"Will I ever be allowed to go with you?" Torvam asked, gaze fixed on the cobblestone as he brought Equesta up the hill.

  "Just come. By the time she notices, we'll be far gone." Aurpius offered, not looking at him.

  He had stayed two more days at his safe place. Every night Torvam came to him. Every morning they trained in the cold before their mother thirst or wine woke her. The closest to peace that Aurpius found in months.

  The closest Torvam had been to seeing the world, since Tarisia would always reinforce he would never be like Aurpius, normal. All due to his health issues.

  As they climbed toward the Marble, the smell reached them first—roasted chestnuts, the sweetness of every market morning of his childhood.

  Back when Syr Epstel and Auryuna used to take the triplets along to their deeds.

  Torvam's spine straightened. "Do you have quilverns?"

  Aurpius tilted his head and waved a hand. His brother let the reins fall and was gone before the gesture finished.

  He always loved chestnuts.

  The stall was stacked with steaming baskets, smoke curling from a clay brazier into the cold air. Torvam was already fumbling at the edge of it, nineteen years old and moving like a boy.

  Aurpius watched him. The tightness in his chest eased, briefly.

  Then he saw the man behind the stall.

  Long face. Weathered like driftwood left in salt. He wore a tall pointed hat that pooled shadow over his gaunt frame, and a black pipe jutted from between his teeth. Green robes, repatched until the original cloth was a memory.

  He didn't seem to fit there. He did not look at the chestnuts.

  He did not look at Torvam. He looked at Aurpius.

  Torvam extended his arm. The man's hand seized around his wrist before the chestnuts changed hands.

  Aurpius's hand found Svip.

  ""

  Torvam tried to pull free but the grip held.The blood drained from his face like wine from a cracked cup.

  "." The man's spine arched backward, throat bared. The pointed hat tumbled. The pipe struck the brazier. His hand did not lose the grip. ""

  "Release him." Aurpius was already moving.

  ""

  Aurpius seized the man's wrist and wrenched. The grip broke. Torvam stumbled back, clutching his arm, staring at the skin beneath his ridden sleeve as though expecting a burn that wasn't there. He kept rubbing it anyway.

  The seer's head dropped forward. His eyes—brown. Ordinary. Terrified.

  "Forgive me—I couldn't—being a seer is a curse, m'lord, I swear I didn't mean to—" He looked at his own hands as though they belonged to someone else.

  Aurpius pulled back his hood.

  The seer's words died in his throat. His face, the colour of old ash.

  "If you ever touch a royal again," Aurpius's voice was ice. "I will take both your hands, Magical scum."

  "Yes—yes, Your Highness—please—" He thrust two sacks of chestnuts forward. "Take them, please—"

  Aurpius took them both, giving one to Torvam before turning.

  "The message is for both of you," the man called after him. "And it's not finished."

  Aurpius turned slowly. The seer's eyes were moving beneath the surface of themselves, fighting something.

  "Please—it needs to be heard—"

  "Don't you dare call after me."

  He sheathed Svip and took Equesta's reins. He did not look back.

  Torvam hadn't moved. He stood with the chestnuts untouched in his palm, staring at the place the seer's hand had been on his wrist.

  "Torvam."

  Something surfaced in his brother's eyes—startled, like an animal caught in torchlight. Then it submerged. Replaced by a mask Aurpius was acquainted with.

  "Mad," Torvam said. His voice steady again. "Utterly mad."

  "Dragons." Aurpius kept walking. "In Easeror." The word sat wrong in his mouth—it belonged to Yorukto, to Qi'In, to stories that had no business breathing in that part of the world. "That is why Magicals are dangerous. People can start living upon that nonsense."

  Torvam retrieved Equesta's reins from Aurpius. The smell of roasted chestnuts followed them longer than it should have.

  He noticed his brother's hands on the reins. The tremor in the knuckles, like a man holding something too tight for too long.

  He noticed Torvam never asked what the seer had been trying to tell him.

