Soren woke to the sound of rain against stone and the echo of his own heartbeat in his ribs.
For a moment, in the grey before memory settled, he thought he was back under the temple arches in Vharian cold, bruised, waiting for the next hand to close around his throat. Then the weight at his finger tugged when he moved, a small, solid drag that did not belong to that life.
The ring.
He opened his eyes.
The familiar lines of the palace guest chamber anchored into place: the carved beam with one knot that looked like an eye, the narrow strip of window, the chair where Kael had once fallen asleep sitting upright rather than leave him alone. On the bedside table, a cup of some awful tonic waited, steaming faintly. Next to it lay a neat stack of documents, weighted by a signet he recognised as Ecclesias' personal seal.
For a king who insisted he was trying not to encourage overwork, he had a remarkable talent for leaving homework.
Soren flexed his left hand.
The band moved with him, not loose, not tight just there, a constant line of cool against warm skin. In the dim light, the gold inlay was almost invisible; only when the candle flame caught it at a certain angle did it show, a thin, closed circle rejoined after a break.
It looked even more like a scar today.
He sat up slowly, biting back a hiss as his ribs protested. The ache was less knife and more deep bruise now, but Larem's warning about "sprinting on a broken leg" came back with irritating clarity. The room tilted once; he paused, breathing carefully until it decided to behave.
The door opened before he could decide whether to obey the tonic or ignore it.
Larem did not bother with a greeting.
"You were supposed to send for me before you sat up," he said.
"You were supposed to be asleep," Soren replied. "It is barely dawn."
"Sleep is a hobby," Larem said. "Not a requirement."
He crossed to the bed and put cool fingers to Soren's wrist, then to his throat. Soren endured it with only a small roll of his eyes.
"Your pulse is sulking," Larem observed. "Faster than it should be at rest."
"It is annoyed you woke it," Soren said.
Larem's gaze dropped to the ring.
"And that," he added, "is not helping."
Soren looked down at his hand.
"It weighs less than you," he said. "I think my heart can survive it."
"I am not concerned about the weight of the metal," Larem said. "I am concerned about the weight of what you insist on carrying with it."
He picked up the tonic and held it out.
"Drink."
Soren made a face and complied, grimacing at the taste. He swallowed twice to clear his tongue.
"Ecclesias left those?" Larem asked, nodding toward the papers.
"Yes."
"Then they can wait," Larem said. "He has already read them or he would not have left them. For today: one hour of study at most. You will eat at least twice. You will not spend the afternoon standing in a hall pretending you are a pillar."
Soren frowned.
"There is planning to do," he said. "For the banquet. For the guards. For the—"
"For the people who would very much like you to be dead," Larem cut in. "Yes. And you will be more useful alive and breathing than heroic and collapsed on the floor mid-sentence."
Soren's mouth flattened.
"I hate it when you are right," he said.
Larem's expression did not soften, but something in his shoulders loosened.
"Good," he said. "It means you are still yourself."
He closed his ledger with a firm thud.
"I will come back at midday," he added. "If I find you anywhere other than that bed or that chair, I will inform His Majesty that you have decided to test how long your body can function on stubbornness alone."
"You would tell him?" Soren asked.
"Yes," Larem said simply. "He listens when I speak of your health. Mostly."
With that, he left, the door closing quietly behind him.
Soren stared at the ceiling for a long moment.
"Mostly," he repeated under his breath. "That is the worrying part."
He reached for the top document, half to spite Larem and half because doing nothing felt worse than pain. His fingers brushed the king's seal. His ring knocked against it with a tiny, clear click.
Authority greeting authority.
He broke the wax.
***
By mid-morning, the rain had turned to a fine mist that blurred the view of the inner courtyards. Soren sat in the small study rather than his bed, wrapped in a blanket like some petulant cat, a map spread across his knees. Ecclesias had given up arguing him back to his room when Larem appeared, inspected the arrangement, and grudgingly declared it an acceptable compromise so long as Soren did not attempt to "play tour guide."
Ecclesias stood by the window now, one hand braced on the stone, watching the silvered outlines of the city.
"We cannot postpone this forever," he said.
"You could," Soren said. "If you were a coward."
Ecclesias' mouth twitched.
"Unfortunately," he said, "I chose to marry trouble instead."
Soren traced a route on the map with the tip of his finger, following the lines from the river districts to the palace. The ink blurred slightly where his hand shook; he curled his fingers into a fist until it stopped.
"The invitations must go out soon if we mean to make this 'charity effort' look sincere," he said. "If we delay, they will suspect the timing."
"They already suspect everything," Ecclesias said.
"Good," Soren replied. "Suspicious people make mistakes. It is the complacent ones who are dangerous."
There was a knock at the door.
