Chapter 118: It’s in your blood 2

LYSANDER

I paced the hall, unable to hold a single thought together, my mind circling Bonnie and whatever was happening in that room right now. I knew Fia was with her. I also knew Fia had plenty more knowledge about this than anyone alive. That should have been enough to steady me, but every minute that passed without word seemed to make the knot in my chest tighten further.

Delta caught my eye from where she stood near the door.

"She’s in safe hands, Alpha Lysander."

"I’m sure," I said, though I didn’t sound sure at all, even to myself.

I could still remember the terrified look on Bonnie’s face when she had been attacked. I could not forget it. But what child I do now than wait and let her and Fia talk?

Fia was better equipped to help her, because whatever was happening required someone who understood it, someone who had answers I did not. Those were reasonable explanations. They did nothing to quiet the part of me that wanted to be in that room, watching Bonnie breathe, making certain she was still herself and was most of all comfortable around Fia.

Knowing Fia though, they would click just fine.

"Watch her from here," I said. "And should your help be needed, help her, or call for me if anything happens. Anything at all."

Delta nodded.

I left before she could answer, my feet carrying me toward my uncle’s study out of pure habit. I had no real reason to go there, except that my mind kept returning to the torn-out page. It had lodged itself somewhere behind my thoughts, refusing to be displaced by anything more urgent.

By the time I reached the study, I was irritated with myself for caring about it instead of what mattered the most.

Bonnie.

But I could not dislodge that this ’god’ had something to do with it.

I opened the book again once I reached the desk, staring at the jagged remnants of paper still clinging to the spine. Someone had not merely removed the page. They had torn it out with enough force to leave ragged edges behind, as though they had been in a hurry to make certain no one ever read what was written there.

Why?

What had it said?

I ran my thumb carefully along the damaged edge, wondering whether it was actually my uncle that had removed it himself or whether someone else had decided that whatever had been written on that page was too dangerous to remain in the book.

My gaze drifted toward the spelled wall across the room.

Beyond it was the vault.

And inside the vault was the creature I had been trying to understand, a creature that had been sealed away for reasons no one seemed willing to explain properly. I had already wondered whether the torn page had something to do with him. Now, standing alone in my uncle’s study with the book open beneath my hands, the possibility felt less like speculation and more like another piece of a puzzle I had no idea how to solve.

There was little use in wondering what a sealed, silent creature might have told me if he could actually speak.

But perhaps a delicate would know. But with exploding eyeballs, was this a risk she would ever take again?

I was still deep in thought when a sharp series of raps hit the study door before I could sink further into that spiral in my mind.

I crossed the room and pulled it open.

A sentinel stood there, breathing hard.

"Your Majesty... The Prince... He’s about to execute the detained retainers. The ones held for incompetence in the late King’s murder."

For a moment, I simply stared at him.

"What the fuck?"

The sentinel straightened.

I was already moving past him.

"Take me there immediately."

He fell into step beside me as we hurried through the halls. The news settled into my mind piece by piece, each part making less sense than the last.

The retainers.

The men who had been arrested after my uncle’s murder.

The men I had explicitly ordered to be kept alive after Bonnie’s begging and guilt because death was not the way to go.

And my cousin was about to execute them. Of course he was.

I pointed at the first sentinel we passed.

"You... Come with me."

Another appeared at the end of the corridor.

"You... Come with me."

Then another.

By the time we reached the stairwell leading toward the courtyard, I had six sentinels falling in behind me. Their boots struck the stone in quick succession as we descended.

"In what world can he do that?" I demanded.

The sentinel who had first alerted me glanced at me before answering.

"I believe the Prince knows he’s acting against your wishes, Your Majesty."

"That wasn’t my question."

"No, Your Majesty."

We turned sharply into another corridor.

"But according to the law," he continued carefully, "he may have the authority to do so."

I stopped so abruptly that the sentinels behind me nearly collided.

"May?"

The man swallowed.

"The Crown’s succession laws distinguish between the authority of the Regent and the prerogatives of the Royal House. Your authority as Regent extends over the administration of the kingdom, the courts, the military, and the affairs of the Crown. But the Prince retains certain rights by virtue of his position as the late King’s son and heir."

"He is not King."

"No, Your Majesty."

"I am Regent."

"Yes."

"Then explain to me why he thinks he can execute men under my protection without so much as informing me."

The sentinel’s expression tightened.

"Because they are not legally considered under your protection."

My jaw clenched.

"They were arrested by my order."

"They were."

"And I ordered that they be kept alive."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Then how does that give him the right to kill them?"

The sentinel drew a careful breath.

