Morning broke like a clean blade over the capital of Athens, the sun rinsing the stone spires in a gold so bright it felt ceremonial. High above the city—aloof, serene, and perfectly aligned with the celestial meridian—floated the Heavenly Azimuth: a vast island held aloft by centuries of rites and a geometry only saints pretended to understand. Around the island shimmered a dome of azure mana, translucent as breath on glass, its surface crawling with faint sigils that swam like migrating constellations. The dome kept the wind mild, the air luminously clear, and, more importantly, the uninvited out.
At the island's heart rose Conclier Basilica, white as a vow. Its nave was a river of light, its transepts cradled by pillars that reached like prayer. In the Great Hall—an immaculate expanse of burnished stone—holy wards moved in slow spirals across the floor, subtle enough to be beautiful, powerful enough to be felt. Birds nested in high alcoves and flew in gentle loops beneath the glass oculus; white doves alighted on cornices, preening; the fragrance of fresh flowers threaded the air—lilies, starblossom, a whisper of myrrh—arranged by hands that understood that beauty was not a defense but often made a good disguise for one.
Templar Knights stood without fuss along the walls, polearms grounded, helms under their arms, tabards immaculate. Their silence was the curated kind—the sort maintained by training, prayer, and the acute awareness that the people filing into this chamber could bend cities with a mood.
At the center of the hall sat the Round Table: a circle of carved whitewood embedded with a thin seam of gold. The chairs around it were spaced too precisely to be accidental. To the right, Clara Crown had already taken her place—long green hair falling in an elegant ribbon over one shoulder, eyes the measured calm of a deep forest. She wore a black tailored suit over a crisp white shirt, a single emerald at her throat that caught light with an almost musical restraint. The faint lines at the edge of her eyes said she smiled easily; the way her hands lay perfectly still on the table said she did nothing by accident.
Opposite her, on the left side, Charles Lionheart leaned back a fraction, white hair combed to stark order, amethyst eyes cool behind lashes as pale as breath. He wore a white longcoat over black, fine as knife work, and a signet ring that seemed to weigh more than the finger it rested on. At his left sat Lexon Hartley—older, sea-eyes blue, hair the gentler shade of water over slate, the kind of posture that didn't so much demand respect as assume it had already been given. He had the look of a man who preferred schedules to speeches and power that didn't need to be announced.
The double doors at the far end of the hall swung open with the softness that only oiled hinges and good manners could achieve. A woman entered, and the air changed temperature as if the hall inhaled.
Ezel Frost.
Silver hair poured down her back in a disciplined cascade, and her eyes were a winter noon blue—pretty until you looked too long. She wore a sculpted dress the color of glacier melt, high-collared, filigreed in pale runes that flickered with a frost-clarity. With her first step, the white floor underfoot bristled with rime; with her second, it glazed over. She did not so much walk as draw winter forward. The hem of her gown whispered, leaving a trace of breath-fog that swirled, then vanished as if choosing not to offend the basilica.
"Good morning," Ezel said, smiling in a way that would have been warm on any other face. It managed civility without conceding anything to it. She turned her head, studying the hall as if it had been redecorated since her last visit. "Always a pleasure to find the world still turning."
She took the seat beside Clara with languid grace.
Clara's green gaze slid over, patient. "Ezel," she murmured, "I trust you'll not start another quarrel with Emilia today. We are very nearly on time, and the Saintess does value punctuality."
Ezel's smile did not widen, but it became more explicit. "Dear Clara, I never start quarrels," she said lightly. "I merely finish conversations others fail to complete." She folded one leg over the other; frost traced the air for a heartbeat and then receded, polite as a bow.
Before Clara could answer, the doors opened again—and the temperature on the other end of the spectrum arrived.
