Chapter 10
"No," Julian said softly. He reached up, his cool fingers wrapping around the outside of my knuckles, tightening my grip on the hilt. "I want you to cut Alden's."
I stared at him, stunned into silence.
"The execution is scheduled for the sixth bell," Julian said, his cadence rapid now, mechanical, every word laid out like a battle order. "Alden will not conduct it in the plaza. The city is too volatile; the guilds are already grumbling about the bread shortages. He is holding it in the Inner Courtyard, before the High Council and his hand-picked officers. At the fifth bell, four men will enter this cell to escort you to the block. Alden will be standing at the foot of the scaffold. He will demand you kneel to kiss the imperial seal to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Regency."
Julian tapped the electrum seal resting on the bench.
"This is the true seal," Julian said, his grey eyes flashing with lethal intensity. "I took it from my father’s deathbed an hour ago, right beneath the noses of Alden’s black-cloaks. Alden holds a forgery. When you are dragged to the dais, you do not kneel. You present this seal to the council, you claim the right of the Lex Regia, and when Alden steps forward to strike you down... you drive that blade through the hollow of his collarbone."
"Are you insane?" The words tore out of my throat, rough and furious. I shook my bound hands, making the heavy chains rattle violently against the floor ring. "Look at me, Julian! I am shackled hand and foot! I have two cracked ribs from his watchmen! You want me to assassinate the Lord Protector of the realm in the middle of a courtyard packed with two hundred heavy infantry?!"
"Yes," Julian said without blinking.
"I will be turned into a pincushion before the man's body hits the flags!"
"No, you won't," Julian replied, his voice dropping into a register so dark, so heavy with secrets, that the air in the cell seemed to thicken. "The Iron Watch will not loose a single bolt. The moment Alden’s blood touches the stones, the command structure of the Western Marches collapses. The council lords are cowards, Rowan. They follow Alden because he has gold and steel. If you take his life, they will scramble like roaches to swear allegiance to whoever is left standing with the royal seal."
"And who is left standing?!" I shouted, leaning down until my face was an inch from his, my breath hot against his skin. "You? A prince stripped of his guard? A boy trapped in a burning palace with a dying father?!"
Julian didn't flinch from the roar. He didn't pull back. He leaned into my space, his forehead nearly touching mine, his eyes wide and dark with an emotion that terrified me more than any executioner's block.
"I will be standing beside you," Julian whispered. "On the scaffold. Where I belong."
The fury in my chest surged, hot and blinding, but beneath the rage, a sharp, jagged piece of the puzzle finally snapped into place.
It was all wrong.
The entire three weeks. The ambush in the gorge. The empty vaults. The whispers of the guards.
I looked at the black dagger in my hand. I looked at the Imperial Seal, worth more than three provinces, lying casually in the dungeon straw. Then I looked at Crown Prince Julian—the boy who had supposedly outmaneuvered me in the mountain snow, who had dragged the deadliest mercenary commander on the continent into his capital like a trophy, and who was now asking me to commit an impossible, suicidal regicide with an ancient family blade.
"Julian," I said, my voice dropping the shouting, turning into something cold, deliberate, and razor-sharp. "Answer me one question."
Julian’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, but he didn't look away. "We don't have time, Rowan—"
"We have plenty of damn time until they come for me," I cut him off, my grip tightening on the dagger's hilt until the wire wrapping bit into my palms. "Answer me. Where is the royal treasury?"
A flicker of tension crossed his features—not fear, but the sharp, defensive twitch of a general whose flank has been spotted.
"I told you," Julian said, his eyes shifting slightly to the left. "The northern campaigns were expensive. The harvest failed—"
"Don't play me for a rustic sellsword!" I snapped, the iron links between my wrists clinking as I pointed a blunt finger at his chest. "I ran the Vanguard's books for six years! I know what an imperial legion costs to maintain! I know what the grain tariffs from the south bring in! Even with three failed harvests and a border war, the vaults beneath the Throne of Crows held three million gold dragons six months ago! Three *million*!"
Julian stayed silent, his lips pressed into a tight, bloodless line.
"Three million dragons don't vanish into bad wheat and horse fodder," I pressed, leaning closer, staring into the slate-grey depths of his eyes. "Alden has been paying his personal guard out of his own estate. The city watch is striking for back wages. The palace servants haven't seen a silver groat since the autumn solstice. The entire imperial reserve was emptied down to the bare flagstones. The exchequer is hollow."
I paused, let the silence hang, let the distant drip of dungeon water hammer the rhythm of my realization.
"If you didn't spend that gold to raise a royal army to fight Alden," I whispered, every word carved from pure ice, "where did it go, Julian? What did you buy with the wealth of an entire empire?"
Julian stared at me. The silence stretched between us, thick as unspun wool, suffocating and fraught with a truth so massive it felt as though the bedrock of the citadel were beginning to groan under its weight.
His breath hitched. His eyelashes fluttered, casting jagged shadows across the dark bruise beneath his cheekbone. For a second, the mask of the desperate prince slipped entirely, revealing something beneath it—something so profound, so utterly devastating, that it made my breath hitch in my throat.
He opened his mouth to speak.
Before the first sound could leave his lips, a deafening crash echoed down the stone corridor.
*CLANG.*
It was the iron gate at the head of the spiral stairs.
Then came the heavy, unmistakable sound of multiple boots—not two sentries, but a dozen. Plate greaves striking the wet granite in rapid, brutal unison. The clatter of halberd hafts against stone walls.
Julian’s head snapped toward the barred door, his eyes dilating with pure, unadulterated shock.
"No," he breathed, the color draining completely from his face. "No, it's not the fifth bell. It's barely past the third..."
"They moved it up again," I said, the mercenary in me taking over instantly, my body tensing into a combat crouch despite the heavy iron pins holding my boots to the floor. "Alden isn't waiting for the dawn, Julian. He's not even waiting for his own council."
Through the iron inspection grate, a flood of yellow torchlight washed across the corridor ceiling, accompanied by the harsh, grating bark of Duke Alden's voice:
