The doors of the great hall closed behind them with a soft, final thud that felt louder than the applause.
On the other side, music and voices still tangled together; here, sound died at once, swallowed by stone and distance. No chandeliers, no sea of jewels only a long corridor of pale marble and high, shadowed arches. The air shifted with it. Perfume, wine, and crushed flowers thinned into cold wax, old stone, and the faint metallic breath of distant steel.
Their footsteps echoed.
Servants had already cleared the path. Those few still present pressed themselves to the walls, heads bowed so low their faces vanished into candlelight. No one spoke. No one tried to meet Soren's eyes. The crowns passed, and the world folded out of their way.
Soren's hand still rested in Ecclesias' gloved one, light and precise, as if the court were still watching. His back remained straight, his head perfectly balanced beneath the crown. Every movement stayed measured, beautiful, exact.
His body had not yet learned that the performance was over.
All the preparations he had forced into himself still ran like a second spine. Hours pacing the empty hall, counting tiles; feeling with bare feet where marble turned slick; rehearsing each turn until his train obeyed without thought; testing every tilt of his head so the crown would not slip. He had not been chasing beauty. He had been cutting away every risk he could reach.
Now, with the corridor empty, he still moved as if one wrong breath might shatter the night.
Only when they turned toward the private wing did Ecclesias slow.
They reached a pair of tall carved doors. The guards straightened, fists thudding briefly against their chests. Ecclesias did not answer aloud. He pushed the doors open with his free hand and led Soren through.
The chamber beyond felt like another world.
Warmth pooled there, held close by heavy velvet curtains. A wide hearth burned low with frostfire, casting soft blue-white along the walls. Lamps glowed in corners, gentle instead of dazzling. Thick carpets swallowed their steps. The air smelled of wool, smoke, and the ghost of spice from the wine, softened now that it wasn't forced on a hundred throats at once.
One attendant looked up, bowed quickly, and vanished, closing the doors behind her.
Silence settled, deep and almost soft.
Soren heard his own breathing as if it belonged to someone else. The crown pressed against tender places on his skull where pins had dug in. His shoulders ached from holding a perfect line. His jaw throbbed from keeping it relaxed instead of clenched. His feet pulsed with a slow, bruised ache now that there was no pattern to follow.
Ecclesias still had not let go of his hand.
They stood for a heartbeat just inside the room, facing the hearth as if the court were still spread before them in neat ranks of fear and silk. Frostfire light caught on the silver thread of Ecclesias' coat and the line of his throat, softening none of the sharpness in his face.
Then he lifted their joined hands.
Without a word, he set Soren's hand gently aside and tugged at the fingers of his own glove with his teeth, pulling the leather free with slow, practiced movements. The glove came off with a quiet scrape. He dropped it on the nearby table.
His bare fingers closed around Soren's hand again.
The difference made Soren's skin prickle. The weight of the grip had not changed, but the absence of leather made it feel less like a king locking his claim and more like a man choosing, once again, to keep hold. Heat crept under Soren's skin where their palms met, a focused warmth that felt too sharp to be ignored.
"Breathe," Ecclesias said.
Just that.
Soren realised he was still taking short, careful breaths, the way he had in the hall so his chest wouldn't visibly rise and fall under a hundred hungry eyes. He dragged air deeper. His lungs expanded like stiff doors forced open.
"It would be irritating," Ecclesias added, voice dry, "if you refused to fall in front of them only to collapse here and make me summon half the palace to peel you off the floor."
A small, unsteady sound slipped out of Soren. It was almost a laugh, roughened by exhaustion.
"You are very concerned about your floor," he managed.
"I am very concerned," Ecclesias replied, "about watching you spend days tormenting the tailors, terrorising the dance master, memorising the hall down to the cracks in the stone… only to forget something as simple as breathing."
Heat crept up the back of Soren's neck. He looked down at their joined hands, not trusting his face.
"I did not torment them," he muttered.
"Mm." Ecclesias' mouth tipped, a faint, unmistakable flicker of amusement. "The servants' version differs."
"They were still changing the hem yesterday," Soren said. "If I had tripped, they would have blamed you for choosing me. I simply removed the excuse."
"And instead," Ecclesias said mildly, "you made an entire court trip over their own tongues."
