The gardens of Friedhor were not made for rest.

  The rosebushes did not grow in gracious arches, but in spirals that seemed intent on climbing the heavens and clawing at the sun. The statues did not depict nymphs or muses in rapture, but ancient warriors whose eyes appeared to judge all who dared step upon the dark, perfectly trimmed grass. Even the flowers… bore a shade darker than they ought.

  The magnolias, for instance, were the color of wine.

  And they had thorns. Of course they did.

  “I have always found it curious how gardens reveal more about a king than his crowns,” Edsor remarked, with a smile that seemed gentle—though it wore armor.

  Balthier, two paces ahead, did not turn. His hands were clasped behind his back, shoulders broad as fortress walls.

  “A crown is visible. A garden… is personal,” he replied, his deep voice like thunder deciding to offer an opinion. “But do not be mistaken. Both suffocate. Only the splendor changes.”

  Edsor studied a flower that resembled an orchid… until he noticed it blink.

  “You have always been poetic, Balthier. Tell me—does ruling mean this to you? Cultivating beauty… beneath absolute control?”

  “Cultivating?” Balthier stopped. He turned slowly, like an old iron gate reluctant to yield. “I am the root.”

  His cerulean gaze pierced the warm air like a spear of ice.

  “The soil, the sun, and the water… all owe me something.”

  …

  Meanwhile…

  In the stone entrails of the palace, the air was not cold—but dense. Heavy. Thick as an aged wine that refuses to be drunk. Each breath carried the taste of ancient rust. The candles fixed to the walls burned in blue flames, wavering without vigor, as though the darkness itself were stealing the oxygen that remained.

  And there, in a chamber concealed between columns black as tombstones and tapestries that should never have been disturbed…

  Alice.

  Barefoot. Silent. Impeccable.

  Her black hair, long as broken promises, trailed along the stone floor, spreading like a river of ink. Her blue-gray mantle moved with her—but not like ordinary fabric. It resembled mist that had learned to imitate cloth.

  Then she smiled.

  Alice rarely smiled.

  But now, she did.

  Before her, upon a table of oak darkened by centuries, rested a tome. Not a common book. A colossus of imprisoned pages, thick as the skull of a minotaur, bound in leather scarred by fire and sealed by invisible locks of silence and time.

  Alice stepped closer.

  Her touch was light, yet each finger seemed tipped with shards of ice. The leather trembled beneath her skin.

  “…At last,” she whispered, almost tenderly, as one might greet a long-forgotten lover.

  A murmur escaped her lips. No word the world should preserve. The syllable vanished—and perhaps that was a mercy.

  The sigils ignited.

  First in restrained embers.

  Then in crimson flame.

  The glow painted Alice’s face. Her eyes flared—two dead suns rising in contained fury. Her pupils narrowed until they were nearly blades. Red pulsed, throbbed, danced within her.

  And her smile… was no longer human.

  It twisted—a fissure between flesh and whatever watched from behind it.

  The smile of one who recognizes an ancient mirror and smiles because, at last, someone remembers it still exists.

  Then—

  Silence.

  Not ordinary silence, but the kind that weighs, that locks the air in place, that forces you to realize something is breathing beside you.

  A presence.

  Alice spun sharply, military instinct tightening her chest. The air in her lungs turned to steel.

  There was nothing.

  And yet, she saw.

  She saw nothing. A void that moved, that occupied space without existing.

  She tried to dissolve into the shadows. Darkness had always received her. Always obeyed her.

  But the voice came.

  Low.

  Familiar.

  Impossible.

  “That does not work on me, Alice.”

  Time fractured.

  The stage lost its music.

  Her eyes widened, tearing crimson into incandescent embers. Her pupils constricted until they vanished. Her breath faltered—not from fear, but from ancestral recognition.

  It was not surprise.

  It was worse.

  It was… memory.

  “…No…” she tried to think.

  But thought shattered the moment the presence affirmed itself.

  And there was no time left.

  …

  In the garden.

  Balthier had resumed walking. Edsor followed with steady steps, unhurried. He was not a king who ran. Haste belonged to messengers.

  “So you believe all beneath the sky belongs to you?” Edsor asked, glancing toward an ornate fountain where lions that spat fire poured perfumed water.

  “The sky is merely the ceiling of my house,” Balthier answered, plucking a dark flower from its bed. He rotated it between his fingers, studying the petals with delicate care.

  “And the people?”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “They live beneath that ceiling. They eat what I plant. They sing what I permit. They die by my word…” He turned, raising the flower like a trophy. “…or for my amusement.”

  Edsor regarded the flower.

  Then the man.

  Then the entire garden.

  Like someone examining a chessboard… already aware of checkmate, yet feigning surprise.

  “It sounds like a lonely burden,” he said, with a faint sigh.

  Balthier smiled.

  Not kindly.

  But like a prelude—to sentences. To decisions. To war.

  He brought the flower to his nose. Inhaled.

  Then—

  With a small golden blade drawn from his belt, he cut it cleanly.

