22. Caelum
I didn’t cry when they told me.
That was the first thing I noticed about myself.
Not the silence in the throne room.
Not the way the advisors all lowered their eyes like grief was something too dangerous to look at directly.
Not even the way the air itself seemed to change; thicker, heavier, like the palace was holding its breath.
No.
It was the absence of something in me.
“My King…”
The messenger’s voice trembled slightly.
He didn’t meet my eyes.
No one did.
Not anymore.
“Your father has passed.”
The words were delivered carefully.
As if tone could soften reality.
As if anything about it could be made less final.
I didn’t move.
Didn’t react.
Didn’t speak.
Because I didn’t know what reaction was expected.
Grief?
Relief?
Anger?
Nothing felt correct.
Nothing fit cleanly.
So I chose stillness.
The thing I had always chosen when uncertainty threatened control.
“Understood,” I said finally.
My voice sounded distant.
Detached.
Like it belonged to someone else.
The messenger hesitated.
Then bowed and left quickly, like he had done something wrong by staying too long in the same space as me.
When the doors closed, the room stayed quiet.
Too quiet.
And still...
nothing inside me broke.
That was what unsettled me the most.
I should have felt something.
Anything.
But instead there was only...
pressure.
A strange tightening behind my ribs.
Not pain.
Not grief.
Just awareness.
Like something important had been removed and my body hadn’t been told how to respond.
I turned away from the throne.
Walked.
Because standing still felt worse.
Rowan was there.
Of course he was.
Three steps behind.
Silent.
Watchful.
As always.
But something was different.
I felt it before I understood it.
The bond.
It wasn’t glowing.
Not physically.
But I felt it like a shift in gravity.
Like the air between us had changed density.
He noticed it too.
I saw it in the slight tension in his posture.
The way his focus sharpened.
Neither of us said anything.
We just walked.
Through corridors that suddenly felt unfamiliar.
Even though I had walked them my entire life.
“Your brother is requesting an audience,” an attendant said later.
I didn’t ask which one.
I already knew.
He didn’t wait for permission.
He never did.
He stormed into the room like grief had turned into something sharper in him.
Anger.
Blame.
Direction.
“So it’s done,” he said immediately.
Not a question.
I turned to him.
“Yes.”
His jaw tightened.
For a second, I thought he would grieve.
For a second, I thought something softer might surface.
It didn’t.
“This is your fault.”
Silence.
The words didn’t land like surprise.
They landed like confirmation of something already decided.
“How?” I asked calmly.
He laughed once.
Sharp.
Unpleasant.
“You were always his project. Always the perfect heir. The one he had to fix, shape, correct,”
“That does not answer the question.”
“It answers everything,” he snapped. “He pushed too hard. And now he’s gone. Because of you.”
Something in my chest tightened.
Subtle.
Controlled.
“That is not accurate.”
“You don’t even feel it, do you?” he continued, voice rising. “You don’t feel anything. That’s the problem.”
I said nothing.
Because arguing would change nothing.
Because explaining would achieve nothing.
Because...
he wasn’t listening.
He was just loathing me.
“You took everything he built and turned it into your own little empire,” he said. “And now you sit there like this is normal.”
“I am king,” I said quietly.
His expression twisted.
“That’s exactly it.”
He turned away like staying in the same room as me was unbearable.
But before he left...
“One day,” he said over his shoulder, “you’ll realise what you did.”
Then he was gone.
The silence that followed was different.
Heavier.
Not empty.
Not calm.
Accusation has weight.
Even when it’s unfair.
Especially when it’s repeated.
Rowan hadn’t moved during the exchange.
But I felt him.
Still there.
Still watching.
Still...
aware.
And now...
something had shifted.
Between us.
Not visible.
Not spoken.
But undeniable.
I didn’t understand it.
Not fully.
But I felt it like pressure in the air.
Like something had tilted and refused to settle back into place.
The bond reacted again.
Not glowing.
Not obvious.
Just...
present.
I exhaled slowly.
“Prepare the council,” I said.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Rowan replied immediately.
But his voice...
It wasn’t the same.
Something in it had changed.
Not tone.
Not structure.
Something deeper.
I didn’t ask.
Not then.
Because there was no time.
Because grief was not an excuse for stagnation.
Because the kingdom still existed.
And it would not wait.
The invasion plans had already been in motion long before my father’s death.
I knew that.
Everyone knew that.
It was his vision.
His final expansion.
His unfinished design.
Now...
It was mine.
“If we proceed,” one advisor said carefully, “stability risks...”
“Proceed,” I interrupted.
Silence.
No one argued further.
They rarely did.
Because certainty, even dangerous certainty, was preferable to hesitation.
The invasion began three days later.
I didn’t sleep the night before.
Not because of fear.
Not because of doubt.
Because there was too much noise in my mind.
Not thoughts.
Not voices.
Just...
pressure.
The bond again.
Rowan again.
That strange shift between us that I could not define and could not ignore.
He was there when I mounted my horse.
Silent.
Prepared.
Always prepared.
But this time...
I felt it more strongly.
Not proximity.
Not awareness.
Something closer to...
tension.
Like something was about to break.
We moved at dawn.
Armies behind us.
The sky still pale.
The world still half-asleep.
I should have felt like a king leading conquest.
Instead I felt like I was walking toward something I didn’t fully understand.
The battlefield stretched ahead of us like a scar across the land.
Smoke already rising in the distance.
Metal already clashing somewhere beyond sight.
And then...
it began.
The world became noise.
Steel.
Movement.
Commands shouted into chaos.
I moved without thinking.
Training took over.
Control took over.
Everything narrowed.
Until there was nothing but action.
And then...
I saw him.
Rowan.
Not beside me.
Not behind me.
Ahead.
Where he shouldn’t have been.
Where it was too exposed.
Where...
Something in me shifted sharply.
Not thought.
Not strategy.
Instinct.
Because I saw the blade before he did.
A soldier coming in from his blind side.
Fast.
Too fast.
Time didn’t slow.
It just...
narrowed.
I moved.
Not because I decided to.
Because I didn’t have time to decide.
I stepped between them.
Steel met steel.
The impact rang out loud enough to cut through the battlefield noise for a fraction of a second.
The attacker staggered back.
Rowan turned sharply.
Eyes locking onto mine for the briefest moment.
And I felt it again.
That shift.
That pull.
That thing between us that made everything else feel distant.
“You’re distracted,” I said sharply.
His jaw tightened.
“I had it under control.”
“No,” I replied.
And for the first time...
it wasn’t about command.
It was something else.
Something closer to...
certainty.
I turned back to the fight before he could respond.
Because there was no time for anything else.
But the moment stayed.
Long after the clash moved on.
Long after the battlefield swallowed sound again.
I had stepped in without thinking.
Because he was about to be hurt.
Because I couldn’t...
not move.
That realization followed me through the chaos like a shadow.
And I didn’t have the space to understand it.
The battle ended hours later.
Not cleanly.
Not neatly.
But decisively.
We won.
That was all that mattered.
That was what I told myself.
But as the noise faded and the injured were tended to and the smoke began to settle.
I felt it again.
The shift.
Between us.
Stronger now.
Heavier.
Rowan stood a few steps away, cleaning blood from his blade.
His hands steady.
His expression controlled.
But something in him...
was not.
And I realised something then.
Something I did not want to name.
He wasn’t the only one affected by the bond.
Neither of us were.
And whatever this was becoming...
I no longer had full control over it.