Lara woke to iron, stone, and the taste of blood.
For a few awful seconds, she didn't know where she was. Her body ached in too many places to count, the kind of deep, punishing ache that came after a fight she hadn't been allowed to finish. Her head throbbed, her ribs felt bruised, and when she tried to move, cold metal bit into her wrists.
Chains.
Real chains.
Lara opened her eyes slowly and stared up at a ceiling of dark, damp stone.
The dungeon.
Of course.
A laugh almost crawled up her throat, but it died before it could become sound. She turned her head and immediately regretted it. The room spun a little.
There was a torch outside the bars, its light weak and yellow, enough to show her the rough walls, the mildew in the corners, the bucket shoved beside the wall like an insult. She looked down at herself and found more bruises blooming across her arms and sides than she remembered earning.
"They hit me while I was out," she muttered hoarsely.
That made something hot and vicious roll through her chest. Cowards. Every single one of them. The queen, Vaelen, the guards who had apparently decided an unconscious demon was still worth beating for good measure.
Lara tugged once at the restraints and felt the chains pull taut. Heavy. Runes carved into the links. Non-demon suppression magic. Celestian work.
They'd learned something over the years, then. No cheap iron. No sloppy enchantments. These were made specifically to hold someone like her. Someone with yellow fire in her blood and enough temper to melt ordinary metal.
That made her even angrier.
"Bastards."
She tested again, slower this time. The runes flared faintly, sucking the heat out of her wrists. No fire. Not enough for anything useful.
Perfect.
She let her head fall back against the wall with a dull thunk and breathed through the rage, through the humiliation, through the crawling awareness that this had been a setup from the moment the queen called her into that room. Maybe even before.
A prince with a bruise, a demon with a reputation, a court that loved scandal almost as much as it loved pretending to hate it. Vaelen had only needed to say the right thing. The queen had only needed to be ready.
And Sarisa—
That thought hurt worse than the chains.
What had they told her? What had she seen? Enough, probably. Enough to know Lara had hit him.
Not enough to know why. Lara ground her teeth together. She should have kept her temper. Should have laughed in his face. Should have broken the wall and not his jaw.
The door outside the cell opened.
Lara's whole body tensed.
The scent hit first: smoke, spice, old magic, fury.
Malvoria.
Lara let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, though relief was quickly swallowed by the look on her sister's face.
Malvoria crossed the room fast, boots striking stone hard enough to echo. One look at her was enough to know this was not a visit approved by the palace.
Her eyes were bright, wild with contained violence, and when she saw the bruises on Lara's face and arms, something in her expression turned murderous.
"What have they done to you?"
Her voice came out low and shaking in a way Lara had heard only a few times in her life. None of them had ended well for the people on the receiving end.
Lara straightened as much as the chains allowed. "Calm down."
Malvoria stared at her as if she had suggested they take up embroidery together.
"Calm down?" she repeated. "You're in a fucking dungeon, chained like some common criminal, and you want me to calm down?"
Lara gave her a tired look. "You getting angry won't get me out faster."
"No," Malvoria said, jaw tight, "but it will make me feel amazing for the ten seconds before I start setting this place on fire."
That almost got a smile out of Lara.
Almost.
Malvoria took another step closer, lowering her voice. "I talked to the queen."
Lara's brows lifted. "And?"
Malvoria barked out a laugh with no humor in it. "And well, it didn't go as planned."
"Shocking."
"She is determined to make an example of you." Malvoria folded her arms, but the motion looked less defensive than like she was holding herself back from punching a wall.
"She wants a court audience. Public. Formal. Since you hit the 'future king' and, according to her, attempted to kill him with that blow."
Lara stared at her.
Then she laughed, once, hard. "Kill him? With one punch? Please. If I wanted him dead, he'd be dead."
"Yes, I told her that was a stupid argument." Malvoria's mouth twisted. "She didn't appreciate it."
Lara leaned her head back against the stone again. "Of course she didn't."
Malvoria went on, voice clipped now, controlled only because she was forcing it. "They're also adding that you refused to cooperate during arrest and injured multiple guards."
"I did."
"I know." Malvoria's eyes flashed. "And frankly, good for you."
Lara huffed a rough breath.
"The point," Malvoria said, "is that the queen is stacking everything she can. And she wants more than punishment."
Lara looked at her.
Malvoria held her gaze and said, very clearly, "She wants you banned from the Celestian realm."
The dungeon seemed to go quieter.
For a heartbeat, Lara honestly thought she'd misheard her. Then the words settled in, one by one, cold and heavy.
Banned.
Not imprisoned for a while. Not publicly humiliated and then shoved back into service with a tighter leash. Gone. Exiled. Cut off from the palace, from Aliyah, from—
Sarisa.
Lara's face did not change. She had learned long ago how to survive bad news without flinching in front of other people. But something inside her went deadly still.
Malvoria saw it anyway.
"No," she said immediately. "Don't do that thing where you get quiet and pretend this doesn't matter."
Lara swallowed once. "I'm thinking."
"You're dissociating."
"Same difference."
"It is absolutely not the same difference."
Lara looked down at the chains around her wrists. Her voice, when it came, was flat. "Can she do it?"
Malvoria's silence answered first.
Then: "If she gets the court on her side? Maybe. If she turns this into an issue of royal safety and stability, a lot of nobles will line up behind it."
Lara shut her eyes briefly.
"Hey," Malvoria said, stepping closer again, all sharp fury suddenly edged with something almost gentle. "Look at me."
Lara did.
"I am not letting that happen."
There was no joking in her now. No teasing. Just the Demon Queen, all iron and flame.
Lara wanted to believe her. Gods, she did.
But the queen had power here. The court had rules. And Lara had just handed all of them the perfect excuse.
"She wants me gone," Lara said quietly. "She finally found a way."
Malvoria's expression turned savage. "Then she should have thought harder before trying to take on my family."
Lara let out a long breath.
For the first time since waking, the pain in her body stopped mattering quite so much.
"What about Sarisa?" she asked.
Malvoria's face shifted again at that name. "Angry. Scared. Very close to doing something spectacularly stupid."
Lara's mouth almost twitched.
"Elysia's with her," Malvoria added. "Keeping her from storming the dungeon herself, probably."
That did make Lara smile, faint and tired and gone too quickly.
Malvoria knelt in front of her then, ignoring the damp stone and the indignity of the place, and reached up to cup Lara's bruised jaw with startling care.
"We'll get you out," she said. "But you are not allowed to martyr yourself, understood?"
Lara looked at her for a long moment, then nodded once.
"Good," Malvoria said, standing. Her eyes burned again, bright with purpose. "Because if that bitch thinks she's banishing my big sister from this realm, she is about to discover what a diplomatic incident really looks like."