Lara had been waiting outside long enough to go from patient to irritated to actively considering whether she could get away with kicking the council chamber doors off their hinges.
She stood with her back to the wall, arms folded, one boot braced against the stone, trying not to look like a woman who had just been excluded.
The corridor was too quiet. Every passing servant glanced at her and then away too quickly. Somewhere farther down the hall, two guards traded whispers that stopped the moment Lara lifted her head.
Her jaw tightened.
She hated this. Hated standing outside while Sarisa was cornered by people who smiled as they sharpened knives.
By the time the door still hadn't opened after what felt like an hour, Lara was done pretending calm.
She pushed off the wall just as a palace guard rounded the corner. He was young, too new to the queen's service to hide his nerves well, and his eyes darted to Lara's bruised face before returning to some respectable middle distance.
"General Lara," he said. "Her Majesty wishes to speak with you."
Of course she did.
Lara let out a long, slow sigh through her nose. "Now?"
"Yes."
"Convenient."
The guard wisely did not answer.
Lara rolled her shoulders, smoothed a hand over the front of her uniform, and followed. She didn't bother asking where.
The queen only ever called people to one of three places: the throne room if she wanted an audience, the council chamber if she wanted leverage, or her private solar if she wanted blood without witnesses.
It was the solar.
The room was warm and elegant in the particular Celestian way Lara had always distrusted. Pale wood. Tall windows.
Tea untouched on a side table. The queen stood near the hearth, not seated, which was somehow worse. She wore deep silver today, her posture perfectly composed, her expression unreadable.
Lara stepped inside, stopped at a respectful distance, and bowed her head. "Your Majesty."
The queen looked at her for a long moment. "No need for that. Sit."
That was strange enough to set every instinct in Lara on edge.
She didn't like sitting in front of rulers. It implied discussion. Judgment. Deals. Still, she crossed to the chair opposite the queen's and lowered herself into it with controlled ease, every muscle alert.
The queen remained standing a moment longer, as if deciding how much disdain to pour into the next few words, and then sat opposite her.
The silence stretched.
Lara broke first. "You wanted to see me."
The queen folded her hands in her lap. "Yes."
Another silence. Another little game of forcing Lara to sit still under those pale, terrible eyes.
Then, at last, the queen said, "Please leave my daughter."
Lara stared at her.
No title. No disguise. No courtly dance around implication. Just the blade laid flat on the table.
For one sharp heartbeat, Lara almost laughed.
Instead she leaned back very slightly and said, "Well, I'm her bodyguard."
The queen's mouth thinned. "Do not insult me by pretending that is all you are."
There it was.
Lara felt something hot and ugly uncurl in her chest. "Then maybe don't ask me a stupid question and expect a respectful answer."
The queen ignored that. "Whatever has been happening between you and Sarisa ends now."
Lara's jaw tightened. "That sounds a lot like an order over something that isn't your business."
The queen's eyes flashed. "Everything concerning the future queen is my business."
Lara gave a humorless smile. "Funny. Last I checked, Sarisa was a person."
The queen did not raise her voice. She did not need to. "And as a person, she is burdened with obligations you have neither the rank nor the discipline to understand."
Lara leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "Try me."
The queen's expression turned almost pitying, which was somehow more offensive than anger. "You are useful to her. You have always been useful. Protective. Loyal in your own feral way. I have tolerated more than I should because Aliyah adores you and because Sarisa insisted. But this ends here."
Lara's hands curled slowly into fists. "You don't get to decide that."
"I do," the queen said. "Because when this becomes public, it will not destroy you. It will destroy her."
Lara opened her mouth, but the queen cut across her with cold precision.
"What do you want more woman to fuck, I can give you that if you leave my daughter."
The room went still.
For a second, Lara honestly wasn't sure she had heard her correctly. Then the meaning landed, and something in her face went hard enough to crack stone.
The queen went on as if she had said something perfectly reasonable. "You are not a difficult woman to understand, Lara. Desire has always ruled you. If it is appetite you need satisfied, I can arrange that. Quietly. Discreetly. But Sarisa is not yours to indulge yourself with."
Lara rose so fast the chair legs scraped sharply against the floor.
The queen remained seated, but every line of her body sharpened in warning.
Lara laughed once, low and disbelieving. "You arrogant—"
"Sit down."
"No."
The word snapped between them like a whip.
Lara took one step closer. "You think this is about sex? You think I would walk away from her because you wave another warm body in my direction?"
She shook her head, disgust curling through every syllable. "You don't know a damn thing about me."
"I know enough," the queen said. "I know you are reckless. I know you are impulsive. I know you have already brought enough scandal into her life. I will not allow you to drag her further down."
Lara's laugh vanished. "Scandal?" Her voice lowered, dangerous now.
"I've saved her life more times than half your court combined. I have stood between her and assassins, monsters, war, your politics, your cruelty, and every other thing that ever tried to take a piece out of her. Don't stand there and call that scandal."
"And what do you call seducing a future queen in her own palace?" the queen shot back.
Lara's eyes narrowed. "I call that between me and her."
"No," the queen said, rising now at last, "you call it over."
Lara took another step. "Make me."
That was the wrong thing to say.
The queen crossed the distance between them with startling speed for a woman so elegant, and before Lara could fully process it, the slap cracked across her face hard enough to turn her head.
The room went silent.
Lara tasted blood.
Slowly, very slowly, she turned back to look at the queen. Her cheek burned. The old bruise from Raveth's punch pulsed in protest beneath the fresh sting.
The queen's hand was still lifted, trembling only slightly.
"If you had any loyalty to her at all," she said, voice like frozen glass, "you would leave before she has to choose between you and everything else."
Lara straightened to her full height.
When she spoke, her voice was very quiet.
"You should pray," she said, "that Sarisa never finds out you offered me women like livestock and called that love."
Then she stepped back, one deliberate pace at a time, eyes never leaving the queen's face.
"And for the record, Your Majesty," Lara added at the door, hand on the handle, "if your daughter ever chooses me, it won't be because I seduced her. It'll be because she got tired of everyone else deciding what's best for her."
With that, Lara opened the door and walked out before she did something that would turn one slap into a war.