From the training arena, the walk to the palace, on average, took about ten minutes. At a brisk pace, around seven minutes, and at a run, for a soldier in Fia’s condition, just over three minutes. That was if he was dressed simply and not carrying the weight of his armor. 

The pace currently being set by General Virtan resided in the brisk range. Not at the taxing end of it, but quick enough that Fia had to lengthen his stride to keep up. All in all, it suggested that whatever the emperor had called him for carried some level of importance but not of the empire-threatening variety. Two of the guards who had accompanied the general led the way, while the third one walked several paces behind Fia. Just far enough back to make his presence felt without breathing down Fia’s neck.

General Virtan glanced behind him. “How have your training sessions been going with the prince?” 

“About as well as to be expected.”

“And how does he seem to you?”

“In what capacity, General?”

“How about as a soldier, to start.”

“He’s as skilled as the average soldier in your unit.” Fia looked to his left. A small party on horseback skirted around the outer wall of hedges circling around the Aurikumia Garden, its flowers bursting in the fullness of their blooms. He recognized one of the riders as the Aurinon Empire’s one and only crown princess, mounted on her favorite chestnut mare. Surrounding her, an entourage of five young women, all dressed as brightly as the flowers in the garden, sporting colors from a pale sunrise pink to a deep midsummer-sun orange, though none so bold as the princess in her riding attire of crimson and gold. All of them, however, looked fit to adorn the garden as a highlight of its beauty. “His swordsmanship is impeccable, save for when his ego has an itch or boredom gnaws at him. He’s quick to exploit openings and would rather press the attack than bide his time in a fight. Which is not to say that he is foolish.”

“If it is not foolishness, then how would you put it?” Virtan asked. He didn’t look behind him this time but, like Fia, watched the progression of the princess’ party as they made for the wooded pathways of the palace’s hunting grounds. Behind them trailed a second group, members of the Summer Guard, and trotting leisurely along with them, Bahdr, the Queen’s black wolfhound.

“Only that he is someone loathed to let opportunity escape him.” Fia turned his attention back to Virtan and the white-stoned walkway leading them ever closer to the palace. 

“And how do you find your sparring sessions with him?”

Fia lifted an eyebrow. It wasn’t the first time the general had questioned him on his exchanges with the crown prince. Should the emperor meet his grave sooner than anticipated, Virtan might easily find himself tasked with guiding Akseli as he ascended the throne or dismissed entirely from his duties as soon as the crown rested upon Akseli’s head. Seeking out what information he could was as much a part of who Virtan was as cold was to winter storms. It didn’t surprise Fia to see himself at the center of such questioning, but with all things regarding the general, there remained the underlying question of what else he sought aside from being equipped with all the latest information. 

“Again, I must ask in what capacity?”

Virtan’s next step hung in the air. His foot hovered for only a second but lingered long enough before finding its place against the next stone that Fia had to check his own stride to avoid running into him. When the general glanced behind him again, curiosity sat dark and sharp within his grey eyes. The corner of his mouth curled with the faintest hint of a smile. There was no mistaking it this time. 

“Have you injured him lately, Fia?”

This time, it was Fia’s next step that stuttered. He blinked. “If you are asking if I have purposefully sought to injure the crown prince, then no, I haven’t.”

“But you have injured him.”

“Not grievously, and not with intent.”

Settled once more into his previous pace, General Virtan let out a soft hum. “And what of yourself?”

Fia glanced off to the side again. The princess and her riding party had disappeared into the thick of the forest, the sounds of their laughter lost to the quiet of the garden and the tread of his own boots upon the stone walkway. Unlike her mother, the princess cared little for the thrill of the hunt, at least as far as active participation went, so this afternoon was likely a simple pleasure ride over the more traveled paths cut through the hunting grounds. Like training in the arena, it was one of the relatively few ways to pull yourself out from under the various gazes keeping watch in the palace. Fia turned his head and set his sight on Virtan’s back.

“What about me?”

“There’s no need to skirt around the topic with me, Fia. You know precisely what I am referring to —” The general cast a glance over his shoulder, not losing a single step in the process or a beat between his words. “— don’t you?”

