The palace did not sleep.
It pretended to.
Aelira felt it the moment the air changed—when silence grew too deliberate, when even the shadows along the walls held their breath.
She stood alone in her chamber, candle half-burned, fingers resting lightly against the window frame.
Too quiet, she thought.
Her chest tightened.
Not fear.
Memory.
In her first life, this had been the night.
The night when mercy vanished without warning.
The night when footsteps came without announcement.
The night when she realized no one was coming to save her.
Aelira closed her eyes.
Not this time.
The door did not open.
The wall did.
Stone slid soundlessly aside, revealing a narrow passage she had never been meant to know existed.
Three figures stepped through.
Black-clad. Masked. Silent.
Assassins.
Aelira did not scream.
She stepped back slowly, pulse steady despite the way her hands trembled.
"You're late," she said softly.
The first blade moved.
Fast.
Aelira twisted aside as steel sliced through the air where her throat had been a heartbeat earlier. Pain flared as the edge kissed her shoulder—hot, real.
She gasped.
Blood stained white fabric.
So this was how it almost ended again.
She stumbled back, candle shattering against the floor, plunging the room into darkness.
The assassins smiled beneath their masks.
Darkness was their domain.
They lunged together.
And made their fatal mistake.
The shadows surged—not wild, not screaming—but furious. They wrapped around limbs, dragged weapons from hands, slammed bodies into stone.
Still—there were three.
Still—Aelira was bleeding.
One broke free.
He drove her backward, blade pressed hard against her ribs. Stone dug into her spine. Breath tore from her lungs.
"You should have stayed quiet," he whispered.
Aelira laughed.
Soft. Broken. Terrifying.
"I tried that once," she said. "It killed me."
The shadows answered her rage.
They snapped.
The assassin screamed as darkness crushed him into the wall, bones breaking with a sickening sound.
The others tried to flee.
They didn't get far.
Silence fell again.
Thick. Shaking.
Aelira slid down the wall, knees giving out, blood soaking her sleeve.
Her vision blurred.
Not again, she thought. Please—
The door burst open.
Kael.
He didn't stop to take in the scene. He didn't ask questions.
He was already moving.
"Aelira."
Her name broke in his voice.
He crossed the room in two strides, dropping to his knees beside her, hands shaking as he pressed them over her wound.
"Stay with me," he said urgently. "Don't you dare—"
"I'm fine," she whispered.
She wasn't.
He could see it.
Blood. Too much blood.
His jaw clenched, eyes burning. "I swear to you—"
"Kael," she murmured weakly, fingers catching in his sleeve. "Look at me."
He did.
Tears blurred his vision.
"I didn't die," she said softly. "She doesn't get that again."
Something shattered in him.
He pulled her into his arms carefully, as if she were glass, forehead pressed to hers.
"I will burn this palace to the ground," he whispered. "I will end her."
Aelira's lips curved faintly.
"Not yet," she said. "I want her to see me live."
Footsteps thundered closer—guards, chaos, shouts.
Kael lifted her without hesitation.
"Touch her," he growled at the first guard through the door, "and I will kill you."
No one argued.
Far below, in the depths of the palace, Queen Seraphine stood before a mirror.
A servant knelt at her feet, trembling.
"It failed," he whispered. "She survived."
For the first time—
The queen's hand shook.
Then she smiled.
Slow.
Unhinged.
"Good," Seraphine said softly. "Then she can suffer longer."
Aelira drifted in and out of consciousness as Kael carried her through corridors she barely recognized.
But one thought anchored her.
She tried to kill me.
And failed.
Again.
This time—
The war was no longer political.
It was personal.