The words landed somewhere low in Soren's chest. His fingers tightened slightly under Ecclesias' hand before he could stop them. A breath caught in his throat; he swallowed it down quickly, annoyed at himself for reacting so strongly to a single neat line of praise.
"You held," Ecclesias went on, softer. "From the first step to the last. Not one crack."
"I did what was required," Soren answered, automatic.
Ecclesias' gaze sharpened. For once, he did not let the deflection pass.
"No," he said. "You did more than required. You made it look inevitable. They will hate you for that, later. It hurts them to realise their own spines bend faster than yours and that you learned to stand like that in a single week, without their tutors, simply because you were clever enough to see what was needed and stubborn enough to work until your body obeyed."
Soren's breath stilled in his chest. A flush rose across his cheekbones, hot and sudden, as if Ecclesias had reached in and touched the one part of him he still thought no one could see: the fact that he had come from nothing like their education, had no court schooling, no polished pedigree only a mind that refused to be dull and a body he'd driven mercilessly until it could fake nobility well enough to live.
The tension in Soren's shoulders loosened a fraction.
"Then you approve of your investment," he said lightly.
He used the word on purpose, the same cold word he knew nobles would use when they whispered about him: the king's gamble, the cost of a beautiful blade. The moment it left his mouth, he tasted how wrong it was for him, like biting down on metal. The light tone rang a little too thin in his own ears. He felt foolish for saying it, and angry that it felt safer to mock himself first.
Ecclesias' expression changed at once.
"Investment," he repeated, as if testing the word and finding it foul. His free hand lifted, fingers settling lightly against Soren's temple, careful as they slid into his hair in search of the first hidden pin. The touch was precise, almost ceremonial, but warm. "No. Gold is an investment. Land is an investment. Those are things to be counted and spent."
The first pin slid free with a soft scrape. He set it on the table beside the glove, eyes never leaving Soren's.
"You are not that," he said. "You walked into their jaws on your own feet and somehow wrapped them around you and me in the same breath. They can call you an investment if it helps them sleep. It does not make you one."
Soren's breath hitched before he could stop it. His eyes flicked up to Ecclesias' face, instinctively searching for mockery and finding none. The flinch of hurt he'd buried under that light joke flashed, briefly, in his gaze; being reduced to cost, to usefulness, was an old bruise. Having it denied so cleanly made that bruise ache in a different way.
Another pin clicked onto the wood.
"To them," Ecclesias continued, voice low and even, "you are a risk they cannot leash. Something too sharp, too disciplined, too willing to hurt yourself if it means cutting them."
A third pin came free. His fingers moved with unhurried care, each touch in Soren's hair light but steady. Without meaning to, Soren leaned just a fraction into the contact, his eyes dropping half-lidded. The moment he felt it, he tensed again, trying to pull back into perfect stillness, but it was too late; the slip had happened.
Ecclesias noticed. The tiny, unconscious tilt of Soren's head; the way his lashes lowered, then lifted again as he forced himself to look up. The sight tugged at the corner of his mouth, not in cruelty, but in a quiet, satisfied kind of happiness. He liked that he could do this to Soren that a few words and a gentle hand could shake him more than an entire hall of enemies.
"To me…" His mouth tilted, wry and almost soft at once. "To me, you stopped being a risk the moment I realised I had already let you inside the armour. You have your hand on my reins, Soren, and you do not even seem to realise it."
Soren's stomach dipped, as if the floor had shifted under his chair. His fingers curled against his knees. He held his breath without thinking, as if that could somehow keep the words from sinking in.
"That is not true," he said quickly. It came out a little too fast, a little too thin. His ears felt hot.
Ecclesias' hand paused for a heartbeat against his scalp, warm through carefully arranged hair.
"Is it not?" he asked. "You steadied my temper before the first dance had ended. One line from your mouth, and I did not tear the hall apart. You stepped onto the marble with my name on your shoulders and held the room so tightly that every time I wanted to rise and break fingers from wrists, I stayed where I was because you were still standing, and you were standing for me."
Soren swallowed. The images came back sharp: the weight of the crown, the ring of eyes, the silent burn of the King's gaze fixed on him from the dais, from the edge of the floor. Somewhere in the middle of the night, he had stopped performing *for them*. Every time his lungs tightened, every time the music felt too fast, he had looked toward Ecclesias not to ask permission, but to ground himself. He had trusted that look more than the approval of an entire court.
He hated how much that realisation made his chest hurt.
