Temperance
The palace walls had begun to lean closer.
Not truly, of course. The stone was as it always was: veined with silver, polished until it shone like black glass, carved with sigils no servant could explain. But after the Feast, after the Library, after the whispers I had heard with my own ears—after the silence he had left me in—the corridors felt narrower. The air thicker.
The Crimson Court was chewing on me. I could feel its teeth.
I paced my chamber until the carpet wore thin beneath my feet. The bond thrummed with every step, a heartbeat that wasn't mine, a presence I couldn't escape.
He had heard them. I knew it. When I pressed myself against the bond, when I strained to listen, he had been there. Listening. Choosing silence over steel.
I stopped at the balcony doors, bracing my palms against the cold silver lattice. Beyond, the river wound bright beneath the false moonlight, a serpent gleaming as though its scales had been forged in molten silver.
"Why?" I whispered to the night. "Why keep me alive if you won't protect me?"
The bond pulsed. Not words, not sound—just heat sliding beneath my ribs, too soft to be comfort, too sharp to be anything but deliberate.
I clenched my fists until my nails dug crescents into my palms. "If you won't act, then I will."
I slipped from the chamber again. The guards didn't move to stop me. I wondered if they were under orders—or if, like the servants, they wanted to see whether the mortal queen would walk herself into the fire.
The palace at night was a labyrinth. Long galleries lined with mirrors that shifted when I passed, showing glimpses not only of myself but of halls that no longer existed. Corridors where torches flickered low, revealing carvings of kings with their chalices raised, blood dripping down their wrists. Tapestries so old they seemed to sigh when the air moved through them.
I turned corner after corner, until I reached a hall I had not yet dared enter.
The Hall of Ash.
Its doors were iron bound with silver, carved with roses that had no petals—only thorns. When I pressed my hand to the wood, it was cold enough to sting.
Inside, the air was heavy with smoke. Braziers glowed low along the walls, filling the chamber with a scent that clung to my tongue: burnt cedar, blood, and something older, something like earth left undisturbed for centuries.
The floor was black marble, etched with circles and sigils that spiralled into one another like veins. In the centre stood a dais, low and wide, as if meant for offerings.
And surrounding it—statues.
Not marble this time, but obsidian, polished until they gleamed like water at midnight. Queens, I realised. Mortal women, their faces carved with painstaking precision. Some proud, some serene, some terrified. Each with a chalice in hand.
The Court had not remembered them, Isolde had said.
But the palace had.
I stepped closer, heart pounding. The statues seemed to watch, their eyes catching the firelight, their lips parted as though about to speak. One was so finely wrought I could see the grooves of teeth where her mouth had been half-open, frozen mid-breath.
A whisper slipped through the chamber. Not words. A sigh.
The bond pulsed again. Stronger this time. Urgent.
I pressed my hands against my ears, but the sound wasn't outside—it was inside, curling through me like smoke.
You see now, don't you?
I stumbled back from the dais, my breath shallow. My heel struck the sigil etched in the marble. For an instant, the lines glowed faintly, silver spreading like veins before fading again.
I swore under my breath.
The bond throbbed, hard enough to steal my breath. I felt him, sharp as a blade pressed to the back of my neck. Watching. Waiting.
"You won't stop me," I whispered. My voice shook, but I forced the words through. "You want to see what I do? Then watch."
I placed both hands on the obsidian statue nearest me. Her face was beautiful, proud, unflinching. Her chalice gleamed faintly with dust caught in its rim.
"Who were you?" I murmured.
For a heartbeat, nothing. Then—faint, so faint I thought I imagined it—the echo of laughter, soft and broken.
I staggered back, my breath catching.
The statue did not move. The chalice remained empty.
But the bond roared.
I pressed my hand to my chest, gasping. His presence surged through me—anger, maybe. Or fear. Or something darker.
I clenched my fists. "If you won't speak to me, I'll find the answers myself."
The silence that followed was heavy, thick with disapproval. But beneath it, I thought I felt something else.
Not threat. Not warning.
Pride.
I left the Hall of Ash shaken but standing. My steps carried me not to my chamber, but deeper into the palace, where voices drifted.
"…the mortal grows bold…"
"…the king watches too closely…"
"…we need only a single misstep…"
I stilled, pressing myself against the cold stone arch. Two figures stood in the gallery beyond, their cloaks black, their eyes glimmering faintly in the false dawn light.
Nobles. Not Selvara, not Veynar. Others. But their words were sharp enough to cut just the same.
"She walks the palace like she belongs," one sneered. "Let her believe it. The fall will taste sweeter."
Their laughter slid down my spine like ice.
The bond thrummed again. I knew he heard them, just as I did.
But still—he did not come.
Fine.
Then I would learn to stand on my own.
I turned from their voices, heart pounding, and walked back into the labyrinth of corridors, whispering to myself with every step:
"Not prey. Not pawn. Not broken."