Leverage

The morning found her at her vanity, studying her reflection in the glass.

She had been awake for hours. Sleep had come in fragments, interrupted by visions she could not quite remember, sensations that left her skin warm and her heart restless. The nightmares from weeks ago forgotten and replaced with much more pleasant dreams. Now she turned the silver hand mirror this way and that, searching her own face for whatever he saw when he looked at her.

It was ridiculous. She knew it was ridiculous. He was an archduke with business to conduct, not a lapdog to attend her every morning. And yet her eyes tracked each dark-coated figure, searching for the particular set of his shoulders, the measured grace of his stride.

When did you become this? she asked herself. Looking for him in crowds. Counting the hours.

She had caught herself doing it yesterday too. In the gallery, pretending to study a portrait while her ears strained for his footsteps. At dinner, watching the doors. In her study that evening, arranging papers she did not need to arrange, finding excuses to linger in case he might appear.

She pressed her gloved hand against the cold glass. The golden leather was soft against her palm. She found herself reaching for them each morning, even though it was expected for a courtly lady to wear different gloves each day. What others won’t know, won’t hurt her.

Touch creates connection, he had said. These will remind you to be selective.

She curled her fingers, remembering his hand around hers on the balcony. The way her pulse had stuttered when his thumb brushed her knuckles.

“My Lady?”

Mira stood at the threshold with the breakfast tray. Her expression was carefully neutral, the embodiment of the perfect servant.

“Just watching the morning,” Ilyra said.

She moved away from the glass, but not before catching herself glancing one more time at the courtyard below.

He came at the tenth bell.

She heard his footsteps before she saw him, the deliberate rhythm she had learned to recognise. Her book lay forgotten in her lap. Her heart was doing something foolish.

When the knock came, she made herself wait a moment before answering. Composure. She was a princess. She had self-control.

“Enter.”

He stood in the doorway with a leather satchel and an expression she could not read. Dark coat, dark cravat, dark eyes that found hers across the room and held.

“I have something to show you,” he said. “May I?”

Mira sat in her customary corner, needle moving through fabric. She did not look up as Evander crossed the room, but her stitches slowed.

He came to her writing desk and spread the papers across it with the careful precision she had come to expect from him. Debt notes. Promissory contracts. Names she recognised from her weeks of observation, names that belonged to men who operated in the shadows between commerce and crime.

She rose to stand beside the desk, and found herself closer to him than she had intended. Close enough to catch the scent of him, sandalwood and something deeper beneath, something like stone cellars and musky earth, a hint of the ground right after a rain. She had noticed it before, that scent, but now she let herself linger on it. Let herself absorb the solid presence of him beside her.

“Your brother’s debts,” Evander said, “are no longer held by tolerant men.”

She had known, of course. She had told him about the debts herself, traced them through ledgers and whispered conversations, mapped the network of obligation Dorian had woven around himself like a noose. But seeing it laid out in black ink on formal paper transformed abstraction into reality.

“These are the original notes?” She reached for one, then stopped. “How did you obtain them?”

“I didn’t.” He shifted slightly, and his shoulder brushed hers. The contact was brief, almost accidental. Her skin prickled beneath her sleeve. “Intermediaries did. Men of business who saw an opportunity to consolidate scattered debts into a single, manageable portfolio.”

“Manageable.” The word sat strangely on her tongue.

“From a certain perspective.” He picked up one of the contracts, examining it as if it were merely interesting rather than devastating. “Your brother owes rather a lot of money to rather a lot of people. Or he did. Now he owes it to one entity, represented by several carefully anonymous agents.”

She understood. The scattered debts had been gathered, concentrated, transformed from a collection of nuisances into a weapon.

“I didn’t realise you’d already…” She stopped. What had she expected? That she would share intelligence and nothing would happen? That her observations were academic exercises, theoretical problems to be discussed over wine and candlelight?

“You provided the map.” His voice was calm, almost gentle. “I built the road.”

She should feel alarmed. The machinery was already in motion. Instead, she felt something else entirely, something warm and unsettling, the knowledge that he had been working on her behalf, quietly, efficiently, while she slept.

