The silence of the Royal Bedchamber was never truly silent. It breathed with the rhythmic ticking of a pendulum clock—a masterwork of Breen brass and gears, a wedding gift from the Queen's brother, Lord Gordon Tsvirkunov. Its steady thrum felt like a countdown, marking the slow decay of the House of Seymour.
When the scream finally broke from Charles's throat, it was muffled by the heavy silk of his pillows.
King Charles bolted upright, his chest heaving as if he had just crested the frozen peaks of Montes Glauci. Sweat, cold and slick, beaded along his brow, making his linen nightshirt cling to his skin like a shroud. The candlelight flickered, casting long, distorted shadows of the bedposts against the tapestries—shadows that, for a moment, looked like the reaching fingers of a woman he had buried in the deepest vaults of his memory.
The dreams were always the same. It was a thief, stealing him away from his regal duties and dragging him back to the sun-drenched courtyards of his youth, to a time before the crown had been thrust upon him by his brother William's "noble" desertion.
In the dream, he was not a King. He was merely the Second Son, the "Spare," living in the golden glow of a peace that felt eternal. He was a boy running barefoot through the private gardens of his mother, Queen Opellia. The air there always smelled of crushed rosemary, blooming jasmine, and the salt-spray carried on the winds from the Lake of Lumber.
And then, there was Shalonda.
She had been a young girl of common birth but uncommon light, a maid in his mother's service with hair the color of Autumn leaves. According to the Doctrine of the Sacred Flame, Charles was a "Chosen Vessel." His blood was supposed to be a holy ichor, set apart by the Divine Light. Yet, looking at Shalonda, he felt more human than any prayer had ever made him feel.
"A Prince shouldn't be wandering where the mud can find his boots," she had joked in the dream, her laughter a melody that still haunted his waking hours.
The dream shifted. Night had fallen. Charles convinced Shalonda to sneak out of the castle and visit the harvest festival. Lanterns glimmered along the square, the air smelled of baked bread and roasted nuts, and music floated on the night breeze. They laughed, tasted sweets they'd never known, and bought trinkets that felt like treasures.
And then, under the glow of a lantern, Charles confessed:
"Shalonda... I love you."
For a moment, she froze, staring at him with wide eyes. Then a nervous laugh escaped her lips.
"You... you're joking, aren't you? A prince... loving a maid? That's... that's some kind of prank, right?"
Charles shook his head, earnestness burning in his eyes. "No. I swear it. I... I have never felt this before, and I cannot ignore it. I love you."
Her laugh faltered, replaced by fear. "I... I can't. I'm just a servant. I could be punished by the Sacred Fire. I... I'm not worthy of this, of your highness."
Even in the dream, the sting of her words cut deep. He reached for her hand, desperate to defy every rule, every expectation—but she recoiled. Fear kept her at a distance, and he could not change it.
She had been right. The Doctrine dictated that his blood was too holy to be mingled with the soil. To love her was more than a scandal; it was a heresy against the very flame that kept the House of Seymour on the throne.
The dream twisted again. A night in the castle stables, the smell of hay thick in the air, the chill of stone beneath them. Desire overtook reason. They could not resist each other, bodies and hearts entwined in a stolen passion.
And then came the nightmare.
Shalonda discovered she was pregnant. Panic surged through her. That fleeting hope Charles had inspired was crushed by fear. She bribed a loyal knight to help her escape in the dead of night. Before she fled, she left a carefully written letter for Charles:
"I do not love you, your highness. I am not worthy of your world or your name. I cannot become a noble lady. I have used you—for gold, for wealth, for a life I will never claim. Forgive me, may the Sacred Fire forgive me."
The words burned like fire. Even awake, Charles could not forget them. Yet he knew the truth: the boy existed. The son Shalonda carried had royal blood, hidden from the world, from Davina, from everyone.
Charles swung his legs over the side of the bed, burying his face in his hands. The dream always ended with the same cold realization: the night in the stables. The smell of dry hay. The desperate, forbidden union that had produced a consequence he could never claim.
He thought of the letter she had left—the one that had shattered his youth. She had claimed she used him for gold. She had claimed she didn't love him. For years, he had tried to believe those lies because they were easier to live with than the truth: she had fled to save their child from the very people who now sat at his table.
Somewhere out there was a boy with his blood and Shalonda's spirit. A boy who had been kicked out of his own home by Jacob Nicholas—the Captain of the Knights and a man who sat on the King's own Privy Council. Jacob, who had married Shalonda only to spite the boy he knew wasn't his.
"I cannot carry it anymore," Charles whispered. "The Flame is burning me alive."
Charles did not call for his valets. To involve them was to involve the spies of Lord Gordon. Instead, he dressed himself in a simple traveling cloak of dark wool. He slipped through the servant passages and emerged into the cool, pre-dawn air of the capital.
