The cake arrived like a tactical distraction.
A palace servant slipped into the solar with the kind of smooth, practiced grace that said I have delivered pastries through assassination attempts before. A tray followed—fluffy sponge layered with cream, dusted in powdered sugar, berries arranged like jewels along the edge.
Lucien's face lit up with such genuine relief that Fia almost didn't know what to do with it.
Almost.
Seraphine didn't sit. She remained by the window, arms folded, posture the human shape of this conversation is still under arrest.
Mira poured tea with clinical precision, like she might be able to measure sincerity by liquid level.
Elira watched Lucien the way she watched a training dummy before she decided where to strike.
Lyriel didn't move at all, except to angle her notebook slightly so it could catch light without reflecting into anyone's eyes—subtle, but the sort of subtle that meant she was very much ready to throw a spell if needed.
Fia took a small bite of her own slice to prove to herself she was still in control of her body.
It tasted like vanilla and stolen peace.
Lucien took one bite of his and made a sound that would have been indecent if the context wasn't dessert.
"Oh," he said reverently. "Yeah. This was worth trespassing for."
Elira's brow twitched.
"You did not trespass," she said flatly. "You illegally crossed an enemy border during wartime."
Lucien swallowed, considering.
"Fine," he conceded. "Worth illegally crossing an enemy border during wartime for."
Seraphine's eyes narrowed.
"Stop trying to charm your way into being harmless," she said.
Lucien lifted both hands, fork held delicately.
"I'm not trying," he said. "This is my natural state when fed."
Fia's mouth threatened to curve despite herself.
She looked down at her tea to hide it.
Lucien noticed anyway.
He smiled like he'd scored a tiny victory.
Mira made a noise in her throat that suggested she'd file that smile under suspiciously effective weapon.
It was Lyriel, not Seraphine, who finally pulled the conversation back onto the blade.
"You said," Lyriel began, voice even, "that you are favored by the weave."
Lucien paused mid-bite.
"…Did I?" he asked.
"You didn't say the words," Lyriel corrected, tapping her notebook once. "But the room did. You bend probability. Small, nearly invisible shifts. It's the same kind of blessing most 'hero' archetypes carry."
Lucien's expression shifted.
Less tourist.
More prince.
He set his fork down and leaned back, exhaling through his nose.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "That."
Seraphine's voice was low.
"Explain."
Lucien nodded once, accepting the demand.
"My father has three sons," he said. "Four, if you count the one he keeps pretending doesn't exist because she refused to be his pawn." His eyes flicked to Seraphine briefly, like he expected her to understand the type of man his father was. "I'm the middle disappointment."
Elira snorted.
"You don't look disappointing," she said.
Lucien's mouth twitched.
"That's the curse," he said. "On paper, I'm perfect. Blessed. Trained. 'Sainted Hero.' But compared to my brothers? I'm…soft."
Lyriel's eyes sharpened.
"Soft," she repeated, as if tasting the lie.
Lucien shrugged.
"Soft as in: I'm not the one who can cleave a horse in half with a single swing," he clarified. "Soft as in: I'm not the one who can stand in the center of a ward collapse and still laugh. Soft as in: I'm not the one the priests call the real weapon."
Mira's fingers tightened around her teacup.
Seraphine's gaze went colder.
"And you are?" she asked.
Lucien spread his hands.
"A berserker," he said simply.
That word landed differently than prince.
It wasn't a title.
It was a type.
Fia felt her dragon lift its head under her ribs, heat gathering at the base of her throat like an instinctual warning.
Berserkers weren't refined.
They weren't spell-casters.
They were the kind of fighters whose magic lived in the body—blood, muscle, momentum—turning pain into fuel and fear into speed.
Up close, they were a problem.
Especially for mages.
Lucien must have seen something shift in her, because he leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, tone still calm.
"I watched your battles," he said to Fia. "From the ridge line, before the cultists started trying to shoot me with their own wards for asking questions. Your firepower is…absurd."
Elira made a pleased noise.
Lyriel's pen scratched once in reflex, as if she could not help recording the word absurd.
Fia kept her face neutral.
"You watched," she echoed.
Lucien nodded.
"Twice," he said. "Once near Vyrn, once at the border fortress where you turned a siege tower into ash like it had personally offended you."
"That tower did offend me," Fia muttered.
Lucien's grin flickered, then faded.
"Here's the thing," he said, voice turning more analytical. "You're devastating at range. Area denial. Rapid incineration. You make armies behave like frightened animals. But you still fight like a mage."
Fia's jaw tightened.
"And that's a problem," Mira said, not asking.
Lucien glanced at her.
"It's not an insult," he said. "It's just…categories exist for a reason. If you and I fought fairly—no altars, no ambushes, no politics—just a clean field and rules?"
Seraphine's hand shifted subtly toward the dagger at her belt.
