“Kneel.”

  The word snapped through the corridor like a whip.

  Jina’s shoulders tensed before she could stop it.

  A line of servants—maids, footmen, boys too young to be carrying water buckets—dropped to their knees in the stone passage. Some moved fast. Some moved like their joints hurt. One girl hesitated a fraction too long and the guard’s spear butt struck the floor beside her with a loud crack.

  She flinched hard and bowed so low her forehead nearly hit the stone.

  Jina’s stomach turned.

  Not because they were kneeling.

  Because none of them looked surprised.

  They looked trained.

  The corridor wasn’t the main entrance. It was narrow, utilitarian, damp at the edges where the palace’s warmth never reached. The air smelled like boiled cloth and lye and old smoke. The servants’ wing.

  The back door.

  The way you brought in something you didn’t want the court to see.

  Aurelia Draconis was back, but she was being handled like contraband.

  Jina kept her hood low and her face still. She forced her hands to unclench inside Lysander’s cloak.

  Lysander walked half a step behind her shoulder—close enough to catch her if she staggered, far enough to look like he wasn’t claiming her.

  His gaze moved constantly. Doors. Hands. Weapon angles. Exits.

  He didn’t look at the kneeling servants.

  Jina did.

  One of the boys had raw, cracked hands. Another had a bruise blooming yellow-purple across his cheekbone like someone had “corrected” him recently. The girl with the bowed head was trembling so hard her braid shook.

  Jina wanted to say, Get up.

  The words rose, hot and sharp, and died in her throat.

  Because if she said it wrong—too soft, too human—every eye here would see it.

  And in this palace, being seen was never free.

  A man in dark formal robes stood ahead, waiting. Not a guard. Not a servant. A steward—clean cuffs, careful posture, eyes lowered with practiced humility.

  He bowed deeply.

  “Your Highness,” he said.

  Jina’s spine went rigid.

  The title hit different inside these walls. Outside, it was danger. Here, it was a trigger.

  The steward’s voice stayed smooth. “The palace has been… prepared for your return.”

  Prepared.

  Like a room for a sick animal.

  Jina’s jaw tightened. She forced her voice steady.

  “Prepared how.”

  The steward didn’t look up. “You have been assigned temporary quarters in the servants’ wing, as directed by the Imperial Physician. For your recovery.”

  Temporary.

  Servants’ wing.

  Recovery.

  Every word was polite. Every word was a fence.

  Jina glanced at Lysander.

  He was watching the steward’s hands.

  “Why not my rooms,” Jina asked.

  The steward’s pause was brief, but it was there.

  “Your original chambers are being… cleansed,” he said carefully. “For your comfort.”

  Cleansed of what?

  Blood? Memories? Evidence?

  Jina swallowed. Her throat felt too dry.

  “Fine,” she said.

  It wasn’t acceptance.

  It was triage.

  The steward stepped aside. “This way.”

  They walked.

  The servants stayed kneeling until Jina passed. Not one of them looked up.

  Not one dared.

  Jina’s chest tightened around something that wasn’t poison.

  Aurelia had walked these halls like a storm. Jina could feel it in the flinch timing, in the way hands hid scars, in the way shoulders curled inward like trying to become smaller.

  Fearful obedience.

  The kind that looked like peace if you were the one holding the whip.

  Jina hated it so much she tasted metal.

  Halfway down the corridor, a young maid fumbled a tray. A cup rattled, then tipped. Tea spilled across stone in a thin, steaming sheet.

  The sound was small.

  The reaction wasn’t.

  The maid made a strangled noise and threw herself flat on the floor, palms out, shaking.

  “I’m sorry—Your Highness—I’m sorry—please—”

  Jina stopped.

  The guard beside her took a step forward, spear shifting. Not to help. To punish.

  Jina’s stomach lurched.

  “No,” she said, sharper than she meant to.

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  Everything froze.

  Not by magic.

  By expectation.

  The guard halted mid-step.

  The maid’s breath hitched.

  The steward went very still.

  Jina felt the familiar pressure behind her ribs—the threads, reacting to emotion like nerves exposed to cold air. They pulsed faintly, as if even her bonds were listening.

  She swallowed hard and forced her voice lower.

  “Get up,” she said to the maid. “Clean it.”

  The maid blinked like she didn’t understand the words.

  Then she scrambled up fast, hands shaking as she grabbed a cloth and started wiping the spill with frantic speed. Her eyes stayed on the floor.

  Not relief.

  Terror dressed up as gratitude.

  Jina turned away before her face could betray her.

  Lysander’s voice came low, meant for her alone.

  “Not here.”

  He didn’t say it like scolding.