“What happens next?”

“Tonight, the city guard will conduct a raid on the gaming house your brother frequents. They have received information about illegal gambling operations, unlicensed money-lending, and possible connections to foreign agents.”

“Foreign agents?” She turned to look at him. “Dorian is many things, but he isn’t a traitor.”

“The documents they will find suggest otherwise.” Evander’s expression did not change. “Some of them are quite genuine. Others are less so. In the confusion, it will be difficult to determine which is which.”

She should object. She should say this was going too far, that she had wanted Dorian removed from succession, not destroyed by manufactured evidence.

But she thought of the grain he had sold while people starved. The bribes he had taken. The way he had laughed at her across the breakfast table, dismissing her concerns about the riots as feminine hysteria.

“And my whereabouts during this raid?”

“Already arranged.” He smiled, and the warmth in it spread through her chest like wine. “You will be at evening prayer. The Temple of the Eternal Flame, I think. Very public. Very devout.”

“I don’t pray.”

“Tonight you do.” A slight smile. “Your sister Seraine has been encouraging temple attendance for years. Perhaps her counsel has finally found fertile ground.”

The irony was not lost on her. Using Seraine’s piety as cover for bringing down Dorian. She wondered if that made it better or worse.

“I would come with you,” he added, “but my presence would draw attention. You must be seen alone. Devout. Untouchable.”

Untouchable. The word echoed strangely. She thought of his hand around hers on the balcony. The way she had leaned into his warmth. All the places where she wanted to be touched.

“I understand,” she said.

“You always do.” His voice was soft, almost tender. “That is why this works.”

This. Whatever this was. The lessons. The conspiracy. The way he looked at her when no one else was watching.

She did not ask which one he meant.

The Temple of the Eternal Flame rose against the winter sky, its spires catching the last grey light of afternoon.

Ilyra climbed the steps slowly, Mira two paces behind. Other worshippers moved around them, nobles in fine cloaks, merchants in practical wool, servants running errands for households more devout than their own. The temple welcomed all, in theory. In practice, the wealthy sat closer to the altar.

Inside, incense hung heavy in the air. Candles flickered in alcoves, casting dancing shadows across stone walls that had stood for centuries. Ilyra found a place near the front, where she would be seen, and knelt on the cold marble.

She did not pray.

She thought of him.

The priest’s voice rose and fell in ancient cadences. Around her, voices murmured the evening liturgy. She moved her lips, shaping words she did not mean, but her mind was elsewhere. The brush of his shoulder against hers. The scent of sandalwood and stone. The way his smile had reached his eyes when he said that is why this works.

Focus, she told herself. You are here for a purpose.

But the purpose felt distant. Abstract. What felt real was the memory of his voice, low and resonant. The pressure of his hand when he had taken hers on the balcony. The ache of wanting something she could not name.

She knelt until her knees went numb, and still her thoughts circled back to him.

Seraine would be pleased, she thought distantly. Her wayward sister, finally seeking the Light. But the light she was seeking had nothing to do with the temple’s flames.

An hour passed. Two. She knelt and stood and knelt again, performing devotion she did not feel. The temple slowly emptied as evening deepened into night. Still she remained, the very picture of a princess in crisis, seeking divine guidance.

Let them see. Let them remember. Princess Ilyra, at prayer, while her brother’s world collapsed.

She wondered if Evander was thinking of her too.

When at last she rose, her legs were stiff and her mind was hollow. A temple attendant nodded respectfully as she passed.

She returned to her chambers. Waited.

The hours stretched. She tried to read. The words blurred together. She tried to sleep. Her mind would not settle, not on Dorian, not on the raid, but on the way Evander had said I would come with you. As if he had wanted to. As if being apart from her was a sacrifice.

You are being absurd, she told herself. He is your teacher. Your ally. Nothing more.

But she could not stop wondering where he was. What he was doing. Whether he was thinking of her the way she was thinking of him.

