Kael's POV
"Your Majesty, if we don't act now, the southern provinces will unite against us!"
I watched Lord Pemberton's face turn red as he shouted. A vein throbbed in his forehead. In a moment, it would burst, and he'd collapse. I'd seen it happen before—stress-induced heart failure. Three... two... one...
He collapsed.
Guards rushed forward to carry him out. The other advisors barely glanced at him. Death was common in my throne room.
"Does anyone else wish to waste my time with obvious statements?" I asked.
Silence. Good.
High Vizier Mordain stepped forward, his ancient robes whispering across the black marble floor. He was the only one who never seemed afraid of me. Perhaps because he was nearly as old.
"Your Majesty, I have a solution." His voice was smooth as oil. "A marriage alliance with Duke Ashford. His daughter in exchange for peace with the southern provinces."
"Another bride." I said it without emotion, because I felt nothing. Not interest. Not annoyance. Nothing.
"The eighteenth time is the charm, perhaps?" someone muttered.
I didn't bother looking to see who spoke. They were right. Seventeen brides before this one. All dead within weeks. I could barely remember their names. Margaret? Mary? The one with the red hair who cried constantly?
"Fine," I said. "Arrange it."
Mordain bowed. "As you wish, Your Majesty. The girl's name is Seraphina Ashford. She's—"
"I don't care." I stood, and every person in the room dropped into a bow. "One human is the same as another."
I left the throne room, my footsteps echoing in the vast emptiness. Sir Ryn fell into step beside me, my personal guard for over two centuries. He was one of the few people from before the curse who still lived.
"Your Majesty," he said carefully. "Don't you want to know anything about this bride? Perhaps—"
"No."
"But she might be—"
"Dead within a month?" I stopped walking and looked at him. "They all die, Ryn. The curse sees to that. This girl will be no different."
Something flickered in his eyes. Pity? Sadness? I couldn't tell anymore. I'd forgotten how to read emotions I could no longer feel.
"Of course, Your Majesty."
We continued to my chambers. The rooms were massive and cold, filled with expensive furniture I never used. I dismissed Ryn and stood at the window, looking out over my empire.
Three hundred years.
Three hundred years of this emptiness. Three hundred years of watching humans live and die and feel things I couldn't remember. Love. Joy. Fear. Even anger would be welcome.
But there was nothing. Just an endless void where my heart used to be.
I moved to the mirror. Silver eyes stared back—the mark of the curse. Once, they'd been gold like my father's. Now they glowed with unnatural light, cold and dead.
"What did it feel like?" I asked my reflection. "To be human?"
The reflection didn't answer. It never did.
A knock on my door interrupted the silence.
"Enter."
Mordain glided in, carrying a crystal glass filled with dark red liquid. "Your evening tonic, Your Majesty."
I took it without question. I'd been drinking this mixture every night for three centuries. Mordain claimed it helped sustain my immortality, kept the curse stable. I didn't care enough to question it.
I drank it in one swallow. It tasted like metal and something else—something bitter I could never identify.
"The Duke's daughter arrives in three days," Mordain said. "Shall I prepare the usual... arrangements?"
The usual arrangements. A cold wedding. Separate chambers. Minimal contact. Then waiting for whatever killed them to kill her too.
"Yes."
"Very good, Your Majesty." Mordain paused at the door. "Though I must say, this one is different."
I barely glanced at him. "How?"
"She's a bastard. Unwanted. Her own family despises her." His smile was thin. "They're sending her here to die. She knows it."
"Then she'll expect nothing from me. That makes things simpler."
"Indeed." Mordain bowed and left.
I turned back to the window. Three days until another bride arrived. Another face I wouldn't remember. Another death I wouldn't feel.
Three days until—
Pain exploded through my chest.
I gasped, stumbling backward. My hand clutched at my heart, feeling it pound against my ribs. It was beating too fast, too hard, like it was trying to break free.
What was this?
The pain faded as quickly as it came, leaving me breathless and confused. I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.
I never shook.
And there—just for a moment—I'd felt something. Not pain, exactly. Something else. Something that made my dead heart lurch in my chest.
Fear?
No. Impossible.
But as I stood there in my empty chambers, I felt it again. The faintest flutter, like a butterfly's wings against my ribs.
My heart was beating differently.
Something was changing.
I moved back to the mirror, studying my reflection. My silver eyes seemed brighter somehow, almost... alert.
"What's happening to me?" I whispered.
Then I saw it.
In the mirror's reflection, standing in the shadows behind me, was a figure I hadn't heard enter. A woman in a hooded cloak, her face hidden.
I spun around.
No one was there.
I looked back at the mirror. The figure remained in the reflection, even though the room behind me was empty.
She raised one pale hand and pointed at me. Her lips moved, speaking words I couldn't hear.
Then she lowered her hood.
My breath stopped.
It was the face from the portrait in the old throne room. The face I'd ordered destroyed three centuries ago. The face that haunted the few dreams I had.
High Priestess Thalia—the woman who cursed me.
But she was dead. I'd killed her myself. Watched her burn. Scattered her ashes.
The ghost's lips moved again, and this time, I heard the words as clearly as if she stood beside me:
"She's coming. The last of my blood. The girl who will break you or save you. But be warned, Emperor—she won't be your only visitor. The one who kills your brides is already inside your palace. And this time, they're coming for you too."
The reflection shattered.
Actual glass exploded outward, and I threw up my arm to protect my face. When I looked again, the mirror was whole and undamaged.
But in my palm, I found a single shard of glass that shouldn't exist.
And it was warm.
For the first time in three hundred years, I held something that felt warm to the touch.
My door burst open. Ryn rushed in, sword drawn. "Your Majesty! I felt something—a surge of magic—"
"Who else is in the palace?" My voice came out sharp. "Who has access to my chambers?"
"No one, Your Majesty. The palace is sealed. Only your most trusted—" He stopped, his eyes widening as he looked at my hand. "Is that... blood?"
I looked down. The glass shard had cut my palm, and blood welled up, dripping onto the floor.
But that wasn't what made Ryn's face go white with horror.
My blood was the wrong color.
Instead of red, it gleamed gold—the color it had been before the curse. The color of mortal blood.
"That's impossible," Ryn breathed. "The curse... it changes everything. Your blood has been silver for three centuries."
"Three days," I said, staring at the golden drops on the floor. "The girl arrives in three days."
"Your Majesty, what happened? What did you see?"
I looked at him, and for the first time in three hundred years, I felt something that might have been fear—or might have been hope.
"I saw the priestess who cursed me. And she warned me." I closed my fist around the warm glass. "Someone in this palace has been killing my brides. And Seraphina Ashford is next."