The palace had excellent timing.
By which I mean it chose the exact moment my life became unbearable in the most interesting possible way to throw me into a room full of merchants, nobles, hidden tension, and enough political landmines to blow us all back into separate kingdoms.
Naturally.
By the time Axel and I reached the east hall, word had already outrun us.
Not about the kiss in the training yard—though I had no faith whatsoever in the stable boys' discretion.
About the room change.
About the increased screening.
About the fact that every servant in the palace was moving with the brittle speed of people trying very hard to pretend they were not aware that a symbolic public audience might become an ideal place for a rebel message written in blood.
The east hall itself was brighter than the old receiving chamber, but no less intimidating.
Tall windows lined one side, spilling pale afternoon light over polished floors and long blue banners edged in gold. Two wide exits stood at opposite ends of the room, exactly as Joren had wanted, and a third, smaller servants' door had guards posted near it with expressions that said they were prepared to tackle their own grandmothers if necessary.
Good.
At least someone here had sensible priorities.
The guests had already begun to gather.
Marla stood near the center of the room with her hands clasped in front of her apron, looking deeply unimpressed by every chandelier in sight. Farron lingered closer to the wall, coat brushed cleaner than usual but still unmistakably himself, his sharp eyes missing nothing. A cooper I vaguely recognized from Axel's list stood beside a grain merchant with weathered hands and suspicious posture, as if neither of them had yet decided whether being invited here was an honor or a trap.
Mixed among them, like poison carefully measured into a stronger drink, were the nobles.
Lord Kerren wore the expression of a man personally insulted by bread. Lady Mirelle stood poised near one of the windows in dark silk, elegant and watchful as a blade dressed for supper. Two other Darkstorm lords I didn't know hovered nearby, clearly regretting every life choice that had led them to share air with fishmongers.
I almost smiled.
"This is going to go badly," Axel murmured beside me.
I kept my face smooth. "You say that as if it narrows anything down."
His mouth twitched.
At the far end of the hall, Lucia stood with Darius and my parents, every inch the queen she had always been—composed, severe, and probably mentally rearranging the room to place me somewhere more containable.
Too late.
A servant announced us.
Every conversation bent.
Not stopped.
Bent.
That was somehow worse.
I stepped into the room with Axel at my side and felt the shift in attention hit like heat. This was different from the market. The market had watched with suspicion and hunger and rawness. This room watched with calculation.
Here, everyone was already deciding what to do with whatever happened next.
Lucia moved first.
Of course she did.
"Princess Rome," she said coolly, loud enough to draw the room neatly into her orbit, "Prince Axel. How lovely that you could join us."
There were at least six insults hidden in that sentence.
I smiled anyway. "I would hate to miss my own experiment."
A faint ripple moved through the merchants. One of the nobles looked scandalized.
Lucia's eyes sharpened. "Let us hope it proves worthwhile."
"Most honest things usually do," I replied.
Axel coughed very softly beside me.
Darius looked as though he was suppressing a sigh. My father looked as though he was suppressing amusement. My mother looked like she'd accepted this was simply the child she had raised and there was no undoing it now.
"Shall we begin?" Darius said before Lucia could decide whether to stab me with etiquette.
We moved to the long arrangement of chairs and tables that had been set near the center of the hall.
Not a throne arrangement.
Good.
Lucia had wanted elevation. Distance. Symbolism.
Instead, there were two long tables forming an open square, forcing everyone into proximity whether they liked it or not.
Also good.
I took my seat beside Axel, with my parents on one side and Darius and Lucia on the other. The merchants and workers were placed opposite a row of nobles, which meant Marla was directly across from Lord Kerren.
I had never seen a table setting improve so dramatically.
There was a moment of silence as servants poured water and withdrew.
Then Lucia, because she would rather eat broken glass than surrender an opening, folded her hands and said, "We are gathered to hear concerns from the western quarter and to discuss how the united crown may better serve the people."
The phrase united crown landed in the room with all the warmth of a tax collector.
"Speak freely," Darius added. "That is why you are here."
Kerren looked as if this promise should have come with qualifications.
At first, no one moved.
Then Marla did.
She placed both flour-rough hands on the table and said, "If we're speaking freely, then I'll start."
Excellent.
She looked first at me.
Then Axel.
Then, very deliberately, at Lucia.
"The west quarter doesn't need more speeches about peace," she said. "It needs roads that don't swallow cart wheels whole, taxes that don't rise every time a lord gets nervous, and guards who know the difference between a hungry boy and a criminal."
A few merchants nodded immediately.
One noble made a sound of offended disbelief.
Marla ignored him.
"Our costs are rising," she continued. "Grain vanishes before it reaches the stalls. Coin moves through the market in ways no one can trace cleanly. And every time something goes wrong, someone from a noble house suggests more restrictions, more checkpoints, more hands in our ledgers."
She sat back slightly.
"That doesn't feel like protection. It feels like slow suffocation."
Silence.
Honest, living silence.
Lucia's expression did not change, but I saw the small stillness in her shoulders that meant she was listening harder than she wanted anyone to know.
Lord Kerren, naturally, could not bear this for more than a heartbeat.
