Chapter 2: The Throne of Ashes
The throne of Rosenheim was a delicate, cursed thing. Carved from pale silverwood and inlaid with mother-of-pearl roses, it was meant for a smaller, gentler frame. Nikolai filled it, his broad shoulders straining against the carved petals, the obsidian plates of his armor a stark, violent stain against the luminescent wood. He didn’t lean back. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, a statue of conquered tension.
The hall was silent but for the crackle of the two massive hearths and the shifting of his soldiers’ boots on the marble. The rose window above, depicting his new kingdom’s peaceful founding, was now a jagged mosaic of broken color, shattered by a catapult stone. Sunlight fell through the holes in spears of dust, illuminating the faint, smoky ghosts of past battles in the air.
He stared at the window but saw only the library floor. The feel of her hands, firm and sure against the riot of his pain. The tear of silk. The quiet, steadfast pressure. The scent of her—lavender and parchment, not blood and iron—cutting through the haze of his injury. And her eyes. Hazel, wide, seeing the man bleeding out, not just the king who had broken her gates.
It was a weakness, this fixation. A crack in his discipline. He drummed his fingers against the throne’s arm, the rhythm sharp, impatient.
“Bring her up,” he said. His voice was flat, carrying easily in the hushed space.
His captain, Markov, a man with a face like knotted rope, nodded once and turned on his heel. The sound of his boots faded into the cavernous corridors below.
Nikolai waited. He assessed the room as he would a battlefield. His banners, black with a slashed silver wolf, hung from the gilded arches, suffocating the lighter tapestries beneath. His men stood at perfect intervals along the walls. Control. Order. This was what he had built from chaos. The princess was an anomaly. A soft, illogical variable.
The sound of footsteps returned, slower this time, accompanied by the faint, familiar drag of chains.
She entered between two guards, Markov ahead of her. She wore the same torn gown, the silk now grimy and stiff with dried blood—his blood. Her hair was a tangled cascade down her back. She held her head high, but her composure was fractured, a glass vase webbed with cracks.
Then he saw the rest.
A bluish-purple bruise flowered across her left cheekbone. The corner of her lip was split, swollen and dark. When one of the guards nudged her forward, she flinched, a subtle hitch in her step, and her hand went instinctively to her right arm, where the fabric was stretched tight over another deep bruise.
Something cold and lethal detonated in Nikolai’s chest.
He stood. The action was fluid, silent, but the entire atmosphere of the room compressed. The guards stiffened. Markov’s hand went to his sword hilt.
Nikolai descended the dais steps, his focus narrowing to the woman in the center of the floor. The drumming in his fingers had stopped. His hands were fists at his sides. He crossed the space between them, the click of his boots the only sound, until he was standing before her, close enough to see the fine gold flecks in her wounded eyes.
He didn’t speak. He reached out, his movement too fast for her to evade, and caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger. His grip was not gentle, but it was precise. He tilted her face up toward the light from the broken window, turning it slightly to examine the damage.
Her breath hitched. She didn’t pull away. She just looked at him, her gaze weary, defiant, and deeply, unforgivably sad.
“Who?” The word was a chip of ice.
Adela’s eyes flickered, confused.
“Who gave you these?” he asked, his voice low, a razor dragged across stone.
She understood. A faint, bitter smile touched her ruined lip. “Does it matter? I am a prisoner of war. This is what happens.”
“It matters to me.” His thumb brushed over the edge of the bruise on her cheek, a whisper of contact. “Tell me his name.”
“Why?” The question was a genuine challenge. “So you can commend his zeal? He was only following the example of his king. He was only… conquering.”
The words found the crack in him and widened it. The cold fury turned crystalline, focused. He dropped his hand from her face.
“Markov.”
“Your Majesty.”
“The men who retrieved her from the library. Bring them.”
A ripple of unease went through the hall. Markov moved. Minutes later, the two soldiers from the library stood before the throne, confusion and a flicker of pride on their faces. The younger one, whose hands had been on her, smirked.
Nikolai turned back to Adela. He didn’t look at the soldiers. He kept his eyes locked on hers, a dark, compelling force. “Point to him.”
Adela shook her head, a small, furious motion. “No.”
“Point. To him.”
The silence stretched, taut enough to snap. She saw it then, in his obsidian eyes—this wasn’t about justice. It wasn’t about her. It was about a breach of protocol. An insult to a prize he considered his. A violation of his control.
Her hand, trembling slightly, rose. Her finger extended, not at the smirking younger one, but at the older soldier, the one with the nasty grin who had called her a ‘pretty prize.’ “Him.”
The man’s grin vanished.
Nikolai finally turned his head. He looked at the soldier for exactly two heartbeats. “Kill him. Now.”
The order hung in the air, absolute. There was no ceremony. Markov drew his sword. The soldier’s cry of “Sire—!” was cut short, a wet, choked gurgle as the blade opened his throat. He collapsed to the polished marble, the sound a heavy, final thud. Blood began to pool, black in the dim light, spreading towards Adela’s slippers.
She stared at the body, her face bone-white. She didn’t scream. A terrible stillness settled over her.
Nikolai watched her. The cold thing inside him was satisfied, the disorder corrected. But the sight of her standing there, silhouetted against the evidence of his brutal order, her compassion surrounded by his violence, made the satisfaction taste like ash.
“Take her away,” he said to Markov, his voice returning to its usual detached cadence. “Put her in her former chambers. Unharmed. No one touches her. No one speaks to her.”
As the remaining guard, pale and terrified, took her arm to lead her away, Adela finally looked back at Nikolai. The sadness in her eyes had hardened into something else—a profound, glacial understanding. She had bandaged a wounded man. He had just shown her the true nature of the beast.
He held her gaze until she was gone, the echoing footsteps fading. Then he looked down at the body being dragged unceremoniously from the hall, the smear of blood left on the perfect marble.
The crack was still there. And now, it ached.