Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Ace stands waiting outside the library doors, a devil’s grin already fixed in place—as if he’s been rehearsing it since dawn.
“You’re early,” I say, pleasantly surprised. I had expected a quiet hour among the shelves before his usual grand entrance.
“Indeed I am,” he declares, offering his arm with mock gallantry before I can protest. “There’s so much you haven’t seen yet, and I refuse to let you haunt the same corners before you’ve earned the right to be bored of them.”
My chest tightens. Vale has shown me a few small sanctuaries within the High Hold—places where I can breathe amid the noise of court—but this feels different. Unscripted. Unsupervised.
I hesitate, then slip my hand through the crook of his arm. With anyone else, I might refuse. But Ace is… Ace. Impossible to resist, even when I know better.
He grins wider, triumphant, leading me down the corridor with that irreverent stride that makes even stone halls feel like a stage. I catch myself smiling despite the unease fluttering low in my chest—recalling his parchment-wielding pledge and bracing for whatever mischief he’s devised next.
Light spills through vast windows, illuminating walls the color of sweet cream. It is the most luminous space I have seen since arriving in Caerhollan. Voices fill it in a pleasant cacophony—warmth and chatter echoing beneath the vaulted glass.
“The Solarium, my dear.” Ace’s arm sweeps wide, introducing not so much a person as the entire spectacle. A few faces turn our way, curiosity flickering, brief and mild, before attention drifts elsewhere. Not dismissal, exactly. More like fatigue. As if novelty itself has grown tiresome.
Tables cluster near the center, couches and low chairs line the edges, every seat claimed by courtiers murmuring over tea, idly stirring in the languid cadence of a court that has forgotten how to live.
“Once,” he whispers in my ear, nodding toward the glass, “this room was… livelier. Or so the stories go. Now we gather here to pretend light is enough.”
“I had no idea this was here,” I whisper, still taking in the sight.
“I imagine our dear King prefers not to overwhelm you at once,” Ace replies, voice lilting between mockery and fondness. “Don’t let the brightness fool you—this room holds more whispers than most. But fear not, it’s no den of vipers.”
He leans closer, his tone dipping conspiratorially as we enter the current of the crowd. “Now then, observe our cast.”
Arm in arm, we drift through the glow, Ace bending to murmur commentary while others sip and gossip. The liveliness reminds me of the banquet—at least the blur of it that memory allows, yet an uneasy hollowness lingers beneath the surface.
“That’s Lady Corin—she’s been redesigning that same gown since before I had facial hair. At this point I suspect the fabric is held together purely by stubbornness and prayer.”
I follow his gaze to the stately woman with silver hair fussing at her sleeve, frayed threads barely visible until he points them out.
“I hear her husband, once a man hungry for influence, now spends most of his days shut away in his study,” Ace adds lightly. “I suspect he hides from both the world and his wife’s scissors.”
I laugh, unable to help myself. Ace regards the smile as his own victory.
The friendly tether between us steadies my nerves among the crowd.
Thankfully, everyone seems so absorbed in their own circles that we slip through largely unseen.
It is far less scrutiny than when at Vale’s side—as though standing beside him reshapes the air around us and his gravity alone keeps me upright.
A gaggle of women flutters toward Ace as we pass, their laughter rising like songbirds. It is perhaps the most vivid display yet of his rakish charm.
“Is there anyone you can’t charm?” I tease.
“Hmm…” he muses, scanning the room. “Soria still owes me a dance. Even my silver tongue couldn’t pry her away. I believe she preferred to stay near you—to make sure you weren’t left adrift. She’s a good one.”
Soria. One of my dearest companions in this new world. Not servant nor sister, but something between—a steady hand in a place that still threatens to sweep me away.
“Don’t let her quiet precision fool you,” Ace goes on. “She may appear unassuming, but there’s a keenness there that could cut through steel. Most would fold if she truly set her will against them. Best ally you could ask for.”
I lean into him, warmth blooming in my chest. “She must be exceptional indeed, to resist your charm so completely.”
He chuckles, and we fall into an easy rhythm, turning gossip into a game. He nods toward a cluster of courtiers, daring me to guess which demure lady hides the sharpest tongue. I have just chosen one—draped head-to-toe in fashionable details—when he erupts in laughter.
