CHAPTER THREE
Kol 9102 - Third Day of the Second turn of Oathmarch
The city mourned, black cloth hung from balconies. Candles burned in windows. Bells didn't ring again, one death was enough, but silence itself became a ritual. People spoke in whispers, not out of respect, but because in Deialger, grief was monitored as closely as treason, Sam walked through the palace gates with the feeling that every step was being recorded soldiers stood at attention in tighter formations than yesterday.
New rotations.
New faces.
New eyes.
Arthur's work had already begun.
The Funeral Hall
The Empress's body lay in state beneath a canopy of dark velvet, Mattaxe braziers burned low, casting gold light across the marble, making everyone's skin look sick. Incense tried to soften the scent of death and failed.
The royal family lined up first.
The Trident after.
Then the nobles.
Then the servants who had served her.
Then the people allowed in controlled waves, watched by guards whose hands never drifted far from their blades, Sam stood back near a column. Not because he wasn't important Metaforger blood and money made sure he was always counted but because he needed to see the whole room without being seen himself.
Arthur entered last.
Not late.
Deliberately timed.
His Armor was polished now. Clean. Formal. The blood scrubbed away, but whatever had replaced it inside him had not washed off.
A red mourning sash crossed his chest the Deialger crest stitched in black thread.
He did not look like a son burying his mother, He looked like a commander burying a symbol.
Christina Oscar approached him in slow, elegant steps, dressed in black silk so expensive it seemed to drink light. Her red hair was pinned with mourning combs. Her eyes were dry. Too dry she reached for Arthur's hand.
Arthur didn't move.
"Welcome back, my love," she whispered softly, as if tenderness could glue a shattered thing back together.
Arthur's eyes slid to her and away again.
Christina's smile twitched like a crack in porcelain.
Sam watched her. Not with envy. With suspicion.
Gordon Oscar stood a few paces behind her, hands folded like a man at prayer. He looked at Arthur like he was evaluating a tool handed back from war.
Sam's jaw tightened.
No one here loved anyone.
They owned.
They traded.
They positioned.
The Ceremony
A priest from the Church of Radiant Order walked forward. White robes, gold trim, hands stained with blessed oil. A Lightbringer stood behind him Armor bright as a lie, blade at his side, face hidden.
The priest spoke about duty. About divine blood. About the Emancipator. About how the Deialger line had been chosen to guard the world from darkness, The word chosen hit Sam's mind like a nail.
He thought of the dream.
He thought of orange eyes in endless white.
The flame belongs to purpose.
Arthur's fingers curled once.
Sam saw it.
The priest finished. The Lightbringer's boots echoed as he stepped back.
As if the Church had placed itself in the room physically, not just spiritually.
Sam felt his skin prickle.
This wasn't mourning.
This was a reminder.
The crown may rule, but the Church watches the crown.
The Trident Watches
The Trident sat in their section like statues carved from money.
Sebastian Metaforger's gaze tracked the crowd, not the corpse. Jack Corvus leaned toward Nowell Von Frentall and murmured something that made both men smirk. Fino Redwood looked genuinely disturbed. He kept glancing at the Empress's face as if expecting her to open her eyes and accuse someone. The Highkin envoy sat with perfect calm, wearing mourning black like it belonged to him that alone made Sam's blood boil. Arthur noticed the Highkin too. Sam could see it in the way Arthur's jaw set, in the way his eyes lingered on those long ears, the fair hair. Seventeen years of war didn't just end because two men signed paper and the price was now sitting at the Trident.
After the Last Bow
When the final controlled wave of mourners was dismissed, the hall emptied slowly.
Arthur remained.
Sam watched him stare at the Empress's face.
Not crying.
Not trembling.
Just… still.
Albert arrived beside him, hands clasped behind his back, acting like a respectful cousin while his eyes roamed the hall the way a predator scans a pen.
Antony Deialger stepped closer too uncomfortable in mourning black, as if grief was Armor that didn't fit.
