[Silthara Palace—Night—Dinner Chamber]
The Dinner Chamber glowed with lamplight and quiet menace.
Bronze braziers burned low, their flames steady and disciplined, casting amber light over stone walls carved with victories long past. The long table gleamed with silver and obsidian dishes—meat glazed in spice and honey, rice scented with saffron, and fruits split and jeweled like offerings to forgotten gods.
Iru moved silently among them; his steps were precise. Too precise.
He served the Malik first, then the Malika, hands steady, head bowed, eyes lowered in the perfect posture of loyalty. And yet—Levin's gaze kept returning to him, again and again, as Lady Arinaya's earlier words echoed like a whisper beneath the clink of cutlery.
'The Black Serpents need only one thing, Malika. A moment when you are alone. Give them that moment… and they will reveal themselves.'
Levin's fingers tightened faintly around his fork.
Zeramet noticed immediately.