As he moved toward the Abbott's Mansion, he was forced to skirt the edges of the South Wharf District, an area that had become a sprawling monument to the Tides of Ascendancy. Since the marriage treaty with Queen Davina, the Breen merchants had moved in like a rising tide, and their presence felt like an infection in the holy city of Praeven.
He passed a row of warehouses where the white stone of Praeven had been defaced by Breen ironwork. Coiled serpents—the symbol of the Breen faith—wrapped around the pillars, their metallic eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Above the doors, banners depicted the "Great Wave," representing the belief that the strong must wash away the weak.
To the Breen, prosperity was the only true sacrament. He saw Breen sailors gambling openly on the docks, their rough laughter echoing against the silent, dignified statues of the Sacred Flame's saints. They didn't bow their heads to the Divine Light; they looked at the world as a fruit to be plucked. Lord Gordon's influence was visible in every crate of Breen spice and every bolt of Breen silk.
Charles felt a shiver of dread. Lord Gordon wasn't just a merchant-duke; he was a shark who smelled blood in the water. If Gordon found even a single crack in the Seymour bloodline, he would use the Tides of Ascendancy to justify a "divine reclamation" of Praeven's wealth. To the Tsvirkunovs, Charles's peace was not a blessing—it was a period of slow, calculated digestion.
Charles reached the Abbott's Mansion, the heavy oak doors groaning as he entered the sanctuary of his old friend, Jonathan. The Abbott sat in a high-backed chair, the flickering light of a single candle illuminating the ancient scrolls on his desk.
"Jonathan," Charles gasped, collapsing into a chair. "I cannot hide it. The boy... he is sixteen. He is a mercenary. My blood is spilled in the dirt for coin while Vaughn plays at being a prince."
Jonathan closed his book slowly, his expression grave. "You speak of the boy as a tragedy, Charles, but you have forgotten the Law. The Doctrine of the Sacred Flame, Book of Anointment, Verse Four: 'The Vessel shall be pure, for the Flame dwelleth not in the cracked porcelain.' By hiding this child, you are not protecting the throne; you are living a lie that the Divine Light will eventually expose."
"I did it for the peace!" Charles argued, his voice cracking.
"Did you?" Jonathan countered, standing up. "Or did you do it for your own comfort? Verse Twelve: 'The King is the shadow of the Flame upon the earth. If the shadow is distorted, the light is lost.' You have allowed a Tsvirkunov to sit upon your bed and a Breen shadow to fall over our altars. You fear Gordon because his faith is rooted in strength, while yours—at this moment—is rooted in a secret. A secret son is a crack in the porcelain, Charles. If you do not mend it, the Tides will come, and they will not care about your heart. They will only care that you are no longer a holy vessel."
Charles buried his head in his hands. The weight of the scripture felt like a physical chain. He wasn't just a man who had made a mistake; he was a King who had broken the very spiritual foundations of his world.
High in a guest wing of the Abbott's complex, Mary Anne Braun stood before a tall, silvered mirror. She was dressed in a gown of pale blue, her hair perfectly coiffed.
She wasn't looking at her beauty. She was studying her eyes.
She practiced a look of gentle concern, tilting her head just so. Too much, she thought, relaxing her brow. She practiced a soft, musical laugh—the kind that made Lord James beam with pride and made the court poets write verses about her "angelic" nature.
Mary Anne knew exactly who she was expected to be: the music prodigy, the cousin of the King, the girl who loved charities and refugees. It was a role she played with the precision of a master cellist. Behind the mask, however, her mind was a cold, calculating machine.
She picked up a small silver brush and smoothed a stray hair. Her life in Praeven was a series of tedious, glittering rooms. She felt like a predator trapped in a birdcage, forced to sing for seeds. She looked at her reflection—the perfect Praeven lady—and felt a surge of loathing.
"Patience," she whispered to the glass, her smile turning into something sharp and predatory.
She stepped toward the door, intending to go to the chapel for a pre-dawn "prayer" that would bolster her reputation. But as she entered the hallway, the sound of a familiar, ragged voice drifted up from the Abbott's study. It was the King. And he was weeping.
Mary Anne froze. She didn't retreat; she leaned in.
She heard the King's confession. She heard the name Gerry.
A slow, terrifying smile spread across Mary Anne's face. She thought of her cousin, the King, and his "holy" bloodline. What a fragile thing it was. She thought of Lord Gordon and Queen Davina, always counting their coins and plotting their "Ascendancy."
But she didn't care about their wars or their gold. She cared about the boy. A hidden prince, born of fire and hay, now a mercenary in the wild. He was a piece of the world that didn't belong to any map.
Gerry Waddell. The name tasted like power on her tongue.
She had long grown bored of the "perfect" suitors of the court, the bumbling Brendon Tsvirkunov. She craved an obsession. She wanted to find this boy, to watch him, to pull the strings of his life until he realized that she was the only light he had left.
She slipped away before the King could emerge, her footsteps as silent as a predator's on moss. The sun was beginning to rise over the Lake of Lumber, but for Mary Anne Braun, the real light was found in the shadows the King had just revealed.