"Because their arrest was made in connection with the late King’s murder."

I stared at him.

He continued, choosing each word as though he knew precisely how dangerous the conversation had become.

"Under the laws concerning crimes against the sovereign, punishment for those accused of murdering, conspiring against, or deliberately failing in their duty to the King is treated differently from ordinary criminal sentencing. The Prince, as the late King’s heir, retains the right to demand judgment in matters concerning his father’s death."

"Demand judgment," I repeated. "That is not the same thing as ordering an execution."

"No, Your Majesty. Ordinarily, it would not be."

"Then what am I missing?"

The sentinel glanced toward the corridor ahead.

"The Crown has not yet been formally transferred to you."

I stared at him.

"Go on."

"Until the coronation, you are Regent, which gives you authority to govern in the Crown’s name. But the law does not make the Regent the sole holder of every prerogative belonging to the Royal House. In matters specifically concerning the late King, the heir retains certain powers until the succession is formally completed."

"So he can simply decide someone dies?"

"Not simply."

"Then how?"

"If the Prince invokes the royal prerogative concerning the protection and vengeance of the former sovereign, he can order the immediate punishment of those already formally accused of treason against the Crown."

"Vengeance?"

The word tasted foul in my mouth.

The sentinel lowered his voice.

"It is an old provision, Your Majesty. It is rarely invoked."

"And yet Johann has invoked it now."

"Yes."

"Without notifying me."

"That," the sentinel said cautiously, "is where the matter becomes less clear."

I narrowed my eyes.

"What does that mean?"

"The law gives him the authority to act. It does not expressly state that he must obtain the Regent’s permission before exercising that authority."

"So he found a loophole."

"That would be one way of putting it."

"No. It is exactly what it is."

We continued down the corridor.

The more I thought about it, the angrier I became.

"He knows I ordered those men kept alive."

"I believe he does."

"He knows why."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"And he chose to execute them anyway."

The sentinel said nothing.

I looked at him.

"Why?"

He hesitated.

"Because the Prince may believe that your order concerned the administration of their punishment, while his authority concerns the crime itself."

I frowned.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that you can govern how the kingdom responds to them, but he believes he can determine what justice is owed for his father’s murder."

My hands curled into fists.

"Justice."

The sentinel wisely said nothing.

We turned the final corner, and the courtyard came into view beyond the open archway.

A crowd had gathered around a raised wooden platform.

My stomach dropped.

The sentinel spoke quietly beside me.

"There is another possibility."

I glanced at him.

"What?"

"He may not have summoned the hangmen merely to exercise his right."

"What do you mean?"

The man looked toward the courtyard.

"If the Prince believes the kingdom is becoming divided over the succession, he may be trying to establish that his position still carries authority."

I understood then.

This was not entirely about the retainers.

Johann knew I had ordered them spared.

He knew I was the Regent.

And he knew exactly how his actions would look if he carried them out publicly.

This was not an accident.

It was a message.

He wanted everyone watching to understand that until the crown was physically placed upon my head, there were still powers in this kingdom he could exercise without my permission.

My pace quickened.

"I’m regent," I said. "If he wants to challenge my authority, he can do it to my face."

The sentinel lowered his gaze.

"That may be precisely what he intends, Your Majesty."

We stepped into the courtyard, and in that moment I shouted, "Stop this madness," everyone froze, dropping into hurried bows around me.

"What the hell is this about," I demanded, my voice tearing out louder than I intended.

"Justice," Johann said, standing at the platform’s edge, entirely unbothered by my arrival.

He reached for a lever before I could get another word out and pulled it.

The floor beneath two of the retainers dropped away.

Shifter hangings were built differently from human ones, which were designed to be slower and far more cruel. Our ropes were woven from platinum wire, a material chosen not merely to restrain but to burn through shifter flesh. When the trapdoors opened, the wires snapped tight around their throats with the force of their falling bodies.

I watched the platinum bite into their skin, glowing against their necks as it cut deeper with every inch of the drop. There was no prolonged choking, no time for them to struggle or gasp for air. The wire sliced through flesh and muscle with such brutal efficiency that both men were beheaded before their bodies had completed the fall.

Their heads struck the platform first.

Their bodies followed a moment later, crumpling beneath them in a spreading mess of blood and torn flesh that I knew, even then, I would not be able to unsee for a very long time.

Everything went red at the edges of my vision.

I had promised Bonnie these men would be safe. I had promised her a small, manageable punishment instead of blood. And I’d been standing in a study, chasing torn pages and old ghosts, while my cousin turned that promise into a lie in front of an entire courtyard.