Chapter Two The Prince of Glass #2
The royal family ate beneath a ceiling painted with victories no one at the table had personally achieved.
Lucen had always found that efficient.
Generations of dead kings watched him move peas around his plate while Chancellor Senn explained national enthusiasm as if he had invented it.
"Early sentiment is strong," Senn said. "The public wants renewal."
Lucen looked at his father.
King Tavian was reading a briefing while eating with the mechanical precision of a man who had spent thirty years being scheduled.
"Do they?"
Senn smiled.
"The numbers say so."
"Numbers also say Greybridge has adequate water access."
Tavian lowered the briefing.
"Not tonight."
"We are discussing public confidence. It seemed relevant."
Queen Celene's chair remained empty.
It had been empty at formal family dinners for four years, ever since she moved her official residence to the southern health estates and informed the palace that separation was not treason no matter how many constitutional lawyers frowned at it.
Lucen missed her most when the room needed someone willing to make everyone uncomfortable on purpose. Senn placed his fork down.
"Your Highness, the Trials are not a referendum on municipal policy."
"They draft municipal workers. Apparently policy has become difficult to contain."
Tavian exhaled.
"Lucen."
There were many versions of his name in his father's voice.
This one meant do not make me choose between king and parent in front of staff. Lucen drank water.
"How many refusals?"
Senn glanced toward the attendants.
Tavian dismissed them with a small motion. The doors closed. Senn's pleasant expression thinned.
"Three attempted. Two withdrew after household consequences were explained. One remains under review."
Lucen's hand tightened around the glass.
"Household consequences."
"Compliance measures."
"Wonderful. Cruelty improves when it acquires office language."
"The law predates all three of us."
"So does plague."
Tavian set the briefing aside.
"Enough."
Lucen looked at him.
"You asked me to participate in this. I am asking what participation means."
"It means you meet the candidates in good faith."
"Forty-eight women who cannot all refuse in good faith."
Senn leaned back.
"And yet one will become consort with influence no provincial official could dream of."
"That is the sales pitch, yes."
"It is also true."
Lucen thought of the files stacked in his study.
Forty-eight women reduced to a page each.
Family. district. health. education. scandal risk.
fertility screening hidden beneath a more polite category.
Candidate Forty-Seven's file had contained a notation about her father's conviction and External Service that had been blacked out badly enough he could still see the shape of three words underneath.
He had put her file at the bottom because she looked capable of making trouble and because he recognized the impulse.
"Why this year?" he asked.
Tavian did not answer immediately. Senn did.
"Continuity."
Lucen laughed once.
"That word again."
"Your father's health scare made the succession question visible. Markets dislike uncertainty. Provincial blocs are restless. A public marriage process stabilizes expectation."
"So the kingdom needs me to date for bond yields."
"Crude."
"Accurate."
Tavian rubbed his temple.
The motion made him look older than sixty.
Lucen regretted the sharpness and hated that regret could be used against him even when no one intended it.
"My health is stable," Tavian said.
"I know."
"But the succession is not merely personal."
"I also know."
"Then act as though you do."
There it was. The old argument.
Lucen had been born inside a sentence that began with therefore. You are the heir, therefore. The Crown continues, therefore. People require stability, therefore.
A thousand obligations could be built after that word without anyone needing to ask what he wanted before it. He pushed his plate away.
"What if I do not choose anyone?"
Silence. Senn's eyes sharpened.
Tavian looked tired rather than surprised.
"The final rules require a selection."
"Rules can be amended."
"Not without Council assent."
"Then I can refuse at the end."
Senn smiled very slightly.
Lucen disliked that more than anger.
"Your refusal would trigger a succession review."
"Good."
"And the candidates?"
Lucen stopped. Senn continued gently.
"The winner's household receives permanent status. Finalists receive enhanced placement. Those eliminated earlier return under the conditions attached to their Release category. Your personal protest does not suspend those consequences."
The trap was elegant.
Lucen could refuse the Crown's chosen ending.
The women would still pay for the path taken to reach it.
"You designed that."
"No."
"You preserved it."
"I administer law."
"A phrase popular with men standing near harm."
Tavian's palm hit the table once. Not hard.
Enough.
"Senn, leave us."
For the first time that evening, the chancellor looked displeased. He stood, bowed, and left. The doors closed again.
Father and son sat beneath painted kings. Tavian poured himself more water.
"You think I enjoy this."
"I think enjoyment is irrelevant."
"That sounds like your mother."
"She usually is."
A reluctant smile touched Tavian's mouth and vanished.
"When I was twenty-six, the northern provinces threatened secession over grain tariffs. My father arranged three possible marriages before the Council accepted a treaty instead. I spent six months reading dossiers of women who knew they might be traded to me."
Lucen had never heard this.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I wanted you to believe your life would be different."
"That was optimistic."
"It was cowardly."
The admission disarmed him.
Tavian looked toward the empty place where Celene used to sit.
"The Trials were not my idea. They are older than this palace wing. Every generation says it will reform them. Every generation discovers that the provinces enjoy selecting a queen more than they enjoy constitutional design."
"Popularity is not legitimacy."
"No. But legitimacy without public consent is a lecture."
Lucen leaned forward.
"Then let me change the terms. No household penalties for refusal. No exile consequence for losing. No medical scoring."
Tavian's face closed.
"Council will not pass all three before registration."
"Submit them anyway."
"And if the vote fails publicly? You begin the Trials by proving the Crown cannot control its own process."
"Maybe it cannot."
"That is not a small fact to announce while border shipments are being delayed and provincial assemblies are testing emergency powers."
Lucen stood.
"There is always a crisis useful enough to postpone decency."
"And there is always a prince young enough to think consequences begin when he notices them."
The words landed. Lucen looked at his father. Tavian looked immediately sorry. Neither took it back.
After a moment, Lucen said, "I will participate." Relief moved through Tavian's shoulders.
"But I will not pretend consent exists where refusal is punished."
"I did not ask you to."
"Senn will."
"Senn asks many things."
Lucen walked toward the doors.
"One more condition."
Tavian waited.
"I want full access to Trial law. Not the public packet. Archive statutes, scoring procedures, Release categories, historical amendments. Everything."
"Why?"
"Because if I am expected to choose a winner, I intend to know what losing means."
Tavian studied him. Then nodded.
"Granted."
Lucen left the dining room and returned to his study. Candidate files covered the desk. He picked up Forty-Seven's again.
ANYA SERRIN. Greybridge water maintenance. No noble sponsor. No social training. High technical aptitude. Family risk moderate. Temperament: resistant.
Someone had underlined that last word. Lucen read it twice.
Then he opened a second folder marked TRIAL REGULATIONS - INTERNAL and began with the Release provisions.
If resistance was going to cost these women something, he wanted to know the price before he smiled at any of them for a camera.