The Queen doesn't rise. She doesn't need to. Her frail figure on the throne exudes enough force to silence every breath in the room.
"You dare speak of the King's heart when you know nothing of his loyalty?" she says, cold and steel-edged. "You call yourself brave, Johnson? You are nothing but a coward with a dagger under his cloak and blood on his hands. Take him."
The guards advance.
Johnson struggles for a moment, but it's pitiful and laughable. He twists toward the two councilmen he named, hoping for a last thread of solidarity but neither James nor Cumain rises to his defense. They sit stone still, unreadable.
I lean back slightly as Johnson is dragged past us, spewing curses under his breath. But Cassian rises.
"In my capacity as Crown Prince," he says clearly, his voice firm, "I call for a full internal investigation. Any member of this court or the military who knowingly colluded with Lord Johnson's treason will be identified… and punished with the full weight of the law."
No gavel is needed. His words slam down with finality.
Then, before the guards can reach for Bako, I stand.
I feel the air shift. The eyes of the entire hall lock onto me. Cassian turns slightly, maybe confused at first… but he doesn't stop me.
I walk toward the man who once guarded my husband's doors. Who smuggled himself into my nightmares with his shadows and silence.
Bako stands tall, unmoved. His lip curls faintly into a smirk; the kind a man wears when he thinks he's already won… or still dreams of claiming the woman he was never meant to touch.
I stop in front of him. Look him dead in the eye.
"My diary," I say flatly.
He blinks. His smirk twitches. "What?"
"You heard me," I reply.
The room holds its breath. Bako stares at me long and hard, then slowly reaches into his uniform and pulls out the now worn and battered little booklet.
I snatch it from his hand.
Then, before the guards can stop me, I slap him. Hard.
The crack echoes across the marble like a whip. Gasps rise everywhere.
Bako's head jerks with the force of it. He blinks, jaw twitching… and then, he smirks again, like a man who enjoys pain more than dignity.
"Put both of them in the dungeon," Cassian says coolly from behind me.
The guards seize him at once, none too gently this time.
As they drag Bako away, I turn slowly to face Nancy, still standing near the Queen's dais, silent, tear-streaked, trembling.
Her hands are clasped in front of her. She doesn't move. She doesn't plead.
Because she knows… her fate is in my hands.
And I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet.
***
The moment Lord Johnson and Bako are dragged out of the Grand Hall, the silence they leave behind hangs thick and taut, as though everyone has collectively forgotten how to breathe.
My palm still tingles from the slap I landed on Bako. His sick smile lingers too long in my memory. But the weight in my other hand grounds me, my diary. My voice. My proof.
Beside me, Cassian's posture remains calm, but I see the fury carefully masked beneath his stillness. His jaw ticks faintly. His fingers flex once at his side, like he's resisting the urge to act more forcefully.
The Queen stands slowly from her throne chair, her robes sweeping with an eerie sort of grace. For a moment, she says nothing. Her eyes, sharp despite the fatigue etched into her pale face, scan the remaining council members. Lord Cumain stares fixedly at the marbled floor. Lord James looks visibly shaken, his hands clutched before him like he's just seen a ghost rise.
"Let it be known," the Queen says, her voice icily composed, "that this court has not only been misled but violated. I will summon each of you separately for private counsel. If there is rot buried deeper… we will dig until we find it."
She turns without waiting for a response. Her guards immediately fall into step behind her as she's wheeled out of the hall. She doesn't look at me once. But she doesn't need to. Her silence says enough; shame, perhaps. Or guilt.
The council begins to murmur once more.
Lord Edric exhales long and low, as though he's aged ten years in the past hour. "The gods save us," he mutters. "We let this sit too long."
The others begin to leave in a slow, stunned procession. Lord James pauses once, his gaze flicking to Cassian, then to me. I meet it without flinching. He looks away first.
At the far end of the hall, Esther approaches, her steps quiet but steady. She gives me a small, unreadable look before bowing faintly.
"I'll take her," she says simply, reaching for Nancy's arm.
Nancy looks dazed. Her lips tremble, but she says nothing as Esther gently leads her away, back toward the guest wing where she's spent the last week under house arrest, uncertain if she'll ever walk free again.
Cassian places his hand on the small of my back as we turn toward the corridor. My knees are just beginning to feel the exhaustion. He says nothing until we pass the last of the guards and reach the threshold of our private quarters.
Inside, the air feels still. Familiar.
I sink onto the velvet seat near the hearth and look down at the diary in my hands. Its cover is smudged, some pages slightly bent, but it's mine. My words. My thoughts. The pieces of me no one else has ever read.
Cassian kneels before me.
"Did you have slap him?" he asks quietly.
I nod, my throat is too tight to speak.
"How did you know he had your diary … when you walked up to Bako?"
"I just sensed it. I needed my truth back," I say, finally. "And he stole it."
Cassian reaches up, gently brushing his knuckles against my cheek. "You got it back. And now… we find the rest of the truth."
I nod again. "Tonight, I'll read every word. I need to remember what I wrote before everything went dark."
He rises and kisses my forehead.
And as he moves away to give me space, I finally let my fingers slide open the cover.
The past waits for me, written in ink and pain and unspoken warnings. And I'm ready to hear it all over.