"You are right brother," Kaelith said quietly. "The moment we take the girl this entire pack burns."
Roxanne pushed open her chamber door.
A figure stood inside, black cloak pulled over their head, the dagger held carefully in one hand. The hood came down slowly.
Cassius .
"Are you certain you want to do this yourself?" he asked, turning the dagger over before extending it. "Once you kill her there is no clean path after. Others will also follow. "
Roxanne took the dagger without hesitation.
"Since the day my wedding was abandoned I have said one thing to myself," she said. "Everyone involved in that humiliation ritual answers for it." She looked at the blade. "And I want to see her face when she realises it is me. That is the only way this ends properly."
"Tonight then," Cassius said.
"Tonight," Roxanne confirmed.
Down the corridor Valeria sat with Vangelis, her eyes moving over his face carefully.
"Did you and Fiona argue?" she asked.
"We exchanged words," he said. "Nothing more."
Valeria was quiet for a moment.
"Be patient with her," she said gently. "That girl grew up without her parents. At eighteen she was given in marriage to a man she had never met. She carries your heir now and an entire kingdom watches her every breath." She folded her hands. "She is dealing with more than you can see from where you stand. And pregnancy does things to a person that cannot always be explained or controlled." She looked at him. "Do not take what she says in those moments to heart. She loves you. That much is plain."
"I have also given up a great deal for her," Vangelis said. "Why should she feel as though she is the only one who has suffered in this?"
Valeria looked at him carefully.
"Do you still have feelings for Liora?" she asked.
Vangelis was quiet for a moment.
"I do not," he said. "But sometimes I wonder. If things had been different. If there had been another way." He shook his head slightly. "I wonder if we could have stayed together."
"No one forced you to marry Fiona," Valeria said quietly.
"We were running out of blood," he said. "The pack needed it."
"That is true," she said. "But you made the choice. You walked into that marriage. And Fiona walked into it too, both of you carrying things the other could not fully see." She looked at him steadily. "The question is not who suffered more Vangelis. The question is whether you are both willing to choose each other now that the suffering has passed."
"Marrying Fiona was one reason among many you could have explored," Valeria said. "There were other solutions you did not try. And if you are honest with yourself you know that." She looked at him. "You ended things with Liora too easily. If your love had been stronger you would have fought harder to find another way."
Vangelis said nothing.
"I was scared," he admitted quietly.
"Yes," Valeria said. "And that fear cost you Liora. Do not let that same weakness cost you Fiona." She leaned forward slightly. "Fix your heart. Stand firmly by the decisions you make. Be strong enough to carry them without looking back." She paused. "Do that and you will not end up where I ended up."
Vangelis looked at her for a long moment.
"Thank you mum," he said. "I will go and apologise to her now."
"Always stand beside her," Valeria said. "She will wrong you. There will be moments that cut deeply. But her love for you is new and it is real and it is growing stronger every day." She held his gaze. "When everyone around you is weak you must be the strong one. Give her your strength and she will give it back to you tenfold." She paused. "Promise me you will hold to that. Even if I am no longer here to remind you."
Thunder cracked above them without warning and rain followed immediately, pouring heavily against the windows, filling the silence with sound.
Vangelis looked at her.
"I promise mum. I will keep that promise no matter what comes." He took her hand briefly. "But please watch yourself around Evelyn. I nearly lost my composure tonight when she spoke to you that way. No one threatens my mother and walks away unchanged."
Valeria smiled softly. "Go back to your wife. Apologise to her. That is where you are needed tonight."
He nodded and left.
Valeria sat alone as the rain continued outside, the thunder rolling further away.
Vangelis pushed the door open and stopped.
Fiona was seated directly beside it, her head resting against the wall, eyes closed and breathing slow. She had waited and sleep had found her first.
He crouched down in front of her.
His hand moved to her hair, brushing it back gently.
Her eyes opened.
"Vangelis." She straightened immediately. "You came back. I wanted to apologise, I—"
He placed one finger softly against her lips.
"Come," he said quietly. "We go to bed. Slow and quiet. Everything else can wait until morning."
The storm had taken the night entirely.
Rain hammered every surface without mercy, wind forcing unlocked doors open and slamming them shut again, curtains tearing sideways through open windows, the whole palace groaning under the weight of it. Then lightning came. A single blinding strike that threw white light across Valeria's room.
And in that light, a silhouette.
Standing at the centre of the room. Still. Holding a dagger.
Valeria scrambled from her bed and reached for the door.
"Who is there?" she demanded.
The lightning came again.
Roxanne turned slowly, her face fully visible now, the dagger catching the light.
"I gave you a title," Roxanne said. "And you have already forgotten me."
Valeria's hand froze on the door handle. "What are you doing in here?"
"I came to kill you."
The thunder answered immediately, rolling through the walls like it had been waiting for those words.
"Why?" Valeria breathed.
"You persuaded me," Roxanne said, taking one step forward. "You encouraged me to accept Vangelis. You told me to present myself. You built my hope." Another step. "And on the day of my wedding you left me standing there. In front of everyone. Alone."
Valeria rose from where she had retreated, her voice shaking. "Roxanne I apologised for that."
"Will your apology give me back my dignity?" Roxanne asked. Her voice did not rise. It never needed to. "Will it erase the faces of every person who watched me stand there discarded like I was nothing?"
"You are misunderstanding something," Valeria said. "Please listen to me."
Roxanne's eyes shifted to silver.
"I also want what is in your heart," she said. "The key."