  “Some things are too beautiful to endure,” he said. “Therefore… it is better to cut them before they escape.”

  The garden answered with a shiver in the air.

  And the distant sound… of something closing behind a door no one had seen open.

  …

  The hall where tea was served was called the Solar of Seasons.

  A beautiful name for a place that had not seen sunlight in centuries.

  The high dome was made of colored glass, yet so burdened by time and soot that only filtered, softened light remained—as if the sky beyond were woven of old velvet. Crimson curtains, heavy as royal oaths, were held aloft by tarnished silver hooks. At the center stood a round table of polished onyx, its slender legs like the bones of a stag.

  Two women.

  Two cups.

  Two attendants.

  The tea’s aroma was sweet. Almost citrus.

  But here… nothing was exactly what it seemed.

  “This hall is lovely,” Esplendor said, settling into her chair with impeccable posture. Her fingers traced the rim of her cup with almost offensive elegance. “Though it scarcely feels… solar.”

  “This is Friedhor,” Aelinor replied, raising one brow with the patience of a cathedral under construction. “Here, even Solariis enters by written permission.”

  The attendants approached in unsettling synchrony.

  One with short golden hair and eyes of no certain color.

  The other silver-haired as dead moonlight, moving as though she floated—soundless, unwavering.

  “More tea, madam?” asked the golden one, without inflection.

  “Certainly, my lady,” murmured the silver one, filling their cups without once meeting their gaze.

  They did not smile.

  They did not breathe audibly.

  They were not… present.

  “They are entirely trustworthy,” Aelinor observed, watching the steam rise from her cup.

  “Personal attendants of the king, are they not?” Esplendor narrowed her eyes.

  Aelinor nodded.

  “They were raised for it. From childhood. Educated, shaped, tuned like instruments…” She cast a sideways glance at the golden one. “…until no string remains that might fall out of key.”

  The attendant paused.

  For an instant.

  An infinitesimal second.

  But she paused.

  Esplendor lowered her cup slowly.

  “Shaped?”

  “Without magic,” Aelinor crossed her legs, her robes shifting like living silk. “Without runes. Without enchantments. Only fear. And repetition.”

  Esplendor did not answer. Her eyes, so certain moments ago, trembled—as though a calculation had failed.

  “He turns people… into furniture,” she murmured.

  Aelinor did not confirm it.

  But neither did she deny it.

  “Some call it discipline. Others, efficiency,” she said, taking a delicate sip. “I call it… uncomfortable. Yet functional.”

  “Functional?” Esplendor nearly coughed on her tea. “You are serious?”

  “I am alive,” Aelinor replied, in the same tone one might use to comment on the weather. “In this kingdom, that alone exceeds the average lifespan.”

  The attendants withdrew. Eyes lowered. Movements flawless. They returned to their designated places—motionless, near the walls, gazing into nothing.

  Silence fell like ancient dust.

  Dense.

  Unavoidable.

  “Dalmástia… is different,” Esplendor said at last.

  Aelinor lifted her eyes, as though looking beyond the hall, the castle, the walls—beyond the sea.

  “And how is it?”

  Esplendor hesitated—briefly, but enough.

  “It is strong,” she answered. “Beautiful in its rawness. Filled with peoples and ideas. A kingdom that breathes even when wounded.” She paused. Smiled. “And one that does not convert women into walking shadows for reassurance.”

  Aelinor laughed.

  Short.

  Almost ceremonial.

  “That must be comforting,” she said. “To dwell within walls that do not bleed when it rains.”

  Esplendor rotated her cup between her fingers.

  “And you? What is it like… to live here? To serve a king like Balthier?”

  Aelinor studied the amber liquid in her cup.

  The steam coiled, as though something wished to escape—yet had forgotten how.

  “It has not been long,” she said at last. “I have not formed an opinion.”

  “Have you not?” Esplendor arched a brow. “You seem rather… integrated.”

  Aelinor turned her face slightly toward the window. There was no landscape—only a distant wall swallowed by dark ivy.

  “I require… twenty years to understand a place,” she said. “Fifty, if there is poetry involved. But as most races are brief…”

  She turned back. Eyes green as the end of the world.

  “…I intend to be practical this time.”

  Esplendor remained silent for several seconds.

  “Yes,” she said at last. “That seems wise.”

  Aelinor smiled.

  There was pain in it—so concealed only one who had lived centuries would recognize it.

  “Amy…” Esplendor murmured.

  Aelinor stilled.

  “…was different,” Esplendor finished.

  “She was,” Aelinor replied. “Perhaps that is why she endures… even as something forged of spark.”

  Silence returned.

  The kind that concludes—and threatens.

  …

  Night.

  Lohr’tis did not sleep.

  It merely pretended.

  The towers stood quiet. The wind brushed the windows like an uncertain visitor, and the flames in the sconces burned low—as if afraid of drawing attention. The corridors seemed to breathe. The polished stone whispered memories of steps long past… and steps that never returned.

