Chapter 29: The Weight of Simplicity
The sun descended toward the horizon, surrendering the sky to deepening shades of amber and violet. As darkness claimed the capital, Siena began to sparkle—ten thousand lanterns and candles transforming the city into a constellation of earthbound stars.
In her chambers within the Great Castle, Ethelia sat by the window, watching night paint itself across the capital.
Her room was sparse by palace standards. A bed with simple blankets. A mirror. A bathing chamber. Her sword leaning against the wall. Nothing decorative. Nothing unnecessary. The minimalism wasn't poverty—it was preference. Function over form. The life of a warrior who'd never learned to value luxury because she'd never needed it to survive.
She sat in the single wooden chair, still wearing her training clothes, studying the city below with that focused intensity she brought to everything.
"What drives people to rule?" The words came soft, addressed to her sword as much as herself. "Why not live a casual life? Why chase power and crowns and empires?"
'I don't understand ambition like that. I understand wanting to be strong—the strongest. That makes sense. Power you can measure, test, prove.'
She traced a finger along the windowsill.
'But ruling? Manipulating courts and managing kingdoms and playing games where words are something else? Why would anyone choose that complexity?'
The image of Lucien surfaced unbidden—the way he'd moved through the Art of Rebels like it was choreography he'd practiced for years. Saving millions with strategy instead of steel. Making enemies love their chains.
'What drives him? What's he actually trying to accomplish beneath all those tactics?'
A knock interrupted her thoughts.
"Lady Ethelia—" A young feminine voice came from beyond the oak door. "Prince Lucien requests your presence at the fountain near the main path."
Ethelia turned toward the door, processing the unusual summons.
"Tell him I'll be there shortly."
She stood and reached for her black cloak, fastening it across her shoulders while moving to check her reflection in the mirror. The training clothes clung to her frame in ways that emphasized muscle and curve equally. Practical, but...
'It's evening. Nearly dark. Unsafe for imperial blood to wander without guards, even in the capital.'
Her hand moved automatically to check that Kyou Sinji hung properly at her hip.
'What does he want? Training discussion? Something else?'
The possibilities tumbled through her mind—tactical, personal, intimate—refusing to settle into clear categories.
'Why does he make everything feel complicated?'
She left the simplicity of her room for whatever complexity waited outside.
---
Elsewhere in the Palace—Empress Althaea's Chambers
"Mother, I was so bored."
Thalira sat near the ornate mirror, still wearing travel clothes from her return journey. Five days away—traveling to Zyrick, enduring whatever political theater the trip required, returning to find the palace exactly as uninteresting as she'd left it.
"When I arrived, there was no grand celebration. Nothing." Petulance colored her voice. "Only Father Emrik and a few ministers greeted me. Why not my brothers? Why didn't Lucien and Darian come?"
Empress Althaea stood at her wardrobe with her back to her daughter, searching through expensive fabrics with particular intensity. Her fingers stopped on a specific set of garments—the dress and underclothes from five nights ago. From the meeting where Lucien had drugged her with Kapiva wine and nearly...
She pulled them free with barely controlled revulsion.
"Zeta." Her voice came cold and precise. "Burn these."
'Touched by proximity to that bastard. Contaminated by his hands and breath and those violet eyes that see too much.'
Zeta approached and accepted the clothing with a slight bow. But her hands trembled as fabric touched her skin.
' His fingers traced these seams.'
Heat pooled low in her belly—immediate, unwanted, undeniable. She was thirty-six years old. Had chosen duty over desire for decades. And now she couldn't hold a piece of fabric without her body betraying her with want.
'What could make him bound to me? What would it take to have those hands on my skin instead of hers?'
"I'll see them disposed of properly, Your Majesty."
Zeta left the room before anyone could see how flushed she'd become, before her arousal became visible through her servant's dress, before the desperation showed too clearly on her face.
'Sol help me, I'm breaking and I don't know how to stop it.'
