Darius's POV
I've served Amara long enough to know when she's genuinely rattled.
Tonight… she was.
And that meant I had work to do.
I wasn't just her second-in-command—I was her weapon in the dark. The one who moved when the empire slept. And yet, even I was struggling to find the ghost that's been haunting our plans.
Someone was protecting Chris—quietly, surgically, effectively.
That's dangerous.
Not just because it meant our plans were being sabotaged…
…but because it meant Chris had a silent loyalist. And in this empire, the silent ones were always the most dangerous.
I moved through the underbelly of the palace—where the walls breathed secrets, and no footsteps echoed. I passed bribes to informants, checked the movement logs, decrypted intercepted messages.
And then I found something.
A conversation thread—heavily encoded, routed through five terminals, and disguised as system maintenance reports.
Only one line stood out, hidden in a code that only someone close to the Blackwood throne would recognize:
"Father must not know I am watching over him yet. Move clean, move quiet. For the name."
I froze.
Father?
No one calls Chris "Father" anymore… unless—
My blood ran cold.
Classic.
The prince himself.
It all made sense—every interference, every silent block. He wasn't acting publicly, which is why we couldn't trace it. But he was watching. And clearly, he was orchestrating moves under Chris's nose.
Or so he thought.
I pocketed the data and slipped away into the dark, my pulse steady but alert.
I had a decision to make.
Do I take this to Amara… or keep it for myself?
Because if Classic was moving aga