Elira's weight rolled forward onto the balls of her feet.
Mira's eyes went flat and surgical.
Lyriel didn't move at all, which was somehow worse.
Lucien lifted a hand quickly.
"Hypothetically," he added, as if that would keep him from being stabbed.
Fia's voice came out very even.
"Go on."
Lucien exhaled.
"I could probably take you," he said.
The air in the room tightened like a drawn bow.
Fia didn't blink.
"Easily?" she asked, because she was apparently committed to self-inflicted irritation today.
Lucien hesitated.
Then he nodded, bluntly honest.
"In a fair fight where you don't start three miles away and drop a sun on my head?" he said. "Yeah. Probably."
Elira made a sound that was half laugh, half threat.
Mira's teacup clinked sharply as she set it down with too much force.
Seraphine's voice was silk over steel.
"Explain," the queen said. "In detail. Carefully."
Lucien's mouth twitched.
"Right," he said. "Okay. So. Berserkers are built to cross distance. Fast. Brutal. The moment I'm inside your casting rhythm, your spells don't matter unless they're instant."
Lyriel lifted her pen.
"Casting rhythm," she repeated, quietly pleased by the technical term.
Lucien nodded toward her like she was the only one in the room who wasn't about to murder him.
"Most mages telegraph," he continued, looking back at Fia. "You don't in the obvious ways, which is why you're terrifying. But your body still does it. Your shoulders tighten before a major release. Your left hand flexes twice when you pull heat from your core. And when you're sick—"
Mira's stare sharpened dangerously.
Lucien held up his hands.
"Not mocking," he said quickly. "Observing. When your illness flares, your breath gets shallow. You compensate by overcasting with larger blasts instead of precise ones. That creates windows."
Fia's throat felt tight.
It wasn't shame.
It was the cold, unpleasant realization that someone had been watching her the way Lyriel watched ward lines.
Like a system.
Like a pattern.
"And you think," Fia said slowly, "you could close the distance before I turn you into smoke."
Lucien nodded once.
"If you're fighting on instinct and not on strategy," he said. "Your instinct is to burn the field. Mine is to become the thing that lives through the burn long enough to put a blade where it matters."
Elira's eyes were bright.
"That's…actually kind of hot," she murmured.
Mira kicked her shin without looking.
Elira hissed.
"Stop," Mira said through her teeth.
Seraphine didn't take her gaze off Lucien.
"And yet," Seraphine said, "you are standing here alive, in my solar, after saying you could defeat my Calamity."
Lucien shrugged.
"It's not a threat," he said. "It's…context. And honestly? It's part of why I'm the 'weakest.'"
Lyriel's brow furrowed.
"That doesn't follow," she said. "If you can defeat her in close combat, you are not weak."
Lucien smiled faintly, but it was tired.
"Weakest doesn't mean least capable," he said. "It means I'm not the one my father can point at and say 'this is the future of Valgard.' My older brother is a monster in armor—stronger, faster, almost impossible to kill. My younger brother is a mage-killer, trained from childhood to dismantle spellwork like it's thread."
He tapped his own chest with two fingers.
"I'm…just a berserker with a blessing that keeps me alive," he said. "And I'm the one who asks annoying questions like 'why are we feeding people to altars' and 'why does everyone keep talking about forcing a woman to marry a man she doesn't want.'"
Seraphine's mouth tightened.
"That does sound inconvenient to tyrants," she said.
Lucien's smile sharpened briefly.
"Exactly," he said. "So I'm the weakest. Because I'm not useful in the right way."
Fia's dragon growled low in the back of her mind.
It wasn't friendly.
But it wasn't pure hostility either.
More like…recognition.
Fia kept her face still.
"Then why say it?" she asked, voice quiet. "Why come here and tell me you could beat me?"
Lucien's gaze held hers.
"Because fear thrives in imagination," he said. "If you're going to be afraid of me, be afraid of something real. Not a story. Not a route. Not a prince who walks into a room and smiles and suddenly you're trapped by script."
Fia's breath caught.
That…was too close to the truth.
Mira's hand slid onto Fia's forearm, gentle but anchoring.
Lucien's tone softened.
"I'm not going to do anything," he said. "Not today. Not on vacation. I came to see the person everyone keeps trying to turn into a symbol. I wanted you to know where the danger actually is."
He leaned back and sighed.
"And the danger," he added dryly, "is not me trying to 'take you' in a fair fight. The danger is my father trying to take you in an unfair one."
Lyriel's pen stilled.
Elira's grin vanished.
Seraphine's eyes went very dark.
Mira's jaw tightened like she was biting down on something sharp.
Fia stared at Lucien.
"Vacation," she said flatly. "You keep saying that."
Lucien nodded, almost gratefully.
