The moment the servant’s words hit her, Ariaxa sprinted.
Her lungs burned.
Her shoulder throbbed.
Her heart hammered like a war drum.
Riven raced beside her, sword drawn, fury twisting his features.
“They want to overthrow him?” he snarled. “Tonight?! While he’s barely standing?!”
“They think he’s weak,” Ariaxa said, breathless. “They think he won’t fight back.”
Riven barked a bitter laugh. “They’ve never seen you fight.”
They reached the throne hall.
Torches flickered.
The massive obsidian doors stood ajar.
Screaming echoed inside.
Ariaxa shoved the doors open.
And froze.
***
Dozens of nobles filled the throne room—
Some cloaked, some armored, some bare-faced in their treachery.
Daggers glinted.
Spell sigils burned in their hands.
At the base of the throne steps—
Kaedan stood alone.
Still pale.
Still recovering.
Still bleeding beneath bandages.
Holding only a sword.
His breath was shallow.
His stance unsteady.
But his eyes—
Those eyes were razor-sharp, burning.
“Step aside, Emperor,” snarled Lord Harron, blade raised.
“You’re too unstable to rule. You will abdicate before dawn.”
Kaedan tilted his head.
“And if I refuse?”
A noblewoman spat, “Then you die.”
Ariaxa didn’t think.
She moved.
“ENOUGH!” she shouted, voice ringing like steel.
Dozens of traitors spun toward her.
Kaedan’s eyes widened—not in fear, but in furious relief.
“Ariaxa, NO—”
But the nobles were already charging.
***
The first dagger never reached Kaedan.
Ariaxa leapt in front of him, palms slamming together.
A solar barrier erupted outward —
a sphere of blinding gold that struck the hall with hurricane force.
Three traitors were caught at the center of the blast.
They didn’t even scream.
They simply turned to ash.
Gasps exploded through the chamber.
“What—”
“Gods—”
“She burned them alive—”
“The Sunborn—”
Ariaxa stepped forward, eyes ablaze, hands glowing molten.
“Anyone who touches him,” she whispered, “DIES.”
Her voice was too calm.
Too steady.
Too dangerous.
Kaedan stared at her as if seeing something both terrifying and holy.
The nobles hesitated.
But fear and desperation pushed them.
They attacked.
Daggers.
Shadow strikes.
Elemental bursts.
Poisons.
Blades.
Ariaxa met every one head-on.
She moved like fire given form, blazing across the throne hall. She tore through spells. Disintegrated blades with her bare palms. Struck traitors with bursts of concentrated sunlight.
Every time someone lunged for Kaedan—
Ariaxa was already there.
Her barrier cracked.
Her shoulder reopened.
Her lungs burned.
But she did not fall.
She did not yield.
And Kaedan—
already swaying—
stared at her with something like fear.
And reverence.
***
The doors crashed open again.
Riven stormed in with loyal guards behind him.
He shouted, “DEFEND THE EMPEROR!”
Steel clashed.
Magic screamed.
The hall erupted into a full-scale melee.
Riven cut down two traitors in a single arc.
Guards smashed into enemy lines.
Nobles shrieked spells that fizzled under Ariaxa’s sunfire.
Kaedan tried to step forward—
But his legs buckled.
Ariaxa caught him with one arm, still fighting with the other.
“Stay with me,” she hissed.
He grabbed her waist, breath shuddering.
“You shouldn’t be here—”
“Neither should you,” she snapped.
A traitor hurled a spear at Kaedan’s head—
Ariaxa spun, unleashing a solar whip that vaporized the weapon mid-air.
Kaedan stared at her, stunned.
“Ariaxa…”
She didn’t look at him.
“Stay. Alive.”
***
Finally—
Finally—
The last rebel collapsed to the marble floor, Riven’s blade lodged in his chest.
Silence.
Smoke curled from ruined pillars.
Ash drifted like dying snow.
Bodies littered the floor.
Ariaxa stood at the center of it all.
Bloodied.
Shaking.
Glowing with golden fire.
Her eyes burned like suns.
Her presence filled the hall like dawn breaking through the night.
She turned slowly toward the surviving nobles—
those who had not raised a hand against Kaedan.
Fear carved their faces.
But something else too.
Awe.
One by one—
hesitant, trembling—
they lowered to their knees.
Then more.
And more.
Until the entire hall bowed before her.
She stood on the steps of the throne—
regal, blazing, unstoppable.
And the nobles knelt.