Sera's POV
I stare at the note until my eyes burn.
They're trying to kill me.
Five words that make no sense. The Emperor is immortal. He can't die. Everyone knows that. He's ruled for a thousand years without a single scratch.
So why would he slip me a note saying someone's trying to kill him?
And why did his eyes look so... different? Warm instead of cold. Alive instead of frozen.
I read the note again, my hands shaking. The handwriting is messy, like whoever wrote it was in a hurry. Or scared.
Before I can think about it more, footsteps echo down the hallway again.
I shove the note into my mouth and swallow it just as a guard appears at my cell door. The paper scrapes down my throat, but I don't make a sound.
The guard is a woman with a hard face and cold eyes. She unlocks my cell and throws a bundle of gray fabric at me. Put these on. You start work in ten minutes.
Work? My voice comes out raspy. It's the middle of the night.
Servants work when they're told to work. She crosses her arms. The rules are simple. Obey every order. Keep your head down. Don't speak unless spoken to. Break any rule, and you'll wish you were executed instead.
She turns to leave, then stops. Oh, and one more thing. If you try to escape, we don't kill you. We kill someone else. Another servant. Someone innocent. So if you run, you'll have their blood on your hands.
The door slams shut behind her.
I stand there, holding the gray servant clothes, my whole body trembling. This is real. This is actually happening. I'm going to spend the rest of my life as a slave in the Emperor's citadel.
No. I can't think like that. I can't fall apart.
I change into the servant uniform a simple gray dress that's too big for me and rough against my skin. No shoes. Bare feet on cold stone.
When the guard comes back, she doesn't speak. She just grabs my arm and drags me through hallways that twist and turn like a maze. Upstairs, down corridors, past doors that all look the same.
Finally, we reach the kitchens.
It's huge and hot, with fires burning in multiple stoves. Other servants rush around, chopping vegetables and stirring pots. No one looks at me.
You're on floor duty, the guard says, pointing to a bucket and scrub brush in the corner. Every inch of this kitchen better shine by morning. If I find one spot of dirt, you don't eat for three days.
Then she's gone.
I pick up the brush and bucket. My hands are already bleeding from the chains earlier, and now I have to scrub floors?
A memory hits me so hard I almost drop the bucket.
Six months ago, I was in MY kitchen, the one in my family's mansion. I was laughing with the cook about what cake to serve at my wedding. I was wearing a blue silk dress that cost more than this entire bucket. I had magic glowing in my hands, practicing spells just for fun.
Now look at me.
I kneel on the stone floor and start scrubbing.
The work is horrible. My knees ache. My back screams. My hands bleed into the wash water, turning it pink. Hours pass. The other servants ignore me completely, like I'm invisible.
Around what must be three in the morning, I take a break and sit against the wall. Tears burn my eyes, but I won't let them fall. I WON'T.
Another memory attacks me.
Lucian proposing. He took me to the garden under the stars. He got down on one knee and said he'd love me forever. The ring was beautiful a silver band with a blue stone that matched my magic.
I believed him. I actually believed him.
Stupid, I whisper to myself. So, so stupid.
How long had he been planning to betray me? How long had he been sleeping with Morgana behind my back? Did he ever love me at all, or was I just a tool to get closer to my family's power?
And Morgana. My stepsister. We grew up together. Shared secrets. Braided each other's hair. I taught her magic when she struggled in lessons.
She repaid me by stealing my fiancé and helping destroy my life.
The tears come then, hot and angry. I cry silently into my hands, my shoulders shaking.
First night is always the hardest.
I jump and look up. An old woman stands there, holding a plate with bread and cheese. Her face is kind.
Eat, she says quietly, setting the plate beside me. You need strength.
Thank you, I whisper.
She nods and walks away before I can ask her name.
I eat the food so fast I barely taste it. Then I go back to scrubbing until my arms feel like they're going to fall off.
Finally, as the first hints of dawn light creep through the high windows, the head cook inspects my work. She runs her finger along the floor, checking for dirt.
Acceptable, she says. Go to the servant quarters. Second floor, room seventeen. Sleep fast. You're back here in four hours.
I stumble out of the kitchen and somehow find room seventeen. It's tiny barely big enough for the thin mattress on the floor. But it has a small window.
I collapse onto the mattress and stare at that window as the sun starts to rise.
The sky turns pink, then orange, then gold. It's beautiful. I used to watch sunrises from my bedroom balcony while drinking tea and planning my day.
Now I watch it from a prison.
I'm going to survive this, I whisper to the sunrise. I'm going to find out who framed me. I'm going to make Lucian and Morgana pay for what they did. I'm going to
A shadow passes across my window.
I freeze.
Someone is outside, hanging from the wall somehow. The shadow moves, and I see a hand press against the glass.
Then a face appears.
Emperor Caspian's face.
But again, his eyes are wrong. They're not cold and immortal. They're desperate and very, very human.
His lips move, forming words I can't hear through the glass.
Help me.
Then he falls.
I hear his body hit the ground three stories below.
The sound is wet and horrible and very, very mortal.
I run to the window and look down, my heart in my throat.
The Emperor of the Eternal Realm lies broken on the stones below, not moving.
And I can see his chest rising and falling.
He's breathing.
Immortals don't breathe.