The instant word reached the palace, a shivering silence fell over the stone corridors.
Inside the Royal Council Chamber, the King was mid-report when the great doors burst open with a crack like thunder.
A guard stood in the threshold, blood staining his tabard, breath ragged.
"Princess Charlotte has been injured."
The scroll slipped from the King's fingers, fluttering to the floor like a fallen verdict. A storm passed through his eyes—shock, fury, fear—but no words followed. He rose, every line of his frame drawn taut as a bowstring.
"Where is she?"
"In her chambers, Your Majesty. She's... alive."
"Take me to her. Now."
The Queen was already gone. She had moved the moment the word wounded reached her ears.
They found Charlotte nestled in velvet pillows, her side tightly bandaged, her skin pale but her eyes blazing. Mira sat beside her like a miniature sentinel, dagger still clenched in her fist, blood on the blade.
The Queen dropped to her knees, every thread of royal formality unraveling in a breath.
"Oh, my brave, foolish child," she murmured, cradling her daughter's face with shaking hands.
Charlotte, wearied but smiling, reached up to brush her mother's fingers.
"I'm alright," she said softly. "Elias saved me."
The King's gaze roved over her, taking in every bruise, every scratch, every breath. His hands clenched behind his back, trembling with the restraint of a man too used to power—and too unused to helplessness.
"Speak," he said, voice iron. "Who did this? Who allowed it?"
Elias stepped forward, blood on his sleeves, purpose in his eyes.
"He's dead," he said. "But before he fell, he spoke. He said she 'tarnished the legacy of the crown.' That she 'brought shame into the palace.'"
The King went still.
Utterly still.
Then he turned to the arched windows and spoke—not to the guards, not to the nobles gathered in anxious silence, but to the very stones of the palace, to the soul of the kingdom itself.
His voice rang out like thunder on marble:
"From this day forward, if any hand rises against my daughter, it rises against the Crown. Against the kingdom itself."
Charlotte's Fire Rekindled
Two days later, when the bleeding had stopped and she could walk again, Princess Charlotte marched—unannounced—into the Royal Council Chamber.
This time, no one dared stop her.
She strode to the council table, where grey-bearded men squabbled over ink-stained maps and shifting borders, and laid a scroll upon the polished wood. The seal was blood-red.
"I am establishing a guard," she declared.
"A guard?" one minister scoffed. "Your Highness, we have an army. Palace defenses. The Crown's—"
"I would have my guard," she interrupted, voice like frost. "One not loyal to the throne, but to the forgotten crevices of this kingdom. To those who know what it is to be overlooked."
Behind her fan, the Queen showed no outward reaction—but her eyes gleamed hotter than the council's hearth.
The King leaned forward slowly. "And who will fill this... symbol of yours?"
Charlotte smiled, slow and sharp.
"Widows. Orphans. Bastards. Cripples. Commoners. Survivors. The very people we have always ignored."
A ripple of gasps swept through the chamber like wind across dry leaves.
"A mercenary band—" someone muttered in disbelief.
"No," Charlotte said, voice steely. "A mirror. Of what this kingdom truly is. I will forge them into something no assassin dares approach. No noble dares underestimate."
Silence pressed down like a velvet weight.
The King studied her, jaw tight, fingers steepled beneath his chin. At last, he spoke:
"You have one year. Train them. Arm them. Win their loyalty. If they fail—you disband them."
"They won't," she answered, calm as iron drawn from flame.