Chapter 32 King Xavier- POV
"Weakness is a matter of perspective, Duke," I replied, my gaze locking onto his. "Some see a burned house; I see a list of traitors who need to be shortened by a head."
"And what of the passenger?" Viscount Harken chimed in, leaning forward with a smug, knowing grin. He was a man of excessive wealth and even more excessive greed, dressed in a waistcoat of peacock-blue satin.
"The scouts say you didn't return alone. That a common girl, a farmer’s daughter, was seen being carried into the royal chambers. Surely, the Crown isn't so desperate for a consort that we are bringing peasant filth into the inner sanctum?"
The room went cold. I felt James, standing like a shadow behind my right shoulder, shift his weight.
Harken didn't stop. He felt the silence and mistook it for victory. He leaned toward the Earl next to him and murmured, just loud enough for the table to hear, "A little red-haired whore to warm the monster's bed. Perhaps she’s the one who broke the wards with her—"
The sound was a singular, wet thwack.
I didn't even stand. In one fluid, explosive motion, I reached back, my hand closing around the hilt of the heavy executioner’s sword at James’s hip. I didn't draw it for a duel; I drew it for a harvest.
The blade hissed through the air, a silver arc of judgment.
Harken’s head didn't fall immediately. There was a heartbeat of impossible silence where he simply stopped speaking, his eyes wide with a confusion that would never be resolved.
Then, a thin line of crimson bloomed across his throat, and the heavy, satin-clad weight of him slumped forward.
His head rolled onto the obsidian table, stopping right in front of Duke Vane.
Blood sprayed in a hot, rhythmic arc, splattering the white lace of the surrounding lords and drenching the state papers in a dark, iron-scented stain.
The silence that followed was absolute. No one breathed. No one moved. The smugness had evaporated, replaced by the raw, primal scent of a slaughterhouse.
I let the heavy sword clang onto the table, the tip buried an inch deep into the wood. I leaned forward, my face inches from the gore, my eyes scanning the remaining men.
"His tongue was too long for his mouth," I said softly, my voice devoid of any heat. "Does anyone else wish to discuss my guest? Does anyone else have a 'murmur' they’d like to share regarding the woman I have chosen to protect?"
Duke Vane looked down at the severed head in front of him, his face turning a sickly shade of grey. He reached for his silk handkerchief with a trembling hand, but didn't dare wipe the blood from his cheek.
"I didn't think so," I said, standing up. The black silk of my sleeve was wet with Harken's lifeblood, but I ignored it. "My sanctuary was betrayed. The wards were fed to the monsters. Somewhere at this table sits a man who thinks he is cleverer than a Drake."
I walked the length of the table, my boots splashing in the red puddles on the floor. I stopped behind Vane, leaning down to whisper in his ear.
"I will find you. And when I do, a sword will be a mercy you won't receive."
I turned to James, who stood unblinking, his hand already back on the hilt of his emptied sheath. "Clean this mess. And send Harken’s family his rings. They’ll need the gold to pay for the funeral."
I walked out of the room without looking back, the iron scent of the council chamber clinging to my skin. I needed the garden. I needed the only thing in this palace that wasn't rotting from the inside out.
I needed Elena.
The heavy doors of the Council Chamber swung shut behind me with a thunderous resonance that seemed to vibrate through the very soles of my boots.
I could still feel the phantom heat of the blood on my sleeve, a wet weight that anchored me to the violence I had just committed.
Outside, the air was cooler, but it tasted of nothing but stone and secrets. Two of James’s elite guards stood at attention, their black visors reflecting the hallway’s torchlight.
They didn't move a muscle, but I felt their silent acknowledgement as I passed. I was a Drake. I was the Shadow Tyrant. And today, I had reminded the world why those titles were written in red.
The rumors would fly like crows now. By nightfall, the story of Viscount Harken’s death would be twisted.
They would say I tore him apart with my bare hands; they would say I laughed as he bled. The people would huddle in their homes and curse my name, whispering that the "Monster of Drakmor" had finally lost his mind.
I didn't care. Let them call me a butcher. Let them paint me as a god of ash. But I would not—could not, let them drag Elena’s name into the filth of their gossip.
To them, she was a pawn, a "farmer’s daughter," a tool to be discarded. To me, she was the only thing that felt real in a world made of smoke and mirrors.
I stopped at the corner of the grand corridor, the shadows stretching long and thin. James was a silent presence behind me, his armor clicking softly. I turned, my eyes meeting his.
"James," I whispered, my voice barely more than a breath.
"Sire."
"The room is still warm with his blood. They will talk now. The rats always squeak the loudest when the cat has just eaten." I reached into a hidden pocket of my tunic and pulled out a small, yellowed parchment, a Drake scroll, its edges singed and vibrating with a faint, violet hum.
It was my mother’s work. She had been a weaver of whispers, a woman who understood that the most powerful weapon in a palace wasn't a sword, but the ability to listen unseen.
I handed it to him. "Stay. Watch. Listen to every heartbeat. Do not leave until you know which of them has the scent of the Border-Breakers on their skin."
James took the scroll. As his fingers brushed the ancient ink, the magic flared. A veil of shimmering, translucent air rippled around him, blurring his outline until he vanished entirely into the grey stone of the walls.