Meredith
The silence after the council broke was worse than the shouting.
Meredith sat on the edge of the queen's chair, her fingers numb against the carved armrest. The banners above felt heavier than stone, their colors muted, as if even the fabric had withdrawn its loyalty.
Already she could hear it: distant clamor bleeding in from the streets below. Word had spread faster than wildfire—the lords' defiance, her public pledge. A storm was gathering beyond the palace walls.
Kael had left her only minutes ago, his boots clicking against the marble, his shoulders squared like a fortress. She should have felt safer with him gone. Instead, dread curled in her belly.
She rose and crossed to the window. Smoke snaked upward from the far quarter. Not a fire yet—torches. A crowd. Chants rose faintly, discordant, swelling until her pulse matched their rhythm.
They were not cheering.
They were demanding.
Meredith pressed a hand against the glass, wishing she could vanish through it, back to the world where voices cried her name at pep rallies instead of at executions. She whispered into the empty hall:
"I bound myself to him. And I bound us all to ruin."
Kael
Kael did not retreat to his chambers. He strode instead to the war gallery, where maps sprawled across oak tables, stones marking borders, rivers, supply lines. His captains waited, their armor dulled from campaign, eyes sharp.
"Report," he ordered.
"Lord Harrow marches east," said Captain Dren. "He's roused the provinces of Veynar and Stroud. Their banners will not return."
A lesser man might have cursed, raged. Kael only adjusted the nearest stone, shifting it firmly against the border. "Then we burn their fields before they can raise arms. Veynar feeds half the coast. Without bread, their rebellion rots in its cradle."
The captains exchanged uneasy glances. One cleared his throat. "Sire, these are your queen's lands. Her people—"
Kael's hand slammed down on the table. "Her people are mine now. Their loyalty is not requested, it is demanded."
For a heartbeat, he let the mask slip, felt the tremor beneath his ribs. Meredith's voice still lingered in his ear: This is your king. She had legitimized him before the realm, and yet she looked at him as though he were the blade pressed to her throat.
He wanted her strength beside him—not her silence. And yet, silence had served him well tonight.
"Ready the riders," he said. "If the lords will not kneel, they will starve."
Meredith
The unrest broke by nightfall.
From her chambers, Meredith heard the first stones smash against the palace gates. The chant of hundreds swelled to thousands, a tide of fury cresting higher with each breath. She could see them from the balcony—merchants, farmers, women clutching children. Not soldiers. Not rebels. Her people.
And yet they shouted for Kael's head. For hers.
Her ladies begged her to step back, to hide, but she remained frozen, the circlet heavy as a chain around her temples. Every cry struck her like a stone.
She had spoken one sentence in the council chamber. One sentence that had shackled thousands to Kael's ambition.
"Your king," she whispered bitterly. "Not mine."
Somewhere below, soldiers barked orders. Steel clashed. The mob surged. A scream cut through the night.
The kingdom was splitting open. And she was the seam.
Kael
From the battlements, Kael watched the chaos boil. His men locked shields, torches casting jagged shadows against the stone. Arrows hissed down, scattering the front ranks of the crowd, but still they pressed forward.
He could crush them. Break them as he had broken armies before. Yet as he stared into their faces—furious, desperate, terrified—he felt the ground shifting beneath him. This was not an enemy to conquer with steel. This was rot at the root of the throne itself.
And Meredith—sweet, reluctant Meredith—was at the heart of it. The lords would never see her as queen if she wavered. The people would never see him as king if she faltered.
He would need her voice again.
He clenched the stone of the battlement, knuckles white. He had the power to starve provinces, to shatter armies—but without her, his crown was hollow.
The choice was before him: break the people into obedience, or bind them with her.
Either way, blood would follow.