The King made a sound like a cough and gestured curtly toward the long, ironwood table at the center of the chamber. It stretched beneath the high-arched windows like a scar across the room, each chair as stiff and humorless as the man who had likely commissioned them.
Alaric slid into one and placed his folder on the polished surface. The High Preceptor sat beside him. Ravik remained standing for a moment too long before taking the seat opposite.
The meeting was... informative. In the same way a formal duel was informative. You learned the other man’s reach, his preferred weapon, and how often he went for the throat.
“Units one through twelve, will be posted at the inner gates,” Ravik explained. “The cathedral entrance will be watched at all times. All rooftop access points are sealed. Barricades at Market Row. Tower snipers remain in place from dusk. Every dignitary has been flagged. Anyone not listed will be detained.”
Alaric nodded slowly, then met the general’s eyes. “You understand that this is a wedding, not a siege.”
Ravik didn’t flinch. “The name may differ. The consequences are not.”
Rhaedor leaned back in his chair, “Because of last year, we’ve increased the security threefold.”
“Indeed. The Maroon Slaughter has changed protocol.”
Alaric’s fingers resumed their tapping, a touch faster now. “I read the reports,” he admitted. “Sparse security. Hardly anyone stationed inside the chapel, no alerts until it all went to hell.”
“We will not repeat the oversight.”
“And yet,” Alaric said, “I wonder if choking the ceremony in blades and silence is any more effective than leaving it unguarded.”
That earned him a flicker of something from Ravik—not quite irritation, not quite amusement.
Alaric leaned back slightly, the edge of his chair catching. “The Annals of Tel Verun describe the Mirror Wedding of Myceanos as having over four hundred armed guards stationed throughout the city. Still, the bride never made it to the altar. All it took was a vial in a wine cask.”
Ravik remained silent, but Alaric could see it—the faint stiffening of a man forced to tolerate theory where he preferred command.
“I’m not asking you to lower your guard, Grand Marshal. I’m asking you to remember that this day is supposed to mean something other than fear.”
Across the table, the High Preceptor turned slightly toward the king, his voice a low thread Alaric couldn’t catch. Ravik leaned forward to brace his hands on the table. He regarded Alaric steadily, measured patience over rising irritation.
“Poison-tasters will rotate every course. Food will be sealed since delivery. And I’ve posted additional guards behind the draperies.”
Alaric raised an eyebrow.
Ravik’s mouth twitched. That, from him, Alaric assumed, was practically a grin. “You’ll thank me if one of them catches a Kaer’Vosh’s dagger before it lands in your bride’s back. Or yours.”
That cooled whatever retort Alaric had queued behind his teeth.
The king leaned forward, his clasped hands resting atop the polished wood. “We’ve been conducting quiet inquiries in the capital,” he explained. “Looking for disruptions. Heretics. Those who might see the wedding as an opportunity to stir unrest.”
Alaric’s pulse quickened—but his face did not betray it.Heretics. Where there were heretics, there were symbols. Whispers of magic.
“Heretics,” he echoed, carefully neutral. “That’s not a term you toss into the air without weight. And yet this is the first I’ve heard of it.”
King Rhaedor didn’t blink. “Because, so far, we’ve kept it from becoming your problem.”
Alaric’s brow twitched. That old Varantian instinct, to answer frost with fire, flared at the edge of his tongue, but he bit it down. He turned to Ravik, who stood as still as a statue carved from military honor.
“Is there a specific threat?”
The general’s silence stretched long enough to border on insolent. He gazed at the king and shifted one gauntleted hand behind his back.
“There are seditious symbols carved into chapel pews. We’ve seen pockets of unrest, small ones, mostly confined to the lower districts. It smells like rot, but we have yet to find the source.”
Symbols?
Alaric’s gaze narrowed. “Are there loud objections to the match?”
