Chapter 19
Thrones and Shadows
Where Veridia's capital, Aethelgard, stood as a city of cream-coloured stone, graceful arches, and measured harmony, the capital of Ardon seemed built for one purpose alone: to dazzle, and to daunt.
Theirs was not a city that contented itself with earthly grandeur. No—Ardon bent the very laws of the world to its will. Noble estates floated above the land like islands torn free from the earth, held aloft by unseen forces, their gardens spilling water into the air that shimmered like falling jewels before vanishing into mist. Bridges of carved obsidian spanned between them, so high that clouds passed beneath, veiling them in fleeting secrecy.
Yet even above those airborne manors, one structure commanded all eyes: the royal palace of Ardon.
It was no mere palace, but an empire of stone and gold in itself. Its spires pierced the clouds, gilded tips catching the sun like spears of flame. Its walls sprawled broader than cities, its colonnades longer than roads, its domes painted with frescos so vast that one could not behold them whole from the ground. It was whispered among travellers that even Buckingham Palace, pride of an elder age, would cower in its shadow as a cottage beside a fortress.
From this height, King Theron ruled—a man in the prime of strength though the silver in his beard bore witness to years of command. His throne, wrought of black marble with veins of gold branching like frozen lightning, was set upon a dais that seemed itself a mountain carved from the world. He sat not in still dignity, but in the manner of one for whom command was as natural as breath.
At his right hand sat the Queen of Ardon. Where Theron's presence pressed like a storm upon all who beheld him, hers drew the gaze by a subtler snare. Her eyes, green as an emerald caught in the sun, seemed to look through flesh and bone into the quick of the soul itself. She was young, yet in that youth lay a beauty sharpened into weaponry. Few in the chamber dared meet her gaze directly, lest they find themselves ensnared.
The throne room bustled with the hum of rule. Nobles, resplendent in silks threaded with silver and gold, bowed and petitioned; officials unfurled scrolls of grain accounts and levy tallies; guards in lion-crested armour stood at their posts, spears gleaming like a forest of steel. Pages hurried back and forth, bearing documents and whispered orders, their soft leather shoes clicking against marble veined with crimson stone.
Here was opulence made manifest, not merely to please the senses but to proclaim: Behold the might of Ardon. None shall rival it.
And yet, beneath the golden light of chandeliers and the perfumed air of incense, there lingered a tension too subtle to name. For all the wealth, all the majesty, the kingdom stood upon the knife's edge of something greater. The courtiers felt it, even if they dared not speak of it aloud.
The great bronze doors at the end of the hall swung wide. A messenger entered, his boots striking hollow against the floor as he strode forward, cloak still dust-streaked from the road. He bowed, knee to stone, head lowered.
"A message, Your Majesty," quoth he, his voice reverberating through the hall. "Sent by the hand of Queen Elara of Veridia."
The hum of voices ceased at once. The silence that followed was like a sudden void, as though even the chandeliers held their breath.
The scroll, its seal still unbroken, was carried forward and laid upon the steps of the dais. King Theron extended one hand and took it, the motion unhurried, deliberate. He turned it once in his palm, studying the sigil impressed upon the wax. Then, with a flick of his thumb, the seal cracked.
The parchment unfurled. The words, penned in a hand firm yet measured, called upon him to withdraw his troops from Veridia's border that their presence caused unrest and that the Queen of Veridia could not ignore such encroachment.
Theron read in silence, his face unreadable. The Queen of Ardon leaned slightly nearer, her green eyes scanning the page with him, her lips curving in the faintest suggestion of amusement.
When at last he looked up, the court waited, breathless for his answer.
King Theron let the parchment rest upon his knee, his heavy rings gleaming as his fingers tapped it with slow deliberation. The silence was stretched taut, the courtiers shifting in their silks yet daring not to speak until their sovereign gave leave. At length, he raised his head, and the hush thickened.
"So," quoth he, his tone laced with disdain, "the Queen of Veridia grows uneasy. She would have me call back my men, lest her borderlands quake at their shadow."
A ripple of laughter stirred at his words, though it was tinged with nervousness; none wished to be the last to echo their king's mirth.
"Your Majesty," ventured Lord Estienne, one of the elder dukes, bowing low from his seat, "the Lady of Veridia hath ever cloaked her pride in soft-spoken pleas. Yet I say this: a plea writ in ink is but a whisper; steel is the tongue she must heed."
Another noble, younger and eager for favour, chimed in. "Aye, Majesty. Let her stew in her own disquiet. If her people unrest, let her soothe them, not trouble you. Ardon's lion need not crouch for the barking of a hound."
The Queen of Ardon, seated beside Theron, lifted a hand, her emerald eyes glinting as they swept the chamber. "And yet," quoth she, her voice calm, "words, though but ink, are not without weight.
Queen Elara sends them not to beguile us, but to bind herself in history's eye as the one who sought peace. When the chronicles are writ, it shall be recorded that Veridia asked for parley, and Ardon answered."
A murmur swept the hall. Some nodded, others frowned.
