For one terrible second, Sarisa thought she might actually be sick.
The room blurred around the edges. The table, the documents, the faces watching her, all of it tilted into something unreal. She heard the words again inside her skull, each one sharp and impossible.
Use your blood. Vaelen's material. Artificial heir. Bound to her.
Her mother had not only planned a marriage.
She had planned ownership.
Sarisa's knees weakened, but Lara caught her at once, arms locking around her with a speed that felt almost instinctive. One hand braced firmly at Sarisa's waist, the other pressed between her shoulder blades, warm and steady.
"I've got you," Lara said, voice low.
Sarisa gripped Lara's shirt.
For a moment, she let herself breathe there, against Lara's chest, close enough to feel the violent thud of Lara's heart.
The bond between them pulsed hard, hot with Lara's rage and fear, but beneath it was something else too. A solid golden thread, pulling Sarisa back into herself.
She was here.
She was alive.
She was not in that wedding dress anymore.
Her mother had not won.
Sarisa drew in one shaking breath.
Then another.
Slowly, she straightened.
Lara did not let go.
Good.
Sarisa did not want her to.
"I didn't think," Sarisa said, and her voice sounded strange to her own ears, too calm and too fragile at once, "that she would go that far."
No one answered immediately.
What could they say? That they were sorry? That her mother was a monster? That royal bloodlines had always been more dangerous than fairy tales admitted?
Sarisa let out a small, humorless laugh.
"Actually," she whispered, "that's not true. Some part of me did know. I just didn't want to be right."
Lara's arm tightened around her.
Sarisa looked down at the folder on the table. The words Vessel S-Alpha stared back like an insult wearing official ink.
Vessel.
Not daughter. Not princess. Not woman.
Vessel.
A cold, clear anger began to rise through the shock. Not loud yet. Not fire. Something sharper. Cleaner. A blade drawn slowly from its sheath.
She looked at Malvoria. "Tell me the plan."
Lara's head snapped toward her. "Sarisa."
"I need to know."
"You don't have to do this right now."
Sarisa turned to Lara, and for a moment she saw the battle inside her mate's face. The need to protect. The need to destroy.
The desperate urge to take Sarisa away from the documents, from the table, from every ugly word her mother had written.
It almost broke her.
Almost.
But Sarisa touched Lara's cheek, and Lara went still.
"If I don't hear it now, I'll imagine worse," Sarisa said softly.
Lara's jaw clenched.
Then she nodded once.
Sarisa turned back to the others. "Tell me."
Malvoria exchanged a brief look with Veylira. Then she stepped closer to the table and rested both hands on the edge, all humor gone from her face.
"Tomorrow," Malvoria said, "we invite the Celestian queen to the old border hall. Officially, it will be framed as a negotiation about your return."
"My return," Sarisa repeated.
"Yes." Veylira's voice was smooth, precise, almost soothing in its coldness.
"She believes you are still kidnapped by an unknown hostile force. We will use that. The invitation will state that the Demon Realm has uncovered information regarding your location and wishes to discuss terms for your safe recovery."
Lara gave a sharp, ugly laugh. "Terms."
Malvoria glanced at her. "Yes. Terms. She will come because she has to. If she refuses, she looks like a mother unwilling to retrieve her abducted daughter."
Sarisa swallowed.
Her mother would come.
Of course she would.
Not out of love. Out of optics. Out of necessity. Out of the need to control the story before it slipped completely from her hands.
"Who else will be there?" Sarisa asked.
Elysia answered this time.
"A mixed assembly. Celestian nobles from houses not entirely loyal to your mother. Demon representatives. Neutral witnesses. We are contacting human realm envoys as well. There will be priests present too, including those with enough authority to verify royal seals and blood contracts."
Sarisa looked down at the documents. "So she can't claim the evidence is forged."
"Exactly," Veylira said. "Every document will have copies placed in protected crystals. If the queen attempts destruction, the copies will be sent automatically to every major house involved."
Raveth smiled without warmth. "We learned from her. Always have a backup knife."
