Morning came dressed in festival colours.

  Across Valekyr's avenues, violet and scarlet banners unfurled like wounds against the pale sky. The city stirred with anticipation: merchants arranging stalls, children tugging at their mothers' sleeves, the scent of honeyed bread drifting through the marble corridors of the lower districts.

  Three days of celebration: The Festival of Enduring Peace.

  Alric watched it from the palace training yard. The guards had erected targets at the far end; straw-stuffed mannequins dressed in mock armour.

  Around him, the space lay empty. Even the soldiers had been drawn toward the festivities, leaving only echoes where steel should ring.

  He drew his sword, blade catching morning light, casting silver across packed earth.

  He had not slept. The midnight walk to her chamber still clung to him like damp wool, thoughts circling without resolution.

  Gold can't quiet the mind. The words had been his, yet spoken by a voice he barely recognized.

  Steel sang across the square, slicing through air cleanly. The mannequin's shoulder split.

  "Lord Commander." He turned.

  A palace clerk stood at the yard's entrance, parchment in hand, posture apologetic for the intrusion. "His Majesty the Emperor requests your presence."

  Alric sheathed the blade. "Make way."

  The clerk led him through corridors Alric knew by heart, yet felt foreign now.

  Courtiers stepped aside as he passed, their bows deeper than protocol required. The festival's noise dimmed with each turn, laughter and music fading behind gilded doors and angled archways until only muffled footsteps remained.

  The path they took led deeper into the palace's western wing, where fewer banners hung and fewer torches burned. The marble here was older, warmer in tone, touched by gentle sunlight rather than the Empire’s previous cold glow.

  At last, the clerk stopped before an unadorned door worn smooth by centuries of hands.

  "His Majesty awaits within, Lord Commander."

  The clerk bowed and withdrew, his shadow receding down the corridor like a retreating tide.

  Alric stood alone before the entrance, hand lifted to the latch.

  Beyond lay the man who had raised him. The Emperor who had named him son before all Valekyr. The same sovereign who now summoned him here, away from eyes, away from ceremony, was the one who had ordered him to carry out his own desecration.

  He opened the door and entered.

  The chamber was smaller than one would expect a king’s room to be, just as he remembered.

  Books fashioned from leather that bore time’s passing lined the marble walls on darkwood bookcases. A hearth burned low, casting amber hues on every faded glitted edge, colouring the room in honeyed embrace. Maps of trade routes dotted the modest wooden desk at the center.

  A single luxury was permitted here: a small ornate balcony where the Emperor stood, overlooking Valekyr’s mountains.

  Memories of his younger years, when he visited with his father to be instructed here flooded his mind. How his father’s kind voice reverberated throughout the room while the Emperor read, how a gentle hand guided him to that same desk time and again to study, to learn to be a man of the Empire from the one who bore it on his shoulders.

  How he envisioned those days with lingering nostalgia.

  “Here I am, Your Majesty,” he said, breaking the chain of remembrance.

  The Emperor did not answer immediately. Instead, he remained stanidng at the far end of the balcony, gaze fixed on the wilderness before him.

  And though his robes were still violet and edged in silver, they were not the same oppressive regalia he had worn before. The twelve-stone golden diadem was nowhere to be found on his brow either, instead it rested on the desk as though a quill to be used later, if at all.

  “Close the door, my son.”

  The words came quiet, almost gentle. Not a command, but a mild invitation.

  Alric shut the door behind him, the latch settling with a soft click, sealing them from the world beyond.

  Only then did the Emperor turn. His violet eyes held Alric's for a long moment, warmth flickering behind them.

  "Come, stand beside me," he said, gesturing to his side. "We have much to discuss."

  Alric exhaled once through his nose and crossed to the balcony, stepping over its threshold. Each step carried him over each memory he had, entombing them in sound only he could hear.

  He stopped beside the Emperor, close enough for their shoulders to almost touch.

  The cragline beyond looked like an image painted by winter itself: its peaks covered in white snow, lulling beasts and flora into deep slumber.

