Lysara's POV
The wine tastes like bitter almonds before it tastes like death.
Lysara watches from across the chamber as the servant drinks from her cup. Not much. Just enough to know. The girl's face goes pale in seconds. Her hands start shaking. She drops the goblet and it shatters against the stone floor, wine spreading like blood.
The third time this month.
The queen doesn't move. She just stands there in her white nightgown while the castle physician rushes forward and the guards grab the servant. All happening like a play she's already seen. Like she's memorized every terrible line.
"Get her to the healing ward," Lysara says. Her voice sounds hollow even to herself. "And find out who prepared the food."
No one will find out. They never do.
She's twenty-six years old and she can't eat without someone tasting it first. Can't sleep without guards outside her door. Can't trust the council that smiles at her during the day and plots against her at night. The kingdom is cracking and she's holding it together with raw will and magic that's starting to flicker.
Six months. That's what her advisors whispered about the wards. Six months before the ancient spells fail completely. Before the monsters at the borders pour through and destroy everything her ancestors built.
Lysara turns away from the broken wine glass and walks to the window. The palace courtyard spreads out below her, dark and shadowed. Somewhere in those shadows, someone wants her dead. Someone who has access to the kitchens. Someone trusted enough to get close.
Her head hurts.
A servant approaches with her evening tea, different cup, different server. Lysara doesn't even bother. She just shakes her head. The girl retreats, probably grateful to be sent away. Everyone's grateful to get away from the queen these days. There's a taint on her now. Weakness. Desperation.
She pulls her magic close, trying to center herself. The gold and amber light flickers under her skin, threads it through the scars on her collarbone from the coronation ritual four years ago. The magic comes harder now. Slower. Like something is eating it from the inside.
Like something is eating her.
A knock at the door. Sharp and urgent.
Lysara doesn't turn around. She already knows it's bad news. It's always bad news now. The kingdom is dying and she's just watching it happen, too tired to even scream.
"Come in," she says.
One of the guard captains enters, breathing hard like he ran. His face is flushed and there's something wild in his eyes. Fear maybe. Or excitement. Lysara has learned that fear and excitement look the same when you're desperate enough.
"Your Majesty, there's been a breach," he says. "The sealed records chamber. Someone broke through the wards and made it inside."
Lysara finally turns. Something sharp cuts through the exhaustion in her chest. The sealed records. The ones that hold the council's secrets. The ones that hold the names of everyone who's ever plotted against the crown.
"How did they get past the guards?"
"They didn't. The magical wards failed. Whoever it was, they came through from underneath the palace. Used magic we've never seen before. Silver magic." The captain pauses. His jaw tightens. "Your Majesty, the assassins would have known about this. If someone's breaking into the records chamber, they're not working alone."
The room tilts slightly. Lysara grips the window frame to steady herself.
The poison. The servant. The council members who smiled at her today. The wards failing. The creature at the borders growing bolder. The prince coming for the engagement ceremony she doesn't want. The marriage that's supposed to save everything but will just trap her more.
And now someone has the evidence. Someone has broken into the one place where the truth lives.
"Did you catch them?" Lysara asks. She can hear the desperate edge in her own voice and hates herself for it.
"Yes. Guards found the mage trying to leave with documents. She fought them but went down. She's in the holding cells now."
"A mage?"
"Young. Dangerous. She's got silver magic pouring off her like nothing I've ever seen. Wild magic. The kind that shouldn't exist." The captain's hands clench. "She's scheduled for execution at dawn. No trial. Lord Cassius said it's too dangerous to keep her alive."
Lysara's entire body goes still.
Of course Cassius said that. Her uncle, her mother's brother, the one man the council listens to more than her. The one man who's always been there, always been helpful, always been so careful with his words and his smiles.
The one man who might have the most to lose if someone started digging through the sealed records.
"What did she steal?" Lysara's voice comes out steady now. Cold. The way a queen's should.
