The walk back to the harem wing felt longer than any march Ariaxa had made as a princess.
Her skin still hummed with the ghost of Kaedan’s touch, the echo of his breath at her throat, the way he’d nearly—almost—
No.
She shut the thought down before it could fully form.
The harem doors loomed ahead, tall and gilded, patterned with the sigil of the Emperor’s winged crest. Two guards stood outside. They glanced at her, then at each other, then stepped aside without a word.
The moment she crossed the threshold, the room went silent.
Music stopped mid-note.
Laughter died half-formed.
Perfume hung heavy and unbreathing in the air.
Every pair of eyes turned to her.
Some glittered with envy.
Some burned with open hatred.
Some stared with a sick, hungry curiosity.
Ariaxa froze for a second in the doorway, spine straightening by sheer force of will. She refused to shrink. Not here. Not in front of them.
Mirel, who had been braiding a younger girl’s hair on a cushioned dais, rose slowly. Her gaze swept over Ariaxa’s face—her flushed cheeks, her swollen lips, the faint tremor in her fingers.
“What did he do?” Mirel whispered, too softly for most to hear.
“Nothing,” Ariaxa murmured.
Mirel’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”
“Not the way you think,” Ariaxa answered.
An older slave lounged where Seren used to recline, draped across cushions like a lazy panther. Lira, sharp-boned and sharp-tongued, smiled with all teeth.
“Well, look at that,” Lira drawled. “The Emperor’s favorite returns from another private storm.”
“Hush,” someone hissed.
“Why?” Lira’s gaze raked shamelessly over Ariaxa. “We all know where she was. We all know who she was with.”
A ripple of whispers followed.
“She’s replacing Seren.”
“He hasn’t summoned any of us in days.”
“He nearly killed Queen Rhaelle over her.”
“She has more power than any of us ever did.”
“She’ll get us all killed.”
Ariaxa tried to move forward, but the weight of their stares made the floor feel unsteady.
Then something unexpected happened.
Kali—the youngest of them, big-eyed and nervous—slipped from her cushion and walked toward Ariaxa, hesitating only once before dropping to her knees.
“Stop,” Ariaxa said quickly, alarm flaring. “Don’t kneel to me.”
Kali bowed her head anyway, hands pressed to her thighs. “You told him to let Seren live,” she whispered. “You stopped him. No one else has ever stopped him.”
“That does not make me—”
“Strong?” Kali looked up, eyes shining. “It does. Maybe you can do what we never could.”
Another girl, Tynia, slowly joined her.
Then a third.
They weren’t kneeling like slaves to a master.
They were kneeling like prisoners to the only one they’d ever seen interrupt an execution.
Across the room, Seren’s old allies recoiled as if slapped.
“She really thinks she’s something now,” one spat.
“She rejected his crown and still he chases her,” another muttered. “He will get tired. They always do.”
“Or she will get us all annihilated first,” Lira snapped. “Look at them, kneeling for her. As if that will save them if he turns on her.”
Ariaxa’s throat tightened. “Stand up,” she told the girls at her feet. “Please. Don’t do this. You’ll only paint a target on yourselves.”
“We already wear collars,” Tynia said quietly. “The target has always been there.”
Mirel pushed through the crowd and grabbed Ariaxa’s hand. “Come,” she hissed. “Before you make any more enemies just by breathing.”
Ariaxa let herself be guided to the inner side of the room. Mirel didn’t stop until they reached a smaller alcove curtained by heavy crimson fabric. Only then did she round on Ariaxa, eyes wide and afraid.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Mirel demanded.
“No,” Ariaxa admitted, voice hoarse. “And I’m too tired to pretend I do.”
Mirel stared at her for a long moment, then swore under her breath. “Listen to me. The harem has killed for less than this.”
Ariaxa’s heart stuttered. “Killed?”
“We are not one little flock of grateful doves,” Mirel said sharply. “We are hungry, furious, desperate women and men who know how little our lives matter here. All we have is what scraps of power we manage to steal.”