  He said it like warning.

  Jina didn’t answer.

  Because he was right.

  Kindness was a signal. Signals got interpreted. Interpreted got weaponized.

  They kept walking.

  The corridor opened into a wider passage lined with doors—laundry rooms, storage, cramped sleeping quarters. The sounds here were constant: water sloshing, fabric being beaten, murmurs cut short whenever a guard’s boots passed.

  The palace wasn’t quiet.

  It was controlled.

  Jina felt it settle on her skin like dust.

  They reached a door with iron bands across it. Two guards stood on either side, faces blank.

  The steward bowed again. “Your Highness. Your quarters.”

  Jina stared at the door.

  Iron bands on a “recovery room” was… a choice.

  She stepped closer and caught a scent under the lye and damp stone.

  Herbs.

  Too sweet.

  Too thick.

  A sedative smell, not a tonic.

  Her stomach clenched.

  She turned her head slightly. “Who decided this.”

  The steward’s voice stayed smooth. “The Imperial Physician. And the Council’s advisory—”

  He stopped himself.

  Just a fraction.

  But Jina heard the near-word.

  Diadem.

  She looked at him. “Open it.”

  The steward nodded once. A key appeared in his hand—too quickly, like he’d been holding it already.

  He unlocked the door.

  The hinges didn’t squeal.

  Oiled.

  Of course.

  Jina stepped inside.

  The room was small. Too small for a princess. A narrow bed, clean sheets, a washbasin, a chest, a single narrow window set high in the wall.

  The window bars were decorative.

  The lock on them wasn’t.

  A brazier burned low with herb-smoke curling upward, thick and clinging.

  The air made Jina’s head feel slightly light already.

  She forced herself not to cough.

  A tray sat on the small table by the bed: tea, steam rising, and a bowl of clear liquid with pale petals floating on top.

  Pretty.

  Suspicious.

  The steward stayed at the threshold. “Please rest. The physician will arrive shortly. For your pain.”

  Jina’s eyes flicked to the tea.

  Pain management.

  In her old life, that phrase came with dosing protocols and monitoring.

  Here, it came with a locked door.

  Jina kept her face blank. “I didn’t ask for tea.”

  The steward dipped his head. “It is customary.”

  Lysander stepped forward.

  Just one step.

  That was all it took for the room’s temperature to shift.

  The guards tensed.

  The steward’s voice stayed polite. “Shadow Guard quarters are assigned separately. His presence is not required.”

  Not required.

  Like Lysander was a tool being put away.

  Jina’s throat tightened.

  Lysander’s voice was flat. “I stay.”

  The steward’s eyes remained lowered. “Your Highness deserves privacy.”

  Jina glanced at Lysander.

  In public, he called her Your Highness.

  In private, he hadn’t called her anything yet—not since the road. He’d been careful. Like names were dangerous.

  Now his gaze was fixed on the steward’s face with a quiet, lethal intensity.

  Jina could feel it in him—devotion turning into steel.

  If she let him push, this would become a confrontation.

  Confrontation meant attention.

  Attention meant Diadem smiling somewhere behind a curtain.

  Jina swallowed hard.

  Survival first.

  Always.

  She forced her voice calm. “Lysander.”

  He didn’t look at her immediately.

  When he did, his eyes flicked over her face—searching for what she wanted, not what he wanted.

  Jina hated that it mattered.

  “Wait outside,” she said.

  Lysander’s jaw tightened. “Your Highness—”

  “That’s an order,” Jina said, and the words tasted bitter.

  Not Command.

  Not magic.

  Just authority.

  She watched his shoulders go rigid for half a heartbeat, like the old pattern tried to snap into place.

  Then he exhaled once, controlled.

  “Yes,” he said.

  He turned and stepped out.

  Not fast.

  Not angry.

  Obedient in the way that hurt the most.

  Jina didn’t look away as he left.

  Because if she looked away, she’d flinch like the servants did.

  The steward bowed again. “Your Highness is wise.”

  Jina stared at him.

  Wise.

  Or caged.

  The steward closed the door.

  The key turned.

  Click.

  A second click.

  Then silence.

  Jina stood still for three beats, listening to the sound of boots moving away.

  Then she crossed the room and tried the door handle anyway.

  Locked.

  Of course.

  Her pulse picked up.

  The threads behind her ribs pulsed in response—four faint tugs, like distant hands tightening on strings. Not pain. Not yet.

  A warning.

  Jina turned to the brazier and leaned closer, careful.

  The smoke smelled like crushed poppy and something sharper underneath—an herb used to soften pain and blur thought.

  Sedation.

  Not lethal, not by itself.

