Chapter 18. The Throne Divided

The throne room was quiet, though it was anything but still.

It held the kind of silence that breathed and listened, the kind that waited for a misstep.

Seraya sat in the carved obsidian seat at the center of the dais, her posture composed, her expression unreadable. The mark at her collarbone had dimmed to a steady, muted pulse, no longer blazing, but never truly at rest. She wore no crown—she had refused one—but the eyes fixed on her treated the absence as a formality rather than a truth.

And beside her stood a second throne.

Identical in every detail.

Occupied.

Mairead sat straight-backed in the twin seat, hands folded loosely in her lap, gaze forward and calm. The chair had not been