The Northern Court and The Eastern Flame called it an alliance, a union forged in the name of peace. Two hundred years of blood bound their empires, a history not measured in years but in corpses.

Winters ran crimson beneath the snow, summers burned thick with smoke, and whole valleys vanished into embers. Villages were not merely destroyed, they were scraped from maps and from memory until only ghosts lingered where children had once played.

Even lullabies had long ago curdled into dirges—mothers rocked their infants not with songs of hope but with the rasp of steel whispered through the dark. For generations, every tale passed down at the hearth was a chronicle of siege and famine, each prayer a bargain struck with grief, each memory steeped in the taste of ash and loss.

And now they wanted the world to believe that all the screams, all the graves, all the centuries of hunger and grief could be soothed by a marriage—as if a ring could silence history, as if binding one girl to one monster could heal the centuries still bleeding beneath them.

The truth was, there was no alliance. It was a wager wrapped in silk, a jewel proffered by a poisoned hand, a hook gilded until it gleamed. It was a move in the oldest game, the one played in candlelit chambers where every House bared its teeth behind a smile: tasting blood and calling it wine.

Katarina was already tired of the pantomime of civility, of the lies lacquered over with ceremony, of the dull predictability of men who believed themselves cunning. She could see each step of the game before it was played, and she could trace every feigned courtesy back to the greed it was meant to disguise.

How utterly, exquisitely absurd, to think an alliance between two Houses from rival empires could end in anything but blood.

My father’s predictability is almost an insult—every move laid out like a children’s puzzle, every scheme so convinced of its own brilliance, it forgets to hide the seams.

To him, I’m not even a daughter. I’m a hidden lever, a trapdoor—or rather a sword to be unsheathed when it suits him.

But it doesn’t matter what end he’s chasing—because whatever it is, I’ll make sure it rots in his hands before he ever touches it.

The two emperors stood face to face on the stone parvis before the entrance of the palace, a threshold carved for power holding its breath beneath their feet.

Darius Avenhart was the first to step forward, his smirk curving slowly into place, that devastating arc of the lips that had outlived queens and crumbled dynasties. When he extended his arm, it was not a gesture of diplomacy, it was a territorial claim.

Alaric Virelys did not rush to respond, he moved like time itself bowed to his pace, and his eyes only held the weight of inevitability. Then without a word, their hands met—not a handshake, but a funereal prophecy, heavy with the weight of endings yet to come.

“Emperor Alaric,” he said, his gaze gleaming with the pleasure of performance.“Strange isn’t it, seeing the other without a blade or a corpse between us.”

Alaric’s gaze remained unreadable, and when he finally spoke, his voice carried the weight of a stone falling into still water.

“Emperor Darius. Welcome to the Northern Court.”

That was all, just seven words, a few syllables that landed like a sentence.

Katarina watched them both, unblinking, and she heard every unspoken promise in their silence. The field might have looked polished, ceremonial, and diplomatic, but she saw it for what it was: a theatre of knives.

And she was the centerpiece of it all, the single point to which every silence and every gaze inevitably returned. She could feel it pressing in on her from every angle, a weight more tangible than stone, heavier even than the banners straining against the wind.

Ivan’s eyes, fixed and merciless beside her, dissected her stance the way a scholar dissects scripture—always searching for error, for proof that she was human after all. Caelis’s gaze lingered longer—too intent to be dismissed, the sort of look that mistook possession for power and desire for destiny.

And beyond them there were others: the priests with their sanctimonious stillness; the courtiers, leaning forward as if her silence might break into spectacle; and the guards, who stared not as men but as instruments of judgment. Every one of them had chosen her as their horizon, waiting for the first crack, the slightest falter in her breath.

But no falter came, on the contrary—beneath the immaculate mask, beneath the serenity chiseled into her features—something subtle stirred. It shimmered in the depths of her eyes, not weakness, not fear, but the quiet blaze of private irony meant for no one but herself.

Because she, more than any of them, already knew one thing: who would bury the other first. And they were all so busy saluting each other with veiled threats, that they hadn’t noticed that she had already chosen where to place the first cut.

Let them think I’m soft. Let them mistake silence for submission.

It makes the moment I strike all the sweeter. My father calls it obedience, I call it patience sharpened to a needle.

And when the time comes, I won’t just break his plans—I’ll make him wish he’d never thought to use me at all.

Katarina had already studied House Avenhart with the meticulous patience of someone taking apart a clock to understand every gear. By the time she stood before them, there was little left for them to reveal.

