Hadrian Sylvarien looked at Aelion.

His expression did not change immediately, but something in his face shifted all the same. Shock first. Then disbelief. Then the careful stillness of a man who had just been handed a possibility too important to react to carelessly.

Aelion spoke quickly after that, murmuring everything he had gathered. He told his uncle about Aveline’s strange instincts, about Lucien’s unusual treatment of her, about the things she had said and done that had begun to fit too well with old stories no one was supposed to take seriously anymore.

Hadrian listened without interruption.

But at some point, his gaze drifted past Aelion, past the curtain, toward the place where Aveline’s laughter had been echoing only moments earlier.

There was something strange about the room now.

It had already been dark and cramped, but with Aveline in it, the place had seemed less suffocating.

Her voice had carried a kind of brightness that did not belong to the walls, and somehow her presence had made the gloom feel thinner, as if even this miserable little hideout had been forced to remember what it was like to sound alive.

Hadrian’s eyes remained in that direction a moment longer.

Then he spoke.

"Bring her with you on the raid," he said. "Let us see if she has what it takes."

Aelion’s eyes widened. "But she talks about rules," he objected at once, already sounding as though he regretted the argument even while making it. "She always asks what the proper way is."

Hadrian gave him a look so dry it might have been amused. "Then she cannot be her, can she?"

That answer hit Aelion harder than he expected.

His expression sharpened at once, the uncertainty in him giving way to something far more focused. If his uncle was willing to test her, then he would need to prove himself too. He would need to show that this was not some ordinary girl who happened to be curious at the wrong time.

He would need to show that he had not brought them a mistake, or a false lead, or a disappointment dressed in sweet innocence.

Aelion looked toward the curtain once more, where Aveline’s laughter still drifted faintly from the other side.

And for the first time, he understood that whatever happened next, it would no longer be enough to simply suspect her.

He would have to prove her.

-----

Theron stood on the balcony, fulfilled his duty, and let the kingdom see what it wanted to see. He offered the measured composure of a prince at ceremony, the steady posture of a son beside his father, the practiced stillness of someone born to be watched.

Only after the formalities were over and the feast had begun did he allow himself to drift into the crowded brightness of the royal hall, where music, silverware, and layered conversation tried to soften the sharpness of the day.

It was there that his mother found him and, with the effortless determination she reserved for matters she considered settled, tried to steer Rosalyn toward him.

The entire court seemed eager to help. Rosalyn was praised from one side to another for her grace, her diplomacy, her polished manners, the ease with which she moved from one noble conversation to the next as though she had been made for court from the beginning.

Theron could feel the shape of the expectation forming around him even before anyone voiced it plainly. He would not be able to avoid her forever. The court would make sure of that. His mother would make sure of it.

He looked at Rosalyn and felt nothing that resembled relief.

If anything, he felt the vague irritation of a man being asked to accept a future he had never chosen.

Yet even that irritation gave way to something colder, something more calculating. Rosalyn was not immovable.

If he wished it, she could be deposed.

If it came to that, he could make her disappear from court entirely, or unravel her reputation or her mind until no one wished to keep her close, or even bury her so deeply in confusion that she would no longer be able to stand where she had once stood with such confidence.

The power existed, right in his hands. He knew that well enough. He could use it.

But the thought brought no satisfaction.

Because once Rosalyn was gone, her place would simply be filled by someone else. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Another name. Another face. Another convenient arrangement dressed up as duty.

Theron’s mouth curved into a faint smirk, sharp with dry amusement and a little too much weariness to be called playful.

Well.

She could be a placeholder, then.

For now, at least, she could remain where she was until he decided what to do with his life, with the throne, with the obligations everyone kept handing him as though they were carved into his bones.

He did not care for the nobles. He did not care for the throne. Not anymore. Those things had never felt like his own, only like a weight passed from one generation to the next and called destiny because no one wished to name it a burden.

But while he was still here, while Greenvale still demanded his face and his voice and his obedience, he could at least do something that mattered to the people beyond the feast hall and the polished lies of the court.

That thought steadied him more than the wine, more than the praise, more than the music.

And then, as though his mind had opened a door it could not close again, Aveline’s smiling face returned to him.

Bright. Unguarded. Infuriatingly alive.

The memory settled in his chest with a quiet warmth that felt almost absurd against the coldness of everything else.

He imagined her talking without pause, changing topics before anyone else could keep up, somehow making even silence feel less empty when she was near.

He imagined the two of them at the end of the world, stripped of titles, duty, and every arrogant expectation the court had ever placed on his shoulders.

Just him and her.

Her talking.

Him listening.

The thought softened something in him that had been hardening for years.

That, he realized, would be enough.

That would be nice.

-----

On the way back to the dormitory, Aveline was no longer listening to Aelion nearly as closely as she should have been.

He was trying to talk to her about plans, about next steps, about whatever future he had already begun arranging in his head, but her thoughts had slipped elsewhere and stayed there.

The King was ill. She was nearly certain of it now. If the dark, coiling color around him meant what she thought it meant, then it was not simply strain or weariness. It was something far worse, something deep and dangerous that had already taken root.

And if the King was truly dying, then Greenvale was standing on the edge of something much larger than a festival, much larger than cotton shortages or petty noble games.

The kingdom was split already, torn between nobles and commoners, with rebels growing bolder and the older houses looking out only for themselves.

The younger generation, by contrast, seemed far too drunk on merriment and status to care what sort of country they would inherit. They laughed and attended feasts and played at dignity while everything underneath them quietly began to fracture.

Aveline’s jaw tightened.

This could not be the kingdom her Theron was meant to inherit.

Not if no one did anything. Not if the crown remained trapped in a house divided against itself, with the throne sitting above all that rot like it was enough to hold the whole thing together.

Her hand curled at her side.

No.

She needed to do something.

She did not yet know what form that would take, only that standing aside was no longer an option.

If the future was going to be dragged toward collapse, then she would at least have to decide whether she was going to watch it happen or step into it with open eyes.