Chapter 555 - CHAPTER 554 — THE QUEEN’S FIRST LAW Part 2 — The Future He Would Choose for Her

The crimson mark beneath Elara Romano's wrist burned the moment Lucien Noctis finished reading the message, and the sudden heat made her fingers tighten around the edge of the table. Across the Grand Hall, the newly signed civilian-protection pact lay beneath the warm glow of the chandeliers, its seven-day term and carefully negotiated conditions representing the first agreement the divided territories had accepted without a crown, a threat, or supernatural compulsion. Now an anonymous photograph threatened to turn that fragile achievement into a declaration of war, and the most disturbing detail was not the faces crossed out in crimson, but the single face the unseen sender had deliberately spared.