They caught Deren two corridors from the east gate.
For one frantic breath, he thought he'd make it. The archway was there ahead of him stone framing a slice of night, cold air licking his face after the hot stink of the West Hall. One more door and he could have thrown himself into the dark and run until his lungs tore.
Instead, he slammed into a chest.
The impact knocked the wind from him. Fingers hooked deep into his collar, wrenching him back so hard his teeth clicked. His heels slid on smooth stone. The smell of leather and steel hit his nose, edged by something hotter underneath.
He dragged his gaze up.
Ecclesias' face filled his vision. Too close. Pale eyes, steady and unreadable, a faint dark shadow along his jaw. No shouting. No theatrics. Just a hand in his collar and a question waiting.
"Where were you going, Deren?" the king asked quietly.
Deren's tongue stuck to his teeth.
"I—wrong way, I was—my room—"
"The east gate is not on the way to your room," Ecclesias said. His grip tightened just enough to lift Deren half onto his toes. "You left the hall when my taster fell. You did not look back. You did not call for help. You ran."
Bootsteps pounded up behind. Two guards skidded to a halt, breathing hard.
"Majesty?" one of them panted.
Ecclesias did not look away from Deren.
"Take him," he said. "To the lower rooms."
Cold flooded Deren's stomach.
"You've got the wrong—"
"The wrong man?" Ecclesias' voice did not change. "You carried the tray. You ran when the man tasting it collapsed. You headed for a gate reserved for couriers and nobility. Tell me, Deren, which of those seems like a mistake?"
No answer came.
The guards hooked an arm under each of his, the rope biting into his wrists as they dragged him away from the archway, away from the breath of clean air. The last thing he saw before they hauled him around the corner was Ecclesias standing in the passage, watching him go with the blank, focused attention of a man who had finally found someplace to put his rage.
They did not take him up. They took him down.
With every step the palace changed. Gilded corridors gave way to bare stone; the air cooled and thickened. Lamps grew sparser. Shadows lengthened. The smell turned damp, metallic, stale.
They pushed him through a heavy iron‑banded door into a short hall lined with square, low openings. Torches smoked in brackets. The air smelled of wet stone, old sweat, iron, and a sour tang that lodged at the back of his throat.
The third door on the left shrieked when they opened it.
The cell beyond held a slab of stone for a bench, a bucket in the corner, and nothing else. One guard snapped an iron cuff around his ankles and clipped its short chain to a ring in the floor. Only then did they cut the rope from his wrists to the ceiling hook, leaving his hands still bound in front.
The door slammed. The key turned with a heavy, final clack.
After that, there was only the cell.
The chain allowed three steps one way and three back. He took them over and over, bare soles whispering on stone, the iron chafing his skin. Somewhere beyond the wall, water dripped in an irregular beat, as if the palace had a slow, leaking heart.
He told himself there had been no other choice. Corren had promised. The purse had been heavy. His cousin's debts had not been going to pay themselves. *It will not kill him,* the steward had said. *It will only show he is wrong. It will be good for the kingdom.* He repeated the words until they sounded thin even in his own head.
The scrape of a key stopped his pacing.
The door opened.
Light knifed in, outlining a lone figure. Ecclesias stepped into the cell as if he had all the time in the world. He did not come all the way in; he closed the door behind him and leaned his shoulder lightly against it, as if to remind Deren there was nowhere left to go.
"Well," he said. "Deren."
The way his name sounded in that voice made Deren's skin crawl. He tried for a smile. It came out crooked.
"You grabbed the wrong people," he said. "I was just carrying a tray."
"And then running for a gate you have no right to use," Ecclesias replied.
His tone was mild. It made the words hit harder.
"I panicked," Deren said. The excuses tumbled out faster than he could shape them. "The man fell, everyone shouted—I didn't think, I just—"
"You didn't call for a physician," Ecclesias said. "You didn't shout for help. You ran."
Deren swallowed. The rope around his wrists burned.
"I don't know anything," he blurted. "I was told to deliver the tray, that's all. I don't buy herbs, I don't mix sauces, I don't—"
"By whom?"
The question dropped into the air like a stone into still water.
Deren's mouth opened. His tongue stuck to his teeth.
He saw, too vividly, the steward's ring—the silver stag, bright in lamplight the purse, the way Corren had said *Lord Vallens* with that tone like it was both prayer and threat. He saw his cousin's face, gray with worry.
He shut his mouth again.
Ecclesias watched him. He did not move closer. That stillness pressed harder than any shout.
"I will ask you again later," the king said at last. "After you have had time to consider what loyalty they will show you now that you have failed."
He set his hand to the latch.
Panic surged.
