"She sustained head trauma from the impact."

Derek stood beside Ishita’s bed with his arms folded and his eyes on her face, listening to the doctor without looking at him.

"A concussion," the doctor continued. "There is some swelling, but we have it under control. We don’t know when she will regain consciousness; we just need to monitor her carefully."

Derek’s hands curled into fists at his sides, and he nodded once. Ishita lay so small and still against the pillows, her face bruised and pale, tubes snaking across her skin.

This woman had served his family for years. She had fed him with her own hands, worried over him like a mother. And now she was fighting for her life because she had tried to tell him something.

His mind kept circling back to that night in the kitchen; Ishita standing by the counter with that uncertain expression that he didn’t quite clock that night. The way she had stepped closer and dropped her voice, almost as if she was scared of something.

There is something you need to know, Your Grace.

And then Ruby had walked in.

Derek’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He had not thought much of it at the time. Ruby moved through the household freely; she always had. Her appearing in the kitchen at that hour had registered as nothing more than a coincidence.

But now Ishita was lying in a hospital bed after being struck by a car, and the thing she had wanted to tell him remained unsaid. Ruby was the only one there during that report.

She could have gotten whatever it was Ishita wanted to say. She could have tried to silence her.

He didn’t want to believe it. That was the honest truth. Ruby had been a fixed point in his life since they were children running through the same corridors, getting into the same trouble, grieving the same losses.

He owed her brother Jasper a debt that could never fully be repaid. Jasper had taken a sword for him. Jasper had died so that Derek could live, and Ruby had carried that loss without ever once throwing it in his face.

She had stood by him through every dark year. He had trusted her completely for years. He had never seen malice in her.

She was the girl he had grown up protecting, the sister of Jasper.

He owed her. He still saw her as that innocent little girl who used to follow him around the palace with wide, trusting eyes.

And yet.

Whenever something went wrong recently, Ruby was somehow in the middle of it.

When Kira missed the Queen Blessing. The fundraiser night. The border alert that had turned out to be nothing. His phone, he had coincidentally forgotten. And now Ishita, who had something to say, was lying here unable to say it.

Too many coincidences, it was difficult to ignore the pattern.

Kai’s voice came back to him. Never underestimate the power of a scorned woman.

Kai had never liked Ruby, but that warning was more serious than anything Kai had ever said to him about her.

Derek pushed the thought aside. He was not ready to conclude anything yet. He needed facts, not feelings. What he needed was to watch carefully and say nothing, and wait for the picture to become clearer.

He turned to the doctor, voice rough. "Do everything necessary to keep her alive. Cost is not a consideration. If you need specialists brought in, bring them. If you need equipment, order it. I want her to have everything she needs."

The doctor bowed deeply. "Yes, Your Grace."

He looked at Ishita one last time, then walked out.

Six gammas were standing in the corridor outside her door, Connor among them. They all straightened and bowed as he stepped out, and Derek let his gaze move over them slowly.

"Two of you on the door at all times," he said. "Morning, afternoon, night. You rotate in pairs, and nobody enters this room except her daughter and the medical staff I have already cleared with Dr Lorenzo. Nobody else. Not administrators, not visitors, not anyone who arrives with a reason that sounds perfectly legitimate." He paused. "I don’t care how convincing the reason is."

He looked at each of them in turn. "If anything happens to her while she is in this building, I will hold every one of you personally responsible. Am I understood?"

"Yes, Your Grace," they said in unison.

He beckoned Connor with a slight tilt of his head, and they walked together down the corridor, far enough from the others to speak privately.

"I need you to find out everything about what happened this morning," Derek said, his voice low and even.

"The road she was on, the exact time, the vehicle, whether it stopped or kept moving, whether anyone in the area saw anything at all. I want everything, Connor. Quietly. Don’t make it obvious that I’m asking."

Connor’s expression gave nothing away, but his eyes were sharp and attentive. "I’ll handle it personally, Your Grace."

Derek nodded and walked out into the late afternoon light, got into his car, and sat in silence for a moment before the driver pulled away.

***

Meanwhile, in the cool, dimly lit dungeons beneath the palace, Kira walked slowly between the cells, her hands clasped in front of her.

Nana moved at her side, unhurried and untroubled, as though she took Sunday afternoon walks through underground prisons regularly, which, Kira was beginning to realise, she probably did.

"The tradition goes back four generations," Nana said softly. "The Queen of Mercy. It exists because the founders of Dravengard understood something that most kingdoms refuse to admit."

"Which is?" Kira asked.

"That power without grace is just cruelty with better furniture." Nana glanced at her sideways. "The throne of Dravengard has always been matrilineal. That is why the queen holds so many important duties."

Kira absorbed this. Ahead of them, two gammas moved quietly at a respectful distance, carrying the list of names eligible for release. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"I should have started your education earlier," Nana continued, with a small sigh. "I didn’t, because the coronation was six months away and I thought we had time. We don’t anymore."

She looked at Kira directly. "You need to know your functions. The people need to see you as their queen, not simply as Derek’s wife."

Kira nodded. She understood. She had understood it since the fundraiser night, standing on that stage with the royal booth empty behind her, feeling the room decide what she was worth.

She was just struggling to focus properly right now.

The dungeons were the problem. She had not told Nana that, and she was not going to, but the cold stone walls and the low ceiling and the particular quality of the air down here were doing something unpleasant to her chest.

Her father’s dungeon had looked nothing like this and yet felt exactly like this. The darkness, the smallness of it, the specific helplessness of being enclosed somewhere underground.

She breathed steadily and kept walking.

She had already granted mercy to three men and a woman, reading their files carefully before deciding, asking the gammas quiet questions about conduct and circumstance.

It had felt significant in a way she hadn’t expected. These were real people, sitting in real cells, whose lives would change because she had chosen to look at them.

As they continued down the row of cells, Kira’s steps slowed. She stopped in front of a cell near the far end of the row, her eyes locking onto the man inside.

She recognised him.