Chapter 53
Chapter Fifty-Three
The striking sound of each footstep as I make my way down the hall is my own call. The queen does not arrive with heralds and banners but with ivy on a small wooden trellis set in simple pottery.
I rap at the door, even though it stands ajar. Fenloris lifts his head, greeted by my enthusiasm.
“Welcome home, Your Majesty,” he says, peering over his glasses as he remains bent over the table at the center of the room.
“I brought you something.” I lift the plant and cross toward the window at the rear of the chamber. “With the light over here, it should bring a little life into the space while you’re working,” I muse cheerily.
He turns as I move, never allowing his back to face me—a formality I am still not accustomed to.
“I’m sorry if I’m disrupting your work,” I say sheepishly. “With Vale and Ace tied up in council meetings, I could think of no place I would rather be than here, among you and your maps.”
“You needn’t apologize,” he replies evenly. “The Queen does not impose.”
My heart sinks for a brief moment as I realize this is the first time we have been together since the wedding and my coronation. “Fen, please. I am still Mira to you.”
I step closer, and he stiffens. Perhaps it will take more work than I thought to make the title my own after all.
“What are you working on?” I ask, my curiosity sincere.
Something softens in him—just slightly—and without the familiar spark I usually see when he’s fully consumed by passion, he gestures toward the table.
“Maps for the upcoming festivals in Veredyn. So many will make the journey for the fall festivities and trading. It’s the one time of year the nearby kingdoms gather together.
” He exhales. “You would think after all these years maps would no longer be needed—and in truth, perhaps they aren’t. Still, it is tradition.”
I lean in. Slate pigments and layered greens, freshly inked calligraphy rendered in subtle variations, all denoting the same information in a dozen different ways.
“The routes stay the same,” he continues, running a hand through his hair. Smudges of pigment streak his palm and wrist—messy, meticulous work. “But the image must feel new each year. I’m finishing a few mock-ups for approval.”
“Which is your favorite?” I ask, hoping to reach the part of him that still finds joy in it.
We take our time. He explains how a particular script hasn’t been used in fifty years—yet even that may feel too recent to some. How he was sent out in the spring to survey whether the river had shifted enough to warrant any change in the lines. It hadn’t.
“My father would spend weeks divining the best paths,” he says quietly. “Some for those who wanted the safest journey. Others for those seeking adventure. He even marked when it might be worth straying to see a rare grove—something beautiful, something worth remembering.”
The wonder in his voice fades to gray, as it so often does when people speak of a time when magic was a way of life.
“Now I’m here,” he goes on, “sifting through pages to invent novelty along the same tired routes that remain our only real means of travel. He once had an entire team dedicated to the task—and that was only for the journey from the Hold. Routes from the villages were mapped on a scale all their own.”
I start to place an arm around my companion, but he goes rigid at the movement.
“I appreciate you, Fen, for what it’s worth.”
He eases into it just so before turning flustered and awkward at my attempt to hug him even in part.
“I should deliver these before it gets too late. They need to sign off on them soon if I am going to have enough time to produce as many as they want.” He speaks reluctantly.
“I shouldn’t be gone long.” He pauses as he gathers them into his arms, a haphazard stack he has to tuck into place to carry.
“I’ll be here when you get back. There are some things I’d like to talk about.
” I have yet to decide how much of all that has happened I’ll share with him, but I want to start bridging the gap before any more public announcements are made.
Even if it’s only about healing and long life, I’d like him to hear it from me first.
He looks back only briefly before leaving, and I find myself wondering how long it’s been since he’s had someone he’d call a friend.
Alone in the room, I return to the window. The ivy freshly watered, I check to make sure it has settled without any need for immediate care. As I do, a small shoot begins to unfurl in response. It’s amazing how even a small measure of care is answered.
Smiling at the magic between nature and myself, I look around the room with new discernment. Care really can go far, and this space—Fenloris’ office—could certainly benefit from it.
His desk is the cluttered chaos one might expect from an artist. Ink pots fill the window ledge where I set down the potted vine, one jar still open, and I worry its ink may dry.
By the time I have the lid secured, I can no longer help myself. I begin to gently stack and tidy the desk in front of me.
Taking great care not to disrupt the creative space but rather honor it, I focus on the lightest, most obvious tasks.
Straightening books on the brink of toppling without changing their order.
Collecting the array of discarded mugs in one place so they can be taken and cleaned more easily later.
Small gestures of care for the space—and for my friend.
With a handful of quills, I reach to open the drawer I most expect to be their home.
I open the drawer on the right side, far too short to hold the length of such objects.
Instead, it houses a collection of wax and jars of loose pigment.
The entire drawer is a colorful, dusty mess—a myriad of hues from azure to ochre scattered about.
Ochre.
My heart sinks, and any air in my lungs is stilled.
The seal on the letter Daerin uncovered.
No. No, Mira. It’s a common enough color, I tell myself. Don’t think the worst from something as small and inconsequential as a pigment.
He makes maps. He works with every color one might imagine.
Still, something gnaws at me.
I look down at the drawer once more. So shallow it cannot hold a quill. Too shallow.
