Ceremonially.
For portraits.
In the garden during the summer procession when my father was too tired to stand in the sun.
But this morning, I wear it differently.
It doesn’t feel like a symbol.
It feels like a target.
Court opens with cool formalities. Maelis reads out foreign updates — three trade caravans delayed by flooding, new whispers of unrest from the outer provinces, a report of troop loss from the northern front.
I watch my father.
He doesn’t speak.
Doesn’t even shift in his chair.
Only his eyes move — flicking toward me when I don’t respond the way they want me to.
I don’t smile.
I don’t placate.
I ask for names.
Dates.
Numbers.
The room notices.
Maelis closes the scroll with too much care.
When she steps back, Eiran takes her place.
He smiles at me like he’s still tasting last night’s wine. “Your Highness,” he begins smoothly, “I’ve received word from Evasia. My father sends his blessing for the upcoming engagement ceremony. He believes it will reassure our nations that harmony remains unshaken.”
The word harmony tastes like ash.
I glance to Kaelis, who stands near the column behind my right shoulder.
He nods once — nearly imperceptible.
He’s testing my silence.
And I let him.
But not for long.
The meeting dissolves the way they always do — half of them bowing too deeply, the other half watching me like I’m something unpredictable.
A knife held by the wrong hand.
Eiran is the last to leave the council floor.
He doesn’t look back.
Kaelis gives me a glance — cautious, questioning — but I nod.
“I need a word with my father.”
He stays behind.
The throne room is quiet once the doors close. Cold, despite the sunlight pouring through the upper windows.
My father hasn’t moved.
Not really.
He sits slouched in his chair, crown heavy on his brow, fingers tapping against the armrest like he’s counting down the seconds until I speak.
“You’re letting Eiran run the court,” I say.
Still, he says nothing.
“You see what he’s doing. You must.”
A slow breath.
“Of course I see it,” he says, voice like gravel.
That stops me.
He shifts now — not much, but enough to level his gaze at me. There’s no warmth in it. No cruelty, either. Just exhaustion layered with something I never expected to see: Calculation.
“You think this is about him?” he asks. “It’s not. It’s about the kingdom. And right now, he’s the only one playing to win.”
“I’m not playing,” I snap.
“I know,” he says. “That’s your weakness.”
I take a step closer. “You’re letting him shape the court into something poisonous. He’s watching everything I do. Every word. Every breath. You know this.”
“I do.”
“So why don’t you stop him?”
A pause.
Then:
“Because I’m waiting to see if you can.”
That silence between us stretches like a blade.
“You’ve been heir in name your entire life, Elira,” he says. “But only now am I seeing if you can be heir in truth.”
“I won’t win this by playing his game.”
“No,” he says. “But you won’t survive it by pretending you’re above it either.”
I stare at him.
The great King Aldric.
The man who ruled a kingdom through war, famine, and a decade of slow decay. And now, at the edge of his rule, he watches his only daughter fight not to be consumed by the throne she’ll inherit. And he does nothing. No—he studies.
“I’m not your test,” I say, quiet now.
“You always were.” He leans back again.
The conversation is done.
The crown on my head feels heavier than it did this morning.
Not because it’s too large.
But because it fits.
I find Kaelis waiting in the long hallway outside the council chamber. He doesn’t look up when I approach. Doesn’t speak, either. He just falls in step beside me like he always does — a shadow that chooses to stay close, not because he’s ordered to, but because he’s watching.
We walk in silence, down the stone path that leads toward the lesser court — quieter, unused during the mornings, and far from where the nobles gather.
Only when the corridor curves out of sight do I finally speak. “He knew.”
Kaelis’s brow lifts just slightly. “Your father?”
I nod. “He knew what Eiran was doing. What I was risking. And he said nothing because he wanted to see if I would fight.”
Kaelis doesn’t rush in with sympathy.
He never has.
It’s not his way.
“Did that surprise you?” he asks.
“No,” I admit. “But I thought there would be… something. A warning. A word of direction. Even a threat would’ve meant he cared about the outcome.”
