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The first thing people learned about Elira Vance was that she never wanted the throne. The second thing they learned—usually too late—was that she would burn the world before letting anyone take it from her children. By thirty-five, Elira had become something whispered about more than seen: the reluctant queen of a sprawling, quiet empire that ran beneath the city like roots beneath stone. She hadn’t built it alone. She never pretended she had. Five men stood beside her—not as ornaments, not