  The silence stretched until it became its own kind of conversation.

  "Beyr agreed to send a girl each week," Aurpius said finally. "But you need to sto—"

  "I won't do it again."

  Aurpius said nothing. He wanted to believe him. He thought of the Magical beauty at Beyr's—of how little the teachings held when the dark was deep enough. Of how his hands reached for what he was supposed to despise.

  Brothers shared more than blood, it seemed.

  "Better they don't see us arrive together. Go for the main entrance. I'll take the kitchens." Aurpius said.

  Torvam looked at him. His eyes held something that the Marbl would not keep—something too clean, too unguarded for its walls.

  "You're a good man, brother." He handed back the reins.

  Aurpius nodded once and walked Equesta to the squires before taking the kitchen entrance—the way a man took when he needed not to be seen. No Sunsguard at the post. Epstel's men had been ordered somewhere else.

  He didn't bother to dress for her likings. White shirt, dark linen trousers, the same boots as always. His hair he had left long and loose on purpose—white as every Ophrynth who had lived. Let him see it.

  History had taught him one reliable thing: eat before seeing Tarisia. After, the appetite went or she didn’t allow him to.

  The kitchens wrapped him in heat and roasting fat the moment he stepped through—the only warmth the Marbl offered without requiring something in return. He reached for an apple, then a cup of wine.

  "Your Highness." The voice behind him trembled at the edges. Old Pontry, her hands already wringing themselves. "I left food in your room, if it pleases you."

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  He lifted the cup to his lips before turning. Then he caught her arm and spun her once, gently, the way he had since he was a boy stealing bread from her ovens.

  "I'll save it, Pontry. One never knows the queen's mood." He took a bite of the apple. "Better to have something for later—in case she gets angry with me just for being me."

  Laughter rippled through the kitchen. Aurpius grinned faintly, left with his apple half-bitten, bracing for screams and offences.

  The dining hall waited like a battlefield. The long table was set for a meal no one would enjoy. Candles guttered in their sconces— though the sun provided enough light to see by. His father's chair stood empty at the head, as it usually did at this hour, at any hour lately.

  He took the seat beside Torvam. His father's right. Directly across from his mother.

  Tarisia's eyes found him before he had fully sat. Aurpius knew that look. The measuring of what he had done, where he had been, how long he had been gone, and whether any of it could be turned against him.

  Sometimes he wondered whether she remembered he was next in line. Not her.

  "See that you rest yourself, son." Her voice was low. "I can see that nobody bothers to inform me where my own child dwells anymore." Her eyes slid to Torvam, a warning.

  "Torvam—" Aurpius started.

  Tarisia's voice cut down, slicing between them.

  "You're not going to waste your time, Aurpius. Torvam won't go anywhere." Her eyes moved to his hair. Stayed there. "I see you haven't shaved it."

  "I don't plan to," he held her gaze. "Tarisia."

  "Fuck off Aurpius!" Torvam's chair screeched as he stood, throwing a slice of bread across the table. "You never yield!"

  He stormed from the room. His shouts echoed down the corridor long after he'd gone.

  By then, Aurpius could no longer sort his brother's yelling from his mother's.

  "Mother! Mom! Mamma! Mommy!" Her voice cracking like a whip. "To you, I am !" she hissed. "This is your home, call it home!"

  "Then why do you make home so uncomfortable?" He took a tangerine from the bowl and rose.

  Aurpius heard her taking a deep breath, and turned to face her.

  "From this day forth," she said, "you and your companions will cease all activities as Paladins."

  The laugh came before he could stop it.

  "What is amusing?"

  "Why?" he shot back, furrowing his brows.

  "People are talking." Something moved behind her eyes—not the cold he knew, something rawer beneath it. "Your heavy hand. I won't have it traced back to you."

  Her voice changed—by a degree most would miss. But he didn’t. Aurpius had been reading her since boyhood. He stilled. She was afraid. Not for herself—for him.

