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Respect, cold and hard as iron, had finally been carved into my name. But as I looked at the kneeling nobles, I felt no joy—only a sharp, uneasy knot tightening in my gut. Power in the capital was a dangerous currency, and I had just rewritten the entire ledger.

“They look at you like you’re a savior,” a low, smooth voice rasped near my ear.

I didn’t need to turn my head to know Mal had stepped up to my left. The red mark my fist had left across his jaw had faded to a pale shadow, but the way he looked at me had permanently changed.

He wasn’t looking at me like the arrogant princess he used to tease at the training grounds. He was looking at me like an asset.

“They look at me like I’m a threat,” I replied quietly, my gaze tracking a group of royal guards who were gripping their spears with white knuckles.

“Threats get respected, Tauriel. Saviors get used,” Mal murmured, leaning in slightly, his shoulder brushing mine in a gesture that appeared casual to the crowd, but was entirely deliberate. “The crown is fracturing. The King’s authority was already thin before we left for the Isles, but now? You holding the Nyxalith changes every political alliance in the provinces. The high houses are going to align themselves behind whoever stands closest to you.”

He turned his head, his golden eyes locking onto mine with a subtle, intoxicating warmth that carried a dangerous edge of calculation. “You need allies at court, Princess. People who know how to navigate the snakes in the Great Hall. You saved my life in the gully. Let me help you hold the power you just earned.”

It was a brilliant, strategic strike. Mal was playing on my long-standing isolation, offering a hand of camaraderie and political protection right when I needed it most. But beneath the earnest tone of his voice, I could feel the cold hook. He didn’t just want to protect me; he wanted to leverage my dragon, my shadow, and my newfound status to elevate his own rank within the command.

Before I could formulate a guarded response, a dark, heavy presence cut through the air between us like a drawn blade.

Caspian stepped into our space.

The High Captain moved with a slow, lethal grace that instantly forced Mal to take a half-step back. Caspian’s appearance was staggering. The golden sheen in his hair was completely gone, replaced by a deep chestnut laced with threads of midnight that seemed to absorb the sunlight. And his eyes—now a deep, breathtaking royal blue—burned with a possessive, territorial fury as he looked at Mal’s proximity to my side.

The temperature around us plummeted instantly.

“Lieutenant Varyn,” Caspian rasped, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that made the air thrum. “Marshal your command and secure the perimeter. The King’s guard is taking over the gate.”

Mal held Caspian’s stare for a long, tense second. A subtle smirk touched the corner of Mal’s lips before he bowed his head with crisp military precision.

“Understood, Captain,” Mal said smoothly. He threw a final, lingering look at me before turning on his heel and marching toward the lower vanguard ranks.

Caspian watched him go, his jaw clenching hard. He shifted his broad frame, stepping directly into my line of sight, blocking out the crowd, the gates, and the world.

“He’s using you, Trouble,” Caspian growled softly, his voice dropping to a private rasp meant for my ears alone. “Mal sees the shift in the court. He knows the council is terrified of what you carry, and he’s trying to anchor his name to yours before the high lords make their move.”

“I know what he’s doing, Cas,” I whispered, looking up into the deep storm of his eyes. “I’m not a fool.”

“Good,” Caspian breathed, leaning down until his breath hit my temple; a warm, familiar friction that sent a wave of heat straight down my spine. His hand hovered inches from the small of my back, fiercely protective, yet restrained before the eyes of the city. “Because the snakes in this keep are about to strike. The moment you mounted that Twin Eclipse, you didn’t just win a trial, Tauriel. You triggered the prophecy.”

My blood ran cold. “What prophecy?”

Caspian’s royal blue eyes darkened, a shadow flickering beneath his pupils that matched the dark scales of his Umbrax.

“The High Lords haven’t dared speak of it since the Great Schism,” Caspian rasped, his deep voice laced with a grim, suffocating dread. “The Prophecy of the Eclipse. It foretells the rise of the ones who controls light and dark—a reckoning that marks the beginning and the end. When blood divided claims the throne, the sun shall fracture, and the darkness will bleed again. The High Mages didn’t move the trial up to test us, Tauriel. They knew what you were. They were trying to slaughter you before that ancient power could fully wake—before the end could swallow their reign.”

The realization hit me like a splash of freezing water. The sudden shift in the trial’s timeline, the immediate deployment, the ruthless parameters—it hadn’t been an act of desperation against the border rings. It had been a pre-emptive execution ordered by the sovereign council to prevent the prophecy from coming to pass.

And I had walked straight through their trap, tamed the nightmare, and brought the threat directly back to their doorstep.

My father knew.

He knew what I was.

And he was playing a dangerous game, one I was fully prepared to win.

“Attention on the dais!” a herald’s voice boomed over the outer gates, shattering the heavy moment between us.

The crowd parted, dropping into a deep silence as the heavy bronze gates of the inner city swung open.

Preceded by a rank of fifty elite guards clad in gold-plated armor, the King walked out onto the high stone balcony overlooking the parade grounds.