The courtyard had become a sea of silk and song.
Flags whispered on tall poles. Prayer-smoke curled from braziers of starflower and amber resin, drifting like pale ghosts through the crisp morning air. A ring of priests in simple white stood at the center, their hands folded, faces solemn like carved stone. The gathered crowd fell into a hush that felt as fragile as glass.
Solis stood beside Ada, the Postknight line behind them a tidy row of armor. He smelled incense and horse sweat and the faint metallic tang of steel, and for the first time since he'd come to the palace he understood why people gathered — not to watch but to be part of something bigger than themselves.
Ada's eyes were wide, shining with the kind of wonder Solis sometimes felt after a long march when the sky finally opened. She had folded her hands in front of her as if trying to hold the ceremony in place.
"Oh my god! Solis can you see that? It's an Eloinism ritual." she whispered, barely audible. "See the priests? They're chanting the Axiom. The belief is that Eloin lives in the harmless — the humble. That the god walks among gentle souls."
Solis listened to the chant — a low, rising tone that stitched itself into the marrow of his bones. The priests' voices wove together in a steady cadence:
> "Eloin in the quiet, Eloin in the kind, Eloin in the hands that do not bind."
The princess had arrived with her father.
When she stepped into the ring of light, Solis's breath left him for a small, private moment. Ada's hand tightened on his sleeve.
He had seen her in the market, hooded and slipping through the crowd. Now she lifted her chin, and the cloth fell back. Princess Lily stood there — not in a costume, but the person who had tried on streets and smiles the day before. The royal gown was far more restrained than court portraits suggested; ribbon and embroidery caught the sun in quiet flashes, not gaudy ones. She wore no crown — only a small circlet of braided silver.
A hush deepened as the priests stepped forward. One took a bowl of ash — the consecrated residue from starflower braziers — and mixed it with water in a shallow copper dish. Another struck a bell, and the clear sound chased birds from the rafters.
Solis's eyes flicked between the ritual and Lily. For a heartbeat he felt foolish for remembering the market: that she had laughed and dropped an apple; that she had bent to gather them like any nervous, clumsy human. Now she bowed her head slightly as the priest raised his hand.
The lead priest intoned the blessing in a voice like river stones:
"By Eloin, who dwells in the open heart, we bid courage to you who will carry the crown's light. Walk in humility. Hold the people's trust as you would for a fragile flame."
A soft wind gathered and snuffed the braziers for an instant, making the words feel like a private thing between the priest and the sky.
Ada leaned toward Solis. "The ash marks the soul that is willing," she said. "If you're touched by this ash and mean harm, it burns you in a way. The belief says the unblessed cannot hold a mark."
Solis watched as the priest took a wet finger, dusted his own forehead, then brushed Lily's brow with a precise, perfunctory touch. The ash left a gray crescent, like a small moon.
"Eloin in light," the priest recited. "Eloin in the small."
Lily blinked, the ash smudging slightly at the corner of her eye. She closed them and breathed like someone taking in more of the world than before.
Solis shifted his attention, feeling the weight of his sword at his back where it lay wrapped. He had expected spectacle — fanfare, trumpets, empty ceremonies — not a quiet, aching thing meant to be felt.
"I don't know," he said, mostly to himself. "It… it's a lot."
Devon stood near them, arms folded, as unmoved as river rock. Yet his eyes were not idle. He had been watching Lily's face with an expression Solis hadn't seen before — one like someone who had known grief that never quite left the room.
Solis leaned toward him. "Why does it matter so much to the king?"
Devon's voice was tight and low. "When the princess was born, his wife — our queen — was weak. They said the birth was hard. She lived only a handful of days."
Solis looked at him, and Devon's face made no effort to hide the memory.
"She watched that child for days. Named her, sang to her. Then... she just didn't wake up one day." Devon said. "It hollowed him out in a way no one speaks of in court. The crown became his tether to something that kept him moving. The princess isn't just his daughter. She's the last living memory of a woman he loved and lost."
Solis felt the words settle. "So this… this blessing is about keeping what little remains whole."
Devon nodded. "To a king who has seen what death takes, everything that remains is precious. People who bring gifts, blessings — they're not just praying for a tour. They're praying for hope to gather weight again. For the king to believe in something besides the ache."
Ada's voice was small. "I didn't know that."
"It's obvious no one ever do," Devon said, softer than he'd been in weeks. "People wear rulings like an armor. Sorrow sits inside them. Sometimes they move through life with that heavy thing wrapped around their ribs."
Solis turned back to the ceremony. The priests now formed an arc around the princess, and each of the five knight units sent a representative — an official step and nod that threaded the military to the throne.
Solis noticed a middle aged man's contingent across the square. The K.P.P. were everything Orsic wanted the world to see: rigid lines, polished armor, faces that could have been carved from stern rock. Their captain watched the ceremony with the kind of attention that had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with image.
When it came time for the offerings, people stepped forward from the crowd — a potter with a cracked vase, an old woman with a pouch of wild-seed, a group of farmers with the first of the season's barley. Each placed their small token on the altar, and the priests murmured blessings over the gifts like a practiced lullaby.
Princess Lily stepped forward last. She carried nothing but a small cloth-wrapped bundle. The straps of her sleeve were dusted with the market's dirt, just faintly — a trace of the day before when she had been, simply, a woman among others.
Solis watched her lay the bundle on the altar. The lead priest opened it with reverence. Inside were a few pressed flowers and a small scrap of hand-stitched cloth — humble things that made the priest's eyes soften.
"For Eloin," she said quietly. "For the people I will meet. For the ones who do not have privilege."
Her voice did not tremble. It held itself like a blade honed to clarity — not because she wanted it to, but because it needed to be so. The king stood beside her, shoulders that carried more than a crown, and there was a hollow in his gaze that Solis now knew by name.
After the offerings, the priests called for a moment of silence. The bells rang low and long. Solis felt something lean into him — a small, solid pressure, like a fist of intent closing and opening.
Ada whispered, "It's more than ceremony for some. Haha... it's actually holding a promise, from our side."
Solis wanted to ask what promise he was supposed to hold. He wanted to ask whether a sword that hummed at night could be trusted in a world where gods nested in the harmless. He only tightened his fingers around the cloth at his back instead, feeling the reassuring pressure of leather and wrapped steel.
The lead priest extended his hands and raised a question that was less of a question and more of an invitation.
"Do those who gather here pledge to keep the innocent safe, to walk without greed, and to carry Eloin's small light when the world grows dark?"
Voices rose — a thousand small affirmations, a chorus of ordinary courage.
Solis said it too. His voice was small in the ring of sound, but it was there.
Later, as people began to disperse, Ada turned to him with that same bright, sincere grin she reserved for small celebrations. "I like what she said. 'For the ones who do not have privilege.'"
Solis nodded. "I hope... she means it."
Devon was watching him, expression unreadable. "You'll be around to the princess's carriage tomorrow. Keep your eyes open. Not every smile means what it seems."
Solis met Devon's look. "Yes, sir."
There was a hollowness in the courtyard that had been filled with prayer. The moment had been more than spectacle; it had been a small thing stitched into the nation's fabric. Solis realized it would be wrong to shrug it off.