Music and laughter tangled in the air, the royal hall bright with shifting candlelight. Dancers slipped between tables, their steps quick and sure, skirts brushing against polished boots and trailing over the marble. The nobles watched from behind their masks, raising goblets that caught the light and sent it scattering across the ceiling. For a moment, it was easy to forget that blood had ever soaked these stones, that the fight for freedom from the needy spirits had left its mark here.
Caden’s hand closed around hers beneath the table, steady but too tight. His fingers pressed into her palm, and she felt her own skin grow damp with nerves. The morning’s words still lingered between them, heavy and silent, each glance carrying what neither of them dared to say.
She caught a flicker of movement near the servants’ entrance. A boy, maybe ten, wove between the tables, arms trembling as he tried to balance a silver platter almost as big as his chest. Sweat gathered on his pale forehead, even though the air in the hall was cool.
Then he collapsed.
The platter hit the marble with a crack that echoed through the hall. Roasted birds and sticky fruit were scattered across the floor, rolling under chairs and shoes. The boy curled in on himself, clutching his chest, his face gone the color of old milk.
The music stumbled and stopped. Voices cut off, leaving a hush that pressed against her ears. The nobles turned, masks glittering, eyes empty and curious. No one moved from their seats.
Elara stood before she realized she’d moved, crossing the floor in quick steps. She knelt and pulled the boy close, feeling how light he was, his ribs sharp beneath the thin cloth. His breath came in short, ragged bursts against her shoulder.
"Fetch a physician," she commanded, her voice cutting through the silence. "Now."
The nobles watched, eyes narrowed, lips twisted in faint amusement. Their judgment slid over her skin, cold and sharp. The queen is always reaching for lost children and always making a scene.
The boy's eyes fluttered open - brown as autumn leaves, wide with terror. "Your Majesty," he whispered, trying to struggle upright. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean - "
"Hush." Elara smoothed his dark hair back from his forehead. "You've done nothing wrong."
Holding him, the dream crept back. Chains rattled in the dark, voices chanting words she’d never learned but somehow knew. Her ancestor’s face flickered in the firelight, twisted in pain, begging for mercy that never came. The old weight settled on her chest, heavy and cold.
How many children died in those temples? How many were dragged forward while nobles watched and did nothing?
Tears stung at the corners of her eyes. She forced them back, whispering to the boy as he shook in her arms. "You’re safe. Help is coming."
The court physician finally arrived, his steps slow, his face set in practiced indifference. He pressed two fingers to the boy’s wrist, listened to his chest with a show of concern, then straightened and shrugged, already looking away.
"Weakness from hunger and overexertion," he declared, his voice carrying easily across the silent hall. "Nothing more serious than that."
Laughter returned like poison behind silk fans. "The servants," a duchess said with a flick of her jeweled hand, "always fainting, poor things. So dramatic."
"Perhaps they should eat more," Lord Harwick suggested, his tone dripping with mockery. "Though I suppose that would require paying them enough to afford food."
Laughter again, sharp and bright, slicing through the hush.
Elara lifted the boy, steadying his narrow shoulders with both hands. Heat rose in her chest, anger thick and heavy, close to breaking loose. She turned to the nobles, her voice low and sharp.
"If mercy fills no coffers, then coffers aren't worth filling."
Silence cut through the hall, cold and sudden. Behind the masks, eyes narrowed, the smooth faces slipping for a heartbeat. She saw what hid there: calculation, contempt, the habit of measuring lives in coins.
Caden's hand gripped hers so tightly her bones ached, his thumb trembling against her knuckles. "You can't keep this up, Elara," he whispered, his voice cracking with strain. "They will turn on you."
She held her breath, meeting the stares of every duke and duchess. "Let them. I won’t stand by while chains close and silence settles over us."
The moment stretched taut as a bowstring. Then Duke Aldric cleared his throat, raising his goblet with practiced ease.
"To our gracious queen," he said, his smile sharp as winter ice. "May her heart always be... so tender."
The toast echoed around the hall, voices soft and edged. The music started up again, conversations stumbling back to life, too bright and brittle. The line had been drawn. Everyone knew where they stood now.
Servants rushed to gather the ruined food, heads down, hands quick. Elara’s mind filled with other memories that clung to her since she’d come to Verdana. The kitchen maid was beaten and left in the cellar for breaking a cup. The stable boy, two fingers gone to frostbite after a night locked outside for some small mistake. The serving girl who vanished after a lord’s gaze lingered too long.
What could she do, really? The question gnawed at her, sharp and constant. She was queen, but the palace was built on the backs of those who had no power to fight back. Every silk dress, every golden cup, was bought with the pain of children like the boy she’d just held.
Servants filled Verdana - noble houses, merchant homes, fields, and factories. Tens of thousands, maybe more. How could one woman, even a queen, reach them all? How could she change anything when the ones who made the rules thrived on cruelty? How could she shield the weak when the strong called kindness a flaw?
The shamans had fallen because they forgot their people were flesh and blood. She watched the nobles drift back to their games. What if those who replaced the old rulers were just as blind?
The evening crawled forward, each moment measured and stiff. Elara smiled, nodded, and said what she was supposed to say, but part of her was still kneeling on the marble, her arms around a starving boy, while laughter rang overhead. When the feast ended and she slipped away to her rooms, exhaustion crashed over her, heavy and real.
Sleep gave her no rest. Her dreams filled with blood and chanting, warriors drawing marks on their skin that burned with cold light. Her ancestor’s face returned, twisted by pain and stubborn hope, speaking words that echoed through the dark:
"The children are dying while we feast. The spirits demand blood, but whose blood feeds them truly? Look at your hands, priestess. Look at what you hold."
In the dream, she looked down and saw her hands stained red. She lifted her head, expecting an altar, but found a throne instead. Chains snaked from its base, binding children, mothers, fathers - faces turned up to her, eyes full of the same hope she’d seen in the boy.
"Choose," her ancestor whispered. "The crown or the chains. You cannot wear both."
Elara woke with her heart hammering against her ribs, nightgown damp with sweat, the taste of iron thick on her tongue. The palace was silent, the moonlight casting pale shadows on the floor. Caden lay beside her, restless, his brow drawn tight even in sleep.
She slid from the bed and crossed the floor barefoot, pressing her palm to the cold window. Verdana stretched out below, darkness hiding thousands of lives she would never know. Their suffering pressed down on her shoulders, heavy and silent.
The old question returned, sharp as ever. Was she cursed, or chosen? Were these dreams a punishment for sins she never committed, or a warning she was meant to heed?
Mercy is the only crown that lasts, she whispered to the city below. But what good was endurance if mercy came too late? If children starved while she argued with herself? If servants fell while she weighed words and rules?
Tomorrow would bring more trials, more choices. The nobles would keep playing their games. The poor would keep suffering, unseen. She would walk the line between kindness and survival, knowing that one wrong step could ruin everything she had tried to build.
But tonight, in the quiet before dawn, she made a promise. The boy would not be forgotten. His hunger would not be brushed aside. No matter what it cost her, she would find a way to reach past the palace walls and touch the lives that mattered.
Even if it broke her.
The old gods might want blood, but she would give them something else, something the shamans had lost in their hunger for power. She would offer hope. If that made her weak to those who ruled by fear, let them think her weak.
Some things were worth the risk.