Rian requested a meeting. Not in the palace, but at a private club in the city, a place of dark wood and the scent of old books, favored by scholars and discreet politicians. Hadrian arrived with a sense of stepping onto a neutral battlefield.
Rian was already there, nursing a glass of amber liquor. He looked tired, the lines around his eyes more pronounced. He stood as Hadrian approached.
"Hadrian. Thank you for coming."
They sat in a secluded booth. The silence was heavy, but different from the one in his marriage. This was the silence of two men who know a reckoning is due.
"I'll be direct," Rian said, setting his glass down. "I am aware of the... strain my friendship with Seraphina has placed on your marriage."
Hadrian's fingers tightened around his own untouched glass. "Is that what you call it? A strain?"
"A deep and painful one," Rian admitted, meeting his gaze. "I have not acted with honor, Hadrian. In seeking solace for my own loneliness, I have trespassed into yours. For that, you have my most sincere apology."
The apology disarmed him. He had expected defensiveness, denial. This quiet admission of fault was more disconcerting.
"Your apology doesn't change the fact that she finds in you what she doesn't find in me," Hadrian said, the words bitter.
Rian sighed, a sound of immense sorrow. "She finds a fellow prisoner, Hadrian. Not a warden. That is the terrible truth. In my presence, she is allowed to be tired, to be afraid, to be furious at the dying of the light. With you... she feels she must be the light. For the kingdom, for the children, for the perfect myth of the two of you. I am not her sanctuary. I am the fellow inmate in her cell."
It was a brutal reframing. He wasn't the romantic rival; he was the co-conspirator in despair. It made his own failure seem even more profound.
"What do you want, Rian?"
"I want to stop causing harm. To you, to Seraphina, to Freya." Rian leaned forward. "King Maris has proposed a joint expedition. A six-week voyage to the Southern Atolls to assess the coral crisis firsthand. He wants Seraphina to lead the scientific team. And he wants a Lysterin royal to lead the logistical and diplomatic liaison."
Hadrian felt a cold dread. "You."
"I have been suggested," Rian said carefully. "But I am here to suggest you."
Hadrian stared at him, stunned.
"Think of it, Hadrian. Six weeks at sea. No court, no schedules, no ghosts. Just the two of you, and a shared, monumental task. It is a chance to rebuild, not on land where every stone is a memory of what was, but on the water, on her territory. A chance for you to be the fellow inmate. To share the cell, and perhaps, to find the key together."
It was a staggering gambit. A magnanimous, or perhaps supremely calculating, retreat. Rian was offering to remove himself from the equation, and to hand Hadrian the very opportunity he needed.
"Why?" Hadrian asked, suspicion warring with a desperate hope. "Why would you do this?"
Rian's gaze was unwavering, filled with a pain that was entirely his own. "Because I love her. Not in the way you fear, but truly. And loving someone means wanting their happiness, even if it lies outside your own reach. Her happiness, the restoration of her spirit, is entwined with you and your children. That is the foundation that must be saved. And because," he added, his voice dropping, "I need to remember who I am outside of being someone else's solace. For Freya's sake, and for my own."
Hadrian was silent for a long time, the hum of the club fading into the background. He saw the integrity in Rian's offer, and the monumental risk. Six weeks alone with Seraphina, with the raw wound between them and the vast, isolating sea around them. It could be the forge of their renewal, or the pressure that finally shattered them completely.
"You would step aside?" Hadrian finally asked.
"I would advocate fiercely for your inclusion on the expedition," Rian corrected, a diplomat to the last. "My work here is done. The funding is secured. The path needs a different guide."
Hadrian finished his drink, the fire of it grounding him. "I will consider it."
Rian nodded. "That is all I ask." He paused. "She is worth the fight, Hadrian. Do not make the mistake of believing otherwise."
Hadrian left the club, the city air cool on his face. The romantic void was no longer a passive space he inhabited. It had become an active arena. Rian had thrown down a gauntlet, not of challenge, but of abdication. The next move was his. He could stay on land, tending his blueprints and his bitterness, or he could set sail into the heart of the storm with his wife, armed with nothing but a sketch of dying coral and a fragile, terrifying hope.