Heena found them approximately eight hundred tis more draining than anything else the palace threw at her. At least with her husbands, she could just—talk back. Say the sharp thing. Win the argunt and watch them leave.
With the council, every response spawned three more questions. It was like trying to put out a fire by throwing smaller fires at it.
She stood there a little longer.
Took a breath.
Squared her shoulders.
Lifted one foot—
"You should enter, Your Majesty."
The voice arrived directly behind her left ear, quiet and completely without warning, like a knife appearing in a room you thought was empty.
Heena’s heart perford a full gymnastics routine inside her chest.
She spun around so fast she nearly lost her footing, one hand slamming to her sternum, the other flying out for balance.
Her secretary stood behind her.
He was holding a file folder. His suit was perfectly pressed. His tie was knotted with the precision of a man who controlled the things he could control because everything else was chaos.
And his eyes.
His eyes looked like soone had taken two perfectly good eyes and replaced them with the dark circles of a man who had not slept properly in at least two weeks. They were comprehensive dark circles. Architectural. The kind you could study. He looked like a panda who had worked in imperial administration for too long and had developed a complicated relationship with the concept of rest.
The eyes themselves still had that specific shine, though—the shine of a man running entirely on professionalism and the knowledge that if ’he’ stopped, everything stopped.
"Are you ’insane’?!" Heena hissed, still clutching her chest. "Do you want to ’kill ’? I am the only living royal currently qualified to sit on this throne! If I drop dead of a heart attack in this corridor because my own secretary decided to ’appear silently behind like so kind of ghost’, so completely unqualified person inherits this empire! Is that what you want?! ’Just say it directly!’ You don’t need to be subtle!"
Her secretary blinked. Once.
"Oh my," he said. "I greet Your Majesty. I apologize sincerely for the disturbance."
He bowed. Perfectly. Professionally. With the expression of a man who had said this exact sentence before and expected to say it again.
"So," he added, straightening, "shall we enter?"
And then—before she could answer, before she could object, before she could do anything at all—that absolute nace of a secretary stepped forward and ’pushed the council chamber doors open himself.’
Heena stared at his back.
She genuinely, truly wanted to fire him.
She couldn’t fire him. He was the only person standing between her and a mountain of unsorted docunts that would bury her alive.
She hated this so much.
The noise from inside the chamber stopped like soone had cut it with scissors.
Every conversation, every shuffling paper, every cleared throat—gone, instantly, as twenty pairs of eyes turned toward the open doorway with the synchronized focus of people who had been waiting and were extrely prepared to pretend they hadn’t been.
And please—’please’—understand that these were not ordinary eyes.
Every single person in that room represented sothing vast and old and deeply invested. Ancient noble houses with roots older than the empire’s current na. War ministers who had survived multiple administrations and knew exactly which skeletons lived in which closets. Treasury lords who could recite thirty years of financial records from mory and would, if given the opportunity. Land dukes whose personal territories were essentially small countries. Three high priests who radiated the specific energy of n who believed they answered to sothing higher than an Empress and weren’t shy about implying it. Two rchant guild heads whose combined assets probably exceeded several provinces and who knew it.
Between them, they controlled—conservatively—a significant majority of everything that made this empire function.
They all stood up at exactly the sa mont.
The precision was almost impressive.
"We greet Your Majesty."
The chorus was perfect. Respectful. Warm, even, on the surface.
And underneath every polished syllable, in the very specific quality of attention they directed toward the doorway, was the unmistakable energy of twenty crocodiles floating just beneath very still water. Barely moving. Patient in the way that only creatures who have outlasted many things can be patient. Watching with the collective certainty that they had prepared, they had questions, and they had absolutely all day.
The doors were open.
Her secretary had already moved to his position behind her right shoulder, pen out, file open, ready.
Heena had no choice.
She walked in.
Fifteen steps to the head of the table. She made every single one of them count—unhurried, asured, the pace of soone who found this mildly interesting at best and had nowhere else to be.
She sat.
Folded her hands on the table.
Smiled.
Twenty distinguished faces smiled back.
’"Who would like to begin?"’ she said pleasantly.
The crocodiles’ smiles widened.
System 427, invisible near the ceiling and already settled comfortably with his popcorn, whispered into her mind: ’Host. I think this is going to take a while.’
’If I’m not out in two hours,’ Heena replied without moving a muscle in her face, ’I want wine, I want food, and I want you to find an escape route.’
’Host, I’m a lion construct. I don’t know escape routes.’
’Then learn one.’
The first noble lord cleared his throat gently, opened his mouth, and began.
Heena kept smiling.
’Here,’ she thought, ’we absolutely, definitely go.’
Her secretary moved again to stand beside her chair, placing the thick file on the table in front of her with a soft ’thud’.
Heena glanced at it.
It was labeled: ’’Marriage Alliance Protocols and Noble House Impact Assessnts’’.
Of course it was.
She looked up at the assembled nobles, plastered on her most pleasant smile, and said, "Good morning, everyone. I trust you all slept well?"
Dead silence.
Then, one of the older nobles—Lord Sothing-or-Other, she could never rember all their nas—cleared his throat.
"Your Majesty," he began, voice carefully respectful but with an edge underneath, "we have heard so... ’surprising’ news regarding a certain proposal."
"Oh?" Heena said innocently. "What news would that be?"
Another noble—Lady Whoever—leaned forward slightly. "The engagent to Prince Larus of the Marus Kingdom, Your Majesty. We were... not consulted about this decision."
Heena’s smile didn’t waver. "Was I required to consult you about my personal marriage decisions?"
"Well," Lord Sothing interjected, "given that Your Majesty’s marriages affect the political standing of nurous noble houses—including those of us present—one might think that so advance notice would be... courteous."
Translation: ’How dare you make a major political move without asking us first.’
Heena’s smile sharpened. "I see. And did I consult any of you when I married my ’first’ five consorts?"
Awkward silence.
"No," Heena continued pleasantly. "Because marriages are imperial prerogatives. I don’t need permission from the council to choose my own husband."
"Of course not, Your Majesty," another noble said quickly. "However, the matter of making Prince Larus the ’primary’ consort—"
"Is also my decision," Heena finished. "Was there a question?"
More awkward silence.
Then a younger noble—one of Kieran’s cousins, if she rembered correctly—spoke up, voice tight. "Your Majesty, with all due respect, the current consorts have served the empire faithfully for years. To elevate a foreign prince above them—"
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