CHAPTER 204: CHAPTER 199: A NAME FOR THE FIRE

Lady Veronne had not come to the tea party to lose.

She’d arrived with her pearls gleaming, her entourage in coordinated silks, and her expressions rehearsed with the precision of a court actress. She had come to remind the palace—and its suddenly elevated Consort—that scandals had memory. That the Princess had once been first. That Gabriel von Jaunez, no matter how clever or bonded, could still bleed.

But she hadn’t expected that.

She hadn’t expected him to smile like a knife or speak like someone who’d already decided her relevance was optional.

She hadn’t expected Crista Lyon to sit beside Gabriel as if she were grooming a successor, not merely entertaining one.

And Veronne certainly hadn’t expected her own name to hang in the air like a condemned man’s final breath.

The inside of the palace was too hot and too tight, and her dress was too heavy despite its diaphanous silk. The curls at her nape itched with the sweat of shame, fury, and the quiet dread that trailed her like smoke from the shattered remains of that tea party.

She was not a pawn.

She was Lady Veronne of House Ilven, the whispered name at every salon, the mistress of invitations, alliances, and exclusive lists. The women queens consulted when scandal flirted too close to their skirts. She had curated the social pulse of the capital for years.

And now?

Now, she was the cautionary tale at the bottom of Crista Lyon’s teacup.

’Patricia used me like one of the nameless idiots who cling to her perfume trail at masquerades.’

The thought made her sick.

Not because of the betrayal; she could take it. Manipulation was court currency. No, what made her stomach knot was that she hadn’t seen it coming.

She’d been used to provoke the Consort. To drag old rumors into the daylight and dare Gabriel von Jaunez to respond.

She’d left before she could fall apart.

Pride got her to the corridor.

Fear nearly kept her there.

Because when the garden doors opened, and she saw him—Damian Lyon, the Emperor himself, walking toward her in full regalia, expression carved from the coldest corners of wrath—her bones remembered what fear felt like.

She knew that gaze. She’d seen it once before, when Count Ebon had been sentenced without trial, his treason too vile to be discussed in public. That look didn’t belong to a man.

It belonged to a predator.

A ruler born of war.

She tried to smile. Her lips trembled. Her knees wobbled in their silk cage.

She dropped into a curtsy too low, too fast.

And Damian... only tilted his head.

Then a thought popped in her head, a vile one, one that could help her out of her predicament. To pay betrayal with betrayal, clearly the Emperor would want to know who is the one spreading rumors about his Consort.

’And what if I gave him a name?’

Patricia had used her. Set her up to fall so the scandal would cling to someone else. Well, let it cling to her instead. Let her burn. After all, Veronne still had something left that Patricia didn’t:

A sliver of leverage.

She straightened fully, face composed, even as the inside of her stomach writhed like a nest of snakes.

"Your Majesty," she said smoothly, her voice soft but deliberate.

Damian’s eyes flicked toward her, slow and weighted.

"I understand this is not the time," she continued, careful now, measured. "But if I may request a private audience. You might be interested in learning more about the poster’s origins. And the people who intended to ruin your Consort."

Damian didn’t answer immediately.

His golden gaze lingered on Lady Veronne like she was an insect trying to convince the spider she was too useful to eat. He didn’t blink. He didn’t smile. The silence lasted long enough for the air around them to shift—sharp, electric, and full of warning.

Then, quietly, he said, "Are you going to speak, Lady Veronne..."

His tone was mild. That terrifying calm that only someone like Damian Lyon could weaponize.

"...or do you need help from my guards to remember how to use your voice?"

Veronne’s spine went rigid.

Behind him, one of the nearby Shadows shifted, barely audible, but enough to cause her entourage to stiffen, their laughter gone and their perfume and charm rendered useless.

She swallowed. "Your Majesty," she replied quickly, "I only meant that I have real knowledge of who started the campaign against the Consort. Who paid for the illusions. I didn’t want to cause a scene."

"You already have," Damian replied, still calm, still cold. "Now finish it."

She hesitated. Just for a breath. Because what she was about to do wasn’t loyalty. It wasn’t patriotism. It was vengeance wrapped in satin and desperation.

"Patricia," she said at last, her voice low but clear. "It was Countess Patricia Duarte. The commission for the artist was made through one of her aides. The illusionist was from Donin Republica. She told everyone that the target was Anya, as she didn’t want her son to marry her."

Astana’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes flicked to Damian.

Damian didn’t speak. He didn’t move.

But the weight of his silence became something else entirely—pressure. The kind that filled a room like rising water, invisible and suffocating. His golden eyes, half-lidded, fixed on Veronne with the patience of a creature deciding whether or not to kill what just confessed at its feet.

Patricia Duarte.

Of course it was Patricia.

The infamous mistress of Hadeon.

Lady Patricia Duarte, ever coiffed, ever smiling—ever dangerous. A woman whose influence extended far beyond the parlor rooms she frequented. She had survived scandals that would have destroyed lesser nobles, as well as the fall of her own house, by aligning herself with power wherever it appeared.

The connection to Hadeon made it worse. Much worse. Not just because of what he was—the Emperor’s father, a traitor in truth if not in title—but because Damian hated him. Quietly. Publicly. Permanently. Everyone in court knew it. And Patricia had walked herself into that fire, perfume and pearls first, as if seduction could shield her from judgment.

Veronne hadn’t seen it then.

She had seen opportunity. A whisper here, a suggestion there. Rumors, well-fed and carefully lit, designed to undermine Gabriel—not for vengeance, not even for hatred.

For sport.

For that vicious, glittering game the court had always played. A reshuffling of power between tea and opera, between garden parties and gala entrances. Gabriel had risen too fast, taken too much. To someone like Veronne, that was provocation enough. And standing beside Patricia Duarte, the infamous, untouchable mistress of a monster? That had felt like an armor of its own.

But now—

Now the predator in front of her didn’t wear fangs or bloodstained gloves.

He wore silence.

Damian Lyon hadn’t even blinked when she confessed. His golden eyes didn’t widen or darken. They just... calculated. Cold and unreadable, the kind of stillness that came before thunder broke mountains.

Lady Veronne realized, a beat too late, that she wasn’t in a game anymore.

And the emperor didn’t need to raise his voice to kill.

If she survived this—if Damian chose to let her scurry back into the folds of nobility with her title intact and her neck unbroken—she would take a long break from the social world. Maybe leave the Capital entirely. Let the rumors settle. Let the Shadows shift their gaze elsewhere.

She would celebrate Patricia’s downfall alone, in some far-off villa with locked gates and no visitors. And she would never again mistake wolves for gossipers in silk.

"File the proof of your words to the Imperial Office until five," Damian said, his voice smooth as a knife drawn in twilight.

Lady Veronne bowed again, lower this time, though her knees nearly buckled beneath her. "Yes, Your Majesty," she whispered, the silk at her elbows trembling from the force she used to steady herself.

Damian turned away before she finished straightening, already done with her presence.