"Enter," Ecclesias called.
Kael and Arven stepped in together, which never boded well for anyone hoping for a quiet day.
"Majesty," Arven said. "Your Grace."
Kael's gaze flicked to the blanket around Soren's legs, then to his face, checking for colour. He said nothing, but Soren caught the slight relaxing of his jaw when he apparently decided Soren was not about to fall over.
"We have drafts," Arven said, producing a sheaf of parchment. "Guest lists. Cover stories. Staff rotations."
"And contingencies," Kael added. "For when people do what people always do and ignore the plan."
Soren held out a hand. Arven hesitated for a fraction of a heartbeat, then crossed the room and placed the top sheet in his palm.
The ring brushed Arven's knuckles as Soren took it.
An almost imperceptible pause followed.
Soren pretended not to notice. Arven pretended he didn't mind.
"The central hall?" Soren asked, scanning the first page.
"Yes," Arven said. "It is large enough to host everyone who matters and all the people who think they matter. It also has three balconies and more hiding places than Kael likes."
"I dislike every hiding place I do not control," Kael said. "But we can work with it. We'll rotate the guard as servants and musicians. No uncovered doorways."
Soren's gaze moved down the list of names. Some were expected. Some, less so.
"House Merrow accepted?" he asked.
Arven's mouth thinned.
"Enthusiastically," he said. "Their reply arrived faster than courtesy demands. They mention a 'strong desire' to assist in relieving the suffering of the river poor."
Soren's lip curled.
"How generous," he said. "Perhaps they hope no one will notice the suffering they helped cause in the first place."
Ecclesias stepped away from the window.
"Then we ensure someone does," he said. "Where will they sit?"
Arven pulled a separate diagram from his stack and laid it on the low table.
"Here," he said, tapping one side of the long central table. "Near the wine. Nobles who want to complain usually prefer to be near comfort when they do it."
"And the ones most likely to complain about me?" Soren asked.
Arven's finger moved, marking small clusters.
"Here. Here. And here," he said. "Those who signed the first letter or have been circling similar sentiments without committing ink."
Kael bent over the map, his broad shoulders nearly blocking the light.
"My men here," he said, indicating corners, doors, points behind the musicians. "If anyone tries to slip away at the wrong moment, they will meet a tray, a spilled drink, or a locked latch."
"We cannot arrest everyone who glances at me too long," Soren said.
"No," Ecclesias agreed. "Only the ones who try to bite."
Soren's eyes slipped to the ring.
"They will see this," he said quietly. "Some of them for the first time."
"Yes," Ecclesias said.
"And draw their own conclusions," Soren added. "Most of them wrong."
"Then we correct them," Ecclesias said. "In whatever way becomes necessary."
Kael straightened.
"We should also speak of exits," he said. "If something goes wrong—"
"When," Arven muttered.
"—I need to know exactly how to get you both out," Kael finished.
Soren's immediate instinct was to say he could take care of himself. His ribs throbbed in protest before he could open his mouth.
Ecclesias saw the flicker of pain as clearly as if Soren had shouted.
"You will design your routes," the king told Kael. "But understand this: if someone reaches for him, I will not be the one leaving."
Soren looked up sharply.
"That is precisely what they are counting on," he said. "That you will stay, and they can use me to anchor you in place."
"Then we disappoint them," Ecclesias replied. "By not being so easily predictable."
His gaze dropped, unbidden, to Soren's hand.
The ring caught the light as Soren shifted the parchment, a brief, soft glint. On anyone else it might have looked like a bauble, a symbol of favour. On Soren, thin fingers marked by old work and new scars, it made something in Ecclesias' chest clench and then settle.
He had thought, when he first considered giving it, that the sight would frighten him: his authority sitting on another's hand. It did frighten him. What unsettled him more was how right it looked.
The band sat flush against Soren's skin, as if the metal had been forged with his bones in mind. When Soren moved, it moved with him, not jangling or slipping, but bending to his gestures, catching light precisely when his words needed it and vanishing back into shadow when he folded his fingers shut.
It looked, Ecclesias thought, like a weapon that had finally found its grip.
Soren felt his gaze and, self-conscious, let his hand drop to his lap.
"I know you meant this as a tool," he said quietly. "But it feels like a banner."
"Good," Arven said unexpectedly. "Banners are easier to see. Harder to pretend you missed."
Soren studied him.
"You approve?" he asked.
"I approve of anything that makes it more difficult for people to treat you like something mislaid," Arven said. "This reminds them there is a cost to misplacing you."
Kael said nothing, but his eyes had the dry, careful look of a man already imagining how many idiots would test what that cost was.
***
The planning dragged until Soren's vision blurred at the edges and the lines on the map began to swim. He only realised how long they had been at it when his breath came shorter and the ache beneath his ribs sharpened from dull to bright.
