Chapter 22 --22
Eight more minutes brought Elara to the Emperor’s court entrance. Two beast knights flanked the massive doors—different faces from the ones at her wing, but the same red uniforms, the same disciplined stillness. They bowed as she approached.
Elara nodded once in acknowledgment.
The gesture told her something useful: these guards bowed to bloodline, not rank. It didn’t matter that she was the Fourth Princess, the forgotten one, the daughter with the wrong surname. Royal blood was royal blood. Their loyalty wasn’t personal—it was structural. That made them predictable, which made them valuable.
She waited while one guard stepped inside to announce her. A moment later, he returned and pulled the doors open.
"Her Highness, Fourth Princess Elara Lian of House Blackwood."
The full name. Public and formal. No shortcuts.
Elara stepped through.
The throne room was enormous—high vaulted ceilings, columns thick enough that three men couldn’t wrap their arms around them, floors polished to a mirror shine. Two hundred people could stand here comfortably, maybe more. At the far end, elevated on a dais of black stone, sat the throne itself: carved from a single piece of dark wood, inlaid with gold that caught the light from massive chandeliers overhead.
The Emperor sat in it, one hand resting on the armrest, his gaze fixed on her as she crossed the empty floor.
No courtiers today. No ministers. Just guards along the walls and the two of them in a space built for crowds.
Elara stopped at the appropriate distance—ten paces from the base of the dais—and bowed. Her body knew the motion without her asking it to: one foot back, torso bent at the exact angle, right hand pressed flat over her heart. Muscle memory from a life she didn’t remember.
"May the sun rise above your head forever, Your Majesty," she said, voice steady and formal.