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The morning after the logbook was reduced to ash, the Royal Wing felt fundamentally altered. The air, once sharp with the static of unspoken threats, had softened. The "Silent Siege" had ended, not with a victory for one side, but with a mutual surrender to the truth.
Arion stood by the window, watching the sunrise hit the palace spires. For the first time in four years, his chest didn't feel constricted by an invisible iron band. He turned as Kyon entered the room. The King wasn't wearing his ceremonial robes; he wore a simple, high-collared black tunic.
More importantly, his neck was bare.
"The Jade Heart," Arion noted, his eyes widening. "You aren't wearing it."
Kyon reached into his pocket and pulled out the emerald amulet. The light caught the deep green stone, sending fractured prisms across the walls. "It's been a cage for longer than it's been a tool, Arion. If I am to be the man who found the jasmine, I cannot carry the symbol of the man who hid it."
He walked to a heavy, ornate display case in the corner of the room a place for relics of the past and placed the amulet on a velvet cushion. He locked the glass, then turned back to Arion, looking strangely vulnerable without the shimmering green glow against his skin.
"I have ordered the physicians to begin a tapering protocol for the chemical stabilizers," Kyon said, his voice steady but solemn. "It will be... difficult. My scent will be unstable for a time. My temper may flare as my natural biology fights to reclaim itself. But I will not be a manufactured King any longer."
Arion stepped forward, reaching out to touch Kyon's arm. "You're choosing to be vulnerable. In this palace, that's more dangerous than any war."
"I have the Black Tiger to protect me," Kyon whispered, a genuine, small smile tugging at his lips. "And I have a son who thinks I can teach him the stars. That is worth more than absolute dominance."
...…..☆...…☆...….
The fragile peace was interrupted by the arrival of Lord Torvin. Arion's brother entered the parlor, his face grim, carrying a sealed scroll bearing the wax seal of the Western Marquis a known associate of Prince Cassian.
"Arion. Kyon," Torvin acknowledged, his gaze lingering on Kyon's bare neck with a look of stunned respect before turning back to the business at hand. "The Western border is mobilizing. Cassian has issued a private manifesto to the high ranking Alphas of the borderlands."
Arion took the scroll, his eyes scanning the aggressive, familiar script of his former commander.
"The Serpent has drugged the Tiger. The East is being bled dry by a King who plays at being a Saint while holding a child of the North in a gilded cage. If the Consort will not be rescued, he will be reclaimed by force."
"He thinks I'm still being coerced," Arion said, a cold anger flickering in his gut. "He's using my 'humiliation' as a rallying cry for a coup."
Kyon took the scroll from Arion, his eyes narrowing as he read the threat. "He's not just attacking my reign; he's attacking our choice. He wants the version of you that he can control, Arion. The one that was his 'weapon.'"
"He will be disappointed," Arion stated. "I am no one's weapon. But I will not let him burn the kingdom down because he cannot accept that the war is over."
While the adults navigated the threat of civil war, Lorcan and Aiden were in the library, oblivious to the manifestos. Lorcan had laid out a series of maps, but his focus was on a small, silver dagger he was showing Aiden.
"This is a defender's blade," Lorcan explained, his six-year-old voice filled with a solemnity that mimicked his father's. "If anyone tries to take you back to the mountains, or if the 'Grumpy Uncle' (Cassian) comes, you use this to signal the guards."
Aiden touched the hilt, his small face serious. "Papa and the Serpent King are friends now, Lorcan. I saw them hug. The shadows went away."
Lorcan looked at Aiden, his sharp, Southern intuition sensing the shift in the palace. "The shadows in the room might be gone, Aiden. But the shadows in the woods are getting longer. My father says a King is only as strong as his friends. So, I've decided."
"Decided what?" Aiden asked.
"I'm staying," Lorcan declared, puffing out his chest. "I'm going to be your First Shield. When you're the King, I'll be the one who tells the Alphas to go away. And I'm going to teach you how to read the Southern stars, because the Northern ones are too cold."
Aiden grinned, the blue-amber of his eyes sparkling. "Okay. But I get to teach you how to track a tiger in the snow."
In the doorway, Arion and Kyon watched their sons, the future of two warring nations, bound by a friendship that was the first truly stable thing in the palace.
Kyon leaned his shoulder against Arion's. "The manifesto can wait until tomorrow," Kyon whispered. "Today, we have a First Shield to train."
Arion leaned his head against Kyon's, the scent of wild jasmine and mountain pine finally, truly, beginning to blend. "We fight for them, Kyon. Not for the throne. For them."