The palace slept.
Or at least, it pretended to.
Selene walked its silent halls long after the last courtier had retired, after the last torch had guttered low, after the world outside the stone walls had folded into restless dreams.
She should have been in her chambers.
Should have been plotting her next move.
Should have been sharpening her blade for the inevitable strike.
Instead, she found herself wandering the labyrinth of corridors like a ghost trapped in its own unfinished story.
Maybe she was.
Maybe she always had been.
The night air was colder here, near the king's wing.
Colder, and heavier, thick with the scent of rain yet to fall.
Selene moved carefully, her slippers making no sound on the ancient stone floors, her hand trailing lightly along the rough-hewn walls.
The eastern tower loomed in the distance, black against the darker sky, a reminder of secrets exchanged in whispered meetings, of orders sealed in wax and burned in fire.
But she didn't turn toward it.
Her steps carried her forward, toward the great library wing that sat just adjacent to Cassian's private quarters.
Curiosity.
Madness.
Something unnamed pulled her there.
And when she heard the low murmur of a voice, raw, broken, carrying through the cracked library door, she knew she should turn away.
She didn't.
The door was ajar, just slightly.
Enough to see.
Enough to hear.
Selene pressed herself into the shadowed alcove nearby, heart pounding harder than it had on the day she buried her blade beneath her wedding gown.
Inside, Cassian stood alone.
No guards.
No advisors.
No mask.
Just Cassian Veredon, king, conqueror, and prisoner of his own throne.
He was at the far end of the library, near the tall windows overlooking the palace grounds, his figure framed by the skeletal light of a shrouded moon.
A half-empty decanter sat abandoned on the table beside him.
A map lay unfurled across the surface, sprawling, heavy with the inked blood of borders and battle plans.
Cassian's head was bowed, one hand braced against the edge of the table, the other clenched into a white-knuckled fist at his side.
Selene watched as he muttered something under his breath, too soft to catch.
Then, with a sudden, violent motion, he drove his fist into the table.
The wood groaned.
The decanter toppled.
Wine spilled across the map like blood from a fresh wound.
Cassian sank into the nearest chair, his shoulders heaving once, twice.
A broken sound tore from his throat, a hoarse, strangled thing, half a curse, half a prayer.
Selene's breath caught.
She had seen Cassian furious.
She had seen him cold, calculating, vicious.
She had never seen him broken.
Not like this.
Not even close.
Minutes passed.
An eternity.
Selene pressed her hand against her chest, trying to quiet the frantic beating of her heart.
This was not part of the plan.
This was not the man she had been ordered to betray.
This was not the monster she had been taught to hate.
This was just... a man.
A man carrying a kingdom's worth of ghosts on his shoulders.
A man bleeding where no one could see.
Selene squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the strange, reckless ache rising in her chest.
Pity.
Empathy.
Dangerous, traitorous emotions.
Cassian moved eventually.
Slowly. Heavily.
He pushed back from the table, dragging a weary hand through his hair, and crossed to the window.
He leaned one forearm against the cold glass, staring out into the night as if it might offer answers the living could not.
Selene watched him in silence.
Frozen.
Paralyzed by the terrible, shattering realization dawning inside her.
Killing a tyrant was simple.
Killing a broken man was not.
She turned away then, heart thundering in her ears, slipping back into the shadows that had once made her feel safe.
The corridors swallowed her whole as she fled, her steps swift and soundless, her breath tight and burning in her throat.
She didn't stop until she reached her chambers.
Didn't stop until the heavy oak door closed behind her with a dull, final thud.
Only then did Selene sag against it, pressing her forehead to the rough wood.
The fire in her hearth had long since gone cold.
Her room was dark and silent.
But her mind?
Her mind roared.
Cassian's broken voice.
The fist slamming into the table.
The blood-red wine bleeding across the map of his shattered kingdom.
Selene squeezed her eyes shut, her fingers curling into the fabric of her nightgown until the stitches bit into her skin.
She had made her choice the day she accepted the blade.
She had made her choice the day she whispered her vows at the altar.
She had made her choice the day she burned the parchment in the fire.
Destroy him.
Betray him.
End him.
There could be no room for doubt.
No room for pity.
No room for anything but vengeance.
And yet,
The image of Cassian standing alone in the moonlight would not leave her.
Selene forced herself to move, crossing the room with sharp, angry steps.
She stripped the heavy jewelry from her wrists, tearing the pins from her hair until it tumbled down her back in a wild, untamed wave.
The woman in the mirror watched her with hollow eyes.
Not a queen.
Not a spy.
Not a weapon.
Just a girl who no longer knew whose side she was on.
Selene slammed her palm against the mirror, shattering the image into a thousand fractured pieces.
She stood there, chest heaving, staring at her own broken reflection.
No mercy.
No weakness.
Only the mission.
Only survival.
Only the crown and the ruin that would follow.
And somewhere, buried deep beneath the layers of anger and fear and duty, a small, traitorous voice whispered:
What if you could save him instead?
Selene closed her eyes.
And prayed to gods she no longer believed in that she would find the strength to silence that voice before it destroyed them both.