He woke up to silk, tight on his wrists and the taste of iron in his mouth.
The silk bit quietly, exactly the way the court liked to exact their cruelty.
The iron on his mouth tasted older and the one on his calves were heavy. Was this blood or the memory of it he wondered.
Someone had used a soporific sponge on him.
The world was still swirling as he blinked up into chandeliers casting a warm, golden glow..
He suddenly noticed he was actually being watched for the first time. The hush of a hundred people staring rudely with disgust spared only for him.
A banquet hall. A feast in progress. And him, displayed on a polished table like a warning no one will heed.
"Eyes on me," a voice says, low, unruffled.
He traced the voice to the table's head. Red luscious hair combed back with unbothered precision, black gown creating a sharp contrast, with a fan tucked under one arm as if it was a weapon.
The air tasted like resin and oranges. The resin was in his blood, dirty and sweet, the oranges belonged to someone who understood control.
"Alive," the woman says, as she draws nearer to him. Close enough that her breath was on his face. "Better."
He turns his head. Lyra Vale straightens back up taking her time.
He knew her by reputation, the Queen's fixer, the woman people called, when they wanted uncomplicated endings in their favor.
She was lounged with the lazy attention of a satisfied predator.
"Name?" The woman asked, as if his reputation did not precede him.
"Kaelen." His tongue was slow, his throat sand.
He tested the ropes. Silk, but clever knots. He filed the bitterness on his tongue under later.
"Family?"
"None you'd invite," he said, voice rough.
The woman's mouth tilted, it wasn't quite a smile. "Correct."
Armor scraped. A man stepped forward in crimson, all epaulets and importance.
"Your Majesty," he booms, bowing to the crown, "this is the butcher of the White Ford. He slit Lord Harrow's throat two nights past and fled like a coward. We have the blade as proof."
A murmur scurried along the walls.
The Captain of the guards produced a dagger in a silk wrapped hand. He bared it with a dramatic showman's flourish. The steel was clean but for a strip of dried brown near the hilt. The pommel bore his sigil burned deep, a wolf's head, jaws open.
Kaelen watched the room tighten and the Queen sat a little bit apprehensive.
The woman looks at the blade, then at Kaelen. "Is that yours?"
He laughed sarcastically, laced with anger.
"If I killed him, I wouldn't have hidden the blade. I would've left it in his throat."
"Charming," says the Queen,hiding her amusement and failing.
Lyra didn't look away from Kaelen, when she said "Undo his chains."
The Captain stiffened. "Your Majesty..."
"Do as she says," the Queen commanded, propping her chin on a ringed hand. "If he murdered anyone less interesting, I would have forgiven the mess."
Lyra moved over to the Queen and whispered something. Then she casually strolled over to him.
Lyra leaned closer, her perfume cutting through the stink of resin, citrus over steel. "Obey me now and live. Refuse and die."
His pulse hammered , not from fear, but because she didn't blink in his face the way others did. "Obey how?" he managed to ask.
Her gaze pinned him, unflinching. "Attack me."
And for the first time in years, the kaelen wondered what it would feel like to lose on purpose.
The room inhaled in one greedy breath.
The Captain snorted. "Fool woman. He'll..."
Lyra lifted one gloved hand without looking at him. The Captain's mouth folded around the rest of the sentence and swallowed it.
Kaelen tasted the trap, as well as the bitter taste on his tongue and traced its twin in the air. He looks at the dagger again. The dried brown is wrong, too matte. He knew blood. The stain's surface is dull with dust, ash and something else. Resin, the same stink that dragged him under.
His eyes found Lyra's. "You drugged me," he said.
She didn't blink. "I had you delivered. I dislike messy corridors."
"Who drugged me?"
Lyra ignored his question, instead her gaze drifts to the dagger. "Attack me." She repeated.
He briefly considered killing the Captain or hurling the dagger into the Queen's smile just to see if she would bleed.
He then moved.
Not towards Lyra.
He swiftly surged sideways, catching a guard unawares as he drew his sword from its sheath. The man quickly tried to fight back, but he was outsmarted as Kanaen used the first guard to crash into the second. As the two bodies tangled, a goblet flipped red wine fans across the tablecloth like a throat slashed for the gods.
The watchers gasped. Kaelen stepped to the end of the table, two strides from Lyra now and stopped as if he had hit an invisible tether.
"Convincing," she said, eyes steady on his.
Behind him, the Captain lunged desperately with the dagger. Kaelen didn't even dignify him with a turn. He dropped his weight, the blade kisses where he was, then wrestled the dagger out of the captains hands, reversing the grip.
He then pressed the blade flat to the Captain's throat. Not cutting. Not yet.
"Release him," Lyra said, calm as weather.
A beat. Two. The resin rang in his skull. Kaelen let the Captain go.
The silence after wasn't quiet but stunned.
Lyra stepped into that silence and owned it. "If he was a coward, he'd kill me now and run," she told the court without raising her voice. "If he were a fool, he would have killed the Captain and joined Lord Harrow in the ground. If he were guilty, he'd be busy stacking corpses between himself and my rope. But he's none of those. He's useful."
The Queen couldn't help but agree.
"So prove your innocence by hunting the one who framed you and you get your head back at the end."
Kaelen twirled the dagger once, and felt the balance. The resin hum jostles a memory: a jailer's key turning, a cup, a dry voice. He showed Lyra the blade's hilt, the sigil burned there. "That mark isn't mine."
Kaelen could tell them three lies to make that true. He could tell them one truth to set the room on fire, but he chose to say nothing, as the room leaned toward his silence.
"It's convincing enough to hang you," Lyra said.
"Lyra extended a gloved hand, palm up. She did not ask for the dagger. She let the room see him choose.
He put the dagger in her hand, flat. His fingers brushed the leather of her glove, deliberate, testing. Not surrender, selection. She didn't flinch. She let the contact linger, a spark sharp enough to make the watching courtiers hold their breath and it was the first honest thing he saw her do.
"Good," she says softly. "Now come."
The court pathed, whispers snaked behind them. The Captain cradled his wrist and learned to breathe again.
Lyra nodded once, crisp as a blade as she turned to Kaelen. "My orders,your muscle. "
She whispered to him "Obey me in the hall," Voice like a thread pulled tight. "Argue with me in the dark."
He leaned in, close enough that his breath brushed her ear, a wolf caged only by choice. "I don't argue."
Lyra didn't step back. Her eyes caught his, ice against fire, and her mouth tilted in the faintest promise. "You will."
For the first time that night, Kaelen wasn't thinking about the rope, or the court, or even the blade still slick in his hand, only the dangerous certainty that if he obeyed this woman, it wouldn't be for survival alone.
A shadowy figure moved in the gallery above. A blink, a smudge against the gold. Kaelen's head snapped up. The resin in the air rode a new current, oiled bowstring, feather, the thin metallic breath of a waiting arrow.
"Down," he said.
Lyra hesitated, courtiers screamed. The chandelier rang like struck glass, as the arrows buried in the throne's arm with a sound like a decision made.
Lyra tried to make a move towards the queen and one of the arrows found her ribs like a jealous lover.