Another day. Another storm.
The royal court of Ro, once a hall of measured grace and gilded decorum, had turned into a gallery of veiled accusations and muffled coughing.
Nobles, once prideful peacocks in brocade and pearls, now wore masks of gauze and lace—more to hide the angry red inflammation crawling up their necks than to make fashion statements.
The affliction had spread not only across skin, but through rumor and unrest.
Demands filled the air like the drone of wasps.
Demands for relief.
Demands for answers.
Demands for retribution—from both the Queen and the Crown itself.
But the King did not sit the throne today.
Instead, he stood by the window, tall and motionless, the heavy light from stained glass slashing across his silver-threaded cloak like cuts of fire and frost.
His hands clasped behind his back, knuckles pale, eyes fixed on the banners of Ro that fluttered stiffly against the evening wind.
They did not dance. They braced.
"I will not bend," the King said, his voice flat and final, as if chiseling his words into stone. "Not to panicked nobles. Not to the Queen's well-meaning mistake. And certainly not to a ghost wrapped in incense and silks."
He turned slightly, though his gaze remained beyond the window—as if the horizon alone was worth his focus.
"Handle the court, Prime Minister. Hold the center. That is your post. I trust you to keep it steady."
The Queen, seated beneath the tall lacquered panels of the tea chamber, sank slowly back into her chair.
Her spine straight, her expression serene—almost—but her gloved fingers betrayed her.
Beneath the embroidered silk, they curled and twitched, scratching at invisible itches, inflamed by more than shame.
Her eyes flicked to her husband, unreadable.
The King did not meet them.
"I will keep faith," he continued, more to the room than its occupants, "in the fire my nephew has lit beneath our enemies. His mission is not a gamble—it is inevitability. And when he returns, he will return triumphant."
The silence that followed was not peace. It was pressure, building in the rafters.
The Prime Minister stood motionless, hands folded before him, his head lowered in what should have been deference. But his lips were pressed into a flat line. His eyes—shielded beneath his brow—flickered once toward the Queen.
And then toward the King.
He bowed, deep and long, as tradition demanded.
But in his mind, tradition cracked.
As he straightened and turned to leave the chamber, the long sleeves of his robes whispered with his movements like restrained wings.
He said nothing more aloud. But the words echoed inside him, sharp as daggers drawn in the dark:
If the King will not act... then I must.
For Alexis. For Ro.
Even if it means drawing my blade not at the enemy's throat… but at my own king's pride.
The doors shut behind him with a slow, ominous thud—like the closing of a vault.
And high above them, the banners of Ro kept fluttering stiffly in the wind, as if unsure whether to rise or fall.
****
News, when sharpened into rumor, cuts deepest.
And in the court of Ro, rumor had long since evolved into a weapon of war.
Whispers filled corridors like smoke—hard to grasp, impossible to ignore.
But this time, they were aimed not at the Queen, nor the nobles, nor the fractured court.
They were aimed directly at the King's pride.
King Rhion paced the floor of his private study, the golden trim of his undone robes dragging carelessly across a map of Ro stitched into the carpet.
His fingers tapped an erratic rhythm against the carved lion pommel of his chair, the sound barely audible beneath the crackle of an opened scroll still curling at the edges from heat.
The words branded themselves into his thoughts.
"The name of General Hiral rings louder in foreign courts than your own."
"The Empress of the East has begun commissioning songs in his honor."
"Hiral has taken three fortified cities without bloodshed."
"Some call him the 'Moonborn General'—radiant, blessed, irresistible."
The King's lip curled. He crushed the scroll in his fist, ink smearing against his palm like dried blood.
"He sings his own legend while my court festers with rash-ridden nobles and silver-tongued lords begging for balm."
He turned sharply, just as the doors opened and the Prime Minister stepped through—dust-laced scrolls under one arm, the scent of medicated salves trailing faintly in his wake.
"The nobles have sent another petition," the Prime Minister said carefully, bowing. "And…" he hesitated, "a sealed note from the Queen's physician. Her condition has worsened."
"I don't care," the King snapped, his voice like a blade dulled by impatience. "I don't care what those itching, pampered fools cry about. Let them boil in their perfumes."
He crossed to the window, shoving it open.
Wind surged in, pulling at his sleeves and stirring the parchment left on his desk.
Beyond the city walls, the forests blurred into sea haze—unmoving, unbroken.
"We've wasted moons circling a speck of land," he growled, eyes narrowed toward the eastern horizon. "Meanwhile, Hiral carves out a legend. He conquers minds without lifting a sword. What good is Alexis's careful waiting now, when the world's eyes have shifted?"
The Prime Minister stiffened.
"Sire… are you going against your word?" he asked, voice low, deliberate. "You were the one who insisted the island be taken with care, from within, letting Alexis do his work. I've reluctantly followed in your vision, even as the nobles questioned your silence. I've defended it daily—"
"Then keep defending it," the King cut in, his tone clipped.
The Prime Minister stepped forward. His voice dropped to a sharp, warning murmur.
"What will the court say when they learn you left your own kin to rot in enemy territory? What will the people say?"
The King turned, his expression unreadable—except for the sliver of cold amusement in his eyes.
"They'll say I saw the greater war," he said. "Alexis himself said it—'Unrest is more fertile than conquest.' I trusted his mind. But this has taken too long. Either the island ignites in rebellion or it folds into Ro. I will not wait another moon for fruit that sours in my hand."
He strode back toward his desk, brushing aside the scattered letters of warning, of pleading, of pain.
"The Empress parades my rival's name like a garland around her throne. While I wait. No more."
He looked over his shoulder.
"Send orders to the admirals. I want attention diverted west. The merchant lands near the spine of the continent—rich, inland, chafing against the Empress's tariffs. They'll welcome our banners."
"And Alexis?"
The King paused.
"He will understand. He's always understood the price of loyalty."
Silence fell, heavy and raw.
The Prime Minister didn't answer. Not at once.
He bowed stiffly, too shallow to be sincere, and turned on his heel.
As he left the chamber, his knuckles whitened around the parchment of court demands.
His pulse pounded in his ears—not from fear, but from fury carefully leashed.
The King's pride—his old, festering poison—had once again bled into judgment.
It was not strategy that moved him now, but wounded vanity.
The Prime Minister had fought it countless times over decades, hoping that time and war had carved it out of him.
But it remained. And now, it had overwhelmed everything.
Alexis will be abandoned. The Queen will be silenced. Ro will tilt west for a fool's glory.
And I…
He took a sharp breath.
I must become the axis upon which it all turns. Even if it means turning against the crown I swore to protect.
****
Far east, atop a wind-bitten cliff in a citadel carved from stone and shadow, General Hiral stood on a high balcony.
The wind tangled his hair as he watched seabirds coil and dive with the updrafts.
Behind him, a courier knelt, still panting from his descent.
"It is done, my lord," the man gasped. "The King turns his gaze west. The Prime Minister… he now walks with fire in his veins."
A quiet hum left Hiral's lips. He plucked a ripe fig from the stone bowl beside him, breaking it open with slow, clean fingers.
"The King's pride," he said, smiling faintly, "is his leash. A single tug... and he strains away from what matters most."
He took a bite of the fig, juice staining his fingertips like old blood.
"Now," he said, watching the horizon darken with oncoming storm, "the board is mine to shape."