The echo of Serene's departure was still vibrating in the air when Lucius breached the Empress's chambers. He didn't knock. He didn't ask. The door slammed against the wall with a violence that felt like a bone snapping—the final break in a barrier that had stood for twenty years.
Alisha didn't even flinch. She was at her vanity, leaning into the mirror, dabbing at her skin with a cotton pad. She was meticulous, calm, cleaning her face as if she were wiping away the sweat of a minor inconvenience—not the blood and wreckage of an entire lineage.
"Alisha."
His voice wasn't a shout. It was worse. It was a dry, hollow sound, the rattle of a man who had realized he'd been breathing poison for half his life.
