The last toll of the mourning bell still trembled in the air when Hiral stepped away from the hall. The crowd shifted and swallowed him, dark hoods and bowed heads blurring together as if the city itself wished to hide him.
He did not hurry. Composure was its own armor, and he wore it like steel. Step after steady step carried him deeper into the winding streets until the castle's shadow faded behind him.
Then, in a narrow, unlit alley across from where Alexis had stood, his stride faltered. The walls pressed close, the snow here only a thin dusting.
He stopped, leaning back into the damp stone. His hand went to his hood, pulling it lower, though no one was there to see his face.
The cold seeped through his cloak, but it was not what made him tremble.
The king's last breath.
The prince's lifeless gaze.
The assassin's voice—a rasp threaded with cruel satisfaction—Your own court sent me.
Hiral's jaw tightened.
His hand rose to his arm, fingers digging into the flesh until it hurt. The pain was a tether, keeping him from sinking into the weight pressing down on him.
He could not afford to let the image of Alexis's eyes in the hall linger—not now, not with everything poised to break.
He drew in a slow breath, letting it frost the air before him, willing his heart to still.
There were too many things yet to be done. War had to be prepared for. The court's vipers would have to be faced and outplayed.
He would have to stand as the loyal general before the Empress, as the unshakable pillar for a people who would find no one else willing to bear the load.
Despair could wait.
As for his grieving heart, he has no time for it.
The wind found him even here, sharp and bitter as it threaded through the alley. Hiral stepped back into the open street, each stride firm once more.
By the time he reached the edge of the city, his horse was waiting, dark mane crusted with frost.
Without looking back, he swung into the saddle and rode toward his army. The snow swallowed his trail within moments.
****
By the time Hiral staggered through the camp gates, the winterstorm had risen to a beast's roar, swallowing the horizon in white.
His horse was rimed in ice, its breath steaming in great bursts, and he himself was little more than a shadow beneath frost and snow.
Seran was there before anyone else, striding through the snow with the force of someone who refused to be delayed. His eyes locked on Hiral, and for a moment there was relief—then it sharpened into anger.
"What in the frozen hells—" Seran didn't finish.
He grabbed Hiral by the arm, yanked him down from the saddle, and half-dragged, half-steered him toward the main tent.
Hiral tried to speak, but his jaw ached from the cold, the words clumsy in his throat. Seran didn't let him get a single one out.
"Shut it. You can tell me everything when you're not half-dead."
The tent's warmth hit like a wave, but Seran didn't just drop him in a chair. He stripped off Hiral's frozen cloak himself, boots next, shoving a dry blanket over his shoulders.
When Hiral's fingers trembled too much to hold the bowl of steaming broth, Seran knelt and wrapped his own hands around Hiral's, steadying them until the warmth bled back into his skin.
"Eat," Seran said, softer now, but still unyielding.
The broth slid down Hiral's throat, chasing away the deep chill in his bones. He felt the knot of tension in his chest loosen, just a fraction, under the weight of Seran's steady presence.
Only when Seran was satisfied—when Hiral's color had returned and his shivering had eased—did he pull up a chair. He leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees, and fixed Hiral with that same steady look.
"Now. Tell me what happened."
Hiral spoke, the words slow at first, then spilling faster—of the bells, the coffins, the assassin's claim that his own court had sent him.
Of the moment he knew the tide toward war had already been set.
Seran listened without interruption, but his grip tightened on the chair's arm until the wood creaked. When Hiral finished, Seran's voice came out low and sharp.
"They're vermin. Blind, gutless vermin who'd trade lives for a handful of coin and a seat at a table that will burn under them. I swear, if I could drag them here myself—"
Hiral's lips twitched into a faint smile, but the weight in his eyes didn't lift.
Seran caught it. He leaned forward suddenly, a warm, heavy hand gripped Hiral's shoulder the way an older brother might.
"It's not your fault," he said, steady and certain.
Hiral flinched under the words, his breath catching. He shook his head, but Seran's grip only firmed.
"It's not," Seran repeated, quiet but immovable.
Hiral gave a soft, almost disbelieving laugh, and broke the moment by reaching for the maps on the table. "We need to prepare. Eldara will need our strength."
Seran let him go, but not before giving his shoulder a squeeze. "Fine. But remember—whatever happens—it's still not your fault."
Outside, the storm raged on, but in the tent, Seran's presence held like a fortress wall.
Seran's hand was warm on Hiral's shoulder—warm in a way that had nothing to do with the tent's fire.
It was grounding.
Steady.
An anchor in a sea he had been treading for so long that he'd forgotten what solid ground felt like.
Hiral's breath caught before he could hide it.
For weeks—months, maybe—he had been wearing his composure like armor, every buckle fastened, every seam sealed.
But that touch slid between the plates like a blade, not to wound, but to remind him that beneath all of it, he was still flesh.
Still human. Still breakable.
He'd thought he was past this—past needing the kind of care that could unravel him.
Yet here he was, gripping the edge of the table harder than he needed to, afraid that if he let go, the exhaustion and grief would spill from him like blood.
The image of the king and prince lying pale and still came to him again, unbidden. The assassin's words echoed like poison in his ears—your own court sent me.
His throat tightened.
He could almost see Alexis in that hall again, the way their gazes had locked, the way he'd turned and walked away before his resolve could fracture.
Seran's voice reached him again—It's not your fault—low, steady, unyielding.
Something inside him lurched at that.
If he let himself believe it, even for a heartbeat, he would crumble. And if he crumbled now, he didn't know if he could rebuild himself in time for what was coming.
So he laughed, light and false, and reached for the maps instead. The motion felt clumsy, deliberate—a sleight of hand to draw attention away from the hairline cracks in his composure.
But even as he spoke of war, Seran's hand on his shoulder lingered in his memory, a quiet weight that told him, without words, that he had someone to lean on.