  In the eastern wing, the chamber of the King of Dalmástia was grand.

  But not comforting.

  Black walls. Dark marble floor. Tapestries bearing the sigils of Friedhor. A bed too large for a king who had always slept with one eye open. A high-backed throne in the corner—a reminder that even in rest, he ruled.

  Edsor XV stood with his back to the door, watching a solitary flame in the hearth. Arms crossed. Face immersed in shadow. The reflection of embers made his seven rings gleam unevenly—each as though it told a different truth.

  One phrase struck his mind, again and again:

  Some things are too beautiful to endure… therefore it is better to cut them before they escape.

  Balthier.

  Always speaking in words that danced around daggers.

  Alice had vanished since yesterday.

  No contact.

  No message.

  No sign.

  For another, it might have meant little. For Edsor…

  It was like seeing his finest blade missing from its sheath.

  Alice did not fail.

  She could not fail.

  Not now.

  The artifact.

  The lost relic of the ancient kings of Lionnes.

  The only piece capable of tilting the balance of power in Therium.

  The reason Dalmástia had accepted Balthier’s invitation with smiles—and schemes in its pockets.

  Alice was his shadow.

  His final trump.

  And she was silent.

  “This is not a place that swallows people,” he murmured. “It chews with patience.”

  Three knocks.

  Measured.

  “Enter.”

  Esplendor entered, immaculate, carrying a small blue-white crystal upon a silver tray wrapped in arcane silk.

  “I have located the man in Dalmástia as requested, Your Majesty. The crystal is attuned to the Temple of Malkut in the capital. When you wish, the mists will carry his image.”

  She spoke as though offering water.

  Edsor nodded.

  “Thank you. But first… I would speak with you.”

  She stood alert.

  “The messages,” he continued. “To the clergy and branches. Were they delivered?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “The words have taken root. Even the oldest roots understood.”

  He inclined his head.

  “Good… the kiteni matters to him. She will be safe.”

  “Sit,” he said, gesturing toward a high-backed chair near the hearth.

  She complied.

  “What did you think of Friedhor’s mage?”

  A pause.

  “She is… ancient. Wise. And disturbingly attuned to her environment.”

  “That is not praise.”

  “Even ancient trees rot,” Esplendor said. “If the soil rots deeply enough. And Friedhor… stinks.”

  He studied her.

  “She seemed hollow to me,” he said. “Like a reliquary… after the theft.”

  “Or a seer who has grown weary of seeing,” Esplendor replied. “There is wisdom in her. Buried deep. In the sort of mud that stains those who try to dig.”

  “Do you fear her?”

  “I would fear what she has already chosen not to fear,” Esplendor said, faintly smiling. “But no. Not yet.”

  He considered that.

  Then activated the crystal.

  Mists rose.

  The Temple of Malkut in Edsória formed in smoke.

  Yet even beneath sacred light… Lohr’tis’ shadow seemed to linger.

  …

  Later that night.

  Alice entered without sound.

  Kneeling before him.

  Then smiling.

  Not sweetly.

  But as warning.

  No words passed between them.

  None were needed.

  The kingdom shifted course that night.

  …

  Dawn.

  Lohr’tis gleamed gold beneath sunlight—but no one was fooled.

  The Dalmastian retinue prepared to depart.

  Esplendor completed the final concealment wards upon the royal carriage.

  Aelinor approached.

  “Counselor,” she said softly.

  Esplendor turned.

  “I hope your journey is long… but bearable,” Aelinor said. “Friedhor weighs heavily. Dalmástia has always seemed lighter.”

  “It is lighter only for those who carry it with honor,” Esplendor replied.

  “Amy would be proud,” Aelinor murmured.

  “And despairing,” Esplendor added. “She never had patience for politics.”

  “Nor I,” Aelinor said, glancing skyward. “Yet here we stand.”

  They parted.

  …

  Inside the carriage, Alice sat with composure.

  “The tome is there,” she said. “The true one. The one that grants access to the entity. The ancestral eidolon.”

  “Awake?”

  “Awake… but inert. Like a breath held too long.”

  “And the guardian?”

  “It was no guardian,” Alice replied. “It was… a shadow.”

  “Balthier?”

  “No. Worse. It acts not by command—but by desire. It confronted me.”

  “And you fled?”

  Alice smiled.

  “I touched it.”

  Esplendor frowned.

  “It felt pain. And fear. When I touched it… it fled.”

  …

  In Lohr’tis, Balthier listened to the trembling Shadow.

  “She saw me. Touched me. The veil fractured.”

  “And what did you feel?” Balthier asked.

  “Pain. Fear. Death.”

  “And she?”

  “She laughed. And touched my face.”

  Balthier laughed.

  Low.

  Then high.

  Then cruel.

  “I recognized the woman’s power. Unmatched. But her ambition… surpasses all. And her curse… will undo her.”

  He rose.

  “Poor kingdom of Dalmastia,” he said, cerulean eyes burning with glacial flame. “I shall not need to lift a finger.”

  ?