The throne room of the Kingdom of Ro had grown dim, despite the sunlight bleeding in through the stained-glass windows. The colored beams pooled like spilled wine across the obsidian floor, but they did little to warm the atmosphere.
Tension hung in the air like the scent of something long decayed—perfumed, perfunctory, and putrid underneath.
Gone were the usual hums of courtly chatter. Even the whispering courtiers had fallen silent, their gazes fixed on the two men standing at either end of the long obsidian table that split the room in two like a drawn blade.
The Prime Minister's robes, once meticulously pressed, now hung uneven at the shoulders. His eyes were sunken, rimmed with sleepless red. His hands, braced on the polished surface of the table, trembled not with fear—but with fury restrained by the thinnest of cords.
"Your Majesty," he said, voice clipped and sharp, "the nobility is in disarray. They wake with blistered faces, swollen eyes. They whisper of curses and assassination. Some wear veils now to hide the shame—others speak of abdication, of bloodlines failing to protect the very court they rule."
He leaned forward, spitting each word with the force of a general reporting a defeat.
"The source has been traced. The product—Lustre Bloom—sold through eastern envoys, promised to preserve beauty. Created by Jiral, whose papers marked him as a minor alchemist but whose true allegiance is uncertain. He is dead. But his poison lingers."
The King stood at the dais, tall and quiet. His silver-threaded cloak flowed behind him like a stormcloud dragging its shadow over the coast. His back remained to the room, his gaze lost beyond the throne's high windows, where light fractured and bled down like a dying star.
"Then handle it," he said, his tone unflinching, almost bored. "That is your duty, Prime Minister. I entrusted you with the courts. With public stability. My duties lie elsewhere."
The Prime Minister's mouth thinned. He circled the table in sharp strides, robes whispering, his voice rising.
"And where exactly, Your Majesty? Where do your duties lie these days? Not in the council, nor in the court, nor beside your Queen who burns beneath the balm you encouraged her to endorse."
The King turned at last.
"To Alexis."
A beat of silence.
"To my nephew, the only commander this realm has ever revered without fear. The only man I trust to stand amid enemies and still shift the tide. He chose captivity. He embedded himself within their soil so he could unearth their secrets from within."
His eyes gleamed—not with sentiment, but with strategy.
"He will return. And he will bring us the island—not with armies, but with allegiance. The people will walk behind him. Even their gods will have no choice."
"You speak of gods and loyalty while your own court rots from the inside!" the Prime Minister barked. "Alexis may win us the island—but what kingdom will he return to if we crumble in his absence?"
He gestured around them, to the empty seats, the vacant eyes of the noblemen hiding behind silk, ointment, and rumor.
"Your court cracks. Your nobles curse. Your Queen suffers. And you—" his voice broke slightly, not with weakness, but desperation "—you sit in detachment, as if we are the ones at fault for not matching your vision."
A sharp hush fell.
Silk hissed against stone.
From the raised dais, the Queen rose. She had remained silent until now, her frame still and elegant as a painting. But now, she stepped forward—and even through her layers of powder and veils, the damage could be seen.
Her skin was blotched beneath delicate layers of white concealer, the corners of her mouth dry, her fingertips trembling faintly as they clutched the rail of the platform.
Her voice was soft, aching.
"My King," she said, "I only wished to help. The kingdom's coffers were thinning. Trade was failing. I thought to bring new life into the market. I did not know the product would—"
"You brought poison into my court," the King said, turning toward her, his face a still lake reflecting nothing.
His voice was not angry, not even scolding—but cold. Judicial. Like a sword measuring the flaw in a sheath before the cut.
"You should have known better. Curiosity is no excuse for negligence. The eastern envoy was not what he claimed to be. And now, we pay for that failure."
The Queen's lips parted—but no defense came. She bowed her head, shadows falling over her features like dusk devouring a dying flame.
The Prime Minister's voice lowered, laced with old loyalty and fresh defiance.
"We are not just stewards of war and conquest. We are guardians of the people's trust. Of the nobility's structure. Alexis will return, yes—but if he finds a land bereft of trust, corroded by fear, what victory will that be?"
The King met his gaze.
"Then see to it that it does not rot. But do not demand my gaze where it no longer needs to be. The island is our future. Alexis is our future. I will not divide my will."
The Prime Minister exhaled sharply through his nose, the lines on his face deepening.
"Then we are no longer walking the same road, Your Majesty."
The King didn't reply. He turned once more to the high window where Alexis had once stood, long ago, before he had departed with false chains and real purpose.
The Queen sat slowly, her trembling hand resting atop the armrest like a fragile bloom wilting in winter frost.
The Prime Minister, shoulders square and eyes tight with fire, turned on his heel and left.
Outside, the nobles' whispers were beginning again.
Inside, the crown divided itself between present rot and future flame.