Theron's gaze slid to her, his lips curving in something between amusement and challenge. "Ever thou findest the kernel in the husk, my queen. She clothes her weakness as virtue, aye. But thinkest thou I should return her letter with a bow and courtesy?"
Her smile did not falter. "Nay, my lord. Only that thou weighest not the ink too lightly. She plays to the eyes of other thrones."
Theron rose to his full height, and the chamber seemed smaller for it. His mantle, woven with threads of gold, cascaded behind him as he stepped down from the dais. The courtiers stiffened as his voice rolled out across them.
"Hear me. I sent no host to Veridia's border. I dispatched only guard to scour the bandits that gnaw at our soil, that my people might sleep untroubled. If she sees in them an army, then it is fear that makes her eyes so wide."
He turned, pacing a slow circle, his boots striking the marble like measured drums of war. "But let none mistake restraint for weakness. Let it be writ plain: should Veridia march against Ardon, we shall not answer with parchment, nor with envoy, nor with plea. We shall answer with fire enough to scour her fields, and silence enough to choke her cities."
A sharp intake of breath swept the court. Nobles glanced at one another, weighing the ferocity of his words. Some smiled, eager for war. Others paled, knowing what such fire would cost.
The Queen of Ardon alone did not stir, her green eyes fixed upon Theron as though studying a painting long familiar. When he returned to his throne, she spoke but once more, softly, so that her words brushed the chamber like silk.
"Then Veridia shall know, my lord, that the lion's patience is not without its claws."
The scribes bent to their parchment, quills scratching to catch each word. The envoy was summoned, given the sealed reply, and sent forth beneath Ardon's banners. The bronze doors boomed shut behind him, and the hall was once more filled with sound voices urgent, anxious, awed.
Yet beneath their noise lingered the echo of Theron's threat, heavy as thunder after the flash of lightning.
The citadel of Aethelgard was not built to boast, as Ardon's floating palaces did, but to endure. Its walls, though plain at a glance, bore the subtle artistry of a kingdom that prized strength over vanity: limestone buttresses thick enough to shrug off siege, windows high and narrow, towers rising in orderly cadence around a central keep. Where Ardon glimmered like a jewel hung in the heavens, Aethelgard stood as the stone heart of Veridia, rooted deep, immovable.
Within its keep, past the echoing halls and tapestries faded with the weight of generations, lay the Queen's private study. It was no chamber of glittering excess; its grandeur lay in purpose. Maps unfurled across a long oak table, inkpots clustered like watchful sentinels, scrolls stacked in careful disorder. Lamps of wrought iron, shaped into roses, burned with a steady flame, their smoke curling faintly toward the rafters. The air smelled of wax, parchment, and the faint tang of steel oil—a queen's room, not for show, but for labour.
Here sat Queen Elara of Veridia. Her cloak lay across the back of her chair, her crown tilted as though forgotten in the weight of her work. She bent over a parchment, her hand flowing with precise strokes, sealing another dispatch for the border. In her stillness, she seemed less monarch than sentinel, every breath a measured act of vigilance.
The door creaked open.
Kai entered without ceremony. Since the alchemist's potion had taken root in his veins, he carried himself with a restless vitality, a spark barely veiled beneath the languid sprawl of his movements. Power brimmed in him now like wine poured too swiftly into a cup it did not overflow, but it pressed at the rim, threatening to spill with the slightest motion.He crossed the chamber in a few strides and dropped himself into the chair opposite his sister, legs stretched wide, arms loose upon the rests. Where she was composed, he was careless; where she cloaked herself in silence, he filled the air with boyish presence.
"Elara," quoth he, his grin crooked, "tell me—dost thou know how this war shall end? Between Ardon and Veridia?"
She did not look up at once. She signed her name to the parchment, sprinkled sand upon the ink, and only when it was set aside did she raise her eyes to him. They were steady, unreadable, the eyes of one who bore not only her crown but the sight beyond sight.
"Why thinkest thou," she asked softly, "that I should?"
Kai leaned forward, his elbows upon the table. "Because," he said, almost teasing, "thou hast but to use thine eyes. Look once upon the threads of the world, and the truth shall be plain. Is that not the gift thou and I share?"
For a moment, she chuckled—the warm sound of a sister remembering the boy who once followed her through gardens and halls. Yet the mirth faded as swiftly as it came, replaced by the weight of her station.
"Kai." Her voice was quiet, but it struck him sharper than a shout. "What dost thou know of the Houses of Veridia?"
The question stilled him. His grin faltered, though he tried to mask it with another careless shrug. Yet within, he felt the weight of her meaning. The Houses—proud, ancient, fractious. They were not merely names upon parchment; they were the veins through which Veridia's strength and betrayal alike might flow.
Elara's gaze did not waver. She had given him no answer about the war, no vision of the Eye's truth. Instead, she had placed a heavier burden before him: the understanding of his own kingdom, the men and women who might raise sword in loyalty or plunge dagger in treachery.
The lamps flickered, casting long shadows across the maps. The silence stretched, heavy as stone, and in it Kai felt both the weight of his sister's expectation and the first stirrings of the truth she guarded.