  Mellow waterfalls of crystal-clear waters descended the mountaintops in swaying arcs, cutting the earth in guided motion. And their length was as long as the silence that settled over them both, each not looking at the other for a long time.

  The Emperor spoke first, breaking the hush.

  "Your father stood here once," he said at last, voice quiet. "After our first campaign. He looked exactly as you do now. Haunted, weary, and ground down."

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  Alric’s jaw tightened.

  "You didn't rest last night, did you?"

  "No, Your Majesty."

  “I thought not. And please, I am not ‘Your Majesty’ now, Alric. It is you and I in this room. You can be at ease here." The Emperor's expression softened. "You carry the same burden he did. The weight of knowing what you've done was necessary, yet unable to reconcile it with what you're becoming. It was the same for me. I understand."

  “Do you?” Alric snapped, voice low.

  “I do,” the answer came unwavering and immediate.

  Alric’s hands clenched at his sides briefly before he placed them above the balcony’s stone railing.

  Another silence stretched between them, filled only by distant waters and wind threading through the balcony's columns.

  "We stood here for hours. I did not disturb him, and neither did he. But I want it to be different now, my son."

  He turned fully to face Alric, eyes reflecting weariness.

  “I’m sorry.”

  At those words, Alric felt a pang of hatred or rage tangle his soul before snuffing it out immediately.

  Still his body could not, as it tensed while he answered.

  “Why, father? Why did you order me to do such a thing if you knew from the start what folly it would entail?”

  The Emperor exhaled deeply before answering.

  "Because there are things even an Emperor cannot avoid, my son."

  Alric turned his face to him, silver meeting twilight, “That is no answer.”

  “Indeed,” the Emperor nodded. “But it is the only one I can give you now, Alric.”

  He turned back to the mountains, hands gripping the railing.

  "When you sit where I sit, you will understand why silence is necessary. Why some truths corrode the very foundation they're meant to protect."

  Alric’s fist hit the railing, a dull sound reverberating through the balcony.

  “I have no claim to the throne. No blood relation to the royal line. Neither do I have any intention of ever taking the crown. I have always been a sword, nothing more, nothing less. And when I break, I will break as steel, not brocade.”

  The Emperor’s eyes darkened, his voice carrying a heaviness Alric heard only when he announced the Southern Purge.

  "My children are unfit for the office I hold, Alric. Worse; they are dangerous to the realm."

  Alric's breath caught.

  The Emperor continued, eyes still fixed on the mountains.

  "The eldest schemes with the Seneschals, mistaking royal power for competence. The second cares only for wine and courtly games of lust and indulgence. The third..." He paused. "The third I do not trust near a blade without impaling his own heart by mistake."

  He turned to Alric again. "It is precisely because you loathe the prospect of becoming ruler that you will one day inherit the throne. Not by choice or blood, but by necessity."

  "I refuse it and forever will refuse it, father." Alric's voice was iron.

  "And you will do so again and again. Until the day comes when refusingit once more will mean watching the Empire collapse into chaos."

  The Emperor's violet eyes held his. "On that day, you will take the throne against everyone's wishes. Against the Seneschals who fear you. Against the nobility who doubt your blood. And especially against your own desire for leave. Even if it means ruin for yourself and whatever family you might build, you will do it. Because as you say, you are a sword. And swords do not choose their purpose, they fulfill it."

  Alric's hands trembled against the stone.

  "You have no right—"

  "I have every right," the Emperor cut him off, voice hardening. "Because I am the only father you have left since Riktas disappeared. Because when I am gone, there will be no one else strong enough to hold what we have built. Because I too have committed atrocities that would make men’s ears ring. All of it done for this realm’s security, stability and peace."

  He stepped closer, hand coming to rest on Alric’s shoulder gently.

  “I do not ask for your forgiveness, my son,” his voice softened slightly. “I ask only that you survive long enough to hate me properly when the crown finally finds your head and you understand why I did what I did."

  Alric cast his gaze down, hand gripping the stone railing as though to crush it.