****
The tea room was meant to be a sanctuary—quiet, perfumed with lilies, the air warm with the scent of honeyed rosewater. But the silence inside now throbbed with tension, thick as iron.
The Queen had invited the King for tea after court—one of her last gestures of conciliation.
She poured the jasmine brew herself, trembling slightly as the steam rose between them.
Her voice was gentle, weighted with contrition.
"I only wished to bring new prosperity into court… I never imagined this outcome. Please, if I had known—"
Her words faltered as the King set his cup down too hard.
"Enough," he snapped, the porcelain ringing against the saucer like a warning bell. "If you hadn't insisted on sponsoring that peacock of a merchant, we wouldn't be burying rumors under silk veils. And now even you—" his eyes flicked to the pale blotches hidden beneath her powder "—suffer by your own hand."
The Queen bowed her head. Her lip quivered as she gripped the tea pot tighter, as if her hands alone could hold the cracks from spreading.
She hadn't noticed the figure standing by the doorway.
Neither had the King.
The Prime Minister had taken a different corridor, as he often did to avoid moments such as these.
But today, his feet betrayed him, bringing him to the threshold of what should have remained private.
He saw the Queen's trembling shoulders. The King's narrowed eyes. And something inside him—ancient and worn but not yet extinguished—stirred.
He stepped forward without hesitation.
"If I may speak freely…"
The King's head snapped toward him, voice sharpened like steel drawn halfway.
"You may not," he said coldly. "But I will allow it. Just this once."
The Prime Minister inclined his head but didn't pause. His words came not from protocol—but from purpose.
"I believe this was never simply about trade. It was a scheme. A layered one. Jiral—or the man who called himself that—was no ordinary envoy."
He took another step, eyes fixed on the King, who stood rigid by the lacquered table, arms clasped tightly behind his back.
"He was tailored to our weakness. Not just the court's vanity, but our hunger for eastern prestige. The man sold dreams in glass bottles, elegance in tinctures. He spoke in poetry and silk. Of course the nobles adored him. Of course they never questioned his credentials."
He glanced at the Queen.
"Even Her Majesty, with all her caution, could not see through the lacquered veil. Because it was designed to flatter her values—refinement, prosperity, diplomacy."
The Queen's fingers curled tightly around her teacup. Her voice, when it came, was scarcely more than breath.
"And if… the rumors are true? That this Jiral was not an envoy at all… but a planted agent?"
A stillness followed.
The King's expression darkened, his shadow long against the golden light.
"Then it means only one thing," he said, voice like frost cracking across stone. "General Hiral is already moving his pieces. And you—" his gaze bore into the Queen "—you opened the gate for him. Wrapped in silks and good intentions."
The Queen flinched but did not look away. Her throat worked as she forced herself to speak.
"I didn't know."
"No," the King said bitterly. "But you should have."
The Prime Minister took a step closer. He no longer bowed. His eyes were hard now—heavy with sleepless nights and the unbearable weight of clarity.
"Your Majesty," he said, "we must treat this not as courtly embarrassment, but as an act of war. If Hiral did send a man into our very palace—if he masked him as a merchant to poison our nobles from within—then this was not commerce. It was infiltration. Subtle, precise. And devastating."
The King scoffed. "Psychological war, is that what you call it? My nephew fights in shadows and draws blood from empires. Hiral plays dress-up and poisons perfume."
He turned away, dismissing the matter with a flick of his cloak.
"One of them will win."
Silence clung to the walls like fog.
Then the Queen spoke again—low and raw.
"And what will happen, once they do?"
The King said nothing.
But the Prime Minister… he did not look away.
He saw what the King would not see: the fever in the Queen's cheeks, the slow disintegration of morale in the palace, the letters from nobles demanding antidotes, compensations, secure trade routes.
All of it leading to one inescapable outcome—eastern dependency.
Exactly what Hiral wanted.
He clenched his jaw.
He had long suspected the truth—that Jiral had not merely been an envoy, or even a planted agent—but Hiral himself, cloaked in foreign dyes, swathed in perfumes, smiling in the very halls of the palace as he watched them all rot from within.
And now, as the court crumbled beneath the weight of scandal and sickness, Ro would have no choice but to seek healing from the very source that wounded them.
He turned his gaze on the King, weary but defiant.
"If we do not act now," he said, voice low and firm, "if we allow this to go unanswered, then Hiral wins without lifting a sword. The Queen's name will become a scapegoat. The nobles will turn on themselves. And when Alexis returns… he will return to ashes."
The King said nothing at first.
Then, without meeting either of their eyes, he murmured:
"Then let him return with fire enough to rebuild it."
The Queen's breath caught.
The Prime Minister closed his eyes briefly—then bowed, deep and deliberate.
His justice, however weary, had not faltered and so he would hold on.
Alexis…come back soon.
The Prime Minister and the King fervently wished as they walked away carrying different sentiments.