The Crown of Aethelgard was not designed for a human head. It was a cold, heavy circlet of Void-Iron and Sun-Gold, forged to conduct magic, not to provide comfort.
Elian sat on the throne, fighting the urge to rip the thing off and throw it through the nearest window.
It had been four weeks since the Eclipse. Four weeks since he had turned the Queen into a glass statue that still stood, silent and screaming, in the center of the Throne Room. The court had simply arranged the seating around her, as if she were an avant-garde centerpiece rather than a monument to tyranny.
"My King," Lord Valerius droned, his voice nasal and irritating. "The grain shipments from the Southern Terraces are delayed. The merchant guild is demanding a tax exemption for the... unfortunate disruption caused by your new policies."
Elian rubbed his temples, feeling a headache building behind his eyes. His violet eyes, once hidden beneath a hood, were now on display for the entire council to scrutinize.
"By 'new policies,'" Elian said, his voice low but cutting through the chamber, "you mean my decree to stop dumping magical slag onto the people living below us?"
"Precisely," Valerius sniffed, adjusting his silk robes. "Without the waste chutes, the alchemical labs are backed up. Production has slowed. The merchants are losing profit."
"Let them lose profit," Elian snapped. He leaned forward, the gold of the throne warming beneath his palms. "For twenty years, the Wards choked on your profit. If the merchants are unhappy, tell them they can take their complaints to the High Commander. I believe he is looking for volunteers to clean the lower ventilation shafts."
Valerius paled. He glanced to the right of the throne.
Vane stood there. He was no longer wearing the battered armor from the battle. He was dressed in the impeccable black and silver uniform of the King's Hand, the Wolf crest gleaming on his shoulder. He didn't have a sword—his Void-Steel blade had been shattered by the Queen—but the way he rested his hand on a simple obsidian dagger at his belt was threat enough.
Vane offered the Duke a smile that was all teeth. "I have a mop with your name on it, my Lord."
Valerius cleared his throat nervously. "I... I will inform the guild."
"Next item," Elian sighed.
The doors to the council chamber opened. A young man walked in, carrying a stack of ledgers that reached his chin. He walked with a slight limp, favoring his left leg, and his left arm was still wrapped in compression bandages.
Lysander.
The council fell silent. It was still strange for them to see the former Prince—the boy they had thought was a god—acting as a glorified secretary.
Lysander ignored their stares. He walked up to the dais and placed the stack of papers on a small table beside Elian.
"The audit of the Royal Treasury, Your Majesty," Lysander said, his voice quiet but steady. "And the reconstruction estimates for the Nightshade."
Elian looked at the former Prince. There was no malice in Lysander's pale blue eyes anymore. Just a hollow, exhausted sort of peace. He had found his place in the shadow of the throne, organizing the chaos his mother had left behind.
"Thank you, Lysander," Elian said softly. "Go rest. You look like death."
"I sleep when the work is done," Lysander replied automatically, a habit drilled into him by the Queen. He bowed and retreated to the shadows.
Elian stood up. "The council is dismissed. I need air."
"But Your Majesty," Valerius protested. "We haven't discussed the Naval blockade! The fleet is still restless!"
"Dismissed," Elian repeated, his voice dropping an octave. The air in the room grew suddenly hot. The candles in the sconces flared, turning from yellow to blinding white.
The message was clear: Leave, or I will burn you.
The councilors scrambled for the doors, bowing hastily as they fled the heat of the Sun King.
When the heavy doors boomed shut, leaving them alone with the silent glass statue of the Queen, Elian slumped back onto the throne, letting his head fall back.
"I hate them," Elian groaned to the ceiling. "I hate them all. I should have stayed in the Wards. At least there, if someone wants to stab you, they have the decency to look you in the eye."
"They are politicians, Elian," Vane said, walking up the steps of the dais. "Stabbing you in the back is their form of a handshake."
Vane stopped beside the throne. He reached out and gently lifted the heavy crown from Elian's head.
Elian sighed as the weight vanished. He looked up at Vane. The High Commander looked tired, too. There were dark circles under his grey eyes, and he held his shoulder stiffly—the ghost of the wound Elian had healed weeks ago.
"You need a drink," Vane decided. "And you need to get out of this room. She's watching."
Vane glanced at the frozen Queen. Even in death, Valeriana's presence was suffocating.
"To your study?" Elian asked, standing up and stretching his stiff limbs.
"To our study," Vane corrected.
They left the Throne Room, walking through the gilded corridors of the Palace. The servants bowed low as they passed. Elian hated that, too. He wanted to tell them to stand up, to look him in the eye, but Vane had warned him that disrupting the hierarchy too fast would cause panic.
They entered the High Commander's quarters—now the King's private retreat. The moment the door locked, the mask dropped.
Elian didn't go for the wine. He went for Vane.
He crossed the room and wrapped his arms around Vane's waist, burying his face in the crook of Vane's neck. He inhaled the scent of sandalwood and iron, the only grounding thing in this floating castle of lies.
"Tell me we can leave," Elian mumbled against Vane's collar. "Tell me we can take a ship and go back to the Isles."