Emilia Emberhart entered like noon in a city of ice. Heat did not hum around her; it took up residence. Long red hair, braided down her back with a soldier's honesty, gold eyes that held nothing of jewelry and everything of warning. The military cut of her coat did not pretend to fashion; it was a garment made to be saluted. She left a ripple in the air that smelled faintly of iron and cinnamon, the peculiar scent of well-tempered flame.
She didn't greet anyone. She didn't need to. She took a chair a little away from the nearest cluster and sat as if every seat was hers by right and none were by grace. Her glance swept the room, dismissed three things, filed two, and landed on Ezel long enough to communicate an entire biography of contempt.
Trash, Emilia thought, the word decanting into her mind with the ease of an old habit. Paint a frozen lake gold and it's still thin ice.
Ezel's eyes found hers with practiced leisure, and she tilted her head, smile sharpened to a tool. "Emilia," she said, voice at once sweet and edged, "why so far from the fire? Do you fear I'll steal your seat? Or…" her gaze dipped in a way that would have been coy if it hadn't been predatory, "…do you fear me?"
Emilia's mouth curved just enough to be dangerous. "Yes," she said calmly. "I fear I might melt you by accident. It would be inconsiderate to leave a puddle on the basilica floor."
A Templar coughed into his fist. Clara pressed two fingers to her temple.
Ezel's laugh was soft and knife-thin. "Careful," she murmured. "It's a long way from ash to authority. And I would hate to have to refreeze your little blaze. Embers do so hate to be reminded they're named for endings."
Emilia set her hands on the table—flat, steady, the way a duelist tests a surface before leaning into it. "And ice, darling," she said, tone bright with the exact level of politeness that means its opposite, "is what water calls itself when it can't remember how to move."
"Enough," Clara said, that single word carrying a music of patience and steel. "Please. We are in a sanctuary."
Neither woman looked away from the other.
Charles Lionheart shifted, signet ring catching light, eyes the specific brand of bored that meant attentive. Lexon Hartley's mouth ticked—no more than a quarter-smile—as if pieces on a board he'd expected to see were precisely where he left them.
Ezel reclined a fraction, glance sliding past Emilia as if the redhead were a furnishing. "A housekeeping matter," she said brightly—too brightly—for the table at large. "Tell me, Emilia, why did you marry your daughter to Naoko's son? Seeking a taller shadow to stand in? Or are we collecting shields now?" She tapped one finger on the table, nails like slivers of glass. "Clever foxes do enjoy burrows they did not dig."
Clara exhaled. "Ezel."
Emilia turned her head slowly, gold eyes luminous as a warning. "It's a political marriage," she said, each syllable set down like a brick. "We both know it, and I'm not obligated to justify my arithmetic to you." She paused, then added with the kind of smile that made men confess taxes, "Besides, didn't your daughter attempt to test those numbers personally, Ezel? Saraphina slipped her hand onto Jin's arm at a His first day at the academy she was not invited to and discovered the Rotschy heir does not mistake perfume for merit for prostitute ."
A faint stir passed through the knights along the wall. Ezel's smile faltered the way blade oil chills when someone opens a window.
"Perhaps," Ezel said, voice sugar with malice underneath, "my daughter saw what you refuse to: that Rina is not equal to the burden she's been handed. Perhaps Saraphina sought to evaluate the boy's character, for Rina's sake. Out of…concern." The word sat in her mouth like a dare. "Tests are useful when the stakes are so high, no? Or do Emberharts only like trials when they get to set the fire?"
Emilia's gold gaze brightened, but her face did not change. Inside, the quick calculus that had made her house famous ticked through three dozen outcomes and returned with the same answer it always did when Ezel's name was in the problem set: zero tolerance.
She will not smear Rina and walk away smiling, Emilia thought, perfectly calm in the way a detonator is calm. Not here. Not while the doves are watching. Let her learn what heat is for.
