The Queen sat alone, her solar steeped in velvet silence. The tapestries around her swayed gently in the draft, but she noticed none of it. Her hands, wrapped around a goblet of rosewine, were trembling—though she would never admit that aloud.
She had not touched the drink. Not since he had fallen.
Not since Carlos ruined everything.
That boy—that brat—should have been out of the way by now. It had all been carefully orchestrated: the lilies, so sweetly gifted in spring, seeds pressed into Erevan's hand with a mother's smile. "They remind me of you." she had said, watching his young face light up. So trusting. So eager to grow what she gave him.
He never questioned it. Not the lilies. Not the imported rosewine from the southern ports, discreetly arranged through merchants under her seal. Nor the appointment of her chosen chef, loyal and silent.
A heart weakened by illness. A poison triggered by scent. The quiet removal of an inconvenient heir.
It would have been perfect.
Except for Carlos.
She had expected panic from him. Grief. Collapse. She had expected him to run, to stammer and fail and confirm everything she would accuse him of. She had made sure he was present at the table, close enough to be blamed.
But he did not fall apart.
He carried Erevan through the hall with the steady strength of a soldier. He didn't cry. He didn't question. He acted. And that was when she knew she had miscalculated terribly.
She has already make sure that the chef disappeared with the money she gives but no, instead of that her chef got arrested by the Kave of Carlos. For a second , the queen thought, " I should have killed him, i was being kind and now it is getting me back, fuck!"
Now, her chef had been dragged into questioning by Kave. The guards were murmuring. The nobles, once comfortably distant from court matters, now lingered near the doors, watching.
And Carlos… Carlos was no longer a boy.
He had returned from the elves' forest bloodied but victorious. The root was in his hand. The king still breathed because of him.
He had become a symbol. Not just a duke. Not just a prince.
A hero.
She took a long breath, her composure cracking just slightly at the edges. Her painted nails pressed into the wood of the wine table.
She had tolerated him because he was young. Because he was a shadow of a dead queen. Because she thought he would never rise.
She was wrong.
Now they looked to him.
But even that didn't matter—yet. There was still no proof. No confession. No names signed in blood. The chef story won't hurt her, it can't hurt her, she was sure about that.
She still had a chance.
She stood, calling for her maids with a voice so even it scared them. She dressed in mourning tones—silver, lavender, with pearls that gleamed like tears. Her veil was sheer but dignified. Her makeup muted, soft, designed to draw sympathy without suspicion.
The queen was a mother. And today, she would play the part.
She stepped through the palace like a vision of sorrow and grace. Guards bowed. Nobles glanced with narrowed eyes. She let a few tears slip as she passed them.
"Have courage," she whispered to the guards. "For our king."
At the doors to Erevan's chamber, she paused. Inside, the boy she raised as her own lay pale, healing, under heavy blankets. Carlos might be there, too. And Lumira, that healer with her dagger eyes and inconvenient loyalty.
She didn't care. She had always been good at theatre.
A soft knock. A silken voice.
"My son," she said gently, "Are you awake?"
She waited, poised like a sculpture carved of glass and deception.
All she needed was for him to let her in.
All she needed was for him to believe her—just one more time.