Chapter 110 — "The Wish"
"The ruler."
"Yes."
"Of this kingdom."
"Yes."
"You wish to rule the entire realm."
She tilted her head. "It would be odd to ask for half."
A sound escaped someone near the front.
A laugh, quickly strangled.
The representative held her gaze. "Miss Valois."
"The smaller requests felt uninspired."
"You cannot simply request succession."
"Pity."
"The crown does not function that way."
She gave a slight wave of one hand. "Then I’ll choose the other one."
He stared at her for a beat too long.
"The other one."
"Yes."
"There is another request."
"Obviously."
His expression shifted into that precise kind of stillness people wore when they had encountered a problem their training had not covered.
Behind him, the adjudicators looked deeply invested in not being involved.
Above, Tax had tucked one wing over his face.
Then lowered it.
Then, after reconsideration, raised it again.
Cassian sat very straight in his chair with the look of a man watching disaster unfold in exactly the shape he should have predicted.
Somewhere in the crowd, Daren had acquired bread.
No one knew how.
He was eating it with the intense focus of someone who needed his hands occupied immediately or risk becoming a public incident.
Seraphina looked back at the representative.
"The request I actually want is harder than ruling a kingdom anyway."
"Is that so."
"Probably."
A pause.
Then, carefully, "What is it?"
She straightened.
"A study placement at Kestral Academy."
That changed the room.
Not loudly.
The sound that moved through the hall was quieter than before, but more real. Surprise took different shapes when people had to think.
"In Varen," she continued. "Direct admission. No examination process."
The representative’s face gave nothing away, though his eyes sharpened further.
Then she added, "And no companions."
That landed harder.
The murmurs shifted.
Now the room understood enough to be unsettled.
Seraphina met his gaze and finished the request without softening any of it.
"You will also handle my parents."
This time, the silence changed entirely.
Not court silence.
Personal silence.
The representative studied her more carefully.
"Handle them how."
"In whatever manner the royal family considers effective."
"Miss Valois."
"They will object."
"That is not unusual."
"They’ll do more than object."
He considered that.
"I see."
"The request covers it."
His brow moved a fraction. "Does it."
"You said without condition."
A beat passed.
Then, very dryly, "You listen with alarming precision."
"Only when people offer useful things."
That almost drew a smile from him.
Almost.
Instead, he took out a notebook and wrote something down.
"The royal family will contact Kestral Academy directly."
"Thank you."
"We will also speak to your parents."
"Directly."
"Yes. Directly."
There it was again, that near-smile.
Not amusement, exactly.
Recognition, perhaps, of the fact that no one had prepared him for this particular combination of audacity and logistical specificity.
"Congratulations, Miss Valois."
She inclined her head and stepped away.
The crowd opened for her.
She crossed the floor and returned to the east wall just as Daren appeared beside her, still holding bread.
She looked at it.
"Where did that come from."
"A tray."
"A tray carrying bread specifically."
"A tray carrying many things. I made a decision."
"You chose carbs."
"I chose survival."
He offered her a piece.
She took it.
For a moment they stood side by side eating bread while the hall tried to recover from what it had just witnessed.
Then Daren said, "You opened with wanting the throne."
"Yes."
"In front of a royal representative."
"Yes."
"He nearly stopped functioning."
"He recovered."
"He blinked."
"Only once."
"That is the bureaucratic equivalent of screaming."
She glanced toward the front.
The representative was still writing notes. Very precise ones, judging by the line of his shoulders.
Then Daren spoke again, quieter this time.
"Varen."
She looked at him.
The humor had settled. Something steadier remained underneath.
"Yes."
"Kestral."
"Yes."
"For how long."
"At least five years."
He lowered his eyes to the bread in his hands.
"No companions."
"No."
"Not even—"
"No, Daren."
A small breath left him.
He nodded, though he did not look pleased about it.
"You’ll come back."
It was not a question.
"Of course."
"With alarming new abilities."
"That’s the idea."
"And then everything will be..."
He made a vague motion with one hand, the sort that covered far more than words could manage.
She understood anyway.
"Yes."
He nodded once more, bit into the bread, and looked out across the hall.
Then his gaze caught somewhere else.
She followed it.
Evelyne stood near the performance circle, her attention fixed not on the crowd, not on the stage, but on the floor itself. Her face held something fleeting and unguarded, a look Seraphina had never seen there before.
Not calculation.
Not cool control.
Something gentler.
Something she buried before it fully arrived.
Daren looked away so quickly it might have meant nothing.