"Wait," Deren said. The word tore out of him, raw. "You've got it wrong. It wasn't meant—"
Ecclesias paused without turning.
"Meant what?"
Deren felt his heartbeat in his throat.
"It wasn't meant to kill him," he said, voice cracking. "They said… it would only weaken. Just enough to prove his blood is unfit."
Silence rang.
"Who," Ecclesias asked quietly, still not looking back, "is they?"
The answer jammed behind Deren's teeth. He shook his head, a short, jerky motion.
"You'll get it out of me anyway," he muttered. "Why should I make it easy for you?"
A tiny muscle jumped once in Ecclesias' jaw. Then he inclined his head, as if that had confirmed something he had not wanted but expected.
"Consider this, Deren," he said. "Up there, my consort is alive. Down here, you are alone in a cell with me. We both know which of you they chose to throw away first."
The words lodged deep.
Deren said nothing.
Ecclesias opened the door and stepped out.
The iron swung shut with a hollow, ringing thud. The sound settled into Deren's bones and sat there long after the king's footsteps had faded, leaving him with the drip of water and the dull, growing knowledge that whatever they had promised him, he was the only one paying the price.
He did not sleep.
-----------
Morning crawled over the palace, pale and thin.
The council chamber felt too crowded even before anyone spoke. Light slid in through high windows, turning dust motes into slow, drifting sparks. It should have softened the room. It only made the edges clearer: the length of the polished table, the curve of the carved chairs, the distance between where Soren sat and every pair of eyes fixed on him.
He held himself very straight at Ecclesias' right, back a hand's breadth from the chair's support. His fingers laced loosely in his lap, arranged to hide the faint tremor in them. The ring on his thumb bit into flesh where he pressed it against his palm.
The cup before him was filled with watered wine. It looked exactly like every cup he had ever been served in this room.
His throat tightened.
If you don't drink, they will think you're afraid. If you do, they will watch.
He lifted the cup. The tremor in his fingers felt enormous. He hoped no one else saw. The first sip tasted thin, sour with memory. He forced it down.
The door at the far end opened.
Ecclesias walked in with his usual unhurried stride. Conversations died mid‑word. Chairs scraped as men rose, then sank back when the king took his place. His presence changed the room the way a storm changes air.
He did not look around immediately. He settled his hands on the table, one knuckle brushing Soren's sleeve a small, grounding touch then lifted his gaze.
"The council will come to order," the steward announced, his voice a touch too high.
Ecclesias did not waste time.
"An attempt was made on the queen's life last night," he said.
The words struck like a thrown stone.
Gasps. A muffled curse. The crack of a quill snapping between someone's fingers. One minister half‑rose from his chair, then fell back into it as if his knees had failed him.
Soren's spine stayed straight. It felt like a wire had been hooked around his ribs and was being tightened notch by notch.
He watched their faces.
Some were pale with genuine horror. Some tightened with outrage that smelled more of insulted pride than concern. Others were already calculating, eyes going distant at the edges as they weighed what this meant for trade, for alliances, for their own chances.
Beneath their reactions, he felt a strangely cool space. The worst had already happened to him. The rest was just people finding words for it.
Ecclesias' voice did not change.
"The food on Her Majesty's tray was poisoned," he went on. "When the man set to taste it collapsed, the servant who carried that tray attempted to flee the palace. His name is Deren. He is in the lower rooms. He has admitted that he was told the poison would 'only weaken' the queen to prove that her blood is unfit for the crown."
The phrase sank under Soren's skin.
Unfit. Blood.
Sound swelled around the table.
"Insolence."
"Treason—"
"This is an attack on the—"
"Enough," Ecclesias said.
He did not raise his voice. The room quieted as if someone had yanked a thread.
"The trail does not stop at a servant," he went on. "Yesterday, Deren was seen in private conversation with a steward from House Vallens. That man left the meeting lighter in coin. Deren left it heavier. Purchases of certain rare herbs moved through Vallens' accounts this month. It was only after that meeting that Deren chose to take charge of the queen's tray."
Silence tightened like a noose.
Soren let his gaze travel along the table, slow and deliberate.
He saw genuine horror on some faces: eyes wide, mouths pinched, hands flattened on the wood as if steadying themselves against a blow. Others wore that thin film of calculation again, already counting costs and gains.
Then there were the ones trying not to react at all.
Lord Vallens' silver stag ring caught the light when he folded his hands. His expression was a study in wounded dignity. Only the smallest muscle at the corner of his jaw betrayed him, twitching once before he smoothed it away.
Soren saw it. The sight sent a thin, cold thrill through his chest, like the first crack in ice.
"Your Majesty," Vallens said, tone smooth as lacquer, "I must protest any implication that my house—"
"I have not accused you," Ecclesias said. "Not yet."