Ecclesias eased another pin loose.
"There," he said softly. "Do you feel it?"
The crown no longer bit as sharply into Soren's skin; the pressure had eased into something he could almost ignore. Ecclesias flattened his palm briefly along the circlet, steadying it, then lifted it from Soren's head with a care that felt almost reverent.
The sudden absence of weight made Soren sway a fraction. Ecclesias' hand tightened on his shoulder, brief and sure, holding him until his body found its balance again. For a moment, Soren let himself lean into that point of contact before pulling himself upright, annoyed at his own weakness and quietly relieved no one but Ecclesias had seen it.
Ecclesias turned to the table and set the crown down beside the neat row of pins and the discarded glove not on a cushion, but on bare wood, like a weapon laid to cool after battle.
"You carried that," he said quietly. "For hours. Without slipping."
"For a night," Soren said. His voice came out softer than he intended. "You carry worse always."
"Mine has grown into the bone," Ecclesias replied. "I no longer feel where it cuts. You put it on once and made them believe you were born with it."
His gaze traced the faint red marks along Soren's brow. Soren resisted the urge to touch them, suddenly aware of how exposed he must look without the crown.
"They will talk about you," he said. "Some with fear, some with hunger, some with both. It is all the same. Every word ties them tighter to what you did."
"Around what you did," Soren murmured.
"Around what we did," Ecclesias corrected at once. "They expected me to be the only danger on that floor. Now they are not sure which of us they should fear more. That uncertainty is… useful. And satisfying."
There was unmistakable satisfaction in his eyes now, a sharp, dark pride that made Soren look away for a second, fighting a new, fragile warmth that had nothing to do with the hearth.
"You are trembling," Ecclesias added.
Soren lowered his gaze. His fingers were indeed shaking, a fine, stubborn tremor that refused to vanish no matter how hard he pressed his hands into his knees.
"It will pass," he said.
"I know it will," Ecclesias replied. "Sit anyway."
The command held no edge. It settled over Soren like a weight taken from his hands rather than added to them.
He crossed to the low bench near the hearth and sank down, muscles in his legs protesting now that they were allowed to exist. The frostfire's warmth kissed his shins. The room felt smaller, closer—but, for once, not like a trap. With the crown gone and Ecclesias between him and the door, the world narrowed to something he could actually hold in his hands: fire, fabric, breath, one man watching him too closely and somehow making it easier to breathe instead of harder.
Ecclesias remained standing a moment longer, watching him with an assessing gaze that had lost most of its earlier hardness. There was something quietly pleased in it now, like a man cataloguing the exact effect he had and enjoying every inch of it.
"You are allowed to be tired," he said. "It does not make what you did any less."
"And if they knew how tired I am?" Soren asked, aiming for mocking and landing somewhere honest and low. His eyes flicked up briefly, then away again, as if afraid that staying too long on Ecclesias' face would make more truths pry themselves loose.
"They will not," Ecclesias said. "Tonight they saw you untouched. Let that be the only version they get. The rest is mine."
The possessive slipped out quiet and certain. At the word *mine*, Soren's chest tightened. He looked up properly this time, eyes locking with Ecclesias' for a long, raw heartbeat. His throat worked in a small swallow he couldn't disguise.
Ecclesias saw everything the high colour still lingering in Soren's cheeks, the way his fingers curled tighter into the fabric of his robe, the immediate, stubborn attempt to look unimpressed while his body betrayed him. It pulled a soft, amused exhale from him, almost a laugh, full of a fierce, private satisfaction: he *liked* that he could do this, that Soren was strong enough to face a court and still shake for him alone.
Soren tore his gaze away, jaw tightening, as if he could clamp his reactions back into place. The effort only made the moment sweeter in Ecclesias' eyes; watching Soren fight himself and fail by tiny degrees made his own smile threaten, hidden at the edges.
"Tomorrow," Soren said, after a moment, "they will test this 'Velvet Blade' they named."
"Yes," Ecclesias agreed. "And tomorrow, we will decide how to make that cut back into them."
"We," Soren echoed quietly, tasting the word and finding it steadier than he'd expected. The corners of his mouth twitched, almost lifting before he forced them still.
Ecclesias' mouth curved again. "You walked that floor beside me. They know it. They will try to pry us apart in their schemes. Let them. Every attempt will only remind them that you hold my attention whether I stand at your side or at the far end of a hall."