Vane's arms came around him, holding him tight. One hand tangled in Elian's hair, massaging the tension from his scalp.
"We can't," Vane murmured. "You broke the sky, Elian. You have to fix it."
Elian pulled back slightly, looking up at Vane. "I didn't break it. I saved it."
"You shattered the Grand Prism," Vane reminded him gently. "The focus lens is gone. The raw magic of the sun is pouring into the realm unfiltered. That's why the weather is erratic. That's why the crops are growing too fast in the south and burning in the west."
"I can control it," Elian insisted, though a flicker of doubt gnawed at him. Since the Supernova, his magic had been... twitchy. Harder to bottle.
"I know you can," Vane said. He leaned down, brushing his lips against Elian's. "But right now, I don't want to talk about the weather."
Vane kissed him. It started slow, a comfort, but Elian was starving for something real. He deepened the kiss, his hands gripping the lapels of Vane's uniform. He pushed Vane backward until his legs hit the edge of the heavy ironwood desk.
Vane groaned low in his throat, lifting Elian effortlessly and setting him on the desk, scattering a stack of naval reports.
"Your Majesty," Vane whispered, his voice rough, "you are wrinkling the treaties."
"Burn the treaties," Elian breathed, wrapping his legs around Vane's waist.
The heat in the room spiked. Not the angry heat of the council chamber, but a sultry, heavy warmth that smelled of summer storms. Elian's magic reacted to his desire, causing the gold embroidery on Vane's tunic to glow faintly.
Vane's hands were everywhere—on Elian's waist, his thigh, his chest. He treated Elian like he was something precious and breakable, despite knowing exactly how much power lay beneath the skin.
"Vane," Elian gasped as Vane's lips trailed down his jaw to the sensitive spot on his neck where the collar used to sit. "The door..."
"Locked," Vane promised against his skin. "Warded. Soundproofed."
For an hour, Elian wasn't the King. He wasn't the savior or the street rat. He was just a man, lost in the friction of skin and the overwhelming, consuming presence of the Wolf.
Later, as the sun began to set, painting the room in shades of bruised orange, they lay tangled together on the oversized rug before the fire.
Elian traced the scars on Vane's chest. There were so many. A map of violence.
"You need a sword," Elian said softly.
Vane stiffened slightly. "I have a dagger."
"You're the King's Hand. You can't fight Inquisitors with a dagger. The Void-Steel shattered."
"Void-Steel is rare, Elian," Vane said, staring into the fire. "It can only be forged in the Obsidian Isles, in the fires of the Silent Spire. And since we blew up the blockade to get here... I doubt the Isles are sending care packages."
"Then we make a new one," Elian said. "We have the Royal Forge. We have the best smiths."
"They don't know how to work Void-metal," Vane dismissed. "It requires cold forging. Shadow magic."
"You have shadow magic," Elian pointed out. "And I have solar fire. Maybe... maybe we don't need a Void-Steel sword."
Vane turned to look at him, intrigued. "What are you proposing?"
"Balance," Elian quoted Vane's own words back to him. "A blade forged of both. Shadow to cut the spirit, Light to burn the body. An Eclipse Blade."
Vane was silent for a moment. He looked at his empty hand, opening and closing his fingers.
"It's theoretically possible," Vane admitted. "But the materials..."
A sharp knocking on the door interrupted them. It wasn't the polite knock of a servant. It was the frantic, heavy pounding of a guard.
"Your Majesty! Commander!"
Vane was on his feet in a second, pulling his trousers on. Elian scrambled into his tunic, the languid peace of the afternoon shattering instantly.
Vane opened the door.
A captain of the Gate Guard stood there, pale and sweating.
"Report," Vane barked, buckling his belt.
"Sir," the Captain gasped. "It's the Lower City. The Wards."
Elian pushed past Vane. "What about them? Is it the food shipments?"
"No, Majesty," the Captain said, looking terrified. "The ground opened up. A sinkhole. Right in the middle of the Drop Zone."
"A structural collapse?" Elian asked.
"No, sir." The Captain swallowed hard. "Something came out of it."
Elian felt a cold dread settle in his stomach. The Queen had tried to invert the Eclipse. She had cracked the seal between the worlds.
"What came out?" Vane asked, his voice deadly quiet.
"Shadows," the Captain whispered. "Not like yours, Commander. These ones... they have teeth. And they're eating people."
Elian looked at Vane.
The peace was over. The war wasn't finished; it had just changed battlefields.
"Get my horse," Elian ordered, striding toward the door, his eyes burning with violet fire. "And get the Physicians."
"Elian," Vane warned, grabbing his arm. "You can't go down there. It's too dangerous. If the Void is leaking..."
"That is my home, Vane," Elian snarled, pulling away. "Those are my people. I'm not sending an army to do a King's job."
He turned and ran for the corridor.
Vane watched him go, then turned back to grab his dagger. He looked at his empty hip where his sword should have been.
"An Eclipse Blade," Vane muttered to himself. "I hope you're right, little spark. Because I think we're going to need it."