The morning sun did not merely shine into the Abbey of Praeven; it was filtered, refracted, and tamed by the towering windows of stained glass. As the light hit the stone floor, it fractured into pools of deep crimson and bruised purple—colors that looked more like spilled wine and drying blood than holy illumination.
Pope Gordonson Tsvirkunov sat behind a desk of polished Breen oak, a wood so dark it seemed to swallow the light around it. He was a man of the cloth, yet he wore his piety like a well-fitted armor, cold and impenetrable. As the nephew of Queen Davina and the spiritual figurehead of a faith rooted in conquest, he understood a truth King Charles did not: the gods do not favor the humble; they favor the patient.
~
A heavy knock echoed through the vaulted chamber. At Gordonson's signal, a man dressed in the slate-grey silks of the Kingdom of Breen entered. This was no common traveler, but an ambassador from the Breen court, a man who answered directly to Gordonson's father, Lord Gordon.
The ambassador bowed, his forehead nearly touching the cold stone. "Your Holiness," he began, his voice lowered. "The Duke sends his greetings. But he also sends his concerns. The Kingdom of Breen grows restless. Our coasts are battered, our deserts are dry, and our people look at the fertile timberlands of Praeven with hungry eyes. They wish for assurances regarding your aunt, Queen Davina. They fear the peace has made her... soft. That she might forget she is a daughter of the Tides before she is a Queen of the Flame."
Gordonson didn't look up from the letter he was drafting. The scratch of his quill was the only sound in the room—a sharp, rhythmic sound like a knife on bone.
"My aunt is a Tsvirkunov," Gordonson said smoothly, finally lifting his gaze. His dark eyes were sharp, calculating, and utterly unclouded by conscience. "To our house, the heart is a secondary organ. The mind is what rules. Davina is young, yes, and surrounded by the stagnant air of this court, but she is guided by those who shape her very surroundings. Every lady-in-waiting, every whispered prayer in her ear, belongs to us."
He leaned forward, the candlelight catching the silver serpent ring on his finger—the hidden symbol of the Tides of Ascendancy tucked beneath his holy vestments.
"The peach will ripen in due time," he continued. "You do not pluck fruit while it is green and sour. You wait until it is heavy, until its own weight makes it ready to fall into your hand. Charles thinks he has bought peace with a marriage. He has only invited the harvesters into his garden. He believes his bloodline is a 'holy vessel,' but even the finest porcelain shatters if you apply pressure to the right cracks."
~
The ambassador nodded, but his eyes darted to the letters scattered on the Pope's desk. "And the children, Your Holiness? Prince Vaughn is... difficult. He clings to his mother, yet the court whispers of his incompetence. And the twins, Perry and Nora... the whispers in the Breen court are becoming loud. They speak of the twins' resemblance to the Tsvirkunov line. If the people of Praeven suspect the Flame has been... mingled... with Breen blood, they may rise."
Gordonson's expression didn't change, but the air in the room seemed to turn cold. The rumors of his own closeness with Queen Davina were a dangerous game—one he played with the skill of a grandmaster.
"Every step has been accounted for," Gordonson replied, his voice dropping to a glacial tone. "Whether the twins carry the Seymour flame or the Tsvirkunov tide is irrelevant to the world, so long as the world believes what it is told. Prince Vaughn is exactly what we need: a weak link. A King who cannot stand without his mother is a King who will hand us the keys to the treasury without a fight. One way or another, the outcome will favor our House."
~
Once the ambassador was dismissed, Gordonson allowed himself a rare moment of reflection. He looked at the map of Praeven spread across his side table. To most, it was a map of provinces and rivers. To him, it was a ledger of debts.
The Tsvirkunovs had not risen to power through "Divine Anointment." They were merchants who had bought their nobility with coin and kept it with blood. Under Gordonson's direction, they had manipulated trade agreements until the Praeven shipping lanes were entirely dependent on Breen vessels. They had coerced favors from the nobility until the King's own Privy Council was a nest of Tsvirkunov puppets.
He recalled the women who had passed through these hallowed halls under the guise of "confession." He thought of the children scattered across the kingdoms who carried his blood but not his name. They were his secret army.
But as he looked at the map, he felt a strange, nagging sensation—the feeling of a piece missing from the board. He knew Charles was hiding something; the King had been retreating into his cups and his prayers more than usual. Gordonson suspected a hidden debt or a secret alliance with a rival noble house.
Gordonson drafted a short, hollow letter to King Charles, filled with religious platitudes and false assurances of peace. He sealed it with a flick of his wrist, his mind already moving to his next appointment.
The sun was setting, casting long, bruised shadows through the Abbey. The Marquis of Praeven had requested a delicate favor earlier that week—the erasure of a gambling debt that threatened to bankrupt his estate. Gordonson had granted it, using the Church's vast coffers to silence the creditors.
But Gordonson never gave a gift without a return.
There was a soft knock at the private door leading to his inner chambers. A young girl, barely eighteen and dressed in the fine but trembling silks of a noble house, stood there. She was the Marquis's youngest daughter, the "payment" for her father's continued standing in court.
She looked at the floor, her hands shaking as she held a small offering of silver incense.
"Come, child," Gordonson said, his voice dropping the holy cadence of the Pope and taking on the cold, transactional tone of a Tsvirkunov merchant. He stood and walked toward her, his heavy robes rustling on the stone. "Your father's debts are paid. Now, it is time for you to fulfill yours."
He led her into the shadows of his bedchamber, closing the heavy oak door behind them. The "Holy Pope" of the Tides of Ascendancy smiled in the dark. He believed he was the master of all he surveyed, unaware that in the North, a fire was already being lit that would eventually turn his Abbey to ash.