“Yes, but what I have to say cannot fall into the wrong ears.”
She blinked at him, then nodded. She carefully, reverently folded the banner and handed it off to be cleaned. Then, she allowed the Angel-King to silently lead her through the city to his palace, where he invited her into his office. Rohannes was already there, waiting.
Val-Theris motioned for her to sit in the chair opposite his desk. He fell into his own chair as if it was the first time he rested his legs in days, and even his wings seemed to limp with exhaustion.
Jesenia began the conversation by asking: “Korvath is worse than the stories, isn’t it? I can see it in your eyes.”
He tightened his jaw, unsurprised by her ability to understand him with just a look. “It is.” She waited for him, giving him space to find the right words. Val-Theris found himself restless once more and rose from his seat, moving toward the balcony where the mid-day breeze spilled through the open doors. His wings caught the sunlight, but their golden sheen seemed dull. “I thought I knew what cruelty was,” he began. “But I didn’t. I don’t. What my brother has built—Korvath is not a kingdom, Lady Jesenia. It is a graveyard that buries the living.”
He stared out at his capital city below. “The men labor until their bones break. The children are trained to fight to the death. The women…he mutilates them. And this is only what I saw. I tremble at the thought of what lingered where I couldn’t see.”
Jesenia pressed a hand to her mouth, feeling sick as horror softened her expression.
“He said it’s what the Light demands. That because he was created for rule, that it is the right way to lead. He believes cruelty is the only language worth understanding, the only language that keeps order and peace.” He turned to her then, his eyes haunted. “Tell me, Lady Jesenia, how do I save people that can’t even ask for help?”
Jesenia thought about it for a long while, the air growing stale between them. “Your brother took their voices,” she said. “So you must start by giving them one.” He frowned slightly at her answer, but she continued on. “You can’t save people by pitying them, Val-Theris. You have to listen—but not just to the loudest. Not to the most powerful. But the ones no one wants to hear. People cannot be saved if they believe there is no hope.”
He let out a shaky breath. “You make it sound so simple.”
She smiled faintly at him. “Nothing about kindness is simple—not in your position. I understand the burden you bear in wanting to be a compassionate ruler, but Korvath’s people will not turn to you if they believe you and your brother are the same man drenched in different light. Isn’t that why you built Seraveth? Because your people chose you, and Korvath’s people chose your brother.”
He looked at her for a long moment, his heart pounding in his chest. “Would you help me, Jesenia? Not just for Korvath, but for Lunareth too. To advise me as someone who knows what it means to have nothing.”
Jesenia hesitated. “You want me to counsel you?”
“Yes.”
Her throat tightened. “And what if what you believe disagrees with my council?”
He smiled, weary but genuine. “Then fight with me. Argue with me until our throats are sore, but do it for the better of all of our kingdoms.”
She stood and moved to stand at his side on the balcony, watching over his city with him. She considered for a long while what it meant to advise a king, and how desperate he must have been to ask in the first place. She was a woman who held no station, power, or wealth, and yet still, he trusted her to be a voice for not just Lunareth, but his brother’s country too—at least temporarily.
She tightened her shawl around her shoulders in the breeze. “What if I am not good at it?” she asked quietly, like she was already expecting the criticism to come.
“You’ve seen more of humanity than all my councilors combined, Lady Jesenia. That makes you more qualified than any of them. And I do not expect you to be perfect—I just hope you can provide perspective to myself and a group of men who have never known anything other than golden spoons. No prophet I’ve ever known fights for others the way you do.”
She tilted her head. “Prophets look to the heavens for answers,” she said quietly. “But I found mine in the dirt under my nails.”
From behind them, Val-Theris heard Rohannes stifle a laugh, and it brought a faint smile to his own face. In that moment, standing side-by-side above the Golden City, they ceased to be king and foreigner, but man and woman burdened with faith that they could remake the world for the better.
TEN
The council chambersmelled faintly of oil and old ink. It was not an unpleasant scent. It was clean, carefully maintained, but it carried no warmth.
Jesenia noticed it the moment she stepped inside, the way the air seemed to press back against her lungs as if testing whether she belonged there. The chamber was full, every seat occupied, every surface polished to a soft gleam. Sunlight filtered through the tall windows in fractured bands, catching on carved sigils and the gold-thread embroidery of the ministers’ robes.
None of it reached the floor where she stood.
Val-Theris moved ahead of her with measured steps, his presence drawing the room’s attention as surely as gravity. His wings were folded close, pale feathers layered neatly against his back, their faint glow subdued beneath the weight of the chamber.
Jesenia had dressed carefully. Notfinely—she had never owned anything that could rival the silks and jewels gathered here. The pastel blue gown she wore was clean and unadorned, its lines simple, its sleeves modest. No ornaments. No attempt to soften herself into something palatable. Her hair was braidedback at the nape of her neck, practical and restrained. If they would not see her as an equal, she would at least not give them a spectacle of useless attempts at becoming it.
The murmuring in the chamber slowed as Val-Theris reached the head of the long marble table. He paused there, one hand resting lightly against the stone, and for a moment Jesenia had the strange, unbidden thought that he looked tired. Not in the way soldiers grew weary, but hollowed, as though parts of him had been taken from him slowly, day by day, and never replaced, like the father before him that grew weak with time.
“This is Jesenia of Lunareth,” he said. His voice carried easily, steady and low, settling into the chamber without effort. “She will speak for the refugee quarter.”
The silence that followed was brief. Then it splintered.