Sam approached cautiously.
Arthur didn't turn, but his voice came out quiet.
"They're moving the wedding forward."
Sam nodded. "Three days." He sighed
Arthur's mouth twisted. "Three days for my mother. A week for a political performance."
Christina returned alone this time.
She stopped beside Arthur, close enough to be intimate, far enough to be safe.
"My prince," she said gently, "you should rest. You've been..."
Arthur finally turned.
His eyes were calm.
But calm like deep water.
"Rest?" Arthur asked softly. "While they rearrange my mother's death into a schedule?"
Christina's face tightened. "Arthur..."
Sam stepped in before the tension snapped.
"The people are watching," Sam said. "If you move wrong here, they'll call you unstable. They'll feed that to the Trident."
Arthur stared at Sam.
Then he nodded once.
"Good," Arthur said. "Let them watch."
Sam felt the chill again.
That wasn't a compromise.
That was an announcement.
Arthur's First "Security Reforms"
That same evening, the palace changed.
It happened quietly.
No declarations.
No speeches.
Just orders moving like smoke.
Sam noticed because soldiers began appearing where they shouldn't be, new guard posts at hallway intersections, Palace Knights rotating closer to the royal wing, servants required to show wrist seals to enter certain corridors, all healer access restricted to two registered rooms, The palace kitchens locked under "food safety inspection"
Food safety After a royal death.
Sam knew what that meant.
Arthur wasn't mourning.
Arthur was investigating or hunting.
Sam walked fast, tracking the changes like footprints in snow.
At the east wing corridor, he saw it clearly:
A pair of guards dragging a trembling servant by the arm not violently, but firmly toward the lower chambers, the servant kept insisting, "I didn't do anything, I swear!"
No one listened.
The Library Corridor
Sam found Arthur near the palace records where infirmary logs and poison ledgers were stored. Two Obsidian Knights stood behind him like shadows.
Arthur held a thick ledger in one hand, Robert Newgold stood nearby, expression unreadable.
Arthur didn't look up when Sam approached.
"Don't tell me to stop," Arthur said immediately, as if he'd felt Sam coming.
"I wasn't going to," Sam replied.
Arthur's eyes flicked up. "Good."
Sam glanced at the ledger title.
Royal Medical Register Last 6 Months
Arthur tapped it once.
"My mother's healers changed twice," Arthur said. "Not because of skill. Because of permission."
Sam's stomach tightened. "Permission from who?"
Arthur's gaze slid toward the Trident chambers down the hall.
Sam understood.
Arthur flipped a page.
"Her symptoms were written as 'wasting sickness.'" Arthur's voice sharpened. "That's not a sickness. That's what people call a slow death when they don't want to write the word poison."
Sam took a breath. "So, who had access?"
Arthur's smile was thin.
"Everyone," Arthur said. "Which means I don't look for access. I look for motive."
Sam nodded slowly. "And motive is everywhere."
Arthur closed the ledger with a soft thud.
"And that," Arthur said, "is why the first thing I did was tighten the palace."
Sam stared at him. "This is only the first thing?"
Arthur's eyes held Sam's.
"Of course," Arthur said. "I'm not going to be ruled by a council that votes on whether my family deserves protection."
Sam felt the words bite into him.
Votes. Control. Weakness.
It sounded like someone written in the royal records. Caelum. Sam didn't say the name. Not yet.
Sam watched the guards; they weren't just guarding. They were watching staff. Cataloguing fear. That's how tyrants-built order, not with love, but with anxiety.
Arthur moved like a man who had found purpose in loss.
And purpose could be a blade sharper than grief.
Sam thought of the dream again.
"What makes someone evil?"
Selfishness. Rejection of limits. The belief that one will outweighs structure.
Sam looked at Arthur and realized the danger wasn't that Arthur wanted justice.
The danger was that Arthur believed he was the only one who could deliver it.
