The figure slipped inside, the door’s slow groan fading behind her like a fading nightmare.

Elena’s heartbeat hammered so loud it felt like a pulse in her throat, thick and suffocating. Her eyes adjusted, flickering to the faint silhouette framed by the dim hallway light—a figure she recognized too well.

Marin.

The loyal aide who had stood beside her since the dynasty’s fracture.

But tonight, the air between them shattered like glass.

Marin’s gaze was a thin slash of steel, unreadable but charged with something darker than loyalty.

Elena’s hands clenched at her sides, the brittle veneer she’d worn trembling under an avalanche of dread. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, voice brittle, dropping the illusion of civility.

Marin’s lips curved into a shadow of a smile, slow, deliberate. “Neither should you.”

The room felt suddenly smaller, suffocating; the chandelier’s crystals sparkled cold overhead, slivers of light slicing through the gloom.

A silence stretched, taut and screaming, before Elena’s voice broke it. “Tell me everything. Who sent you?”

Marin’s eyes flickered—beware the storm behind calm waters. “You think I serve anyone but you?”

“I’m no fool,” Elena said, stepping closer, heat radiating from her like a warning. “You’re feeding Markos. Since when?”

“Since long before you walked away, before you lost your grip on this family. I was always playing the deeper game,” Marin said, voice smooth, a knife hidden in silk.

Elena’s breath caught. The trusted aide, her confidante, her shield—betraying her for Markos?

Her mind skittered back, replaying whispered conversations, secretive texts, the fragmented puzzle pieces she’d ignored.

The sting was sharper than any blade.

“But why?” Her words cracked. “Why stab me in the back?”

Marin’s look dropped to the floor for a moment, shadows pooling in his eyes. “Because there are truths you don’t deserve to know.”

Elena’s fists balled, nails digging into her palms. “Speak.”

A bitter laugh escaped Marin’s lips. “Markos didn’t just want power. He’s hunting a legacy you buried deep—something he believes will crown him king for good.”

Elena’s heart pounded, the room spinning in a haze of revelation and rage. “What legacy?”

Marin hesitated, then moved like a hawk circling prey. “The dagger.”

Her skin crawled at the name—it was no myth, no forgotten relic. The Dagger—the bloodstained heirloom said to hold the secret to their dynasty’s true power.

Markos wants it. And I’m the key.”

Elena’s eyes flared, fire igniting her veins. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because,” Marin whispered, “the game is deeper than you think. And the next move could kill us both.”

A sudden knock echoed through the mansion’s vast walls—the sound a harbinger, sharp and insistent.

Elena froze, breath hitching. “Who’s there?”

Marin’s smile was brittle, knowing. “Time to find out if your loyalty runs as deep as your blood.”

The door handle rattled.

The dagger wasn’t just a relic.

It was a countdown.

And the war within had only just begun.