The next morning in the inner ring — cleaned streets, disciplined soldiers, the walls washed of the dust of suspicion — King MacLinny convened a private audience in a chamber where light fell like paper into neat rectangles. He had the look of a man folding himself into an uncomfortable garment: the kingdom's worries draped like a cloak.
Orsic arrived with the carriage of a man who held an answer to every problem. He was immaculate, measured, the sort of armor that wore obedience like a second skin. He offered his usual curt bow and took his place opposite the king. A few advisors hovered at the edges, pens poised, maps folded, waiting to be given the shape of the day.
"Your Majesty," Orsic said, voice even and practiced. "The princess's proposed tour — the limited, controlled movement you authorized — will require specific security measures. I have prepared a plan."
King MacLinny leaned forward, fingers steepled. He had been awake in these corridors too many nights. The idea of allowing Lily to move through the city, of risking the fragile thread they had begun to stitch of trust, had stressed him into a sort of trembling calculation. "State it, please." He said.
Orsic's eyes were steady as polished steel. "I propose a layered protection detail. The princess will be accompanied by a Postknight commander of her choosing and a neutral commander I appoint to ensure oversight. My condition is this: I will have the right to station a discreet K.P.P. monitoring detail within visual range of all movements. Additionally — I request that a Postknight be included in the immediate retinue whom we will place under K.P.P. supervision for the duration. Solis of Mailie."
There was a particular sharpness when Orsic said the name. MacLinny's brow lifted; the room's air cooled for a beat. "Solis? That boy?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." Orsic's face was a small mask of patience. "He—"
"—He is a C ranker," the king interrupted, incredulous. "Not fit for the steady guard required for a princess' public presence. Why choose someone untested? Why not an A-ranker? Or—"
"Because a kid who is too obvious is easily used." Orsic said, and the edge in his voice made the king pause. "Because you want the princess to be accessible, not armored in men who read like a fortress. A C-ranker will cause less spectacle. And because I do not fully trust the Postknight rank at the present moment, I prefer to have one of their own under direct observation."
The king's eyes narrowed. "You propose we place our heir into the company of a young blood you admit you do not trust?"
"Not my words," Orsic said coolly. "I said I need to test his loyalty. A public appearance by the princess is a vulnerability and an opportunity. We will allow this controlled movement. We will place K.P.P. watchers at a distance. We will, therefore, observe every step and have the capability to intervene if a deception occurs."
MacLinny's hands fidgeted. "Test his loyalty?"
Orsic elaborated. "This is both a security maneuver and an intelligence tool. If the Postknight faction is compromised — or some of its members are — then having one of their own in the retinue, who we can shadow and examine, will reveal whether their allegiance is to the crown or to something else. Solis, given his proximity to the Blazing Sword and the statements we have received, is ambiguous. We should be precise in understanding where his loyalty lies. If he is loyal, the operation shows his true colors. If not, we catch the signal in a place where we can act."
The king let the words settle like cold stone. "You would have me risk my daughter as a kind of trap?"
"We will not risk her safety, if you are concerned with that." Orsic countered. "We will control the environment. The K.P.P. monitoring detail will be placed out of sight but within range to intercede. Additionally, I will have covert teams in place should anything escalate. So don't worry, your majesty. This is not a trap; if you allow me, I will put it as a test under strict supervision."
A courtier coughed, perturbed by the moral outlines of Orsic's wordplay. The king looked at Orsic with a wearied patience. He had seen Orsic's capacity for tactical planning and also his hunger for authority. "And if Solis fails? If you find evidence against him?"
"We will act swiftly. We will intercept and detain the conspirators." Orsic said with the quiet certainty of a man who had rearranged the furniture of law to benefit his own hands. "But we must be precise. Public spectacles that show the crown acting harshly without evidence cause panic. This way, we harvest the truth quietly."
The king's face was a study in reluctant compromise. He had wanted to place someone worthy and above suspicion by Lily's side — someone who could be both shield and interlocutor. The idea of using a Postknight as a litmus test for loyalty felt like chess played by a player who expected blood shade.
"Very well," the king said finally. "Solis may accompany the princess — under strict conditions. K.P.P. will have monitoring teams and the right to intercept if we detect treachery. Choose your Postknight leadership by morning and file the route for approval, and please made it look like she is the one choosing them, I promised her she would have her own right." For a moment he stops, recollecting himself, then he opens his mouth with a warning tone in it. "If any of this flinches into danger — any hint that the princess is threatened more than in the ordinary course of public engagement — this arrangement dissolves and we will escalate the escort into a full armored detail at once."
"Understood, Your Majesty," Orsic said. There was a faint smile that was not meant to comfort but to close business. "I will coordinate the plan. My men will stand in cover, discreetly. We will handle the surveillance."
When Orsic left, after a little curt bow and a promise to prepare, the advisors and the king looked at the map on the table — an inked drawing of streets and alleys and safe places. The air was heavy with a thousand considerations: optics, morale, and the cold arithmetic of risk.
In his chambers after the meeting, King MacLinny replayed the exchange and found himself stirred by unease and the peculiar hope that, perhaps, an act as small as a princess's walk could do more than be a test: it could be a pivot. Orsic, on the other hand, with his remark about Solis, had not merely asked for a surveillance measure; he had carved a position for power that might entangle Postknights into a tighter net.
Later that night, as the palace grew quiet and watchfires flared along distant walls like patient beacons, Orsic sat at his desk and read the profile of Solis again. He made notes in a neat, surgical hand. This was not purely duty for him: it was also strategy. If Solis failed a loyalty test, it would validate the narrative Orsic had spent months building about Postknight unreliability. If Solis passed, Orsic would have disproved those stories — yet he would also have the information on a man who had touched a spirit-blade and lived. Either result had use.
Neither the king nor Orsic spoke the thought aloud that the princess's walk could become a fulcrum for reasserting a certain model of order: one where K.P.P.'s authority could be shown as indispensable while Postknights were either re-legitimized by proving innocence or further disciplined. Orsic saw only the instrumentality of every outcome; the king tried to see also the human face of the action.
At dusk, the city's sky flared with signals: the airknights' flight-lamps, the K.P.P. patrolling lights, the distant hum of a camp that was no longer content to wait. Men and women on both sides took their places like players stepping into a field where the rules could change in the space between heartbeats.