“She does,” Alaric replied. His voice was quiet, unshaken. “I assure you, Marshal, your enemy may swing the heavier axe, but Evelyne will have already moved the map beneath his feet.”
That earned him a look—flat, unreadable, but more direct than before.
“Even the sharpest weapons dull without upkeep.”
Alaric’s gaze snapped to him, the words hitting like grit in the teeth.Disgusting. The man had really said that—about his fiancée, and in front of him. His smile came slow and cold, the kind that didn’t reach his eyes.
“You must forgive her then, Grand Marshal, for not showing you the edge. If she seems delicate to you,” he continued, “perhaps she simply doesn’t find you worth sharpening herself on.”
Ravik didn’t respond. His jaw clenched, a faint tic pulsing near the temple, and his eyes narrowed on Alaric with the cold focus of a man marking an enemy.
The conversation ended with Alaric turning sharply on his heel and walking toward the corridor, the door groaning shut behind him like it was exhaling tension.
It was obvious that everyone had something to gain from this wedding.
Alliance, political subterfuge, control over the mob. Evelyne was a leverage. A symbol to bend into whatever shape the room required. And that was the part Alaric couldn’t stomach—not the strategy, not even the opportunism, but the way they intended to use her. To accomplish through doctrine what they couldn’t through diplomacy. To ritualize control.
He could see it clearly now—Ravik with his military chessboard, the High Preceptor with his riddles wrapped in scripture, Rhaedor playing the long game with iron courtesy. All of them treating the marriage as performance. But no one asked what happened when the curtain dropped.
Alaric swirled a signet on his finger with his thumb.
He had always known that ritual had more enduring power than steel. One could kill a man with a sword, but a symbol could make an empire outlive its kings.
A marriage asritual. A bride as asymbol.
He couldn't let that pass unanswered.
To find something would mean everything. Not just for Varantia, or the crown. For him. He was clever, yes, but not exceptional. Without magic, or at least without the means to restore it, he would be another ruler in a long line of rulers. Another prince who smiled and signed treaties and was remembered for nothing at all.
The thought burned low in his chest, steady and consuming, like hunger that had forgotten it was hunger. It hollowed him, drove him.
But if he found something lost... if he was the one to return it?
They wouldneedhim.
Even if it devoured him in the process.
And what if you fail? What if you find nothing at all? What will be left of you then?
He smiled more when that thought came. Laughed louder. Masked it well.
But it was always there. A hairline crack, waiting.
Alaric was wary of the High Preceptor, as he was of most priests. There was always something fraying at the edges of men who spent too much time near divinity. But obsession, he’d learned, often stood just a step away from truth.
That alone was reason enough to dig deeper.
Something was brewing. He could feel it.
And he intended to find it first.
Chapter 20
Evelyne hadn’t slept much. Best not to provoke whatever had visited her in the dark by acknowledging it in daylight.
She had not seen Alaric all morning and afternoon. He had been occupied with negotiations and the final arrangements for their impending wedding. It was not unexpected. Her father’s council would see to it that every last term of their union was as beneficial as possible.
Not that she’d been idle herself.
