​POV: Lady Elena Lorraine

​The first rule of survival in the capital, Asteria, was simple: Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see.

​Lady Elena Lorraine stood in the corner of the Great Hall of the Glass Palace, watching hundreds of nobles swirling in a waltz to the tunes of the royal orchestra. Beneath her golden peacock mask, her eyes moved with chilling detachment, dismantling every fake smile and every whisper exchanged behind glasses of aged wine.

​The scent of luxurious perfumes hung heavy in the air, but it was not enough to mask the stench of fear and greed emanating from the lords of the Empire. Tonight was the "Winter Solstice" gala, the night everyone renewed their allegiance to the Emperor—or so it was supposed to be.

​The Encounter on the Cold Balcony

​To escape the stifling heat and the false pleasantries, Elena quietly slipped out onto the marble balcony of the palace. As the biting cold of the winter air enveloped her, she noticed a shadow standing at the edge of the terrace. He was a towering figure, wearing a heavy cloak of black wolf fur, his face hidden behind a silver mask shaped like a snarling bear. He did not wear silk or velvet like the rest of the attendees, but rather a dark leather tunic that smelled of pine and metal.

​Elena spoke in a quiet tone as she approached him:

"The capital's atmosphere does not suit you, Lord Valdor, does it?"

​The man turned slowly. It was Arik Valdor, heir to the mountainous North. His sharp gray eyes met hers through the mask, and he spoke with a voice as rough as the wind howling through rocks:

"I would rather face a pack of starving wolves in a blizzard than stand in a room full of silk-clad vipers, Lady Lorraine."

​Elena offered a cold smile, stepping closer to rest her hands on the gold-gilded railing of the balcony:

"Vipers only bite if you step on their tails, Lord Arik. In Asteria, we do not use swords to sever heads... Words here are sharper than steel."

​Arik leaned in, lowering his voice in warning:

"Words do not protect the borders from the creatures of darkness crawling from the East. Your Emperor feasts here, while my men bleed in the snow."

​The Fall of the Crown

​Before Elena could reply, their conversation was cut short by a booming sound. A massive brass bell rang in the center of the hall, and the music came to a sudden halt. Elena and Arik turned toward the interior.

​The elderly Emperor Lothar stood on his royal balcony overlooking the hall, wearing his ruby-encrusted crown. He raised a golden goblet high, and a hush fell over the crowd.

​The Emperor shouted, his voice tired but brimming with pride:

"To Altaria! An empire that shall never fall, and a peace that shall never break!"

​The nobles echoed in unison: "To Altaria!", raising their glasses.

​The Emperor took a sip from his goblet and smiled. But in the very next second, his smile froze. His eyes widened in sheer terror, and the golden cup slipped from his grasp, shattering against the marble floor with a terrifying echo in the silent hall.

​The Emperor staggered backward, clutching his throat as he choked. He fell to his knees, coughing violently, until suddenly, a stream of black blood poured from his mouth, staining his white cape. His body convulsed for a few fleeting seconds before he collapsed on his face... a lifeless corpse.

​A horrifying scream erupted from the Empress, and chaos engulfed the hall. Nobles pushed and shoved, and the masks fell.

​The Commander of the Royal Guard bellowed with a voice that shook the palace walls:

"Bar the doors! No one leaves! The killer is among us!"

​The resounding clangs of the massive iron doors slamming shut echoed through the Glass Palace. Out on the balcony, Elena stood rooted to the spot, feeling a chill course through her veins far colder than the winter air. She looked at Arik Valdor and saw that his hand had instinctively moved to the spot where his sword was supposed to be.

​They looked at each other in silence; the northern warrior and the cunning daughter of the capital. Both realized one terrifying truth: The political games were over, the war of blood had just begun, and they were now trapped with the Emperor's murderer.

POV: Lord Arik Valdor

For a man born and raised in the harsh northern mountains, where the strength of your arm and the speed of your sword determine whether you live to see the next dawn, this capital had always felt like an ornate trap. And now, the jaws of that trap had just snapped shut.

