Soren was still unconscious.
The curtains were half‑drawn to soften the afternoon light, but it only carved deeper shadows around the bed. The air smelled of cool water, crushed herbs, and linen that had already been changed once. On the sheets, Soren lay as if asleep too still, too pale, lashes resting like ink strokes against his cheeks.
Ecclesias had not left the chair beside him.
His hand rested along Soren's forearm, thumb pressed lightly over the thin skin where the pulse beat closest to the surface. The faint, steady tapping under his fingers was the only thing in the room that felt reliable.
"He should have woken by now," Larem murmured.
The physician stood on the other side of the bed, dark circles under his eyes. His hands twitched as if tempted to check the pulse again, then stilled.
"Will he?" Ecclesias asked.
The words came out lower than he meant them to.
Larem drew a careful breath.
"His body is exhausted, Majesty," he said. "Too much strain, too many nights without proper rest. The shock of yesterday, the council, the way he keeps skipping meals because he thinks there isn't time… Something had to give. Sleep is his only sense right now. Forcing him awake would only tear what little strength he has left."
Ecclesias' thumb brushed once along the line of the pulse.
"He collapsed because I made him stand," he said. "Because I kept him in that hall so they would see him at my side."
"He collapsed because he has been under pressure without rest for weeks," Larem replied, voice low but firm. "Because he pushes himself past every limit and refuses to admit when he is dizzy. You gave him a reason to keep standing. He ran with it until his body dropped him. This isn't one choice, Majesty. It's all of them, stacked together."
He caught himself, bowed his head slightly.
"Guilt is a heavy dose," he added more softly. "It doesn't heal."
Ecclesias did not argue.
He only kept his hand where it was, as if letting go would make the chest under the blankets stop moving.
A knock broke the fragile quiet.
"Majesty?" Kael's voice, muffled but tense, came from the outer door. "There's word from the lower rooms."
Larem rose partway from his chair.
"Go," he said. "I'll stay with him."
Ecclesias' fingers tightened once on Soren's arm, then lifted. The absence of contact felt like stepping away from the edge of a cliff and discovering there was no solid ground behind him either.
He crossed into the outer chamber and opened the door himself.
Kael stood there, helmet under one arm, hair damp with sweat despite the cool corridors. His mouth was a hard, thin line.
"Well?" Ecclesias said.
"Deren is dead," Kael answered. "Poison. Someone reached him in his cell. He left this."
He held out a folded scrap of rough parchment, pinched by the corners to avoid the dark stains on it.
Ecclesias took it.
The writing inside was cramped and ugly, ink, and charcoal both, the lines warped where sweat or something thicker had soaked the fibers.
*I was told it would not kill him.*
*They said it was for the good of the line, to show he is weak so the kingdom sees.*
*They paid me with Lord Harren's coin…*
The last stroke trailed off into nothing, cut by a jagged blot.
Ecclesias felt his heartbeat climb into his throat.
"Harren," he said.
Kael nodded.
"Arven checked the ledgers we took from the steward's office," he said. "The same purses move from Harren's coffers to the kitchens. The steward who met Deren wears Harren's badge. It lines up."
Ecclesias folded the scrap carefully and slid it into his belt, as if it were something fragile instead of foul.
"Is his family at home?" he asked.
"Yes, Majesty."
"How many?"
"Three children," Kael said. "Two boys, one girl. His wife. A cousin. Staff."
The king's jaw set.
"They thought if the cup never reached his lips, there would be no price," Ecclesias said. "They pushed and whispered and watched him wear himself down, and when that wasn't enough, they added a tray. Now he lies in there and doesn't answer when I speak his name, and my taster is the one who choked on their game."
His eyes were very pale when they met Kael's.
"We'll show them their hands are not clean just because the poison stopped at another man's mouth."
Kael did not pretend surprise.
"Do you want witnesses?" he asked. "Crowds? Or—"
"No crowds," Ecclesias cut in. "Let them feel the absence. But take enough men that no one mistakes this for a private feud."
He glanced back toward the inner door. The edge of Soren's shoulder was just visible beyond it, a darker shape against white linen.
"And Kael," he added, "keep every scrap of paper you can get from Harren's house. I want names, not gossip."
"Yes, Majesty."
When the door closed, the room felt narrower.
Ecclesias went back to Soren.