  "Where's Archness?" he asked. "Haven't seen her."

  "With your father." A pause that carried too much jealousy. "They seemed… knitted."

  "It seems he's not devoid of love at all," the crown prince forced a laugh.

  The silence that followed was almost bearable. Aurpius reached for a plate, served himself—chicken, cooked pears—and returned to the table.

  "I want you to hunt Magicals."

  . That was the reason she wanted him so soon at .

  His fork stopped mid-way. "I'm no assassin…" His stomach tightened.

  "I want them gone," she said, a thin smile cutting across her face. "I can't have it done the way I want. Not yet."

  He ate. He said nothing.

  He had hated Magicals as long as he could remember. He wondered, lately, whether that hatred was his or something carved into him.

  "Tari—" The word came wrong. He tried again. "Mother." Her face shifted—barely, but it did. "They're poisonous. I won't argue that. But killing them without cause breaks the agreement."

  "One motive is all we need." Something lit behind her eyes."And we shall have it soon enough."

  Aurpius didn't bother to ask—she’d sing like a bird whenever she believed she had seen further than everyone in the world.

  "For the Goddess's sake, don't look at me like I'm insane." She stormed, on her feet now. "We're going to use what your father wants—use it as an opportunity."

  He kept eating.

  "You're going south." She set down her wine. "Crown business. Your father wants the Thornes to be invited personally—and who better to carry it than you?"

  He tilted his head and breathed. At the very least, he would be out of the Marbl soon.

  "Have I become a messenger now?" he mocked.

  "Your father believes it as a rare chance for you to prove yourself." She took a sip of her wine. "And a great honour for them—to host our heir."

  His ‘father’s words’ had her fingerprints all over them.

  Something cold moved through him. The red feather surfaced in his mind, although not hers, he wondered how deep hate had to run before a man would use it as a tool against someone else's.

  "Why am I going to whore myself in that damn snow?"

  "Find proof they breached our agreement." The anxiety was in her voice before she could stop it.

  He cleaned his mouth. Folded his arms. Leaned back and waited. She had given him her reason. Not his father's.

  "Your father has decided to marry you to their princess."

  Her fingers had gone white around the goblet stem. The wine inside barely moved.

  His jaw tightened. "What a dream." A short, dead sound escaped his throat. "I’m literally whoring myself."

  "Utterly absurd," Tarisia said. “Your father insists.”

  The word sat between them. They had not agreed on anything in longer than he could remember.

  A strange stillness settled in his chest. He waited for the anger. It did not come.

  Marriage had always been inevitable—he had imagined a nobleman's daughter, perhaps Aubrey, safe and close to .

  Therefore a southern wife meant distance. No more cold floors. No more Beyr's, no more borrowing warmth from places that charged for it.

  A twisted sense of freedom. No more hiding food. No more humiliation.

  He let it go. Not even him was that desperate. She was a Magical—as if he didn’t enjoy what they could provide.

  "Viperyan Thorne?" The name was out before he could decide whether to say it.

  Tarisia's hand the goblet to her mouth, her hands trembling.

  "Is that interest because you would rather fuck Magical whores?"

  He felt as if the blood had been drained from his veins. Like a child caught with bloodied hands.

  He closed his eyes— she knew it, and that her knowing it was worse than doing it.

  His face burned. Shame coiled round his throat—tighter than any rope, and twice as silent.

  "I am the Queen." She rose, both hands pressing the table. "I know everything." Her eyes did not leave his face. "Remember the reason for your existence, Aurpius."

  His fingers found the arm of the chair. She could strip him to the bone and he would not dance to her strings. She had always been certain of his inferiority—just by being her child. He had stopped arguing—arguing required care.

  Sometimes, the crown sat heavy in his imagination—not for the power. For quiet it would bring.

  "You have a few days to pack." The shift—she moved through moods the way birds move from branches. "But first. The Guard's tailor. Collect your squad's new uniforms." She did not look at him as she said it. "Silver crow mask. A cape as dark as aubergine. Black leathers with eagle feathers at the shoulder."

