"The barriers?" Kaan's voice goes deadly quiet. I see his attention sharpen to a razor's edge. "Explain. And choose your next words very carefully, because if this is a ploy to separate us?—"
"Your war has torn reality itself," Solene interjects, stepping forward. Her voice carries that trained, musical quality that still grates against my ears—too perfect, too polished. "The constant clashing of shadow and light magic has created fractures in the Veil between our realms. The kind of damage that took centuries to seal the first time."
"Not our war," I cut her off, my voice rising. "The Light Court attacked us. Father, on the Council's orders, declared war the moment I refused to murder my husband."
"Semantics," Father dismisses with a wave of his hand, as if the distinction between aggressor and defender is a mere inconvenience in his grand political calculations.
"Truth," Kaan counters, night thickening around his fists. "But continue. What exactly happens when these barriers fail?"
Father's mask slips slightly, revealing genuine concern—or a masterful imitation of it. "The Veil has already begun to tear. We've documented seventeen permanent rifts in the past month alone. Creatures are crossing between realms at will—things that should have stayed sealed in the deep places are finding their way through." He pauses, letting the weight of his words settle. "If the barriers collapse entirely, both realms will hemorrhage into each other. Shadow magic will poison the Light Court territories. Light magic will burn through yours. The neutral lands between us will become an uninhabitable wastelandwhere reality simply... stops working. Every village, every city, every person caught in the collapse zone will cease to exist in any meaningful way. Not dead—unmade. The Council believes we have perhaps three months before the damage becomes irreversible. Perhaps less."
The silence that follows is suffocating. I think of the reality tears I saw shimmering across the sky above the ruined throne room. The wrongness of it. The way Kaan's shadows had recoiled instinctively.
"The Council believes only a union of both courts can prevent it," Father continues, his tone shifting to something almost rehearsed.
"Under their leadership, of course," I say flatly.
"Under proper leadership," Father corrects, meeting my eyes without flinching. "Leadership that hasn't spent the last year destabilizing everything our ancestors built."
Kaan laughs, dark and dangerous. "How generous. Submit or watch everything burn. And conveniently, the only solution requires us to hand over power to the very people who caused this catastrophe in the first place."
"Those are the Council's terms," Father admits. "I'm simply the messenger."
"You've never been simply anything in your life," I say. "What aren't you telling us?"
Father's expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind his eyes—a calculation being made, discarded, replaced with another. When he speaks, his voice carries the same measured cadence he used during trade negotiations when I was a child, explaining why some sacrifices were necessary for the greater good.
"The Council's preferred outcome is straightforward. Kaan removed from power. You returned to Light Court jurisdiction, where your... unique abilities can be properly monitored." Hepauses, letting the weight of his words settle. "Those are the only terms they'll accept for their cooperation in stabilizing the barriers."
"Removed from power," Kaan repeats, darkness bleeding at his feet. "What a tactful way to say executed."
Father doesn't deny it.
"Then we have nothing to discuss," I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel. "If that's their offer?—"
"It's their opening position," Father interrupts smoothly. "All negotiations begin somewhere. The question is whether you're willing to come to the table at all, or if pride will destroy everything both courts have built."
But there's something else. Something that's been clawing at me since I walked into this pavilion, since I saw him standing on that dais like he had any right to judge anyone. The question burns beneath my skin, demanding release, and I can't hold it back any longer.
"Tell me about my baby."
The words drop into the silence like stones into still water.
Father goes utterly still. Not the stillness of surprise—the stillness of a predator who's just been spotted. His eyes flicker, just for an instant, before the mask reasserts itself.
But I saw it. That momentary break.
"What baby?" Solene asks, confusion clear in her voice.
"The child I was carrying." My voice comes out steady, but my hands are shaking. I curl them into fists at my sides. "The pregnancy that ended in blood and grief. The baby I lost."
Kaan has gone terrifyingly motionless beside me. I feel the temperature drop as his shadows spread across the floor, dark tendrils reaching toward my father like accusatory fingers.
"A tragedy," Father says smoothly. "One we all mourned."
"Did you?"
The question hangs in the air between us. I watch his face—really watch it—searching for the truth beneath the politician's mask.
