It was late at night, and Lorian had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion of the whole day.
Suddenly, in his sleep, he felt a warm hand ruffling his hair very slowly, full of a compassionate warmth. He blinked his eyes open to find Queen Serana Stormhold was standing over him, her fingers gently caressing his head.
"Selena...?" Lorian muttered in voice thick with sleep. He immediately looked toward the closed door. "Is she...?"
Serana gently shook her head, there was a rare smile of peace on her tired face, "Just a moment ago... she woke, Lorian. She asked for you."
Lorian scrambled to rise as quietly as possible, trying not to disturb his resting companions. A few feet away, Jax and Zara's ears twitched; they had both woken the moment Serana entered the hall, but they kept their eyes closed, pretending to sleep so they wouldn't intrude on their master's private moment.
Serana leaned down, whispering softly into Lorian's ear, "Go to her. I am going to the prayer hall to thank Sol for returning my child to me. And..." she paused, and her composure slipped for a fraction of a second as she suddenly pulled Lorian into an affectionate embrace, "...Thank you, my boy. Thank you for saving my daughter. This mother owes her entire world to you. Whatever you ever need from me, name it, and it is yours. No questions. You have returned my life to me, so my life belongs to you. Now go, please. I know Selena is waiting."
Overwhelmed by the raw weight of the Queen's gratitude, Lorian could only manage a silent nod. He turned and walked with hurried, quiet steps toward the private sanctuary.
When he slipped through the heavy wooden door, the room was dimly lit. Selena was lying on a soft mattress resting atop a raised stone slab. Her eyes were shut, her breathing was shallow. Believing she had already drifted back to sleep, Lorian hesitated, and then prepared to turn back and leave her to rest.
But a familiar, fragile voice suddenly beckoned from the shadows, "Lorian..."
The sound of her voice hit him like a physical blow. Just hours ago, he had been preparing himself to lose her forever. He rushed to the side of the slab, dropping heavily to his knees to bring himself down to her level, and instantly gathered her pale hand in both of his, "Selena... you're awake. You're really..."
"Alive, I think," she whispered, her lips curving into a weak, teasing smile, "Safe and sound. All because of my prince."
Lorian pressed his forehead against her knuckles, his voice trembling between anger and tears, "Shut up, you absolute fool. Don't mock me. I never imagined you would do something so reckless, so stupid..."
Selena tried to lift her free hand to ruffle his hair, but the muscles in her shoulder failed her, lacking the strength to lift against the weight of her exhaustion. Her hand fell back to the mattress with a soft sigh, "Look who is talking... The foolish boy who stormed a hostile city plaza, taking such a terrible risk... for a girl he used to hate so much."
"First of all, hate is a very strong word," Lorian mumbled, frowning slightly as he looked up at her, "My parents kept so many secrets regarding you, keeping me completely out of the loop. I was annoyed, that's all. And clearly, you were worth the trouble. Tell me the truth... wouldn't you have done the exact same thing if I were the one in your place?"
Selena's eyes softened, staring at the ceiling as she considered it, "Perhaps... and perhaps not. It is a bit complicated, Lorian."
Lorian blinked, caught off guard, "What do you mean by that?"
"If I were in your place, and I were the Princess of Valoria with an army at my back... yes, I think I would have burned Veridia to the ground to drag you out," Selena replied, her voice dropping into a quiet, analytical tone, "But if I were a guest in a foreign land, holding only a handful of delegates, like you were... I do not think I would have taken that gamble. It was an terrifyingly high risk."
Lorian's chest tightened slightly, a faint shadow of hurt crossing his features, "Really? You would have just left me?"
"Yes," Selena whispered, the warmth fading from her eyes as her strategic mind took over, "The play you made today had a ninety percent chance of absolute failure. I do not possess your strange charisma, Lorian. I cannot turn a city's own standing army against its rulers with nothing but a speech. If I had tried to mimic you, I would have failed to save you, and I would have only thrown away my life and the lives of my people. I think... I think I would have chosen to live. To bide my time, to build power, and to make your executioners pay a thousand times over in blood."
Lorian was quietly struck by her brutal honesty, yet the cold logic of her words still stung his pride. He looked away, clearing his throat, "Right. Well... standard tactical reasoning. I get it."
Realizing from his tone that her honesty had wounded him, Selena forced her aching body to move. She slowly dragged her hand up, suppressing a sharp stab of pain in her stitched abdomen. She hid her pain becoming visible on her face through sheer willpower as she reached out and gently cradled his cheek with her fingertips.
"Forgive me," she murmured, her thumb brushing his skin, "But you deserve nothing less than my complete honesty. I will never lie to you, Lorian. Even if the truth costs me everything, even if it makes you turn away from me... I will never hide what is in my mind. You are worth too much for cheap, comforting lies."
The irritation melted out of Lorian's chest. He offered a small, weary smile, leaning into her palm before catching her hand and pressing a soft kiss to her palm, "You are a difficult, stubborn fool."
"But I am your fool," she whispered back.
"And I am going to make sure every single scoundrel who laid a hand on my fool begs for the mercy of a quick death," Lorian muttered, as his eyes darkened with a sudden, dangerous intensity.
