Dominic's POV
I knew something was wrong the moment I saw the flower.
It lay wilted on the stone just outside her door. Small, delicate, easily missed unless you were trained to look for warnings hidden in beauty.
A mourning lily.
A deathmark.
I drew my blade.
The guards stiffened, recognizing the shift in my posture, but I said nothing. Words were wasted in moments like these. Someone had slipped past them slipped something into the Queen's quarters.
That someone was skilled.
And either reckless…
Or deadly certain they wouldn't be caught.
I knocked once before entering. Hard.
Isabella stood in the center of the room, still in her nightdress, the bloom in her hand.
Her face was pale, but not from fear.
No, she looked furious.
"You should've come sooner," she said.
"You should've stayed quiet," I replied. "There are eyes everywhere."
"There are shadows too. One of them spoke my name."
That stopped me.
I looked around her chambers, taking in every line, every inch of space. No forced locks. No cracked glass. But something was off.
A scent.
Lilac and ash.
"I want the name of every servant who entered this wing tonight," I ordered the guards without looking back. "And lock this corridor down. No one comes in or out."
"Dominic," Isabella said quietly, "what does it mean?"
I turned to face her fully. She was clutching the lily like a weapon, but her fingers trembled.
"It means someone wants you afraid."
"I'm not."
I stepped closer.
"No," I said, lowering my voice. "You're not. And that's what's going to get you killed."
She blinked. Once. "Are you going to protect me… or stop me?"
My jaw tightened.
"I haven't decided yet."
The words hung in the air like a blade waiting to fall.
Because the truth was I didn't know.
I'd seen queens fall for less. Seen men poisoned for more. The court was chaos wrapped in protocol, and the person who slipped that flower under her door hadn't done it out of mischief.
It was a challenge.
To her.
To me.
To whatever fragile peace the gods thought they could force between us.
I looked at her then not the crown, not the throne but the girl who had walked into this nightmare alone and hadn't backed down once.
A queen forged not in fire, but in ice.
And I realized...
She wasn't the only one being tested.