The legend of the Stone-Sick King did not roar across the land; it seeped. Like the last, stubborn damp of winter rising through stone, the whispers found every crack in the kingdom's new foundation. In the taverns of the western towns, men spoke in hushed tones of the Vale's silenced spring, attributing it not to the clans' sabotage or military strategy, but to William's direct, unnatural wrath. In the villages, mothers used the name to hush crying children. The story mutated with each telling: the king could wither crops with a glance, his touch brought frost in summer, his covenant was written not in ink but in the lifeblood of the land.
William first saw its political manifestation not in open rebellion, but in a chilling, formal silence. The requests for royal judges under the Covenant's new circuits, which had been growing, suddenly plateaued. Petitions from commons and merchants slowed to a trickle. It was as if the kingdom was holding its breath, watching him. The ledgers, once filled with actionable problems, now showed a column of intangible deficit: Public Trust.
He tried to combat it with visibility, as he'd planned. He traveled to the border of the Vale and personally oversaw the distribution of seed grain, a sack of black barley in his own hands as he moved down a line of gaunt-faced farmers. They took the seed with bowed heads and murmured thanks, but their eyes were hollow, flickering with a fear that had nothing to do of Norse raiders or puritanical fanatics. They were afraid of him, of the power that had, in their minds, stolen the very voice of their mountains.
During one such distribution, a young boy, emboldened by hunger or innocence, pointed a dirty finger at the heavy wagon that always accompanied the king's retinue. "Is the sick stone in there?" he asked, his voice clear in the sudden, dead silence.
The mother yanked the child back, her face pale with terror. William stood frozen, the rough burlap of the seed sack gritty in his hands. He saw the story had a physical locus: the wagon carrying the cold, cracked covenant-stone. His symbol of unity had become a traveling exhibit of his alleged curse.
He returned to Blackcliff earlier than planned, the taste of ash in his mouth. In his study, the numbers offered no solace. Hiller presented the latest figures: trade was down, not dramatically, but perceptibly. The "Reconstruction Tithe" was being collected with sullen reluctance. The confidence he needed to manufacture was evaporating.
"It is a PR problem, sire," Hiller said, using a Greyport term for 'public relations.' "Perception is a market like any other. Currently, the perception of your rule is… bearish."
"And how does one invest in such a market?" William asked, wearily.
"Counter-narratives. Spectacles of benevolence. Perhaps… a wedding." Hiller's voice was carefully neutral.
William's head snapped up. "A what?"
"The boy, Eddard. He is of an age where betrothals are considered. A union between the Crown and the Vale—a marriage between the young lord and a loyalist house, blessed and orchestrated by you. It would be a powerful symbol of reconciliation, of the future. It would give people a new story: not the king who breaks, but the king who binds."
It was cynicism of the highest order, using a traumatized child as a political tool. William's stomach turned. Yet, the arithmetic was compelling. A wedding was a feast, a celebration. It would require the lords to gather, to publicly reaffirm their loyalty. It would show the Vale a path forward that wasn't just starvation and occupation. It would, perhaps, begin to overwrite the story of the Stone-Sick King.
"Who?" he asked, the word tasting foul.
"Lord Telfor has a daughter. Thirteen. A mild girl, from a solid, unambitious western house. It would bind the west to the Vale's recovery, and Telfor is too minor to pose a threat. The symbolism is clean."
William closed his eyes. He was calculating the life of a boy and a girl as a variable in an equation of stability. He saw Elyse's face, her warning about kindness. But the king in him, the Forge King who had choked a spring and hanged men to build a peace, saw the logic. "Begin the discreet inquiries," he said, his voice hollow.
The preparations for a potential betrothal were a new kind of siege, conducted with parchment and protocol instead of trebuchets. As the castle stewards fussed over hypothetical guest lists and menus, William sought a different kind of counsel. He found Alaric in the archives, bent over a crumbling scroll that smelled of mildew and age.
"The stone," William said without preamble. "It is the heart of the sickness they fear. Can it be… healed? Can its light be restored?"
Alaric looked up, his silver eyes weary. "It is not a wound of the flesh, but of essence. You used it to enact a profound contradiction: a tool of collective law to perform an act of solitary, absolute will. To heal it, you would need to perform an act of equal magnitude in the opposite direction. An act of law so pure, so selfless, it reforges the symbol."
