And so you crown her.“I buy time.” My voice came out like stone.The council chamber smelled of cedar and sweat. Elders lined the benches like vultures in robes. Amanda stood at my right hand, hands clasped over her stomach, the picture of radiant dignity.I rose. My own voice echoed back to me in
Esther’s POVThe announcement hit like a blow even though I’d been bracing for it.The palace press office had called a “routine morning briefing” in the marble atrium. Everyone came. Officers, healers, servants, and courtiers were all jammed under the tall glass roof as if drawn by some instinct. T
Norman growled and growled but the sound had no teeth.A soft knock came at the inner door. Feminine. Measured.I didn’t move.The latch clicked anyway.Amanda stepped inside, wearing a thin robe of midnight silk. Her hair was loose for once, spilling over her shoulders like a dark waterfall. She ca
Nicholas’s POVThe report landed on my desk like a blade.A single cream envelope, unmarked except for the lab’s embossed seal, sat atop the stack of dispatches Dan had left. No courier had dared enter. They’d just left it there in the center, an island of silence amid contracts and petitions.Norma
The pen hovered after the words.I imagined the chain reaction: Nicholas discovering the truth, taking control of Carl’s treatment, maybe saving him, but at the cost of my own autonomy.I tore the page out and stuffed it in the bottom drawer with the others.Morning broke with a brittle pink sky. So
Esther’s POVThe moon had already climbed past the roof when I finally closed the infirmary door behind me. Carl lay sleeping under a haze of sedatives, the thin sheet rising and falling with his fragile breath. Sofia had curled into the chair beside him, thumb tucked under her cheek, dreaming throu