The scream tore through the stale air, a thin, jagged thread that pulled Taryath forward. Ravash, seeing through her eyes, mirrored her exact turn, his solid frame a warm press against her back. Through her senses, he tracked the flare of Zeshi's white robes disappearing up the spiral. Shalira’s next cry was closer, louder, cut short by a choked gasp. “The hatch,” Ravash’s voice rumbled, a low current directly in her mind. His hand clamped onto her arm, his intention clear. The drainage shaft yawned open behind them, smelling of brine and rust. “No,” Taryath said, severing her own escape route with a word. Shalira’s scream had been too real, too raw. Zeshi’s frame cut against the upper torchlight, steel gleaming along her knuckles. Shalira was there, too, a bright, vulnerable figure. Taryath took the treads three at a time, Ravash matching her pace shoulder-to-shoulder. But the image of Shalira, the girl Taryath had meant to use as a shield, as a path to Ravash’s political stability, was sharper than any future. They burst onto the upper landing. The audience hall stretched before them, black basalt ribbed with gilt. Sentinels clad in dark plate hemmed the central dais. Upon the leviathan-bone seat sat Karis himself, broad-shouldered and flat-eyed. Zeshi stood over Shalira, who was half-fallen on the polished floor, her hands bound, a glinting shard of Ash-steel already pressed to her throat. “She tried to trick you, Your Radiance!” Zeshi shrieked, her voice shrill, twisting the narrative with desperate speed. “This foreign witch, Taryath, conspired with the blind bastard prince to usurp your throne!” “Silence, priestess,” Karis drawled, his chin resting on one calloused hand, gaze pinned to the steel. “Release the Princess. Your treachery has run its course.” Zeshi’s eyes darted, wild and cornered. “No! I carry the Sunken Word! I know the truth! This… *Taryath*… she is a traitor, a Blood-weaver of the deepest kind! She swapped faces with the true villainess to hide her crimes!” The blade moved, a quick, vicious arc. Taryath didn’t think. Her hand shot out, not toward the blade itself, but toward Zeshi’s wrist, twisting hard. Ravash’s strength, channeled through her, made the snap of bone audible even over the panicked murmurs of the guards. The Ash-steel blade clattered to the floor. Taryath kicked it away with a practiced flick of her boot. “She lies,” Taryath stated, her voice calm despite the throbbing pain in her palm. Ravash’s gaze, her gaze, narrowed on Zeshi, seeing the sweat slick on her temple, the tremors in her remaining hand. “This ‘Dawn Oracle’ orchestrated the original face-swap herself. She replaced the true villainess, Lyna of the Whispering Sands, with me. Why? To hide Lyna’s true target: Princess Shalira.” Shalira, still on the ground, looked up, brows knotting in sharp focus. “The prophecy!” she gasped. “The one Zeshi delivered, about the ‘foreign witch’ stealing my identity… it was her own plan!” Zeshi lunged again, a desperate, animalistic strike, but Taryath was faster. Ravash’s sight, precise and cold, saw every tremor in Zeshi’s muscles. Taryath grabbed Zeshi’s collar, yanking her forward, then shoved her roughly toward Shalira. Shalira, despite her bound hands, reacted with a shocking burst of fury. Her foot lashed out, catching Zeshi hard in the knee. The woman crumpled against the floor, shrieking. “You wanted to replace me, Zeshi?” Shalira spat, her voice ringing with newfound power, her eyes blazing. “Wanted to take my place at Karis's side and rule the fortress? You think you could fool *me*?” With a vicious kick, Shalira sent Zeshi sprawling, her head hitting the obsidian floor with a sickening thud. The sentries shifted, spears lowering toward the bruised priestess. Karis leaned forward, his expression unreadable. “A tidy turn, Princess Shalira,” Karis said dryly. “Seize the charlatan. Clear the floor.” Two soldiers dragged Zeshi back by her cowl, her fractured limb hanging limp. Karis’s gaze then settled on Taryath, cold and assessing. “As for you, ‘Taryath’… your confession of being Lyna’s replacement, regardless of who orchestrated it, means you confess to treason against Qal-Tesh. A heinous crime. Cut down the imposter.” Pikes leveled, iron ringed Taryath from three sides. Beside her, Ravash’s skin ran burning hot; iron filings in the mortar began to vibrate in sympathy with his pulse. Suddenly, the colossal doors to the throne room, carved with ancient pictographs of the Sunken Ziggurat, exploded inward. Splinters of ancient wood flew like shrapnel, embedding themselves in the far wall with violent cracks. A cloud of fine Ash-dust billowed into the grand hall, momentarily obscuring the entrance. From the swirling grit, a figure emerged. Plate forged from raw slag encased him, humming with harnessed essence. A linen strip covered his ruined eyes, yet his stride did not waver. Iron greaves struck the stone steps in measured, heavy beats. A jagged Ash-steel blade rested flat across Karis’s throat.

The Siege of the Throne