DANI’S POV
Verdana feels hollow now. The city still breathes, but it’s shallow—like a man too wounded to rise again. The banners still hang, the bells still ring, but every sound echoes wrong. The Queen is gone, and with her, the light.
Lyra’s funeral stripped the kingdom of its color.
People filled the streets from dawn to dusk, not for spectacle, but for grief. Old women sobbed openly. Soldiers—men who’d never wept in their lives—lowered their heads, tears hidden behind gloved hands. Even the sky seemed to mourn; rain fell like slow, steady sorrow.
The King insisted on carrying her casket himself. I walked beside him, my shoulder under the same weight. A thousand eyes watched us, and none dared breathe too loudly.
When we reached the temple doors, Dorian stopped for a moment. His knuckles were white, his grip on the casket trembling, not from weakness but from something worse.
I whispered, “You can let go, my friend.”
He looked at me then—just once—and I saw the ruin in his eyes. “She was all that kept me from turning to stone,” he said quietly. “Now I’ll be the statue Verdana deserves.”
We laid her to rest beneath the white roses she loved. When the final hymn ended, silence claimed the kingdom.
***
Weeks pass, but grief does not.
The palace feels like a crypt. The courtiers whisper, afraid their own voices might wake the ghosts haunting the halls. Dorian no longer attends council meetings unless forced. The throne sits empty most days, save for the nights when I find him there alone, staring at nothing.
His study has become his battlefield. Papers, maps, letters—his new weapons. The war he fights now is one of names and vengeance.
The Queen’s assassin was found within a week. A hired blade, one of Alexander’s men. A ghost of the capital—slipped past guards, stabbed a queen, and waited to die.
When they caught him, Dorian didn’t have him executed. Not yet. He sent him to the dungeons.
And when the screams began echoing through the palace stones that night, no one dared move.
I went down once. Only once.
The King stood there in the torchlight, sleeves rolled to his elbows, his face calm, his hands red, crimson drops spilling from his knuckles. The assassin was alive, barely, chained to the wall, whispering Alexander’s name like a prayer that only made things worse.
“Go upstairs, Dani,” Dorian said without looking at me. “You’ve seen what loyalty costs.”
I didn’t argue.
I barely recognize my friend now.
He still speaks with reason, still moves with authority—but there’s something new beneath it, something sharp and cold. Wrath without mercy. Every rumor of rebellion meets a sword before a question. Every suspected name disappears by morning.
I tell myself it’s justice. Sometimes I almost believe it.
Tonight, like every night, we stand side by side in the boardroom, staring down at the maps spread before us. Candles burn low; wax pools like blood on parchment.
Red marks show Alexander’s fallen allies. Black marks—still loyal, still hidden.
“We’ve cut through fifteen of his strongholds,” Dorian says, tracing one of the marks with a gloved finger. “But they multiply like rats. Every nest we burn births another.”
“Fear will slow them,” I answer. “Even rats scatter when the fire grows.”
He nods absently. “Fear is useful. It keeps men honest.”
“Until it makes them desperate,” I remind him.
He glances at me, expression unreadable. “You’re worried I’ll burn more than nests.”
“I’m worried you’ll forget why you lit the fire.”
His jaw tightens. “I haven’t forgotten. I remember her face every time I close my eyes.”
The room falls quiet again. Outside, rain taps against the high windows.
“She wouldn’t want this,” I say softly.
He turns sharply. “Don’t you dare tell me what she would want.”
I meet his fury with calm. “I only mean she wouldn’t want you lost to it.”
For a heartbeat, the silence feels heavy enough to crush me. Then Dorian exhales, his shoulders loosening slightly. “You’re too bold for your own good, Dani.”
“It’s the only reason you keep me around.”
That earns a small, humorless laugh. “Perhaps.”
We stand over the maps again. His hand hovers above one of the black marks near the capital’s edge. “Alexander’s hiding somewhere in this cluster. The reports say he’s moving through the southern estates, recruiting the minor houses. The fools still think they’ll rise with him.”