“She turned feral the last time a shipment from the Southern Sea arrived! I’ve never seen anyone launch themselves at a crate of silk quite so viciously.”
His laughter is music in its own right—different from Vale’s deep, rumbling mirth that shakes the air and settles in my bones. Ace’s is brighter, lighter, like sunlight rippling across water. And for the first time in days, I feel lighter too.
He seems to sense when the noise begins to press too close. “That’s enough for one morning, don’t you think? Let’s find somewhere quieter. The faces may always look back, but at least there, the whispers keep to themselves.”
Relief washes through me as we leave the Solarium, the hum of voices fading to a distant murmur. My breath steadies with every step, the air cooling as we pass from sunlit chatter into quieter, older halls.
Not far from the main concourse—where courtiers still weave their endless dance of politics and pleasantries—we find ourselves alone in a corridor meant for business rather than spectacle. The very air feels different here: thinner, stiller, steeped in the weight of memory.
It is there I meet the dead.
Ancient eyes fix outward from gilt frames, their painted stares following us as we enter. Generations of monarchs and warriors, poets and queens—all frozen in oil and reverence. Scrutiny that even Ace’s charm cannot disarm.
“And here, my lady,” he says softly, his tone shifting from mischief to quiet pride, “is Caerhollan’s remembrance.”
Each footstep echoes against the vaulted stone, the sound swallowed and reshaped by the stillness.
The air itself feels heavier here, as though it refuses to move in a place where time no longer dares to breathe.
Light pours through the arched windows in pale shafts, dust drifting like ash through the beams before settling across golden frames and painted faces.
Silver eyes pierce straight through me from the weathered face of the man before us.
“Stenric,” Ace says, not merely naming him but conjuring his legend. “He ruled longer than most men draw breath. Held the realm together when the Fade tore it apart. You’d never guess from that scowl, but he loved his people—and his family—fiercely.”
Beside him hangs a woman with hair like moonlight and eyes that seem to soften the air itself. “Eirlys,” Ace says. “A treasure from the northern reaches. After she passed, they say the High Hold itself dimmed.”
I can’t look away from her. The artist had caught something alive behind the grace—warmth, intelligence, a steadiness that reminds me of the mountain itself.
There is tenderness in his tone that stills me. For all his jests and charm, Ace speaks of them as one might of beloved ghosts.
He gestures further down the corridor. “Their firstborn, Korrin,” he continues. “Bold. Brilliant. Certain of his destiny.”
The man before us looks every inch a legend—armor bright as the sun, victory unfurling behind him in a painted banner.
His fingers gesture toward the portrait that follows: a man in ceremonial armor, chin lifted, confidence etched into every line of his face. “He led with courage… and pride enough to make the gods take notice.”
Korrin’s sons flank him on either side, each painted younger than I expect—one laughing faintly, the other with the same sharp jaw I’ve seen in Vale. The sight of them—three lives bound by the same fate—makes my stomach twist.
“Korrin bold, with sons so keen…” Ace’s voice lowers into melody, a line from one of his ballads. “Alaric brave, Erymir green. War took both, their father too—eldest line was torn clean through.”
“All of them?” I whisper with sorrow. My throat feels tight.
“Aye.” He nods toward the next frame. “Thalen—Stenric’s second born. A gentler soul by nature, though the times gave him little use for gentleness.”
The man who looks back from the canvas has eyes like sun-warmed amber and a face lined more by care than age.
Beside him stands a woman whose beauty seems carved from life rather than painted.
Her hair is a cascade of chestnut, her cheeks brushed with the faintest color—as though she had just come in from the open air.
“Sylara,” Ace says. “She came from the very valleys Thalen worked so hard to save.”
Each figure, each name, carries the echo of a life lived for this place—for Caerhollan. The weight of it presses down on me as I follow the long corridor, each portrait a heartbeat frozen in time.
I feel it then—the enormity of what Vale bears. The inheritance of triumph and ruin alike. The line of steel and flame that endures every loss to still lead.
And somehow, standing amid the dead, I understand him more.
Our footsteps soften to whispers as Ace leads me into a smaller chamber—a sanctuary of stillness and remembrance.
Low seating circles a carved table at the center, the kind of place meant for quiet reflection rather than council.
My breath catches when I look up. Massive portraits line the walls—no longer solitary rulers but families.