Chapter 33: Revenge of the Scorned Empress

"AHHHH!!!!!"

The blood-curdling scream bounced off the cold stone walls of Renira’s private chambers, followed instantly by the deafening crash of shattering porcelain.

Renira hurled a solid gold candlestick across the room with all her strength. It smashed directly into her vanity mirror, sending shards of silvered glass exploding across the plush velvet carpets like a rain of diamonds.

She was completely crashing out.

She tore at the neckline of her gown, the golden claw-like threads snapping violently under her shaking fingers.

Her only beautiful wavy dark violet hair was now a wild, tangled rat’s nest, sticking to the cold sweat on her forehead. Her chest fell and rose as she sucked in hyperventilating breaths.

"That bastard!" she shrieked, her voice cracking into a sob.

She grabbed a heavy crystal perfume bottle from her ruined vanity and lobbed it blindly at the wall. It shattered on impact, filling the room with the thick, overpowering, and sickeningly sweet stench of crushed roses.

Leonidas. How could he? How could he do this to me?!

He had publicly discarded her. He had ordered his guards to drag her out of the grand hall like a common criminal, all while declaring his undying loyalty to that...disgusting Empress!

The image of his pleading, almost pathetic, eyes as he looked at Karina burned in Renira’s mind, making her stomach violently churn. She wanted to vomit.

Her door suddenly opened. Her sister stepped in cautiously, her face in shock as she surveyed the unmitigated devastation of the room. She carefully stepped over a broken vase, clearing her throat.

"Renira..." Tanya started, her voice trembling slightly. "I told you. I warned you not to go to that dinner. I told you he is a King, and you—"

"GET OUT!!" ℯℯ𝘭.

Renira whipped around, her eyes bulging with madness. She snatched a hairbrush from the floor, her teeth bared in a feral snarl.

"Renira, please, you need to calm down before the guards hear you!" Tanya pleaded, holding her hands up defensively.

"I SAID GET OUT!"

Renira hurled the silver brush without warning. It slammed into the heavy oak door mere inches from Tanya’s head, leaving a deep dent in the wood. Tanya gasped, stumbling backward into the hallway, and quickly pulled the door shut, leaving her sister entirely alone in the wreckage.

Renira collapsed onto her knees amidst the broken glass and spilled perfume. She didn’t even feel the shards slicing into her bare skin. She gritted her teeth hard, and her nostrils flared.

"I will kill you," she hissed to the empty room, her fingernails digging deep into the carpet until they broke. "Empress. You useless, pathetic trash. And your stupid cub!!!"

The cognitive dissonance was physically painful. She simply could not accept the reality of her rejection. Her brain fiercely rejected the deep injury to her pride, violently refusing to process the fact that Leonidas had chosen his legal wife over her.

No, Renira thought, her breathing slowing as a dark, twisted justification began to take root in her fractured psyche. No, he wouldn’t do this. He loves me. He promised me the crown. He promised me his side. He has spent two years proving that he despises her!

She pushed herself up, ignoring the blood dripping from her palms.

He must have been bewitched.

The thought bloomed like a comforting, venomous flower in her mind. Yes. That was the only logical explanation! That woman from the capital didn’t have the courage to stand up to the Panther King on her own. She had spent years weeping and starving herself. People didn’t just change overnight! Karina must have brought some foul, forbidden magic from Zyleria! She had cast a dark spell on Leonidas to blind his senses, twist his panther instincts, and force him to act like a desperate fool!

"Yes," Renira whispered to the shadows, a manic, delusional smile slowly stretching across her tear-streaked face. "That’s it. My poor King. He wasn’t in his right mind. He is trapped in her web. I have to save him."

But how?

She paced the ruined room, stepping over the debris of her shattered vanity. She couldn’t just walk up and stab the Empress. Her tall and frankly terrifying general would slice her head clean off her shoulders before she even drew a blade. She needed something insidious. Something untraceable. Something that would break Karina’s spirit so completely that her magical hold over Leonidas would shatter.

Her mind flashed back to the rumors she had heard from her sister and the palace guards earlier that week. The whispered panic echoing in the castle corridors.

The sick panthers.

Beasts in the outer regions were going completely feral. Rabid. Mindless. A terrifying plague that turned strong, noble warriors into deranged, foaming monsters that had to be put down.

Renira stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes widened as a brilliant, terrifying idea struck her like a bolt of lightning.

If I can just understand what is causing them to turn... what if I could extract it? Replicate it?

Her gaze drifted to the open balcony, staring out into the dark, moonlit mountains of Shadow’s Edge.

Maybe... maybe it would affect Valen too.

The six-year-old brat was a panther, after all. He carried the beast blood. If the little cub got sick, if he went feral and had to be locked in a cage or put down by his own father’s guards.....it would completely destroy the Empress. Karina’s protective, maternal heart would break under the unbearable weight of her grief. She would flee back to the capital, leaving Leonidas behind, and the spell over him would finally be broken.

"Ah... yes. Yes!" Renira laughed cruelly.

It made perfect sense to her twisted, desperate mind. Leonidas was a King. He was constantly bogged down by his heavy duties, and now by this wretched, clinging Empress and her brat demanding his attention.

I am doing him a favor, Renira rationalized, wrapping herself in her extreme delusion like a blanket. He is too noble to get rid of them himself now that she has bewitched him. I will unburden him. I will carry the sin so he doesn’t have to. I am the only woman strong enough to stand by his side and do what must be done for the good of Shadow’s Edge.

She rushed to her massive wooden wardrobe, kicking aside the torn, useless remnants of her blood-red gown. She pulled out a thick, nondescript dark wool cloak and threw it over her shoulders, quickly pulling the heavy hood up to conceal her distinctive violet hair.

She needed to get to the lower dungeons, or perhaps slip out to the outer medical tents where the royal healers were secretly keeping the corpses of the rabid beasts for study. She needed a sample. Blood, saliva, anything she could use to understand the sickness.

Renira slipped out of her chambers, checking the hallway before stepping out.

For a long moment, the ruined room was completely silent, save for the soft ticking of a grandfather clock in the corner and the gentle rustle of the wind blowing through the balcony curtains.

Then, the shadows near the open balcony shifted.

A massive silhouette slinked over the stone railing. Huge, padded paws hit the velvet carpet without making a single sound, easily avoiding the shards of broken glass. The pale moonlight caught the dark fur of a strange panther as it crawled fully into the room.

It lowered its massive head, sniffing the spilled rose perfume, and then zeroing in on the fresh drops of Renira’s blood left on the carpet.

The panther’s eyes flicked open in the darkness, glowing with a twisted light.

It didn’t make a sound as it melted seamlessly into the shadows of Renira’s bedchamber.

It would have a talk with her the moment she returned.

Afterall, it could help make her desires come true.