He moved closer, enough that the frostfire threw shadows over his face and turned his eyes into something dark and intent.
"The court thinks I chose you because you are beautiful," he said. "Because you wear my colours well. Because they cannot imagine I would bind myself to anything but a jewel."
Soren almost looked away. "That is what I made myself tonight," he said. "Something they could not ignore."
"You made yourself into something they could not ignore," Ecclesias corrected. "Beauty was only the shape you gave your refusal to break."
He leaned forward a fraction, enough to catch Soren's gaze and hold it. Soren's breath stuttered once, then steadied, held tight between them.
"They do not understand," Ecclesias added. "I did not bind you to me because you are pleasant to look at. I bound you because you walked into a hall full of teeth, with your own fear at your throat, and you still chose to stand exactly where it would hurt most if you fell. You did that for yourself, not for them. And in doing it, you caught me."
"Caught you," Soren repeated, the words a whisper. His cheeks warmed again, traitorously, and this time he couldn't stop his hand from twitching, as if he wanted to cover his face and hide. He didn't. He forced himself to hold Ecclesias' eyes instead, feeling more exposed than he ever had under chandeliers and crowns.
"You have your hand on my temper," Ecclesias said. "On my reputation. On my throne. If you had shattered tonight, part of me would have gone with you. You know that. You used it. That is what makes you dangerous."
He let the word hang for a heartbeat, then added, quieter, "Dangerous—and still the only risk I find myself willing to take again."
Soren's fingers dug into the fabric beneath his hands. Something inside his chest felt too full, aching and bright and terrifying. He pulled in a slow breath, fighting the instinct to make a joke, to cut the moment before it cut him. Instead, he let the truth slip out, low and unsteady.
"Then for once," Soren said softly, "we are even. You are the only danger I keep walking toward on purpose."
The confession hit both of them. Soren felt his own pulse pound at his throat; Ecclesias felt a sharp, unexpected joy burn through the usual layers of iron and strategy. His hand lifted, hesitated for the barest moment offering Soren a last chance to pull away then settled along Soren's jaw, light but sure. His thumb rested near the corner of Soren's mouth, the contact careful, almost reverent.
"Good," he murmured. Up close like this, his voice sounded lower, almost warm. "Let them call you an investment. A risk. A blade. They do not need to know that the first throat you cut clean was mine."
Soren's lips parted on a breath he hadn't planned to give him. The image Ecclesias offered his own throat, Soren's hand sent a shiver down his spine that had nothing to do with fear. His heart beat uncomfortably fast. He hated how easily the King's words slipped under his guard; he loved, helplessly, that for once he was being seen as a man who *chose* and not an object that had been chosen.
"Ecclesias," Soren said quietly.
"Yes."
"You are being very dramatic," Soren said, but his voice had gone softer, the edges blunted by something he refused to name. There was the faintest tremor in it, like the ring of a blade just after impact.
"Of course," Ecclesias replied. "I have a reputation to uphold."
"Your reputation is for wrath," Soren said.
"And now," Ecclesias answered, "for having the sense to choose a consort who can hold that wrath by the reins and walk beside it without turning to ash."
He stepped back just enough to look Soren over one last time, as if confirming that every part of him was still there and privately enjoying the way Soren's colour still sat a little high in his cheeks, the way his breathing hadn't quite calmed. The sight tugged at something in him that felt dangerously close to tenderness, and he did not push it away.
"Rest," Ecclesias said. "You have earned it. Tomorrow will be cruel enough without you meeting it on shaking legs."
Soren nodded once. The crown cooled on the table. The hall with its lights and whispers and hungry eyes felt distant now, held at the edge of memory by velvet and frostfire and the weight of one man's attention.
For the first time since stepping into the coronation, Soren let himself believe he might survive not only the night, but what came after.
He leaned back against the cushions, letting the warmth of the fire and Ecclesias' presence settle over him like a cloak. His body, finally, let go of the last of its rigid poise; his hands rested open on his knees, his shoulders eased, his eyes half-lidded. He would never call it safety not even in his own head but something dangerously close to it settled under his skin all the same.
Outside, the court would wake to a new fear and a new name.
Inside this room, for a few fragile hours, he was not an investment, not only a weapon.
He was the risk a king kept choosing and the man who, despite himself, had started choosing that danger back.