Chapter 12 #2
She stopped in front of me, close enough that her perfume—jasmine and funeral lilies—made my stomach turn.
"Your body is Seraphine Voss's. Your blood, your hair, your bones. But your soul—" she reached out, her finger hovering an inch from my chest, right over my heart, "—isn't. It's something else. Something foreign. Something that tastes of smoke and steel and a world that doesn't exist."
Cassian moved. His cane shifted, the hidden blade half-drawn. I stopped him with a hand on his arm.
"Let her finish," I said quietly.
Morgana's smile widened. "I don't need to finish. Everyone here knows what you are. A demon. A possession. A thing wearing the face of a dead hero."
She raised her voice, addressing the room.
"The real Iraia Voss died on the Blood Fields! This creature is an abomination! A trick! A lie sent to destabilize the kingdom!"
The crowd rippled. Shock. Fear. The eager whisper of people who loved a scandal more than the truth.
I looked around. At Darius, whose hand rested on his sword. At the guards, suddenly uncertain. At the nobles, who were already stepping back, already choosing sides.
Then I laughed.
It wasn't the laugh of Lady Vane. It wasn't the laugh of a noble or a victim. It was Vienne Delgado's laugh. Hard. Cold. The sound of a woman who'd stood in worse rooms than this and walked out alive.
"A lie?" I said, my voice carrying to the rafters.
"You want to talk about lies, Morgana? Let's talk about the letter in your father's desk. The one promising twenty thousand gold for the massacre of the Voss Legion. Let's talk about the guns in your armory, built with knowledge that doesn't belong in this world.
Let's talk about the bomb in the palace, meant to kill a dying king so you could wear his crown."
I stepped toward her. She stepped back. Just an inch. Just enough.
"You call me a demon," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper that somehow filled the room.
"But I'm not the one who bought an army's death. I'm not the one who sold my soul for mining rights. And I'm not the one who—" I grabbed her wrist, my grip iron, "—is currently wearing a charm that reeks of blood magic to hide your own filthy aura."
Her eyes went wide.
I twisted her arm, forcing the sleeve back. There, on her wrist, was a tattoo—a sigil I didn't recognize from Iraia's memories, but that Vienne's instincts screamed at. Dark. Wrong. Recently inked and still raw.
"How many people did you kill for that, Morgana? How many souls did you feed to whatever's whispering in your ear?"
She ripped her arm free, but the damage was done. The crowd was murmuring again, but the tone had shifted. Doubt crept in like fog.
"Arrest her!" Morgana shrieked at the guards. "Arrest the abomination! Arrest the traitor!"
The guards moved. Uncertainly, but they moved.
Cassian stepped in front of me, his cane blade fully drawn, his stance wide and protective despite his injured leg.
"Touch her," he said, his voice quiet and absolutely terrifying, "and you touch the Crown. I am still Prince of Aethelgard. And I say the Lady King speaks truth. I say the Ashford family has conspired against the realm. And I say—" he raised his voice, royal command ringing off the crystal,
"—that any man who raises a weapon against her answers to me."
The guards froze.
Darius stepped forward, his face purple with rage. "Cassian! Step aside! This is treason!"
"No, Uncle," Cassian said, and the word was a blade. "This is justice. And it's long overdue."
The ballroom was a powder keg. One spark, and we'd have a massacre that made the Blood Fields look like a playground scuffle.
I put my hand on Cassian's shoulder. Heard the ragged edge of his breathing. Felt the tremor in his frame.
He's going to collapse, I realized. He's standing on a broken leg to protect me, and he's going to collapse.
"Your Highness," I said, loud enough for the room to hear. "I appreciate the chivalry. But I don't need a prince to fight my battles."
I stepped around him. Faced the room. Faced Darius. Faced Morgana, whose beautiful face had twisted into something monstrous.
"You want to know who I am?" I asked.
I reached into my gown. Drew the stiletto from my corset. The blade caught the light, thin and wicked and utterly mundane. No magic. No Aether. Just steel and intent.
"I'm the woman who came back from the dead to collect her debts. I'm the ghost who doesn't need a crown to be terrifying. And I am—" I pointed the blade at Morgana, then at Darius, "—your worst nightmare in a very expensive dress."
I smiled. It was not a nice smile.
"So come and get me. If you dare."
The silence held for one heartbeat.
Then Darius roared, and the guards rushed forward, and the ballroom erupted into chaos.
Cassian grabbed my hand. "Time to go."
"Way ahead of you, Prince."
We ran.
Behind us, the Gala of Lies burned—nobles screaming, guards clashing, Morgana's shrieks of fury cutting through the din like a knife.
We moved through the chaos with the efficiency of two people who'd learned to survive in broken systems, his cane blade flashing, my throwing knives finding the spaces between armor plates.
We burst through the servant's passage, into the kitchen, into the night air where Kael waited with horses and Jinx waited with a grin.
"Fun party?" she asked.
"Terrible wine," I gasped, hauling Cassian onto a horse. "Would not recommend."
He laughed, breathless and bleeding and alive, and kicked the horse into a gallop.
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A/N:
The Lady King wasn't crowned yet.
But she'd just crashed the second royal party of her undeath.
And she was absolutely running out of patience.