The palace gates closed behind them with a thud.

  Guards were already waiting stiffly. “Empress Mel requests your presence.” Although the guard’s phrasing had made it sound optional, their grips on their spears said otherwise.

  As expected.

  Aurora exchanged a brief glance with Amy. “How thoughtful of her,” she murmured. “She worries beautifully.”

  They followed the escort through the echoing halls filled with paper walls, painted screens, and the smell of tea. Inside, Mel’s court moved like clockwork. It was beautiful, in the way jeweled prisons sometimes were.

  When they reached the inner balcony, Mel was already there, waiting, framed by gold screens and the slow drift of incense smoke.

  Her fan moved idly, eyes half-hooded, a picture of serene patience.

  She’d been expecting this.

  Aurora smiled as if walking into a friend’s parlor. “I hope it wasn’t a problem that we left the city, Your Majesty. I heard rumors the court keeps a strict schedule.” Her tone was light and innocent.

  Mel’s smile didn’t move past her lips. “Of course not. Sunji does not imprison its guests. We simply prefer to know where they wander.” She tilted her head slightly, eyes bright with false courtesy. “You understand. After all, when foreign lightning strikes in a kingdom without thunder, people notice.”

  “I do,” Aurora said smoothly. “We apologize for leaving unattended.”

  The two women smiled at each other, though their reflections that didn’t quite align.

  Then Mel’s gaze shifted. “And this must be your daughter.” Her eyes swept over Amy’s bowed form, slow and appraising, like she was examining a rare artifact or a weapon that might misfire. “She’s finally awake.”

  “Your Majesty.”

  Mel’s fan opened with a quiet snap. “How very young.” The words carried no warmth, just measured disappointment. “And yet your friends whisper your name as though you’ve already performed miracles.”

  Amy stiffened, pulse quickening. Miracles. Julius. Princessa. Bennet. The things she’d done—or become—to survive. “That was my father,” she said carefully. “I don’t do miracles.”

  Mel’s fan paused mid-motion. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “No? What a pity. Faith is such a useful currency.”

  Aurora’s smile thinned into something precise. “We prefer truth. It doesn’t lose value.”

  Mel inclined her head, lashes lowering. “As do I, Empress.” The words were smooth, but the temperature in her tone shifted—respect for Aurora, condescension for Amy, likely because of her age.

  Mel met Amy’s gaze again, smile twisting. “For someone born of dust, you’ve learned to speak quite well.”

  “My father was a commoner.” Amy looked at the floor, thinking of Kristo this time. “He never needed gold or miracles,” unlike my real father. “He just had the will to make things better.”

  “I just find it surprising that someone of your social status met my gaze.”

  Aurora glanced at the servants who had their eyes glued on the floor. She stepped in quickly. “You must forgive Amy. She wasn’t raised in a palace, and she just came from a world that burned. You’ll find that sort of education produces results more practical than polite.”

  Mel smile sparkled. “Ah. So that’s where her spirit comes from. Your influence is unmistakable, though I suspect she wields it without your precision. "

  Aurora’s smile was serene, though she wanted to scream inside. “If she lacks refinement, I assure you, it’s only because she was busy surviving.”

  That earned the smallest spark in Mel’s eyes — amusement, or recognition. “Of course. I should have realized. The prodigy raises a reflection of herself. How poetic.” The fan snapped shut with a quiet click. “And dangerous.”

  Amy shifted uncomfortably, glancing between them. The two women were now bristling through smiles. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Enough.” Aurora’s tone was soft, but the edge beneath it made even Mel’s guards shift slightly. “If there’s a problem with my daughter’s presence, Your Majesty, I ask that you speak to me.”

  For a moment, the air itself seemed to pause.

  “Ah. So love still moves you. I apologize for my harsh words. But I must say, your tenderness is rare, among those who’ve seen as much as you have. Rarer still to admit it.”

  Aurora exhaled, a controlled, quiet sigh that could have passed for patience. But she knew the truth.

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  She’s insulting me.

  Mel’s fan opened again, hiding her mouth, but not her eyes. “Then let us discuss what we are all fighting for.” She rose gracefully, silk whispering around her. “Come. The council is waiting in the war chamber.”

  She turned as if the matter were settled, and as if only one guest was worth inviting.

  Aurora stayed still. “Amy will join us.”

  That earned a pause. Mel looked over her shoulder, her fan frozen mid-sweep. “War councils are delicate matters. I wouldn’t want to overwhelm her.”

  Aurora met her gaze, unflinching. “She’s already survived worse than a room full of generals. And wherever I go, we go together.”

  Mel’s lips parted, a flash of teeth behind the fan, admiration and warning braided together. “As you wish,” she said at last. “But if she speaks, she’ll be heard. And if she’s heard, she’ll be judged.”

  Aurora inclined her head, every motion deliberate. “Then let them judge.”

  Amy’s heartbeat quickened, but she said nothing as the guards turned and led the way down the golden corridor.

  Behind them, Mel’s soft laughter followed like a silk thread dragged through the air.

  The chamber was an ocean of paper and ink.

  Maps sprawled across the table, circles drawn, borders marked. Candles burned low.

  Aurora stood beside Mel at the head of the table, the generals watching her with wary reverence.

