The woman in red waited until she was sure every eye had settled on her before she spoke.

"You misunderstand us, Your Majesty," she said, dipping her head a precise inch, the picture of courtesy. "No one here questions your right to do as you will. The land is yours, and the titles are yours. We would never dream of suggesting otherwise."

She let the words settle for a moment, and the courtesy on her face never once slipped.

"But a grant of land is only ink and a seal. It does not put a sword in a new lord’s hand, nor does it teach him how to hold what he has been handed."

"There is a reason that region has stayed empty all this time," she went on. "Stronger men than your unknown commoner have died trying to tame it. If he is half of what your favor suggests, then he will manage well enough. If he is not, the land simply returns to those of us willing to take it."

The King watched her for a long moment, and the smile crept back onto his face by a slow degree.

"So you intend to test him," he said.

She spread her hands in a slow, open gesture. "We intend to do nothing the law does not already allow. A territory war is every noble’s right, and we would only be exercising it."

From the gallery above, Didi felt her stomach drop all over again. They weren’t asking the King to take the grant back, because they did not need him to. They were going to march on Hajin’s land and take it by force, with the crown unable to lift a finger to stop them.

What unsettled Didi most was her father’s face through all of it. He did not look cornered, and he did not look angry on behalf of the man he had just sponsored.

If anything, he looked pleased, as if the woman in red had just said the exact thing he had been waiting to hear.

He settled back into the throne with his fingers laced together over one knee.

"Then we understand each other," he said. "Do as the law allows. I look forward to seeing what my new lord makes of all of you."

And there it was, plain for anyone watching the King’s face closely. Her father was not protecting Hajin from the Great Houses at all. He was aiming Hajin straight at them, and using every House in the room to forge the weapon he wanted.

Whatever the woman in red had expected, the King’s answer plainly was not it. The careful courtesy on her face slipped for just a moment, there and then smoothed over again.

"You place a great deal of faith in a man none of us have even met," she said, the soft edge in her words gone a little harder. "If he proves as unremarkable as his birth, Your Majesty, you will have spent the crown’s word on nothing at all."

The King’s smile widened past anything friendly, into something that did not belong on a sane man’s face.

Then he let his power off its leash, and the whole hall changed in an instant. This was nothing like the pressure he had used before, the wave the Houses had shrugged off so easily.

It crashed down over the gallery like a mountain settling onto her shoulders. Didi’s legs went out from under her before she understood what was happening, and she dropped to her knees on the floor, shaking from head to foot.

Down in the hall, even the monsters who ruled the Great Houses had gone rigid. The woman in red had stopped speaking entirely, and not one of the others looked anywhere near as untouchable as they had a moment ago.

The King spoke into the silence he had crushed out of them, as calm as if nothing at all had changed.

"Go to war with my new lord, if that is what you wish. Take his land from him, if you can manage it." He let that offer hang in the crushed silence for a moment before he went on. "But do it soon. The day is coming when not one of you will be strong enough to try, and I would hate for you to miss your chance."

Pinned against the floor of the gallery, crushed flat under the weight of him, Didi remembered something she let herself forget far too easily.

Her father smiled and played the doting king, letting the whole court believe him soft. But the man on that throne was the single strongest being in the kingdom, a full twenty shards, sitting at the very top of the scale.

There was not one soul alive in this kingdom who could stand against him, and every monster in that hall knew it.

Then the pressure lifted as suddenly as it had fallen, and the whole hall sagged with the relief of it. The King rose from the throne, smoothing the front of his coat as though nothing at all had happened.

"I am grateful you all came so far to see me," he said, the easy smile back on his face as if it had never left. "Truly, but this meeting has run its course, so I won’t keep any of you from the road."

He stepped down from the dais without waiting for a reply, plainly finished with the lot of them.

At the side door he paused, one hand resting on the frame, and glanced back over his shoulder at them. "One last thing," he said, almost kindly. "When you go after my new lord, do tread lightly. I would hate to see one of these proud old Houses disappear sooner than it has to."

And then he was gone, leaving the most powerful people in the kingdom standing alone in the silence he had left behind.

From the gallery, Didi watched the heads of the Great Houses trade looks, none of them quite hiding what the King’s parting words had put in their faces. He had let them keep their war, and still managed to make every one of them wonder whether taking it was worth the risk.

Out past the city walls, with no idea any of this was happening, Hajin had just become the most hunted man in the kingdom.

Didi pushed away from the railing and slipped out of the gallery before anyone below thought to glance up. She didn’t stop walking until she was back in her own room with the door shut behind her.

For a while she just paced the length of the room, chewing over everything she had watched unfold.

"What is he even thinking," she muttered, dragging both hands down her face. "Provoking all of them at once, on purpose, like it’s some kind of game."

She knew her father wanted Hajin to grow into something terrifying, and she even understood the logic of it. That didn’t make it any easier to stand by while the most powerful families in the kingdom sharpened their knives for him.

"Will he even be alright," she said quietly, "he’s strong, but a whole House coming down on him is something else entirely."

She thought of the woman in red, of the way none of those patriarchs had so much as flinched until her father bared his teeth. People like that did not bluff, and they did not forget a slight.

She sank down onto the edge of her bed, the unease coiled tight in her chest. More than anything, she wanted Hajin to come back through the city gates soon. She needed to sit him down and make him understand exactly what he had been dropped into. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Until then, all she could do was wait, and hope he came home in one piece.