Chapter 22

Elouera

The Grand Throne Room of the Obsidian Palace didn't hold warmth. It was a vaulted cavern of black granite and gold leaf, designed entirely to remind you that your life was a fleeting privilege granted by the woman sitting on the dais.

Empress Matilda sat high above the cold floor, her throne carved from a single piece of dark basalt. She was draped in heavy crimson velvet that cascaded down the stone steps like a trail of dried blood. At sixty, her face was a masterpiece of iron and spite, unmarred by mercy, her golden eyes cold enough to freeze water in the sun.

I stood thirty paces below her, my knees trembling inside my leather boots.

I was barely breathing. Stirling’s rapid intervention two days ago using a rare northern salt compound he’d managed to force down my throat had stalled the black blood in my veins, but the damage remained. Deep beneath my ribs, a dull, throbbing coldness settled like lead, a constant reminder of Holden’s poison. My linen bindings felt impossibly tight, crushing my fractured rib every time I drew a ragged breath.

To the right of the throne stood Archduke Holden. His hands rested on the carved armrests of his silver-wheeled chair, his warm green eyes watching me with a quiet, sickening amusement. He knew I had survived his Night bloom drug. He also knew I couldn't expose him without exposing my true identity as an Omega and the Weaver.

To the left stood Crown Prince Callan, looking grim and towering in his ceremonial armor. His icy blue eyes were fixed on the side of my neck, staring obsessively at the high collar I had pulled up to hide the faint black veins spidering toward my jaw. His Alpha scent cracking glaciers and raw leather was tight, aggressive, and suffocating.

"You look pale, Elian," Empress Matilda’s voice cut through the cavernous room like a dragged blade. It echoed off the granite pillars, cold and flat. "More so than usual."

"The chill of the autumn winds, Your Imperial Majesty," I murmured, keeping my chin lowered, playing the broken, sickly Beta prince to perfection. "My chest has been weak."

"Your chest has been weak since the day you crawled out of your mother's womb," she replied without a shred of heat. She leaned forward, her gold rings clinking softly against the basalt armrest. "And yet, rumors swirl through the capital. The court speaks of a hidden intelligence behind those vacant eyes. They say you humiliate your elders on the chessboard. They say you wander the archives at night."

My heart hammered a frantic, painful rhythm against my ribs. Beside her, Holden’s knuckles whitened against his silver wheels.

"Idle gossip from bored nobles, Your Majesty," I whispered.

"Perhaps," the Empress said, her eyes narrowing into razor thin slits. "Or perhaps I have allowed a useless weed to take root in my garden for far too long."

She raised a single hand. A page stepped forward, offering a rolled parchment bound in black ribbon. She didn't take it; she simply gestured toward me. The page scurried down the dais steps, placing the scroll into my trembling hands.

"The Iron Sinks have revolted," Matilda announced, her voice booming off the vaulted ceiling. "The subterranean workers have seized the deep refinery shafts. They have stopped the coal shipments. Without coal, the capital’s foundries freeze within a fortnight."

I unrolled the parchment. My eyes scanned the brutal, blood-spattered glyphs of the lower sectors. The Iron Sinks were the dark, airless armpit of the empire a lawless pit miles beneath the city where criminals, runaway slaves, and radical rebels lived in the toxic fumes of the refineries. The air itself was poisoned with sulfur. Royal guards who entered the Sinks rarely returned with their throats intact.

"You wish for General Vane to take a legion down to clear them, Your Majesty?" Callan spoke up, his voice gravelly, his heavy brows drawn together. "A direct assault will destroy the refinery infrastructure."

"No," the Empress cut in, her gaze never leaving my face. "A military assault will cause them to collapse the main shafts out of spite. They need a negotiator. A royal presence to hear their grievances and secure the coal."

Silence fell over the throne room, thick and suffocating.

I looked up from the parchment, my blood running completely cold.

"You want me to go?" I breathed.

"I want you to prove your worth, Elian," Matilda said, a dark, terrifying smile curling the edges of her thin lips. "You claim to be a prince of this empire. Yet you sit in your quarters, sipping tea and nursing faint spells, while your brothers bleed on the borders. You will take a diplomatic envoy into the Iron Sinks before dusk. You will meet with the rebel leader, Master Malakor, and you will secure the coal shipments."

It was an execution order. Wrapped in silk and titled as diplomacy, but an execution nonetheless.

Malakor was a notorious butcher who hated the imperial bloodline with a feral, legendary passion. He flayed royal tax collectors alive. Sending a sickly, unarmed prince into his lair was simply handing him a blade and inviting him to cut my throat.

"Your Majesty," Callan stepped forward, his Alpha dominance surging violently, the scent of frost spiking in the room. "This is absurd. He won't survive the first descent. The sulfur air alone will drown his weak lungs!"

"Are you questioning my command, Crown Prince?" Matilda asked softly.

Callan froze, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle leaped along his cheek. He glared at me, his icy eyes burning with a wild, conflicted fury that bordered on madness. He wanted to tear the room apart to stop it, but the rigid hierarchy of the empire held him in place.

"He will go," Matilda declared, her voice final as a slamming tomb door. "He will take four guards. No legions. No heavy armor. If he succeeds, he proves he has a purpose in this court. If he fails... well, the imperial line has always been far too crowded."

She waved her hand dismissively, turning her back on me.

Holden leaned forward in his silver chair, catching my eye as I slowly rolled the black-ribboned parchment back up. He gave me a tiny, victorious nod. He had pushed her to do this. If the poison didn't break my mind, the rebels in the dark would finish the job for him.

I turned and walked out of the Grand Throne Room, my boots clicking rhythmically against the stone, my chin held high even as my insides screamed in pure, unadulterated terror.

Two hours later, I stood in the damp, shadows of the Lower Iron Gate at the base of the city walls. The heavy iron winch was groaning, slowly lifting the massive rust coated portcullis that led down into the black, sulfurous abyss of the Iron Sinks.

I wore my leather Weaver gear beneath a plain wool cloak. My poisoned dagger was hidden in my boot, and a small vial of Stirling’s neutralizing salt was tucked into my sleeve.

"You're going to die down there, little prince."

I didn't turn around. I recognized the slow, heavy tread of heavy boots before he even spoke.

Stirling stepped out from behind the damp stone archway. He wasn't wearing his royal attire; he wore dark, unbranded leather armor, a heavy broadsword strapped to his back. His striking green eyes were fixed on mine, burning with a dark, unhinged resolve.

"The Empress ordered me to go alone with four guards, Stirling," I said quietly, watching the thick, sulfurous steam rising from the pit before us. "Go back to your quarters."

"The Empress ordered Prince Elian to go," Stirling rumbled, stepping directly into my space. The heavy scent of crushed cedar and woodsmoke wrapped around me, cutting through the bitter smell of sulfur. "She said nothing about Crown Duke Stirling Vance riding along as your personal guard."

I stared at him, stunned. "You'll be stripped of your title. If my mother finds out you disobeyed her.

"Let her try to take it," Stirling growled, reaching out to grip my chin, his calloused fingers firm and unyielding. "I told you, Elouera. I'm not letting them destroy you. If you're going into the dark, I'm going with you."

Before I could answer, a blood-curdling scream echoed up from the black depths of the elevator shaft, followed by the wet, sickening sound of tearing metal.