"Concern," Emilia repeated, as if trying the shape of the lie. "Is that what Frost calls it when it pushes a girl toward a married man to see if the rings are welded on? How very charitable of your house," she went on, each word wrapped in prettiness and presented like a razor in silk. "Truly, what would we do without your moral tutelage. The Frost Code: If you cannot earn a blessing, seduce it. If you cannot seduce it, claim you were worried."
Ezel's eyes cooled to something that would peel paint. "Says the woman whose flames have burned through three alliances in a decade," she said, voice clean as a scalpel. "How many bed-warm oaths were those, Emilia? Do you even remember, or do you only count the scars you keep under your uniform?"
A brief, electric silence. Two of the birds stopped mid-sweep. A flower petal fell, theatrically, as if the basilica itself appreciated pacing.
Emilia did not blink. "I prefer scars to frostbite," she said, soft. "At least scars mean something lived long enough to heal."
"For once," Ezel murmured, "we agree. You do prefer marks."
Clara's chair scraped softly as she leaned forward. "Ladies," she said, through a smile cultivated over years of putting out fires that never admitted they were fires. "The agenda today includes coastal securitas, ecclesiastic tithes, and grain corridors. I do not see bedroom anthropology on this list."
Ezel did not look at Clara. "Perhaps add it," she said. "We might educate certain houses about—what was your word, Emilia? Arithmetic." She lifted her gaze to the vaulted ceiling as if God Himself had entered into the banter. "What is the equation for a house that ties itself to Rotschy? One Naoko, one son, one weapon forged in silence. Divide by an Emberhart who mistakes proximity for power."
Emilia laughed—light, bright, dangerous. "You think we hide behind Naoko?" She leaned in, elbows on the table now, gold eyes incandescent. "Listen to me, frostbite: we don't hide behind anyone. If Naoko were not on the board, we would still stand. If Naoko were against us, we would still stand—bloodied, perhaps, but taller for it. You, on the other hand…" she let the sentence trail, eyes leisurely taking in Ezel's perfection, the engineered cold, the way winter had to justify itself in spring, "…you need the weather to cooperate for your entire personality to function."
"Better a personality," Ezel said, sweetly vicious, "than a temper with a uniform attached."
"Better a temper," Emilia murmured, "than a soul that freezes rather than admit it wants."
Clara closed her eyes for one long inhale, then opened them. "Emilia," she said gently, "please."
Emilia felt Clara's restraint as a warm hand on the shoulder and let it register. She liked Clara. She even—on some days—loved her. She also knew Clara was keeping count, and that count mattered. Enough to leave it here? Emilia asked herself. Or one more lesson for the glacier in a gown? Heat purred along her spine, the muted roar of a hearth that could become a blaze if she held breath wrong.
Ezel turned her face, silver hair sliding like a flag of surrender she had no intention of raising. "Tell me, Clara," she said, as if genuinely curious, "does the Saintess permit soldiers to address ladies so…earthily in her sanctum? Or is Emilia an exception we are all meant to excuse because she's fashionable when she's furious?"
Clara's reply was smooth. "The Saintess permits truth spoken with a steady voice. I recommend steadiness."
Emilia's voice, when it came, was steady enough to build a house on. "You asked why the marriage," she said, gaze on Ezel but words for the table. "Here is your answer without metaphor: Emberhart and Rotschy share an interest in stability. Rina and Jin are adults, capable, and consenting. Their union is a corridor, not a chain. No one here gets to call it cowardice simply because their invitations to relevance have stopped arriving."
Lexon Hartley's quarter-smile returned. Charles Lionheart studied the ceiling mural with the fascination of a man who would rather be anywhere else than inside other people's metaphors.
Ezel tapped her nail once more—ting—like the idea of a bell. "And yet," she said, "your prince consort's wife is on Atlas at this very moment. So much stability that you put her in the path of rumor and risk. Or is that how Emberharts measure devotion? If I love you, you will survive my plans."
A ribbon of heat curled from Emilia's palm and vanished before it reached air. She did not look at it; she did not need to. "The difference between us, Ezel," she said, "is that when I send someone I love into risk, I stand behind the decision with my name. You send your daughter to play temptress and then call it an audit."
