The palace never slept.
It simply changed its rhythm.
When dawn reached Eryndor, it was not through color or warmth, but through the trembling of light on polished stone. The city awoke the way a creature might stir in its sleep — the hum of wheels over bridges, the rustle of robes, the faint chime of metal on marble.
Lucien had not slept. The garden still clung to him: the cold of the water, the woman's words, the faint pulse in his pendant that felt almost like a heartbeat.
He kept hearing it under his breath, the same phrase she had spoken: When it calls again, do not answer with silence.
He wasn't sure whether she had meant the river, or something within him.
The palace servants came at dawn with ritual precision. His armor was polished, his cloak adjusted, his sword buckled to his side. He said nothing while they worked. When they finished, his reflection in the mirror seemed unfamiliar — a knight shaped by expectation rather than memory.
The Hall of Ministers opened beneath a ceiling painted with rivers that no longer existed. Golden threads traced the courses of vanished waterways, converging above the central dais where the king's throne sat beneath a canopy of crystal.
King Veyron of Eryndor sat slumped, wrapped in velvet and exhaustion. His skin was the color of parchment left too long in the sun. He looked at the nobles before him not as a ruler among subjects but as a man watching strangers pick over his legacy.
Four banners flanked him — flame, iron, eye, and stream — the emblems of the great houses. Yet another flag hung behind the throne, half hidden: a pale sigil no one named anymore, its threads faded to near invisibility.
Lucien followed his father into the hall. The nobles parted for Adrast Seravain with the kind of respect that comes from both reverence and fear. Behind them, murmurs coiled like smoke.
"Seravain returns to court," someone whispered.
"After all these years…"
"…the river stirs again."
Lucien caught fragments only. The rest sank into the general murmur, like pebbles disappearing beneath water.
The Council of Houses
The ministers spoke in turns. Their words were careful, polished, rehearsed. They discussed grain levies, river tolls, trade routes choked by sudden floods — but beneath those practical words ran another conversation entirely.
The Drayvanes pressed for "security" along the borders, meaning expansion. The Caelthorns demanded stronger walls and martial law. The Lysanders called for prophecy and patience, their eyes flickering like candle flames.
And the Seravains?
They listened.
Adrast stood with hands folded behind his back, the picture of calm obedience. Lucien knew better. His father's silence was never passive; it was a weapon. The other houses filled the air with noise because silence frightened them.
Lucien's attention drifted toward the marble floor beneath the dais. Thin veins of quartz ran through it like rivers trapped in stone. As the debate swelled and ebbed, he thought he heard something inside them — a faint trickle, steady and insistent.
When he looked closer, the veins were still.
Only the sound remained
"Lord Adrast," said Thalion Drayvane, smiling that too-sharp smile, "you remain quiet while the realm shifts around you. Does the Flow no longer whisper advice to your house?"
Adrast's head turned slightly. "The river does not shout, my lord. It moves where it must."
A few chuckled. A few frowned. The King said nothing.
Thalion's gaze slid toward Lucien. "And the boy? He has his father's stillness, but does he have his sight? Can he tell us which way the current bends?"
Lucien met his eyes. He had intended to remain silent, but something in Thalion's tone — the deliberate condescension, the bait — sparked a pulse of heat beneath his ribs.
"The current," he said softly, "bends toward those who mistake its surface for its depth. You'll forgive me if I wait to see which you are."
A rustle went through the court. Adrast did not move, but Lucien felt the brief flick of approval like a ripple across calm water.
Thalion's grin froze for a heartbeat, then returned wider, brighter, emptier. "Sharp," he murmured. "Careful not to cut yourself."
Lucien bowed slightly. "A river doesn't fear its own edge."
The tension lingered, a taut thread stretched across marble, before dissolving into polite laughter. Yet behind those smiles Lucien sensed a shift — tiny, imperceptible — the way water begins to curve before a fall.
As debate resumed, Lucien felt the pulse in his pendant grow stronger. The humming in the stone returned, rhythmic, almost breathing.
He tried to ignore it — until the floor beneath the throne seemed to ripple.
He blinked, and suddenly he was no longer seeing the hall.
