Chapter 21 #2
Her wand rose before he could finish, shadows answering at once as they curled up from the floor and gathered at her feet. She wanted to set them free, but she needed to be smart. So, they held, coiled and ready, pressing into the space around him until he had nowhere left to look but at her.
“Announce me,” she said.
His throat worked, breath uneven now as he tried again. “I don’t have the authority to—”
The shadows slithered across the floor, closing the distance until they brushed the edges of his boots and climbed just enough to make the threat clear.
“You don’t need authority,” she said with a cruel grin. “All you need is your voice. Now, do it.”
A pause stretched for a few seconds. Then, she waved her wand in front of the doors, and they swung wide at her command.
He swallowed, hands dropping to his sides. “Her Majesty,” he said at last, louder, forcing the words out into the room. “Imani Aowyn, rightful Queen of Essenheim.”
The herald’s voice cut through the music before her foot even crossed the threshold.
The room fell into sudden silence as the music faltered and laughter died in the throats of the nobility. The reaction rippled outward from the doorway like a stone skipping over water.
Her feet clicked on the stone floor as she walked through the threshold.
The corridor gave way to the luminous, vaulted ballroom.
Winter greenery and silver garlands hung from the ceiling; white blooms softened the stone and amplified the blazing chandeliers.
It was a stage set for a spectacle, and she was the only act.
Light caught the true crown first. Then, the woman wearing it. Shock transformed into a suffocating silence. Glances darted, and breaths hitched as comprehension dawned. The crowd parted instinctively, bodies pressing back to open a wide, gleaming path straight through the center of the room.
Let them look, she thought. They will remember this moment.
At the far end, Tanyl lounged on a throne.
One arm draped lazily over the carved armrest, a glass held loosely in his hand.
In the other rested the Drasil, its deep red wood catching the chandelier light and revealing the dark grain running through the shaft.
Ancient symbols were etched from end to end, their meaning long lost, while the wand’s magic signature rippled constantly around his fingers and wrist, even though he was not actively casting.
He wore dark, tailored fabric threaded with silver.
His sandy hair sat short and swept back from his face, exposing a clean jaw and features set with intentional ease.
Blue eyes stared ahead with a composed assurance, as if no one in the court could touch him.
And upon his head sat the Crown of Life he presented to the realm, its pale roots and living-looking branches reproduced so perfectly through glamour that no observer could expose the lie by sight alone.
For a few breaths, he didn’t move.
Then, his knuckles went white around his glass. His posture stiffened just enough to betray the fracture in his control.
Imani fought a smile and kept walking, claiming the floor as if it were her birthright.
As she moved, she clocked the players. Ellisar stood in the crowd, blending with the nobility in dark fabric, his eyes stormy. His unblinking gaze tracked her while his rigid shoulders radiated his fury. This wasn’t his plan. It wasn’t even the contingency they had agreed upon.
The tension around Ellisar’s eyes told her he understood immediately that she had abandoned the covert operation, exposed herself before the entire court, and invented a replacement while he was too far away to stop her.
Yet he held his ground.
If she lost control of this room, he would have to decide whether to let her fall or turn the Yule Ball into the beginning of a coup.
Further along stood Kiran, and her heart stuttered a bit against her ribs.
He looked effortlessly aristocratic in understated formalwear, ignoring the striking woman in pale silk at his side.
His mismatched eyes locked onto Imani with that familiar, wild edge—a look bordering on unhinged.
She wished he’d looked surprised, but that would have been too predictable.
No, Kiran looked deeply satisfied with a faint, menacing curve touching his mouth.
Do it, his eyes urged. And Imani wondered if she was walking into one of his plans again.
She swallowed delicately and forced her attention away from her heartmate. Kiran—and his plans—would have to wait.
At the center of the ballroom, she stopped.
The sea of nobility closed ranks behind her, sealing her in with questioning looks as they waited to see what she would do before reacting. She scoffed, then narrowed her focus entirely on the man on the throne.
“I am Imani Aowyn,” she said. Her voice echoed against the stone. “The rightful queen of Essenheim.” She pointed the Drasil at Tanyl. “The Crown of Life does not answer to him. It never has.”
An agonizing beat of stillness filled the ballroom.
“It answers to me.”
The silence shattered into tense energy as the crowd murmured and someone gasped. Hundreds of eyes darted from Imani to Tanyl, comparing the humming gold upon her brow to the flickering illusion on his. Shock curdled into frantic calculation as the court recalibrated its loyalties in real time.
Tanyl’s grip on the Drasil tightened as the illusion of his Crown of Life wavered almost imperceptibly. Only she was powerful enough to notice it. She expected him to rise, but instead he slouched deeper into the throne, as if taking stock of the declaration she had just inflicted at his feet.
Imani planted her feet firmly, resolute in her refusal to retreat. The decision was made, and she was prepared for the consequences.