It arrived at dawn.
No guard saw it delivered.
No courier admitted to carrying it.
But it sat on Serena's pillow when she woke—sealed in wax the color of dried roses, stamped not with a royal crest…
…but a thumbprint.
Pressed in blood.
Damián was already at the war table, conferring with his captains about rising tensions in the northern provinces when she entered, the letter in her hand.
His eyes flicked to it.
Paused.
Then narrowed.
"Where did that come from?"
"My room," Serena said. "I didn't order wine and bloodshed with breakfast, but someone's feeling bold."
She broke the seal.
Inside: no name.
No signature.
Just three lines, ink smudged from hasty fingers.
You should've stayed a rebel.Queens make better targets.See you at the border.
Damián took the parchment from her.
Read it once.
Then again.
The room fell silent.
He handed it to his general.
"Code the handwriting. Triple the patrol on the north perimeter. Anyone entering from the mountains dies without warning."
Serena didn't move.
Her fingers curled slightly at her side.
"They think I'm afraid of becoming a symbol," she said quietly.
Damián stepped close, his voice barely restrained.
"No, they want to provoke you into stepping into the open. Where they can shoot first and justify later."
She looked up.
"I'm done hiding."
That evening, Serena walked into the Hall of Records—where every royal decree, every law, every marriage contract had ever been documented.
And she added her name.
Not under consort.
Not under mistress.
But beside the King's, on the first parchment signed jointly in over a century.
By Order of Their Majesties, Damián Alaric Vireaux and Serena Vale, Sovereigns of Virelia:
Any enemy that draws blood in threat shall have it returned in kind.
Any hand raised against this crown will meet a queen with a sword in one hand… and the truth in the other.
Elara found her hours later, dressed in black and silver armor, standing on the tower balcony.
"You're going to the border?" she asked softly.
Serena nodded. "They want to see if I bleed."
"Do you?"
Serena turned to her—her voice steady, but not unkind.
"I bleed. But I don't die easy."
That night, Damián sat beside her in the war carriage.
The moon was high.
The mountains ahead.
She rested her head against his shoulder and whispered,
"If I die before I see them burn, you'll finish it."
His voice was a growl.
"If you die, I'll burn the world."