The carriage is a coffin of silence.
The rhythmic rattle of the wheels acts as a countdown, each turn bringing them closer to the lion's den.
Leonard stares at the floorboards, but he isn't seeing the velvet rugs. He is back in the Guest Manse, an hour ago that single, fragile hour where the world stopped screaming.
He closes his eyes and sees it again: Elsbeth, scrubbed clean of the city's filth, tearing a piece of soft, warm bread. She had held it out to Luan.
"I have no need for hunger," Luan had said, staring at the bread. "There is no point. My body does not crave sustenance."
"You can taste now," she had whispered, stubborn and gentle. "Even if you cannot hunger, you can taste. Please."
Leonard remembers Luan hesitating, then taking the bite from her fingers. He remembers the way the jester's eyes had gone wide shocked, innocent, like a child seeing snow for the first time.
"It... has taste," Luan had murmured, a small, heartbreaking smile breaking through his scars. "I didn't know. I didn't know the world could feel like this."
Thud.
The carriage lurches to a halt. The memory shatters.
Sir Rowan opens the door, the cool night air rushing in. He offers a gauntleted hand to Elsbeth.
She steps down.
She is no longer the girl in rags. The midnight-blue silk of her mother's gown flows around her like liquid authority, the color of a storm at sea.
The wilted daisy behind her ear is the only remnant of the world below.
Luan and Leonard follow, the jester's bells ringing in slow, mournful notes.
They stand at the base of the palace stairway. Above them, the structure glows with arrogant beauty, a mountain of white stone and gold veins, untouched by the rot of the city it feeds upon.
Luan extends his hand to Elsbeth.
She hesitates. Her eyes dart to his charred skin, the raw pink flesh still knitting together.
"Luan… you've burned enough today."
"Do not worry about the pain," he says softly. "We fight together."
She nods. She reaches out.
The moment skin touches skin, Luan's world turns white. It feels like a serrated blade being twisted in his gut a rejection of his cursed, undying flesh touching something so pure and someone he cares about. It is agony, sharp and blinding.
He doesn't flinch. He doesn't pull away. He simply squeezes her hand tighter, forcing the scream down his throat, even as a copper taste floods his mouth.
He turns his head slightly and spits a mouthful of dark blood onto the pristine white pavement.
"Luan—" Elsbeth gasps, gripping him.
"It is nothing," he whispers, wiping his lip on his shoulder before she can see the red. His voice is steady, but his eyes are swimming. "Don't worry."
He catches Rowan and Leonard's eyes. The silent pact passes between them: If this goes wrong, give me to them. Save her.
They climb the stairs. The Royal Guards bow to Rowan, though their eyes linger warily on the motley-clad man bleeding internally beside the Princess.
"Everyone is waiting, Sire," a maid says, her voice trembling as she avoids looking at Luan. "This way, please."
They follow her. The hallway is massive, a tunnel of marble and silk. Enchanted lanterns banish every shadow; inside these walls, it doesn't feel like night at all. It feels like a suspended eternity of wealth.
They stop before the Giant Gold Gates. The maid knocks twice.
Boom. Boom.
The doors groan open.
The Council Chamber is vast, a cathedral of politics designed to make a man feel small. In the center sits a colossal round table. Eighteen of the twenty chairs are filled with the heavyweights of Liveria Guildmasters in fur-lined coats, Bishops in silk, envoys dripping in jewels.
Dominating the room, hanging high on the wall, is a portrait of the late Queen. She stares down with dark, silky hair and pale skin the spitting image of the daughter who now stands in the doorway.
King sitting at the head of the table.
The moment he sees them sees Elsbeth in that blue dress, holding the jester's hand it is as if a ghost has walked into the room.
His face curdles with a mix of rage and terror.
"Elsbeth!" he roars, standing up so fast his chair scrapes the floor like a scream. "Leave his hand! Knights—put shackles on that creature and imprison him! He is dangerous!"
Elsbeth doesn't let go. Her hand trembles, but she anchors herself to Luan.
"He is not a creature!" her voice rings out, startling the Guildmasters. "He is human. And no one will put shackles on anyone. This is a council meeting, Father, not an execution."
The King's face goes pale. The cowering girl he used to ignore is dead; the woman standing there speaks with a queen's cadence.
"Sit down, Theoron."
The voice is dry and cracking. The Head of the Church, a man with a long white beard and a monocle reflecting the lamplight, gestures wearily.
"We are here to decide if he is dangerous, not to indulge your temper. Sit."
Elsbeth finally releases Luan's hand. As she steps forward, she whispers, "Don't worry. I will not let them do anything to you."