Empress Althaea settled onto her couch, reaching for dried fruits—something to occupy her hands while managing her daughter.
"Thalira, you should stop playing the child. Be mature." The words came dismissive, almost cruel. "You aren't a baby who needs guards and celebration everywhere you go."
She selected a cashew and brought it to her lips without looking at Thalira.
"Even your twin sister Natasha isn't this childish."
Thalira stood abruptly, disbelief and rage warring across her young features.
"Mother—I'm not a child! I'll be great. I'll—"
"Great Empress? Is that what you were going to say?" Althaea's laugh cut like a blade. "Your dream of Empress has already fallen to Queen. Later it'll fall further—to mistress, or concubine, or nothing at all."
She swallowed the cashew without tasting it.
"Unless you learn that the world is predators and prey, and sentiment is a luxury only the strong can afford."
Thalira's eyes filled with tears—hurt and fury mixing into something volatile.
"You got this place because you used your body!" The accusation exploded from her. "You got pregnant with us by Father Emrik, and because you were Princess of Kingdom Surimia, he married you! Everyone knows it!"
Her voice cracked but she pressed forward, eighteen years of observation finally weaponized.
"And don't make me say what you did with Rose De Colisson and how you—"
The slap came fast and sharp—Althaea's hand connecting with Thalira's cheek with enough force to snap her head sideways. The sound echoed in sudden silence.
Both women froze, shocked by the violence neither had expected.
Althaea's hand remained raised for a heartbeat longer before lowering with deliberate control. When she spoke, her voice carried something almost like anguish beneath the steel.
"I could kill you, my child. But it would be a waste—I might lose a kingdom from my hands if I did that."
She grabbed Thalira's jaw, forcing eye contact.
'I shouldn't say these things. Shouldn't hurt her like this. But it's the only way to make her see the predators. To make her understand this predatory world before it devours her.'
Love and cruelty twisted together in ways she couldn't separate anymore. Hadn't been able to separate for years. Maybe never could.
"Do you understand? Power isn't given. It's taken. And if you can't take it, you become the thing that's taken instead."
Thalira's tears fell silently now, mixing pain with something like understanding she didn't want.
On the balcony beyond the chamber—hidden in shadows where he'd been standing motionless for the entire exchange—Alcine observed everything with professional detachment.
He turned and left through the balcony door with ghost-like silence, already composing his report.
'Master sees everything three moves ahead. '
Behind him, mother and daughter remained frozen in their tableau of love and violence—unable to separate the two, unable to stop inflicting both.
---
The Main Path—Capital Siena
Ethelia found him at the fountain exactly where the message had indicated.
Lucien stood in the gathering darkness, silver-white hair catching ambient light from nearby lanterns, making him look almost ethereal against the stone and water. He wore simple dark clothing—no imperial regalia, no obvious markers of royalty beyond the unconscious grace with which he inhabited space.
"Why did you ask me to come at this time?" She approached with that directness that most people found intimidating. "And why are you outside at this hour? It's—"
He turned and walked toward a nearby food stall before she could finish, leaving her to follow or be left behind.
The vendor saw them coming and his entire demeanor shifted—shoulders straightening, hands moving to prepare food before any order was given. He couldn't forget a body like Lucien's, couldn't mistake those violet eyes or that silver hair even in lamplight.
"Two honey-seasoned chickens," Lucien said simply.
The vendor worked with nervous efficiency, wrapping the food in cloth and offering it with a bow that spoke of genuine respect rather than mere duty.
Lucien placed a single gold coin on the counter.
The man's eyes went wide—more than he'd earn in days, possibly weeks. "My Prince, I couldn't—this is too—"
Lucien took the food and turned away, already moving toward a nearby bench.
The vendor bowed repeatedly, clutching the coin like a holy relic, gratitude and disbelief mixing on weathered features.
In the yellow lamplight, everything took on golden shades—except Lucien's hair, which remained defiantly white, catching attention from every passerby. Young women noticed. Merchants noticed. Guards noticed. But no one dared approach or interrupt, sensing something in his posture that promised consequences for intrusion.
