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I exhale through my nose. “Let her sulk then. If she needs me to be the villain in whatever story she is telling herself to survive this, let her have it. If I must be the monster she despises to keep her breathing, I will play that part until she understands why.”

Eagan studies me for a long moment, and I watch the thoughts move behind his eyes even though he gives none of them a voice. He has served me long enough to know when I am performing composure.

“No one guards her door but you,” I say.

Eagan’s lips quirk slightly. “Understood.”

“If anyone so much as approaches that corridor without your permission, I want to know about it.”

“They won’t,” he says simply, and I believe him because Eagan is the only creature alive whose word I accept without evidence. He has earned that over many years of keeping a crumbling kingdom from collapsing entirely.

I turn toward the doors leading out. The courtyard is colder than I remember, so I quickly cross toward the far gate, where the path descends toward the lower grounds.

Garret is waiting by the gate, standing at attention with his hands behind his back and his boots planted firmly on the frosted stone. He shares Eagan’s height and build, lean and deceptively strong, but where Eagan carries himself with the quiet watchfulness of a man trained to observe, Garret radiates the rigid discipline of a soldier who has spent his entire existence following orders. His face is harder than his brother’s, the jaw wider, and he has a scar cutting through his left eyebrow. His hair is cropped closer than Eagan’s, but their red eyes are the same shade, though Garret’s hold none of Eagan’s warmth. Garret has learned to view the world in terms of war and training with nothing in between.

“My king,” he says, his chin dipping in a quick bow.

“Walk with me,” I say, because I have no patience for hollow formalities. Holding court is an elaborate performance for an audience that dwindles with every passing year. Right now, I need information not someone bowing.

Garret falls into step beside me, matching my stride as we pass through the gate and onto the path that winds down the hillside toward the lower town and the docks beyond.

We pass the first cluster of buildings, housing for the human laborers who maintain the grounds and the lower infrastructure. The buildings are functional at best. Built from the same dark stone as everything else on Sangremere—something this island has an abundance of. Their small windows glow faintly through fogged glass, lit by candles inside.

A man carrying a wooden bucket freezes when he sees me. His face goes slack before he drops into a bow so quickly that water sloshes over the bucket’s rim and splashes across his worn boots. A woman checking what the noise is outside flattens against the wall as we pass, a broom clutched to her chest. A boy of maybe ten years yanks a younger child inside a doorway so fast the child’s shoe catches on the threshold and tumbles off.

I keep walking. Their fear is nothing new. Every bow and flinch is a prayer that today is not the day they meet the monster who could drain them dry without consequence.

“Do you have a report for me?” I ask.

“The eastern granary lost its roof,” Garret begins. “We salvaged what grain we could, but last night’s rain ruined roughly a third of the stores before it could be moved. I’ll send an order for replacement timber as soon as we can.”

I nod, my jaw tightening. A third of the grain stores. For a kingdom that imports all its food. A loss of that size is not an inconvenience; it’s a catastrophe.

“The water filtration system in the lower quarter failed again,” Garret continues, not breaking stride. “The iron content in the groundwater has increased. Our engineers replaced the primary filters this morning, but they’re improvising with materials that won’t last through winter. The human workers are complaining of stomach pains and discolored teeth.”

“How long will the filters hold?”

“Weeks at best. We need proper equipment from the mainland.”

I exhale slowly. The list never shortens. It hasn’t shortened in my entire reign. Every solution is temporary, every repair a patch over something that continues to corrode beneath. The kingdom I inherited has been hemorrhaging resources faster than I can replace them since the day I took the crown from my father’s dead hands.

“There was a disturbance recently, another tremor. The wall along the southern port has shifted,” Garret adds, his tone carefully neutral. “The engineers believe the ground beneath it is softening. If the land continues to weaken, the wall will fall within the year.”

I stop walking, and Garret stops as well, turning to face me with that same rigid patience.

“The southern wall protects the civilian workers’ quarters,” I say.

“Yes, my king.”

I stare past him, down the hill toward the docks where the masts of ships sway gently against the dark sky. Beyond them, the endless black of an ocean that takes more from us every year.

“I should show you the eastern side,” he says without breaking stride. Soon enough, I realize why he said the eastern side rather than the eastern piers.

Because the eastern piers are gone.

Not damaged. Gone.

Where three wooden piers once stretched out over the water, providing berths for fishing vessels and smaller trade ships, there is now jagged stone and splintered planks.