I remember Daerin’s words. Fenloris is clever—and clever men…
I reach to the back and feel it. A small notch at the rear of the drawer. I freeze as my heart sinks. Still, my mind wars with reason, with doubt. I hold my breath as I reach for it.
With one cautious tug, it gives way.
Behind it—a seal. I blink, as if that might change what I see right before me.
Closing my eyes, not wanting it to be true. No. Not Fen. I trusted him. I still trust him.
But as I take the seal press in my hand and turn it over, the truth is undeniable.
The mark of the Ironborne Flame.
Footsteps, voices—gone. The world narrows to the stamp in my hand; my knees falter beneath me.
“You weren’t supposed to find that.”
His voice shatters the quiet, and the stamp slips from my fingers, clattering against the wood. I stare at it—at the mark pressed into its face. Not confusion. Not curiosity.
Recognition.
Something shifts in his expression. A calculation. His eyes flick from the seal to me, searching for doubt—finding none.
As I turn, my back near the window, he stands there, slowly closing the door behind him.
He looks at me, colder now. His stoic nature amplified as he leans back against the door, exaggerating the distance between us.
Just beyond my pounding heart and fractured breath, I hear the faint click as he locks the door.
He moves slowly, measuring how much of the mask he is willing to let fall. I can feel my heart breaking as each layer slips away.
“You must love it,” he says at last with a huff, the words then coiling tight with venom. “All the attention.”
I try to step back, stumbling into a pile of books. My hands shoot out to steady myself—and them.
“The girl turned queen,” he continues, eyes raking over me. “Everyone tripping over themselves to earn your favor. Look how high you’ve climbed.”
“Fen—”
“All of court at your feet,” he cuts in, disdain sharp and practiced. “While the rest of us fade into usefulness.”
He shoves a stack aside. The crash makes me flinch. Whatever gentleness I believed lived in him withdraws.
“My family used to matter,” he says quietly. “We shaped paths. We were sought out.”
Tears sting my eyes. “This isn’t you. You’re kind. You’re good.”
“And weak,” he snaps, the word landing like a verdict. “That’s what you see when you look at me. What they all see.”
He steps closer.
“But tell me, my queen,” he says softly now, hate threaded through every syllable, “how weak and helpless was your king when they left him bleeding on the road?”
Any air my lungs held vanishes. The attack on Vale—the one that nearly cost him his life.
“How?” The word breaks apart as it leaves me.
“I’ll admit,” he says coolly, “I almost felt bad when I heard how close he came to dying.” He adjusts papers on the desk as if discussing the weather.
“I was only a messenger. His decision to take a lesser-known route made it easier for him to be isolated. I simply provided the details. Of his movements. Of yours.”
“The wedding…” I blink, as if the room might right itself if I try hard enough. Every step, every turn—each attack timed because he knew where we would be. Because I trusted him.
The sting comes first—sharp and electric—dancing along my fingertips. Outside, the sky darkens as if answering something unspoken. Thunder rolls low and distant, drawing nearer.
Heat coils in my chest, tight and unfamiliar. I don’t reach for it.
I don’t even know how. “Why?” My voice fractures. “To what end?”
For a moment—just a moment—I think I see something human flicker behind his eyes.
Then it hardens.
“You sit on the throne and act like you belong there,” he says quietly. “As if power still exists.”
He smiles then, wide and wrong. “Not here. Not anymore.”
His hand drags along the edge of the desk as he moves, never breaking eye contact. The blade appears without ceremony—drawn from beneath the table as though it had always been waiting.
Dark metal. Old work. Carvings that catch the lightning as it splits the sky outside.
“Real power will rise again,” he says. “And when it does, it won’t kneel.” His gaze rakes over me. “Certainly not to you.”
He advances.
I don’t run. There’s nowhere to go.
Behind me, the windows shudder. Wind forces its way through the seams, candles guttering as thunder cracks so close the walls seem to recoil.
The room answers before I do.
Scrolls lift from the desk. Pages scatter. The storm presses in, wild and unbidden, glass rattling in its frame.
Fenloris doesn’t flinch.
“The Crown of Caerhollan will fall,” he says, voice raised over the roar. “One way or another.”
He’s close now—too close. The blade lifts, not to strike, but to threaten.
“I trusted you,” I say. It isn’t an accusation. It’s the truth laid bare. Too raw and shattering for me to move, though something forceful begins to take shape deep from within me.
“That,” he replies, stepping fully into my space, “was your mistake.”
The door explodes inward.
Vale’s boot splinters the wood, the impact echoing like a cannon shot.
“Mira!”
Fenloris moves to me in an instant and raises the knife tightly against my throat.
I freeze against the cold metal now biting at my flesh.
Vale stops in his tracks as Fenloris moves us away from the window and near the door.
Vale moves in concert, keeping a breadth of space between us in the hope Fenloris will not do the unimaginable.
Before Vale can speak to reason with the madman who was once my friend, he does what any caged animal would do. He strikes.
The knife leaves me as I’m swiftly shoved to the ground. Air tears from my chest. My hands burn as I brace against the impact.
In the same breath, Vale surges forward, Fenloris turns—not toward escape, not toward me—but toward the king, blade arcing with desperate, singular intent.
Lightning splits the room, catching the knife mid-arc.
Ace doesn’t hesitate.
He steps between them.