The mont Ashley lowered her head, a few people let themselves smirk. Jony. Nikki. Several mbers of the High Chamber.
They had been lenient with her at first because they hadn’t expected much. But she had pushed, and now they were pushing back the only way they knew how.
Politics.
On the other side of the room, a few faces fell. Those loyal to Lucian had been counting on her.
Worry moved quietly through her n. They knew how hard it was to fight these kinds of argunts — the kind that wrapped truth around a blade. Ashley had shown them she was capable, but capability wasn’t always enough. This room required sothing else: the ability to hold your ground when soone was twisting the ground beneath you.
Lukas stared at her, sothing almost like concern flickering behind his eyes for the first ti. Concern, and disappointnt, though he wasn’t surprised.
Why would I be? he thought. She can talk all she wants. She can wear the title of Madam of Dominion. But that doesn’t change what she’s lacking.
He exhaled quietly and glanced at the n across the table. He was tempted to step in. This was where he was good — this kind of sparring. It would reflect poorly on her, but he couldn’t just stand here and watch them dismantle her with a few well-placed words.
Before he could move, Ashley’s voice ca.
Quiet and a little unsteady.
"Have any of you lived with my husband — even for a single day?"
She raised her head.
Her expression wasn’t what anyone expected. Her features were sharp, her eyes lit with sothing fierce, as if they had said sothing they had no right to say.
She hadn’t lowered her head out of defeat. She had done it to hide the flash of pain that had moved through her chest before she could stop it.
Because amid everything that had happened since Lucian’s collapse, there was one thought Ashley had been refusing to look at directly.
That Lucian had wanted to die.
She didn’t want to believe it. He hadn’t sought help — not once. But if she let herself sit with that, the questions that followed would be worse. Whether any of it had been real. Whether the life they’d had together had ever ant anything to him — or whether it had all been what he once told her it was: pretend.
She wouldn’t go there. She couldn’t. Because if she did, it would break sothing in her that she wasn’t prepared to lose. Whether she admitted it or not, she had drifted far from her original plan — the simple, careful plan to keep Lucian alive just long enough for her to leave.
"No one in this room has lived under the sa roof as him," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, the steadiness in it costing her sothing. "No one here has slept in the sa bed, or been in the sa space with him for a full day. But I would have expected that all of you — at the very least — would have held onto one thing you know about him."
She drew a slow breath and straightened.
"There is nothing noble about dying. Nothing dignified. Death is not sothing to be glorified — and that was sothing my husband believed. He said it often enough that all of you should know it by heart."
Her lips pressed together. "And yet here you are, using the language of respect and dignity to justify letting him die."
"This council makes the decisions no one else will." She placed both hands flat on the table and rose slowly. "Then make one now. For Dominion’s sake."
For just a mont, she forced herself to go still inside — to close off the part of her that was aching, that found it unbearable that while her husband was sowhere fighting for his life, these n were using that very fact as a card to play.
She shut it away. Just for now.
The emotions drained from her face as cleanly as a light going out.
What remained was cold and empty — a stillness she hadn’t worn in a long ti, and hadn’t missed.
"Since we’re already on the subject of death," Ashley said, her eyes moving slowly across the room, "this council needs to make a decision."
She let the silence hold for a mont.
"Death. Or Lucian."
The room stilled. They had all seen the shift in her eyes. A mont ago, sothing human had been there. Now there was nothing. Just a cold, familiar void.
Those who had been on this council long enough felt it before they could na it. Lucian’s face surfaced in their mory — the first ti he had stood in this room, with that sa look, the one that had made every person present lower their eyes and accept him without another word.
And now, as if the past were folding back into itself, they heard the words again.
"Will this council stand down," Ashley said quietly, "or would you rather have bloodshed?"
The auras of every person behind her darkened in the sa breath.
"Outrageous! You dare threaten this council—"
"I am not threatening anyone." Her voice didn’t rise. "Your n ca to my ho. They took my people by force. They blocked my path into this building. None of that was a threat either, was it, Chancellor?"
The tension in her throat pulled taut. "Everything I could have done since that mont is retaliation. But I have been holding back — for my husband’s sake. Because I do not want to destroy what he built."
"But if this place no longer exists to protect him—" She reached into her pocket and set sothing on the table.
A grenade.
She kept her eyes on it for a mont before looking up.
"Then I would rather burn it to the ground. Starting here."
"You said it yourselves — this room makes decisions with no middle ground." She held Frank’s gaze. "I have the right to run this organization. I have the right to my son. I have the right to my people." She paused. "And I have the right to ruin all of it."
"So decide." Her voice was almost gentle. "Death. Or the Black Dragon?"
No one moved.
Around the table, the silence held a dozen different expressions. So had already reached for weapons — her n and theirs alike. A few were smiling, slow and satisfied. Others had gone rigid, eyes burning.
Then, from sowhere behind her, a voice broke the quiet.
"I choose the Madam of Dominion."
That second, Ashley stopped breathing.
She knew that voice. She had been going two days without it, and sowhere beneath everything she’d been holding together, she had been waiting to hear it again.
Lucian.
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