"That's the strange part," the captain says. "The guards found her hands full of documents but she refused to say why she wanted them. Wouldn't even speak to the interrogators. Just kept saying she was there for the kingdom. For the people. Like a revolutionary or something."
Someone broke into the most dangerous place in the palace to steal evidence of a conspiracy. Someone who cares about the kingdom more than saving her own life. Someone with magic that shouldn't exist.
Someone who might actually be trying to help.
Lysara's mind races. This mage could be another assassin, sent by whoever's poisoning her. But why steal documents if you're just trying to kill the queen? Why the sealed records? Why the danger?
Unless she wasn't sent by the poison people. Unless she was trying to find proof of them.
"Where is she now?" Lysara asks.
"The tower cells, Your Majesty. Where we keep the dangerous ones. She's alone, no other prisoners. The guards are posted outside but—"
"I want to see her."
The captain blinks. "Your Majesty?"
"Alone. Take me to the cells and post guards outside, but no one enters. Not even the interrogators."
"That's not safe, Your Majesty. If she's dangerous—"
"Everything is dangerous," Lysara says quietly. "She broke into the sealed records to find something. I want to know what. I want to know why. And I want to do it now, before anyone else finds out she's been caught."
The captain hesitates. She can see him calculating. Weighing his duty to keep the queen safe against the order of a woman who looks like she might shatter if anyone touches her wrong.
"Now," Lysara repeats.
He bows and turns to leave. Lysara follows him out of her chambers, her bare feet cold against the stone floor. The castle is quiet at this hour. Most people are sleeping. Most people don't know that the queen is walking through the darkness like a ghost, like someone already half dead.
They move through the corridors toward the tower. Down the spiral stairs. Into the cells where the dangerous ones go.
And Lysara's heart is pounding because she doesn't know yet that she's about to meet the person who will tear her entire world apart.
She doesn't know yet that she's about to step into a cell with a wild mage and a silver magic that glows like starlight and a set of eyes that will see through every wall she's built around herself.
She doesn't know yet that the poison isn't the worst thing trying to kill her.
The worst thing is about to walk into her life and make her want to live anyway.
The captain stops at the tower cells. Points to the locked door at the end of the corridor. One guard stands outside, looking nervous.
"She's in there," the captain says. "Completely restrained. She can't touch you."
Lysara takes a breath. Reaches for her magic. Feels it steady in her chest, ready to burn if she needs it to.
She pushes the door open.
And stares directly at the woman who broke into the palace's most dangerous secret and refused to say a single word about why.
The mage looks up from the stone bench where she's sitting. Her eyes are so dark they're almost black. Her shaved head shows the faint glow of silver runes moving under her skin. She's covered in blood and bruises from the fight with the guards. She's smiling.
"Well," the mage says, and her voice is rough like gravel, "look what crawled down into the cells. The mighty queen herself. Here for the execution speech, or are you just slumming?"
No one speaks to Lysara like that. No one dares.
The mage keeps smiling.
And Lysara, exhausted and desperate and terrified, feels something inside her that's been dead for years finally wake up.
"What's your name?" she asks.
"Elinor," the mage says. "And before you ask, I stole those documents to save your kingdom, Your Majesty. Though I'm starting to think maybe you deserve what's coming."
The words hit like ice water.
"Guards," Lysara calls out, her voice cutting like a blade, "bring her to the main tower. Now. No restraints. And send everyone away. I don't care if the king of the eastern realms arrives. No one comes near us. Understood?"
The captain appears in the doorway, shocked. "Your Majesty, you can't possibly—"
But Lysara is already walking back up the stairs.
Behind her, she hears Elinor laugh, a sound like breaking glass and lightning.
And Lysara knows, with absolute certainty, that everything is about to change.
The kingdom doesn't know it yet. The council doesn't know it yet.
But the queen just made a decision that will either save the realm or burn it to ash.