“Let me take a squad,” I offer. “We’ll clear them before he breathes.”
He shakes his head. “Not yet. I want him desperate, not dead. Desperate men expose themselves.”
“Or drag others down with them.”
He looks up, and something in his gaze makes me pause. It’s not anger this time—it’s weariness. The kind that eats from the inside out.
“She was my strength,” he murmurs. “Now I have to be my own.”
“You always were.”
He shakes his head. “No. She made it bearable.”
There’s nothing to say to that.
I shift the subject. “We’ve moved half the army to the border garrisons. If Alexander’s men cross from the east, they won’t reach the capital.”
“Good.” He looks at the map again, eyes dark. “The kingdom still stands, Dani. But it feels smaller.”
“It’s just quieter,” I say.
“No.” His voice is low, heavy. “Quieter means emptier.”
He pours himself wine but doesn’t drink it. Instead, he sets the cup down untouched. “You’ve been by my side since we were boys,” he says. “I trust no one else to speak truth.”
“That’s why I don’t lie to you.”
“Then tell me—have I become what I swore to destroy?”
The question catches me off guard.
I look at him—the man I once followed into battle without hesitation. The same man who laughed with his wife in the gardens, who knelt to play with his daughter even when the council scolded him for it. That man’s still there, buried under the crown and the grief.
“No,” I answer honestly. “But you’re standing close to the edge.”
He studies me for a long moment, then gives a small nod. “Perhaps I need a tether.”
“Perhaps you already have one, your Majesty” I say quietly.
He doesn’t answer, but his gaze drifts to the window where the faint glow of the palace courtyard lights flickers beyond the glass. For a moment, I think I see pain soften him again. Then, just as quickly, it vanishes.
“Dani,” he says suddenly, his tone changing—calm, deliberate. “I need a favor. One too large to ask of any man.”
I straighten. “Then don’t ask it. Command it. You know I’ll do anything for you.”
He looks down at the maps again, fingers pressing against the edges until the parchment wrinkles. “This isn’t about me.”
“Then what is it about?”
He hesitates. “My daughter.”
“Elara?”
He nods once, slowly. “She’s all I have left that’s worth saving.”
“Of course,” I say. “She’s safe here. The palace is guarded day and night.”
His gaze sharpens. “And yet her mother was murdered inside these same walls.”
I fall silent.
He steps closer, voice dropping. “I can’t risk it again, Dani. Alexander’s reach grows longer every day. His spies are clever. His killers are patient. If he can’t destroy me, he’ll destroy what I love most.”
“She’s heavily guarded,” I insist. “Dozens of men—”
“Men can be bought.” His tone cuts me off. “Gold speaks louder than loyalty. You know that as well as I do.”
I nod slowly. “Then what are you suggesting?”
He exhales, eyes dark as night. “I want you to take her away.”
I stare at him. “Away?”
“Far from Verdana’s heart,” he says. “Somewhere no one can find her. Not my brother, not his men, not even my allies. Somewhere beyond the reach of this war.”
My stomach turns cold. “You mean to hide her?”
“To protect her,” he corrects softly. “She’s innocent in all this. She deserves a life untouched by my enemies—or my vengeance.”
I search his face for hesitation, but there’s none. Only resolve.
“Dorian,” I say quietly, “that’s a favor too big to be asked, even between friends.”
“I know.”
“Then why me?”
“Because you’ll never betray her. Or me.”
His eyes meet mine, steady and desperate. “You once swore you’d give your life for the crown. I’m asking you to give it for what’s left of my heart.”
The candlelight trembles between us, and I feel the weight of his words settle like armor I didn’t choose to wear.
He waits for my answer, silent, certain.
I hesitate.
Elara's a child, the only thread of love left in Dorian’s heart. How can I dare take it away?
How can anyone dare cut her off her heart, her home, her father? Especially when she no longer has her mother? A child only three years old.
“I have to think, your Majesty,” I finally sigh.