Luan, retreating to the wall with Leonard and the knights, murmurs back, "I will not let them do anything to you, either."
Rowan slides back a chair. Elsbeth sits. Rowan takes his place beside her, hand resting near the pommel of his sword.
"Explain yourself, Elsbeth," the old Bishop says.
Elsbeth stands. She looks small against the gold and velvet, but when she speaks, the room seems to shrink around her.
"I, Elsbeth, daughter of Eleanor Charlotte, the late Queen of this kingdom, stand here for myself. For my people. And for the person who has been a victim of a cruel fate."
She gestures to Luan.
"Yes, I am talking about the man you all see as a mere jester. A man who has no rights in your eyes. My father—no, the King—executed him."
"Threw us in the Northern Tower dungeon simply because I stood for him. Because he wanted someone to see him behind his mask."
She slams her hands on the table.
Thud. Thud.
"Killing someone who cannot die... treating him like a plaything..." Her voice rises, trembling with fury. "All of you here are responsible.
To take a life is a terrible sin. But to take away one's faith in the beauty of life? To break a soul until it believes it deserves pain? That is an even more terrible crime."
She sweeps her gaze across the table, locking eyes with the comfortable, well-fed Guildmasters.
"I am not just defending him. I am defending the people outside these walls. Do you have any idea how they live while you drink wine in this eternal light?"
By the wall, Luan's hand brushes the pouch at his belt—the pouch an owl dropped, smelling of butcher's meat and a father's gift. He grips it tight, the leather warm against his cold fingers.
Elsbeth points a shaking finger at the King.
"He never accepted me as his daughter. He saw me only as a threat to a throne that isn't even his."
This is my Mother's kingdom. And I will not let it rot any longer."
The silence in the room is deafening.
"All of you keep shutting your eyes to spare yourselves the truth," Elsbeth says, her voice dropping to a steely whisper.
"Justice here wears a blindfold to represent the law. But I will keep my eyes open. No matter what. Even if I am the only one."
All eyes are on her.
The men around the table shift in their seats, sharing uneasy glances some guilty, some dismissive, all unsettled.
A broad-shouldered man with a jagged scar across his cheek Azik, master of the Iron Fang guild—leans forward and claps once, twice, slow and deliberate.
"Powerful words," he says, voice gravel and smoke. "You truly are her daughter."
He nods toward the portraits of the late queen lining the walls.
Then his gaze hardens on Luan.
"But no matter how fiercely you defend him… in the end, that jester is still cursed."
He pauses, letting the word hang like a noose. "I'll grant you this: what Theoron did killing a man who cannot die was unacceptable. Cruelty, plain and simple."
The king's fists clench on the table, knuckles bone-white. His jaw works, but no sound escapes.
Azik continues, "As for the people outside the walls—"
The High Bishop raises one skeletal hand, cutting him off.
The old man's monocle glints as he turns to Elsbeth, voice mild and poisonous.
"You are fighting—risking everything—for people who have mocked you your entire life. People who branded you witch before you ever opened your mouth."
Elsbeth's chin lifts. Her voice does not waver, but her eyes shine with unshed tears.
"That does not mean I will turn a blind eye to the cruelty rotting this kingdom."
The bishop smiles thinly. "Calm yourself, child. For the people outside, we are doing everything in our power to make things better."
Elsbeth laughs a short, broken sound that echoes off the gilded ceiling like a slap.
"Have any of you," she says, voice rising, trembling now with fury and grief, "ever stepped beyond these walls?"
She leans forward, palms flat on the table, the wilted daisy behind her ear trembling with her.
"Children are dying of hunger while you feast on delicacies flown in from across the sea."
"Men work until their fingers bleed and still cannot buy bread."
"Mid-class nobles treat the poor like cattle whipping them, starving them, owning their very lives as if a human soul can be bought with coin."
Her voice cracks open, raw and shaking.
"People of this kingdom die every single day—quietly, forgotten, in the dirt—while you sit here debating whether a cursed man deserves mercy."
She straightens, tears spilling now, but her gaze sweeps the table like a blade.
"Is this how you make things better?"
Silence.
The king's face is purple again, but he cannot speak.
The portraits of her mother watch from every wall beautiful, black-haired, eyes full of the same storm now burning in her daughter.
Luan's hand twitches at his side, ready to reach for hers again, no matter the cost.
Rowan's fingers brush the hilt of his sword.
Leonard's jaw is stone.
Eighteen powerful men suddenly look very small.
The trial has only just begun and the room already feels like it's running out of air.