The sun was reluctant that morning.
Light filtered half-heartedly through the windows of the east study, slanting across mahogany bookcases and the scent of must and parchment. Thalric sat in an armchair two sizes too deep, the weight of a fur blanket draped across his legs like a flag surrendered without battle.
Across from him, the tutor arrived.
Jeremiah Bracken. Fifty-seven. Former dean of rhetoric at Velwich University—dismissed under polite silence and scandalous rumor. Now steward of noble minds deemed not worth ruining elsewhere. His jacket bore too many patches. His hair, too few.
"Your Highness," he said, not quite bowing, not quite respectful. "A pleasure."
Thalric didn't reply.
Jeremiah sat stiffly, flipping open a cracked ledger with too many empty pages and too little ink. "You requested instruction in political history and military structure, I'm told. An admirable start."
Thalric nodded once. His throat was still raw from yesterday's walk through the forgotten wing, and he had no patience left for courtesy.
The tutor cleared his throat.
"In the Year of the Split Crown, the Kingdom of Eldenmarch lost sovereignty over three southern provinces—"
"Eldenmarch fell because their grain tariffs starved the merchant guilds of Kethmoor," Thalric interrupted. "The provinces revolted not over politics. Over bread."
Jeremiah blinked. Once. Then slowly shut the ledger.
"And where," he asked thinly, "did you learn that interpretation?"
Thalric leaned forward, resting one elbow on the armrest. "Page ninety-two. Wars of Greed and Grain, first edition. Unabridged. The abridged version, published six years later, redacted most of the economic notes for political 'clarity.'"
The tutor's mouth opened. Shut.
For several long seconds, he simply looked at Thalric like a man realizing the forest he'd taught his whole life was in fact a single tree.
"You read that," he said slowly, "in three days."
Thalric's eyes sharpened.
"I read it after I found it hidden behind a false panel in your study. You never recommended it."
A pause.
Then: "…You used to struggle to sound out household decrees."
The statement wasn't cruel. Just honest. Like recounting the weather.
"I'm aware," Thalric replied, voice flat.
They sat in silence for a long time. The fireplace ticked. The study creaked with the shifting weight of memory.
Jeremiah finally leaned back, folding his hands on his knee. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter.
"He was never stupid, you know. Percival. Just… frightened. And whenever he looked at someone trying to teach him, he didn't see a tutor. He saw another stone being stacked on his shoulders."
Thalric looked away.
He didn't need this man's grief. Or pity.
But he needed his knowledge.
And for the first time, the tutor gave it freely.
They spoke until the hour turned. About wars long over. About political marriages that had become funeral processions. About noble houses that smiled in public and bit in private.
No lectures. No condescension.
Just words.
Thalric left the study that evening with ink on his fingers, cold tea in his veins, and a whisper growing in his thoughts like frost on glass:
"They didn't fail him because he was lesser.
They failed him because they never believed he could become more."