The summons was not a request; it was a verdict. Kaelen's words hung in the air, heavy and final. The Emperor wanted to see her. Alone. The game of cat and mouse was over. The Emperor was done playing.
Lia felt a sliver of ice trace its way down her spine, but her expression remained calm. This was the culmination of her gambit. She had dangled the mystery of her identity in front of the Emperor, and now he was demanding an answer.
"Where?" she asked, her voice steady.
"His private study," Kaelen said, his face pale. "The Solar. An hour after sundown."
The Solar. The heart of the empire's power. The room where she, as the Shadow Hand, had spent countless hours advising him, planning with him, building the very empire he now ruled. The irony was a bitter, metallic taste in her mouth.
The hour before the meeting was a blur of quiet, focused preparation. Julian, when he was informed, was furious.
"It's a trap, Lia," he said, his voice a low, angry growl. "He's going to corner you, force the truth from you. And when he does…"
"He will not get the truth," she said, her voice calm. "He will get the story I have prepared for him."
She spent the time with the Ledger, constructing her legend. It was a masterpiece of misdirection, a story woven from half-truths and plausible lies. She created a fictional mentor, a disgraced historian who had taught her his "unconventional" theories in secret. She littered the story with details she had gleaned from the Ledger, obscure historical facts that only a true academic would know, facts that would lend her story an unshakable air of authenticity.
As the sun began to set, casting long, bloody fingers of light across the city, she dressed for her execution, or her coronation. She chose a simple, dark grey gown, the color of ashes. She was a scholar, a ghost. She would play her part to the end.
Julian insisted on escorting her to the palace gates. The carriage ride was a tense, charged silence.
"If you are not out by midnight," he said as they pulled up to the massive, torch-lit gates, "I am coming in after you." It was not a threat; it was a vow.
"I will be out," she said, her hand briefly touching his. "This is a battle of wits, Julian. And it is a battle I have been fighting my entire life."
She walked through the gates alone, a small, grey shadow against the immense, imposing backdrop of the Imperial Palace. She was led through silent, familiar corridors by a stern-faced Imperial guardsman to the doors of the Solar.
The guard opened the doors and she stepped inside.
The room was exactly as she remembered it. The towering shelves filled with priceless books, the massive oak desk, the huge starmap inlaid into the marble floor. And him.
Emperor Adrian Thorne was standing by the large window, looking out at the city lights. He was not in his formal court attire, but in a simple, black tunic. He looked less like an emperor and more like the soldier he had once been. He looked like the man she had once loved.
"Lia the scholar," he said, without turning around. "Or should I call you by another name?"
He turned to face her, his eyes as cold and grey as a winter sea. The air in the room was thick with power, with unspoken history.
"I am who my master, Julian Vance, says I am, Your Majesty," she replied, sinking into a respectful curtsy.
"Your master," he repeated, a hint of amusement in his voice. He walked towards her, circling her like a predator studying its prey. "You are no one's servant, Lia. You have the eyes of a queen. The mind of a general. I have seen it. My pet scholar, Valerius, has seen it. You wear your humility like a peasant wears a stolen crown. It doesn't fit."
He stopped in front of her, his presence overwhelming. "So, I will ask you again. Who are you?"
She took a breath and began her performance. She told him the story she had created, the story of the disgraced historian, of a life spent in the shadows of forgotten libraries. She spoke with a quiet, scholarly passion, her words laced with the authentic details the Ledger had provided.
He listened, his expression unreadable. When she was finished, he was silent for a long, agonizing moment.
"A compelling tale," he said finally. "And your mentor, this disgraced historian who filled your head with such dangerous ideas. He must have been a remarkable man."
"He was," she said, her voice soft.
The Emperor smiled, a slow, chilling smile that did not reach his eyes. "Good. Then you will have no trouble telling me his name."
The trap had been sprung. It was a perfect, inescapable question. A single detail she had not, could not, have prepared for. Her mind raced, searching for an answer, a lie, anything. But there was nothing. The silence in the room stretched, becoming a tangible, suffocating thing.
She was caught. Her story, her identity, was about to unravel.
As the silence became unbearable, a sudden, sharp pain lanced through her head. A phantom echo, a ghost of a sensation. It was the Soul-Tether. The invisible chain that bound her to him. And it was vibrating, resonating with their proximity.
At the same moment, a new notification burned in her mind, a stark, terrifying warning from the Ledger.
[WARNING: User is in close proximity to an Omega-level Debtor. Soul-Tether resonance is approaching critical levels.] [PROBABILITY OF IDENTITY DETECTION: 15% AND RISING.]
He was not just probing her with questions. He was sensing her, on a deep, metaphysical level. He was feeling the ghost of the soul he had tried to destroy.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. She had to get out. Now.
She looked him in the eye, her carefully constructed mask of the scholar falling away, replaced by a desperate, defiant glare. "I will not be a piece in your game, Your Majesty."
"Oh, but you already are," he whispered, stepping closer. "You have been since the moment you walked into my ballroom. The only question that remains is… which piece are you?"
He reached out, his fingers tracing the line of her jaw, his touch a mixture of chilling intimacy and cold, clinical assessment. "Tell me," he said, his voice a low, hypnotic command. "Tell me his name."