A soft knock echoed through the quiet of the chamber.
Azarion, seated by the arched window and lost in thought, didn't flinch. The cool evening wind rustled the long curtains behind him. He gave a quiet command without turning.
"Enter."
The heavy door creaked open, and Aldric stepped into the room. The firelight played across his face....too youthful to bear so much worry.
"I hope I'm not intruding, Father?" Aldric asked, pausing at the threshold.
Azarion finally looked up, the lines on his face deepened by fatigue. "No. Come in. What is it?"
Aldric stepped inside fully, closing the door behind him. "Aurelia wanted to talk to you, Father."
"Yes. Steven informed me right before you came in." Azarion's tone was unreadable.
Aldric hesitated, then stepped closer, the fire casting his shadow long across the floor.
"I don't understand, Father. She's your daughter. Why do you refuse to speak to her ....or even look at her?"
Azarion's brows furrowed, but he said nothing.
"Father," Aldric pressed, voice rising.
"It's been seven years since the siege of Ashmere. Since she was cursed. You just locked her away in that tower .... forgotten. Like a shameful secret."
"I did it to protect her," Azarion said curtly.
"Protect?" Aldric echoed, incredulous. "You call that protection?"
Azarion turned sharply, his voice hardening. "Watch your tone when you speak to me, boy."
His hands crackled faintly with flame. The torches lining the chamber flared. The fire in the hearth surged, dancing higher, sensing the rising rage of its master.
Aldric stood his ground. "What do you think would've happened if you just… faced the world with her? She's not some monster. She's your daughter!"
Azarion's voice turned guttural, smoke curling from his breath.
"The world is cruel. It would have devoured her, mocked her, feared her. I saw it coming long after the curse took root."
"You didn't even give her a choice."
"No!" Azarion bellowed, rising to his feet. His silhouette loomed tall against the firelight.
"And I don't regret it. If the world knew what she had become ..... what she turned into ... they would have destroyed her. They would have burned her alive."
His voice cracked on the last word.
Aldric's fists clenched at his sides. "Then you should have stood with her. Not hidden her like a shameful wound."
Azarion looked away, breathing hard. "You think I haven't suffered too? I lost my wife, my city, nearly my kingdom that night.
And I almost lost her. Locking her away was the only way I knew how to keep her safe… from them. From herself."
There was a long silence. Only the fire dared speak.
"I heard the northern envoys have finally left." Aldric's voice held a trace of hesitation. "Was anything decided?"
Azarion exhaled slowly and turned back to the window. His silhouette looked carved from stone.
"They still want the engagement annulled."
Aldric stiffened. "Even after all these years?"
"Correct. The boy dances around duty, masking his cowardice in honeyed words," Azarion said through clenched teeth, his tone steely.
"They've masked it in politics," Azarion said bitterly.
"Claiming the tides have changed. Claiming that now Aurelia is of age, she should be free to choose. But what they truly want is to pull away...quietly and without war."
"So Neris is retreating," Aldric muttered, disgust thick in his voice. "A coward hiding behind his titles and northern charm."
Azarion's fingers tightened against the armrest. "Coward, yes. But cunning. He plays the long game."
"But during the War of Frostmere," Aldric pressed, "he was unmatched. He united the scattered tribes....the water and ice legacies that once warred without end. He brought peace to the Aiseryn, renamed them under one banner. That's not the work of a coward."
They say he was born for command."
Azarion scoffed, unimpressed. "So the bards sing."
Azarion turned sharply, his eyes cold as iron. "Do not be so quick to admire him."
"I'm not admiring," Aldric said quickly. "I'm stating what we all know. Even you can't deny the way they speak of him....like he's more myth than man."
"They speak too easily of legends," Azarion growled.
"Of him being the true son of Neryth. Some even whisper that he is Neryth returned. And for that, they call him the Warden of Winter."
"Superstition. Poetry. None of it changes the truth."
Aldric hesitated. "You don't believe that?"
Azarion scoffed. "He bleeds like any man. I've seen enough to know that the moment myth makes a man into a god, it blinds his enemies...and worse, it blinds his allies. He is not invincible."
"Still," Aldric pressed, eyes searching his father's face, "he's my age, and already Lord of Winter, Warden of Aiseryn. The youngest to ever hold that seat. And yet…"
Azarion arched a brow. "And yet you compare yourself to him?"
Aldric's voice lowered. "I only wonder if I'll ever earn the same respect. Or fear."
Azarion stood and walked to the arched window, the early dusk casting long shadows across the floor. He clasped his hands behind his back and spoke without turning.
"Respect is not given by age, Aldric. Nor by the weight of titles. It is forged...hammered...in fire, sharpened by storms, and proven on the battlefield."
There was silence. Aldric leaned forward, voice lowered.
"But if it came to war...if he truly broke the Accord....could you defeat him?"
Azarion didn't answer right away. Then he said flatly, "In battle, he's not the opponent I dread."
Aldric blinked. "Then who?"
A faint smile played on Azarion's lips....one that didn't reach his eyes. "Valerian Stormborne."
"The Storm Lord?" Aldric asked in disbelief. "You two haven't spoken in years."
Azarion's tone shifted, his voice touched with something close to respect.
"We don't see eye to eye, and that's what makes him dangerous. He doesn't flatter. He doesn't scheme. He moves. Thunder and lightning in human form.
Destruction follows his wake, and yet his rule remains untouched. There is no fear in that man. Not of gods, not of war, not even of death."
He fell silent for a moment, then added, almost to himself, "His strength rivals Malric Stoneborne himself...the Earth Lord of Terravorn."
"And Malric Stoneborne of Terravorn?" Aldric asked.
Azarion chuckled. "Malric's strength is unmatched, true. But even he hesitates before Valerian's wrath. No other could level a battlefield with a single strike from the sky."
Aldric swallowed. "You speak of them like… titans."
"They are, in a way," Azarion said. "We all are. And yet, we're bound by the same fragile law…"
Aldric glanced at his father's hands...scarred, calloused, yet still steady.
"Do you ever wonder, Father... if the world you built will survive us?"
Azarion didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked past the window, beyond the walls of their keep, to the distant mountains that cradled the winds of fate.
"Survival," he said at last, "depends not on what we leave behind, but on whether those who follow can carry it forward without faltering."
Then, silence.
Aldric watched his father quietly. "Why are you thinking of all this now?"
Azarion didn't respond immediately. His gaze lingered on the fading horizon.
"Because history is circling again. The winds shift, the earth trembles, and winter prepares to move."
His voice dropped. "And Aurelia is caught in the center."
Aldric frowned. "She's stronger than they think."
"She will need to be stronger than she has ever been."
A beat of silence.
Then Aldric asked, "Will you still push for the marriage?"
Azarion's jaw clenched. "That depends on whether the Warden of Winter plans to walk away... or march south."