"There are many ways to bury a prince. War is the loudest."
— Whispers from the Westwatch
The king doesn't name it a punishment. He names it duty.
He speaks of rising threats on the southern border. Of lawless raids and poor reports. Of the need for "a trusted blade—one with no entanglements."
He does not look at me when he says that.
Cyren stands silent beside him. Still composed. Still heir.
The words fall like rain: "You'll depart before first light. The garrison at Westwatch will receive you. You'll assess the state of the outer line and restore order if needed."
No fanfare. No formal blessing. Just orders, given like I'm a soldier pulled from a wall roster.
I nod once. That's all he allows.
When I leave the Skyvault, the torches don't feel warm. No one stops me in the halls. No one speaks my name. Not even me.
I return to her room. Not because I want comfort—but because it's the only place in this castle that doesn't lie.
The door creaks the same way it always has. The air still smells faintly of sea salt and tea leaves, long dried. The light spills across the shawl she folded, still shaped as if waiting on her shoulders.
I sit on the edge of the bed. Slowly. Like lowering into memory.
The king's words still echo.
A trusted blade. A place where there are no entanglements.
It wasn't an assignment. It was exile. To the southern border—a place where no prince has ever been sent. Where most men don't come back.
I thought I was being brought home. I was being positioned out of sight.
The ache in my shoulder throbs again. I look over my shoulder. The linen is stuck to the dried edge of the wound—dark, angry red blooming beneath the indigo blue shirt.
Still, I don't move.
Not until I hear the front door open behind me.
"I thought I might find you here."
Mira's voice is softer than I remember—but then again, everything feels older in this room.
She steps inside as if she never left. A little more gray at her temples. A few new lines around her eyes. But the same steadiness.
She sees the blood immediately. Sharp eyes, as always.
"You didn't bind it?" she scolds, already crossing to the cupboard. "Fool boy."
"I was going to," I murmur.
She snorts. "You were going to sit in silence and let it fester."
She pulls a cloth from the drawer, then a small tin of salve that still smells of mint and rosemary. I remember it from scraped knees and bruised ribs. She always said it could scare the pain away.
She stands in front of me. Makes me turn and give her my back. Takes my shirt off. And begins unfastening the messy wrap I did earlier.
I wince.
She doesn't apologize. Just works.
"So," she says, after a long silence. "You're back for a day, and they're sending you to die."
I laugh—just once. "Not quite what he said."
"No," Mira replies. "But it's what he meant."
She finishes binding my shoulder. Her touch is gentle in the way only someone who's known every version of you can manage.
"Do you want me to stop them?" she asks, voice low.
I meet her eyes. There's a spark in them. Not magic. Just... defiance.
"No," I say. "I think I need to see what's waiting at the edge."
She nods once. Folds the cloth with care. Then says what no one else has:
"I'm sorry."
And I nod.
Mira lingers for a moment, patting my back. Then, crosses to the chest beneath the window.
Her fingers trace the lid before she opens it. Slowly. Quietly. As if the act alone might wake something that should've been left sleeping.
"I couldn't give it to you when she left us," she says. "You were gone before I had the chance."
I furrow my brow. "I was still here."
She looks at me. Long and level.
"Not after the facade you made."
My stomach tightens.
She means that night. The one no one speaks of. The one that sent me away for two years.
When I stood in the middle of the great hall, voice hoarse with fury, demanding why the finest healers were tending to Father's newest mistress while my mother lay coughing blood behind unwashed linens. When I asked why no better medicine had come. Why the palace physicians never crossed the western wing.
I remember the silence that followed. The way the courtiers stared, as if I'd spat at the throne.
I remember Father's face. Cold. Closed. Final.
By morning, I was gone—sent east under the guise of a diplomatic study, then further, until Caladryn blurred behind distance and duty.
Mira doesn't ask if I remember. She knows I do.
She pulls something from the chest. Wrapped in pale linen. She returns to me and presses it into my hand.
I open it carefully.
Inside: a small, hand-carved wooden token in the shape of a sea twirl or a storm eye—worn smooth along the edges, like it had been held often. And beneath it, folded parchment the color of old bone.
Her handwriting is unmistakable.
Vel,
I told you once the tide knows what we leave unsaid.
If I am already gone, let this say what I could not:
You were never a mistake. You were the wave that made me braver.
Be braver still.
—Your mother
My chest doesn't rise. Not for a breath. Not for anything.
I close the note and hold the token tight enough that it presses a mark into my palm.
"What is this?" I whisper.
Mira smiles, faint and tired. "It's a sea twirl."
"I thought she hated the sea."
"She always said she did. Called it ugly. Said it could devour you."
"Then why this?"
"Because it saved him."
"Who?" I ask.
Mira doesn't answer at first. She walks to the window. Pushes the shutters open just enough to let the wind curl through—a cold gust smelling faintly of sea and stone. Her silhouette is dark against the gray light.
"The man she loved," she says at last.
My grip tightens around the token.
"You mean—?"
"She never named him. Not to me. Not to anyone. But she wore this memory like a scar she refused to mend. Said he once carved her this. Said the sea nearly took him, but that eddy—" she gestures to the shape in my palm, "—brought him back to shore."
I stare at the token. Its spiral feels heavier now. Older.
"She kept it all those years?"
"She never stopped loving him," Mira says. "But she wasn't willing to compromise her essence for this castle."
She turns, voice gentler now. "That was the kind of woman your mother was. She never chased more. She built from what remained."
Her words land with more weight than anything the king said.
I slip the token into my palm again and close my fingers around it.
"I don't know if I can live up to her standards," I whisper.
Mira doesn't ask what I mean. She just nods and steps back, giving me space.
Outside, the wind rises again. The kind that howls through high towers and low cliffs—the kind that makes the sea remember.
The wind is still restless when I rise. The castle is quieter before sunrise—emptier than usual. As if even its walls have turned their backs.
I dress in silence. No servants knock. No one offers to saddle the horse. I prefer it that way.
The token rests in the inner pocket of my coat, just over my ribs. I touch it once—absently, like a ritual I haven't learned yet.
My satchel is light. The same one I never unpacked. A change of clothes. A map. A sealed scroll bearing the king's order, stamped with the lion crest.
Go south.
Restore order.
Be useful.
You have full command.
The words still echo in my head. I don't know which feels heavier—authority, or abandonment.
The stablehand blinks in surprise when I appear.
"Highness," he stammers. "I—I didn't know you were leaving so—"
"It's fine," I say. "I'll ride alone."
The gelding is black, thick-shouldered, and wind-tempered. Not the fastest horse, but strong. The kind meant to survive rough travel. Or return alone.
The gates groan as they open.
The road curves into fog. The southern hills loom like distant shadows, and somewhere past them—Westwatch. A name carved into reports. A duty whispered like dismissal.
I mount. Adjust the reins. Breathe in.
Behind me, the castle looms. Pale stone and sharp towers. Home in name. Not in truth.
I do not look back.
The road ahead is long.
And I ride like a man who has nowhere else to return.