DANI’S POV
The rain never seems to stop falling here. Even the clouds grieve.
I sit beside her grave—Queen Lyra’s grave—watching the water trace lines down the stone as if the sky itself is trying to write her name over and over again. The grass is still new, the earth still soft. People come here every day, leaving flowers and candles, small tokens of devotion that can’t fill the silence she left behind.
The guards stand a few paces away, heads bowed, pretending not to listen. They know I come here often, that I talk to her as if she’s just waiting for me to finish.
“You wouldn’t want this,” I tell her softly. “None of it.”
The wind answers instead, cold and low.
I rest my hand on the carved marble. “He wants to send Elara away,” I continue. “Far from Verdana. He says it’s to keep her safe, but we both know what that means. He’s building walls around ghosts now.”
The silence feels like judgment.
“You’d tell him he’s wrong,” I murmur. “You’d tell him his daughter belongs here, with her people. But you’re not here to tell him anymore, are you?”
The words burn as they leave my mouth. I drag a hand down my face, letting the rain hide the sting in my eyes.
“He’s not the man you loved, Lyra,” I whisper. “He’s not even the man I swore to follow. He’s... something else now. Wrath with a crown. I don’t know how to stop him. And I think... I think he doesn’t want to be stopped.”
The thunder rolls faintly in the distance. Somewhere behind me, a guard coughs to remind me the hour’s growing late.
I rise slowly, brushing mud from my cloak. “I’ll protect her,” I promise the grave. “Elara. Your little girl. Whatever it costs.”
Then I turn toward the palace again.
***
By the time I reach the inner gates, night has swallowed the sky. The torches burn low along the corridors, and the sound of rain fades into stone. The palace feels wrong now—beautiful still, but empty, as though every echo hides a ghost.
I walk to Elara’s wing, where guards line the hall from end to end. They salute when they see me. I nod, and one of them opens the door quietly.
The child’s room smells of lavender and safety. She sits on the carpet surrounded by toys—wooden horses, cloth dolls, tiny castles carved from bone-white ivory. Her curls shimmer gold in the lamplight.
“Uncle Dani!” she calls, grinning.
I smile despite the ache in my chest. “Princess Elara,” I say, kneeling. “Your Majesty.”
She giggles. “You’re not supposed to call me that yet.”
“Yet,” I agree. “But you’ll grow into it soon enough.”
She picks up a toy sword and holds it out to me. “Fight me!”
I draw my dagger with exaggerated caution. “If I lose again, your father might replace me.”
She frowns in thought. “Then I’ll make you my knight.”
“Then I can’t lose,” I say, and we duel.
Her laughter fills the chamber, and for a while, it almost feels like the world isn’t breaking. I let her win every time—she demands it—and each victory earns her a smile wider than the last.
When she grows tired, she sits beside me, holding one of her dolls tightly. “Uncle Dani,” she says quietly. “Where’s Papa?”
My throat tightens.
“He’s working, little one,” I manage. “The King is very busy.”
“And Mama?”
The question hits like a blade through armor. I freeze.
Elara’s too young. A three years old child. She shouldn't have experienced the loss of her mother so early.
She tilts her head, wide eyes searching mine. “Mama hasn’t come to say goodnight.”
I force a smile. “She’s... helping your father. They’re both very busy right now, but they love you. More than anything.”
She frowns, unconvinced but too young to argue. “Will she come back soon?”
“Of course,” I say softly. “She never truly leaves.”
That seems to satisfy her. She crawls onto her bed, clutching her doll. Within minutes, she’s asleep, breathing slow and even.
I stay until her nursemaid arrives, whispering a thank-you before I leave.
Outside the chamber, the corridor stretches long and empty. But beneath the quiet, I hear something—faint at first, then clearer.
Screams. They rise from below, from the depths of the dungeons—my stomach twists. The guards shift uneasily but say nothing. They know better.
I shouldn’t go. Dorian forbade anyone to enter without his leave. But I already know what I’ll find—and that’s exactly why I have to see it.
***
The lower dungeons are colder than a grave. The air tastes of iron, sweat, and pain. The torches flicker weakly, throwing more shadow than light.
The screams grow louder with every step.
When I reach the last cell, I stop.
King Dorian stands inside, his back to me, shoulders rigid. His hands are red again. The prisoner—what’s left of him—is slumped against the wall, trembling, sobbing without sound. Chains rattle faintly each time he breathes.
Dorian turns slightly, and I see his face. His eyes—once bright, steady—are hollow now, fevered.
“Leave,” he says. His voice is calm, but it shakes something in me. “This is not your place.”
“Neither is it yours,” I answer.
He glances over his shoulder. “Do you question your King now?”
“I question my friend.”
“Then you’ll lose both,” he warns.
I take a step forward. “He’s half-dead, Dorian. This isn’t justice.”
His expression hardens. “He murdered my wife.”
“He followed orders,” I say quietly. “Alexander’s orders. You’ve punished the man. You can’t punish the order itself.”
“I can try.” His voice cracks with fury. “I will try until it breaks.”
I look at the prisoner—broken bones, blood-soaked chains, eyes empty of everything but pain. “If Lyra saw this—”
“Don’t.”
“She’d be ashamed,” I finish anyway.
He spins on me so fast I almost reach for my sword. “You think I care about shame?”
“No,” I say softly. “I think you care about her. Enough to forget who you are.”
For a moment, we simply stare at each other. Rainwater drips somewhere behind the stone walls, a slow, steady beat.
Then Dorian exhales, turning away. “You think I’m mad.”
“I think grief is eating you alive.”
He wipes his hands on a cloth that’s already red. “Then perhaps I’ll let it. At least it’s something that still feels.”
I step closer. “Let me take her,” I say.
He doesn’t move.
“Elara,” I continue. “You want her safe? I’ll make it happen. I’ll take her wherever you wish, wherever no one can find her.”
His shoulders tense. Slowly, he turns back to face me. The flickering torchlight carves deep shadows into his features. “Do you mean that?”
“I’ve never said anything I didn’t mean.”
He studies me for a long moment, then steps closer. The distance between us shrinks until I can see the tears that no longer fall.
“Then listen carefully,” he says. “You’ll take her beyond Verdana’s reach. Beyond mine, beyond Alexander’s. Somewhere he’d never think to look.”
“Where?” I ask.
A ghost of a smile touches his lips—one that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Verloren.”
I freeze. “The enemy?”
“The perfect disguise,” he says quietly. “No one would look for my blood in a rival’s court.”
I shake my head. “Dorian, that’s madness.”
“Perhaps.” His voice drops lower, almost a whisper. “But madness is all I have left to keep her alive.”
I stare at him, the smell of iron thick in the air. The prisoner’s ragged breath fills the silence between us.
He lays a bloodstained hand on my shoulder. “You’ll prepare everything. When the time comes, you’ll take her there yourself.”
I nod slowly, even as dread coils in my chest. “If that’s your command.”
“It’s not a command,” he says softly. “It’s a father’s plea.”
The torch flickers once, and his shadow stretches across the stone floor—long, dark, and broken.
And I understand then that the man before me isn’t the King I once followed, but a father drowning in his own fury.
Still, I bow my head. “Then I’ll go.”
“Good,” he whispers. “Because Verdana’s salvation now rests in enemy hands.”