Emperor Darius Avenhart, dressed in black so dark it swallowed light. He moved like a man who didn’t need to speak in order to be obeyed, as if violence was always a breath away. He was very dangerous, but almost predictable in his cruelty.

The crown-prince Caelis Avenhart was a more immediate threat for her, not because he was smarter or stronger, but simpler. He looked like a sadist who cloaked his hunger in etiquette, a man who mistook cruelty for charm, and obedience for love.

And then—her, Princess Astreya Avenhart. Even her name sounded theatrical, all sharp edges and ancient prophecy. She was known as the illusionist prodigy, the one whose reputation was built not on violence but on unpredictability. Which, of course, made her infinitely more dangerous.

But seeing her in person was something else entirely. Astreya didn’t walk, she glided like gravity bent around her, she didn’t look at people, she pierced composures. And she smiled like someone who had broken things she loved and never regretted it, not even the slightest.

And when her gaze met Katarina’s, just briefly, it felt like touching something burning from the inside. And yet, Katarina had to admit that she was very beautiful, unforgivably so. Not the beauty of soft things, or saints, but the beauty of something untamed, unrepentant. Astreya looked like a flame that had never been asked to apologize for burning too bright.

And Katarina hated it, not because she envied it but because it gave Astreya even more power. And she was meant to be the most feared, the one others could not look at for too long without feeling the scorch. But Astreya’s presence was also meant to dominate the room, and Katarina knew she would have to deal with it.

And that snake, the one that had slid down her pale arm like it belonged there, its eyes glinting like yellow gems. Katarina had analyzed it immediately, and that sparked her interest more than she would ever admit.

So, she wants to play against me with subtle threats, mind games. Fine, let her think she’s the one holding the leash. Let them all try to use me, control me, or even predict me.

They all make the same mistake—confusing the pieces on the board for the one moving them. I can be whatever they want to see: dutiful, untouchable, harmless.

And the moment they start to believe it, I’ll already be in the rafters, cutting the rope that holds the chandelier above their heads.

Katarina’s mind refused to stay still, even as the courtiers droned on about formalities with the House Avenhart. She kept circling back to Astreya, not as an immediate threat to her plan or her future, but as a piece on the board she couldn’t quite place.

Every other player had a role she could read at a glance, a predictable trajectory she could dismantle when the time came. But Astreya was a question, not a harmless one, but the kind that lingered and pressed at the edges of her composure.

And Katarina, who prided herself on always knowing the answer, found herself unsettled by the fact that she didn’t have one. She replayed her smile when she had conjured the serpent, it hadn’t been a political threat, it had been personal. Like she was saying: You and I have something in common.

Katarina assumed the white serpent was an extension of herself, and it was more than a show of power. The serpent hadn’t struck, it hadn’t hissed, it had watched, which meant only one thing: Astreya was the real danger, and she had conjured a creature designed to distract, a move of classic misdirection.

And she understood that language well, serpents never charged, they slid through the grass in silence, patient as breath. They waited for the perfect moment to strike, and in the space of a single blink, they could already be coiled around your throat.

That’s who you are, isn’t it? The serpent no one sees coming.

The one they mistake for something meant to be admired, until it’s too late to breathe. You smile just enough to distract them from the coil tightening around their throat.

I’ll have to watch you—just as you’re already watching me. But I’ll do it better.

And when the moment comes, you won’t even realize you’ve been playing my game all along.

Truth was, Katarina didn’t fear snakes, her own tactics were similar. And unlike most people in this empire, she didn’t panic when she felt something coil around her throat. She measured it, and then she planned how to cut its head off.

Something unfamiliar stirred in Katarina’s chest—not in her mind, where she usually kept such impressions caged, but deeper, in the hollow between her ribs. A flicker of thrill, perhaps, or perhaps something dangerously close to respect for the adversary before her, but respect did not mean concession.

And if Astreya was to learn anything, it would be the truth that Katarina possessed both an ocean’s patience, and a creed carved from one word alone: unpredictability. She always stayed just beyond reach, holding herself back until the moment the blow would matter most, and it was the kind that left marks no one could see, but that never faded.

She could let anyone whirl and bluster around her, spit threats, posture with all the noise of desperation, none of it ever touched her. Because Katarina knew something they didn’t: battles weren’t won in the storm of movement, but in the stillness that follows, when the other side has wasted its strength.

As the families exchanged poisoned pleasantries beside her, Katarina remained silent. Because in her mind, she was already reshuffling the board. She was already laying traps no one would see coming, already deciding who would fall, and in what order.

And truth was, none of them had a clue: not Darius, not Caelis, not Astreya, not even Ivan, not even her Father.