.
But I knew what interference would cost. Not just me. The others. My mother and brothers would pay for my rebellion in ways that made death look merciful. And Azralyth? It would not save her. It would only make what came next slower. More deliberate. More cruel. Qasim was not a man who forgave interference, and his father was worse.
So I stood still, my hands at my sides, every muscle locked against the need to move.
And I watched her go.
The captain fell into step beside her, his men forming a loose escort that looked almost respectful if you didn't know what came next. The great doors of the Star Garden swung open, and the afternoon light spilled in, setting her auburn hair aflame for just a moment.
She did not look back.
Not even once.
The doors closed behind her with a sound like a judge's gavel, final and absolute.
"That one is going to get herself killed," Tyreal said quietly, still at my shoulder.
"You don't know that."
Nothing. And then Tyreal sighed and said "Don't let her get you killed too."
I said nothing. There was nothing to say.
The Empire of Toltaria, and the God Kings who ruled it, men who dared call themselves divine for the power they wielded, were no different. Mortal. Temporary. I had served them, yes. But I had always known their time would end. I simply had to wait. Be patient. And someday, my brothers and my mother, we would all be free.
What I had not accounted for was how long patience would take to become a cage.
Eight hundred years of empire. Eight hundred years of blood, most of it spilled by my own hand, or by brothers whose hands were no cleaner than mine. We built this place. Every border, every conquered province, every road that bore the God King's serpent and sun, we poured it from our bodies like mortar between stones. And in return, we were granted the honor of standing guard over the men we had made immortal through our service.
My brothers and I had taken to calling it king-sitting, when the joke still landed. It doesn't anymore.
There are moments, more than I care to admit, when I miss the battlefield. The open, honest brutality of it. When your enemy stands before you with a blade, there is no deception in it. Either you die, or he does. The math is clean. The outcome is earned.
Nothing in the God King's court is that simple. Nothing.
The Grand Hall had transformed once more.
Across the centuries it had worn many faces. I had seen it dressed for ceremonies of honour — when my brothers and I returned from bringing yet another kingdom under Imperial rule. I had watched it swallow royal weddings whole, drunk on music and excess. And I had stood in it during funerals, when the silence was so heavy it seemed to press the stone floor down.
Tonight, it was restless.
The tables groaned with food: roasted water fowl basted in cherry sauce, wood pigeon pie with elaborate crusts shining in the hall's Witchlight, endless platters of fruit from the Myrragos orchards. Carafes of Calvendrian wine, both white and red, stood in quantities that would have shamed lesser kingdoms. But no one had truly begun. Fingers picked at crusts. Goblets were lifted and set down again. The court was waiting. You did not feast before the guest of honour arrived.
And the guest of honour had not yet arrived.
The Grand Ministers leaned toward one another at the tables nearest the dais, hooded and whispering. Behind them sat the nine OverLords — what remained of them, at least. There had once been eleven kingdoms bowing to the Toltarian throne, but Lothra had broken away years ago, too distant across the mountain ranges to reclaim without cost. The other had simply collapsed, another failed outpost rotting at the Empire's edge.
The survivors wore their finery like armour. Lord Erastos of Karth had adorned every finger with rings from his own mines, gemstones winking in the Witchlight as he gestured. Lady Vhalira of Iothalyn sat draped in crimson silk that pooled at her feet, her restless dark eyes tracking movement across the hall like a hunting cat. The new Overlord of Vraycia, the second son of Calvendria's lord, appointed after we'd crushed the rebellion and hanged his predecessor, sat next to his father, Lord Gregor, a great bull of a man with a temper to match.
They were all in their finest tonight as befitting the betrothal between the beloved heir to Toltaria, the most powerful human Empire to ever exist, and the eldest daughter of the Dragon King of Draci.
Seven hundred years had passed since such a grand match had taken place. The last time, it had been the God King Etheos who had met and loved the sister of Dragon King Rhekan. Etheos had been one of the few God Kings I had not despised. He had ruled with something approaching wisdom, and when he wed his dragon bride, he had set aside all others in her honour. No concubines. No harem. Just the wife he loved, and the kingdom he served well.
When Etheos died, his bride remained. The Draci lived far longer than mortal men, and she had chosen to stay in her husband's empire rather than return home. For centuries she walked these halls, a living reminder of the alliance her marriage had forged.
But that had been seven hundred years ago. Since then, the bond between Draci and Toltaria had frayed. The God Kings who followed Etheos had been either weak and ineffective, or corrupt and cruel. Rhekan's son had watched from across the sea as the empire his father had trusted rotted from within, and he had grown cold toward Toltaria.
This match was meant to mend what had broken. Perhaps it would. There was something about Crown Prince Qasim that reminded me of Etheos — a steadiness his father had never possessed. If anyone could hold this empire together, it might be him.
Not that I cared which way the scales tipped. The empire would either collapse under its own rot or find new footing. Either way, I would be there to witness it.
I always was.