The silence that follows is absolute. Thick. Breathless. Like the air has folded in on itself and refuses to move.

  I do not speak. I do not move.

  They are all still looking at me.

  I keep my eyes forward, just above the firelight, where the shadows shift across the stones. Not so high as to seem defiant. Not so low as to appear cowed. Just... steady. Still.

  Let them make of me what they will.

  I feel their reactions before I see them, like the room has shifted temperature, grown hotter in some corners, colder in others.

  Catharine is the first I sense, though she hasn't made a sound. Her presence sharpens, like a wire pulled taut between two anchors—tense, silent, dangerous. Her gaze is on me, I can feel it, sharp as the edge of a scalpel. Not judging. Not yet. Testing the fit of this new truth against the shape of who I’ve been.

  I’ve seen that look before. In another life, another throne room. A queen’s expression just before she ordered her son to kneel and take the oaths meant for kings. Not because he had earned them—yet—but because the game demanded it.

  Catharine, I think, understands.

  But understanding doesn’t mean acceptance.

  Sven is harder to read. His face is still. Dead still. The kind of stillness born of discipline, honed over decades. His knuckles rest against his chin, his elbows on the arms of his chair, and his brow is drawn just slightly, barely enough to register. But I know that line. That quiet tension.

  It’s not anger. It’s restraint.

  There is a storm behind his eyes, and he’s deciding whether to unleash it, or to respect what I’ve just done.

  I remember that look—etched into the face of a general, just before he pinned a medal to my chest for burning a village we could no longer hold. I won us time. But I still hear the screams. He told me later that he would have court-martialed me if we had lost. But we didn’t. And so he gave me a medal instead.

  Valcroft hasn’t looked away from me since I spoke. His face is stone, but his grip on the hilt of his sword has changed, tighter now. Not out of fear. But caution.

  I’ve seen it before, in soldiers when they realize the boy they’re protecting is not a ward, but a weapon. There’s a shift, subtle and cold. He is wondering if he’ll be asked to wield me. Or stop me.

  He hasn’t decided which he prefers.

  Havish sits a little straighter. His pen is motionless in his hand, the notebook before him forgotten. His lips press into a thin line, and he’s stopped pretending to look at the page. He watches me now, not as a caretaker, not even as a subordinate to a noble house.

  No, this is different.

  He looks at me the way one might examine a ticking device: complex, precise, possibly volatile.

  Havish has served many heads of house, I know. In one life, I was one of those heads, ruling with a steady hand and a secret blade. I remember the way stewards look at rulers who act before they ask permission. With admiration, and dread.

  Marla’s hands are clenched in her lap. Her shoulders are stiff. She is not crying, but I see the redness in her eyes. Not grief. Not quite.

  Something between sorrow and resignation.

  She loves Lena like family. Loves Clara like a granddaughter. And I gave the order that turned revenge into action. There’s no hate in her, not for me. But there’s distance now. A line she doesn’t know how to cross again. She looks at me with something in her eyes I have seen before.

  In the eyes of those who raised me when I came back from war a little too early, a little too changed. The boy they once soothed is gone. In his place, something sharp and new. Something that does not flinch.

  I feel it now.

  They are all holding their breath.

  And I wonder, how long can this silence last before someone breaks?

  Before the weight of what I’ve said tears the fabric of the room?

  A second. Then another. It drags on, stretching across the polished stone like a canvas on a frame. The silence holds. No one breathes too loud. I can feel the question forming behind all their eyes.

  What now?

  And then, Sven stands.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Not quickly. Not dramatically. Just... deliberately.

  The scrape of his chair echoes louder than it should.

  He doesn’t look at me. Not yet.

  His voice is low. Measured. Final.

  “Out. All of you.”

  The words land like hammer strikes.

  Havish blinks, as if unsure he heard right. “Your Grace—”

  “I said out,” Sven repeats, sharper now. “Captain, Marla. You as well, Havish.”

  Valcroft shifts, not rising. “With respect, Archduke, the nature of this—”

  “Is now a family matter,” Sven says, steel threading through his voice. “And I will not repeat myself again.”

  That gets them moving.

  Havish stands first, bowing low, the lines of hesitation etched into every movement. Marla gathers the tray with trembling fingers. Valcroft lingers the longest, locking eyes with Sven as if trying to calculate whether it is wise to leave now, whether it is safe.

  Then he nods once, curt and clean, and follows the others.

  The doors shut with a sound like a sealed vault, the lock clicking in place.

  For a moment, the only sound is the crackle of the fire. I sit still on my cushion. My back straight. My hands quiet in my lap. I should be used to the silence by now.

  But this one is different.

  Sven moves first.

  He doesn’t return to his chair. He paces instead, not with anger, but with the weight of a man trying to lift something heavy from the inside, with words that refuse to surface. His boots strike the stone in a slow, deliberate rhythm, the gait of a commander used to keeping his temper beneath armor.

  “There is always a first,” he says. His voice is quiet, but not cold. “Always a cost.”

  I brace myself. But he doesn’t turn to me. He keeps moving.