"If merchant losses concern you," he said stiffly, "perhaps the quarter should do a better job rooting out its own criminal elements instead of expecting the crown to solve every inconvenience."
Marla turned her head and looked at him with a kind of pity I aspire to one day.
"Inconvenience?" she repeated. "My lord, if bread goes missing, children go hungry. If guards shake down the wrong carts because they're bored or frightened, entire streets lose food for a week. Your inconvenience is a delayed silk delivery. Ours is starvation with better wording."
The cooper beside her made a choking noise that sounded suspiciously like agreement.
Kerren went red.
I folded my hands in my lap to keep from smiling openly.
Farron leaned forward then, voice rough and level.
"The west doesn't expect miracles," he said. "We expect patterns. When coin disappears, when extra grain gets bought up by houses that don't need it, when strangers circle the old well twice and vanish, we notice."
That sharpened the room instantly.
Lucia's gaze pinned him. "Strangers?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," Farron said. "Workers by their dress. Not by their eyes."
Joren, standing unobtrusively near the side wall, went very still.
Axel spoke before Lucia could seize the whole thread.
"How often?" he asked.
"Enough," Farron replied. "Not enough to panic the market. Enough to know someone is measuring it."
There it was.
The same word Adam had used.
Measuring.
Across the table, Lady Mirelle sat with her fingers loosely curved around her cup, watching every face.
"Perhaps," she said smoothly, "the greater concern is not merely unrest in the quarter, but who benefits from encouraging that unrest."
"Who indeed," my mother said mildly.
Mirelle's smile did not falter.
I leaned in slightly. "If we are asking that question honestly, then we must include everyone who profits from fear. Rebels. Smugglers. And noble houses whose trade routes improve whenever smaller merchants are squeezed out."
A delicate little silence followed.
Kerren looked personally attacked.
He should have.
Darius glanced at me once, something like reluctant approval passing across his face.
"Do you have evidence of such profiteering?" one of the other nobles asked.
"Do you have evidence that the market's suffering is accidental?" I replied.
He shut his mouth.
Axel took the opening.
"We will audit the western grain routes," he said. "Quietly. Independently. Not through the houses currently profiting from them."
That landed harder than any raised voice could have.
Kerren stiffened. "On whose authority?"
Axel turned his head.
The room cooled.
"Mine," he said.
Simple.
Flat.
Final.
For one bright second, I almost loved him for it.
Marla's brows rose. Farron's expression changed by half a degree. Lady Mirelle looked pleased in the way a cat might look pleased if the furniture finally caught fire.
Lucia was unreadable.
Which was much worse than angry.
The discussion moved after that, but not easily.
A river shipment manager described missing manifests.
A cooper spoke about guard harassment near the lower lanes.
One of the grain merchants described buying pressure from unnamed buyers using middlemen and too much cash.
Each complaint built on the last.
Not chaos.
Pattern.
By the time the servants brought fresh water, the room had stopped pretending this was a symbolic listening exercise and begun realizing it might become administrative warfare.
Which, to be fair, is my favorite kind.
And then everything tilted.
It was small at first.
A servant entered through the side door carrying a tray.
Nothing unusual.
Except Joren's head turned an inch too fast.
And the servant—young, plain-faced, forgettable in exactly the way dangerous people preferred—hesitated for one fraction of a second when he saw how many eyes were on the room.
That was all.
But all was enough.
Joren moved.
"Stop!" he barked.
The tray hit the floor.
Porcelain shattered.
Someone screamed.
And the servant ran.
Chaos detonated.
Guards surged from the walls like arrows loosed all at once. Merchants shoved back from the table; nobles lurched to their feet in outrage and confusion. Axel was up instantly, one arm catching the back of my chair as he turned toward the movement.
The servant hit the nearest guard with surprising force, slamming him aside and bolting for the side exit.
"Alive!" Lucia snapped, rising.
Good luck with that, I thought.
Joren was already in pursuit, two more guards at his heels.
But the real horror was not the fleeing servant.
It was what had spilled from the shattered tray.
Not cups.
Not water.
A small cylindrical device wrapped in cloth and twine, rolling once across the polished floor before coming to rest beneath the edge of the table.
For one heartbeat, no one moved.
Then everyone did.
"Down!" Axel shouted.
He grabbed me hard and yanked me sideways just as the first mage threw up a shield.
The blast was not large.
But indoors, it didn't need to be.
The sound cracked through the east hall like the world splitting open. Heat slapped across my skin. Glass shattered from one of the high windows. The shield held most of it, but not all.
I hit the floor with Axel half over me, my ears ringing so violently the room went silent for a second even though I knew people were shouting.
Dust rained down.
Someone was crying.
Someone else was cursing in three languages.
I pushed up on my elbows, dazed.
Axel's hand was still braced over my shoulder, body tense, eyes scanning the room with lethal focus.
"You hurt?" he demanded.
"I—" I coughed. "No. You?"
He shook his head once.
Across the room, one of the nobles had gone sprawling under his chair. Farron was on his feet, dragging Marla away from the worst of the debris. Lucia stood upright amid the smoke like fury given human shape, one hand on Olivia's shoulder where she had shoved her behind a pillar.