  He said nothing, jaw locking in place. The Emperor let go of his shoulder, and the quiet stretched long enough for the distant sounds of the festival to creep back into the space between them. Laughter, music, celebrations that belonged to a city Alric did not recognize any longer.

  “I understand,” he said at last, eyes tracing the Emperor’s once more. “But if not to explain the Southern Purge, why summon me?”

  "Drakoryth," he said simply. He turned back to the mountains, hands folding behind his back.

  "The Queen's faction has sent envoys. The civil war there has reached a stalemate. Neither side is strong enough to claim victory over the other; neither willing to yield. They request a mediator."

  The Emperor glanced at Alric.

  "They requested you specifically. You depart in two days. The Sixth Legion will return to their home garrisons with honors. The Third will establish at Fort Dracoli as permanent border garrison. You will select three hundred men: your officers and whomever you trust, and cross into Drakoryth with them alone."

  A pause.

  “Also, you will be granted the honour of being Margrave of the western borderlands for your service.”

  “Exile, then.” Alric said.

  “Indeed. A necessary one to protect you from the court, and the court from you.”

  “How long?” Alric’s knuckles were white against the stone.

  The Emperor blinked. "What?"

  "How long do you expect me to remain Margrave of the Western Borderlands before calling me back?"

  The Emperor lifted his head to the sky for a moment before answering, as though pondering.

  “Until I die preferably. Then you succeed me.”

  Alric shook his head. “You speak nonsense. This is pure madness, father. You will plunge this land into civil war if you force the throne upon me, you know that.”

  “I know,” a sigh escaped him, more resignation than weariness. “But I also know that my children, or those who support them, will not accept your claim. They will see your blood as contamination, so one will have to wash the other. Be it by violence, or compromise, the washing will come. I am simply ensuring you endure long enough to still be standing when that day comes.”

  Alric snapped. “Why speak it as though it were fate? Why must this wretched destiny have to be thrust upon me as though I were a vessel for others’ wills?!” His voice rose, control fracturing after years of silent endurance.

  "Do you not see? All of this can be stopped by simply letting me be! Let one of your children inherit the throne. Let me remain a blade of the Empire. Do not try to forge me into a crown I never wished to be!"

  "The Empire is too big." The words fell between them like stones.

  Alric stared at him. "Too big?" he repeated, voice hollow.

  "Too many borders, too many factions, too many ambitions pulling in too many directions, Alric." The Emperor's gaze remained on the mountains, hands resting on the railing now.

  "It was manageable once. When your father and I were young, when the borders were closer, when the Seneschals answered to the throne instead of ruling beside it." He turned to Alric.

  "But we expanded, absorbed kingdoms that should have remained independent. And now..." He gestured toward the wilderness below.

  "Now it requires more than royal blood to hold. It requires what you have. What the legions see in you: absolute loyalty. Not to a crown, but to a man."

  Alric's hands trembled against the stone. "So you would make me emperor because the empire has become a monster that devours anyone who tries to rule it."

  “Indeed. That is precisely what I am saying.” The Emperor’s voice held no apology.

  Alric said nothing in response, thoughts tangling in his mind like cloth on spikes.

  The Emperor sighed once more, placing his hand on Alric’s shoulder again.

  “I love you as my true child, Alric, it has never been a secret to the Council or you. But I must do this because I failed my children. I shielded them from the knowledge of the burden of what an empire truly costs to rule. I will not fail you by letting you walk into this unprepared. You will hate me, yes. But you will survive.”

  Alric shook his head, an incredulous smile blooming across his features before turning to face the Emperor fully.

  “This is complete folly,” he began. “But I must obey, for that is my purpose.”

  Grief flickered behind the Emperor’s eyes for a moment.

  “No,” he said quietly. “That is not your purpose, Alric. It is to survive. So please, obey that purpose.”

  Alric's smile faded. He stood there, hand still on the railing, the word please hanging in the air unanswered.

  The Emperor had never pleaded before, not in all the years Alric had known him.

  "I...I will try."

  It was all he could offer.

  The Emperor nodded once, as though that small mercy was enough.

  “Thank you, Alric.”