  But enough to make a sick woman sleep deeper than she should.

  Enough to make a sick woman easy to move.

  Enough to make a sick woman miss the moment a blade entered her room.

  Jina swallowed hard.

  “Okay,” she muttered. “So we’re doing this.”

  She grabbed the brazier lid and smothered the coals, coughing once as the smoke thickened briefly before dying.

  Her head still felt light.

  She moved to the tea tray and lifted the cup, inhaling carefully.

  Sweet. Floral.

  And under that—bitter.

  Not the normal bitterness of leaves.

  The bitter of powdered root used to numb the tongue.

  Jina set the cup down without drinking.

  Her hands were shaking now.

  Not from fear alone.

  From anger.

  Because this was the palace.

  Not the Wastes.

  Not beasts in a ravine.

  Not Diadem men with crossbows.

  This was home.

  And home was trying to drug her the moment she walked through the back door.

  Jina stared at the barred window.

  Outside it, she could hear faint movement—servants’ murmurs, water sloshing, a distant laugh quickly swallowed.

  Life going on inside a machine.

  A machine that ran on fear.

  A cage, disguised as a castle.

  Jina pressed her palm to her sternum.

  The bonds hummed like bruised nerves.

  She felt Kaelen’s heat spike—irritation turning sharp, as if he sensed her anger through the thread and answered it with his own.

  She felt the cold line—Theron—tighten, controlled and calculating.

  She felt the sharp flicker—amusement, dangerous.

  She felt the fire—restless hunger, like something waking.

  Jina closed her eyes for a second and forced her breathing steady.

  Action. Reaction. Consequence.

  Action: They sedate her.

  Reaction: She stays awake anyway.

  Consequence: She lives.

  She moved to the chest by the bed and opened it.

  Inside were clothes—clean, expensive, imperial burgundy with gold embroidery. Folded neatly, waiting.

  A costume.

  Aurelia’s face, Aurelia’s robes, Aurelia’s reputation.

  Wear it or die.

  Jina’s stomach twisted.

  She pulled one of the robes out and felt the fabric slide over her fingers. Soft. Heavy. Too luxurious for a room that locked from the outside.

  Her gaze snagged on something at the bottom of the chest.

  A small pouch.

  Black silk.

  Sealed with a stamp pressed into wax.

  A ring split by a blade.

  Diadem.

  Jina’s breath caught.

  She didn’t touch the seal.

  She didn’t need to.

  This wasn’t a gift.

  It was a message.

  We’re here. We’re close. We’re already inside your room.

  Her throat tightened around a word that wasn’t hers.

  Stop.

  The splinter-word rose like a reflex.

  She swallowed it down until it burned.

  Not yet.

  She needed information first.

  She needed Lysander first.

  She needed air.

  Jina went to the door and put her ear against the wood.

  Nothing.

  No guard breathing outside. No footsteps.

  They’d locked her in and walked away.

  Confident.

  She pictured the steward’s lowered eyes. The polite voice. The oiled hinges.

  Civility as threat.

  Severin’s kind of move.

  Jina’s skin prickled.

  She stepped back from the door and looked around the room again—really looked.

  The bedframe was bolted to the floor.

  The window bars had new screws.

  The brazier was positioned so smoke drifted toward the bed.

  And on the inside edge of the doorframe, half-hidden by shadow, a thin line of metal glinted.

  A wire.

  Not a tripwire for her.

  A signal wire.

  If she forced the door, something would ring.

  Someone would come.

  Not to rescue.

  To finish.

  Jina’s chest tightened.

  She pressed her fingers to her wrist and counted her pulse, like numbers could make this feel less personal.

  Fast.

  Too fast.

  The palace was doing what it had always done.

  Putting a hand on her neck—softly, politely, with paperwork and tea.

  Jina stared at the locked door and realized the truth with a quiet, cold clarity:

  The Wastes had tried to kill her.

  The palace would try to own her.

  And ownership was the more dangerous kind of death.

  A soft sound came from the hallway.

  A key turning in a different lock.

  Footsteps approaching—measured, unhurried.

  Not a servant’s scramble.

  Not a guard’s stomp.

  Someone who didn’t need to hurry.

  Jina backed away from the door automatically, heart hammering.

  Her gaze flicked to the tea again.

  To the Diadem pouch.

  To the wire.

  The footsteps stopped right outside.

  A voice—polite, smooth, inevitable—spoke through the wood.

  “Your Highness,” it said. “May we come in?”

  Jina’s stomach dropped.

  Because no one who asked like that was asking.

  And because the word Stop sat on her tongue like poison… and the door was already unlocking from the outside. [Trap]