Mira brought tea near midnight. She set down the tray without speaking, her movements efficient, economical. Gone was the woman who had once volunteered news from the servants’ hall, who had trusted Ilyra with whispers about the bread district.

“Is there something?” Ilyra asked. She had learned to read Mira’s silences.

A hesitation. Mira’s hands stilled on the tray.

“There’s commotion in the court, my Lady.” The words came slowly, as if each one cost her something. “Something about Prince Dorian.”

“What sort of commotion?”

Mira’s eyes met hers, and in them Ilyra saw something new. Not the shared understanding of the rooftop, not the grief they had carried together through the bread district. Something colder. Something that looked, for a moment, like judgement.

“The guards are talking about a raid. A gaming house in the lower district. They say the Prince was there when the authorities arrived.”

“I see.”

“Will you need anything else, my Lady?”

“No.” A pause. “You may go.”

Mira curtseyed and withdrew. She did not glance back. Ilyra sat alone in the candlelight, hands wrapped around a cup of tea she did not drink.

She should be thinking about Dorian. About what would happen tomorrow. About the consequences of what they had set in motion.

Instead, she thought: I wish he were here.

The court buzzed like a hive disturbed.

Ilyra arrived as the bells struck the ninth hour, dressed simply, her expression arranged in careful concern. She had practised it in the mirror. The antechambers were thick with nobles in various states of agitation, clusters of silk and whispers that fell silent as she passed.

“Arrested,” someone murmured. “In a criminal establishment.”

“Documents seized. Letters to foreign agents.”

“Treason. They’re saying treason.”

She moved through the crowd, invisible as always. Occasionally someone glanced at her, then away, their attention drawn to more important matters. The youngest princess. The forgotten one. Not worth noticing.

Today, that suited her.

Her eyes searched the crowd without her permission. Looking for him. A dark coat, that familiar stride, the particular way he held himself. She caught herself and stopped. This was not the time.

Cassian stood in a corner, alone, his face the colour of ash. He did not see her. He did not see anything. One hand pressed flat against the wall behind him, as if he needed something solid to keep him upright. His lips moved slightly, forming words that made no sound.

She watched him longer than she should have.

Cataloguing. The shock. The disbelief. The slight sway when he shifted his weight. The moment he closed his eyes and opened them again, as if hoping the world might have rearranged itself in the darkness.

They had always been together. Two halves of a single whole. She had never considered what happened to one when the other was torn away.

She filed the observation for later.

Seraine passed her in the corridor, her lips curved in something that was not quite a smile. “The Light exposes sin,” she said, loud enough for the nearby nobles to hear. “Divine justice cannot be escaped.”

Alistair was nowhere to be seen. With their father, Ilyra assumed. Managing the crisis. Protecting the family name. Doing the practical work while the court whispered and watched.

She found a quiet alcove near the windows, where the winter light fell grey and cold across the marble floor. She stood there, apart from the chaos, observing.

A familiar presence appeared at her side.

Her heart lifted before her mind could catch up.

“You’re here,” she said, without turning. Relief washed through her, so sudden and so strong it surprised her.

“I am always here.” He moved to stand beside her, and his presence was like stepping out of the cold into a room with a fire. Solid. Warm. Safe.

I am always here.

She turned the words over, savouring them. They sounded like a promise. They felt like a promise. Even if some distant part of her mind whispered that he had not actually promised anything at all.

They stood in silence, watching the court swirl around them. He stood close enough that their sleeves almost brushed. She was acutely aware of that narrow gap, that fraction of distance he maintained. She wanted to close it. She did not.

Something like triumph and something like nausea fought for dominance. Neither won.

“It worked,” she said quietly.

“It did.”

“He was arrested. There will be a trial.”

“There will be a judgement.” A pause. “Trials are for those whose guilt is in question.”

She closed her eyes. Behind them, the images played: Dorian’s bewildered face, the documents spread across a magistrate’s table, the whispers that would follow him for the rest of his life.

This was what she had wanted.

So why did it taste like ash?

The great hall had been prepared for formal session.

Ilyra took her place among the observers, positioned near the back where she could see without being seen. A vantage point. The court had gathered in force, nobles in their finest, eager to witness the spectacle of a prince’s disgrace.

