Isolde’s mouth curves. “Good. Most contenders fixate on the trials and forget the truth behind them. If you want to navigate this game, you need more than power. You need knowledge and perspective.”
I glance at her. “Did you know Lord Evander might support Lord Zevran if he had to choose?”
She exhales a soft, amused sound. “Saturn admires duty when they see it. Evander definitely has no appetite for the throne.”
“Do you think he’s right about Lord Zevran?” I ask.
Isolde answers with a shrug elegant enough to double as strategy. “Right or not, it tells you where Saturn stands. Just remember … every House is watching every conversation you have. Including this one.”
We reach the branching corridor that leads toward the residential wings. Isolde stops there, her eyes reflecting more than her expression offers.
“Good work today,” she says. “You listened. Keep doing that … it will matter later.”
She turns away, her steps unhurried and poised, leaving me with the feeling that the conversation we just had – that I thought was a debrief – was also a test. And that I passed, at least for now.
The walk back to my chambers is quieter than it should be. The corridor should be busy at this early evening hour, guards changing shifts, aides and advisors moving between wings. Instead, it’s nearly empty.
Where’s Ren?
She’s supposed to meet me at the junction point, the way she has every time I finish my lesson with Isolde, and return to my chambers to prepare for my lesson with Zevran. Her absence makes me feel uneasy.
Maybe she’s checking the perimeter. Maybe there was a security briefing I wasn’t informed about.
I reach my personal chambers and palm the entry panel, a new security feature Ren had set up on my door. The lock disengages with a soft chime.
I step inside and seal the door behind me.
The room should settle into the same hum it always holds in the early evening hours, the faint vibration of ventilation systems and distant machinery that’s become familiar enough to sleep through. Instead, the air feels wrong. Too still. Too cold.
A curtain at the far end of the room near the lighting console shifts. Just a ripple, fabric moving against nothing.
The ventilation hasn’t turned on.
My pulse kicks up from panic, the same instinct that’s kept me alive before in the slums. I move one step into the room. Another. My eyes adjust to the dim light filtering through the balcony glass,analyzing shadows that should be furniture, corners that should be empty.
“Ren?” My voice stays low, controlled. “Are you in here?”
Silence answers.
I try again, sharper this time. “Ren?”
The lights above the bed flicker once. A warning I register a second too late.
Cold pressure clamps over my mouth. Not a hand – the texture is wrong, formless but solid, like trying to push against smoke. My arms are yanked back and pinned by something impossible to fight against. There’s no surface to strike, no flesh to heat with power. I twist, trying to wrench free, but the bonds only tighten. They adapt to my resistance, flowing around my movements.
I reach for the Sun sigil deep in my chest, trying to call forth the pain powers I felt in the first trial. I don’t know how to summon it deliberately, only that it’s there, dormant and waiting. Nothing happens. The magic sits unresponsive beneath my skin, and even if I could wake it, what would I hurt? You can’t ignite what has no body.
The air at my neck drops ten degrees. I feel someone behind me, close enough that I should hear breathing. I don’t.
A hard strike rattles the outer door. The sound of metal on metal, precise and furious.
Ren’s voice cuts through the quiet. “Lady Cyra?—”
The panel lights flash red. Another strike, harder. I hear the frame groan under the impact. Then the door gives with a crack that echoes through my bones, the lock mechanism shattering as the panel jolts inward.
Ren steps through with her weapon raised, eyes sweeping the room in a single trained movement. The shadow tether binding my arms is visible now, threads of darkness moving, alive and deliberate. The attacker stands near the corner, dressed in gear so matte black it looks like a void cut into the shape of a person. Only the angle of their stance gives them dimension.
Ren shifts to attack, weapon locked on target.
