The palace bled for three days after the Temple Purge.
Guards patrolled the marble corridors in pairs, their boots heavy against the stone.
Courtiers moved like ghosts, speaking only in whispers.
The scent of fear, thick, metallic, clung to the tapestries and the carved pillars like a second skin.
Selene watched it all from the highest balcony.
Cloaked in velvet.
Crowned by silence.
Ruling over a kingdom stitched together by terror.
She had won.
And she was losing.
At the same time.
Cassian spent his days in the war chambers.
Drafting new edicts.
Reinforcing the outer gates.
Interrogating the surviving traitors.
Selene rarely saw him now.
When she did, it was brief.
Tense.
As if they were both waiting for something worse.
Because it was coming.
They could both feel it.
Like the taste of a coming storm on the back of their tongues.
On the fourth night, Selene received a message.
No flower this time.
No ring.
Only a single scrap of paper tucked under her plate at the evening feast.
"You missed one."
No signature.
But the meaning was clear.
The court was not cleansed.
The wolves were still among them.
And one of them wore the Crown's colors.
Selene did not react.
She finished her meal.
Spoke politely to the envoys from the southern isles.
Smiled at the merchant lords.
Only when she was alone in her chambers did she allow herself to move.
Fast.
Sharp.
She tore open the hidden compartment beneath her writing desk.
Unfolded the map she had begun months ago, a web of alliances, betrayals, debts, and blood.
Her fingers moved over the names.
Crossed out some.
Circled others.
Who had she missed?
Who still moved against her in the dark?
She didn't have to wait long for an answer.
The betrayal struck before dawn.
Selene woke to the sound of steel against stone.
Footsteps.
Voices.
Shouts.
She moved instinctively, throwing on a cloak, slipping a dagger into her boot.
She was halfway to the door when it slammed open.
Two palace guards stormed in, blades drawn.
They stopped when they saw her.
Lowered their swords.
"Forgive us, Your Majesty," one said, breathing hard. "The northern wing, it's under attack."
Selene's blood turned to ice.
"Attack?" she repeated.
The guard nodded.
"They're inside the palace."
By the time she reached the northern halls, the battle was already chaos.
Guards clashed steel against traitors, men wearing the armor of the Crown, the colors of Veredon.
Selene spotted Corvin Dalreth among them.
A flash of his rings.
The glint of his betrayal.
He met her eyes across the courtyard.
And smiled.
Before vanishing into the smoke.
Cassian fought near the heart of the melee.
A sword in each hand.
Blood spattering his black tunic.
He moved like a force of nature.
Brutal. Precise. Unstoppable.
Selene surged toward him, cutting down two men who dared step into her path.
When she reached his side, Cassian didn't speak.
He only nodded once.
Acknowledgment.
Alliance.
Survival.
Then they fought back to back.
The traitors were better trained than the temple fanatics.
Sharper.
Deadlier.
These were not desperate men.
They were knights.
Advisors.
Friends.
Faces Selene knew.
Faces she had once trusted.
She drove her blade into a man's gut and recognized his features only as he fell.
Lord Varric.
One of the royal advisors.
One of Cassian's childhood companions.
Her stomach twisted.
No time for grief.
No time for guilt.
Only survival.
The battle lasted hours.
When it was over, the marble floors of the northern wing ran red with blood.
Bodies lay crumpled beneath the shattered pillars.
The banners of Veredon hung torn and smoke-stained.
Cassian stood amid the wreckage, breathing hard.
Selene wiped her blade clean on the hem of her cloak and crossed to him.
He looked at her.
And in that moment, they both knew.
This was not the end.
It was only the beginning.
Later, in the ruined council chamber, they stood alone.
Selene leaned against the war table, her arms folded.
Cassian paced the wreckage like a caged wolf.
"Corvin Dalreth," he growled. "The merchant lords. Half the northern guard."
Selene said nothing.
Cassian turned on her.
"You said you had control."
"I had their loyalty," she said. "Until they found a better offer."
"And what was that?"
Selene smiled bitterly.
"The promise of a throne without a king."
Cassian swore under his breath.
He raked a hand through his blood-matted hair.
Selene watched him, cold and steady.
"You think I'm the only one they betrayed?" she asked.
"You think they wouldn't have turned on you the moment it suited them?"
Cassian didn't answer.
Because they both knew the truth.
In Veredon, loyalty was a currency.
And today, someone had outbid them.
Selene moved to the window.
The city below still smoldered.
The dawn was pale and sickly against the skyline.
She closed her eyes.
The wolves had crowned themselves.
But they had crowned her, too.
Every betrayal.
Every blade.
Every lie.
All forging her into something harder.
Sharper.
Unbreakable.
Behind her, Cassian spoke.
"What will you do?"
Selene opened her eyes.
The answer came easily.
"Bleed them dry."
The next day, the executions began.
Not public this time.
Silent.
Efficient.
One by one, the traitors were dragged from their hiding places.
Their cries swallowed by the stone walls.
Their blood washed away before it could stain the marble.
Selene oversaw it all.
Without flinching.
Without mercy.
Because mercy was for the dead.
And she was not dead yet.
That night, Cassian came to her chambers.
No words.
No warnings.
He pulled her against him, his mouth claiming hers with desperate ferocity.
Selene responded in kind.
Not out of love.
Not even out of desire.
Out of survival.
Out of the need to anchor herself to something real, something living in a world that was crumbling around them.
They made no promises.
No vows.
Only raw, brutal truth.
They were allies.
They were rivals.
They were all each other had left.
And when they lay tangled in the aftermath, breathing hard, skin slick with sweat and blood and exhaustion.
Cassian whispered against her temple.
"We will survive this."
Selene closed her eyes.
And for the first time in a long time.
She believed it.