Sera's POV
She didn't think. She moved.
The chamber door was behind Orin, blocked by approaching soldiers. The walls were lined with maps and weapons. There were no windows in the underground vault, no other exits that she could see.
Sera grabbed the nearest oil lamp from the table and threw it at the map.
Fire erupted across the carefully drawn plans. Orin shouted orders. In the chaos of soldiers rushing to contain the blaze, Sera bolted for the corridor. She heard footsteps behind her but didn't look back. She simply ran through passages she didn't know, taking random turns, following instinct and the faint sound of water that suggested the palace's lower passages.
She found a servant exit. She climbed.
By the time she reached the upper corridors, her hands were shaking. Her mind was fractured between what she had just escaped and what she had to do next.
She had to find Kael. She had to make him understand that Orin was the conspiracy. She had to do it before Orin convinced him otherwise.
The palace was quiet at midnight. Guards recognized her and stepped aside, which meant Kael's orders still protected her, which meant he hadn't abandoned her despite his doubt.
She found him in the war room, studying maps by candlelight. Alone. Like he had been waiting.
His head came up when she entered, and for a moment she saw something in his eyes that made her heart stop. Relief. Vulnerability. Fear for her safety.
Then his expression shuttered.
"Where were you?" His voice was cold.
"I was taken," Sera said. "By Orin. He—"
"Orin is my most trusted—"
"Orin is orchestrating the conspiracy," Sera interrupted. She was breathing hard from running. "Not Castor. Not my father. Orin. He's gathering weapons and supplies. He's planning something at the Founding Ceremony. And he's been using me as leverage against you."
Kael's jaw tightened. "Come with me."
He pulled her from the war room. They moved through corridors she didn't recognize until they reached a chamber that was clearly his private study. Books lined the walls. A fire burned in the hearth. He locked the door behind them.
"Explain," he said.
Sera told him everything. Lysa's observations. The supply movements. Orin's revelation. The soldiers closing in. The plan to make him into a true tyrant by removing her influence from his life.
When she finished, Kael walked to a shelf and pulled down a file bound in leather.
"Before you question my choices that night," he said quietly, "you need to understand something."
He set it on the table between them.
The archive file. The Night of Three Princes. He had retrieved it himself.
"Ask me," he said.
Sera's throat was tight. "What really happened?"
Kael was silent for so long she thought he wouldn't answer. But then he sat across from her, and she could see the weight in every line of his body. The burden of carrying this truth alone.
"My brothers weren't victims," he said finally. "They were moving against the throne with military precision. They had gathered forces in six provinces. They had forged documents implicating me in crimes I didn't commit. They were planning to strike during the Coronation Feast."
"You could have stopped them without killing them," Sera said. "You could have exiled them. You could have imprisoned them. You could have found another way."
"I tried," Kael said, and something in his voice fractured. "I wrote to them. I offered them power. I offered them everything except the throne. And they refused. They saw my offers as weakness. They saw my hesitation as an opportunity."
"So you killed them," Sera said, not as accusation but as fact.
"So I chose the empire," Kael replied, and the words were heavy with the weight of twelve years. "Thousands of soldiers were already mobilized. If my brothers fought, if they split the throne's authority, the empire would have torn itself apart. Provinces would have rebelled. There would have been war for decades. Children would have starved. Cities would have burned."
"You don't know that for certain," Sera argued. "You're assuming the worst—"
"I'm not assuming," Kael said. He pulled out military reports. "I'm reading the intelligence that predicted exactly how it would unfold. Every scenario. Every outcome. Every one ended in civil war and thousands dead."
Sera leaned forward, studying the documents. The analysis was meticulous. The predictions terrifyingly probable.
"But there were other options," she insisted. "You could have tried negotiation. You could have sent them away. You could have—"
"Negotiation requires that both sides want peace," Kael interrupted. "My brothers wanted the throne. I could give them anything except that. There was no negotiation possible. And sending them away?" His laugh was bitter. "That would have only delayed the inevitable. They would have gathered stronger forces. They would have invaded."
"You're justifying murder," Sera said.
"No," Kael said, and his eyes met hers. "I'm explaining an impossible choice. I'm telling you that I had to kill my brothers to save my empire. And yes, that makes me a tyrant. That makes me dangerous. That makes me exactly what Orin wants you to believe I am."
They argued through the hours. Sera played devil's advocate, insisting he could have found another way. Kael defended his choice with the cold logic of someone who had already argued with himself thousands of times and never found a better answer.
But he didn't throw her out.
When she demanded proof of his versions, he showed it to her. When she questioned his intelligence sources, he explained the methodology. When she suggested he was rationalizing his actions, he absorbed the accusation without flinching.
And slowly, something shifted between them.
This wasn't strategic anymore. This wasn't him testing her or her proving herself. This was two people arguing about something that mattered. This was Kael allowing her to challenge him. This was Sera refusing to accept easy answers.
"You're the only person in this empire who argues with me like this," he said at midnight, when her voice had grown hoarse from speaking. "The only one who refuses to accept that I'm right because I have the power to enforce it."
"That's not wisdom," Sera said. "That's just stubbornness."
"No," Kael said, and he reached across the table and took her hand. "It's love."
The word hung between them like a weapon neither of them knew how to use.
Before Sera could respond, the door burst open.
A guard rushed in, breathless. "Your Majesty. We have a situation. Commander Orin is requesting an immediate assembly of the war council. He's presenting evidence that—"
"That what?" Kael demanded.
The guard hesitated. His eyes moved between them. Between her hand in Kael's.
"That Lady Sera is a spy working with external forces," the guard said carefully. "He's requesting that she be held in custody pending investigation. And he has military support for the position. At least three generals are standing with him."
Sera felt the ground tilt beneath her.
Orin hadn't been trying to trap her in that vault. He had been buying time. Building his coalition. Gathering evidence—false evidence, probably, but evidence nonetheless.
He had known she would run to Kael. He had known they would argue. He had known that her appearance beside the Emperor at midnight, with conspiracy files spread across his table, would look exactly like a spy manipulating a ruler.
Orin had orchestrated the perfect moment to strike.
"Your Majesty," the guard said, "what are your orders?"
Kael's hand tightened on hers.
For the first time since she'd known him, Sera saw fear in his eyes. Not for himself. For her.
"Take her to—" he started.
"No," Sera interrupted. She understood suddenly what Orin had done. If Kael locked her away to protect her, it would look like guilt. It would look like he was hiding a spy. It would cement Orin's narrative that she had manipulated him.
The only way to survive this was to walk directly into the fire.
"I'll face the council," she said. "I'll answer any questions."
Kael's grip on her hand became almost painful. "Sera—"
"It's the only way," she said. "If you protect me, they win. If I run, they win. The only way forward is through."
The guard waited, uncomfortable.
Kael looked at her for a long moment. Then he stood, pulling her up with him.
"Then we face them together," he said.
And Sera realized that in defending his impossible choice, she had somehow made him willing to make another one. A choice that would put her before the empire. That would make him seem weak. That would play directly into Orin's hands.
He was choosing her.
And that choice might be exactly what destroyed them both.