Chapter 27
The abandoned wine cellar beneath the Imperial Palace kitchens reeked of damp stone and decades of neglect, the air thick enough to taste.
Torch flames guttered in iron brackets, casting dancing shadows across the curved walls while the muffled roar of the festival crowd rumbled overhead like distant thunder.
Every so often, a burst of laughter or the crash of fireworks would penetrate the stone, a jarring reminder of the celebration happening above while we crouched in darkness, planning to tear the Empire apart.
I sat against the far wall, trying to project the confidence of Crown Prince Jalius while inside, every instinct screamed that we were walking into a trap.
The weight of my royal blood felt heavier down here, surrounded by the oppressive stone that had witnessed centuries of Imperial power.
This was where my ancestors had plotted their conquests, where prisoners had been tortured for information, where the machinery of the empire ground human lives into dust.
The others moved restlessly in the confined space.
Marcus paced like a caged wolf, his hand never leaving his sword hilt.
Antonius methodically checked and rechecked his weapons, the soft scrape of steel against whetstone a rhythmic counterpoint to the distant celebration.
Sirrax sat still and silent, his eyes closed as though he were sleeping, and yet his posture told me he was completely alert.
Tarshi crouched in perfect stillness, Septimus at his side, but his eyes never left his twin brother.
Taveth was the most unsettling sight of all.
He sat hunched against the wall, his hands trembling as shadows leaked from his skin despite his obvious efforts to contain them.
Every few minutes, he would mutter something under his breath—responses to voices only he could hear.
The crystal's proximity was eating him alive, and we all knew it.
"Jalend." Livia's voice cut through my brooding, and I looked up to find her approaching with that determined stride I'd come to love. Even in the guttering torchlight, she was beautiful—not the polished beauty of court ladies, but something fiercer, more real. The kind of beauty that came from surviving things that would have broken lesser people. I still didn’t know how I couldn’t have seen it before she revealed who she was to me.
She settled beside me on the cold stone, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from her body. "You're thinking too hard," she said quietly.
"Someone has to," I replied, though I couldn't keep the doubt from my voice. "In a few hours, I'll be walking into my father's stronghold, surrounded by his guards, his dragons, his absolute power. And for what? The hope that I can somehow convince an empire to abandon everything it's built?"
"No," she said firmly, her hand finding mine in the darkness.
"Not for hope. For certainty. You're not walking in there as some desperate rebel trying to overthrow a tyrant.
You're walking in there as the rightful heir, the prince who chose his people over his crown. You’re not your father. You never will be."
Her words should have comforted me, but they only highlighted the impossibility of what we were attempting. "My father has dragons, Livia. Hundreds of enslaved shifters who have no choice but to obey. Even if we could reach him, even if we could expose the truth about the collars—"
"Then we deal with the dragons," she interrupted. "That's what Taveth is for, remember? The crystal, the ritual. It might be madness, but it's our madness."
I studied her face in the flickering light, seeing the absolute certainty there.
She believed in this plan, believed in me, with a faith that was both humbling and terrifying.
"You realize that even if everything goes perfectly, even if we somehow pull this off, there's no going back.
I'll be a kinslayer, a traitor to my own bloodline.
History will remember me as the prince who murdered his father. "
"Good," she said fiercely. "Let them remember you as the man who chose justice over loyalty. The prince who refused to inherit a throne built on suffering. You’re all of it—Jalius, crown prince, dragon rider… and my lover. You don’t have to choose one. You’re stronger because you’re all of them."
Her conviction cut through my doubts like a blade, and I felt something shift inside me—not hope exactly, but resolve.
She was right. This wasn't about claiming my birthright or seizing power. This was about ending a cycle of violence that had consumed generations. Her lips parted beneath mine, soft and certain, and for a few heartbeats the festival above, the guards beyond the walls, even the shadows twisting from my brother’s hands—all of it disappeared. There was only her.
When I pulled back, breathless, she was smiling.
