CHAPTER 57: TO PUNISH DISOBEDIENCE

Sylvia remained in the shadows behind the throne, arms crossed, her expression unreadable. Her gaze never left Seraphina, and her ears sharpened at every word. Her breath quiet. Heart steady.

She hoped Lorraine—Lazira—wouldn’t falter now.

Seraphina needed to be crushed, not pitied. A queen doesn’t preserve what dares to rot from within.

"It was not my intention, Milady..." Seraphina stammered, her voice trembling like a fraying thread. "I... I fell in love."

Lazira didn’t move. Not even a twitch. The velvet cloak behind her stilled like a curtain before an execution.

"Love?" she said finally, the word laced with such precise disgust it might as well have been a curse. "With a man who has yet to pay me?"

Her voice cut sharper than a blade drawn in silence.

The dungeon, already thick with damp and dread, seemed to contract with the cruelty of the words. The torchlight flickered. A rat scurried. Even the walls recoiled.

Seraphina winced as though slapped. Still on her knees, she clutched her skirts like they could hold her together. She tried to lift her head and in turn her pride, but it wouldn’t rise.

Lazira stepped forward, slowly. Each bootstep echoed like a funeral bell.

"Do you know where Lord Florian is right now?" she asked, almost gently. "In Celestine’s bed."

The silence that followed was deafening. Then...

"No!" Seraphina shrieked. "You’re lying!" Her face twisted with desperate denial. "He would never betray me! I went against you because he...he wanted to marry me! He wanted me to be loyal to him! He said...he said I was different

! He’d leave his wife, we’d leave this kingdom and we... we’d live happily..."

Her voice cracked. She clawed at the air as if she could tear down the truth before it settled.

"You’re lying, Lazira... Please, do not lie..."

But Lazira said nothing. She didn’t even blink. There was nothing to argue. No need to defend the truth.

Her silence was far crueler.

Seraphina’s outburst burned bright and then collapsed. Her fury flickered into confusion, then into sobbing as the truth sank in like poisoned wine. She sagged, broken, onto the stone floor, her sobs unpretty, animal-like.

First denial.

Then rage.

Now bargaining.

And soon... the void.

Sylvia narrowed her eyes in the shadows. Good, she thought. Let her rot in it.

Lazira stood still as stone above the heap that used to be a courtesan. Her gloved hands clasped before her, her head tilted slightly in a manner almost sympathetic. But her eyes... her eyes told another story.

A lesson was being carved here, one Sylvia knew many in the underworld would whisper of for years. And the knife had only just begun to turn.

Lazira turned and waved her hand. Sylvia stepped forward with a glass of wine and placed it before Seraphina.

Once the jewel of every nobleman’s eye, Seraphina now looked like a husk of herself, stripped of the charm that once made men fall at her feet.

Her weary eyes darted around the throne room. Whispers in the red-light district said Lazira had found the forgotten dungeons of the old Dragon Dynasty. Some claimed she’d unearthed the gold hoard of Vaeronyx, the mythical dread-dragon of legend. Others swore the throne Lazira now sat on belonged to House Aurelthar—the last ruling bloodline of the old empire.

Rumors. Maybe lies.

But one thing everyone agreed on:

No one who saw Lazira here was seen again.

Seraphina stared at the wine in front of her. She had betrayed Lazira for a man who betrayed her. And now... she understood what that meant.

"Will it be painless?" she asked, her voice brittle.

Lazira loomed over her. And for a strange, quiet moment... it reminded Seraphina of the first time they met. When Lazira had offered her a hand, lifted her from the gutter, and made her into a glittering star among nobility. A place she never believed she could reach.

Lazira had given her all of that.

And she...

Where did it all go wrong?

"Ah..." Seraphina mumbled, picking up the wine. "The Silent Crown..."

That cursed name. That name everyone whispered with dread and mockery. Everyone had warned her: never cross the Silent Crown. She should have listened, especially not at the grand duke’s ball.

And look where it brought her.

Lorraine, masked and silent, watched as Seraphina drank from the goblet. Her lips curled faintly behind the leather.

"It’s a shame," Lazira said, voice silken. "I loved you."

Seraphina set the goblet down, wiping her mouth. She had accepted it.

"...Is it true?" she asked. "Did you really find gold under here?"

Lazira let out a soft laugh as she looked at the ancient throne. "Do you think I was the first to find this place in the last two centuries?"

"Oh..." Seraphina slumped forward. Blood trickled from the corner of her lips. Her limbs trembled, and her fingers scraped the stone floor in a last, instinctive plea for survival. "I think... you are..."

Lazira walked slowly toward her throne, the hem of her black cloak whispering against the ancient stone. She sat with grace, folding one leg over the other.

"This is a mysterious place, nonetheless," she said softly, almost musing to herself. "A place once rumored to have held an actual dragon beneath its bones... The heart of the old Kingdom. Once conquered, the Lion turned this place into the lowest pit he could imagine. A brothel. A sewer of sin."

She ran her gloved hand along the armrest that was weathered by time, scarred by history.

"He thought that would be enough to erase its legacy. After all, what power could a whorehouse ever hold?" Lazira chuckled under her breath, her voice like velvet laced with venom. "And look at me now..."

Then suddenly, as if a final flicker of fire sparked in Seraphina’s dying mind, her eyes snapped open.

A realization.

"You lied..." she gasped, eyes wide with betrayal. "You lied to me. He didn’t betray me, did he?" Her voice cracked. She tried to stand, swaying like a broken reed. "You snake! You cursed, wicked thing! You wanted him gone—you wanted me gone—!"

She lunged weakly, only to be caught by the eunuchs.

Lazira didn’t flinch as she sat unmoved on the Dragon Throne. Her eyes, glacial and merciless, watched it all.

"You never should have betrayed me, Seraphina."

That was the last thing Seraphina heard in this lifetime.

Her cries faded. Her body slumped. Blood soaked the stone beneath her. The eunuchs dragged her away in silence.

"Seraphina left the city," Lazira said.

Sylvia nodded, her throat dry. She knew this was what they’d tell anyone who asked about her. They all knew what that meant.

If Seraphina wasn’t spared, none of them were safe.

Lazira stood from the throne.

"Let’s go to the tower," she said and walked out. Sylvia followed with a smirk.

The dungeon swallowed the last trace of warmth