Four months passed.
With that uneasy kind of normal where everyone decides to keep moving because stopping means thinking.
The markets still opened, the bells still rang. The carriages still rolled down the main streets, and people still argued about prices and weather.
But you could tell.
The laughter didn't reach as far.
The smiles didn't last as long.
People weren't waiting for the end... they were waiting for someone else to say it wasn't coming.
Waiting for the lords, the crown to say it.
Bits of news still moved around, half truths, fragments, speculations.
No one knew the whole story, but everyone had heard enough to be uneasy.
People still spoke of trade and harvest, but sooner or later the talk drifted
'Did you hear? They say it concerns the heir… the unborn one.'
And through it all, a single rumour kept circling back,
*The Rite of Severance.*
I remember the morning she called me.
A knock on the door just after dawn, her messenger standing there with his hood dripping wet. "The Queen requests your presence. Immediately."
We hadn't spoken since the council.
Not a word.
But I wasn't surprised.
I knew the pattern... she always reached out when she had already made up her mind about something and just wanted someone to confirm it wasn't madness.
----
When I entered, she was standing near the window.
The light outside was thin, and colourless.
She looked tired from thinking too long, not from lack of sleep but still put together.
"You came quickly," she said without turning.
"You didn't give me much of a choice," I said.
Her lips moved like she almost smiled, but didn't.
"They are talking about it," she said. "You've heard the same, I am sure. The Rite."
"I have," I said quietly.
I didn't move closer. There was a line you didn't cross with her when she was speaking like that.
"They are saying it could make him stronger. That it would protect him… prepare him for what's coming."
"Or kill him before he can walk," I said.
That stopped her.
For a few seconds she didn't say anything, just let her hand rest against the window frame.
"You don't believe that it will work?" I asked, her voice almost concerning.
"I believe that every time people get scared, they look for an old answer and pretend it's new. He isn't even here yet," she said, her hand resting against her stomach. "And already they want to use him. Talk of binding, offerings, the same words that built the ruins we now live among."
Her tone wasn't angry. It was weary.
"You know what frightens me? It's not that they think of doing it. It's how easily they can talk about it. How normal it sounds now, even in my own halls." She continued, her voice full of worry and sadness.
I didn't answer right away.
There was nothing to correct.
She was right. I wasn't against the idea of the rite fully, but I wasn't in the favour either.
It was a big step, one that needed deliberation and time. Time, that no one knew how much we had.
"They will keep pressing," I said finally. "If they think it will save them, they will find ways to make it sound noble."
Her head turned slightly, eyes finding mine.
She looked down then, one hand still over her abdomen. For a long time, she didn't say anything.
"He isn't even born yet," she murmured. "And already the world wants him to save it."
" That's the part of his destiny. Ou- " I stopped, "Your mother herself said so. They will l keep pushing," I told her.
"The longer you wait, the louder they will get. Some out of fear, some out of ambition. Fear looks the same either way."
She turned then, studying me.
"And you? Which one do you think this is?"
"I think people are afraid to admit they don't know what to do," I said. "So they reach for the thing that sounds like control."
Her expression softened a little. "You always hated politics."
" I do it even now. Yet, I am now a part of it, and it's a part of me."
"I hate what it does to people who start with good intentions." She said, her eyes looking into mine.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Outside, a guard coughed somewhere in the corridor.
"I can't hold them off forever," she said quietly. "Even my own advisers will bring it up sooner or later... duty, sacrifice, legacy."
"You will manage," I said, because it was the only answer that I could think of.
"And if I can't?"
I didn't have anything to give her then.
She must have seen that because she gave a small nod, as if confirming something to herself.
"Then I will find another way," she said.
----
"There wasn't mych left to say after that. So I left. Maybe, she just wanted to ask my opinion or let me know how worried she is" I said, as I sip the last bit of my drink.
"The ritual? Is it the same, as I think it is?" Joshua spoke.
" Yes. Indeed." I said, " The ritual of severance or The ritual of severance: synthesis and binding"
He knew about the ritual.
Everyone did.
It was part of our history, part of the evolution, the world itself.
A ritual, that preceded everything and everyone.
Yet, as old as it was. It was surfacing again, and the stakes as important as ever.