The two words dropped into the quiet, heavy as stones.
"An investigation is underway," the king went on. "Any house found to have taken part in this will answer directly to me. You may assure your own people of this much: there will be no mercy for those who attempt to murder their queen."
The word mercy sounded like an obscenity.
Soren's fingers dug into his own wrist under the table. Every time Ecclesias said queen, the word seemed to echo. Queen. Queen. He heard it as accusation and shield at once.
A minister cleared his throat, too loud in the stillness.
"This will cause panic in the provinces," he said. "If the news spreads that the queen was nearly—ah—harmed, trade could suffer. Confidence—"
Soren's headache flared sharp.
They're more afraid of lost coin than of my death.
He answered anyway, voice even.
"The provinces will hear what we decide," he said. "And they will see that I am here, alive, at the king's side. Panic grows where truth is hidden, not when it is held."
Some shoulders lowered at the sound of his voice. Soren watched it happen and felt the strain of each word as if he had lifted something heavy.
The session blurred at the edges from there, a wash of voices and questions and orders. Ecclesias divided assignments with crisp efficiency: guard rotations, kitchen audits, sealed letters to each regional governor with the version of events that would be allowed to spread.
Soren answered when spoken to. His replies were correct, measured, reassuring. Inside, every sentence felt like another step along a high, narrow path.
By the time Ecclesias rose, signaling the end, Soren's head throbbed. Light from the windows seemed too bright. The lines of the table swam when he looked at them too long.
"Her Majesty and I have other matters to attend," the king said. "You will each receive written orders regarding security before nightfall. Until then, this matter does not leave this room."
He did not wait for argument. He stepped away. Soren followed.
Standing made the floor buckle.
He locked his knees, forced his body to move. The distance from his chair to the door felt like a tightrope. The walls seemed both too far and too close. He fixed his eyes on Ecclesias' shoulder, on the steady swing of the cloak, using it as a point that did not move.
They walked through corridors where conversations died as they passed, where servants flattened themselves against the walls, eyes lowered. Whispers scurried into silence. The buzzing in Soren's ears made it hard to tell which words were real and which were just thoughts repeating.
Weak. Poison. Wrong blood.
His heart thudded high in his chest. Each breath scraped, thin and unsatisfying. The air felt thick, as if he were trying to pull it through cloth.
They turned into the private wing.
The guards at the corner straightened.
"Stay," Ecclesias said, not breaking stride.
Boots halted behind them. Out of the corner of his eye, Soren saw Kael's hand tighten on the hilt at his hip, then blur as the corridor seemed to stretch and tilt.
One more corridor.
The next lamp was too bright. Light smeared across the stone, turning it into streaks. Soren reached for the wall with his fingertips and found nothing but air. The small distance between his hand and the stone yawned wide and wrong, as if the palace itself had shifted away from him.
Heat rushed up his spine, colliding with a spike of cold that made his skin feel too tight.
His ears filled with a dull roar.
Not here. Not in front of him. Not after holding through all of that.
His lungs seized. He dragged a breath in anyway, the sound harsh and too loud in the quiet. It barely seemed to reach past his throat.
He turned his head, seeking without thinking.
"E… Ecclesias…"
The name scraped out of him, thin and shaking, stripped of titles. It sounded like something pried up from under his ribs.
He saw the king's head snap towards him.
The floor surged up.
His knees folded. The world tipped sideways, lamp‑light smearing into pale streaks. For a split second he saw his own hand, fingers splayed, reaching for nothing. Then the dark rushed in from the edges.
He did not hit the stone.
An arm slammed around his waist, hauling him in against sudden warmth. Another hand caught his shoulder, fingers biting through cloth as they dragged his weight back. The jolt jarred his bones but stole the impact from his skull.
Ecclesias twisted with him, taking the momentum, driving a knee into the floor to control their fall. His back hit the wall with a dull thud. He grunted once, barely, and then they were both down, Soren half‑seated between his legs, held upright by the arm locked across his chest.
"Soren," the king said, voice low and dangerous. "Soren.. SOREN... LOOK AT ME..."
The corridor blurred and narrowed to the space right in front of Soren's eyes: a slice of dark cloth, the edge of Ecclesias' jaw, a pulse jumping under skin. His head lolled against the firmness of the king's shoulder. His vision tunneled in and out. The roaring in his ears swallowed everything else.
He tried to obey. His eyes rolled, found the line of Ecclesias' throat, the set of his mouth. It felt like watching from the bottom of a well.
His body decided it was done.
His muscles went slack. Letting go would have been so easy.
"KAEL!" Ecclesias' voice snapped down the hallway, sharp enough to cut through the ringing. "Find the physician. Now."
