Midnight Crown
Outside, dawn was breaking over New Eidolon, sickly and pale, the city waking into another day of its own long violence.
Inside, two people stood in the sub-level where loyalty went to be tested, and held on to each other in the specific aftermath of a choice that had cost something real.
The Widow had sent assassins, bought docks, planted spies, built her network over years with the patience of a woman who had survived everything.
She had not accounted for this.
For a daughter who chose grief over safety.
For a king who waited while she grieved.
For what happened when those two things stood in the same room and decided, together, that they were not finished.