  "I'll tell the boys."

  "No need. My flies already did." She set her cup down. "Tell me why you brought them alive."

  Aurpius huffed. "What more did you want? We killed all the men. Only the women and children we brought."

  The table shook under her palm. "You should have killed them all. Weak little bo—"

  "Have you ever once considered that not everything is about you?" He asked.

  Aurpius saw her eyes burning as mouth opened.

  "How dare—"

  "Reason, Mother." He did not raise his voice nor gave her the breath to answer. "If you keep Magicals alive, you can question them. Their customs. Their magic." He watched the rage receding just enough for calculation to rise. "The elves. You could use them to replace servants."

  "This would mean breaching the agreement." Tarisia hissed.

  As high as her tone reached, lower he spoke. She had always hated that.

  "Enslaving humans would breach it.” He kept his voice even. “Not creatures."

  The higher her voice climbed, the quieter he became. She had always hated that.

  A curve formed at the corner of her mouth.

  "The pink-eyed elf spoke something that can inhibit their powers." He had not meant to say it. It slipped out anyway. "Nothing more. I find wise to delve into it, instead of pretending the enemy has no weakness Mother."

  "And how am I to control elves?" she demanded, as if it was his obligation to teach her that.

  "Blood magic," he said—surprising even himself. "You have time enough, and a library you've never properly used. The Ophrynths kept records — detailed ones. Their power, their rituals, their lore."

  "I'll have someone read it." She drained the last of her wine in one long pull and set the cup down, already dazed by it.

  He pushed back from the table. "I suppose this is goodbye for a month, then. Perhaps more."

  He did not wait for her answer. The air in that room had thickened in a way he needed to breathe pure air.

  "Take all the time you need, young eagle."

  He stopped at the threshold. He did not turn.

  "Take care in the south." Her voice had gone soft, which usually meant the opposite. "They say their jewel is wild for our customs. Don't delude yourself into thinking marriage will change anything. You are still the king in line. You were born for one purpose." Another pause. "To be a Crown’s property. Mine. Only mine."

  He stood in the doorway a moment longer before turning to her.

  A smile carved across her face as her words curdled in his ears.

  He should’ve stayed silent but rage flared through him like wildfire. His knuckles whitened against the doorframe.

  "You know, Mother…" His voice trembled on the edge of losing control. "You've been holding so tight, afraid to lose control."

  Tarisia's hand found the wine goblet.

  “You’re losing it over whispers of a girl.” He stepped closer. "You’re terrified of losing it." He let the word sit in the room before he continued. "Not the crown but the only thing they valued more than your title." He stepped back into the room. "Your beauty. It does not matter whether I marry. Whether I freeze in the south or rot here. This is a family I’ve not been part of since the morning you shipped me away."

  He did not finish the thought. There was a place within him where the memory lived, and he did not go near it.

  His lips curved into satisfaction. "It feels so fucking good to know that everything you ever wanted from me is falling apart right in front of you."

  He was already moving when he heard the iron ring of it against the wall, and heard the wine dripping down the marble. The small silence before her voice stormed out, high and shapeless, chasing him down the corridor.

  He had not decided to go to Equesta. He found himself riding her anyway. Wind moved through his hair. Dust rose from the road. The sun sat warm against his face. He rode without direction for a long while, until the last of her voice finished echoing in his skull. Until the Marbl dwindled to a pale smear before him.

  Freedom was not peace. He understood that now. It was the silence after the explosion. It was turning their exchanges into his advantage. It was being seen for the first time for the one who blamed him.

  His father had given him a marriage that carried weight. The Queen had wanted him leashed, and his father had handed him a road of promises.

  He would ride south under his father's name. Not hers.

  The most satisfying thing of all was that Tarisia Scaster no longer held his leash.

  For the first time in his life, he was his father's son.