The council chamber was never meant to feel small.
Its ceiling stretched high enough to swallow sound, carved with the victories of the House of Altherion, each relief painted in gold and shadow. Kings on dragons. Armies kneeling. Enemies burning beneath banners that promised mercy they never received.
Yet as I walked in, escorted by silence rather than guards, the room shrank.
Fear has a way of bending space.
They were already seated. Twelve of them, robed in imperial purple, rings heavy on their fingers, eyes sharp with age and calculation. These were not nobles. Not ministers. These were the architects of Valeria's survival. The ones who decided which truths lived and which were buried.
At the center sat my father.
The King did not look at me when I entered.
That was how I knew this was not about discipline.
It was about containment.
"You exceeded protocol," the First Elder said, her voice smooth, rehearsed. "Crestwood Academy is governed under international observation. Your actions were… visible."
I stopped three steps from the dais.
"Visibility is not treason," I replied.
A murmur rippled through the chamber. Disapproval. Amusement. Unease.
"The servant lived," another elder said quickly, as if clinging to that fact might soften the room. "The narrative has already been corrected. The press believes it was a medical incident."
"Erased and replaced," I said. "Efficient."
That earned me my father's attention.
His eyes were colder than mine had ever been. Not angry. Not afraid. Just tired.
"You lost control," he said at last.
I laughed.
The sound echoed too loudly.
"No," I said. "I remembered."
Silence fell like a blade.
They hated that word.
Memory was dangerous. History was controlled here, rewritten whenever it became inconvenient. Valeria did not deny the past. It edited it.
The head maid stepped forward then, scarlet robes whispering across the marble. Her head bowed, but her eyes never left me.
"There was resistance," she said carefully. "One student. The scholarship girl."
Elena Winter.
My jaw tightened before I could stop it.
"The mind alteration did not take," the head maid continued. "Her neural pattern rejected the influence. Twice."
That did it.
The room stirred. Elders leaned forward. Rings glinted. Calculations shifted.
"Impossible," one of them said. "No untrained civilian can resist royal imprint."
"And yet," she replied, "she did."
My father stood.
When the King of Valeria rose, the world listened.
"She is not to be touched," he said.
That surprised even me.
"For now," he added.
There it was. The knife beneath the velvet.
"We cannot afford another incident," he continued. "The United Nations already questions our military deterrence. The Western Coalition watches us for signs of imbalance. If word spreads that Valeria's royal bloodline possesses uncontrolled abilities—"
"They will come," an elder finished. "Not as diplomats. As hunters."
I felt the old heat stir beneath my skin.
"They already benefit from our power," I said. "They just prefer to pretend they don't."
"And pretending keeps us alive," the First Elder snapped.
My father's gaze hardened.
"You will return to Crestwood," he said. "You will maintain the image. Arrogant. Untouchable. Predictable."
Predictable.
They wanted a weapon they could aim.
"You will not engage the girl again," he added.
I met his eyes.
"I do not take orders from ghosts," I said.
The chamber erupted.
Before anyone could speak, the flames whispered.
Not loud. Not destructive.
Just enough.
The torches lining the walls bowed toward me, fire bending like servants recognizing their master. The temperature rose. Sweat beaded on ancient brows. Fear, raw and familiar, filled the air.
"I am the crown," I said quietly. "Not your experiment."
For a moment, I thought they might order my execution.
Then the head maid spoke again, her voice calm as poison.
"There is another matter," she said. "The girl is not the only anomaly."
I turned slowly.
"What do you mean?"
She hesitated.
That alone was alarming.
"Our scans," she said, "indicate Crestwood has begun producing irregularities."
My father's jaw tightened.
"Explain."
"Students whose profiles do not align with known metrics. Emotional resistance. Cognitive defiance. Potential awakenings."
The room went very still.
Crestwood was not just a school.
It was a filter.
A way to identify threats before the world noticed them.
"And Elena Winter?" I asked.
The head maid met my gaze.
"She is the first," she said. "Not the last."
Something in my chest shifted then. Not fire. Not rage.
Anticipation.
They had built a cage around power, convinced themselves it was secure. They had forgotten one thing.
Power evolves.
I turned to leave.
"This conversation never happened," my father said behind me.
I paused at the doorway.
"None of the important ones ever do," I replied.
As the doors closed, I smiled for the first time in years.
Because whatever Crestwood was becoming, whatever Elena Winter represented, it was clear now.
Valeria's greatest threat was no longer outside its borders.
It was walking its halls.