The banquet had ended in a fog of exhaustion, and Fran had hardly slept.

  But when the summons came — crisp and formal, at dawn — she dressed without delay, chose her words like blades, and let the cold morning air carry her up the vast stone halls of Velarith’s royal palace.

  The throne room was empty.

  Not abandoned — just waiting.

  Golden sunlight spilled through the high windows, catching in the glass mosaics and polished floors. Everything here gleamed. Even the silence.

  She was led through a second arch, down a quieter hall, and into a smaller chamber — still grand, still formal, but less ceremonial. A personal audience room, she guessed.

  There he was.

  King Raemond IV, seated beneath a tapestry of the founding war, dressed in black and grey, his spine ramrod-straight, his angular face a sculpture of composed disinterest.

  He did not rise.

  Instead, he inclined his head just so — enough to imply formality without warmth.

  “Duchess Frances Serenna Elarion,” he said. “You honor my court.”

  Fran curtsied. “Your Majesty.”

  “Please,” he gestured to the chair set before him. “Let us speak plainly. No court masks. Not today.”

  She sat, careful to meet his gaze but not hold it too long. His eyes were sharp, pale, and impossibly hard to read.

  Praise and Poison

  “Foher,” Raemond mused. “One of the oldest bloodlines in the realm. A proud name. A province of scholars, soldiers, and statesmen. And now... a healer.”

  He smiled, lightly. “You must forgive me. That is no insult. In fact, I find it rather romantic — the duchy returning to hands untouched by ambition.”

  Fran chose her response with care. “I would not say untouched, Your Majesty. Just untrained.”

  “Modesty,” he said. “A rare trait. Rarer still in the young.”

  He rose slowly, walked to the window behind him, hands clasped. His voice echoed with the calm authority of a man used to obedience.

  “You lived in Candlekeep, did you not? A peaceful place. Remote. Did you know, I visited once in my youth? I found it... lacking in urgency.”

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  Fran didn’t answer. He glanced back.

  “You practiced healing, I understand. A noble craft. Though hardly the preparation one expects for a ruler.”

  There it was — the first strike, hidden in velvet.

  Fran inclined her head. “People are not so different from governments, Your Majesty. Both bleed. Both decay, if unattended.”

  “Well said,” he replied. “Alric must have been proud.”

  He turned back toward her, smiling faintly.

  “I must admit, I found his final decision… puzzling. To hide you for so long. To deceive the court, the realm. And then — ta-da — reveal you with his dying breath. Bold, if not reckless.”

  Fran’s jaw tightened.

  “A dying man’s sentimentality,” Raemond added. “It often clouds judgment.”

  “And yet,” Fran said, “here I am.”

  “Yes. Here you are.”

  The pause that followed was not silence — it was pressure. Measured. Weighted.

  “You carry a heavy burden, Duchess,” he continued, now seated again. “Foher is not an easy land to rule. Its people are proud. Its lords... prickly.” A small chuckle. “Its taxes, I hear, a source of much confusion.”

  Fran kept her face still. So he had been watching.

  “I do not envy your position,” Raemond said. “To step from the quiet of Candlekeep into the jaws of governance — alone.”

  He let the word linger.

  “And that, I think, is the heart of it. You are alone.”

  Fran raised her chin slightly. “I have my council.”

  “Your council,” he echoed. “Ah yes. Those same nobles who bled your eastern barony dry?”

  That hit harder than she expected. He noticed.

  “I speak only from concern,” he said, leaning forward now, voice quieter, gentler. “Foher is too important to falter. You’re young, unwed, without an heir. Should something happen—”

  “Your Majesty,” Fran interrupted, “I assure you, nothing is—”

  “Should something happen,” he repeated, more firmly, “Foher would fall into chaos. It would fall to me to appoint a regent. Or worse.”

  He let the words hang.

  Then, kindly:

  “There are many fine matches across the realm. Nobles with strength. Experience. Loyalty.”

  “Grooms, you mean.”

  “Husbands,” he corrected, with a faint smile. “A necessary part of your legacy.”

  He stood again, and this time the gesture was final.

  “Consider it, Duchess. The throne respects your blood. But kingdoms are not ruled on blood alone.”

  Fran rose, curtsied.

  “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  He said nothing as she turned.

  As she stepped back into the corridor, the doors closing behind her, she realized her hands were trembling.

  And she hated that he’d made her feel it.

  The halls of the royal palace were quieter now. Morning light filtered through stained glass, casting red and violet shapes onto the marble floors. Fran walked in silence, her footsteps swallowed by velvet carpets, her breath still not quite steady.

  The King's words echoed faintly in her mind — A necessary part of your legacy... Should something happen...

  She passed a tapestry, then a small alcove where a servant bowed low and vanished through a side door. A turn to the right. A corridor leading toward the guest wing, her temporary quarters just ahead.

  Then she saw her.

  Princess Nyvara, standing alone beneath a window arched with ivy, sunlight curling around her dark hair and golden-brown robes. She looked like something carved from desert wind and fire-glass — too vivid for this frozen city.

  Fran slowed.

  Nyvara turned her head, only slightly. Her eyes met Fran’s.

  No curtsy. No smile. Not even a tilt of the head.

  “Has he already given you the list of suitors I have discarded,” Nyvara said, voice smooth as silk and sharp as glass, “or is he waiting for you to leave to do so, Elarion?”

  She said the name like it was a dare — without title, without warmth.

  Then she turned and walked away, disappearing behind a column before Fran could answer, or even breathe.

  And the hallway fell silent again.