We step into the smaller hall — columns cracked, ivy grown wild around the windows, sunlight pouring through in fractured bars of gold.
“He called me his test,” I say.
Kaelis stops walking.
I keep going until I’m two steps ahead — then stop, too.
“You’re not,” he says, voice low.
I glance back.
He’s watching me carefully now — the way he does before a storm, measuring the wind, gauging where the lightning will fall. “You’re not a test,” he repeats. “You’re the reckoning they never planned for.”
A beat.
Then, quieter: “Which means they’ll do everything to break you before they have to kneel.”
I look away — not because I’m ashamed, but because the truth of it burns hotter than I expected.
“I don’t know what kind of ruler I’m going to be,” I say.
Kaelis’s voice is soft, steady. “Then become the kind they don’t know how to fight.”
I meet his eyes again.
And I nod.
Because I want to.
Because he sees me not as who I was trained to be — but as who I’m becoming. And maybe, just maybe, that will be enough.
We don’t return to the main hall.
Not right away.
Kaelis leaves me in the quiet stairwell that leads toward the old observatory, the one place in the palace no one dares to schedule meetings — too narrow, too high, too forgotten.
When I reach the top, a letter is already waiting on the ledge beneath the window. Not sealed. Not folded twice. Just resting there, plain as breath.
Myrin’s hand.
Unmistakable.
I open it with care.
The ink is fresh.
Elira,
You’ve chosen a dangerous time to grow bold. Your instincts are sound. The court is shifting — not away from you, but above you. Someone is pulling strings none of us tied. And your fiancé is not the hand that moves them. There are names I trust. Three of them are still in Arathen. One of them is watching you already. If you intend to move, move soon. And if you mean to lead, stop asking who will follow you. Make them chase.
—Myrin.
I read it twice. Then fold it once. Slip it into the lining of my sleeve.
I don’t move to leave right away.
I just stand there — between shadow and sunlight, wind pressing through the cracks in the window — feeling the shape of something I haven’t had in months: Direction.
They’re watching me.
But I’m watching back.
I don’t ask directly.
That would be stupid.
Instead, I observe.
I spend the next three days walking the palace as if nothing has changed — listening more than I speak, lingering longer than I should in rooms where the quietest people do the most dangerous work.
I test them.
To Maelis, I casually mention that I’m considering a formal visit to the barracks — something public, something to suggest I might be trying to reassert control over the palace guard.
She blinks, just once, before nodding politely. “Shall I arrange an escort?”
“No need,” I reply. “I won’t go far.”
To Rellin, I offer something smaller — a hint that I may be forced to reassign Kaelis.
“Too many whispers,” I say offhandedly. “Optics matter more than loyalty these days.”
He doesn’t flinch.
He just says, “I’ll clean the guest room. In case he’s moved.”
He always was quick.
To Ser Auver, I offer nothing.
Just a meeting glance in the corridor, a nod of greeting, and a half-smile that means nothing at all — but he pauses after I pass, like he’s waiting for me to turn around.
One of them knows who I am now.
And one of them is pretending they don’t.
Two mornings later, I send word to the royal priestess.
No one suspects.
The letter is short: I request time for private reflection in the old chapel. Please ensure I am not disturbed.
The chapel hasn’t been used in over a year. It’s tucked into the southern edge of the palace grounds, surrounded by overgrown laurels and shuttered stained-glass windows. Too humble for court events, too sacred for storage. Which makes it perfect.
Kaelis walks me there without a word.
He’s said little since the last council.
But I can feel the change in him — the way he’s always between me and the sun now, watching shadows instead of people.
When we reach the door, I pause.
He doesn’t move to follow.
“I won’t be long,” I say.
His mouth twitches — not quite a smile. “You’re building something.”
I glance back. “Not yet.”
I step inside.
The chapel is cold.
Still.
Dust hangs in the colored beams of light, fractured by centuries-old glass.
There are no guards here.
No courtiers.
No eyes.
Just me.
And the future I haven’t written yet.
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