The following morning began not with the gentle call of servants or the warmth of sunlight creeping through the curtains, but with the shrill, triumphant blare of a trumpet and the echoing roar of a ceremonial horn outside my estate gates.

I groaned into my pillow.

"Make way for Princess Yoringtide, heya shheyh bey'er heprheym!"

The cry was unmistakably Bastian—a smooth, rounded tongue that always sounded halfway between poetry and a riddle. My still-sleeping brain worked sluggishly to translate: She Who Tends the Forest of Flowers. Or perhaps She Who Tends the Flowers of the Forest. Or… She Who Tends the Forest. Bastian was like that—three meanings in every word and none of them quite precise.

Wonderful. A royal guest at dawn.

I sat up, rubbing my eyes as I tried to gather my bearings. It took exactly three seconds for the weight of propriety to crash down upon me. "Mary!" I called, my voice rough.

The door opened almost immediately—of course it did. Mary, my assigned attendant, had an uncanny ability to anticipate disaster, especially the sort that involved my appearance. She was a small, round woman in her fifties, with iron-gray hair pulled into an immaculate bun and eyes that could quell a riot.

"Yes, my lord?" she asked, already crossing the room to pull open the wardrobe.

"We've a princess at the gate," I muttered, fumbling for the robe I'd abandoned the night before. "And apparently no warning to prepare for it."

Mary only smiled, a faint twitch of amusement at the corners of her mouth. "Then we'd best make you presentable before she reaches the door, hadn't we?"

I didn't bother arguing.

Within moments, the routine began—the quiet efficiency of dressing, layering, adjusting. Today's ensemble was a fine black set of trousers and a long, flared shirt of silver-gray linen that caught the morning light when I moved. The robe followed—a sweeping garment of soft grey wool trimmed in faint, pale thread. No colors, as usual.

My station was… complicated. I bore a title, yes, but not one yet bound by heraldry. Until the council declared my official house colors, I was confined to monochrome: the noncommittal shade of politics, the hue of those who waited to be recognized.

Only one thing about my attire bore color—the ring fitted along the base of my horn, a narrow band of burnished metal inlaid with obsidian and a single glint of ruby. A relic of my lineage.

As Mary tied the last clasp, I caught my reflection in the tall mirror. The black and silver tones lent me an austere sort of dignity—more scholar than noble—but my eyes, still sleep-fogged and skeptical, ruined the illusion.

"Betrayal is to be met with bloodshed," I whispered in Bastian Royal, a phrase Mary wouldn't understand.

Mary paused mid-motion, unaware of what I'd said but sensing my mood. "Before you check the gloss, my lord, shall I read you today's agenda?"

"Please," I said, bracing myself.

She began, her voice the calm rhythm of a seasoned administrator. "First, you have the impromptu meeting with Princess Yoringtide in the tea room—though the stewards have also prepared the study, should you prefer a more formal setting. Following that, there are four official papers requiring your reading and signature—matters Syr Sven does not hold authority to approve on your behalf."

I nodded absently as she continued.

"Finally," she said with the faintest glint in her eye, "you have your wedding preparations."

That made me pause.

"My what?"

"Your wedding preparations, my lord," she repeated, perfectly straight-faced.

"My wedding?" My voice cracked. "To whom am I betrothed?"

Mary turned away as if inspecting my collar, but I caught the subtle twitch at the corner of her mouth—the telltale sign of barely-contained laughter. "Oh, forgive me," she said lightly. "I couldn't resist that one."

I exhaled through my teeth. "Mary."

"Relax," she said, clearly enjoying herself. "No one's arranged your marriage without your consent—yet. But you do need to compose a formal letter to Her High Majesty, requesting a list of suitable candidates. And, of course, including your propositions for alliance."

I let out a slow breath, part relief and part frustration. "So not an actual wedding. Just the bureaucracy leading up to one."

"Precisely," she said, smoothing an invisible wrinkle from my sleeve.

"Marvelous." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I'd rather wrestle a chimera."

She smirked faintly. "Her Majesty might consider that a more practical show of commitment."

I gave her a look that said I would not dignify that with an answer, and she wisely busied herself with dusting lint from my shoulder.

By the time I stepped out into the main hall, the estate was alive with motion—servants darting through corridors, the clink of porcelain echoing faintly from the kitchens. Somewhere in the courtyard, the horns blared again, announcing the arrival of Princess Yoringtide's procession.

