Chapter 396. She Didn’t Need Him to Clear a Path

Couriers reached the palace with rumors first. Then numbers. Then names.

They stumbled through the gates, boots caked in dirt, eyes ringed in the sleepless shade of gray that told all who saw them of the effort they had taken to arrive quickly.

Guards took statements and sent them up the stairs and by the time the first report hit the antechamber, the throne room was already filling. Nobles clustered in tight groups, faces drawn, voices low but loud enough to carry.

“The battlefield is losing too many…”

“Units are broken. Whole squads are gone…”

“They’ll break our supply route next….”

“They won’t need fire if the queen doesn’t get out of her bed…”

Then someone laughed, quick and mean.

“She can’t. Everyone knows it...”

“Wounded and with child? How long until the crown passes to a regent?”

“Which regent? Her fathers dead, not that the elders would support it and she has no heirs…they’re still inside of her so unless they surv