Chapter 4: Throne Room Submission
The scream was what woke her, but it wasn’t her own.
It was a short, wet choke from the corridor, cut off abruptly. Evie sat up, the silken sheets pooling around her waist, her heart a frantic bird against her ribs. The fire in the hearth had died to embers, casting the room in a deep, pulsating red. Shadows clung to the corners, suddenly alive with threat.
Her door exploded inward.
Not a knock, not a polite forcing. The heavy oak splintered around the lock, crashing against the wall with a sound that shook the floor. Dark shapes filled the doorway, backlit by the harsh glare of torches from the hall. They were not her father’s guards in their burnished silver. These men were clothed in worn, dark leather, their armor dull and functional. Dravaryn.
She opened her mouth, maybe to demand, maybe to scream. A hand clamped over it before a sound could escape. It smelled of sweat, leather, and cold iron. Another soldier, his face a grim mask in the flickering light, grabbed her by the upper arm and yanked.
The world flipped. She tumbled from the bed, her nightdress twisting around her legs, the rug doing nothing to cushion her fall as her shoulder hit the floor. Pain, bright and shocking, lanced through her. A rough hand tangled in her hair, honey-colored strands wrapping around thick fingers, and hauled her to her knees.
“Get up,” a voice grunted. No title, no respect. Just a curt command.
Rage cut through the terror. This was her room, her home. She wrenched her head to the side, trying to free her hair. Her elbow jabbed backward, connecting solidly with a stomach. The man holding her mouth grunted, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second.
It was enough. She sucked in a breath to scream for the guards, for her father, for anyone.
The backhand came from the other side. It wasn’t meant to discipline; it was meant to silence. The impact cracked against the side of her face, snapping her head back. Her vision whited out for a second, replaced by a searing bloom of pain across her cheek and mouth. She tasted copper, hot and metallic, as her lip split against her teeth.
“Enough,” a colder voice said from the doorway. “The king wants her presentable. Mostly.”
Through a blur of tears and disorientation, she was dragged to her feet. They didn’t let her walk. Two men hooked their arms under hers, her feet barely skimming the polished floors as they carried her out. She caught glimpses of her palace as a nightmare: a guardsman slumped against a tapestry, a dark stain spreading beneath him; a shattered vase she’d played beside as a child; the stunned, terrified faces of her own servants pinned against walls by foreign soldiers.
The throne room was a cavern of wrongness.
The great chandelier, usually a constellation of gentle light, was now a blaze of torches that threw jagged, dancing shadows up the walls. The air, once scented with beeswax and incense, reeked of smoke, damp wool, and blood.
King Varos sat upon the obsidian throne.
Her father’s throne. He looked like a predator in its nest, too large, too angular for its elegant lines. One hand rested on the armrest, fingers drumming a slow, patient rhythm. His other held a rolled parchment—one of the treaties, she guessed, now useless.
And to his right, standing stiffly, was Kaelen.
He was in full battle gear, dark metal scaled across his chest, a heavy cloak draping from his shoulders. His face was a sculpture of cold discipline, eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance. But she saw it—the tightness around his mouth, the almost imperceptible rigidity in his stance. He was holding himself together by sheer force of will.
Evie’s captors marched her forward, the click of their boots echoing in the vast silence. They stopped at the base of the dais. A boot hooked behind her knee, and she was forced down, her knees hitting the cold marble with a jolt that shot up her spine. The soldier kept a firm hand on her shoulder, pinning her in place.
She lifted her head, ignoring the throb in her face. A trickle of warm blood traced a path from her split lip down her chin. She looked first at Varos, who regarded her with a detached, analytical interest, like a gardener examining a peculiar weed. Then her eyes swung to Kaelen.
He looked at her then. His icy blues met her warm browns. For a flicker, she saw something—a fracture in the ice. It was gone so fast she might have imagined it, replaced by that awful, empty neutrality. But she’d seen it. She’d tasted oranges with this man. She’d seen him smile, a real one, fleeting and surprising.
“Princess Evaline,” Varos said, his voice filling the hall easily. It was calm, almost conversational. “You find us at an unfortunate hour.”
She said nothing. She let the blood drip.
“Your father,” Varos continued, unrolling the parchment slightly before letting it snap back, “is being... persuaded to see reason. He is unharmed. For now. His continued health, and yours, depends entirely on your comprehension of the new reality.”
He leaned forward slightly, the torchlight carving deep grooves into his face. “I am king now. This throne, this city, this fertile little river valley—it all belongs to Dravaryn. You are a guest in your own home. A guest whose comfort is determined by her obedience.”
He paused, letting the words sink into the frozen air. “You have a choice to make. You can kneel—” he gestured vaguely at her current position, forced upon her by his soldier, “—of your own volition. You can acknowledge the new order. You can be the symbol of peaceful transition, a bridge between our peoples.”
His eyes hardened. “Or you can die. Right here. A futile, messy symbol of a dead kingdom. Which is it?”
The hand on her shoulder pressed down, emphasizing her kneeling position. The throne room waited. The soldiers lining the walls were statues. Even the torches seemed to hold their breath.
Evie looked past Varos, to Kaelen. He was staring straight ahead again, his jaw a hard line. She remembered the feel of soil in her hands, his hands working beside hers. The memory was a hot coal in her chest.
She spat. A small, bloody glob of saliva and defiance landed on the polished step of the dais, just short of Varos’s boots.
The silence tightened like a noose.
Then, she spoke, her voice raspy from suppressed screams but clear as a bell in the hushed hall. “You can force my knees to the ground,” she said, each word dripping with a quiet, furious intensity. “You can put a sword to my neck. You can sit on a chair you have no right to. But you will never be my king.”
Varos studied her for a long moment. He didn’t look angry. He looked… intrigued. He leaned back into the throne. “Stubborn. I heard you were stubborn.” He glanced at Kaelen. “You see, son? Sentiment. It makes for pretty poetry and very poor politics.”
He returned his gaze to Evie. “Very well. Since you refuse the graceful option, we proceed to the practical one.” He nodded to the soldier holding her. “Take her to the north tower. Secure her. No harm is to come to her.” His lips twitched. “Beyond what has already been… necessary.”
As the soldiers hauled her upright, Varos’s voice stopped them. “One more thing, Princess. Your choice has consequences beyond yourself. For every display of defiance, for every rumor of resistance that reaches me, ten of your people will hang from the walls. Starting with the servants who cried when you were dragged away. Do you understand?”
The hot coal in her chest turned to ice. She understood perfectly.
They dragged her backward. Her eyes never left Kaelen’s face as they pulled her from the throne room. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He just stood there, a monument to duty beside a throne of stolen power, watching her go, the stain of her blood a small, dark mark on his father’s clean marble floor. And as the great doors closed between them, swallowing the torchlight, she saw him finally look down. Not at her. At his own hands, clenched at his sides, as if he could still see the soil from her gardens lodged under his nails.