I caught a glimpse of her entourage through the tall windows: a half-dozen guards in emerald-and-gold livery, their armor polished to a mirror sheen, and behind them, a carriage draped in ivy and silk banners embroidered with the sigil of her house—a blooming willow framed by stars.

Yoringtide. She Who Tends the Forest. A title rooted in the ancient Bastion tradition, one that implied guardianship, grace, and—if rumors were true—a terrifying command over the flora of her homeland.

"Why is she visiting unannounced?" I muttered under my breath. "The court usually drowns such visits in a week of paperwork."

Mary, now following a step behind, replied dryly, "Perhaps she wished to see what you were like without warning."

I shot her a narrow look. "That sounds like something you'd do."

"I take inspiration where I can, my lord."

The trumpet sounded once more, closer this time—sharp and clear as sunlight on metal.

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I exhaled and adjusted the fall of my robe. My reflection in the polished window glass looked composed enough, though inside I was calculating every possible reason a princess might arrive without prior correspondence.

A warning? A proposal? A demand?

"Best not to keep royalty waiting," Mary said behind me, her tone deceptively casual.

"Remind me," I murmured, as I took the first step toward the doors, "to have a very long conversation with whoever forgot to send me notice of this visit."

"Of course, my lord."

As I descended the grand staircase, the double doors swung open, and sunlight spilled across the marble floor. The scent of rain-soaked flowers drifted in from the courtyard, followed by the soft rustle of silks.

And there she was—Princess Yoringtide herself—standing amidst her entourage like spring incarnate, her gown the color of new leaves, her eyes sharp enough to cut through ceremony.

I froze for a moment, caught off guard by the sheer presence of her. Then, forcing composure, I descended the last few steps and bowed low.

"Your Fellow Highness," I said, voice steady, though my pulse was not. "Welcome to my estate. To what do I owe the honor?"

Her smile was small, enigmatic—and entirely unreadable.

"To friendship, perhaps," she said. "Or something far more interesting."

And just like that, the day promised to be much longer than I'd hoped.

***

My study smelled of old paper and dust and the faint, metallic tang of mana that clung to books touched by otherrealms. Shelves bowed under the weight of volumes: treatises on skillcubes, leather-bound compendia on Artes, collections of poems that leaned toward the melancholic. Each one had a tiny ribbon tied to the spine with the High Queen's sigil. They were gifts and instructions bundled into paper. The more I read them, the more I felt she was shaping me with ink and etiquette as much as with court favor.

Princess Yoringtide sat across from me, one leg tucked neatly beneath the other, as if politeness were a posture to be practiced. The small table between us held two teacups that had not yet been touched. The chairs were grand and carved, meant to impress rather than comfort; my back complained after only a few minutes. Goodness knows I had worse complaints. The point of the room was not ease. The point was show: knowledge displayed like armor.

"Mother sends her regards," Yoringtide said without preamble. Her voice was soft, but there was an edge to it that suggested she was used to people listening carefully.

"What did she say for me?" I asked. The gloss on my wrist hummed faintly with notifications I ignored. My fingers traced the rim of the teacup. I hated being called to arms in the morning, but the court never asked for convenience.

"Drop your hunt into Warden and Dullgave. You have a new target." She folded her hands in her lap so the embroidery on her sleeves did not catch my eye. She was precise. She was cultivated. She knew how to hold a knife beneath the cloth of conversation.

I tasted copper in the back of my mouth. "No offense, but unless you have that with her writ, I'm going to continue my free-standing order." I said it as politely as anyone could say a refusal and still keep their head. The Spear had duties; I had to choose which orders tipped the balance of my domain.

She did not seem surprised. With a deliberate movement she produced a sealed missive and slid it across the table to me. The wax pressed a star and a crown into its surface. The action was casual and deliberate, like any of the many courtly offerings that could change the map of a man's life.

"I take it then you are familiar with what my new position in the court is?" she asked.

I glanced at her mask of composed green silk before I broke the seal. Princess Yoringtide's visits were rarely social calls. She had a reputation for floral diplomacy, for turning gardens into places where secrets bloomed and were harvested by polite hands. She nodded once. "You are the Sanguine Spear now," she said. "That comes with more eyes than you think."

Reading the letter felt like sliding a blade into quiet wood. The words were brief, the tone formal, but the consequence was clear. I felt the old pulse in my ears—the same one that had beat faster when Karhile's mask had fallen and when the crowd had judged and shifted with our duel.