Arik Valdor stood on the cold balcony, his gray eyes rapidly scanning the Great Hall. Arik had trained his entire life to read battlefields, and what he saw unfolding before him was not merely a panic among nobles; it was a carefully orchestrated assault.

Screams filled the air. Women fainted, and men shoved one another toward the heavy iron doors that had been firmly sealed. But what caught Arik’s attention was not the terrified nobility, but the Imperial Guard.

Tactics of Treason

The guards were moving with suspicious efficiency. Instead of forming a defensive perimeter around the Emperor’s corpse or protecting the collapsing Empress, they began cordoning off the exits and herding the attendees into groups. These were not emergency protocols to protect the nobles; they were containment tactics.

Arik slowly turned toward Lady Elena Lorraine, who stood beside him. Despite the pallor of her face behind the golden peacock mask, she did not scream or flee like the other women of the court. She was watching the guards with the same cold, analytical gaze.

Arik whispered, his rough voice barely audible over the din:

"The guards aren't looking for the killer, Lady Elena. They are isolating us. Look at the Commander... his hands aren't shaking, and he isn't surprised."

Elena looked to where he gestured. Commander Vance, a massive man with a scarred face, stood near the Emperor's body, directing his men with silent hand signals.

Elena’s eyes narrowed with suspicion as she replied:

"If Vance is part of the conspiracy, then we are all hostages. My father is on the other side of the hall, and your men left their weapons at the outer gates... as the gala's rules dictate."

Arik clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. He was completely unarmed, a feeling any Northerner despised.

The Accusation

Suddenly, the resounding thud of Commander Vance’s spear striking the marble floor echoed through the hall, forcing everyone into a terrified silence.

Vance shouted, his voice bouncing off the Glass Palace's ceiling:

"The hall is secured! The Great Emperor was assassinated using 'Black Ice Flower' poison... a toxin that only grows in the freezing Northern Mountains!"

Eyes widened, and hundreds of panicked faces turned toward Arik and his small northern delegation.

Arik muttered bitterly: "They’ve already built the gallows for us."

Vance marched toward the balcony where Arik stood, followed by ten Imperial Guards with their spears raised.

Commander Vance bellowed:

"In the name of the Empty Throne, I order the arrest of Lord Arik Valdor on charges of high treason and the murder of the Emperor!"

Vance’s guards moved to surround the balcony. Arik instinctively shifted into a combat stance; he didn't have a sword, but he wouldn't let them bind him without breaking a few necks first. If he was arrested now, he would be executed by morning, and war would be declared on the North.

The Velvet Shield

But before Arik could lunge at the first guard, Lady Elena stepped coldly in front of him, raising a hand adorned with gold rings to halt the guards' advance.

Elena spoke loudly, her voice carrying an undeniable tone of absolute authority, a tone befitting the heiress of the richest family in the Empire:

"Hold your ground, Commander Vance! Accusing the heir of the North without undeniable proof in a room full of nobles is a declaration of civil war. Do you hold the authority to declare war on behalf of the Empty Throne?"

Vance stopped, his face twitching with suppressed rage. He knew he could not touch the heiress of House Lorraine, the family that funded half his army.

Vance said sharply: "The poison is from the North, Lady Elena. That is proof enough."

Elena offered a chilling, crooked smile:

"The poison may come from the North, but the goblet the Emperor drank from was poured by his personal servant, who... if my memory serves me right... has completely vanished from the hall. Find the servant first, Vance, before you incur the wrath of the Great Houses."

Exploiting the momentary hesitation in the guards' eyes, Arik leaned in slightly to whisper into Elena's ear from behind:

"Why are you defending me?"

She answered through gritted teeth, without letting the diplomatic smile slip from her face:

"Because if I let them kill you tonight, my family will be the next target tomorrow. Stay close to me, Wolf of the North. It seems we are in the same trench now."

POV: Lady Elena Lorraine

Commander Vance took a step back, his eyes burning with a muffled hatred. Her words had struck their mark; he knew that harming the Lorraine heiress in a hall filled with her father's allies would mean his guards would be hacked to pieces before dawn.