Sarisa almost laughed. It came out as a breath instead.
"And me?" she asked.
The room softened around that question.
Malvoria straightened. "You will not be forced to do anything."
Sarisa looked at her sharply.
Malvoria held her gaze.
"I mean it. We need you present because your existence ruins half her narrative. But you decide how much you speak. You decide whether the mating mark is shown openly from the beginning or revealed later. You decide whether Neris is present."
Sarisa's fingers tightened.
Neris.
"Does he know?"
"No," Elysia said gently. "Not yet."
Sarisa closed her eyes for one second. "Good."
Lara's voice came rough beside her. "He shouldn't hear it from a courtroom."
"No," Sarisa said. "He shouldn't."
Another silence.
Then Veylira continued, calm as ever.
"The sequence matters. First, you appear alive and unharmed. That destabilizes her. Second, we reveal that Lara was not your kidnapper in the criminal sense, but the one who removed you from an unlawful situation after discovering the queen's crimes."
Lara snorted. "That is one way to describe exploding a wedding."
"It is the legal way," Veylira said.
Raveth smirked. "Much less fun."
Sarisa looked at Lara. "You did save me."
Lara's expression shifted, all anger cracking briefly under something tender. "Always."
Sarisa's heart twisted, but she forced herself to look back at the table.
"Then what?"
Malvoria tapped the first stack of documents. "Then we introduce the laboratories. The funding. The construction approvals. The queen's seal. Caldris and Maelia's testimony."
"And Neris?" Sarisa asked.
Veylira's face hardened slightly. "After that. Carefully. We do not parade him. We expose what was done to him without making him stand there as proof unless absolutely necessary."
"Good," Lara said immediately.
Sarisa nodded.
That mattered. Neris had already been used once in a court. She would not allow it again.
"And the heir plan?" Sarisa asked.
The words scraped her throat on the way out.
Elysia's eyes softened. "Last."
Sarisa looked at her.
"Once the room understands Neris," Elysia said, "once they understand the queen authorized life-craft, blood theft, false testimony, and abuse, then we reveal what she planned for you. If we lead with it, she may try to frame it as hysteria, demon slander. But after Neris, after the seals, after the testimonies…"
"Then it becomes a pattern," Sarisa said.
Veylira gave a small nod. "Exactly."
Lara was trembling.
Not visibly to everyone, perhaps. But Sarisa felt it through the bond. The effort it took her to stand still. The violence pressed under her skin like a storm trapped in a locked room.
Sarisa slid her hand into Lara's.
Lara clung back.
"What about Vaelen?" Lara asked, voice dangerously low.
Malvoria exhaled. "He will be invited."
Lara's eyes flashed.
"Not because we trust him," Malvoria said quickly. "Because we need to know if he knew. If he didn't, his reaction will help us. If he did…"
Raveth's smile returned, slow and sharp. "Then we deal with him."
Sarisa's stomach tightened. She did not know what she wanted to be true. If Vaelen had known, then he was worse than she had imagined. If he had not, then he too had been turned into a tool by her mother.
Neither option felt clean.
Nothing felt clean anymore.
"Tomorrow," Sarisa said softly.
"Yes," Malvoria said. "Tomorrow."
The word settled over the room.
Tomorrow she would face her mother.
Tomorrow she would stand not as a bride, not as a daughter asking permission, not as a princess being arranged.
Sarisa took a long breath.
Then she reached for the folder.
Lara's hand tightened. "You don't have to."
"I do."
She touched the edge of the page labeled Vessel S-Alpha, then closed the folder herself.
The sound was small.
Final.
"When I see her," Sarisa said, voice quiet but steady, "I want her to know that I read it."
Malvoria's smile was fierce. "She will."
"And I want to speak."
Elysia nodded. "Then you will."
Lara turned toward her fully, eyes dark with worry, rage, and love. "I'll be right beside you."
Sarisa looked up at her.
For the first time since the truth had been spoken, she smiled. It was not a happy smile. Not yet. But it was strong.
"I know," she said. "That's why I can do it."