"No... please, you must not do that," Selena said quickly, her fingers tightening against his hand in genuine concern, "I beg of you."
Lorian sighed, a touch of frustration returning, "Please don't tell me you are going to preach to me about the virtues of mercy, Selena. Not after what they did to you."
Selena let out a weak, breathy giggle that made her wince slightly, "Are you forgetting what the Council called me, Lorian? A witch tainted by a demon's blood. Do you truly think witches forgive?"
"Then what is it?" Lorian asked, thoroughly intrigued.
"Suspicion is like a rot in the soil," Selena explained slowly, her voice growing slightly raspy as fatigue began to weigh her down, "Once a bad seed is planted in the minds of the common people, it stays there. If we arrest those traitors and torture them, the public will eventually forget their crimes and only see their torment. They will begin to pity the Paladins, and then... they will believe the Council was right about me. They will think I am the evil one."
"So we give them a grand, public trial instead?"
"No, a trial is just a stage for them to scream their accusations again," Selena murmured, shaking her head, "If even a single citizen walks away believing their lies, it is a failure. I think... the better path is a full royal pardon."
Lorian stared at her as if she had lost her mind, "A pardon? You would let them walk away after this?"
A cold, sharp smirk touched Selena's lips, "They will be neither chained nor executed. The realm will see me as a ruler with a heart too vast for vengeance, completely shattering the myth of the cruel witch. But the pardon will have a price. We will strip them of every title, every rank, and every scrap of authority- a punishment the mass will view as remarkably lenient. Then, we seize their entire estates, every coin and acre, and distribute it directly to the families of the people who died defending us. We buy the absolute loyalty of the common folk while leaving our enemies entirely penniless and powerless to strike back."
Lorian stared at her for a long moment, deeply impressed, "Viciously practical. But... it does not put out the fire in my chest, Selena. I wanted to hear them scream. I wanted to see them beg for mercy, or quick death. I wanted them to pay for what they put you through out there."
"And they call me the monster," Selena chuckled softly, her eyelids growing heavy, "Trust me, Lorian... revenge is a dish best served when it has turned entirely cold. I will give you your satisfaction, I promise."
"And I promise I will never let anyone hurt you again. Every drop of your tear will be balanced with hundred drops of blood who made you cry!" Lorian said softly, leaning over to stroke her hair, "But there is still one thing I cannot comprehend."
"What is that?"
"You have the mind of a master strategist. How did you let yourself walk directly into this trap to begin with?"
Selena let out a long, tired sigh, the sharpness in her demeanor fading into profound exhaustion, "It was the last time I will ever rely on the judgment of an idealist. My mother truly believed that the moment our feet touched Valorian soil, the houses and the populace would rise up in joy and purge the council for us. The Justicar who escorted us from the border assured us the city was ready. We believed him. We didn't know that the moment Commander Sihar left for the delegation, the Council began a silent, brutal purge of every loyalist we had left in the capital. They had lists, Lorian. It was perfectly executed."
"Then it was the Paladins' efficiency at fault," Lorian countered gently, "You cannot blame your mother for a betrayal like that."
"I blame her for not understanding the masses," Selena whispered, her eyes drifting shut, "The common people do not risk their necks for a crown or a flag unless their daily survival is threatened. A cobbler or a baker cares very little about who sits on the throne, so long as his shop stays open and his children are fed. Survival is always more important than loyalty. And anyway, the Council is Valorian; it wasn't a foreign occupation, so the people had no incentive to bleed for us. I knew that... I felt it in my gut. But I let my mother's hope blind me."
With a sudden, frail surge of energy, Selena gripped his hand tightly, and her eyes opened to look straight into his, "Please forgive me... My calculations were arrogant, and because of my idiocy, you had to risk everything. Your own life, the lives of your retainers... I know how much they mean to you, and I….."
Lorian gently placed his hand over her lips, pressing her softly back into the mattress, "Hush. If anything had happened to you, I would have never forgiven myself."
He leaned down, planting a long, tender kiss upon her forehead.
"Remember this, Selena- we are on this path together now. If the world calls you a witch, then I will gladly be the devil himself to tear down heaven and hell for you. But right now, your only fight is to heal. Close your eyes, my stubborn fool. I'll be right here, by your side, when the morning finds you."
He kissed the back of her hand one last time and quietly slipped out of the room.
The moment the heavy door clicked shut behind him, the softness vanished from Lorian's face. Waiting for him in the shadow of the corridor were Kaelen, Jax, and Zara- and standing beside them was a completely unidentifiable man dressed in nondescript clothes.
The atmosphere in the hall was suffocatingly tense. The stranger did not utter a single word. He simply stepped forward, bowed low, and slipped a tiny, tightly rolled parchment into Lorian's palm.
Lorian unrolled the paper, his eyes scanning the brief text. As he read, his face hardened, turning as cold and grim as black obsidian. Without a word, he handed the slip back to the messenger.
The unknown man took the parchment, popped it directly into his mouth, chewed thoroughly, and swallowed it whole.