The day for the council meeting had come .
I sat at the head of the long table with kaelan standing to my right like a permanent fixture of the room.
He hadn’t said any word since the meeting began but his piercing gulden eyes hadn’t left my profile .
“If you do not reduce your personal silk import from the eastern region by at least 60%, Your Majesty, the castles treasury will be entirely hollowed out before the first snow hits the capital ”
The Chancellor, Malakai, a royal accountant whose hands have been permanently stained black with ledger ink said.
He was trembling, scared that I would order for his execution for daring to voice his opinion .
“Forty percent?” I murmured turning a page of the financial ledger.
Malakai flinched, practically shaking in his robes.
“I-I know that it is indeed a great sacrifice for you, Your Majesty!
If you prefer, we can increase the salt tax on the lower district to cover the-”
“Cancel the silk import entirely.” I interrupted.
The entire room went so quiet you could hear the scratch of a mouse in the stone walls.
Malakai’s jaw dropped so low I thought it might detach.
Even the two lower scribes sitting at the edge of the room froze mid-ink dip.
“C-Cancel it?” Malakai stammered.
“Completely?”
“Completely,” I repeated, closing the heavy ledger with a firm, decisive thud.
“Furthermore, I want a complete freeze on all royal banquet expenses for the next three months.
The palace wine cellar is already overflowing; we do not need to purchase another single cask from the southern vineyards.
And the upcoming mid-winter gala?
Cancel the ice sculptures and the imported foreign musicians.
We are cutting the royal luxury budget across all sectors, effective immediately.”
Malakai stared at me as if I had suddenly started speaking a foreign language.
“But…
Your Majesty…
the nobility…
they will be outraged.
A queen must maintain her opulence to show strength.”
“Strength is shown by a stable economy, Chancellor, not by how many gold threads are woven into my bedsheets,” I countered, using the exact, no-nonsense tone I used to deploy during corporate budget reviews in my past life.
“We are diverting every single coin saved from these cuts into the public sector.
I want five massive soup kitchens established in the poorest districts of the capital by the end of the week.
And the grain taxes on the local farmers?
Drop them by half.”
“Drop them by half?!” Malakai actually stood up, his professional panic overriding his terror of the Tyrant Queen.
We won’t have the surplus to fund Duke Cedric’s winter patrol units!”
“Duke Cedric no longer oversees the treasury, Malakai.
I do,” I said, my voice dropping into a dangerous, quiet register that instantly forced the Chancellor back into his seat.
“The farmers are starving.
If they die, there is no grain to harvest next spring, which means no economy to tax.
It’s a basic logistical cycle.
Feed the people now, so they can feed the crown later.
Do I make myself clear?”
Malakai swallowed hard, his face pale but his eyes wide with a strange, dawning realization.
“Y-Yes, Your Majesty.
Right away.”
“Good.
You are dismissed to draw up the new tax decrees.
Bring them to my solar by late afternoon.”
The accountants and scribes practically scrambled out of the council chamber, eager to escape the presence of a queen who had just completely rewritten the laws of the realm on a whim.
Once the heavy doors clicked shut, the massive room was left in absolute silence.
I leaned back in my high chair, rubbing the bridge of my nose as a slight headache began to form.
“Well, that’s one fire put out,” I muttered.
“You are building a dangerous weapon, Evangeline.”
I paused, dropping my hand to look up.
Kaelen had stepped away from his position against the wall, walking slowly down the length of the long table until he stood right beside my chair.
The formal distance was gone again.
His towering frame cast a massive shadow over me, his silver eyes dark, intense, and dripping with an agonizing suspicion.
“A weapon?” I raised an eyebrow, tilting my head back to meet his gaze.
“By feeding my citizens?”
“By taming them,” Kaelen corrected, his gravelly voice sending a familiar, electric thrill straight down my spine.
He leaned down slightly, his gloved hand resting flat on the back of my chair, dangerously close to my shoulder.
“The old queen ruled through fear.
Fear makes people desperate, but it also makes them predictable.
But a queen who gives the starving bread?
They won’t just fear you, Evangeline.
They will worship you.”
He leaned in closer, his silver eyes locking onto mine with a fierce, probing intensity that felt like a physical touch.
“A cult of personality is far more lethal than an army of conscripts.
If the people are fiercely loyal to you rather than the crown itself, you can lead them into any war you desire.
You are playing the saint…
but I know a tactical setup when I see one.
What is your true angle?”
I looked at his sharp, devastatingly handsome face, only inches from mine.
I could see the subtle tension in his jaw, the way his chest rose and fell heavily against his leather armor.
His mind was spinning with a brilliant, hyper-focused paranoia, trying to calculate a grand political conspiracy, all while his body was practically vibrating with the sheer, magnetic pull between us.
And right now?
His eyes kept flickering downward.
No matter how much he tried to accuse me of being a tactical mastermind, he couldn’t stop staring at my lips.
A slow, utterly wicked smirk spread across my face.
“You think so highly of my intellect, Sir Kaelen,” I whispered, leaning in just a fraction of an inch more, until the heat of my breath brushed against his jaw.
I deliberately let my gaze trail down to his mouth before rising back to his eyes.
“But tell me…
if I am playing the saint to win over the kingdom…
what am I playing to win over you?”
Kaelen’s breath hitched sharply in his throat.
The calculated, paranoid soldier completely fractured for a split second, replaced by a raw, suffocating wave of pure desire.
His eyes darkened to a stormy grey, and his hand on the back of my chair clenched so hard the wood groaned beneath his grip.
I know he was dying to pull me out of that seat, to crush his mouth against mine and find out exactly what the “Tyrant Queen” tasted like when she wasn’t issuing royal decrees.
The silence between us was loud, thick, and agonizingly hot.
Then, with a harsh, strangled breath, Kaelen violently tore himself away from my chair.
He stepped back into a rigid military stance, his hand instantly finding the hilt of his sword as if it were an anchor keeping him tethered to reality.
His chest heaved, his jaw set in a line so hard it looked like marble.
“I will oversee the security layout for the new soup kitchens, Your Majesty,” he muttered, his voice rough, thick, and completely wrecked by the tension.
He refused to look at my lips again, staring strictly at the doorway.
“Thank you, Sir Kaelen,” I murmured, my smile widening as I watched him march out of the council room with rigid, furious strides.
I rested my chin in my hand, a breathless laugh escaping me.
Let him spin his wild theories about my “secret war plans” all he wanted.
The more time he spent overanalyzing my every move, the deeper he was sliding straight into my trap.