The silence in their chamber the next morning was a physical presence, colder than the stone walls and heavier than the velvet drapes. Elara woke to the aching emptiness of the space beside her, the sheets long since gone cold. Kael was already gone, his absence a louder declaration than any cruel words he could have spoken.
She moved through her morning routine like a ghost. Her body felt foreign, a vessel that had been used and put aside. The faint, lingering soreness between her legs was a constant, humiliating reminder of his clinical possession. Your duty. Nothing more. The words echoed in the hollow of her chest. She dressed with numb fingers, choosing a high-collared gown of deep emerald, a color that felt like armor.
She would not be broken by his coldness. She had her own purpose. The Civic Council. It was the one thing her father-in-law could not take from her, the one creation that was truly hers. It was the reason she had breathed through the humiliation, the reason she had taken his seed with a quiet, stoic endurance. For the future. For a kingdom that could be better.
The walk to the council chamber felt longer than usual. The guards at the door nodded respectfully, but their eyes held a new, disquieting caution. She pushed the great oak doors open, expecting the familiar buzz of debate, the sight of her ministers rising to greet her.
The room fell silent.
It was not the respectful hush that greets a sovereign. It was the dead, weighty silence of a interrupted conspiracy. The ministers were all there, but they remained seated. And at the head of the table, in her chair, sat Prince Dorian.
He was leaning back, one leg crossed over the other, looking for all the world like he owned the very air in the room. His sharp, angular features were arranged in a smile that didn't reach his piercing, cold eyes.
"Queen Lyria," he said, his voice a smooth, oily thing that slithered across the table. "What an unexpected… pleasure."
Elara stood frozen in the doorway, her hand still on the iron ring of the door. "Prince Dorian. I was not aware the Crown took an interest in civic governance."
"Oh, the Crown takes an interest in everything," he purred, steepling his fingers. "Especially nascent institutions that threaten to upset the natural order of things. Surely you understand."
Her heart began a slow, hard pound against her ribs. No. "This council operates under my authority. By my decree."
"A decree that has been… amended," Dorian said, his smile widening just a fraction. He gestured to a scroll lying on the table before him. The royal seal of King Kael was pressed into the wax, unmistakable and final. "By order of the King, the Civic Council is hereby placed under the stewardship of the royal house to ensure its directives align with the crown's interests. I have been appointed its head." This was what the secret meeting was about collecting all the power she had to make sure she stays in her place.
The words landed like physical blows. The air left her lungs. She saw it then, in the averted gazes of the ministers she had chosen, the ones who had called her vision revolutionary. They had been bought, or threatened, into silence. Her rebellion had been annexed before it had even truly begun.
Kael. He had done this. After using her body, after taking his pleasure and his heir from her, he had systematically dismantled the one thing that gave her purpose beyond her womb. He had handed it to Dorian, a man whose ambition was a poorly kept secret and whose gaze now raked over her with a thrilling, possessive danger that made her skin crawl.
"This is my council," she said, her voice trembling with a fury she fought to control.
"It was," Dorian corrected gently, as if speaking to a slow child. "Now it is the king's. And I am the king's voice here." He leaned forward, his cold eyes locking onto hers, and the playful pretense dropped away, leaving only a naked, chilling hunger. "You'll find I have a much… firmer hand than you. A much clearer vision for how things should be run. And whom they should serve."
The implication hung in the air, thick and foul. She was not just politically neutered; she was being offered as part of the spoils. Her council, her body, her future—all property of the crown, to be parceled out as Kael, or his vicious proxy, saw fit.
She could not breathe. The emerald gown felt like a shroud. Without another word, she turned on her heel and walked out, the sound of Dorian's soft, triumphant chuckle following her into the corridor.
She didn't know where she was going. Her feet carried her blindly through the palace, away from the whispered conversations and pitying glances. She found herself in the portrait gallery, a long hall of cold, judging eyes. And there he was.
Kael.
He stood before the massive painting of his father, his hands clasped behind his back, a statue of rigid impatience. He turned as she approached, his dark eyes glinting in the weak light from the high windows. He looked her over, from the pale set of her face to the white-knuckled grip of her hands on her skirts.
"Dorian," she said, her voice stripped raw. "You gave my council to Dorian."
His expression did not change. There was no guilt, no apology. Only that infuriating, impenetrable cold. "The council was a destabilizing force. It required a… firmer guidance."
"My guidance!" The words burst from her, echoing in the vast hall. "You promised me! You stood in that chamber and you defended me!"
"That was before," he said, his voice low and flat.
"Before what? Before you fucked me? Before you decided my only purpose was to lie on my back and be bred?" She was shaking, the anger a hot, desperate thing clawing its way out of the hollow he had carved inside her.
Something dangerous flickered in his eyes then. A crack in the ice. He took a single, abrupt step toward her. "Mind your tongue."
"Or what?" she challenged, tears of fury finally spilling over. "You'll throw me over a bedpost again? You'll hand another piece of me to your viper of a brother? What else is left for you to take, Kael?"
He closed the distance between them in two swift strides, his calloused hand snapping out to grip her chin, forcing her to look up at him. His touch was not gentle, but it was hot, a brand after so much cold dismissal. His gaze burned into hers, finally, finally full of something other than indifference. It was a raging storm of conflict—anger, possession, and a fractured, desperate want.
"You think this is about taking?" he growled, his voice a rough whisper that vibrated through her. "You have no idea what you are, what you've…"
He stopped himself, his jaw clenching so tight she heard it. His eyes dropped to her lips, and for a heart-stopping moment, she thought he would kiss her. The air crackled with the unsaid thing, the truth he was choking on. The sexual tension was a live wire, thrumming between them, a promise of violence and passion and a fucking that would be nothing like the cold duty of the night before.
His thumb brushed over her lower lip, a rough, almost involuntary caress that sent a shock straight down her spine to the very core he had so ruthlessly claimed. His breath hitched.
He's going to break, she thought, a wild, hopeful terror seizing her. He's going to show me.
But the moment shattered. His eyes shuttered closed, and when they opened, the storm was gone, buried once more under a glacier of control. He released her chin as if she had burned him, stepping back, putting the cold, empty space between them again.
"Your place is not in a council chamber," he said, his voice once again the emotionless drone of a king. "It is here. In this palace. In my bed. Awaiting my heir."
He turned his back on her and walked away, leaving her standing alone amidst the portraits of his cold, unfeeling ancestors, her body aching with a confusing, treacherous heat and her heart shattered into a thousand pieces