Fia's lips tightened at the insinuation. He knew what was being asked here. While the majority of the Aurinon Empire had little idea regarding the true nature of his contract with the current emperor and his family, few within the palace grounds were strangers to its contents. Perhaps not all the details or how they had gotten him to pledge himself to such a thing nor why someone like him would have agreed to it in the first place, but the main points of his employment were known from the young stablehands barely out of their mothers’ swaddling to the guards standing in silent watch over the throne room. 

“My contract does as it was written to do on those occasions,” Fia conceded. Bitterness welled up within him, but not a single note of it touched his voice. He continued walking without losing ground to the men in front of him, his gaze fixed not on General Virtan but on the path opening beyond him and the palace in the ever-closing distance, rising from the ground like a juggernaut of stone and glass and dreams that played nightmare.

If Virtan suspected anything amiss, he gave no indication of it. “You heal well then in the aftermath?”

Fia pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth, his lips drawn tight once more. His silence earned him another look from the general, though nothing of concern filled his gaze. No sympathy, either. Only a keen edge eager to make the cut. Virtan slowed his step and fell into line with Fia. 

“Should I take your lack of answer to mean there is a problem?” the general asked, his voice lowered not from a sense of conspiracy but instead as though he sought to save Fia the mortification of being overheard on so sensitive a topic. 

Scraping his tongue along the roof of his mouth, Fia picked through the list of potential reasons for Virtan’s interest. To gauge what he was capable of after all these years locked in servitude? To see what toll the weight of Fia’s contract terms had taken on him? To assess what limitations there could be to Fia’s own abilities? To ensure the contract still held firm? Any of those and more could have explained Virtan’s questioning. 

His greatest mistake would be assuming he knew the rationale for any of this. 

Fia looked at Virtan from the corner of his eye. “And should I take your prodding to mean you don’t have any of these answers?”

The response seemed to take Virtan by surprise. He tipped his head to the side, locked his gaze with Fia's, and stared, baffled but not shaken, as though trying to pick through the wreckage of a revolution. After a long moment held only by silence, Fia realized not only had they stopped walking, but the general’s guards had as well, each of them keeping to the same set distance, their attention honed in on every little movement Fia made. 

Virtan raised an eyebrow, then turned to face the palace with the same half-formed smile ghosting over his lips. Whatever he had gleaned from that last minute between them, Fia couldn’t guess. He only knew that the general had stumbled upon something and taken it to heart. Or to some future malice. Perhaps both. Fia didn’t think the general entirely heartless, as others had proven themselves to be in the emperor’s service, but he had shown himself more than capable of boxing up his own emotions with all the efficiency of a thief on the run, comfortable with the idea of sorting through them in the quiet of his own time.

And Fia had yet to decide whether or not the general felt any semblance of guilt for his actions and words. In the last five years, he had been given no tangible evidence, not even a whisper, that he did. But, men came to peace with atrocities and wrong-doings wrought by their hands in a variety of ways, even if that peace built itself up from delusion rather than honesty. 

With a nod of his head and a step taken forward, Virtan said, “Why spar with the prince if you know the dangers it poses to yourself? I must admit I find it curious. Particularly given your history.”

“You ask more questions you have the answers to already,” Fia replied.

“Do you not hate him?”

Fia felt the words form in his throat, and just as easily, he felt all their sharp edges as they broke apart and slid down into the silence of everything else held close inside his chest. His tongue wet his lips. He swallowed down another broken-glass reply. Then, he smiled, and it was a bloody thing, as beautiful as it was horrible.

“I am in his service, as I am the emperor’s and all he holds dear. Whatever I may feel pales in comparison to my duty.”

“Is that so?” Virtan asked. Pity softened his words, though it did nothing to smooth the hard lines of his expression. “Then, you will certainly die a regrettable death, Fiarac.” 

Before them, the walkway gave way to a wide set of marble stairs, majestic and impeccably clean, so white they seemed to glow in the shadow of the palace’s walls. 

“To the emperor, then,” Virtan said as he took the first step, “and your duty.”