"An act like what?"
"I cannot say.It must be organic to your rule. A judgment that costs you dearly. A protection granted to an enemy. A law that binds you, the king, more tightly than it binds your subjects. It must be a thing that makes the people say, 'See, the law is real, even for him.' Only then might the stone remember its purpose."
William left more frustrated than before. A grand, self-sacrificing gesture? His reign was built on a hundred small, hard, pragmatic choices. Grand gestures were for bards and doomed rebels.
The tension broke from an unexpected direction. A messenger from Greyport arrived, not under a trade flag, but with the formal heraldry of the Syndicate. Syndic Arcturus Vane requested, with all due respect, the return of the "artistic artifact" loaned to the Crown—the oak box containing the Covenant page inscribed with ash from Whitewatch. The reason given was "cataloguing and preservation."
It was a move of breathtaking audacity. They were calling in their symbolic chip. William knew refusal would be seen as weakness, an admission that the box held power he feared to release. Agreement felt like surrendering a weapon.
He decided on a middle path. He would return the box. But not quietly. He summoned the envoy to the Great Hall, with Daerlon, Hiller, and other notables present. The box was placed on the high table.
"Syndic Vane's request is granted," William announced, his voice carrying in the vaulted space. "The Free City of Greyport generously shared this artifact, a record of our kingdom's resolve in dark times. We return it now, as a sign of our continued confidence in peace and lawful exchange between our peoples." He made it sound like a favor he was bestowing, not a demand he was obeying. "However, the words inscribed upon it are the birthright of every subject of this realm. Therefore, before it is returned, the text—the First Article of the Blackcliff Covenant—will be read aloud."
He nodded to a scribe. The man stepped forward, unrolled a copy, and began to read in a clear, high voice that echoed off the stone: "The Peace of the Realm: The Crown hereby guarantees the safety and lawful practice of all faiths and peoples who keep the King's Peace, renouncing violence and sedition. From the highest lord to the lowest freeman, the protection of law extends, and its burdens apply…"
As the words rang out, William watched the Greyport envoy's face. The man maintained a mask of polite attention, but a muscle twitched in his jaw. The reading was a masterstroke. It forced Greyport to receive their 'artifact' wrapped in the very language of William's sovereignty. It was a reminder, publicly delivered, of the legal order they sought to manipulate.
After the envoy left with the box, William felt a grim satisfaction. It was a small victory in the war of perceptions. But that night, as he checked the covenant-stone, its light remained a stubborn, foggy grey. The act had been clever, political. It was not the selfless, costly act of law Alaric spoke of.
The betrothal plans advanced. Lord Telfor, surprised and visibly swelling with newfound importance, agreed readily. His daughter, a quiet girl named Liana with wide, fearful eyes, was brought to court. Eddard, the Vale boy, was informed. He received the news with a blank, stoic silence that was more unnerving than tears or rage. Two children, pawns on a political board, were brought together in a stiff, chaperoned meeting in a sunlit gallery. They did not speak. They looked at each other like survivors of different shipwrecks, recognizing the same deep water in each other's gaze.
William observed from a distance, the architect of their misery. He told himself it was for the kingdom, for peace, for a new story. The arithmetic supported it. But the cold weight in his chest, near where the simple quartz rested, argued otherwise.
It was the boy, Eddard, who finally shattered the calculation. A week after the meeting, he requested a private audience. William granted it, curious. The boy stood in the study, his borrowed court clothes hanging loose on his frame.
"Your Majesty," Eddard said, his voice preternaturally calm. "I will marry the girl. I understand it is… necessary. But I ask for one condition."
"Name it," William said.
"Amnesty,"the boy said, his eyes lifting to meet William's. They were Ferdinand's eyes, sharp and calculating, but without the duke's indulgent corruption. "Not for my father. For his men. The soldiers, the captains who followed him and now rot in your dungeons here and in the Vale. Grant them pardon. Let them return to their families. Their loyalty was to their lord, not to treason against the crown. Punish me with this marriage. Do not punish them with cages."
William was stunned. It was a move of startling political acumen and genuine moral weight from a child. It was also impossibly dangerous. Freeing Ferdinand's loyalist officers could seed the Vale with future rebellion. It would outrage the lords who had fought them. The arithmetic screamed no.
