Chapter Eleven — The First Correction

He was already there.

I had not summoned him. I had not announced my intentions. And yet, when I stepped beyond the inner threshold toward the outer courtyards, he stood just ahead of me, not blocking my path, not waiting for instruction.

Simply… present.

“You’re learning,” I said mildly.

Zarek glanced at me.

“I was always aware,” he replied.

Annoying.

I continued past him without slowing. “Try not to make a habit of anticipating me. It’s intrusive.”

“I will consider it,” he said.

He would not.

The outer courtyard was quieter than the palace proper.

Cherry and plum blossoms drifted through the air in soft, deliberate spirals, petals catching light as though they had nowhere urgent to be. The stone paths were less polished here, the space less watched, designed for reflection, or perhaps for the illusion of it.

I preferred it.

It was one of the few places in the palace where silence felt unoccupied.

Maelin had not followed.

That, too, was deliberate.

Zarek remained behind me.

I stepped beneath the low branches of a flowering tree and paused, fingers brushing lightly against a petal that had settled against my sleeve.

The world stilled.

Not completely.

Just enough.

I noticed it the way one notices a breath that arrives half a moment too late.

The knife came from the left.

Small.

Precise.

Designed not to be seen.

Zarek moved before the air finished shifting.

His hand lifted, not dramatically, not forcefully, just enough. The motion was clean, controlled, almost dismissive. Metal met resistance that should not have been there, the blade striking his deflection and redirecting sharply into the trunk of the tree beside me.

A dull sound.

Then stillness.

A single petal slid from the branch and landed where the knife had almost been.

Zarek’s expression did not change.

But something in his stance settled.

Slower, he noted, internally.

I’ve grown… inefficient.

The correction had required more precision than it should have.

That was irritating.

He exhaled once, subtle, recalibrating the balance between restraint and capability.

I will need to adjust.

I looked at the tree.

Then at the knife.

Then at him.

I did not ask if he had seen it.

Of course he had.

I stepped closer to the blade, tilting my head slightly as I studied it.

“Poison,” I said.

Zarek’s gaze shifted, just slightly.

“You can smell it?” he asked.

I glanced back at him.

“Can’t you?”

A pause.

“Not like that,” he said.

Interesting.

I reached out but did not touch the blade. The scent was faint, sharp beneath the sweetness of the blossoms… deliberate, refined.

Not crude.

Not desperate.

Measured.

I straightened.

“That’s new,” I said.

Zarek watched me.

“You expected the attempt,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And yet this surprises you.”

“Yes.”

I turned, meeting his gaze fully this time.

“They don’t usually try to kill me.”

He did not respond.

“They prefer inconvenience,” I continued lightly. “Embarrassment. Minor injury. Something that can be explained away as carelessness.”

My eyes flicked once toward the palace.

“Something… survivable.”

Zarek followed the motion.

“Rosaline,” he said.

I smiled faintly.

“She is not foolish enough to escalate beyond control,” I replied. “She understands optics.”

I looked back at the knife.

“This,” I added, “is not controlled.”

Silence settled between us again.

He was thinking now.

Not like a guard.

Like something else.

Zarek studied the trajectory.

The angle.

The absence of presence.

No sound of retreat. No lingering intent.

Clean.

Professional.

Noctyrna, he concluded.

Not a court servant. Not a frightened noble. Something trained. Something accustomed to ending threats without recognition.

And yet—

Poorly chosen target.

His gaze shifted to Seraphae.

She stood as though nothing had happened.

No tension.

No delayed fear.

Only awareness.

They are probing, he thought.

Or someone has grown impatient.

Either way…

Incorrect.

I let the moment settle.

Let the courtyard return to itself.

Let the petals fall as though nothing had interrupted them.

Then I turned away from the tree.

“Remove it,” I said.

Zarek stepped forward, pulling the blade free without ceremony. He did not inspect it further. He did not hesitate.

Good.

“Dispose of it properly,” I added. “I don’t want anyone careless enough to touch it.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” he said.

Too smoothly.

I narrowed my eyes slightly.

“You’re enjoying this,” I observed.

A pause.

“Not the attempt,” he replied.

“No?”

“No.”

“Pity,” I said lightly. “It was almost interesting.”

He looked at me then.

Really looked.

For a fraction of a second longer than necessary.

And I felt it again.

That alignment.

That sense of something already in place before I had noticed it.

Familiar.

Not in face.

Not in memory.

In… pattern.

I held his gaze.

Just a moment too long.

Then looked away.

“…interesting,” I murmured.

You’re wondering why I didn’t react.

Why I didn’t call for guards, or raise alarm, or demand explanation.

But you see, this wasn’t new.

Small things like this had always happened. Adjustments. Tests. Quiet attempts to remind me where I was meant to stand.

What was new…

Was the intent.

They had aimed to kill.

And that meant one of two things.

Someone had grown reckless.

Or someone had grown afraid.

Behind me, Zarek shifted slightly.

Not closer.

Not further.

Just enough to reestablish position.

Not hovering.

Not distant.

Present.

Correct.

The court would learn eventually.

That sending a blade was not the mistake.

Missing was.