Larem looked up at him, read the answer on his face, and exhaled.
"Harren," the king said.
The physician's mouth tightened.
"That will not wake him faster," he said.
"No," Ecclesias answered. His hand found Soren's wrist again, thumb settling over the beat. "But it will give them a reason to think before they reach for him again."
Outside, steel gathered and boots moved through stone halls. Somewhere across the city, a household that had woken expecting an ordinary day found its gates blocked by soldiers in the king's colors.
Soren breathed on, steady and unaware.
-------------
By midday, the Harren crest was gone.
Carpenters pried the carved wood from above the townhouse doors before the street fully filled. Neighbors watched from behind shutters, peering through slivers of light as the soldiers filed out again in grim, ordered silence.
They spoke anyway.
By the time the markets were busy, everyone had their own piece of the story.
A baker's boy swore Harren had been dragged into the courtyard in his nightshirt. A laundress claimed the queen's name had been shouted as the blade fell. A spice seller hissed that even the youngest child had been taken, because the king wanted all their blood.
Most of it was wrong.
Enough of it was true.
Back in the palace, Ecclesias listened to Kael's report standing where he had been all morning: at Soren's side.
"It's done," Kael said. "Harren, his immediate kin, the steward who carried the purse, the guards who tried to bar our way. The others are confined until Arven finishes with them."
Ecclesias' thumb traced a small circle over Soren's skin, as if the motion could smooth his own thoughts.
"They'll call it cruelty," he said.
"Yes," Kael replied. "They will."
"And you?" Ecclesias asked.
Kael hesitated only a heartbeat.
"I call it a reminder," he said. "Everyone knows the taster fell and the queen didn't. They were already comforting themselves with that. You just showed them that trying is enough to bleed for."
Ecclesias let out a slow breath that wasn't quite a sigh.
"Good," he said. "Fear is the only language some of them learned as children. We'll speak it until they find a better one."
His hand did not leave Soren's arm.
------
The Harren receiving room smelled faintly of cold ash and old wine.
Lord Meris stood just inside the doorway, letting his gaze move over the familiar furniture as if it were a stranger's house. Without Harren himself in it, the room looked wrong like a body missing its spine.
Around the big polished table, the others had already gathered.
Vallens sat rigid, fingers wrapped around a cup he did not drink from. Old Lord Tarvan leaned on his cane, jaw clenched. Three lesser lords clustered together like sheep, their whispers cutting off every time someone looked their way. A thick‑necked baron toyed with his signet ring as though wondering how much blood it could bear.
Meris took his seat and waited.
"They took his children," one of the lesser lords burst out. "Did you hear that? All of them. Even the girl."
"He left a trail a blind man could follow," another snapped. "Ledgers, stewards, coins. He might as well have engraved his name on the purse. What did you think would happen?"
"We tried to clean it up," a third shot back. "That cup in the cells was your idea, if I recall. It's not my fault if your man couldn't keep his mouth shut afterwards."
Their voices climbed over each other, panicked and sharp.
Meris rapped his knuckles once against the table.
"We don't have the luxury of shouting about whose fault it is," he said. "What matters is what happens next."
Eyes swung toward Vallens.
He had been silent since Meris entered, gaze fixed on the wood grain in front of him. Now he lifted his head, and Meris saw it the thin edge of fear behind the practiced calm.
"What happens next," Vallens said, "is exactly what was always going to happen once we moved. The king needed to show he would reach beyond servants. Harren made himself easiest to take. Now his house is ash, and every other lord in the city is breathing smoke."
"And you think that's the end of it?" Tarvan rasped. "Everyone knows the queen is alive. The taster fell and lived. The servant is dead. You think Ecclesias will stop after one house?"
"We say he overreached," one of the barons cut in quickly. "That grief and anger drove him too far. That's what they're already murmuring in the salons. If we all keep our stories straight, this stays about Harren and his bad luck."
"We deny anything more than that," another added. "We say Harren panicked and tried to buy protection. We say we had no part. Without the servant to talk, he has nothing but guesses."
They were clinging to the idea, Meris realised, like men clinging to floating wood in deep water. As long as they could call it overreach and bad luck, it wasn't judgment.
"And if he decides to guess at us?" Meris asked, quieter. "If soldiers come to our doors next?"
