Kaelen's POV

I left after awhile. I had business to attend to.

The throne room was dark and quiet when they dragged Clara in.

Too quiet.

The faint scuff of her boot and the metallic rattle of when chains finally broke the silence. She stumbled, wrists bound in front of her, hair wild as though she had tried to claw at it on her way here.

Pathetic.

I watched her from my throne—an iron monstrosity lined with etched steel, salvaged from the husks of machines left behind after ...