The exhibit room had not been dusted in weeks.
It sat at the estate's edge, past the conservatory and through a low archway hung with a sun-faded tapestry depicting the Worthing crest. Once used for council receptions, it now held oddments: gift relics, ceremonial awards, and ill-fitting tributes from minor houses desperate for remembrance.
Thalric had never stepped foot inside until the notice came.
The steward delivered it at dusk: an auction announcement from the Historical Committee of Court Preservations. Several items deemed politically "low-value" were to be sold or reassigned, including one from Worthing House's own private vaults.
"Ceramic vessel, Worthing registry 37-b," it read.
"Awarded to Prince Percival at the 86th Annual Royal Youth Symposium for... 'Courageous Participation in Theoretical Agility Trials.'"
He read the line twice.
Then once more.
Courageous participation. Not achievement. Not skill. Just survival with effort.
He remembered none of it. But Percival did. Enough to have hidden the vase behind a cabinet for a decade.
Thalric found it easily that evening. The Blue-Ribbon Vase.
It was tall. Obnoxiously so. Speckled gold at the rim, flaring into a bulbous body painted with leaping stags and… oddly proportioned doves. A small plaque at the base read: In admiration of your spirit, if not your form.
He picked it up.
Light. Unglazed beneath.
At some point, someone had scratched the word "TRY" into its base. Not "triumph." Just—try.
He brought it to the sitting room. Not to admire. Just to think.
And that's where Solen found him the next morning.
"You kept it," she said, setting down a stack of estate correspondence without invitation.
"I'm not sentimental," he replied.
"No," she said. "But symbols matter. Even ugly ones."
He turned the vase in his hand. "They gave this to mock him."
"They gave it," she corrected, "because they thought it would silence the embarrassment of his presence. A ribbon to tie around pity."
"He didn't even break it."
"That was his mistake," she said softly.
They stood in silence for a moment. The rain outside had begun again, soft and steady.
"Why is it being auctioned?" he asked.
"Officially? To 'curate space.' Unofficially? Because someone in Court wants to remind the nobility that your relevance is still up for vote. This is a warning. A staged erasure."
"I should've let them sell it," he said.
Solen shook her head. "No. You should've bought it back. In public."
He tilted his head. "Display my failure?"
She smiled faintly. "Reclaim it. Then break it. On your own terms."
Thalric held the vase for another long moment. Then stood.
"I'll take it to the Queen."
Solen blinked. "Why?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he walked toward the doors, the vase cradled casually in one hand, like a scroll or a torch.
"I want her to remember," he said. "What they thought I was. What they think I am. And what I'm going to prove they overlooked."
He didn't look back.
Didn't need to.
The vase glinted dully in the gray light.
Not beautiful.
Not powerful.
But chosen.