Chapter 9
NINE
Night had fallen heavy over Solmiris. The palace glowed like a dying ember in the distance. Its marble halls were half-lit, its golden windows reflecting a light that no longer felt divine.
Val-Theris sat alone in his council chamber, sleeves rolled up, fingers tracing the edge of an untouched parchment. He had dismissed the court hours ago but hadn’t moved since.
When the doors opened after a brief knock, he didn’t look up.
“Report,” he said simply.
Rohannes entered, his boots clicking softly against the marble. His armor was unpolished, his face still dusted with the grit of the refugee quarter he had spent the last week in. He stopped a few paces away. “The sentence was carried out as ordered.”
“And?”
Rohannes hesitated, unsure where to begin. Finally, he said, “We worked the entire week. Fed the sick. Buried the dead. Slept among the refugees. Lady Jesenia led us herself.”
Her name drew Val-Theris’s gaze. “She led you?”
“Aye,” Rohannes said. “From the moment we arrived until the last day ended.”
Val-Theris leaned back slowly in his chair, the faintest flicker of something in his eyes—surprise, perhaps, or even disbelief. “And she didn’t…retaliate?”
Rohannes shook his head. “Not once. No anger, no pride. She spoke to us like equals. Like…students, almost.” He paused, thinking. “She showed us what compassion looks like better than anyone I’ve ever met, Majesty.”
The king rose from his chair and crossed the room, his shadow stretching long across the stone floor. He stopped by the window, looking out over the distant glow of the lower city. Faint, golden, flickering with the small fires of the refugee camps.
“She’s teaching my men mercy,” he murmured. “While I sit here debating how to enforce it.”
Rohannes tilted his head slightly. Val-Theris turned, the light from the braziers catching on the gold of his hair, the exhaustion in his eyes more profound than usual.
“She has no title,” he said quietly. “No wealth, no station, no voice within these walls. And yet, when she speaks, people listen. They obey.”
He stepped away from the window, pacing slowly, his thoughts spilling into words almost without meaning to. “I thought mercy was something to be enforced. A law of the crown. But she—” He exhaled. “She carries it as if it’s her duty.”
Rohannes allowed himself a faint smile. “You sound jealous.”
Val-Theris’s lips curved faintly. “Perhaps I am.” He turned back to the desk and rested both hands upon it, the flickering light from the candles gilding the edges of his wings. “Tomorrow,” he said finally. “I will summon the council for a special session.”
Rohannes frowned. “Majesty?”
“I will offer Jesenia of Lunareth a seat among them to speak for her people.”
Rohannes’s brows lifted slightly. “They’ll protest.” Val-Theris hummed in acknowledgement and sank back into his chair. “Do you think she’ll accept?” Rohannes asked.
Val-Theris did not look up. “Not at first. She’ll tell me she’s not made for courts or councils. That she’s no one important.” He paused, gaze distant. “But she’ll come,” he said softly. “Because she can’t stand to see suffering and stay silent when she has the chance to change it.”
The council chamber smelled faintly of beeswax and light smoke from the cigars hanging from the mouths of Seraveth’s most influential men. The marble floors reflected soft ribbons of light, but the air was heavy—always weighed down by the never-ending divisiveness of old arguments.
Val-Theris stood at the far end of the table, pale wings folded tight against his back as the council spoke over one another in restless waves of frustration.
As king, Val-Theris had the right to open the meeting with whichever issue he chose, though he rarely exercised that right.
But with the Lunarethian’s within their walls, he felt it pressing to do something to ease their suffering.
He could not propose rations or shelter—his councilmen would never allow it, but he had come up with a plan that involved neither.
“I will be taking the Angelicus Prime to Korvath to negotiate a ceasefire with Val-Oros,” Val-Theris said to the chamber, which had grown silent when he began to speak. “It is my intention to ask him to remove his men from the Lunarethian region so that its people may return home.”
There was little pushback from the councilors at this proposal, and the matter was settled. But Val-Theris knew his next proposal would alight infighting the chamber had not seen in decades.
“Secondly,” he began, “Until a time comes when the refugees can return to their homes, they should have a seat at this table. I have decided I will offer the position to Jesenia of Lunareth, who has shown a great deal of loyalty and respect to the people of Solmiris, and to me.”
The chamber was silent for a moment, and then it erupted with protest.