  “Your design is flawless,” Mel said, nodding and gesturing at the map. “Three defensive rings, pressure points disguised as retreats. You make inevitability look elegant.”

  She smiled, and the room nodded along. “It will cost lives, of course, but that is the nature of mercy. It bleeds to prove itself pure.”

  Aurora inclined her head, voice calm. “War isn’t mercy, Your Majesty. It’s triage. You stop the bleeding first.”

  Amy stood a few paces back, feeling smaller with every word. The air was heavy with agreement, logic, and strategy—each syllable measured in bodies.

  She stared at the map: lines that meant rivers, dots that meant villages. Lives turned into geometry.

  Her stomach twisted.

  When Mel praised her mother again—“Truly, a mind suited for empire”—the words scraped like glass.

  The candles hissed softly.

  “No,” she said.

  The single word shattered the quiet.

  Heads turned.

  Mel’s fan paused mid-sweep. “I’m sorry?”

  Amy stepped forward, trembling but steady. “No. This is wrong.”

  Mel blinked, slow and dangerous. Her voice seemed to come from far away. “You’ll need to be specific, child.”

  Amy’s breath started to quicken. Aurora noticed what was about to happen.

  “Amy!” Aurora stepped forward, but her mother’s touch also seemed far away.

  “You…” Amy stammered, but her voice boomed loud. “You’re talking about people like numbers. Flooding their homes, starving armies—starving families. It’s not victory, it’s… it’s erasure!”

  One of the generals sneered, but Mel only smiled faintly. “How quaint. The language of compassion. You must take after your father.”

  Amy flinched, Milo’s whispers worming itself in her ears. Aurora’s hand twitched, but she stayed composed. “Amy,” she said softly, warning and care entwined, “You have to stop talking. We can talk about this later. This is how wars are won.”

  Amy’s face twisted as she looked into her mother’s eyes. “No. Don’t make that mistake mom. Don’t tell me when to speak. Your way of thinking is the problem.” Amy turned to her, the words shaking loose before she could stop them. “You’re both so used to surviving that you’ve forgotten what we’re supposed to be surviving for.”

  Mel exhaled in something between amusement and disbelief. “Ah. The idealist awakens.” She leaned on her fan. “Tell me, then. What do you propose, if not strategy?”

  Amy’s eyes glistened. “I don’t know yet. But I’ll…I’ll find out.”

  Mel sneered, the generals guffawed.

  Not being believed for her age was something she was used to.

  Amy squared her shoulders. “I have to.”

  The men’s sneers echoed louder ever so amused.

  Aurora’s voice, low and careful: “There’s no other way, my love. I’ve tried them all.”

  Amy met her gaze—steady, heartbreakingly certain. “Then maybe it’s time someone tried again.”

  She turned to leave.

  “Amy!” Aurora’s tone was sharp now, command slipping out before she could soften it. “Don’t walk away from this!”

  Amy looked back. “I’m not walking away, Mom. I’m walking toward something—even if…even if I don’t know what it is yet.”

  Mel’s laugh followed her like perfume, sweet, mocking, and dangerous. “How poetic. She inherits your defiance, at least. Let’s hope the world is kinder to her than it was to you.”

  Aurora didn’t answer. Her hand tightened against the edge of the table until her knuckles whitened.

  She could strike anyone who annoyed her down. Dead. Just like the good old days. But this time, she was committed in believing people were worth protecting.

  Annoying.

  Amy’s footsteps faded down the hall, echoing against the paper walls until they dissolved into silence.

  The generals were already murmuring, re-drawing their lines, pretending the interruption hadn’t happened.

  She could’ve stayed. Could’ve finished the meeting. Could’ve been the person Mel believed she was.

  But for the first time since arriving in Sunji, the control she’d worn like armor cracked.

  Aurora turned from the table. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, her voice too calm to be safe.

  Mel’s smile returned, patient and poisonous. “Of course. The mother must follow the child. It’s the only war she never learned to win.”

  Aurora didn’t look back.

  The night was colder than she expected.

  Amy stood beneath the lanterns, her breath trembling in the light. For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Aurora said at last. Her voice was calm, but the calm was fragile. “They’ll remember every word.”

  Amy’s eyes were still bright with anger—or maybe fear. “Then let them.”

  Aurora stepped closer, searching her daughter’s face. “You don’t understand the cost of being right in a room like that.”

  “I understand too well,” Amy whispered. “I just don’t want to pay it your way.”

  The wind lifted their hair, carrying the faint sound of temple bells.

  Aurora could have argued. She could have lectured her on politics, on restraint, on how to bend the world until it broke the way you needed it to. But standing there, watching the fire still alive in Amy’s eyes, she realized what frightened her most wasn’t the defiance, it was the resemblance.

  She saw herself at that age, reckless and bright, ready to burn the world clean. And she saw how it ended.

  Aurora looked away first. “You think compassion will save them,” she murmured. “It might destroy you instead.”

  Amy’s jaw tightened. “Then I’ll learn how to survive without becoming what I hate.”

  Without being what I hate…

  That hurt.

  Aurora didn’t have an answer at first. She only watched the wind catch her daughter’s hair and wondered: how many times could she lose someone for the right reasons before it stopped being right?

  This is what I was afraid of. She closed her eyes.