"Then you open them like good subjects and act insulted," Vallens said, his voice suddenly hard. "Running is an admission. Harren was not destroyed because the king laid every fact out on a table. He was destroyed because a message needed a name and his was easiest to carve."
"You sound very sure it won't be you next," Meris said.
Vallens smiled without humor.
"If it is," he said, "then the rest of you are already finished. I am simply the one standing nearest the blade."
Meris opened his mouth to answer.
A heavy blow shook the main doors below.
The sound travelled up through stone and wood, a deep, jarring thud that made the glasses on the table tremble. Every man in the room froze.
Another impact. This time, voices came with it, muffled but unmistakable.
"In the king's name! Open!"
Blood drained from Meris' face.
"That was fast," someone whispered. "He can't have—"
Swords scraped from sheaths downstairs. Boots hammered on the floor. Somewhere, a servant screamed and then cut short.
Vallens' chair creaked as he stood.
"Stay seated," he said sharply. "Do not reach for steel. If they see weapons in your hands, they'll give you a traitor's death. If they see you at a table, they'll give you the king's."
The difference felt suddenly very thin.
The door to the receiving room flew inward.
Soldiers in dark cloaks fanned out along the walls, the king's seal bright on their shoulders. None of them drew their swords, but their hands rested on hilts in the easy, ready way of men who did not need the extra heartbeat.
At their head, Arven stepped forward, plain coat buttoned, expression smoothed into polite blankness.
"My lords," he said.
His gaze took them all in, one by one. Meris felt the weight of it rest on him for half a heartbeat before sliding on.
"You are summoned to answer questions," Arven continued. "By order of His Majesty."
"On what grounds?" Vallens asked. His voice was calm enough to pass, if one did not know him. "We have come here peacefully."
"And you will come with us the same way," Arven said.
He did not elaborate.
One by one, names were called. Some men blustered. Some tried to joke. Some only swallowed and stood. None of them ran.
There was nowhere left to run.
-------
Night settled over the palace like a held breath.
In Soren's chamber, the candle had burned low enough that its pool of light barely reached the foot of the bed. Shadows climbed the walls. Outside the windows, the city's noises had thinned to the distant clatter of a cart and the occasional call of a watchman.
Inside, the only sound was breathing.
Kael stepped in quietly, closing the door with care.
"He's steadier," he said, nodding toward the bed before Ecclesias could ask. "No more catching in the breath. Larem says that's good."
"I know," Ecclesias replied.
His fingers were exactly where they had been all day: resting on Soren's wrist, feeling the slow, stubborn beat under the skin. Every pulse felt like a small victory he refused to name.
Kael came closer and held out a folded sheet of parchment.
"These are the ones we have for certain," he said. "Harren's steward. The man who carried his purse. Two of Vallens' people. Tarvan's courier. Merian's bookkeeper. A cluster of lesser names that keep appearing in the same accounts. Arven is still digging."
Ecclesias took the list and let it rest in his palm a moment before unrolling it.
Ink lines marched down the page in Arven's neat hand. Harren's name had already been crossed through with a single, clean stroke.
"So many hands on one tray," Ecclesias said quietly.
"So many hands on your queen," Kael answered.
The corner of Ecclesias' mouth twitched, something bleak and close to humor.
"They wanted to prove to the court that he was fragile," he said. "That a little doubt, a little pressure, would make him crack. They watched him skip meals and smile anyway. And when even that wasn't enough, they added a cup to hurry it along."
He let the list fall with a soft rustle onto the small table beside the bed, next to the untouched water and the bowl of cooling herbs.
"Now their servant is dead," he went on. "Their cup is gone. Their courage stands alone."
His hand went back to Soren, thumb finding that point of pulse as if drawn to it.
"They thought I would be blind," he said. "That I would hesitate to touch them because of their names. They forgot how long I spent learning the difference between a title and a throat."
Kael said nothing.
Ecclesias' gaze stayed on Soren's face, at the faint crease between his brows that even this heavy sleep had not smoothed away.
"They started this in my house," he said, voice very soft. "I know who they are now."
Outside, in shuttered manors, men who had thought themselves untouchable listened for boots in their corridors and flinched at every knock. Inside the dim room at the palace heart, the king sat and counted heartbeats on one hand and names on the other.
For the first time since Soren's knees had buckled in the corridor, the balance, very slowly, began to shift.