“Your Grace, with respect, this matter requires delicacy.”
“Delicacy does not mean handing influence to an outsider—”
“Especially not one from their quarter.”
Val-Theris’s gaze remained steady on the carved marble surface of the table, letting them speak, letting the tide of their voices crash into him. At last, he lifted his head.
Councilor Varin, one of the eldest among them, leaned forward with his hands clasped and his knuckles pressing into wood.
“My lord,” he said carefully, “we are sworn to serve you. To advise you. To act as the spine of this city when darkness grows long. And yet—” He hesitated, measuring his words.
“And yet, when unrest grows in the quarter, you summon one of those unruly vagrants. And a woman, no less!”
The chamber filled with murmurs of agreement.
The memory of Jesenia’s voice still lingered in Val-Theris’s mind, soft but unyielding as she’d said: “They just want to go home.”
He felt the ripple of quiet judgment settle around the table and folded his wings tighter, his hands curling loosely at his sides.
“She has the trust of her people,” Val-Theris said, his tone even, controlled. “She hears what none of you will hear and sees what none of you choose to see. Her counsel is—”
“Dangerous,” Varin interrupted, sharper now, his restraint faltering. “You raise her voice above ours, and they will raise her name above yours. She is not one of us, Val-Theris. She does not serve Seraveth. She serves them. Do not confuse her decency with loyalty.”
A younger but still seasoned councilor spoke then, low and measured, each word chosen like a blade: “The people already murmur, my lord. They see where your gaze lingers. They see who commands your loyal men through punishment inside the gates. Give our people no reason to believe your judgment…compromised.”
Silence fell. Val-Theris’s jaw tightened, shadows curling low beneath his lashes as he let the words settle, cold and sharp in the room’s stillness. The weight of command sat heavily against his shoulders, and though his wings remained steady, he felt the faint tremor in his hands.
He dismissed the council then, voice soft and expression unreadable, but their words clung long after their footsteps faded into the vaulted corridors.
Moments later, Rohannes approached his king, having witnessed the session from the corner.
“So we are to leave for Korvath, sir?” he asked quietly, careful not to mention Jesenia or Lunareth.
Val-Theris nodded. “Gather a few of your best men to accompany us. You will leave tonight—bring my horse with you. I am going to fly to Lunareth and see what my brother has done with my own eyes. I will meet you there tomorrow morn.”
Rohannes bowed at the instructions and left to make the arrangements.
While his wings allowed him to travel the journey in less than two days, Val-Theris did not want to meet his brother alone.
Val-Oros and Val-Theris were blessed with immortal life from their father, but could still be killed, and the only men foolish enough to try to end their lives were each other.
Val-Theris finally left the chamber and retreated to his private quarters in the eastern wing of the palace. He stood out over his city on the same balcony where he had countless visions, hoping, this time, for another of Jesenia.
The thought startled him, like he hadn’t meant to think it in the first place. He knew nothing of her other than the honesty and kindness she had shown him and his men, and yet the Angel-King stood there, yearning to see her gentle face in his mind.
Val-Theris stood at the edge of what had once been a city, his wings folded neat against his back, their gold dulled beneath the gray sky.
The air smelled of ash and old rain, of stone burned too long and never rebuilt.
No birds cried here. No insects stirred.
Even the light seemed reluctant to linger.
Houses lay collapsed into themselves, roof beams charred black, doorways yawning open as if still waiting for their owners to return. The streets were carved with scars from flame, deep grooves etched where boots and chains had passed in endless procession.
He saw scorch marks at child’s height along the walls and turned away.
He knelt beside a shattered well, its stones cracked and split, and pressed his palm to the earth. The ground was cold. Empty. It gave nothing back.
My war did this to them, he thought. A war he never wanted, but also a war he never seemed to fight hard enough to win.
Further in, the central square opened before him, wide and ruined. Scattered around lay remnants of life hastily left behind: a child’s shoe half-buried in soot, a cooking pot warped by heat, a length of fabric snagged on a nail, fluttering weakly in the wind.
And bones. So many bones.
Val-Theris’s chest ached.
At the far end of the square, tangled in the debris of a collapsed wall, he saw a banner. It was torn, its edges scorched, the silver sigil of Lunareth barely visible beneath ash and grime.
He approached slowly as though nearing the body of a fallen soldier.