Her gaze flicked toward the main room, where some slaves still stared at Ariaxa as though she’d grown a second head.
“You just stole more than scraps,” Mirel said. “You stole attention. You stole status. You stole the Emperor’s obsession. That makes you a threat.”
“I didn’t ask for—”
“No one cares what you asked for,” Mirel cut in. “They care that he didn’t tear you apart for saying no.”
Ariaxa opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I don’t want to take anything from them.”
“That doesn’t mean you haven’t.”
For a moment, their shared silence hovered somewhere between comfort and dread.
A shadow stretched across the threshold.
Riven.
He leaned against the archway of the harem entrance, arms folded, eyes sweeping the room with the patience of a predator staking territory. Several slaves dropped their gazes immediately.
“When did he get here?” Ariaxa whispered.
“He never left,” Mirel said. “He’s been hovering since you were taken for the ritual chamber.”
Riven’s gaze found Ariaxa’s. He didn’t smile, but something in his shoulders eased minutely when he saw her standing, breathing.
He walked toward them, boots soft on the thick carpets.
“Princess,” he said quietly.
“Don’t call me that,” she murmured automatically. “Not here.”
“Harem pet, then?” Lira called from a nearby couch. “Or does she outrank us now?”
Riven’s eyes snapped to Lira so fast she flinched. “Do you wish to test how far she outranks you?” he asked mildly.
Lira’s mouth snapped shut.
Riven turned back to Ariaxa. “I will be in the corridor,” he said. “No one comes in without me seeing it.”
“That’s not necessary,” Ariaxa protested.
“I wasn’t asking permission,” he replied.
“Riven.” Mirel frowned. “You can’t stand guard out there every moment. You need sleep.”
“I’ll sleep where I can hear her door,” he said simply. “If someone wants to hurt her, they will have to step over me.”
The murmurs in the room sharpened.
“Listen to him,” someone muttered.
“She has Kaedan and Riven now.”
“She’s collecting monsters.”
Ariaxa’s cheeks heated. “You don’t need to—”
“I do,” Riven said. “Because he ordered it. And because I choose to.”
Their gazes locked. A strange understanding flickered there, brief and uneasy.
Riven inclined his head and stepped back toward the door. He settled into a position against the wall just outside, one leg bent, arms folded—but she could see the watchfulness in the line of his body.
He was not resting.
He was waiting.
Mirel exhaled slowly. “You see?” she whispered. “This is exactly what I meant. You aren’t just a harem slave anymore. You’re a fault line running through this entire palace.”
“That should terrify Kaedan more than it terrifies me,” Ariaxa muttered.
“It does,” Mirel said grimly. “That’s the problem.”
Hours passed.
The harem slowly resumed its rhythm; laughter returned in clipped bursts, card games restarted, arguments murmured back to life. But the atmosphere had changed. Every glance Ariaxa caught felt measured, weighing, calculating.
When the evening bell chimed, signaling time for the communal baths, a cluster of girls began drifting toward the back corridor where steam already rolled under carved doors.
Mirel squeezed Ariaxa’s hand. “I’ll bring you water to wash here,” she offered. “You don’t have to go in with them tonight.”
“If I hide,” Ariaxa whispered, “they win.”
“If you get yourself drowned in a bath, they win harder,” Mirel shot back.
Before Ariaxa could answer, two voices caught her attention from the far side of the curtain, low and sharp.
“You hold her under,” a woman hissed. “I’ll scrape her arms on the tiles. With those collar burns, the infection will finish what we start.”
Ariaxa went very still.
“Are you insane?” another whispered back. “Riven’s right outside—”
“We won’t kill her,” the first voice said. “Just hurt her. Make her bleed. Make Kaedan remember there are others here.”
A soft, bitter laugh.
“He can’t protect her everywhere. Not even in the bath.”
Ariaxa’s blood ran cold as the realization settled in:
Ariaxa overhears two slaves planning to injure her during the next communal bath.