The imperial hall of the Draco Kingdom looked exactly like it had for the last few centuries—expensive, cold, and incredibly annoying to maintain.
Massive obsidian pillars stood like oversized grave markers, covered in glowing draconic runes that did very little to actually light the place. The air was thick with the smell of old stone and the heavy, stifling pressure of people pretending to be more important than they were. At the end of the long walk, the throne sat empty. It was just a fancy, uncomfortable chair that no one had sat in for nearly a decade, yet everyone looked at it like it might bite them.
A long table stretched across the chamber, packed with ministers and high officials who all shared the same draconic blood and the same look of suppressed panic. They were trying to look powerful, but mostly they just looked tired of waiting.
"It's been nine years."
General Raizen's voice didn't boom; it just cut through the room like a cold draft. He was the highest-ranking commander of the military, a man whose golden eyes looked like they hadn't seen a full night's sleep since the disappearance. He scanned the room, noting the expensive silks and the way the ministers adjusted their collars.
"20 years since Her Majesty walked out."
Nobody corrected him. Mostly because they liked having their heads attached to their necks.
One minister, shifting in robes that probably cost a commoner's yearly salary, finally cleared his throat. "General… we can't exactly keep paying for the heating in a palace with no one on the lease. We can't go on like this."
A ripple of low murmurs followed—the sound of bureaucrats getting brave.
"The throne shouldn't be a decoration," another official added, leaning forward. "The people are starting to notice the lack of a forehead to bow to."
Raizen didn't move, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop five degrees. A subtle, suffocating pressure filled the hall, the kind that made your lungs feel like they were full of wet sand.
"Noticing?" Raizen asked quietly. He didn't need to shout to make the man turn a sickly shade of gray. Sweat began to bead on the official's temple. "Say what you actually mean. You want to swap her out for someone who actually answers your emails?"
The silence that followed was absolute. You could have heard a pin drop, if anyone were brave enough to drop one. Eventually, an older minister spoke up, his voice hovering on the edge of a tremor.
"It's about stability, General. Not a replacement."
Raizen's expression didn't change. If anything, he looked bored, which was significantly more terrifying. "This kingdom was never stable because of a chair," he said, his voice flat. "It was stable because of her. You're confusing the furniture with the power."
Another general, one with slightly more spine than the rest, ventured a thought. "Then we have to consider the possibility… that she's not coming back. That she's just… gone."
Raizen stopped. For a second, something flickered in those golden eyes—not anger, but a deep, jagged exhaustion. Then it was gone, buried under layers of military discipline.
"Consider whatever you want," he said, turning his gaze toward the empty throne. "Just don't mistake your imagination for reality. She's alive."
"Then where is she?" a younger official blurted out, unable to help himself.
Raizen stared at the throne as if the answer were etched in the wood. "Wherever she feels like being. If the search parties haven't found her, tell them to stop looking in the easy places. Expand the search. Check the border kingdoms, the dungeons, the slums. If she wanted to disappear, she'd be good at it—but she can't stop being what she is."
He turned back to the window, watching the snow fall over the frozen expanse of the kingdom. To anyone else, it was a wasteland. To him, it was just a very large, very cold home.
The hall emptied slowly, the sound of expensive boots fading into the distance. Only one minister remained, creeping up with the measured footsteps of someone about to say something incredibly stupid.
"General… I don't get the loyalty," the man whispered. "She wasn't exactly a perfect Empress. She was… too soft. Too kind." He stepped closer, a greasy little smile tugging at his mouth. "This kingdom needs someone with teeth. Someone like you, Commander."
The silence lasted just long enough for the minister to think he'd made a point.
Then Raizen moved.
It wasn't a grand, cinematic gesture. It was a fast, brutal grab. In an instant, his hand was clamped around the minister's throat, hoisting him off the floor like a sack of grain. The man's eyes bulged, his hands clawing uselessly at Raizen's armored forearm.
"Listen to me," Raizen said, his voice a low, dangerous hum. "You've been breathing the air in this palace your whole life only because I've allowed it."
Guards rushed in, shouting about heart rates and legalities, but Raizen didn't even blink.
"Too kind, was she?" Raizen's grip tightened just enough to turn the man's face a deep purple. "That 'kindness' you're complaining about? It's the only reason I haven't snapped your neck yet."
He didn't drop the man; he threw him. The minister hit a wooden table with a sickening crack, splintering the expensive grain and collapsing into a heap of gasping lungs and bruised pride.
Raizen didn't look back. He walked toward the exit, his footsteps heavy and rhythmic. As he stepped out into the biting wind and the endless, falling snow, he let out a long, weary breath.
"Darla," he muttered into the cold. "Where the hell are you?"