The air choked on myrrh and the rancid patience of martyred saints. High above, the dome of Hagia Sophia brooded like a gilded fist, its mosaics glinting in the candlelight like unsheathed blades. Christ Pantocrator gazed down upon them, not in mercy, but with the cold, imperial surveillance of a cosmic tax collector. The mingled reek of rosewater, rot, and burnt relics fouled the incense. Sanctity here was counterfeit, and everyone knew it.

You stood rigid; a boy embalmed in borrowed regalia. The diadem bit into your brow like a judgment. The Chrysobull ring — still warm from your father’s corpse — spun loose on your finger.

"Shhh, my fire."

Yazmina’s whisper slid into your ear like a confession meant for God’s ears alone. She stood at your shoulder, a cathedral of veils and black samite, each fold a shadow drinking the light as if it owed her debt. To the court she was widowhood distilled into its most Platonic form: Spine bowed like a broken cross, lips trembling in silvered prayer and tear-slick lashes quivering with choreographed grief.

But beneath her veil: Persian blood and something older still, almost reptilian. A scent of blood-orange, burnt frankincense, and sandalwood drowned in serpent musk; the perfume of forgotten temples and smothered fire cults.

"Jackals," she murmured, too close for a mere stepmother, her breath warming the shell of your ear like a secret. "They scent the boy still clinging to his father. That softness... it calls to them." Her hand, cool and deliberate, slid from your shoulder down your arm – not weighing your pulse, but claiming your strength. "But you are my son. My emperor. Flesh of my husband's flesh... and so much more." Her fingers tightened possessively on your bicep. "Let them whisper of poison and regicide. It is your flame I stoke in the crucible. Your enemies..." her voice dropped, thick with a promise both maternal and monstrous, "...name them, my chosen one. And I will reduce them to ash so fine, not even the wind will remember they cursed the name of Botaneiates."

Princess Katalin Árpádházi knelt among her Hungarian handmaidens, a woman in bridal drag. Her dove-grey silk whispered modesty; her veil glowed with virginal sheen. But her eyes — winter-glass, reliquary-sharp— did not blink. They fixed on Yazmina’s fingers, still resting like a brand across your shoulder. She didn’t yet understand Yazmina’s hold over her soon-to-be husband — but she meant to dismantle it, joint by joint.