The missive read:

Dear Alexander Duarte-Alizade The Blue Ballet seems to be a bit rich for your blood, crimson as it is hewn. We request for you to start with a different target, one that matters much more in the immediate, and much more in terms of your courtly strength. Attached is a glosspad-chip with the data. Hunt well, and remember.

Betrayal is to be met with Bloodshed.

Mother

I put the letter down slowly, feeling the paper like a weight. "Mother," I said. The name had the same softness as any housebrand, but the authority was absolute. Mother was the one who controlled the ledger of targets, the invisible hand that slid dossiers across tables and marked men and women for my attention. She was the High Queen's spider in those threads. To cross her was to find one's name quietly erased from favor. To answer her was to step deeper into the loom.

Yoringtide sipped her tea with an air of practiced leisure. "There are murmurs," she said. "The Blue Ballet draws the wrong kind of notice. Warden and Dullgave… they are not petty criminals. They represent the infrastructure of vice. Pull one thread and the rest will unspool. It will increase your courtly weight, should you do it cleanly."

"Or it will mark me as the captain of someone else's purge," I said. The chair creaked when I leaned forward. "Which is the point, yes? Win the game they write for you, but the checkmate is someone else's hand."

She raised an eyebrow. "Monarchs and dominions prefer their hands to be invisible, Alex. If you do this well, you will have their gratitude. If you drag it out, you will earn suspicion. The choice will be yours, but the opportunity is rare."

I rubbed my thumb along the edge of the letter until the wax left a faint print. My mind catalogued the levers—Mother's writ, the glosspad of data, the promise of new holdings. The Sanguine Spear sat heavy on my chest like the memory of a shield I had yet to earn or prove worthy of. My lands were young. Everis Hills needed men who could shepherd taxes and fend off raiders. The court wanted more than that. They wanted someone who could walk into a hall of mirrors, strike, and leave with applause.

"You're asking me to fight ghosts in gilded halls," I said. It wasn't a complaint. It was an observation.

"Ghosts who traffic in living ruin," she corrected. "Glimmer is not merely a powder to be swept from a table. It reshapes lives. It makes addicts of ordinary workers. The Blue Ballet is a stage. But Warden and Dullgave run the curtains."

Cordelia's voice flashed in my memory—she had warned that some masks are worn because the face beneath them is too ugly to be seen. I thought of my own mask, my peacock plumage of obligation and flamboyance I had learned to wear for performance. I thought of Basaroiel in his nest of pinfeathers, of Fallias' hand in mine once, of the way Lumivis watched me with an ancient patience from within my soul's edges. The court's levers were entwined with my own small, stubborn garden of attachments.

"What happens if I refuse?" I asked finally. The question was more rhetorical than practical. Refusal meant a dozen small inconveniences at first, then worse: features in gossip, excused slights, the quiet rerouting of merchants and favors.

"Refusal is its own vote," Yoringtide said quietly. "The court will note who does not act when the garden needs tending. It will also note who acts with their own hand." Her eyes held mine with a steady, almost fierce calm. "You are not a child to be scolded. You are being offered a cleaving—a chance to show how you rule."

Behind her words I could hear the whisper of the queue: Mother's signature, the queen's patronage threaded through the letter. There was power in that. There was danger too. Both pulled like counterweights.

I folded the paper slowly and let it sit between us like a map. "Tell Mother I will tend her garden," I said, finally. "I will move against Warden and Dullgave. I will write the letters I am told to submit, and I will follow whatever protocol she has set. But I will choose how to cut the root once we have it exposed. I will not be made a footnote in someone else's chronicling."

She inclined her head, a perfunctory smile that did not quite reach the eyes. "Then we will both be entertained."

When she stood to take her leave, there was a strange light in the room, like the shadow of a storm passing over sunlit lawns. The tea had cooled. The books watched with the patient indifference of things that carried knowledge but not emotion. My thumbs stilled against the seal of the letter as if memorizing its weight.

Mother had sent her ordnance, the glosspad lay waiting in my interface, and the city beyond my walls hummed with tax, rumor, and the slow mechanical turning of power. I felt the room grow smaller, the reading chairs become a stage, the books into witnesses.

Outside, the trumpet sounded again, a crisp proclamation that this day had already been promised to the machinery of court.

I pocketed the letter, the wax pressing cold against my palm. The words still echoed in the quiet: Betrayal is to be met with Bloodshed.

I straightened, closed the distance to my window, and for the first time in a long time let the weight of the Sanguine Spear settle into me like an armor I would have to earn.

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