  “I was fifteen,” he says. “My first kill was in war. In the border skirmishes outside Kelmire. There was screaming, fire. And a blade that slipped between ribs before I knew I was holding it that tight.”

  He finally stops and turns to face me.

  “But I was fifteen. Not five.”

  The words aren’t a rebuke. But they strike just the same.

  He steps closer, one pace, then another. The fire paints lines across his face—tired lines, carved deep like rivers that have run too long.

  “When a man takes a life in war, it makes him a soldier,” he says. “When a boy does it in peace, it makes him a legend. And legends are dangerous… even to themselves.”

  I don’t speak. Not right away. I look at the flames. At the blood-orange glow that flickers against the carved hearth.

  “You’re five, Aurelius. Do you understand what that means? You passed a death sentence. Alone. Without hesitation. Without counsel.”

  I look up.

  “You taught me not to hesitate when the danger was real,” I say. “You said hesitation costs lives.”

  His gaze sharpens, but I don’t flinch.

  “I did what you would have done.”

  A beat. I breathe slowly.

  “But it wasn’t my hand on the blade.”

  I shift; my voice steady now. “And it wasn’t Isla’s first time.”

  That gets his attention.

  His jaw tightens, but he asks, “How did you know it was within her abilities to carry this out?”

  It would be easy to lie. To say I guessed. But that wouldn’t be fair to Isla. Or to him.

  So I tell part of the truth.

  “She’s always smelled of blood,” I say. “Old, settled blood. Not fresh. But still there—soaked into her like rain into old stone.”

  There’s a sound then—not a word, just the smallest exhale.

  Catharine.

  She shifts slightly in her chair—just a tilt of the shoulders. But it’s enough. I see it. A slump, soft and sudden. Not in shock. In sorrow.

  She’s always carried herself like silk drawn tight over steel. But now? For a breath, she just looks... tired.

  “She has served House Larkin as a blade,” Catharine says, her voice low, but even. “Since before you were born. Her blow always strikes true. The right target. No scandal. No trail.”

  Her eyes meet mine.

  “You acted like your father,” she says. “That is not a crime. But it is a path.”

  And then Sven moves again.

  Not forward. Not away. But back—into his chair. He drops into it with a weight I didn’t realize he was carrying, his frame folding in a way I’ve never seen.

  His armor slips, just enough for me to see the man beneath.

  For a second, I don’t recognize him. Not the Archduke. Just… my father.

  He looks at me then, really looks.

  And his voice—when it comes—is softer than I’ve ever heard it.

  “Aurelius,” he says. “Are you alright?”

  Three words. But they strike deeper than all the rest.

  I blink, and for the first time in what feels like lifetimes, I don’t know how to answer immediately.

  I could say yes. I could lie. But I don’t.

  “I didn’t hesitate,” I say at last. “But I haven’t stopped thinking about it either.”

  Sven nods once. It’s not approval. It’s understanding.

  And then he glances at Catharine. Nothing dramatic. Just a tilt of the head, a shift in breath.

  But she’s already moving.

  The Archduchess disappears in that moment.

  What remains is my mother.

  She bolts from her chair and crosses the room in two strides and sweeps me into her arms.

  I’m too surprised to move at first. Her cloak wraps around me like a shield, velvet soft and smelling of spice and lavender and home. Her hand slides into my hair, fingers curling tight.

  “My clever boy,” she whispers. Her voice cracks. “My brave boy.”

  My throat tightens. I feel her heartbeat against my shoulder. Fast. Unsteady.

  She holds me like I’m still small. Like I’m still hers.

  And maybe, just for this moment—I let myself be.

  Sven comes to us slower, quieter. He kneels beside us, his eyes level with mine. His hand finds my shoulder, firm and steady.

  “You did what I would have done,” he says. “But gods, Aurelius… I wish you hadn’t had to.”

  I don’t answer right away.

  I nod. Just once. And that small motion feels heavier than anything I’ve carried today.

  They don’t press me. They don’t demand more. The moment just is.

  Catharine’s arm tightens around me. Her breath stirs my hair. Her perfume is a blend of spice and something soft beneath it— something I’ve never named but have known since I first felt her touch.

  I lean into it.

  Just a little.

  Just enough.

  And for a heartbeat—one clean, unsullied heartbeat—I let myself feel it.

  Their care. Their fear. Their love.

  It is a rare thing, love like this. Even rarer when paired with power. In all the lives I’ve lived, in all the crowns and courts and kingdoms I’ve known, this is the thing I’ve learned to expect the least.

  Not loyalty.

  Not legacy.

  But love.

  I have died kings. I have died tyrants. I have died saviors.

  But rarely, in all the long weaving of lives, have I had this, a mother who holds me like I am something fragile, and a father who looks at me not with pride or scrutiny, but with grief that it ever had to be me.

  And in that circle of firelight and silk and blood, I allow myself to be what I rarely have been before.

  Their son.

  Just a boy, held by people who would move the world to keep him safe.

  I stay in their arms as the fire dims low. Until the silence shifts, not heavy, not waiting. Just warm.

  For once, I don’t brace against it.

  For once, I let myself be held.