Kael
The uprising ended in fire.
Kael's soldiers pushed the mob back with shields and steel, scattering them into the alleys. By dawn, the streets reeked of smoke and blood, bodies abandoned in the gutters where only hours before they had shouted defiance.
He walked the city walls at sunrise, the crown heavy on his brow. The lords would hear of this slaughter and whisper the word tyrant. Yet he felt no regret. A throne is not won by mercy—it is kept by fear.
And yet, beneath the triumph, a quiet unease gnawed. Meredith's silence at his side the night before had nearly undone him. Her voice, her crown, her lineage—they were the mortar for his claim. Without her, he was a foreigner playing king.
He would need her, not just as ornament, but as weapon.
Meredith
The city smelled of ashes.
From the balcony, Meredith forced herself to watch the aftermath: smoke curling from blackened stalls, soldiers dragging away the dead. Every face below was a reminder that she was tethered to this world by her own voice. Your king. She had said it, and now their blood clung to her lips.
If she faltered now, she would not be remembered as queen. She would be remembered as a scapegoat—a second Marie Antoinette, despised and discarded.
Her heart ached for home, but her instincts screamed louder: survive.
That night, when Kael summoned her to the war gallery, she did not shrink from the maps. She studied them with the same focus she once gave to playbooks and routines, her mind searching for rhythm in chaos.
"You cannot starve them all," she said, her voice steadier than she felt. "If you burn Veynar's fields, the coast riots. You'll have rebels and famine both. You need their grain as much as they do."
Kael's eyes narrowed, not in anger but in interest. "What do you suggest?"
Meredith traced a river with her finger. "Control the water, not the soil. Build granaries closer to the capital. Secure transport routes. Make the provinces depend on you for distribution. If you are the hand that feeds them, they cannot bite it without starving."
Silence fell. The captains shifted uneasily, but Kael studied her with something close to admiration.
"You speak like a general," he said.
"I speak like someone who doesn't want to be dragged through the streets when the bread runs out," she replied.
A shadow of a smile touched his mouth. "Then perhaps you were born for this throne after all."
Her pulse stuttered. No—she wasn't born for this. She didn't belong here. And yet… if she was trapped, she would not be trapped as a victim.
Kael
Later, when the council was dismissed, Kael lingered by her side. The firelight flickered across her face, not softening it but hardening her resolve.
"You have more to offer than you admit," he said.
She met his gaze. "If I help you win, I win. If you fail, I fall with you. So yes, Kael—I will help. Not for your crown. For my neck."
Her words struck him like a blade and a balm. Fear and loyalty, bound together. Not love—perhaps never love—but survival could be stronger than devotion.
He did not tell her that he needed her more than she needed him. Instead, he simply reached across the table and set his hand over hers.
"We will not fail."
Meredith
That night, alone in her chambers, she opened one of the thick tomes the scholars had left behind in her "honor." Most of it was dusty politics and crumbling histories—but one chapter caught her eye.
Arcana. The Old Arts.
She traced the symbols, her skin prickling. If she was ever to find her way back home, it would not be through Kael's wars. It would be through this. Through the mysteries that bound this world to hers.
But until then, she would sharpen herself into a queen who could stand beside a conqueror.
Because if history demanded she be a villain—then she would be one who lived.