The palace lanterns burned long into the night, their light stretching thin across the jade-tiled corridors. From her narrow bed in the servants' wing, Lyra could see the glow bleeding through the crack beneath her door. It made her room feel less like a shelter and more like a box set beneath a watchful eye.
Sleep came slowly. Her mind was a river running too fast, every thought about Kieran's gaze in the garden, every whispered rumor she'd caught at the washing basins, every pulse of that strange power curling under her skin. She turned onto her side, curling tighter, as though she could cage the energy with her own body.
At some point, exhaustion claimed her.
And then she was not in her room at all.
The ground was black glass, smooth as still water yet solid under her bare feet. Around her, the air shimmered with faint motes of silver, like fireflies caught in the throats of dying stars. No walls, no ceiling, only an endless night that seemed to breathe.
Lyra took a step forward. Her reflection followed in the glass below, warped slightly, the eyes a shade too bright.
A voice touched her ears without crossing the space between them.
You are walking in my death.
The sound was neither male nor female, or perhaps both at once. It was velvet and iron, the low hum of something ancient speaking from the marrow of the world.
Her breath caught. She turned, but the horizon was empty. Only the motes moved, swirling faintly toward a shape coalescing from the dark.
It came as shadow first, amorphous, its edges bleeding into the air. Then the form began to sharpen, a tall figure in black robes, face hidden beneath a hood, hands clasped loosely behind its back. No footsteps sounded, yet with each heartbeat, it drew nearer.
Lyra's fingers twitched toward her side, though she had no weapon here.
You carry me now, the voice murmured, and she realized it was not coming from the hooded figure's mouth but from everywhere, from the glass under her feet, from the motes in the air, from the weight in her chest that had not been there before the assassination night.
"You… you're the Shadow Sovereign," she said, though the words sounded small here, swallowed by the vastness.
The figure did not deny it.
The hood tilted slightly, as though observing her the way a scholar examines a fragile relic. You took what I could not keep. You wear my core as though it were your own. Do you know what that means?
"I didn't take anything," Lyra said. "You were dying. I,"
There is no accident in the transfer of a cultivation core. Not one of my realm.
She felt it then, a cold blooming in her spine, unfurling upward until it curled behind her eyes. The glass beneath her rippled, and her warped reflection smiled though her own lips had not moved.
The figure stepped closer, close enough that she could see the faint silver threading along the hem of the black robes, a pattern like interlocking chains. "If this is your power, I don't want it," she whispered.
The shadow inclined its head. Power is not something you can put down. It will use you, or you will use it. Those are the only paths left to you.
The motes began to move faster, drawn toward the figure, forming a slow spiral. Lyra's heart matched the rhythm without her consent.
"Why me?"
There was a pause, long enough that she thought there would be no answer. Then: Because no one will see you coming.
The words were soft, but they struck harder than a shout.
She took a step back. Her heel struck the glass with a sound like a crack, though the surface did not break.
"You're dangerous," she said, voice trembling.
So are you now.
The shadows around the figure lengthened, reaching toward her feet like spilled ink.
"You said I'm walking in your death. What does that mean?"
For the first time, the hood tilted back just enough to reveal a mouth curved in something not quite a smile. It means my enemies will look for me in every throne room, every battlefield, every place a sovereign might stand… and never once will they look for me in the eyes of a servant girl.
The motes flared suddenly, blinding, and when the light dimmed, the figure was gone.
She stood alone in the endless glass night. Only now, the motes had turned a deep crimson, and they were drifting toward her. One brushed her cheek. It was warm, almost burning. Another settled against her chest, and the pulse in her heart stuttered, then surged.
The warmth spread through her veins, thick and restless. Her shadow stretched beneath her feet, and kept stretching, curling like smoke, like a living thing. She tried to move, but it held her in place.
A final whisper curled in her mind. Wake, before it wakes in you.
The glass shattered.
Lyra jolted upright in her narrow bed, breath sharp in her throat. Moonlight poured through the small window, but it seemed… wrong somehow, colder, as though it remembered where she had just been.
Her hands were trembling. She pulled them into her lap, curling her fingers to hide the faint shimmer that still lingered along her skin.
From the corridor beyond her door came the distant sound of footsteps. Not hurried, but deliberate. They passed by, then paused, exactly at her door.
Lyra held her breath.
A soft scrape, paper sliding against wood. Then the steps moved on, fading into silence.
Only when she was certain they would not return did she rise. There, lying just inside her door, was a folded note sealed with black wax.
She did not need to open it to know whose crest was pressed into that seal.
The Empress.