But as he looked at Eddard's pale, determined face, he heard Alaric's words: An act of law so pure, so selfless, it reforges the symbol. This was not selfless on his part—it would be a huge risk—but it was an act of mercy requested as a condition of obedience. It was law and grace intertwined. It was exactly the kind of costly, paradoxical ruling that transcended politics.
The ledger in his mind warred with the stone in his chest. The numbers predicted instability, potential revolt. But the man, the climber who valued a clear handhold over a safe, stagnant ledge, saw a different path.
"Your condition is noted, Lord Eddard," William said formally. "The Crown will consider it."
He dismissed the boy and spent a night in silent, agonized calculation. At dawn, he summoned Daerlon, Hiller, and Brann. He laid out Eddard's request.
Daerlon was aghast. "Absolutely not! It undermines every victory! It tells every lord that rebellion has no lasting price!"
Hiller was more pragmatic but equally opposed. "It creates uncertainty, sire. Markets and men both hate uncertainty. The risk of renewed conflict in the Vale would scare off the very investment we need."
Brann, the soldier, simply looked grim. "They are enemy combatants. Releasing them arms our future enemies."
William listened to all of it. He then said, "The betrothal is a tool to bind the Vale. What better binding than mercy? We show strength not through continued punishment, but through the confidence to forgive. We make the son of our enemy the instrument of his former followers' salvation. We turn their loyalty from Ferdinand to his line, and his line is now bound to us. It is a deeper, more cunning arithmetic."
He was arguing his own case, convincing himself as much as them. But a part of him knew it was more than calculation. It was a choice to believe in the Covenant's promise of a peace beyond vengeance.
"I have decided," he said, his voice final. "The betrothal of Lord Eddard of Silver Vale and Lady Liana of Deepwood will be announced. Concurrently, a royal pardon will be issued for all soldiers and captains of rank below knight-marshal who swore primary fealty to Ferdinand and have committed no crimes against civilians as defined by the Covenant. They will be released, their arms and armor forfeit to the Crown, and they will return to their homes under oath to the new Lord of the Vale and the Crown."
The decree, when announced, sent shockwaves through the kingdom. The "Stone-Sick King" narrative faltered, confronted by this bewildering act of clemency. In the Vale, freed men returned to their families, telling stories not of a vengeful monster, but of a hard, strange king whose justice had an unexpected dimension of mercy. The wedding preparations, once a somber political exercise, gained a new sheen of genuine hope.
The night before the official announcement, William went to the stone. He did not expect anything. He placed his hand on the cold, fissured surface. For a long moment, nothing. Then, a sensation—not warmth, but a lessening of the bitter cold. And deep within the murky grey light, a single, faint pulse of white, like a star glimpsed through a rift in storm clouds. It lasted only a second, then faded. But it had been there.
Alaric, witnessing it from the doorway, let out a slow breath. "You have planted a seed in salted earth," he murmured. "It may yet grow."
The wedding of Eddard and Liana was a modest affair by royal standards, but rich in symbolism. William stood as patron, binding the two children's hands together. He saw the fear in Liana's eyes, the resigned determination in Eddard's. He had traded their childhoods for a story. But perhaps, he hoped, it would be a story that allowed them, and the kingdom, to grow into something better.
As the feasting began in the Great Hall, a messenger found William. It was from Morwen, delivered by a clansman who slipped past the revelry. The message was a single line, carved on a piece of slate: "The mountain's thirst lessens. A trickle returns to the spring. It remembers a different pact."
William stood on a balcony, the sounds of muted celebration behind him. He looked east, towards the distant, silent Vale, and west, towards the deep forests where tales of a sick king were told. The ledger was still open. Greyport still plotted. Daerlon still schemed. The stone was still cracked.
But a trickle of water had returned. A pulse of light had flickered. A choice had been made that defied simple arithmetic.
The Forge King had learned a new equation: that sometimes, the most stable sum was not found in addition or subtraction, but in the fragile, audacious algebra of forgiveness. The climb continued, but the path was no longer just one of survival or control. It was becoming a path of redemption, a much harder ascent, with handholds made not of stone and iron, but of trust, mercy, and the terrifying, fragile hope that a broken symbol could yet illuminate a way forward.