Her parents occupied the throne. Her father looked tired, his eyes hollow, his hands gripping the armrests as if they were all that kept him upright. Her mother’s face was stone.

Dorian was brought forward.

He looked smaller than she remembered. Diminished. The fine clothes he had worn to the gaming house were rumpled now, his hair dishevelled, his face marked by a night without sleep. He moved like a man uncertain whether he was still dreaming.

“Your Imperial Majesty.” The Chancellor stepped forward, documents in hand. “The evidence recovered from the premises includes substantial gambling debts to known criminal elements, correspondence with representatives of foreign powers, and financial records suggesting embezzlement from Crown accounts.”

“This is madness,” Dorian said. His voice cracked on the word. “Father, you must listen. I was there, yes, but the letters, I never wrote those letters. Someone has…”

“Silence.” The Empress’s voice was cold. Distant. The voice of a woman who had waited years for an excuse and finally received one.

The evidence was presented. Debts enumerated. Connections mapped. The foreign correspondence read aloud, damning words in what appeared to be Dorian’s hand. Ilyra watched her brother’s face as each accusation landed, watched the confusion give way to fear, the fear to desperate denial.

Some of the documents were genuine. She knew which ones. The debts. The gambling. The money skimmed from provincial accounts. Those were real crimes.

The foreign letters were something else.

She watched. Noted. Kept her expression appropriately concerned.

“The council has reviewed the evidence,” the Chancellor continued. “We recommend that His Highness Prince Dorian Aurelios be stripped of all titles and positions, removed from the line of succession, and exiled to the eastern provinces for a period of no less than ten years.”

“This is madness,” Dorian said again, but quieter now. “This is…”

“The Crown accepts the council’s recommendation.” The Emperor did not look at his son, his voice tired and face distant. “The sentence is to be carried out immediately.”

Guards stepped forward. Dorian stumbled back, then caught himself, straightening with what dignity remained.

“I am innocent of treason,” he said. “Whatever else I may have done, I am not a traitor. Someone has done this to me. Someone…”

His eyes swept the hall. Searching for allies. Searching for help.

They passed over Cassian, who stood frozen, one hand twitching at his side as if reaching for something he could not grasp. Over Seraine, whose face held only satisfaction. Over Alistair, who watched with military blankness.

Over Ilyra.

For a moment, their eyes met. She saw confusion. Fear. The desperate hope that someone, anyone, would speak for him.

She saw the moment he dismissed her. The youngest. The invisible one. What could she possibly do?

He looked away. He had never really seen her at all.

“It is done,” the Emperor announced. “This session is concluded.”

The guards led Dorian away. The court began to disperse, nobles murmuring, already composing the stories they would tell. Ilyra remained where she stood, watching the space where her brother had been.

She had been so invisible that she could destroy him without ever being suspected.

Exactly as she guessed would happen.

The gallery overlooked the palace gates.

Ilyra stood at the stone railing, watching the courtyard below. Grey winter light fell from an overcast sky, muting the colours of the world, turning everything to shades of ash and shadow. Behind her, Mira waited near the doorway, her shawl wrapped tight against the winter draft that crept through the old stones.

Dorian’s carriage was being loaded. A simple vehicle, unmarked, nothing like the gilded coaches that usually bore members of the imperial family. Servants moved around it with efficient haste, carrying the few possessions a disgraced prince was permitted to take into exile.

There was no honour guard. No delegation of nobles. No ceremony at all, only the quiet efficiency of removal.

Dorian emerged from the palace, flanked by guards. He paused at the carriage door, looking back at the walls that had been his home, the only home he had ever known. His face held an expression she could not read. Grief, perhaps. Or the dawning understanding that his life, as he had known it, was over.

He did not look up.

She watched him climb into the carriage. Watched the door close behind him. Watched the driver take up the reins and the horses begin to move, hooves clattering on the cobblestones.

The carriage passed through the gates. Turned onto the grey winter street beyond. Disappeared.

