Viktor stood at the window because he didn't know where else to stand.
His legs had stopped working right somewhere between the bells and now. Not gone—just distant, like they belonged to someone standing next to him. The stone sill pressed cold against his palms, but that felt distant, too. Everything did.
Charles stood near the wall behind him. Silent. Viktor could feel him there—the same way he always knew when Emeline was nearby. But Charles wasn't Emeline. Charles wouldn't comfort him. Not now.
Below, in the courtyard where Viktor used to watch Emeline hang laundry, there were shapes.
Two of them.
He tried to make them into something else. His mind kept offering options—market stalls draped in silk, festival pavilions catching the wind, anything but what they were. The flames moved like dancers. Beautiful, even now. Gold and amber threading through white smoke that rose in ribbons, soft as Nadia's hair when she'd braid it in the morning. He remembered how her frost-beads used to catch the light just like that. Bright. Warm.
His throat closed.
She was gone.
The thought arrived flat, factual. He waited for tears. Nothing came. Just a hollow ache spreading through his chest, cold and vast, like someone had scooped out his insides and filled the space with ice.
Just two weeks ago, she'd told him to be careful.
He'd promised.
The door opened.
The temperature in the room dropped. Not magic—not the gentle cool that followed Nadia, the kind that made you want to stand closer. This was different. This was the cold that came before punishments, the kind that made servants find reasons to be elsewhere.
Viktor didn't turn. His fingers tightened on the sill.
Footsteps. Two sets. Measured. Deliberate. Stopping just behind him.
"Turn around."
Werner's voice.
Viktor turned.
His father stood close enough that Viktor had to tilt his head back to see his face. The emerald eyes were flat. Assessing. Leopold stood beside him, face streaked and blotchy, eyes red-rimmed and burning with blame and something else Viktor didn't want to look at. Advisors lined the walls—some had entered with Charles, others filtered in after. But as the emperor walked in, they couldn't help but shift their eyes.
Werner's hand moved.
Something silver caught the light. Small. Delicate.
The locket.
Viktor stared at it. Confusion first—a beat where his brain couldn't make the shape make sense. Why would his father have that? It was supposed to be in Nadia's chambers, in the wooden box with the—
Oh.
The duke's estate. The guard appearing from nowhere. Viktor stumbling back, the chain catching on something, snapping. The locket falling into the dark grass. Him running without looking back, thinking he'd find it later.
Guilt hit first, hot and immediate.
Then denial, cold and desperate. No. It couldn't have. They couldn't have traced—
His stomach turned over. Bile rose in his throat.
Werner's fingers closed around the chain. "It was traced back to her chambers."
The words were quiet. Controlled.
Viktor's knees went soft.
"This is your doing."