Ecclesias noticed first.
"That is enough," he said.
"We still have the question of where to place the musicians," Arven protested.
"Somewhere they can be heard and not stabbed," Ecclesias said. "You can decide that without him."
Soren opened his mouth to argue and was betrayed by a brief spin of the room.
Kael stepped forward instinctively, as if distance alone could catch him.
Soren shut his eyes, breathing carefully.
"I am fine," he said through his teeth.
"Liar," Ecclesias said.
He took Soren's elbow, firm but not rough.
"Rest," he ordered. "If you collapse at the banquet it will ruin my reputation."
"As what?" Soren asked. "A competent husband?"
"As someone who can keep you in one piece," Ecclesias said.
Soren snorted softly.
"You have never been able to do that," he said. "I was broken long before you."
Ecclesias' jaw tightened.
"Then perhaps," he said, "we can at least stop anyone else from thinking you are theirs to break."
The words, simple as they were, sat with Soren as Ecclesias guided him back to the study couch and insisted he lie down, blanket and all. They followed him into the half-doze that came when he finally stopped fighting his own body's demands.
They were still there when he woke, heart pounding, to the faint ghost of hands in the dark that weren't there.
The ring was.
His fingers had locked around it in his sleep, pressing the metal hard into the tender skin of his palm. He opened his hand slowly, palm stinging, and stared at the imprint it had left.
Not chains. Not a shackle.
A circle.
***
Later, with the rain turned to a thin, cold drizzle and the palace humming with the quiet chaos of impending event servants measuring, cooks arguing, scribes running messages Soren found himself alone briefly in one of the quieter corridors. Larem had finally been driven off by a crisis in the infirmary. Ecclesias had been pulled to deal with a delegation who did not understand the meaning of "tomorrow." Kael had disappeared to bully guards into learning how to carry trays without dropping them.
Soren used the moment badly, by Larem's standards.
He walked.
Not far. Not fast. Just enough to feel like a person and not a piece of porcelain someone had forgotten to paint.
The corridor was lined with narrow windows. Outside, the city roofs glistened. Somewhere beyond them, the river districts breathed, unaware that a banquet was being built partly in their name and partly on their backs.
Soren rested his hand on the stone sill. The ring looked almost black in the weak light, the gold inlay a muted echo.
He thought of the banquet to come. Of eyes. Of whispers. Of the measured cruelty of polite questions.
He did not hear Kael approach until the man cleared his throat softly.
"You should be sitting," Kael said.
Soren did not start. Much.
"If one more person says that to me today," he said, "I will start biting."
Kael came to stand beside him, close enough to be a presence, not so close as to crowd.
"You would chip a tooth on half these people," he said. "They're all bone and varnish."
Soren huffed something like a laugh.
They stood in silence for a moment, looking out.
"They are going to test that ring," Kael said eventually. "You know that."
"Yes," Soren said.
"They will try not obeying when you speak," Kael went on. "Or pretending they did not see it. Or asking whether it is appropriate for you to use it."
Soren's hand curled slightly on the stone.
"And you?" he asked. "What will you do when they do that?"
Kael's answer was simple.
"I will follow the orders spoken under it," he said. "Whether they are comfortable or not."
Soren turned his head.
"You trust me that much?" he asked.
Kael's mouth twisted.
"I trust His Majesty," he said. "And he trusts you. I have made a career of obeying inconvenient men."
There was, beneath the dryness, a glint of something like respect.
Soren looked back at the city.
"I am still… recovering," he said, the admission sour but necessary. "If I falter in that hall—"
"We move," Kael said. "Quietly. Efficiently. You will not see the hands until they have already caught you."
"That is supposed to be reassuring?" Soren asked.
"Yes," Kael said. "You are terrible at falling safely. Someone needs to practice for you."
Against his will, Soren smiled.
The movement tugged at his side. He winced.
Kael saw.
"Enough walking," Kael said. "If Larem catches you upright, he'll have my head."
"He would not dare," Soren said. "What would you do to him?"
"Nothing," Kael said. "I'm more afraid of his lectures than his punishments."
He guided Soren back toward the study with a hand hovering just behind his back, like Ecclesias' earlier. Soren let him.
As they walked, Soren glanced once more at the ring.
It did not make him strong.
It did not make him safe.
It did, however, mean that when he walked into that hall, he would not be doing it as a man waiting to see who would speak for him.
For the first time, he would walk in knowing that if someone wanted to tear him from Ecclesias' side, they would have to defy not only a king, but the circle of metal that told every guard, every minister, every watching eye:
He is not yours.
And that, Soren thought, might be enough to change the angle of every knife in the room.