Chapter 97: Relief
The palace was no longer a home. It was a cage made of marble and fear.
From the highest balcony, Ariella watched as the great iron gates clanged shut below. She turned from the window, her reflection caught for a moment in the glass pale, composed, and utterly still.
Behind her, the war chamber buzzed with movement. Ares barked orders at the captains, his voice slicing through the chaos. “Lock every passage. No one moves between wings without clearance.
The captains saluted and scattered.
Ariella stepped into the room, her cloak whispering across the floor. “And the servants?”
Ares turned, surprised by her tone quiet, controlled, yet heavy with something colder. “They’re frightened, but compliant.”
“Frightened is good,” she said.
He frowned. “Fear isn’t loyalty.”
“It’s obedience,” Ariella replied. “And right now, I’ll settle for that.”
Cador entered then, his face pale, hands trembling around a ledger. “We’ve accounted for everyone in the west wing guards, stewards, staff. One missing. A messenger from the archives hasn’t reported in.”
Ariella looked up sharply. “Name?”
“Kalvin.”
She didn’t know him. But the name lodged like a stone in her chest. “Find him.”
Cador hesitated. “If he’s dead?”
“Bring me his body.”
Her words froze the room. Even Ares looked at her , the faint flicker of something behind his eyes. Concern, maybe. Or warning.
Ariella met his gaze. “The serpent has more than one head, Commander. I intend to cut them all off.”
By nightfall, the palace had gone silent.
The rain had stopped, but the stone still wept. Torches burned low in the corridors, their smoke staining the vaulted ceilings black. The air felt thick, damp, expectant.
Ariella moved through the halls with purpose, two guards trailing her at a distance. Her steps were measured, precise. Each turn of the corridor revealed faces that flinched from her courtiers, soldiers, even servants she’d once greeted by name.
Now they bowed, trembling, as if afraid her gaze alone could condemn them.
She stopped in front of the council chamber doors. “Open it.”
Inside, five advisors stood waiting. They rose as she entered. The room was dim, lit only by a single fire and the trembling glow of lanterns.
She didn’t sit.
“Each of you has served Ares for years,” Ariella began. “Each of you claims loyalty. Yet treason festers in these walls. I will have the truth one way or another.”
She gestured to the guards. “Lock the doors.”
The clang of iron bolts echoed through the chamber.
The advisors exchanged uneasy looks. Cador stepped forward, trying to steady the air. “Majesty, these are men of your own court. You can’t treat them like this”
“Until I know who speaks for Cole, I can treat them as I please.”
The fire snapped.
Ariella’s eyes moved from face to face each one flinching under her scrutiny. “You will each answer a question. One lie, and I’ll know.”
She began with Lord Trent the youngest, nervous, eyes darting. “Where were you last night?”
“In my quarters, Majesty.”
“With whom?”
“No one.”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “You are close with Dravyen
Trent swallowed. “Yes.”
“You heard nothing?”
“No, Majesty.”
The silence stretched until his knees nearly buckled.
Ariella turned away. “Take him to the west wing. Lock him there until he remembers.”
The guards moved without question.
Claire, standing by the wall, finally spoke her voice low, but edged with something desperate. “Ariella, this isn’t who you are.”
Ariella didn’t turn. “It’s who I need to be.”
“You’re interrogating your own advisors. Your own allies.”
“I’m protecting the throne.”
“By ruling through fear?”
Ariella faced her now. The flicker of firelight cut across her cheek, shadow and flame. “Fear keeps people alive. Hope gets them killed.”
Claire’s voice softened. “And what does it do to you?”
Ariella hesitated but she didn’t answer.
Hours passed.
The interrogations continued names, denials.. The same pattern, over and over, until exhaustion blurred truth from lies.
By the time Ares returned, dawn had arisen.
“They found the missing messenger,” he said.
“Alive?”
“Barely. He’d hidden in the archives. Said he was following orders your orders.”
Ariella looked up sharply. “My orders?”
Ares nodded. “A forged command. Someone used your seal to send him north with maps. The same routes Dravyen used.”
For the first time that night, Ariella’s composure cracked. “How?”
“We don’t know. But whoever did it had access to your private seal and the council cipher.”
She turned away, gripping the edge of the table. “Then it’s not over.”
“It never was,” Ares said quietly.
A long silence stretched between them. The kind that carried every unspoken thing.
Finally, she whispered, “Do you ever doubt me?”
Ares’s answer came after a beat. “No. But I worry for you.”
“Why?”
“Because when I look at you now,” he said, “I see the war winning.”
She was astonished
But before she could answer, the palace itself answered for her.
A sudden boom shook the chamber a deep, shuddering roar that rattled the windows. Dust rained from the ceiling. The torches guttered.
Ares drew his sword. “That came from the east wing.”
“Move!” Ariella shouted. She sprinted toward the hall, guards falling in behind. The air filled with smoke and screams as they turned the corner.
Flames licked up the tapestries. Rubble blocked the far passage. The scent of burning oil choked the air.
Ares grabbed her arm. “We have to get you to safety.”
“No,” she said. “To the source.”
They pushed through the wreckage. A figure stumbled from the smoke one of her soldiers, face blackened, bleeding.
“Majesty,” he gasped. “The archives… it’s gone. The explosion started there.”
Ariella’s heart froze. “The records”
“All destroyed.”
Her mind spun. The archives held maps, ledgers, letters every record of her reign. Every secret.
This wasn’t random. This was surgical.
Ares caught her shoulder. “We need to fall back.”
But she barely heard him. Her eyes fixed on the burning corridor, on the way the firelight shimmered across the marble like blood.
“They’re not outside our walls anymore,” she whispered. “They’re here.”
Ares turned to her. “Then we fight from within.”
Ariella nodded, her face illuminated by the blaze half light, half ruin.
“Lock down every hall,” she said. “Double the guards. Anyone found near the archives without cause is to be executed on sight.”
Ares hesitated. “Executed?”
Her eyes didn’t waver. “On sight.”
He studied her the calm, the fury, the quiet unraveling. “You’re becoming exactly what Cole wants you to be.”
She didn’t answer.
The fire roared louder, swallowing the eastern corridor whole.
Ariella turned away from it, her voice low but steady. “Then let him see what that looks like.”