"Yes," he said. "Vacation. I'm going to eat cake, walk through your parks, maybe buy something stupid from your market that my advisers would call 'peasant trinkets.' I will not recruit. I will not threaten. I will not duel. I will not flirt with your Calamity."
Elira coughed.
"Liar," she muttered.
Lucien blinked at her.
"I'm not flirting," he protested.
Elira lifted her brows.
"You're breathing in her direction and using that 'tired hero sincerity' voice," she said. "That's flirting to half the continent."
Lucien looked genuinely pained.
"That's not my fault," he said. "This is just how my face is built."
Mira made a small, involuntary sound that might have been laughter.
She caught herself immediately and went back to looking murderous.
Fia exhaled slowly.
"Fine," she said. "You're on vacation. You want us to relax."
Lucien nodded eagerly.
"Yes," he said. "Relax. Please. If you stab me, my father will notice I'm gone faster and then I'll have to go back to being the responsible son again. Don't do that to me."
Seraphine's mouth twitched.
"That may be the first argument you've made today that benefits you," she said.
Lucien beamed.
"See?" he said. "Diplomacy. I'm learning."
Lyriel tilted her head.
"If you truly intend to behave," she said, "then you will accept some limitations."
Lucien nodded immediately.
"Absolutely," he said. "Name them. Curfew? Ward collar? Chaperone? I'll wear a little bell if it makes you feel better."
Elira's eyes lit up with wicked delight.
"A bell," she repeated.
"No," Mira said instantly.
"Yes," Elira said at the same time.
Seraphine pinched the bridge of her nose.
"We are not putting a bell on a foreign crown prince," she said.
Lucien looked almost disappointed.
"I would've committed," he said. "I could've made it a fashion statement."
Fia rubbed her forehead, half horrified, half…strangely less tense.
"Here are your rules," she said. "You are escorted everywhere. No wandering. No private conversations with anyone outside this room without one of us present. You do not step within ten feet of any military installation. You do not speak to my family. And you do not—" she paused, then decided to be very clear "—attempt to test your 'fair fight' theory."
Lucien held up two fingers like he was swearing an oath.
"On my honor," he said. "No testing. No duels. No berserker surprises. I'm going to relax so hard I become a piece of furniture."
Elira snorted.
"If you try to relax that hard, your hero blessing will probably accidentally start a war," she said.
Lucien sighed.
"That's the problem with being favored," he admitted. "The universe keeps trying to give you plot."
Fia's chest tightened again, sharp and strange.
Because he'd said the word.
Plot.
Not prophecy.
Not destiny.
Plot.
Like he knew exactly what kind of prison stories could become.
Mira's thumb rubbed a slow circle into Fia's sleeve.
Seraphine's hand hovered near Fia's shoulder, not touching, but there.
Lyriel's eyes remained narrowed, but her tapping had stopped.
Elira, still irreverent, looked just slightly less ready to throw Lucien out a window.
Lucien picked up his fork again.
"Anyway," he said, tone brightening deliberately, "if I'm forbidden from flirting and fighting, I'll need a new hobby. Suggestions?"
Fia stared at him for a long moment.
Then, despite everything, she heard herself say:
"Try being quiet for five minutes."
Lucien's eyes widened in horror.
"Villainess," he whispered. "That's cruel."
Elira burst out laughing.
Mira covered her mouth with her hand, shoulders shaking once.
Lyriel exhaled sharply, almost a laugh.
Seraphine's lips curved—just barely.
Fia felt her own mouth twitch.
Not trust.
Not forgiveness.
But something like…space.
A sliver of it.
"Vacation," Lucien repeated, softer now, like he was reminding himself too. "I'm just going to relax."
Fia watched him chew cake like a man trying to pretend the world wasn't on fire.
Then she looked at her four women—queen, healer, captain, mage—and felt their collective presence lock around her like armor.
"Fine," she said at last. "Relax."
Her voice turned colder again.
"But understand this, Lucien of Valgard: if your father tries to write my life for me, I will burn the page."
Lucien's smile faded.
For the first time since he'd walked in, he looked like a prince who understood exactly what a threat like that meant.
He nodded once.
"Good," he said quietly. "That's…exactly what I came to confirm."
And then, as if unwilling to let the mood become too heavy, he lifted his teacup.
"To vacations," he said solemnly. "May they last longer than anyone expects."
Elira lifted her cup in mocking salute.
"To vacations," she echoed. "And to not stabbing you…today."
Mira's eyes narrowed.
"Don't make me regret it," she warned Lucien.
Lyriel scribbled one line in her notebook and snapped it shut.
Seraphine finally, reluctantly, sat—just on the edge of the sofa, still ready to stand at a moment's notice.
Fia took a breath.
The room stayed intact.
No system pop-up.
No sudden route lock.
Just five women and one inconvenient hero eating cake in an enemy palace, while far away an altar king planned his next move.
It wasn't safe.
But it was theirs.