I gripped the armrest of the throne tightly, my head lowered before I slowly lifted my gaze, my eyes as cold as ice:

  "Leon Tanner, your vision only extends this far. I have waited fifteen years, waited for you to stabilize and hand over your military power, all so I could kill you—but without disrupting the peace of the empire, without plunging the Northern Frontier into war, without subjecting its people to fire and bloodshed!"

  I rose to my feet, my sharp gaze locking onto him as my voice suddenly rang out like a blade slicing through the air:

  "Short-sighted men like you will never understand the burden my father carried! It was because of men like you that my mother was forced to her death! You sent your own younger brother to entangle himself with my mother, forcing her to extract secrets from my father about the fate of the empire!"

  That year, in the fire that consumed the alley in the eastern district, the man who abandoned my mother was none other than the younger brother of Leon Tanner.

  After my mother died, my father soon uncovered the truth.

  I secretly followed the man, watching as he entered the old Tanner estate. I released my crimson parrot over the courtyard wall and listened as it eavesdropped on the conversation between him and Leon Tanner.

  It turned out that Leon Tanner had known since that fire that my father was the descendant of a fate-seer. But my father, for my mother’s sake, had forsaken divination. When Leon Tanner came knocking at his door, he was turned away every time.

  Yet, he discovered that his younger brother once had feelings for my mother in their youth and knew that my father confided in her about everything. So he sought to use her to learn the secrets of the empire, especially whether House Tanner could ever claim the throne.

  Leon Tanner’s younger brother was nothing more than a degenerate, someone my father could have easily eliminated.

  But Leon Tanner himself—he was the Grand General of the Northern Frontier, commanding two hundred thousand men. Killing him would have been easy, but plunging the frontier into chaos was not something my father could allow.

  In a world teetering on the edge of war, there was only one way to make Leon Tanner willingly surrender his power—and only one person who could legitimately execute him.

  So my father created the prophecy that one of the four destined men would become emperor.

  From that moment on, the stars shifted, the winds changed, and the tides of fate were rewritten for fifteen years.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Leon Tanner admitted to forcing my mother to her death. But he had no intention of taking his own life.

  He raised his head, his expression dark and venomous:

  "Your Majesty, I do not dare to claim that I am your elder. But if you execute me in this very hall, do you not fear that my son, Elias, will turn against you?"

  Step by step, I descended from the throne, my heels clicking against the marble floor.

  "Leon Tanner, if it were not for you, I would never have met your son. If not for that crimson parrot, I would not have encountered him. Nor would this bond between us have ever formed."

  I paused, letting my words settle before continuing, my tone even and deliberate:

  "You don’t know this, do you? I was born with a fierce destiny. The Star of Seven Slaughters—the Star of Dominion. Whoever stays by my side, I will steal their fate. It has already come true twice before."

  I picked up the small gilded dagger from the lacquered tray, my movements calm and steady.

  "Back then, you wanted my father to read your fate. Before his death, he left a message for me to deliver today:

  Your son, Elias Tanner, carries an illustrious destiny—one of benevolence and righteousness, the mark of a ruler. The Imperial Star."

  Leon Tanner struggled against the four guards holding him down, his legs crushed beneath him as he was forced to kneel on the cold marble floor.

  He lifted his head, his face twisted with undeniable fury:

  "Then your father was wrong!"

  I unsheathed the dagger, stepping closer, crouching beside him.

  "No. He was right."

  I whispered into his ear, my voice a mere breath:

  "I stole his imperial fate. I took it for myself. And look—haven't I done an excellent job?"

  I released the dagger.

  Leon Tanner collapsed onto the hall’s marble floor, a pool of blood rapidly spreading beneath him.

  I stood and stepped over the spreading crimson pool, walking straight through it. The bloodied footprints trailed behind me, stretching from the dimly lit throne room to the bright light outside.

  The wind howled through the palace courtyards, carrying heavy snowflakes that blanketed the world in white.

  I gazed across the imperial city, watching as snow swirled in the wind, covering rooftops and halls in a sea of frost.

  For a moment, I felt like I was lost in a dream.

  I didn’t know how long I had been standing in the cold until I heard the sound of laughter.

  Elias was playing with Celeste beneath the veranda.

  She held a small ball of snow in her hands, grinning brightly.

  When Elias tried to snatch it from her, she immediately turned, running toward me with excitement.

  "Mother!"

  She stretched out her tiny hands, offering me the snow. But as she did, her gaze fell upon the red stains at my feet.

  She tilted her head curiously, her soft voice full of innocence:

  "What's this?"

  Elias immediately moved, covering her eyes.

  "Celeste, don’t look."

  She wriggled in his grasp, determined to understand, her big eyes blinking in confusion.

  One moment, she looked at me. The next, she looked at Elias.

  Again and again, she asked:

  "What is this? What is it?"

  I smiled, crouching to her level, my voice gentle yet piercingly cold:

  "Celeste, there are two kinds of snow in this world.

  The kind in your hands—that is snow.

  And the kind at my feet—that is blood.

  Both can make the world a cleaner place."

  Elias raised his head to look at me, his lips curling into a faint smile.

  He slowly released Celeste into my arms.

  Then, he asked with chilling calm:

  "Your Majesty, where is my father?"

  I froze.

  For a long time, I couldn’t bring myself to lift my head.