"Kreeee! Kreeee!"
A falcon's cry split the sky, sharp, circling and merciless. It cut across the courtyard and lingered there, scraping against stone, against bone, against whatever fragile silence had settled after the final blow. The air held it, stretched it, let it echo until it became something unbearable.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
They all watched.
At the centre of the yard, Nevan lay where he had fallen, his body half-turned into the grit, velvet long since traded for dust and darkening stains. The sun bore down on him without mercy, its heat pressing into his skin, baking the sweat and dirt into something coarse and suffocating. For a moment—too long a moment—his chest did not rise.
A maid leaned forward from the gallery, her fingers hovering near her mouth, not quite covering it, not quite hiding the question forming there. Another shifted beside her, voice lowered to something thin and uncertain, as though speaking too loudly might break whatever fragile line still tethered him to breath.
"Would he rise…?"
The words barely carried, but the thought of them settled heavy in the air.
Martin heard them.
He stood rigid beneath the colonnade, his fingers twisting into the fabric of his sleeve until it bunched and strained beneath his grip. His chest felt tight—too tight—as though something inside it had drawn itself inward and refused to loosen. It had only been words. Nevan had always spoken in words—measured, careful, deliberate. Never careless. Never cruel without reason.
Eric had turned them into something else.
Something deserving of this.
Martin swallowed, but his throat remained dry, the motion useless, hollow. He could have spoken. The realization pressed harder now than it had moments before, settling deep and immovable.
He could have said Father.
Just once.
That would have been enough.
His gaze shifted despite himself, drawn unwillingly toward William—and there it was. Not anger. Not doubt. Something colder. A certainty that did not need to be voiced, that did not need to move.
William always won. Not because he tried harder. Nor because he deserved it.
But because the world had already decided he would. That was the way of things.
Martin's grip slackened, the tension bleeding from his fingers until his hand fell still at his side. The choice had already been made. It had been made the moment he chose silence.
And now it could not be undone.
---
Eric stood a few paces away, his posture no longer loose, no longer easy. The weapon in his hand felt heavier now—not in weight, but in consequence. His fingers shifted along the hilt, adjusting without purpose, his gaze flickering briefly toward the dais before returning to the still form on the ground.
It had been a spar.
That was what it was meant to be.
The thought sat uneasily within him.
He had not meant—
No. That was not true.
He had meant to win.
But not like this.
---
The king rose.
The sound of the chair beneath him carried across the courtyard—wood against stone, deliberate, unhurried. His steps followed, measured and steady, each one echoing faintly in the stillness as he descended.
Nevan did not lift his head.
He did not need to.
He felt it.
The presence drawing closer. The weight of it. The expectation that came with it.
For a moment, something inside him reached—something small, fragile, instinctive. Not hope. Not quite. But something close enough to it to hurt.
The steps passed him.
Close enough that he could hear the faint shift of fabric, the controlled rhythm of breath that did not falter, did not change.
Close enough that he could have been seen.
Should have been seen.
They did not stop.
They did not slow.
They did not turn.
---
The absence landed heavier than any blow.
---
Sound came rushing back in fragments.
A murmur spreading through the gallery, low and restless. The falcon still circling overhead, its cry distant now but no less sharp. The scrape of boots against stone. The faint clatter of something being set aside.
Nevan's breath followed, uneven, catching halfway through his chest before forcing its way out again. Each inhale dragged against something raw within him, each exhale leaving behind a dull, spreading ache that refused to settle.
His mouth tasted wrong.
Not blood.
Not dirt.
Something bitter.
Something that lingered at the back of his tongue, thick and inescapable.
Defeat.
His lips parted slightly as he drew in another breath, the air dry, carrying with it the smell of heated stone, worn leather, and the faint metallic trace that clung to him now. It filled his lungs and sat there, heavy, unwelcome.
His lashes lifted slowly, the light above too bright, too harsh, forcing his vision into a blur before it steadied.
Shapes came first.
Movement at the edges.
Then—
faces.
Still watching.
---
His father's back receded across the yard, unchanged, unmoved, as though nothing of importance had been left behind.
Eric stood where he was, but something in him had shifted—subtle, restrained, the tension held tight beneath the surface. There had been a flinch when the king passed him. Small. Almost nothing.
Nevan saw it anyway.
---
Martin's hands moved restlessly, fingers tugging at his sleeve, his gaze lowered, unable to hold where it should have rested.
---
And William—
still.
Composed.
Watching.
There was no triumph in him.
No outward sign of victory.
Only that same quiet certainty, settled deep and immovable, as though this moment had never been in question.
As though Nevan had never stood a chance.
---
Something tightened in Nevan's chest.
Not pain.
Something sharper.
Hotter.
It pressed upward, unsteady, unfamiliar, catching somewhere behind his ribs, behind his throat, behind his eyes—
His vision wavered, just slightly.
The edges softened.
Blurred.
His breath hitched—not from the pain this time, but from the effort of holding something back that refused to remain contained.
Not here.