"You know, “she said, her eyes sparkling with mischief despite the danger surrounding us. ”If we somehow survive this, if we actually manage to overthrow the Empire and build something better in its place, we could get married, and I'd end up being Empress?
Can you imagine—Empress Livia, the gladiator who fought her way out of the arena and into the Imperial palace? "
For a moment, I just stared at her, imagining it—Livia in Imperial purple, commanding legions, reshaping the world with the same fierce determination she'd shown in everything else. Then I started laughing, the sound echoing off the stone walls.
"There's just one problem with that fantasy," I said, pulling her closer.
"What's that?"
"If this coup succeeds, I won't be emperor long enough for you to be an empress." My voice grew serious, thoughtful. "I'll hold power just long enough to give it back to the people. Help them build a republic where no one person holds that kind of absolute authority."
Her expression shifted, something warm and proud lighting her eyes. "You really mean that, don't you? You'd give up the throne voluntarily."
"No one should have the power my father wields," I said firmly. "The ability to enslave entire populations, to turn thinking beings into weapons, to decide life and death for millions with a casual word—it's too much for any one person."
"I didn't think it was possible to love you more than I already did," she whispered, her hand coming up to cup my cheek. "But hearing you say that..."
I kissed her then, pouring all my fear and determination and desperate love into the contact.
She responded immediately, her arms winding around my neck as she pressed closer.
The taste of her, the warmth of her skin, the soft sound she made against my lips—it all combined to drive away the cold dread that had been eating at me.
I kissed her again, harder this time. Heat flared through me like wildfire, consuming the doubt, the fear, the weight of my father’s shadow.
Her body pressed to mine, warm and yielding, and for once I didn’t feel like a prince or a pawn—I just felt like a man who wanted the woman in his arms more than air.
Her fingers tangled in my hair, pulling me closer until our teeth clashed.
She gasped against my mouth, and I swallowed the sound hungrily.
My hands slid down her back, curving over the swell of her hips, tugging her closer into my lap until she straddled me.
The torchlight painted her in gold and shadow, every breathless shift of her body striking sparks through my veins.
She broke the kiss only long enough to whisper my name, shaky and low, and the sound wrecked me. I cupped her face, kissing her again, softer, slower, tasting her like I’d never have the chance again. My thumbs brushed the edges of her jaw while her hands roamed down my chest, exploring, claiming.
Her hips shifted against mine, deliberately or not I couldn’t tell, but it drew a groan from deep in my chest. I bit gently at her lower lip, and she gasped, arching closer.
Saints, I could have drowned in her right there—forgotten the palace above, the festival, the cages, the coup. Forgotten everything but her.
“Livia,” I murmured against her mouth, half prayer, half plea.
Her answer was another kiss, long and slow and searing, until the scrape of Marcus’s boots snapped me back to where we were.
“Really?” Marcus’s voice was a low growl. “You two planning to start a dynasty down here, or are we sneaking into a palace this morning?”
Livia laughed breathlessly, burying her face against my shoulder. I pressed my forehead to hers, chest heaving, still trembling from how close I’d come to forgetting myself entirely.
“When this is over,” I whispered against her ear, only for her, “I want you to myself. Hours. No interruptions. We’ll celebrate properly.”
Her breath shivered against my neck. “That’s a promise,” she whispered back.
“And I’ll always be Jalend to you and the guys,” I murmured. “That name feels more like me than my old one.”
I stole one more quick, fierce kiss before letting her slide from my lap.
My hands already ached at the loss. Around us, Antonius kept his eyes on his sword with exaggerated concentration, Tarshi smirked faintly, Septimus watched the door as if it were the most interesting thing in the world, and Taveth’s shadows flickered like restless wings.
As if summoned by his words, a soft pattern of knocks echoed through the chamber—three short, two long, one short. Mira's signal. Marcus moved to the hidden door, checking the peephole before sliding back the bolt.
Two figures slipped inside like shadows given form. Kitchen servants, by their rough clothes and calloused hands, but their eyes held the kind of sharp intelligence that marked them as far more than they appeared.