Chapter 6
It’s been days since I arrived at the palace, and already I’ve fallen into a rhythm I shouldn’t trust. Every night, after the corridors empty and the servants retire, I meet Lord Zevran in the atrium.
Not because I choose to – I’m his personal healer now, bound to the palace by an arrangement I never agreed to but can’t escape. He summons me, and I go.
I tell myself it’s obligation. Duty. But there’s a darker truth coiled beneath my rationalizations: I have a steady source now.
Regular access to that ethereal rush that floods my veins each time I heal him.
The addiction has a chokehold on me here, dressed up in the convenient disguise of necessity.
This morning, I requested permission to attend the court session in the Hall of Judgment. I told the steward I wanted to understand how justice was administered in these foreign palace walls. All true, technically.
What I didn’t say was that I want to see how His Grace rules, how he works.
Not the exhausted man who sits in silence while I heal him, but the Lord who holds the fate of his people in his hands.
Mother always said a leader’s worth was measured in how they wielded power over the powerless, not the powerful.
The Hall of Judgment sits in the oldest wing of the palace, carved from red stone that predates the current dynasty by centuries.
No windows pierce the walls, just iron sconces burning low, their smoke curling toward vaulted ceilings lost to shadow.
The temperature drops noticeably as I enter, the stone walls holding onto the morning chill despite the torches.
I take my place in the upper gallery with the other staff and minor court members, far enough from the throne to fade into the stone.
Below, the chamber floor spreads wide and bare, designed to make whoever stands at its centre feel exposed.
The sigil of Mars hangs above the dais – crossed swords ringed in bronze flame, each edge sharp enough to catch the torchlight.
The chamber fills slowly, conversation humming low and echoing off the stone. The acoustics are strange here, designed to amplify the voice of whoever speaks from the throne while turning everything else into indistinct noise.
Lord Zevran enters without announcement. He doesn’t need it – the room falls silent the moment his boots hit the floor, the sound of his footsteps sharp and clear in the sudden quiet.
He wears black today, the fabric cut close to his frame in a way that suggests function over finery. No ornamentation except the blade at his hip. When he climbs the steps to the throne – volcanic glass, jagged and cold – every movement is intentional.
I’ve seen him tired. I’ve seen him in pain. I’ve seen him with his defences lowered in the privacy of the atrium.
This is different.
He sits and the torchlight catches the angles of his face.
There’s no softness here, no hint of the man who closed his eyes in relief last night when I eased his pain.
This version of Lord Zevran is all edges, and I realize with a strange twist in my chest that this is what power looks like on him.
The absolute certainty in the way he holds himself, the way the entire room orients toward him without him having to demand it.
He’s been ruling since he was barely more than a boy … I wonder how much of this authority came naturally, and how much he had to forge himself.
“Bring the deserter forward.” His voice rings out.
Two guards escort a soldier into the centre of the floor.
He stumbles, catches himself, and lifts his chin.
He’s young – maybe twenty, if that. His uniform hangs loose on a frame that’s lost weight recently, dust ground into the seams. His hands are bound in front of him, wrists rubbed raw beneath the rope.
But it’s his eyes that make my heart sink – red-rimmed, wet, the kind of eyes that haven’t closed properly in days.
Commander Nael steps forward, his uniform pristine in contrast to the boy’s. “Your Grace. Private Alek deserted his post during a scheduled patrol along the Cydonia Ridge. He was apprehended three days later in his home village. The penalty for desertion is death.”
Murmurs ripple through the gallery. The woman beside me, draped in bronze silk and jewels, whispers that the boy’s a fool. Behind us, a minor lord says it’s a waste – he was a decent archer.
His Grace hasn’t moved. His gaze pins the soldier where he stands. “You abandoned your unit.”
“I went home.” The boy’s voice cracks, but he doesn’t look away. “My mother’s dying. There’s no one else to take care of her.”
The murmurs grow louder. A few nobles scoff. One laughs outright, the sound harsh and mocking.
“You left your comrades to sit at a deathbed?” Lord Zevran’s tone doesn’t rise, but it cuts through the noise cleanly.
“I was going to come back.” The words tumble out fast, desperate. “I swore an oath to Mars. I meant it. But if she dies alone—” His voice breaks. He swallows hard, tries again. “If she dies alone, I don’t know what I swore for.”
The honesty of it fills the room, too raw and emotional for a place built on ceremony and distance.
Lord Vance rises from his seat in the lower tier, his ceremonial robes sweeping the floor.
He’s older, grey-haired and narrow-shouldered, with the bearing of someone who’s never questioned his own authority.
“Your Grace, the law is clear. Desertion cannot be tolerated. Show leniency now, and discipline collapses.”
A few voices murmur agreement. The boy’s shoulders hunch, but he doesn’t beg. He just stands there, waiting for his fate.
Lord Zevran’s gaze stays fixed on him. The silence stretches long enough that I forget to breathe.