Relief flooded through her, so intense it made her dizzy. He was gone. Not dead, just gone. Removed from the succession, removed from the court, removed from her path.

The guilt followed, as she had known it would.

I did this.

Her hands gripped the stone railing. The leather of her gloves creaked against the cold stone.

Footsteps behind her. Measured. Familiar.

Her heart lifted before she could stop it.

“It’s done,” she said, without turning.

Footsteps drew closer. Then he was beside her, and the world felt steadier for his presence. The cold seemed less bitter. The guilt seemed less sharp. He made everything easier just by being near.

“Yes,” he said. “It is.”

She had expected something more. Triumph, perhaps. Or the relief she felt flooding through her own chest. Instead, his voice was simply calm. Matter-of-fact. As if they had concluded a business arrangement rather than destroyed a prince.

“I thought it would feel different,” she admitted.

“How did you think it would feel?”

She searched for the word. “Triumphant. Justified.” A pause. “Not hollow.”

“Ah.” He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “You did what was necessary. What was right. That rarely feels the way we expect it to.”

“He’s going to spend the rest of his life in exile. Because of me.”

“Because of his choices.” His hand found her shoulder, the weight of it warm through the fabric of her dress. The touch anchored her. “You exposed corruption. You protected the empire from a threat it could not see. The consequences are his to carry, not yours.”

You exposed corruption. You protected the empire.

She had done more than expose, she had helped manufacture. But somehow, when he said these words, they felt true. They felt justified. They felt like absolution.

She wanted to believe him. More than she should.

“Cassian looked…” She stopped. What had Cassian looked? Broken. Lost. Like a man watching half of himself disappear through those gates.

“Grief makes people unpredictable.” Evander’s voice was careful. “Your siblings will need time to adjust. They may look at you differently now.”

“Differently?”

“You were invisible before. The youngest. The forgotten one.” His thumb traced a small circle on her shoulder, and her body stilled. “Now you have shown you can act. Some will respect that. Others…”

“Others will fear it.”

“Perhaps.” His hand squeezed gently, then released her. The absence of his touch felt like loss. “Be watchful in the coming weeks. Be careful who you trust. Courts have long memories, and not everyone will be pleased that Dorian is gone.”

It was sensible advice. But she found herself focused on something else entirely. Be careful who you trust. Did he include himself in that warning? Or was he the exception?

The winter wind picked up, cutting through the gallery. She shivered.

His hand found her elbow, steadying. A brief pressure, nothing more.

The gesture was simple. Proper. The kind of thing anyone might do for someone cold. But she felt it everywhere, that point of contact through fabric and leather. She wanted more. She did not ask for it.

He smelled of sandalwood. And beneath it, that other scent, the one like cellars and earth and freshness after rain. She breathed it in, let it fill her lungs. Memorised it.

Somewhere behind them, Mira’s shawl rustled. The chaperone’s presence made even this small contact innocent, and that was enough.

She found herself leaning slightly toward him, drawn by gravity she could not name.

This is what it feels like, she thought. To have someone.

She had spent her whole life alone. Invisible. Forgotten. And now there was this. His hand touching her. His presence against the cold. His voice in her ear, low and sure, telling her she had done right.

Be careful who you trust. But she trusted him. She trusted him completely. How could she not, when he was the only one who had ever seen her?

Somewhere beyond the gates, the carriage bearing her brother rolled east. He would travel for weeks. He would live out his days in some distant province, drinking himself into obscurity. And she would remain here, in the palace, moving through the court she was finally learning to navigate.

She should be thinking about what came next. The other siblings. The path to the throne. The empire she wanted to build.

But all she could think about was the solid presence of him. The yearning for more. The desire to embrace him. She mentally shook her head and pushed those feelings aside.

It is done, she told herself. It is over.

But something else was just beginning. Something she did not have a name for yet. Something that had nothing to do with politics or power, and everything to do with the way her heart raced when he was near.

The wind cut deeper. She pressed closer to him.

I could stay like this, she thought. I could stay like this forever.

And for a long moment, watching the empty street where her brother had disappeared, she let herself believe that she could.