His jaw set, the muscle tightening as he forced control back into place, forced the feeling down, buried it beneath something colder, something harder.
He would not—
He would not break here.
Not where they could see it.
Not where they had already seen enough.
---
Around him, the courtyard began to shift.
Not all at once.
Slowly.
The weight of attention lifted in fragments, whispers replacing silence, footsteps replacing stillness. The moment had passed for them.
It had not passed for him.
Eric's voice cut through the low murmur, steadier now, sharper, as though reclaiming something that had nearly slipped.
"Know where you stand."
The words settled into the air, but they lacked something now—something that had been there before.
Certainty.
He turned soon after, his steps quickening as he left the centre behind.
---
Martin remained.
Only for a moment.
His gaze lifted once, faltered, and fell again, the conflict written plainly in the way he shifted, the way he lingered without moving forward.
He wanted to speak.
To act.
To undo something that had already taken root.
But the weight of what he had not done held him in place.
And so, like the rest—
he turned away.
---
The yard emptied.
The heat remained.
The silence returned, thinner now, less expectant, but no less heavy.
Nevan lay where he was, his body refusing to obey, his breath uneven, his thoughts scattered and slipping.
A shadow crossed his vision, drawing closer, blocking out the harsh glare of the sun.
A figure leaned over him, lips moving, words forming—but they reached him distorted, distant, as though carried through water.
Nevan tried to focus, tried to pull meaning from them, but they would not settle.
They slipped.
Faded.
His breath caught again, weaker this time, his chest rising only slightly before falling back.
The world dimmed at the edges.
Sound dulled.
Light softened.
And then—
everything gave way.
The sound came first.
Slow. Irregular.
Water… dripping.
A soft, hollow rhythm, like cloth being rinsed and wrung by tired hands. It echoed faintly through the chamber, each drop striking the surface below with a muted tap… tap… tap… that seemed far louder than it ought to be.
For a while, that was all there was.
Sound.
Weight.
And a distant, shapeless ache.
---
Then pain found him.
Not all at once—never so kind—but in fragments. A sharp pull along his ribs. A dull, spreading throb behind his eyes. A tightness in his chest that made even the thought of breath feel like effort.
Nevan's eyes fluttered open.
Light slipped in, pale and soft, nothing like the harsh glare of the yard. It rested gently against his vision, blurred at the edges, as though the world itself had not yet decided to come fully into focus.
He drew in a breath—
—and faltered.
It caught halfway, shallow and uneven, as pain answered immediately, curling tight around his ribs.
"I'm so sorry, my prince."
The voice came quickly. Close.
Thomlin.
His hands withdrew at once from Nevan's side, the damp cloth in his grip trailing faint streaks of pink across skin that had already begun to darken with bruising.
Nevan did not answer.
He simply looked at him.
Not sharply. Not fully aware. His gaze lingered, unfocused for a moment too long, as though he were still trying to place the world around him.
Where—
His eyes shifted.
Slowly.
The familiar shape of his chambers came into view—the heavy drapes, half-drawn to soften the light; the carved posts of his bed; the quiet, ordered stillness that belonged to him.
He was no longer in the yard.
The realization came without relief.
Only distance.
---
The scent reached him next.
Warm water. Faint herbs. Clean linen.
And beneath it—
iron.
Faint, but unmistakable.
He lowered his gaze.
His body had been stripped of its usual layers. No velvet. No careful tailoring. Only a short pair of trousers clung loosely to his frame, his skin exposed, marked—bruised in deepening shades beneath the surface.
Beside the bed, a basin rested in Thomlin's hands.
The water within it had turned cloudy.
Stained.
A thin, diluted red drifting through it in slow, uneven currents.
"Are you feeling well, my prince?" Thomlin asked, quieter now. Careful. "Shall I call for the physician?"
Nevan's lips parted.
The answer came out broken.
"No."
The word scraped against his throat, dry and hoarse, barely more than breath given shape.
Even speaking hurt.
Thomlin hesitated only a moment before nodding, adjusting his hold on the basin. "Then… I shall prepare your bath. I will add casper roots—they should ease the swelling."
Nevan did not trust his voice again.
He gave the smallest nod.
Silence returned back in the chamber. But it was not empty. It was never empty, it was the kind that pressed on. The kind the clung to every corner of the chamber.
---
As Thomlin moved about the chamber, Nevan's gaze drifted—slow, unfixed—until it found nothing in particular. The ceiling. The edge of the bedpost. The faint shifting of light across the stone floor.
And then—
it settled inward.
The memories came without warning. Wood striking bone. The sound. The watching. The weight of their eyes.
Something tightened in his chest. Not pain. Something hotter.
Darker.
It spread slowly, like heat beneath the skin—uncoiling, gathering, feeding on every fragment of memory he could not push away.
Eric's voice.
William's gaze.
The King— passing him. As though he were nothing.
His fingers curled faintly against the sheets. Rough linen pressed against his skin, grounding, real.
He hated it.
Not the fabric.
Not the room.
Himself.
His jaw tightened.