There. The word landed like a thrown coin's last spin. A templar on the far right shifted his weight. The birds resumed their arcs, as if deciding the scene had become art again.
Ezel's smile dropped its pretense and showed tooth. "Whore," she said, very softly, and somehow it carried more than a shout. "Dress it in uniforms, medals, oaths—you still barter heat for advantage."
Emilia's reply came the way lightning does when it is already inside the cloud. "Icebed," she said, equally soft. "You don't even barter. You just hope the right bodies fall numb next to you."
Clara flinched—minute, but real. "Enough," she said, this time not a plea but a decision. "Saintess or no Saintess, I will not have this chamber turned into a market for insults. We are all adults," she added, and the word adults carried three dozen meanings, "and the realm expects better theater than this."
Ezel's gaze slid to Clara with the courtesy form gives to substance. "Of course," she said, tone smoothing. "Forgive me. My tongue is sharper in the morning." She turned back to Emilia, eyes blue and bright with the delight of damage. "We shall continue our discussion later. In a less…sacred room."
Emilia pushed her chair back a fraction—no scrape, just the whisper of silk-lined authority. "Name the room," she said. "I'll bring manners. You bring honesty."
From somewhere high in the basilica, a bell chimed, clear as water poured into glass. The sound crossed the hall and settled over the round table like the idea of order.
Charles Lionheart stood, hands folded neatly. "Since we're blessed with punctuation," he said in a voice that could teach marble the basics of diplomacy, "shall we call the Meeting to order? I believe the Saintess is en route, and it would be a shame to subject her to Act II of what appears to be a rather spirited prologue."
Lexon Hartley cleared his throat. "Seconded," he said, blue eyes mild as a lake over a deep thing. "The grain corridors will not plan themselves."
Clara nodded, grateful written nowhere and present everywhere. "Thank you," she said. "Let's return to the agenda."
Emilia settled, folding the flame back into her bones. Later, she told the heat. We are not here to win a quarrel. We are here to make sure the realm does not crack while two women measure each other's throats. She slid a glance at Ezel. The Frost Matriarch's face had returned to the serenity of a statue, but her eyes were still laughing. Let her laugh, Emilia thought. Let her think she can say anything in holy air and call it wit. Frost cracks under pressure. I don't. I was born in a forge.
Clara's voice moved the table forward—coastal securitas, liturgical allowances, river tariffs. The basilica breathed. The birds circled. The flowers listened the way flowers do, from a place beyond language.
Ezel answered two questions in a tone gentle enough to be deceitful; Emilia corrected one statistic with brutal elegance; Charles summarized three positions without taking any; Lexon wrote notes in a neat hand only he would ever read. The knights remained polite statues until they were not needed to be anything else.
And yet, beneath the choreography of governance, the earlier exchange remained in the room, a residue, a flavor in the air that even the holy wards did not dissolve. The azure dome outside caught the sun at a new angle; blue slid to white, then back, like the sky double-checking itself. Somewhere far below, the city went on—markets opening, bells answering other bells, ordinary lives that would never learn the words thrown here and would feel their consequences in the price of bread.
When the Saintess's procession finally appeared at the far doors—white robes, gold seals, a hush that smelled of vellum and sanctity—the two women who had threatened to turn a sanctuary into a dueling ground watched her approach with identical expressions: poised, unfed, ready.
"Welcome," Clara said, rising into the grace of her role. "We are gathered."
Emilia's thoughts settled into a clarity that felt like a blade set on whetstone. Politics first, she told herself, war later. But if the Frost wants both, I can oblige. She let her gaze brush Ezel's one last time—brief, cool, promising nothing, preparing everything—then turned to the business of the realm with the calm of a fire that knows exactly what it can burn.
The bell chimed again, and the Meeting began.
......
heat: Thank you very much for reading.