The bluntness of it catches me off guard. “And that makes me useful?”
“It makes you honest. You see things clearly because you’re not trying to manipulate the outcome in your favour.” He pauses. “That’s rare. Especially here.”
I don’t know what to say to that. He’s right – I don’t want power. I don’t want influence. I just want to understand what happened to my mother and figure out how to live with an addiction that’s embedded in my bones.
“Keep attending the sessions,” he says. “I need advisors I can trust. Right now, that list is very short.”
He’s standing by the window now, backlit by the morning sun, and I let myself look at him. Not as the Lord who summoned me here, not as the patient I heal each night, but just as him. The way his shoulders have relaxed slightly now that we’re alone. The faint lines around his eyes that suggest he doesn’t smile as often as he should.
“What?” he asks, catching me staring.
“N-Nothing. I just—” I stop, unsure how to finish that sentence. I feel a rush of heat rise up my neck.
He crosses back to the table, close enough that I can see the faint luminescence beneath his skin, the veins that mark him as different.Close enough that when he reaches out and adjusts one of the map markers I’d moved during the discussion, his hand brushes mine.
It’s brief. Accidental, probably. But neither of us pulls away immediately.
“You’re good at this,” he says quietly, his eyes on the map but his hand still near mine. “You pick up on things quickly. Faster than I expected.”
He looks up then, meeting my gaze. “You do belong here, Miss Cyra. Whether you believe it yet or not.”
Maybe belonging here has nothing to do with court manners or bloodlines. Maybe it has everything to do with what you’re willing to see and refuse to ignore.
There’s so much that I’ve seen … the broken bodies, the starvation, the apathy … is it possible for me to help in a real, tangible way, if I involve myself like this more?
“Can I ask you something, Your Grace?” The question comes out before I can stop it.
Lord Zevran meets my gaze again, his head tilting slightly. “Go ahead.”
I take a breath, tasting copper from where I’ve been biting my lip. “You must know what your people are facing. The starvation. No medicine, no supplies. But here...” I gesture at the room around us, the carved ceiling, the imported tapestries. “Here it seems like nothing’s missing.”
His eyes go dark. Not angry – something else. He sets down the map marker and turns the answer over before speaking. “Miss Cyra, do you understand how resource allocation works in this system?”
“The Cardinals control distribution.”
“The Cardinals control everything.” He moves to the window, staring out at the dusty horizon. “For over a decade I’ve petitioned them. Requested increased shipments, explained that Mars defends every outer approach to the system, that we bleed for the Core worlds’ comfort. They respond with the same message every time: our defence budget is generous. They send us weapons. Sometimes food, but mostly weapons. They don’t care that every year our climate gets hotter, that our planet is slowly growing inhospitable.They don’t care that our population growth can’t sustain our armies or economy.”
I watch his jaw work, the only sign of tension he allows himself.
“This palace?” He gestures at the walls. “It’s theatre. My jacket’s been patched twice this year. We haven’t hosted a proper diplomatic dinner in decades because we can’t afford to feed that many guests.”
The admission sits heavy between us.
“What else have you tried?” I ask quietly.
“Everything.” The word comes out flat. “Redirected military funds to civilian aid until Commander Nael told me we’d lose critical defences. Opened the palace grain stores to the refugee districts. Sent physicians into the slums on my own coin. It’s not enough. It’s never enough.” He turns back to face me. “I don’t know what else to do.”
I’ve been watching him for weeks now – watching him hold court, manage crises. I thought I understood what that meant.
I was wrong.
This isn’t negligence dressed up in gold thread. This is a man trying to stop a hemorrhage with his bare hands while the system that’s supposed to help him sends him more weapons instead of bandages.
The servant girl’s hollow cheeks. The boy in the alley with exposed bone. The cook’s bitter words about seventeen years of Cardinal rule. They’re not his fault. They’re his burden.
The realization doesn’t come with fanfare. It just sits there, undeniable, changing the shape of everything I thought I knew about this place.
“I believe you,” I say.