“And what kind of discipline,” His Grace finally says, his voice quiet and deliberate, “creates soldiers who believe Mars values their deaths more than their lives?”
The room goes still.
Lord Vance opens his mouth. Closes it. Then sits back down with a stiffness that suggests he’s swallowing his next words with difficulty.
His Grace leans forward slightly. “Private Alek. You will return to active duty. For the next year, your wages will be sent directly to your mother. The palace will provide her a medic, free of charge, for as long as she needs. But if you desert again, the sentence will be carried out. Here. In this hall.”
The boy’s knees buckle. He drops to the floor, gasping something that might be gratitude or a prayer or both. The guards haul him up and drag him toward the side exit, and he’s still crying when the door slams shut.
The nobles erupt into whispers. Some nod approval, though their faces remain carefully neutral.
Most don’t bother to hide their disapproval.
Lord Vance stares straight ahead, brows furrowed.
Lord Zevran doesn’t react. He sits perfectly still, his face unreadable, his hands steady on the throne.
But I can see the faint tremor in his left hand before he presses it flat against the armrest.
I know what that means. The illness is flaring.
The session continues with two more cases – a land dispute, and a stolen shipment of grain. Lord Zevran rules on them with the same unshakable authority, but I can see the increased stillness in his body.
By the time the hall empties, the torches have burned low. The guards file out last, pulling the heavy doors shut behind them.
I should leave too. Slip out before he notices I’m still here…
I don’t.
“Miss Cyra.”
His voice is quieter now, stripped of the weight it carried before. I turn back. He hasn’t moved from the throne, but the rigid lines of his posture have softened, and for the first time since he entered the hall, he looks tired. More than tired, he looks like he’s in pain.
“Stay,” he requests. His voice lacks the courtroom steel, carrying more exhaustion than anything else.
I descend the gallery steps slowly. By the time I reach the base of the dais, I have to tilt my head back to look at him.
Up close, the cracks show. The faint shadow beneath his eyes. The tightness around his mouth.
“What did you think?” he asks.
I hesitate. “I think most rulers would have chosen the easier path in all of those cases.”
“And you?”
I take a slow breath. “I think you chose the right ones.”
I watch as his expression softens. “My advisors might consider the right path weak.”
“Your advisors don’t have to live with the consequences of all these choices. You do.”
His mouth twitches, not quite a smile but close. “Careful, Miss Cyra. That almost sounded like approval.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.” I quip.
This time he does smile, faint and fleeting, but real. Then the tremor returns to his hand. He notices me notice, and the smile disappears.
“It’s flaring up, isn’t it?” I whisper.
He doesn’t deny it. “Court days are when it gets worse.”
The offer rises to my lips before I can stop it. “Let me help.”
Lord Zevran glances toward the doors, then back to me. We both know what I’m suggesting. The atrium is one thing – private, safe. But here, where any servant or guard might return…
“Someone could come back,” he says quietly.
“I know.”
“If they saw—” He stops himself, but I understand.
The public knows he retains a healer at the palace, but they don’t know the extent to which he’s dependent.
A Lord whose body constantly betrays him, who can’t go more than a few days without a healing session – that information would spread through the court within hours, most likely used against him in every way possible.
His enemies wouldn’t need armies if they knew exactly how fragile he is.
“I know,” I repeat.
For a long moment, he just looks at me. I can see the calculation happening behind his eyes, the careful weighing of risk against need.
Then he nods once, and I realize I’m watching him make a choice he wouldn’t make for anyone else.
That somewhere in these past few nights, something in the way he views me has shifted.
I climb the steps to the throne. When I reach him, I kneel beside the armrest and place my hands on his forearm, just above the wrist. His skin is warm beneath my palms, and I’m suddenly aware of how close we are, how the scent of sandalwood and leather surrounds me.
The magic comes easily now, chilling and steady, flowing from my palms into his skin.
And there it is – that rush, that brisk feeling spreading through my veins.
I tell myself it’s just relief at easing his pain, but I know better.
The addiction purrs beneath my skin, satisfied and hungry all at once, crescent moon sigil faintly glowing on my chest.
His breath slows, his shoulders drop, the tension unspooling gradually. For a few seconds, neither of us speaks.
Then his free hand moves, covering mine where it rests on his arm. The gesture is simple, brief, but the warmth of his palm against the back of my hand sends heat rushing through me. My stomach flips, and I’m suddenly hyperaware of every point of contact between us.
I pull my hands away, realizing that we’ve been sitting here too long, that anyone could walk in. My pulse hammers in my throat as I stand.
“Y-Your Grace.” The title feels wrong in my mouth now, too formal, too cold.
“Miss Cyra—”
I don’t look back. I descend the steps, cross the empty floor, and slip through the side door before he can say anything else.
Only when I’m halfway down the corridor do I let myself stop, pressing my back against the cool stone wall. My hands are still tingling – from the magic or from his touch, I’m not sure. Maybe both.