The heaviest love a man can bear is the love he owes to the dead — for it asks nothing, yet commands everything."
—Saying of the Old South
The hall of the Round Rule had long emptied, but its echoes lingered — sharp words clinging to stone like ghosts that refused to fade.
Lord Akimbo, the High Regent, walked in silence through the shadowed corridors of Crest Keep, his boots dull against the marble. The torches had burned low; the air smelled faintly of smoke and rain. Behind him, the distant hum of court life dwindled — servants whispering, guards changing post, the muffled clang of the gate closing for the night.
He had spoken harshly in the council, harsher than a man of his station should. Yet every word had been true.
He passed the royal chapel — its doors closed — and remembered the days when laughter echoed here instead of counsel. Saphirra had once run through these same corridors barefoot, a crown of garden flowers upon her head. She would tug at his sleeve, begging him to lift her high enough to touch the banners.
Now, she was sixteen — and carried the sorrow of sixty.
He reached her chamber door. Two guards stood at watch. They bowed as he approached.
"She is resting, my Lord Reach ," one said softly.
"She will see me," Akimbo answered.
The man hesitated, then opened the door.
Inside, the light was dim. Candles burned low around the bed where Princess Saphirra sat upright, a robe drawn close over her shoulders. Her skin still bore faint traces of the ritual's cruelty — red lines fading but not yet gone. Senoria stood by, folding cloths into a basin of cool water.
When she saw him, Saphirra's eyes softened. "My lord Regent," she said, voice gentle but tired. "You should be at supper."
"I've had enough supper for a lifetime," he replied with a weary smile. "May I sit?"
She nodded. He took the chair beside her bed.
For a moment, neither spoke. The only sound was the soft drip of water into the basin.
"You heard them," she said at last, her gaze distant. "In the council. They spoke of me again, didn't they?"
Akimbo hesitated. "They did."
"And what price do they fetch for my name this time?" Her tone was calm, almost resigned.
He sighed. "Too high for any man to pay, and too cruel for any king to ask."
Saphirra smiled faintly — a ghost of the child she once was. "You always did speak in riddles, my lord."
"I speak truth, little one," he said, his voice softening. "Though I see you're no longer so little."
Her eyes glistened, though she looked away. "My uncle thinks otherwise. To him I am a vessel — nothing more. I see it in his eyes each time he calls me to the throne."
He reached for her hand — calloused and warm from the candlelight. "He is a man burdened by ghosts. Your father's most of all."
"My father…" she whispered, her lips trembling. "He trusted him."
"As did we all," Akimbo said quietly. "But trust is a fragile coin, Princess. Easy to spend, hard to earn again."
They sat in silence.
Finally, Saphirra spoke again, her voice steady but laced with pain. "Why do you still serve him, lord Reach? Why do you not hate him as I do?"
Akimbo looked into her eyes — the same clear blue as her father's. "Because hatred poisons only the vessel that carries it," he said. "And because if I do not stand beside him, no one will stand between him and you."
Her throat tightened. She reached out, her fingers resting lightly upon his sleeve. "You have always protected me."
"And I always will," he said simply.
He rose then, smoothing his cloak. "Rest, my princess. Let the world spin without you for a night."
As he turned to go, she called softly after him. "Lord Akimbo?"
He paused at the door.
"When the world forgets my father," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, "will you still remember him?"
He looked back, his eyes shadowed with memory. "Child," he said, "I remember every man who died with honor — and every man who lived without it."
Then he left her in the quiet glow of the candlelight, her eyes following him until the door closed behind.
———
Outside, the corridor was still.
The wind from the open windows carried the scent of the Black Sea far beyond — cold and endless. And in that wind, Lord Akimbo felt what he had feared all along:
that history was turning again, and the girl in that room was its next chapter.
Her words followed him even after the door closed.
"When the world forgets my father, will you still remember him?"
The corridor beyond her chamber was long and empty. The torches guttered low, throwing restless shadows along the stone.
Akimbo stopped halfway down, his breath catching. He pressed a hand to the wall, his fingers brushing the cool surface as though steadying himself against a memory that would not fade.
He had served two kings in his life — one out of love, the other out of duty — and the line between them had grown faint.
He remembered the late King Vaelor's laughter echoing through the court, his hand resting on Saphirra's small head. "You'll watch over her, won't you, Akimbo?"
He had sworn it — not before gods, but before a dying friend.
And now, every time he looked upon her, he saw that promise burning like a brand he could never lay down.
He walked on slowly, the keep's walls whispering faintly with wind from the sea. Somewhere beyond them, the bells of the lower quarter tolled for the changing watch.
