The king sat in the garden with the stillness of a man pretending to rest.
Around him, the palace blood in careful, cultivated beauty. Pale flowers nodded in the breeze, and the fountain nearby whispered softly over stone. A gentle wind moved through the branches overhead, lifting the ends of his hair, cooling the heat that clung to the late afternoon. For a mont, he looked almost peaceful.
Then Ingrid, his royal mistress, drifted away from him with a satisfied little sway to her step, her jewelry catching the sunlight as she went. She had co for a favor and left with a new grant of land for her brother’s son, and she wore the success of it with the ease of soone who knew exactly how to win a man’s indulgence without ever appearing to ask for it.
The mont she disappeared from view, the king’s smile vanished.
It left his face so quickly that the transformation was unsettling. The weariness beneath it was suddenly plain to see. His features seed harder now, drawn tight by years of burdens he no longer tried to hide from anyone but himself. His skin looked strained, almost rough under the light, and the dark circles beneath his eyes gave him the look of a man who had not truly slept in years.
He leaned back and closed his eyes again, though the repose did not bring him any peace.
"Approach," he said quietly, without opening them.
There was the faint rustle of leaves.
A mont later, an airbender descended from the tree above with practiced grace, landing lightly on a cushion of air that dispersed beneath his feet as he bent it with a rune. He straightened at once and ca to stand beside the king, bowing his head in submission.
The king did not look at him imdiately.
"Did you find her?" he asked at last.
He had heard that his son had been slipping into the Arcanum for the past few days. It was a fact that had not escaped his attention, no matter how carefully the boy might have tried to hide it. He only wanted to know whether that woman had found him first.
The spy dropped to one knee at once, one hand pressed to his chest. "I beg your forgiveness, Your Majesty. This servant is incompetent."
The king opened his eyes then, turning his head just slightly to glance at the guard kneeling beside him. He said nothing. After a mont, he looked forward again and let out a slow breath, the kind that ca from patience worn thin rather than anger displayed openly.
"What news do you bring ?" he asked.
The spy kept his head lowered. "The Archduke has given his Guardian’s Sigil to a young woman and taken her in as his apprentice."
A low hum rumbled in the king’s throat.
That was unexpected, though not impossible. Lucien Caelvaris had always been unpredictable in his own elegant, maddening way. Still, even for him, allowing a girl into his lab was unusual.
Then again, stranger things had happened.
The spy hesitated before continuing, as though aware that the next part might matter even more. "That woman is said to be Lord Aelion Sylvarien’s marked woman," he said carefully, "and she is from Aurelmont."
The king’s eyes opened at once.
"Aurelmont?"
The spy bowed his head in confirmation.
The air seed to shift around them, though no wind had moved. The word had landed with enough force to sharpen the silence.
"And," the spy added, now more cautiously than before, "the Archduchess has sent a letter to the Spymaster requesting a private eting. They are to et this evening."
For a while, the king said nothing at all.
His gaze drifted to the fountain, though he was not really looking at it. He was weighing the pieces in his mind, fitting them together, and discovering that too many of them pointed toward the sa unstable center.
"Find out what they are discussing," he said at last. "Do so to the best of your abilities."
He was the king, but even kings had limits. Especially against the head of the Vantaris family. There were secrets the shadows kept even from rulers, and there were truths no amount of authority could compel into the light. Sotis, even air refused to carry what the darkness had chosen to hide.
The spy bowed deeply, relief flashing across his face at being given a task he might actually succeed at.
Then the king spoke again.
"What is the girl’s na?" he asked. "The one from Aurelmont."
The spy lifted his head slightly. "Ava Vaelreth, Your Majesty. She is a reckless young lady who is often sent out for disrupting classes. She lives in the corner room of the dormitory and has apparently made another student her maid. Several people have seen her acting intimately with Aelion Sylvarien, and now even the Archduke has shown interest in her."
The king’s mouth tightened faintly.
"And my son?" he asked.
"They shared the Archduke’s presence this morning," the spy replied. "However, from what I could observe, His Highness seed indifferent to her. The young lady herself appeared far more interested in the Archduke and his laboratory than in the Crown Prince."
The king gave a small nod, almost to himself.
Then he closed his eyes again.
After a mont, he flicked his wrist.
The spy rose at once and withdrew, the air gathering beneath him once more as though the wind itself had beco his wings.
In a heartbeat, he was gone, leaving the king alone beneath the garden’s gentleness, with only the weight of the information he had received settling deeper into the silence around him.
-----
The evening wind swept through the ruins with a low, mournful whisper, carrying ash that had long since turned cold.
What remained of the mansion stood like the skeleton of a forgotten tragedy against the darkening sky.
Once, it had been one of the grandest residences belonging to the Caelvaris family. Its halls had hosted nobles and scholars, its gardens had blood beneath enchanted lanterns, and its walls had witnessed generations of laughter, ambition, and secrets.
Now there was nothing left but ruin.
The fire had not rely consud the estate.
It had annihilated it.
The stone walls themselves bore the scars of an impossible heat. Massive blocks of granite lay scattered across the grounds, shattered from within as though the flas had exploded through their very cores. Blackened fragnts of columns protruded from piles of rubble like broken bones. Here and there, twisted tal glead beneath layers of soot, stubborn remnants of chandeliers and gates that had once proclaid the wealth of their owners.
The destruction felt unnatural even decades later, as though the fire had not been content with taking lives... As though it had wanted to erase mory itself.
Lord Edric Vantaris walked through the wreckage without hesitation.
His boots crunched softly against broken stone and scattered debris as he made his way toward the center of the estate.
The shadows moved strangely around him.
They stretched longer than they should have beneath the fading light, sliding silently over the ruined ground as though eager to follow their master. The evening breeze tugged at the dark fabric of his coat, yet his pace never slowed.
He knew this place.
Every mber of the older noble houses knew this place.
Because no matter how many years passed, no one truly forgot the night the Caelvaris estate had burned.
Or the questions that had survived the flas.
At the center of the ruin, where a magnificent grand hall had once stood, a lone figure waited.
The hood of her cloak concealed much of her face, and the gathering twilight blurred the rest into shadow. The wind caught the dark fabric and sent it fluttering around her like a living thing.
Archduchess Leone Caelvaris.
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