One week later, the palace felt like it was holding its breath.
The court chamber had been transformed for judgment. Sunlight poured through the high stained-glass windows, laying strips of red, blue, and gold over the polished floor, but there was nothing warm in the room. The benches had been arranged in careful rows.
Noble houses filled them in clusters of silk and jewels, whispering behind gloved hands, all of them hungry for spectacle.
At the front stood the long, raised seats for the judges, carved from pale stone and lined with silver. Above them, the royal crest watched over everything like a threat.
Sarisa stood near the side entrance, not yet seated, her hands clasped so tightly before her that her knuckles had gone pale beneath her gloves.
She had dressed like the woman the court expected today: a severe gown of moon-white and silver, her hair pinned into perfect order, her face as composed as glass. It was a lie, of course. Every inch of her felt stretched too tight.
Beside her, Malvoria looked as though she had dressed specifically to offend the room. Black silk, sharp lines, gold at her throat, horns uncovered, eyes bright with contempt.
She lounged like a queen entertaining herself at an amateur play rather than attending a legal farce designed to condemn her sister.
Elysia stood on Sarisa's other side, elegant and still, one hand resting lightly over the other, her expression so calm it was almost unnerving.
Only Sarisa knew how much effort that calm cost any of them.
For seven days, Lara had been below ground.
Seven days of chains. Seven days of whispered gossip running through the palace like rot through fruit. Seven days of her mother pretending this was about law instead of cruelty. Malvoria had brought food to Lara every day.
Elysia had smuggled healing salves where she could. Raveth had apparently broken one training dummy, two tables, and nearly a minister's wrist in private conversation with the queen's advisers.
Veylira had gone frighteningly quiet, which Sarisa had learned was always worse than shouting.
Sarisa herself had not been allowed near the dungeon again.
Work, her mother had said. Appearances. Stability.
The truth was simpler. The queen knew exactly what Sarisa would do if she saw Lara like that twice.
Malvoria broke the tense silence first, low enough that only Sarisa and Elysia could hear. "If this goes badly, I am setting something expensive on fire. I haven't decided what yet, but I want both of you prepared."
Elysia did not look at her. "You said that yesterday."
"Yes, and I remain committed to it."
Sarisa exhaled slowly through her nose. "Please try not to burn down the court before the hearing even starts."
Malvoria's mouth twitched. "I said expensive, not structural."
That almost made Sarisa smile. Almost.
Instead she glanced toward the wide doors at the back of the chamber, where guards were posted in ceremonial silver. "Do you think they hurt her again?"
Malvoria's expression changed immediately. Some of the mockery bled out of it. "No," she said, and this time she sounded sure. "Not after Raveth paid a visit to the captain of the lower cells."
Elysia added quietly, "She's bruised, but she's conscious. Angry, too, according to the last guard who came within biting distance."
Sarisa looked down at her hands. Conscious. Angry. Gods, she loved her.
"She shouldn't even be here," Sarisa murmured.
"No," Elysia agreed. "But your mother has made her point. Now she intends to make it public."
That, more than anything, twisted in Sarisa's stomach. Public. The court didn't care about truth. It cared about stories. About control.
About making the ugly thing visible so everyone could decide together how offended they ought to be by it.
The side doors opened.
The chamber shifted.
The queen entered first, wrapped in silver and white like winter itself. She moved with the slow confidence of a woman who knew the room would obey before she ever spoke.
Behind her came the judges, three of them in dark ceremonial robes, faces stern with the practiced gravity of people who enjoyed being thought impartial.
The audience rose at once. Silk rustled. Jewelry chimed. The whole chamber bent around the entrance of power.
Sarisa bowed with everyone else, though the movement felt more automatic than respectful.
When she straightened, she saw her mother's gaze flick briefly toward her—assessing, cool, satisfied to find her where she belonged and not halfway to the dungeon with a blade in hand.
After the judges came Raveth and Veylira.
They were not dressed for courtly charm. They were dressed for war wrapped in silk.
Raveth wore dark crimson, her hair braided back from a face carved into hard lines. She looked like the sort of woman who had personally killed entire arguments with her bare hands. Veylira, at her side, was quieter, colder.
Her gown was black shot through with violet, elegant and severe, but the look in her eyes made Sarisa think of knives laid out in rows.
A murmur ran through the room at the sight of them.
Good, Sarisa thought.
Let them be afraid.
Raveth and Veylira came not as guests but as witnesses to insult. As family. As a reminder that the demon realm was watching exactly what the Celestian queen chose to do with this little performance.
Raveth paused near them long enough to give Sarisa a curt nod. "You look tired."
"That makes two of us," Sarisa said.
Raveth snorted softly. "At least you get a bed."
Veylira's gaze swept the chamber, then settled briefly on Sarisa with something not unlike sympathy. "Hold your temper until it matters," she said under her breath.
Sarisa almost laughed at that. It sounded like advice meant for Lara, not her. But perhaps lately the distinction had grown thinner than anyone liked.
Malvoria folded her arms. "Any last-minute miracles?"
Veylira's expression remained unreadable. "No miracles. Only witnesses. And memory."
Raveth added, with vicious satisfaction, "And if their 'future king' lies too prettily, I may forget this is a court."
Elysia sighed. "Please remember. At least until they finish speaking."
"Unreasonable," Raveth muttered.
The judges took their seats. The queen remained standing for a moment longer before lowering herself onto the central chair reserved for the ruling sovereign.
The whole room fell into full silence now, not the soft quiet of waiting but the hard kind that comes when everyone knows something ugly is about to be dressed up as justice.
One of the heralds stepped forward and struck the floor once with a silver-tipped staff.
"This audience will now begin."
The words rang out too clearly in the chamber.
Sarisa's pulse thudded in her throat.
The herald continued, voice formal and emotionless. "By order of Her Majesty, the court gathers to hear testimony regarding the assault upon His Highness Vaelen, future king by betrothal, by the accused, Lara of the demon realm, sworn bodyguard to Princess Sarisa."
The title felt filthy in his mouth.
Sarisa kept her face still.
The judges exchanged a glance. One inclined his head to the herald. "Proceed."
The herald drew a breath.
"Please bring the victim, His Highness Vaelen," he announced, "and the culprit, Lara."