Swallowing his pride, Vance announced loudly for all to hear:

"For the safety of our noble guests until the fleeing servant is found, you will all be escorted to the Eastern Guest Wing. No one leaves the palace tonight."

Elena exchanged a fleeting glance with her father, Lord Oscar Lorraine, who was standing across the hall. He didn't move to help her; he merely gave a slow, subtle nod. His message was clear: You are on your own now. Play your cards carefully.

Escape in the Dark

As the guards began herding the nobles like sheep toward the Eastern Wing, Elena feigned a stumble, the folds of her blue velvet dress cascading to the floor. When Arik bent down to help her up, she whispered quickly into his ear:

"The Eastern Wing is an elegant slaughterhouse. If we go in there, they’ll visit our rooms at night to finish what they started. Follow me."

Taking advantage of the chaos and the shoving crowd, Elena pulled Arik behind a massive marble statue of the First Emperor. With an expert touch, she pressed a protruding stone in the wall behind the statue, and a narrow secret door—barely wide enough for two—swung open. She dragged him inside, and the stone door sealed shut behind them, plunging them into pitch-black darkness.

Elena struck a small match and lit a candle hidden in a wall niche. The weak flickering light reflected off Arik’s tense face.

Arik spoke in a low voice, inspecting the cramped stone corridor that reeked of dampness and mold:

"Secret passages? Does your family build palaces or rat mazes?"

Elena replied, moving forward with swift, light steps:

"My family didn't build this palace, but we paid for it. It would be foolish to buy a castle without knowing its back doors. This passage leads to the lower crypts, and from there, we can reach the stables."

Blood in the Shadows

They descended a spiral stone staircase that seemed to go on forever. The silence was heavy, broken only by the sound of their breathing and the scrape of Arik’s leather boots against the floor.

Suddenly, Arik stopped and gripped Elena’s arm with a force that rooted her to the spot.

"Put out the candle," he whispered strictly.

She obeyed without question, and they were plunged back into total darkness.

Elena then heard what the wolf's ears had caught: the sound of very faint footsteps approaching from the bottom of the stairs. They weren't guards; Imperial Guard armor clanked with metal. These were professional killers.

In the blink of an eye, two shadows emerged from the gloom ahead of them, curved blades glinting in their hands.

Arik didn't hesitate. He lunged at the first assassin with raw brutality. He gracefully dodged a dagger thrust, grabbed the attacker’s wrist, and snapped it with an audible crack that echoed through the narrow passage. He then delivered a devastating knee to the man's chest, sending him crashing to the floor.

The second attacker used Arik’s distraction to charge at Elena. She took a step back and, in one fluid motion, drew her hidden, thin-bladed stiletto from the folds of her dress. As the assassin closed in, she stabbed him in the shoulder. The man scoffed as if the blow didn't hurt, raising his blade to slit her throat.

But his dark laugh quickly turned into a choked rattle. His eyes widened, and he dropped to his knees, clutching his throat as foam bubbled from his mouth.

Arik turned around after knocking his assailant unconscious, looking at the body convulsing at Elena's feet, then at her dripping dagger.

Breathing slightly heavy, he asked: "Poison?"

Elena wiped the blade on the dead assassin's clothes and sheathed it: "I told you, Lord Arik... in the capital, we leave nothing to chance."

The Forbidden Mark

Elena relit the candle, and Arik knelt to inspect the assassin’s body. He pulled the black mask from the man's face and noticed something strange on his neck. It was a dark red tattoo, deeply etched into the skin as if branded by fire.

The tattoo was of a red-eyed raven.

Elena stared at the mark, feeling her stomach plummet.

She whispered, her voice trembling for the first time all night:

"That’s impossible... House Corvus? They were banished to the cursed eastern mountains a century ago. How did Corvus assassins infiltrate the Glass Palace?"

Arik stood up, staring into the dark abyss at the bottom of the stone stairs.

He said, his voice heavy with grim certainty:

"If House Corvus has returned, and the creatures of darkness are attacking our northern borders, it means the Emperor's death wasn't just a struggle for the throne... it is the beginning of the end for the entire Empire of Altaria."