He thought of Daeryn — the man who sat a stolen throne but still bled the same. There had been a time when Akimbo believed the younger brother might heal what the elder left undone.
Now he knew better. Ambition was a sickness that even grief could not cure.
He stopped by a narrow window, the night stretching out before him — the gardens below washed in silver, the horizon lost in the dark shimmer of the Black Sea of Dusk.
He thought of Saphirra's face, pale in candlelight, her hands trembling as she asked a question no child should ask.
And for the first time in years, he found no ready answer.
He whispered it to the night anyway, as though the sea might carry it to her father's ghost.
"I will remember him," he said. "I will remember all of you — though remembering has never once saved anyone."
The words sank into the quiet like stones into deep water.
He lingered there, eyes on the horizon, until the torch behind him sputtered out.
Then he turned back down the corridor, his shoulders heavy, his mind already at war with itself.
Tomorrow he would wear his calm again — the measured voice, the steady gaze, the unbending regent of the realm.
But tonight, in the dark heart of Crest Keep, he allowed himself the smallest truth:
He was tired.
Tired of kings who forgot what crowns cost.
Tired of men who mistook cruelty for strength.
Tired of watching children pay for the sins of their fathers.
And beneath all that weariness lay something worse — a quiet, unbearable love for the girl he had sworn to protect.
He did not name it, nor could he. But it drove him onward through the keep's shadowed halls, toward the black windows and the waiting storm.
For in his heart, Akimbo knew this:
the realm might yet be saved — but not by kings.
Whispers Before the Dawn
The night over Crest Keep was still. Rain had passed, leaving the courtyards glistening like mirrors, the torches reflecting in puddles where the stone dipped.
In the upper tower of the eastern wing, far from the King's chambers, a single candle burned — faint and unmoving. It belonged to Lady Cyrayne Volare, the Veilwarden of the realm, mistress of the unseen and unspoken.
Her chamber was a study of silence — walls lined with scrolls, ledgers, and maps pricked with tiny iron pins. Each pin marked a whisper: a movement, a debt, a secret.
She stood by the window, her back to the room, watching the dark stretch of the Black Sea of Dusk beyond the cliffs. A soft knock came at the door.
"Enter," she said.
A boy slipped inside — small, thin, his eyes darting like a frightened bird's. He closed the door behind him without a sound.
"Speak," said Cyrayne, not turning.
"They've come, my lady," the boy whispered. "The Iceese."
Her hand paused upon the window's sill. "When?"
"Just past dusk. Docked at the low harbor, under the fog. No banners, no horn. The guards at the lower gate say they saw three men disembark — cloaked, hooded. One bears a wound on his face."
She turned then, slowly. The candlelight caught the silver clasp at her throat — a veil-shaped brooch, glimmering faintly. Her face was calm, unreadable.
"And the city?" she asked.
"They think it's traders, my lady. Your order to keep it quiet still holds."
"Good."
She walked to her desk, fingers brushing lightly across a map of the coast. The pin marking the lower harbor trembled as she touched it.
"Did they send word to the Keep?"
"Not yet, my lady. The King's men do not know they've landed."
Cyrayne smiled faintly — not from joy, but from understanding. "Then the King shall learn it when I wish him to."
The boy hesitated, his voice shrinking. "Shall I send word to… the other side?"
She looked up. "You mean the Chandels?"
He nodded.
Cyrayne studied him for a long moment. "No," she said at last. "Let them sleep in their scriptures. I would see what truth the Iceese bring before the High Chandel begins to write it into lies."
She turned back to the window. The wind pressed against the glass, making the candle flicker. "And the girl?"
"The Princess?"
"Yes."
"She still rests, my lady. Lord Akimbo visited her not long past."
Cyrayne's smile faded. "Akimbo…" she murmured. "He plays the loyal regent well. But loyalty and truth are seldom bedfellows."
She moved to her chair and sat, eyes lost in thought. "Keep watch at the harbor. I want to know where those Iceese sleep, what they eat, and whose wine they drink. Every word they speak is to reach me before the dawn."
The boy bowed, stepping back toward the door.
"And, Joren," she added softly, stopping him mid-motion. "If the King learns of their arrival before I do…"
He swallowed hard. "He won't, my lady."
"Good."
The door closed behind him, the sound faint as a breath.
Cyrayne sat alone for a long time, her gaze on the dying candle. The flame wavered — thin, pale, but stubborn — refusing to die. Outside, the sea whispered against the cliffs, and somewhere in that endless dark she imagined the shape of the Iceese ship — its sails black against the horizon, its secrets colder than the waters that carried it.
She leaned back and whispered to the quiet:
"The realm sleeps, and yet the game begins anew."