Chapter 14
Cedric was in his assigned servants’ room, which generously earned the title only if one stretched the definition of “room” to include a glorified broom closet with a cot, a chair that squeaked like it was haunted, and exactly one window.
Compared to the clean, modest luxury of Varantia’s quarters, this place felt more like a supply cupboard that had been given a pity bed.
Still—he’d managed. His shirts were folded, his belt hung with habitual neatness, and his carving knives gleamed in an orderly row beside a growing army of whittled figures lined along the windowsill: wolves, stags, one highly questionable eagle, and a smug-looking feline that absolutely resembled Alaric on purpose.
The hour was still early. Dawn light hadn’t warmed the stone yet, and Cedric muttered something unfriendly about Edrathen’s humidity as he closed the door.
He returned from hunting with the king, Alaric, and—because the gods had a twisted sense of humor—with the Royal Menace himself, who took his future crown as seriously as a battlefield oath.
Cedric had spent the morning ankle-deep in Edrathen’s mud, trailing after nobility with a bow, a headache, and a growing appreciation for the way Thalen had relentlessly questioned Alaric about everything from his posture to the tensile strength of a boar’s hide.
By the end, Alaric’s brow was twitching in perfect rhythm with Thalen’s next question, and Cedric could’ve bottled that image to sell as a remedy for melancholy. Worth the cold. Worth the sore legs. Almost worth the hours of sleep he hadn’t gotten.
Now, back in his room, he peeled off his damp outer coat and eyed the sad basin of lukewarm water someone had optimistically called a wash setup. He was supposed to be presentable soon—something about a royal garden walk.
He sighed, rolled his neck, and muttered under his breath, “All this for science.”
Or truth. Or political unity.
But mostly, for the look on Alaric’s face when a ten-year-old asked if he even trained.
He rubbed the heel of one hand over his face, stifled a yawn, and tugged the door open.
And froze. Someone was there.
He looked up, then around. Nothing.
He looked down.
There he was. The Royal Menace. All ten years of serious face, storm-blue eyes, and an expression that said: I know what taxes are, do you?
“...Oh, for Ilmora’s sake,” he muttered.
They stared at each other. A full, unblinking standoff in the hallway.
“Good morning,” the boy said at last, tone absurdly formal for someone who barely cleared Cedric’s hip. “May I come in?”
Thalen didn’t wait for an answer and stepped across the threshold. Cedric closed the door behind him with a sigh and turned to find the prince making a slow circuit of the room, inspecting the modest furnishing.
“Aren’t you supposed to be with your nursemaid?”
“I’m old enough,” the boy informed flatly, already halfway to the window ledge. “I don’t need her all the time.”
“Oh, yes. Of course. Clearly ten is the age of total emancipation.” Cedric sighed. “Apologies, Your Highness, but I’ve got work to do.”
Thalen ignored that too. His eyes had landed on the wooden figurines arranged in a crooked little line across the sill.
The kid’s eyes widened. “This is amazing. Did you make it?”
Cedric paused. “Yes.”
“Are you allowed?”
“I hadn't asked anyone.”
Thalen spun to face him, all serious earnestness. “Can you teach me?”
Cedric blinked. Twice. Slowly. It was too early for this.
“I—what?”
Because of course the heir to Edrathen had stormed into his room at dawn demanding a woodcarving apprenticeship. Naturally.
“Don’t you have tutors to torture?” he reached for his clean cloak, hoping movement would scare the boy off like a pigeon.
Thalen tilted his head, visibly unoffended. “I do,” he replied. “But this is practical. Kings should know practical things.”
Cedric sat down heavily on the edge of the cot, glancing toward the row of figurines.
“Look—woodcarving is not a royal requirement. You’ve got enough on your plate without adding whittling to your curriculum.”
Thalen stepped closer, his eyes bright and infuriatingly earnest. “But I insist.”
Cedric almost choked. “You… insist?”
“Yes. If I’m to be king, I must understand all kinds of people. That includes servants. And their crafts.”
It was delivered with such seriousness that for a moment Cedric wasn’t sure whether to laugh or swear. Probably both.
“Right,” Cedric muttered. “That’s noble. But your father—His Majesty—probably wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea of a glorified shadow like me teaching his heir how to stab tree bark.”
Thalen crossed his arms. “Then we won’t tell him.”
Cedric stared at him. “Is that your solution to everything?”
“No,” Thalen said primly. “But it works more often than you’d think.”
Cedric exhaled through his nose. Gods help him, the kid was sharp. Too sharp. Sharp like Alaric when he was fifteen—though with less attitude and fewer scandals.
“You know,” Thalen remarked thoughtfully. “I watched Prince Alaric on the hunt today. He’s nice… but he doesn’t move like a soldier.”
“Oh?” Cedric managed, leaning back slightly, a slow grin creeping across his face. “Really?”
There was a wild, almost juvenile satisfaction bubbling up in his chest—something he hadn’t felt since the last time Alaric tripped over his own feet in front of a Varantian duchess. Absolutely he was passing this on.
Thalen pointed a very decisive finger at him. “Yes. You move like a soldier.”
Oh…perhaps the Royal Menace wasn’t so bad after all. Cedric smirked lazily and resisted an urge to puff his chest.
Thalen added, quite seriously, “That’s why I have a request. I want you to teach me how to fight.”
“No.”
“But—”
“Nope.”
Thalen blinked, clearly not used to being shut down. “But why not?”
“Because I’m a ghost. A servant. A passerby in a hallway of important people. You have fencing masters and protocol tutors. Go bother one of them.”
The boy’s shoulders drooped, his gaze dropping to the floor. “They say I’m too weak to lift a sword.”
Cedric opened his mouth. Closed it again. Damn it.
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Then start with a wooden sword.”
“Here, you can fight only when you can hold a real sword,” Thalen looked up. Bright-eyed. “But if you know that, then you are a soldier.”
Cedric exhaled slowly. “I talk too much.”
“No,” Thalen replied with earnest finality. “You’re a good person.”
Cedric stared at him like he’d just declared the sky was made of soup. “I’m what?”
“Mama says people with eyes like mine are good people.”
Cedric had no idea what to do with that. His mouth opened. Closed. A quiet what in the bloody hells echoed through his skull.
Then Thalen straightened with sudden, diplomatic resolve. “Anyway, I’ll ask my teacher about wooden swords.”
“Fantastic,” Cedric muttered, already inching toward the door like it might open onto another reality.
“But I have one more request.”
Cedric paused, defeated. “Of course you do.”
“Will you protect my sister in Varantia?”
The weight of it hit harder than Cedric expected, mostly because it wasn’t coming from a king or a councilor or even Evelyne herself, but from a ten-year-old.
Cedric had spent the better part of the last year keeping Alaric alive through poison threats, political traps, and one near-death inn fight.
He didn’t do sentiment. Not on purpose. But there was something about the boy’s stubborn affection for his sister that struck a little too close to Cedric’s sarcastic heart.
Still, he wasn’t about to open that box. He was tired, underpaid, and vaguely allergic to emotional entanglements. So, for the sake of peace—and to get leftovers of his morning back—he nodded once, briskly.
“Yeah, yeah, I will,” he waved his hand to dismiss the boy.
Thalen beamed, satisfied.
“Now go away,” Cedric added, opening the door wide.
The prince left with a bounce in his step.
Cedric stood there a moment longer, staring at the empty hallway.
Absolutely not paid enough.