[Warning - Gore.]

Amara was heading toward the nursery to find Silas when her world ended.

One moment the palace corridors were alive with familiar sounds: distant servants changing shifts, quiet conversations near the evening kitchens, and the low hum of ether wards woven through marble walls.

Just minutes after, chaos tore through it.

It began with the scent of iris. Soft, pale, and expensive.

Noblewomen wore this scent to ceremonies, and priests used it in temple halls to make grief smell sweeter, those left behind clinging to life like the iris scent to the walls. It moved through the palace corridors like perfume at first, delicate enough that no one panicked.

The imperial palace usually smelled of saints’ breath drifting in from the gardens, beeswax polished into old floors, ink, candle smoke, and the faint ozone that always clung to Goliath after he used ether.

This smell did not belong.

It moved through the corridor like perfume poured into a grave.

Then came the first scream.

Wet.

Short.

Cut off halfway through.

Another followed immediately after, then another, each one uglier than the last.

Amara froze as one of the corridor guards staggered into the wall. He clawed at his throat hard enough to tear skin open beneath his jaw. Blood poured from his nose in thick streams, then from his ears, dark against the gold trim of his uniform.

He collapsed twitching.

A servant stumbled around the corner, eyes unfocused and mouth hanging open. She managed three steps before dropping to her knees and vomiting something black and slick across the marble.

The ward lamps flickered overhead.

Once.

Then again. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

The palace itself seemed to choke.

The iris scent thickened.

Amara felt nausea slam into her hard enough to blur her vision.

The air was poison.

"Your Highness!"

Kamal reached her in seconds, grabbing her arm so tightly it hurt.

That terrified her almost as much as the bodies.

Kamal never touched her unless absolutely necessary. Never forgot protocol. Never let emotion show through the smooth precision of his movements.

Now he looked afraid.

"Come with me," he ordered, his voice rough. "Do not breathe deeply."

Amara stared at him in disbelief.

"Kamal—where is my mother?"

He tried pulling her away from the nursery wing.

"Your Highness, please—"

"And Silas?" she snapped, fighting him. "Where is Silas?"

His grip tightened.

That silence told her more than words.

Fear ripped through her chest so violently she nearly choked on it. Tears started to silently fall onto her cheeks as realisation that her father might be dead was sinking its teeth into her soul and mind.

"Where is my father?" she demanded. "Where is Goliath?"

Kamal’s expression broke.

"The Emperor fell," he said hoarsely. "The scent... it’s Felix. His pheromones are poisoned."

The world tilted.

No. This is impossible. Goliath couldn’t fall so easily. No.

But the iris scent flooded the corridor again, and Amara suddenly understood why the guards were collapsing.

Why the wards were dying.

Why people were bleeding from their mouths.

Felix himself was the weapon.

Amara tore free before Kamal could stop her.

She ran.

Behind her, Kamal shouted her name.

Ahead, the nursery doors stood slightly open.

The scent there was unbearable.

Iris and blood. Sweetness rotting into copper.

Amara pushed the doors open and forgot how to breathe.

Blood covered everything.

It soaked into the pale carpets. Painted the nursery walls in dark sprays. Dripped slowly from overturned furniture. One of the nurses had died beside the cradle with her stomach split open so badly that her insides spilled across the floor beneath her.

Another attendant hung half over the balcony doors, throat opened to the spine.

The nursery guards were butchered.

One had lost his lower jaw entirely. Another was slumped against the wall with his chest hacked apart so violently pieces of bone and flesh still clung to the curtains behind him.

And in the middle of it...

Her mother.

Seraphina lay beside the cradle in a lake of blood.

Her chest had been carved open by a sword strike so brutal it had nearly split her ribs apart. Blood soaked through her pale nightclothes in thick black-red layers. One arm was still wrapped around Silas even in death.

She had tried to shield him.

It had not mattered.

Silas lay half beneath her body, tiny fingers curled into her ruined sleeve.

The blade had gone through him too.

His golden hair was soaked dark with blood.

His small chest was open.

His mouth still hung slightly open like he had died trying to cry for her.

Amara made a sound then, her tears falling faster while her body and mind remained frozen in time.

Felix stood beside them.

White and gold robes, untouched except for the blood splattered across the sleeves and throat. His pale hair spilled over his shoulders, beautiful even now, and in his hand rested a sword wet enough that blood still rolled steadily from the tip onto the nursery floor.

He turned toward her slowly and... smiled.

The iris scent flooded the room with him.

"Oh," Felix said softly. "You came."

Amara could not move. Could not think.

Her eyes remained fixed on Silas.

Felix watched her with open delight.

"The man you called father is dead," he said gently.

Then he laughed quietly to himself.

"Or nearly. The poison was designed to linger, you see, we still need his dragon blood."

Amara’s knees almost gave out.

Felix stepped over Seraphina’s body without looking down.

"The others died more quickly." His voice remained conversational, almost warm. "Lord Hugo screamed beautifully, though. He tried to shield his child." Felix tilted his head thoughtfully. "It didn’t help."

Amara felt bile rise into her throat.

"The special troops disappointed me," Felix continued. "Years of training, and they still drowned in my scent like everyone else."

The iris’s smell pressed against her lungs until every breath burned.

Felix lifted the sword slightly.

Blood slid down the steel.

"Now," he said softly, "it’s your turn."

He moved.

Fast.

The sword flashed toward her throat.

Kamal hit him first.

Steel tore into Kamal’s shoulder with a sickening wet crack, the blade punching deep enough that blood sprayed across Amara’s face.

Kamal staggered but did not fall.

"RUN!" he roared.

Soldiers flooded the nursery behind him.

Everything became noise.

Steel crashing against steel.

Men screaming.

The wet sound of blades entering flesh.

Someone grabbed Amara around the waist and dragged her backward while she fought hard enough to tear skin from her own hands.

"No!" she screamed. "Mother—Silas—!"

The nursery vanished behind a wall of bodies.

A guard she recognized, Marcus, who had taught her to ride when she was twelve, caught her shoulders hard enough to bruise.

His face was gray beneath the blood splattered across it.

"Felix poisoned the Emperor," he said rapidly, voice shaking. "The consorts are dead. The children are dead. Anyone exposed too long to the scent is collapsing."

Amara stared at him.

Behind them, the palace screamed.

And beneath it all, the scent of iris kept spreading through the halls as if ruin itself had learned how to bloom.