A Quiet Meeting the Trident
Later that night, Sam slipped into a side corridor near the Trident chamber, He wasn't supposed to be there, and since Arthur moved the palace guards, Guards from the Metaforger estate were placed in charged for trident security, Metaforger guards didn't question Metaforger blood.
The Trident doors were not fully closed, Voices leaked out.
Jack Corvus "He's tightening the palace already."
Gordon Oscar "He's grieving. Let him play soldier. He'll break soon."
Nowell Von Frentall "If he breaks in public, we remove him quietly."
Sebastian Metaforger "The wedding must proceed. Gofindal's princess will arrive soon. Our trade contracts depend on it."
Fino Redwood "You're all acting like this isn't suspicious. The Empress's illness..."
Jack Corvus "Watch your tongue, Redwood."
Silence.
Then the Emperor's voice "He will do what we expect. He always has. He wants control. We will give him a leash and call it a title."
Sam's blood turned cold.
A leash.
Sam backed away from the door before anyone could sense him.
He walked down the corridor with his heart pounding and one thought burning through his mind, they weren't afraid Arthur would become a monster they were counting on it.
Silk Over Ash
Christina Oscar stood at the edge of the funeral hall long after the controlled waves of mourners were dismissed, The Empress's body lay still beneath velvet and gold. The candles made everyone look sick, even the living, Christina's black dress fit perfectly tailored to mourning without looking like grief. Her red hair was pinned tight, every strand disciplined, as if she could control death by refusing to let anything fall out of place.
She watched Arthur from a distance.
He hadn't cried.
He hadn't shaken.
He stood like a statue.
A son should've looked broken.
Arthur looked… sharpened.
Gordon Oscar, her father, approached quietly. He didn't put a hand on her shoulder. He didn't offer comfort. He simply stood beside her like a man inspecting a battlefield.
"He didn't look at you," Gordon said.
Christina's lips curved faintly almost a smile, almost not.
"He looked through me," she replied.
"That's war," Gordon said. "And he has had four years of it."
Christina's eyes stayed on Arthur. "No. That's not war."
Gordon's gaze slid to her. "Then what is it?"
Christina lowered her voice. "It's purpose."
Gordon said nothing.
Christina continued, calm and careful. "If Arthur becomes a weapon tomorrow…, do you want him aimed at us, or at them?"
Gordon's expression tightened. "Watch your tongue."
Christina finally turned and met her father's eyes.
"I am watching everything," she said. "The Trident wants him unstable. Jack wants him disposable. The emperor wants him leashed."
Gordon's eyes narrowed. "How do you know that?"
Christina's smile returned, thin as a knife. "Because they all speak like they've already rehearsed the ending."
She looked back at Arthur.
Arthur shifted just slightly his posture changing like a man sensing eyes. For a heartbeat, Christina thought he might turn toward her.
He didn't.
He stepped away from the Empress's body and left the hall without a glance, without ceremony, without acknowledging his wife in front of the entire court.
The humiliation wasn't loud.
Christina inhaled slowly.
Then she did what she'd always done when she was ignored, she moved, not emotionally, strategically. She walked toward the side exit where servants flowed in and out like blood through veins. A maid bowed quickly, frightened by Christina's presence the way people were frightened by wealth.
Christina stopped her.
"Find Robert Newgold," Christina said softly. "Tell him I wish to speak privately."
The maid blinked. "Y-yes, your highness."
Christina's eyes drifted toward the Trident chambers down the corridor.
Then toward the Church's Lightbringer's, still stationed in the palace like they owned the air.
Then toward the places Arthur's "new security" had already begun to tighten.
Arthur was building a wall around the palace.
Christina decided she would build a web inside it.
Because walls trapped enemies, Webs trapped kings.
And Arthur whether he admitted it or not was becoming something that needed trapping.
Christina whispered to herself, not prayer, not grief:
"Come home, my love." Then, colder: "Or I will decide what you become."