"Yes, Majesty!" Kael's answer came back tight. His boots hammered the stone as he ran.
Inside the circle of the king's arms, the world shrank. Soren felt every rise and fall of Ecclesias' chest against his back, the hammering of the heart under his shoulder blade too fast for the man who always seemed carved out of control.
"Breathe with me," Ecclesias murmured near his ear, the words not quite steady. "In. Out. Do you hear? Do not stop."
He drew in a breath himself, slow and deliberate, ribs expanding under Soren's spine. He held it for a count, then let it out. His arm tightened across Soren's chest in time with it, trying to drag his lungs into the same rhythm.
Soren's body fought him for a few ragged cycles. His throat felt too narrow. Each inhale caught on a sharp edge of panic. Spots of light danced at the corners of his vision.
You're not dying. You're not.
He clung to the voice at his ear, to the steady, stubborn pressure of the arm that refused to let him fold in on himself. Slowly, grudgingly, his breath began to hitch less and fall more into the pattern Ecclesias set.
By the time bootsteps came thudding back, Soren was hanging more heavily in Ecclesias' hold but breathing more evenly.
Ecclesias lifted him from the floor with careful, practised strength one arm under his knees, the other braced along his back. For a heartbeat, as he gathered him up, his hands betrayed him: the fingers at Soren's shoulder trembled, just once, before he forced them steady.
Soren's head lolled against his chest. Ecclesias tightened his grip, as if any slackness might mean letting go.
The short distance into their rooms blurred past in a rush of stone and threshold. Kael held the door, jaw hard. Ecclesias did not slow until he reached the bed.
Inside, the room felt too still.
He laid Soren down with a care that belonged more to handling glass than flesh. His hand stayed cradling the back of Soren's neck a heartbeat longer than necessary, thumb brushing damp hair there in a small, unconscious stroke. His other hand rested light on Soren's chest, feeling the rapid rise and fall, counting each breath as if he could anchor them in place by sheer will.
Only when he had convinced himself that the rhythm held did he straighten a little. His arms felt oddly empty, so he kept one hand where it was, fingers spread over Soren's ribs.
A knock sounded at the door hurried, controlled.
"Enter," Ecclesias said.
The palace physician stepped in, bag in hand, breathing still a touch fast from the run. This was the first time Soren heard his name spoken aloud.
"Larem," Ecclesias said. The syllables were short, clipped by strain. "He collapsed."
Larem's gaze flicked to Soren on the bed, then to the king standing close enough that his cloak brushed the coverlet.
"What happened?" he asked.
"In the corridor...," Ecclesias said. "After council..."
Larem moved to the bedside, reaching for Soren's wrist. Ecclesias did not move away. The physician had to work around the line of his arm.
"Exhaustion," Larem said after a quick check, his professional tone snapping into place. "Strain, shock, too little sleep, not enough food. His heart is racing but sound. If you keep using him like a battering ram, Majesty, he will end up in a box instead of at your side."
The words were too sharp in the quiet.
Ecclesias turned his head slowly. For the first time since Soren fell, he looked away from him and fixed his gaze fully on the physician.
"Mind your tongue, Larem," he said, voice very soft. The use of the man's name was precise, almost intimate in its warning. "Do not forget who you are speaking of, even if I allow you to speak freely. You are talking about your queen."
Color drained from Larem's face.
He bowed his head at once, shoulders tightening.
"You are right, Majesty," he said quickly. "Forgive me. My concern outran my manners. I meant no disrespect to Her Majesty."
Ecclesias held his stare one heartbeat longer, then looked back down at Soren.
"He fainted because someone tried to poison him," he said, voice still edged. "Because his strength was thinned by others long before I asked him to stand beside me. Do not speak as if this is some indulgent weakness."
Larem swallowed.
"No," he said more carefully. "This is not weakness. It is damage. And damage can be repaired, if you let it. He needs rest. Food I have seen myself. No more skipped meals. No more standing in drafty halls at dawn after sleepless nights."
Ecclesias' jaw worked once.
"Then you will see to it," he said.
As Larem bent to adjust the pillows and check Soren's pupils, Ecclesias' hand slipped back to Soren's arm almost without thought. His thumb ran once along the inside of Soren's wrist, over the fluttering pulse there. The touch was light, almost reverent, but his fingers were not entirely steady.
Larem pretended not to notice, focusing on his work. But the understanding was there in the tightness around his eyes: fear, in a man who did not show it easily.
Soren's breathing eased by slow degrees. Ecclesias stayed where he was, close enough that his shadow fell over the bed, hand never quite leaving Soren's skin as if as long as he could feel that warmth, nothing and no one would take him.