Which usually meant it meant everything.
Seraphina filed that away for later.
Much later.
Rowan joined them without announcement.
He did not have bread.
He looked from her to the stage, then back again.
"Varen."
"Yes."
"Kestral."
"Yes."
He went still in the way he always did when several calculations began rearranging themselves at once.
"How long have you been planning this."
"A while."
"Before the festival."
"Yes."
"Before the academy."
"Yes."
He studied her.
"Before everything?"
She considered that. "Before some things. Before most."
That answer seemed to satisfy him only insofar as he accepted he would not get a better one.
Then he said, "The noble path process finalizes in three weeks."
"I know."
"You’ll be gone before that happens."
"Yes."
"Should I keep handling it."
"Obviously."
One word.
Enough to cover all of it.
He glanced down at his empty hands, perhaps out of habit. For once there were no papers in them, no ledgers, no notes, no figures waiting to be sorted.
"Your parents," he said.
"The royal family is handling them."
"They won’t enjoy that."
"No."
"They may become impossible."
She gave him a look.
He corrected smoothly, "More impossible than usual."
"That’s better."
His attention returned to the hall, though his thoughts clearly had not.
"five years," he said.
"Minimum."
"You’ll return different."
A faint smile touched her mouth.
"I tend to."
He looked at her then, and some of the tension in his face eased.
"Yes," he said. "You do."
She felt him before she saw him.
Not movement exactly.
Attention.
There was a difference.
The room had its own noise, its own gravity, but a gaze held long enough could still become a physical thing. She knew this one the instant it touched her.
She turned.
Kael stood near the entrance to the east corridor, just beyond the thickest part of the crowd.
Not hidden.
Not approaching.
Simply there, watching her with an expression that had not yet decided what it was.
She moved toward him.
The crowd blurred around her. Voices thinned. Lantern light swam gold at the edges of her vision.
She stopped in front of him.
"You’re going alone."
"Yes."
The silence that followed was not empty.
It held too much for that.
At last he asked, "Why didn’t you tell me."
She blinked. "I did."
That genuinely caught him off guard.
His frown was real, unpracticed.
"When?"
"Before the festival."
"You said it was a secret."
"Yes."
"Exactly."
She looked at him as if the answer ought to be obvious. "That was me telling you."
"No," he said. "That was you announcing the existence of information."
"It had excellent structure."
"It had no content."
"It had implication."
"It had mystery."
She folded her arms. "You were distracted."
His eyes narrowed slightly. "By what."
She held his gaze.
"By being my fiancé."
The words landed cleanly.
No cruelty in them.
No mockery either.
Only truth.
Kael said nothing.
So she continued, quieter now.
"You were spending so much energy thinking about that part of it, I didn’t think you would hear anything else."
Something shifted in his face.
Not offense.
Not denial.
Recognition, unwelcome and immediate.
Then he said, "The fake part doesn’t matter."
She stilled.
His voice had changed. Not louder. Not softer. Just stripped of everything unnecessary.
"Not to me."
For a moment she said nothing.
Then, very carefully, "It doesn’t matter to me either."
The air between them altered.
Not solved.
Not settled.
Only altered.
Kael looked at her as if trying to assemble several truths at once.
Then one of them clicked.
"You said you wanted to study somewhere."
"Yes."
"You said you had already decided."
"Yes."
"And I thought..."
He stopped.
His gaze drifted, not away from her, but through the thought itself, tracing where he had gone wrong.
"I thought it would be close."
She gave the smallest nod.
His expression changed again.
It was almost unsettling, watching understanding move through him piece by piece.
"Oh," he said.
A moment later, with more weight behind it, "Oh."
Now it had arrived.
Varen.
Kestral.
No companions.
Five years.
Alone.
She watched every part of that realization settle behind his eyes.
When he looked at her again, his face held something she still could not name.
It had begun in the circle.
It had sharpened on the stage.
Now it stood fully present between them, asking to be seen.
"Aina."
The way he said her name made it something more than a word.
She could have answered.
Could have stayed.
Could have explained any of the things neither of them seemed equipped to say plainly.
Instead she held his gaze for one last beat, then stepped back.
The crowd moved around her as she turned away.
Lanterns burned overhead. Music started again somewhere distant. Voices rose, crossed, faded.
The festival continued.
Of course it did.
She walked through all of it and left him standing where the edge of the crowd met the edge of everything she had just handed him:
Varen.
Kestral.
Distance.
Time.
And the rest.
Which mattered.
To both of them.