📍 Chapter 58 – Whispers in the Walls
The night after Kalren's visit, the palace felt like it had stopped breathing.
Servants moved with bowed heads. Guards stood stiffer than usual. Even the wind seemed to hush itself around the high towers. The mood wasn't just tense — it was watching. Listening.
Zara couldn't sleep.
She sat at her writing desk, fingers hovering above parchment, ink untouched. Her thoughts spiraled. Kalren's smirk. Leva's silence. The anonymous note.
**He's not the one to fear.**
Zaire had burned the message, but the words echoed louder now than they had when she first read them.
If Kalren wasn't the threat, then who was?
And why hide?
She stood and crossed the room quietly, checking the edges of her window, then the frame of her door. There was no sign of tampering. Still, a chill crawled across her neck.
Someone had come in. While she slept.
Someone with access.
And a message.
She slipped on her robe and padded into the hallway. Her guards stood alert.
"Don't follow me," she whispered. "This is private."
They hesitated — then obeyed.
She made her way toward the West Wing. It was the oldest part of the palace, filled with forgotten corridors and unused guest rooms. If someone wanted to slip in and out unnoticed, that was the place.
As she walked, a memory stirred — her first week in the palace. A servant had told her of hidden tunnels used during the last war. Smuggling routes for injured soldiers and royal messages.
Zara paused at a faded tapestry, one she'd walked past a hundred times but never truly seen. She lifted the heavy fabric.
Behind it, a stone panel. With a small latch.
Her heart thudded.
She pressed it. The panel clicked.
The wall shifted just enough for her to push it open.
Darkness waited inside.
She didn't hesitate.
---
The tunnel was narrow, barely wider than her shoulders, with just enough space to walk without ducking. Her slippers made almost no sound on the dusty stones. The air was thick with age and something else — something faintly metallic, like old blood or rust.
She followed the corridor for what felt like forever.
Then she heard it.
Voices.
She froze.
They were muffled — just ahead. She pressed herself to the wall and inched closer, careful not to breathe too loudly.
"…still watching her," said a voice. Male. Familiar.
"She suspects something," replied a woman. Calm. Cold.
"Then we move faster."
Zara's pulse pounded in her ears.
"She's too close to the Prince. If he finds out—"
"He won't," the woman said. "As long as we keep her just distracted enough."
"Kalren is causing too much noise."
"He was always meant to."
Zara's throat tightened.
It *was* a distraction.
Kalren was a puppet. But who was pulling the strings?
She crept closer and risked a glance through the crack in the wall.
Two figures.
One was Lord Eshan.
The other… was the Queen.
Zara's stomach dropped.
She nearly stumbled backwards.
The Queen was dressed simply, no crown, no attendants. Her face was bare — softer than usual, but her voice was anything but.
"She's clever," the Queen said. "Smarter than I gave her credit for."
Eshan nodded. "Then why not remove her now?"
"Because if we remove her," the Queen replied, "Zaire will become unpredictable. He needs to lose her slowly. Distrust her. Doubt her."
Zara's breath shook in her throat.
"She's earned his loyalty," Eshan said. "More than any of us."
"And loyalty," the Queen said, "is the most dangerous weapon in a weak man's hand."
There was silence.
Then Eshan asked, "And Kalren?"
The Queen's reply was brutal.
"When the time is right, he'll die. But not by our hands. We'll let the palace tear itself apart."
Zara stepped back, the world spinning around her.
This wasn't politics.
This was betrayal buried in royal silk.
She turned and ran.
---
She didn't stop until she was back in her room.
The moment she shut the door, she locked it and backed against the wall.
Her chest heaved.
The Queen.
The one woman no one suspected. The woman who smiled so politely during council meetings and offered Zara tea in the garden. She was the real threat. The enemy beneath the crown.
And Zaire didn't know.
He had no idea his own mother was plotting to destroy him from within.
Zara didn't sleep.
She waited until dawn — then went straight to Zaire.
---
He was already awake, pacing his chamber with dark circles beneath his eyes. A folder of council documents sat unopened on the table beside him.
Zara walked in and locked the door behind her.
"We need to talk."
He turned. "What happened?"
Zara didn't answer immediately. She moved to the window and pulled the drapes closed. She pressed her fingers to her temples, then looked him dead in the eye.
"I found a hidden tunnel last night."
Zaire's brow furrowed.
"I followed voices," she continued. "Two of them."
"Who?"
She swallowed hard.
"Your mother. And Lord Eshan."
Zaire went still.
"They were speaking of me. And you. And Kalren. He's a distraction. Your mother is planning to make you lose faith in me. Then she'll let Kalren burn, and the court will destroy itself."
For a long time, Zaire didn't speak.
Then he sat down. Slowly. As if his legs wouldn't hold him.
"You're sure?" he whispered.
Zara nodded. "I saw her. Heard everything."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands steepled beneath his chin. "All this time, I thought she was just… cold. Unfeeling. But I never thought—"
"She's waiting for a moment of weakness," Zara said. "And if we give her one, even a breath of doubt, she'll strike."
Zaire looked up. "Then we give her nothing."
Zara moved toward him. "We strike first."
---
That evening, Zaire called a meeting with only three people: Zara, Lord Rulin, and Captain Varyn — head of the palace guard.
Behind locked doors, Zaire laid it all out.
The Queen. Eshan. The plot. The tunnels.
Rulin didn't flinch. Varyn swore softly.
"We can't arrest her outright," Zaire said. "Not without the council. It would start a war."
"Then we gather proof," Varyn said. "Enough to make the court turn on her."
"I'll search the Queen's chambers," Rulin said.
"She'll expect it," Zara warned.
"Then she won't expect *me* to do it."
Zaire nodded. "We have three days until Kalren makes his next move. That's all the time we get."
Zara looked around the room — three men, each with power in a different corner of the palace. And her.
Once a pawn. Now, maybe something more.
She squared her shoulders.
"I'll go back into the tunnels," she said. "If she's meeting again, I want to hear it."
Zaire's eyes darkened. "It's too dangerous."
Zara lifted her chin. "So is staying still."
Zaire stood and walked over to her. "If you go, you don't go alone."
He reached into the drawer and pulled out the dagger again, wrapping it in a black cloth and handing it to her.
"Keep it close," he said. "This time, don't wait to use it."
She nodded once.
The game had changed again.
And the throne was trembling.