He was beneath it.
Dark water surrounded him, thick and silent. Pillars stretched upward like drowned trees. In their roots, he saw carvings — the same runes he'd touched on the palace walls, glowing faintly with blue light.
They were singing. Not words, but vibrations. The sound shuddered through his bones.
He reached toward one of the glowing symbols, and for a moment it shifted — not a rune but a face, featureless, weeping light.
"Lucien."
He jerked back.
When he opened his eyes, he was kneeling on the marble floor of the council hall. No one had moved. No one had seen. His hand was wet.
He stared at the faint trail of water dripping from his fingers. It evaporated before it reached the ground.
When the session ended, Adrast placed a hand on his shoulder. "You will not speak again without need."
Lucien nodded. His father's tone was not anger, but something heavier — worry wrapped in restraint.
As they walked through the corridors, the murals above them changed with the light. Rivers became chains; knights turned to statues. In one corner, half hidden by shadow, he noticed a painting he did not remember: a city of glass domes sinking beneath a storm. The signature at its base was eroded, but he could make out the shape of a single sigil — a fifth crest, a spiral within a circle.
He felt cold.
"Father," he began.
But Adrast stopped. "Not here."
The words were command and warning both.
The Audience of Shadows
That evening, the palace corridors were emptying, but one door remained open — a narrow arch that led toward the scholars' wing. Lucien's curiosity betrayed him. He slipped through before he could think better.
Candles burned low inside, illuminating a long table covered in parchment. At its end sat the veiled woman from the garden.
"You came," she said without looking up.
Lucien froze. "You knew I would?"
"The river knew. You merely followed."
He stepped closer. "Who are you?"
"Someone who remembers what this kingdom has forgotten." Her voice was steady, but there was a tremor beneath it, like water straining against stone. "Do you know what lies under your feet, young Seravain?"
"Old pipes. Foundations."
"Bones," she corrected softly. "And rivers. The fifth current was never destroyed. Only buried."
She lifted her hand, tracing the air. Light followed her motion — faint, blue, like moonlight through deep water. "The city feeds on it. Every enchantment, every wall, every binding rune. They built their peace on a vein that was never meant to be still."
Lucien swallowed. "You're saying the Flow is alive."
Her veil inclined. "And dying."
The room dimmed. For a heartbeat he saw through the stone — channels of light moving like blood beneath the palace, each pulse slower than the last.
"Why tell me this?"
"Because the river remembers your name," she said. "And because when it wakes, it will not forgive its jailers."
Before he could answer, she was gone. Only the faint scent of rain remained.
The Father and the Son
Lucien found Adrast waiting in the corridor beyond. His father's eyes were unreadable.
"You disobeyed me."
"I followed a sound."
"That is how men drown."
The words struck harder than expected. Something in Lucien snapped — a flash of frustration, sharp and brief. "Then why teach me to listen at all?"
Adrast looked at him for a long moment. "Because one day you will have to decide whether the sound you hear is the river… or yourself."
He turned away. "Go to your quarters. Tomorrow, the king will name his heirs to the council. You will watch, and you will remember."
Lucien stood alone as his father's footsteps faded. The corridor stretched before him like a reflection that refused to end.
Beneath the Marble Veins
That night, sleep eluded him. The pendant at his throat throbbed faintly with each heartbeat.
He rose and walked to the balcony.
Below, the city lay silent — canals gleaming like black glass, towers piercing the mist. Far beneath, he could feel it again: the buried current, the slow, aching pulse of water that wanted to move.
He whispered the Seravain creed, almost without thinking.
"Where water meets fire, there stands the river. Where silence falls, we listen still."
Something answered. Not in words, but in rhythm. The wind shifted; the lanterns along the bridges flickered, one by one, as if breathing with him.
Then, in the reflection below, he saw movement.
Not water. Not shadow.
A figure standing on the surface of the canal, looking up at him — featureless, silver-haired, eyes like his own.
Lucien's breath caught.
The figure raised a hand in greeting — or warning — and then the water swallowed it whole.
Only ripples remained.
And in the silence that followed, the city's buried heart began, ever so faintly, to beat.