Lysara's POV
The interrogation room smells like sweat and fear. Not Elinor's fear. The guards'.
Lysara watches from behind a magical screen that makes her invisible to anyone inside. The glass is cold under her fingers and she's grateful for it. Grateful for something between her and what's happening in that room. The mage sits in the center of the stone floor, completely unfazed by the four guards circling her like wolves.
Elinor's hands are bound with silver chains that glow with suppression magic. Her dark eyes track every movement in the room. When one of the guards gets too close, she smiles. Not a friendly smile. The kind of smile that says she's broken chains before and could do it again.
"Where did you get the silver magic?" one of the interrogators demands. He's old, Council member named Viren. Lysara has never liked him much. He always smells like something rotten underneath his cologne.
Elinor spits at his feet.
Viren's face goes red. He raises his hand like he's going to hit her. Lysara's magic flares hot under her skin, ready to burn through the screen and stop him. But Elinor doesn't flinch. Doesn't even blink. Just keeps staring at Viren like he's nothing. Like he's less than nothing.
It's the most impressive thing Lysara has ever seen.
"Who sent you?" another guard shouts.
Elinor laughs. Actually laughs. The sound echoes off the stone walls like breaking glass.
"Who paid you to break into the palace?"
More silence. More of that terrible smile.
Lysara leans closer to the magical screen. She can feel the truth sitting just out of reach, like a word on the tip of her tongue. The mage isn't refusing to talk because she's protecting someone. She's refusing because she doesn't care what happens to her. She came here for something specific and she got it. Everything else is just noise.
That's when Lysara sees the documents.
Spread across a table at the side of the room. The papers Elinor stole from the sealed records. They're examining them now, trying to figure out why she wanted them. One of the guards picks up a page and starts reading.
His face goes pale.
Lysara can't read from this distance. The magical screen blurs the details. But she can see enough. Lists. Numbers. Dates scrawled in the margins. She knows that handwriting. She's seen it on council memos for years.
Her stomach twists.
"Get me those documents," she whispers to the guard stationed outside her hidden chamber.
He's pale too, and nervous, but he obeys. Minutes later, the papers are in her hands. The magical screen keeps her hidden while she reads. While her entire world shifts underneath her feet.
Poison. Ordered in small quantities. Purchased four years ago. Right after her coronation. Right after she seized the throne from the council and made them bow to her instead of the other way around.
Lysara's hands start shaking.
She knows this merchant's seal. She knows this signature. She's sat across from this person at council meetings and listened to them talk about protecting the kingdom. About keeping her safe. About being her most trusted advisor.
Lord Cassius.
Her uncle.
The one person she thought she could trust.
The poison list goes on and on. Year after year. Different merchants. Different poisons. All mixed with careful measurements. All designed to be slow. To weaken. To break down from the inside without obvious signs of violence.
All pointing to one man.
Lysara drops the papers like they've burned her.
In the interrogation room, Elinor is still sitting perfectly still. Still smiling that terrible smile. The guards are panicking now, comparing notes, realizing what the documents mean. What they've found.
The mage didn't break into the palace to steal from the kingdom. She broke in to steal the proof that the kingdom's council was poisoning its queen.
Elinor broke in to save her.
A guard grabs Elinor's arm and she moves so fast Lysara barely sees it happen. The chains rattle. The guard screams. Blood spatters across the stone floor. The other guards rush forward but Elinor is already moving, already fighting, already proving why they should have been more afraid of her.
She's going to get herself killed defending information that no one asked her to find.
Lysara is moving before she thinks about it. Before the council can execute her for trespassing. Before anyone can stop what's about to happen. She's running through the hidden passages behind the walls, running toward the interrogation room, running toward the mage who broke into her kingdom to save her life.
The main doors blast open.
Lysara steps through them like a storm. Her magic is burning gold and amber around her body. The guards drop to their knees immediately. Elinor stops mid-fight and stares at her like she's never seen anything more beautiful or more terrible in her entire life.
"Release her," Lysara says. Her voice echoes off the stone.
"Your Majesty, she's dangerous," Viren starts. "She attacked the—"
"I don't care," Lysara cuts him off. "Release her right now or I'll make sure the council never forgets what I'm capable of."
The guards move fast. The silver chains fall away. Elinor stands there, breathing hard, covered in blood, absolutely fearless. She looks at Lysara and something shifts in her dark eyes. Recognition maybe. Or understanding. Or the beginning of something that neither of them can name yet.
"You stole these documents," Lysara says. She's holding the poison list in her hand and it's shaking so hard the paper rattles. "You broke into the sealed records to find this."
"Yep," Elinor says. Her voice is rough. Satisfied. Like she knew exactly what would happen once the queen saw the truth. "Thought you should know who was trying to kill you. Seemed important."
"Why?"
Elinor steps closer. The guards tense but Lysara holds up her hand and they stay frozen. The mage moves like liquid silver, like she owns every space she walks through. She stops just close enough that Lysara can smell her. Smoke and electricity and something wild.
"Because the kingdom needed its queen alive," Elinor says. "And because anyone stupid enough to poison the person protecting them deserves to burn."
Lysara's entire body is vibrating. Not from fear. From something else entirely.
"What's your name?" she asks again. She needs to hear it. Needs to know who this person is. The person who broke into her palace. The person who stole evidence. The person who risked execution to show her the truth.
"Elinor Nightshade," the mage says. "And I'm going to be executed at dawn for this, so if you've got questions, you better ask them fast, Your Majesty."
Lysara looks at her. Really looks at her. This young, dangerous, impossible woman who saw a kingdom cracking and a queen drowning and decided that neither of them deserved to die.
She makes her decision.
"No," Lysara says. "You're not going to be executed."
"I broke into the palace," Elinor points out. "The council will demand it."
"The council answers to me," Lysara says. And in this moment, she means it completely. "Guards, take her to the main tower. Lock the doors. No one enters except on my command. No interrogations. No council members. Just her and the tower and whatever she needs."
"Your Majesty, what are you doing?" Viren's voice cracks.
Lysara doesn't answer him. She's looking at Elinor. At this wild thing that broke into the heart of the kingdom to save a queen who didn't even know she needed saving.
"Tomorrow," Lysara says quietly, "we're going to talk about why you really broke in. We're going to talk about who taught you that silver magic. We're going to talk about what you know about the council's conspiracy. And then we're going to decide what happens next."
"And if I don't want to cooperate?" Elinor asks.
"Then you die anyway," Lysara says. "So you might as well talk to me first."
Elinor's smile gets wider. Like she just heard the best joke in the world.
"Fair enough," she says.
As the guards lead her away toward the tower, Elinor looks back at Lysara one last time. Their eyes lock. And in that moment, Lysara feels something shift in her chest. Something that's been locked away for years. Something that's been waiting for someone wild enough to break it open.
The mage winks.
Then she's gone. And Lysara is standing in the interrogation room holding poison lists and realizing that her uncle has been trying to kill her for four years.
And that the only person she can possibly trust is the criminal she just saved from execution.
Everything is about to fall apart.
And somehow, that feels like the first time in years that Lysara has gotten something right.