Page 36

THIRTY-SIX

EVRYN

T he throne was colder than she’d imagined.

It wasn’t the blackstone. It wasn’t even the wind that snuck through the broken stained-glass windows and kissed her skin like ghosts of war.

It was the silence.

The hush of a court waiting for command. The stillness of the room where blood had been spilled in legacy’s name.

Where mothers had turned into monsters.

Evryn sat tall on the throne, spine straight, crown heavy with history. Her panther instincts still murmured beneath her skin, watching every breath, every flicker of movement like a predator not ready to sheathe her claws.

Lucien stood at the base of the dais.

No longer the Queen’s dagger. No longer a prince.

Just him. Her second. Her shadow. And her heartbreak.

He didn’t speak. He hadn’t since the last meeting broke an hour before. His jaw was tight, his hands behind his back, posture stiff—waiting for the moment he’d be dismissed, or perhaps, something worse.

Evryn’s voice broke the silence like a bell in fog.

“I need to speak with you. Alone.”

The guards filed out. Malrik lingered, sensing the fracture forming, but said nothing.

When the chamber emptied, Evryn stood.

Lucien finally looked at her. “You’ve barely slept.”

She ignored that. Walked slowly down the steps. Her boots echoed on stone that still bore scorch marks.

“I’ve made a decision,” she said.

He said nothing. Just watched her with eyes too knowing, too gentle.

She hated how warm his gaze made her feel.

“I want you to remain as my commander,” she said, voice sharp and official. “You’ll oversee the shadows, vet every court whisper, manage the heir alliances.”

He nodded once. “Of course.”

“But,” she added, quieter now, “you will do so as my second. Not… not as anything else.”

Lucien flinched. A small thing. But it broke her.

He took a step forward. “Evryn?—”

“No,” she said, raising a hand. “Please. Don’t. Just… let me say it.”

He stopped.

She looked up at him, throat tight.

“I can feel it,” she said, her voice a low tremor barely carried by the vaulted chamber. “Every day. It’s like… a second heartbeat beneath my own. A pull. A hunger.”

Lucien stayed quiet, but his eyes never left her.

She swallowed. “It whispers to me when I sit on that throne. When I pass judgment. When someone looks at me with fear in their eyes and I like it—because fear is easier than reason. Because silence is quicker than mercy. It tells me I can fix everything if I just stop caring. If I stop feeling. ”

She looked down at her hands—small tremors twitching along her fingers. “That’s what lived in her. That cold thing. That poison that masquerades as power. And it’s in me now.”

Lucien’s brow furrowed. “You’re not Selyne.”

“Not yet,” she said softly. Her lips twitched like she wanted to smile, but couldn’t find the strength. “But what if I become her? What if I forget how to be anything else?”

He opened his mouth, but she stepped back and shook her head. “No. Let me finish.”

She paced a few steps, fingers curled into fists. “You see the best in me, Lucien. Even when I’m at my worst. Even when I’m half-shadow, half-fire, and nothing human left. You look at me and I remember who I want to be.”

She turned back toward him, her voice cracking. “But what happens when I don’t want to anymore? When the throne demands something uglier? When choosing you means I don’t make the hard call—because loving you feels more right than doing what’s needed?”

He stood still, a statue made of restraint and grief.

“If I keep you close,” she whispered, stepping in as if to break her own rule, “I won’t be able to tell the difference. I’ll choose you every time, Lucien. And I’ll blind myself to the cost. I’ll forget what the people need, and I’ll think you are all that matters.”

Tears threatened, sharp as blades behind her eyes.

“I can’t afford to love you like that.”

Lucien didn’t move for a long moment. Slowly, he stepped forward. Close enough that she could feel the warmth of him, the heartbeat she’d once brought back from the edge of death.

But he didn’t touch her.

“You think loving me is your weakness?”

“I think it might be your downfall,” she said. “And I can’t be the reason you fall.”

Silence bloomed between them. Dense. Breathless.

Lucien looked at her, not as a warrior, not even as a man who’d bled for her.

But like someone being asked to carve out the best part of himself… and call it loyalty.

“I would’ve followed you anywhere,” he said.

Her voice cracked. “You still will. Just not into my heart.”

He bowed his head. Then, quietly left. The doors shut behind him like a tomb.

And Evryn, Panther Queen of a broken throne, sat back down—alone.