He sat on the bench and Ethelia joined him, accepting the offered food while studying his profile with barely concealed curiosity.
'What is this? What are we doing here?'
"You're an excellent teacher." He took a bite, chewed, swallowed with that economical grace he brought to everything. "Next time, use Kyou Sinji during our training. I want to see how effective it truly is."
"Can you really withstand that overbearing sound?" She bit into her own food—simple, well-prepared, unexpectedly satisfying. "The screaming disrupts even experienced warriors."
"I want you to use your weapon properly." Her voice carried genuine interest. "Let me see the difference between a Rank Four artifact and Rank Nine artifact in actual combat."
'What does he want to learn? What's he planning?'
"You shouldn't ask me to use that." He glanced at her sidelong. "That sword is simply too heavy—precisely around eighty kilograms. About your weight, actually."
'Was that flirting? Did he just compare his sword to me ? What's wrong with us?'
Lucien finished his food and stood with sudden purpose.
"Let's go. I want to show you something."
---
They walked through streets that gradually transformed from merchant districts to residential areas—from stone buildings to simpler wooden structures, from paved roads to packed earth paths.
The commoner district.
Ethelia had been in places like this before during campaigns, but always as a soldier. Always with purpose. Never just... walking. Never with a prince beside her treating it like the most natural thing in the world.
Ahead, a crowd had gathered in a small clearing between homes. Thirty, maybe forty people—children sitting cross-legged in front, adults standing behind, all focused on a single figure seated on a wooden log.
The storyteller.
He was old—maybe sixty, maybe older—with a face carved by weather and experience. His voice carried across the clearing with practiced projection, weaving narrative with the ease of someone who'd done this ten thousand times.
But when he noticed Lucien and Ethelia approaching, his voice faltered. Stopped completely.
The crowd turned to see what had interrupted their entertainment.
Silver-white hair in lamplight. Unmistakable.
The storyteller stood abruptly, nearly falling over his own log in his haste. He dropped into a bow so deep it looked painful.
Lucien said to him in gestures to not be disturbed.
He found a spot at the edge of the gathering and settled onto the ground with casual disregard for his clothing or station. Ethelia hesitated only a moment before joining him, sitting close enough that their shoulders nearly touched.
The storyteller stared for another heartbeat—processing the surreal image of royalty sitting in dirt to hear his stories—before slowly returning to his log.
Around them, children whispered excited speculation. Adults exchanged glances of disbelief and wonder. The atmosphere had transformed from casual entertainment to something approaching sacred.
I didn't know Lucien had this side, Ethelia thought, studying his profile in flickering lamplight.
He looked relaxed. Almost peaceful. The masks he wore constantly had slipped—not completely, never completely, but enough to show something underneath that seemed almost human.
Caring about commoners? Capable of peaceful moments? Interested in simple pleasures? Or is this another performance—being seen as the good prince among those who'll spread word of his kindness?
She looked at the children—their innocent faces lit with fascination, their complete absorption in whatever story was about to continue. The warm atmosphere of community and shared narrative. The chirping of crickets providing ambient music to human connection.
What is he showing me? What does he want me to understand?
The storyteller cleared his throat, found his rhythm again, and began to speak.
And in that moment—surrounded by commoners and crickets and the smell of cooking fires from nearby homes—Lucien looked more like himself than Ethelia had ever seen him.
Whatever that self actually was.
She settled in to listen, to learn, to try understanding the man beside her who saved millions with strategy and sat in dirt to hear old stories told by someone the world had dismissed as mad.
Let's see what made him interested in this, she thought.
Let's see if I can finally understand what drives a man who claims there's no good or evil—only power and the will to create meaning.
The storyteller's voice rose and fell with practiced cadence, weaving whatever tale he'd chosen.
And Ethelia found herself leaning slightly closer to Lucien, drawn by gravity she couldn't name and didn't know how to resist.