📍 Chapter 64 – The Purge
The palace bled silence in the days that followed.
Not the peaceful kind — the kind that warned something darker was rising. A tide rolling in. One that couldn't be stopped with prayer or pity.
Zara stood at the center of it all, cloaked in dark blue, her hand resting on her stomach as she stared across the marble floor of the royal hall.
Today was the beginning of the purge.
And she would not flinch.
---
"I want their names," she said to Varyn.
The captain stood across from her with a scroll in hand. He had dark circles under his eyes — like most of the guards who hadn't slept in days.
"We've begun re-vetting the palace staff as ordered," he said. "Seventeen names already removed. Three suspected of espionage. Five had secret payments connected to the Queen's old treasurer."
Zara raised an eyebrow. "And the kitchens?"
Varyn nodded grimly. "Two cooks are missing. Disappeared the night of the fire. Likely smuggled out by the Raven's network."
She closed her eyes for a moment, breathing slowly.
This wasn't just betrayal. It was a rot that had crept into every hallway, every door, every corner of the place she now had to call home.
"Keep going," she said. "No one is exempt. Not even my handmaids. I'll bring in replacements from my old village if I must."
Varyn hesitated.
"Say it," Zara said sharply.
He lowered his voice. "One of your handmaids... she was the one who poured your tea the night you nearly fainted."
Zara's jaw clenched.
"I want her brought to me."
---
The girl was young. Barely eighteen. Her eyes were wide with fear when she was dragged into the chamber. She trembled, even as she knelt on the stone floor before Zara.
Zara didn't shout.
She didn't need to.
"Your name is Lemi, isn't it?" she asked quietly.
The girl nodded, lips quivering. "Yes, my lady."
Zara stood slowly, walking toward her with quiet, measured steps.
"You served me for two months. You braided my hair. Pressed my robes. Slept outside my door. You touched everything I wore."
"I didn't—" Lemi choked. "I swear, I didn't mean—"
"Why?" Zara asked, cutting through the stammering. "Why betray me?"
Tears rolled down the girl's cheeks. "They said they'd kill my mother if I didn't. I didn't want to hurt you. I only added the drops once."
"What was it?" Zara asked.
Lemi sobbed. "Sleeproot. It was meant to slow your body… weaken you… not kill."
Zara crouched down, leveling her eyes with the girl's.
"You put something in the body of a pregnant woman. You could have killed my child."
"I'm sorry!" Lemi cried. "They made me. I didn't want to—please, I have no one else—"
Zara stared for a long moment.
Then stood.
"Captain Varyn," she said.
"Yes, my lady?"
"Place her in the servant dungeons. Feed her. Keep her safe. But she will not walk free until she testifies — in public — about everything she was told to do."
Varyn nodded and motioned for the guards.
As they dragged Lemi out, Zara turned away, swallowing the acid in her throat.
Mercy wasn't weakness.
But forgetting was.
---
That night, Zaire entered her chambers with a sealed letter in hand.
He handed it to her without a word.
Zara opened it slowly.
It was from Lord Venra — one of the five nobles who had supported the Queen's arrest.
The contents were chilling.
> "My spies confirm that the Raven's agents have reached the outer towns. The north is being quietly destabilized. Several lords are being bribed or blackmailed. One was found dead — his daughter missing.
>
> They are not trying to reclaim the crown…
> They're trying to make it collapse from the edges."
Zara handed the note back, face like stone.
"They want to isolate the capital," she said. "Cut off food, trade, morale. Slowly squeeze us into silence."
Zaire moved to sit beside her. "Then we push back."
"No," she said, rising. "We prepare."
Zaire looked confused. "What do you mean?"
She stared out the tall glass windows, her voice calm.
"I'm going to form my own circle. A council that doesn't answer to bloodlines or noble titles. People I trust. Women I trust. Survivors. Fighters. Observers."
Zaire raised an eyebrow. "That's never been done."
"Exactly," Zara said.
---
Within two days, she had chosen the first three.
1. **Leva** – mysterious, silent, deadly. No longer a spy. Now, her advisor for palace security and court manipulation.
2. **Marna** – the palace healer who had saved Lord Rulin's life. Steady, observant. Now, her voice on health and childbirth concerns.
3. **Tavi** – a former laundry maid who had once smuggled a message past ten guards to save her brother from execution. Sharp. Brave. Now, Zara's personal courier and shadow voice.
Each woman was brought into her chamber, one at a time, and sworn in under oath — not of loyalty to the crown, but to Zara and the unborn child she carried.
"We build from the ashes," Zara told them. "And if this palace burns again, we'll rebuild faster."
---
But not everyone approved.
That evening, Lord Thalos stormed into the war room, red-faced.
"This is outrageous!" he barked. "You've appointed peasants to council seats. Women with no education, no titles, no right!"
Zara didn't even stand.
She simply looked at him with those quiet, deadly eyes of hers.
"I appointed people who have nothing to gain by betraying me."
"They're not trained in policy!"
"They're trained in survival," she said. "And that's exactly what this kingdom needs right now."
Zaire said nothing — only watched.
And when Thalos stormed out, furious, he looked at Zara and smiled.
"You're becoming someone I wouldn't dare go to war against."
She smiled faintly. "Good. Because I'm already in one."
---
That night, as she lay in bed, hand resting over her belly, she whispered to the child again.
"I don't know what you'll be. A prince. A princess. A warrior. A writer. But you will be born into a palace your mother cleansed with blood, tears, and fire."
The child shifted inside her — a gentle flutter, not a kick.
A sign.
She closed her eyes.
And dreamed not of silk and crowns…
…but of iron and storms.