Of course even explosions organized themselves around her.
My mother was kneeling beside a merchant who had caught shattered glass in his arm. My father and Darius were shouting for the doors to be sealed.
The hall stank of smoke and scorched cloth.
Then, through the haze, I saw it.
On the far wall.
Where the blast had blackened the plaster, something red had bloomed through the smoke in ugly, deliberate strokes.
A broken crown.
Split down the center.
Painted before the explosion, revealed by it.
Not an attack meant to kill us all.
A message.
A display.
The room saw it all at once.
The gasp that moved through nobles and merchants alike felt colder than the blast.
Lucia's face went absolutely still.
Which terrified me more than the bomb had.
"They were in the room long before that servant ran," I said, the realization hitting hard and sharp. "The wall was marked before the blast."
Axel followed my gaze.
His expression darkened.
"Inside help," he said.
Not a question.
A verdict.
Joren reappeared at the side door, breathing hard, one sleeve torn and blood on his jaw.
"He jumped the lower stair and vanished into the kitchens," he said. "Two more guards down there. One dead."
The word dead seemed to ripple outward.
Marla swore under her breath.
Darius closed his eyes for half a second.
Lucia looked at Joren. "Lock every internal gate," she said. "No one leaves the palace grounds without my order. Search the servants' quarters, the kitchens, every godsforsaken corridor."
"And the guests?" Kerren asked, voice thin with outrage. "Surely you cannot mean to confine us all—"
Lucia turned her head.
I have seen hawks look gentler.
"You were just attacked inside my palace, my lord," she said. "You may be confined, questioned, or used as bait. Choose the option that offends you least."
He shut his mouth.
God, I almost admired her.
Almost.
The room was moving again now—guards checking doors, healers rushing forward, servants trembling in corners. But the real damage had already settled.
Not in the shattered glass.
Not in the scorched floor.
In the faces around the table.
The merchants had come into the palace suspicious.
Now they were leaving with proof.
The crown could not even protect them inside its own walls.
And whoever the broken crown really was, they had just reached through all of Lucia's polished control and written their symbol in smoke across her audience chamber.
Marla met my eyes across the room.
There was no accusation there.
Which somehow felt worse.
Only calculation.
What now?
Axel was already rising, pulling me with him.
"Rome," he said low enough for only me to hear, "this changes everything."
I looked at the symbol on the wall.
At the merchants.
At Olivia, pale but furious.
At Lucia, standing in the center of the wreckage like a queen whose enemies had just touched her crown.
"No," I said quietly.
His eyes flicked to mine.
"It reveals everything," I corrected.
For a second, he just stared.
Then something in his face settled. Not calm.
Resolve.
Lucia turned toward us.
Toward me, specifically.
I braced for blame.
For control.
For some cold, lethal order about appearances and containment.
Instead, she looked at the wall, then back at me, and said the last thing I expected:
"Well, girl," she said, voice like drawn steel, "it seems they've decided to stop whispering."
I straightened.
Smoke curled toward the ceiling.
The broken crown glared red and raw from the plaster.
Across the ruined table, Farron stood with his hands braced on the wood, Marla at his side, both of them watching me the way the whole west market had watched me on the fountain.
Not waiting to be reassured.
Waiting to see whether I would step forward or be folded back into silk and distance.
My pulse steadied.
Good.
If the broken crown wanted a spectacle, then they had made one.
But they had also just handed me something I could use.
Not safety.
Not control.
Truth.
Someone inside the palace was helping them.
Someone with access. Timing. Knowledge.
And now everyone in this room knew it.
I looked at Axel.
At Lucia.
At the ruined hall and the painted symbol and the merchants who had nearly died under our protection.
Then I said, very clearly:
"Seal the palace."
Every face turned toward me.
I didn't look away.
"No one leaves," I said. "Not nobles. Not servants. Not guards. Not us. If the broken crown wants us divided, they don't get to scatter us first."
Kerren looked appalled. "You cannot possibly imprison the entire court—"
"I can," I said, "and I'm starting with anyone who objects too loudly."
A dangerous, almost delighted hush followed.
I looked at Joren. "Search every corridor. Every records room. Every servant entrance. Cross-check schedules against kitchen access and guest routes." Then at Olivia: "I want every last-minute staff change from the last three days."
Her chin lifted. "Done."
Then I looked at Farron and Marla.
"I invited you here to be heard," I said. "I'm sorry for what happened under this roof. But if you walk out now thinking this changes our responsibility to you, it doesn't. It makes it sharper."
Marla studied me for a long moment, then gave one short nod.
"Good," she said. "Because if you retreat now, the market will never come when you call again."
Fair.
Axel stepped beside me fully then, shoulder brushing mine, voice carrying through the smoke.
"You heard her," he said. "Seal it."
And just like that, the room moved.
Not smoothly.
Not cleanly.
But decisively.
The trap had snapped.
Now we were all inside it together.
And somewhere in the palace, behind silk curtains and servant passages and polished lies, the broken crown was still breathing.
Good.
So was I.