A flicker of something sharp passed through him—anger, sudden and violent, crashing against the exhaustion that weighed down his limbs.
At Eric.
At them.
At himself most of all.
What was he? A mind? A thought?
A boy who could see everything— and do nothing.
---
"Your bath is ready, my prince."
Thomlin's voice broke through gently.
Too gently.
Nevan blinked, the world pulling back into shape around him.
He shifted.
Regret came instantly.
Pain flared along his ribs, sharp and immediate, stealing what little breath he had managed to gather. His body resisted the motion, heavy and unwilling.
Still—
he moved.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Each movement felt wrong, as though his limbs no longer belonged to him. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, feet meeting the cold stone floor with a quiet, grounding chill.
He stood.
—or tried to.
The room tilted.
His balance faltered, the weakness in his body betraying him so suddenly it felt almost cruel.
Thomlin stepped forward at once, instinctive, hands reaching to steady him—
Nevan pulled away firmly. A refusal. He deserved it. The pain. The instability. All of it.
He straightened, barely, and took a step. Then another. Each one slow. Uneven. Measured not by strength, but by stubborn will alone.
The bath awaited him.
Steam curled faintly above the surface, carrying the earthy, bitter scent of crushed roots. It filled the air, thick and grounding, mingling with the fading trace of iron.
Nevan lowered himself into the water.
Carefully.
Even so, the heat bit at his skin at first—sharp, almost unbearable against bruised flesh—before slowly, gradually, it began to soften.
Muscles loosened. The Pain dulled. Not gone, never gone. But quieter.
The sun had shifted.
Its harsh gold now softened into a muted peach that filtered gently through the drapes, laying warm light across the surface of the water.
A calmer world.
A lie.
Thomlin worked in silence.
His movements were careful. Deliberate. Almost reverent—as though the body before him were something fragile, something that might come apart beneath careless hands.
The cloth passed slowly over Nevan's skin.
Warm water trailed in its wake, carrying with it the grime of the yard—dust, sweat, the faint, dried remnants of blood. It gathered, thinned, and disappeared into the bath in soft, cloudy swirls.
What lay beneath was revealed piece by piece.
Bruised.
Discolored.
Real.
Nevan did not move. He let it happen.
Each touch registered, not as comfort, but as awareness—of where he had been struck, of where his body had failed him. His skin felt too sensitive, too alive, as though every nerve had been stripped bare and left exposed to the air.
The scent of the bath hung thick around him.
Earthy and bitter.
The crushed roots Thomlin had added bled their sharp, grounding aroma into the steam, mixing with the fading trace of iron and the faint, clean note of linen.
It should have soothed him but it did not.
The dirt came away easily. It always did. But the rest— lingered.
Thomlin's hand paused only once.
The cloth brushed too close to Nevan's temple, grazing the swelling there.
Nevan's breath caught sharp and unsteady.
He did not make a sound, but the reaction was there—a subtle tightening, a flicker of strain that passed through him before it was quickly, quietly contained.
Even now— he would not show it.
When the washing was done, Thomlin helped him from the bath—carefully, though Nevan resisted where he could, refusing more support than necessary.
Water slipped from his skin in slow trails, cool against the lingering heat.
The chamber air felt different now.
Quieter.
Heavier.
By the time Nevan returned to his bed, the light had shifted further.
The gold of afternoon had softened into something dimmer, gentler, casting long shadows across the stone floor.
A tray had been set beside him.
Simple.
Deliberate.
Fresh bread, still faintly warm, its scent soft and comforting. A small bowl of broth, thin but fragrant, steam curling lazily from its surface. A cup of watered wine rested beside it, untouched.
The smell reached him first.
Warm.
Inviting.
It stirred something in him— a hollow, quiet reminder that he was hungry.
Nevan sat slowly, the mattress dipping beneath his weight.
A glass of water had been placed within reach.
Condensation gathered along its surface, cool droplets slipping down to dampen the wood beneath.
He stared at it for a moment.
Then reached.
His fingers trembled faintly as they closed around the glass.
Not enough to spill. Just enough.
He lifted it. The rim touched his lips. Cool and clean as he drank.
The water slid down his throat in slow, careful swallows, soothing the dryness there, washing away the lingering taste of iron and dust—if only for a moment.
It was the first thing that did not resist him. The first thing that did not hurt. The food remained untouched.
Thomlin stood in silence. Watching. Thinking.
For the first time since he had come into the prince's service—
he saw him.
Not the distant boy of quiet halls and measured words.
Not the untouchable mind that moved through the world as though it stood above it.
But something else. Bruised. Quiet.
Unsteady in a way that no wound alone could explain.
He looked— lost.
No tears fell. No plea passed his lips. No outward fracture betrayed him.
And yet—
there lingered within him a tension too fine, too tightly drawn—like glass strained to its limit, waiting for the smallest fault to shatter it.
Thomlin's chest tightened.
A strange, unwelcome weight settling beneath his ribs.
For never—not once—had the prince appeared helpless.
His thoughts drifted, unbidden, to the yard.
To the image that refused to leave him.
The pale boy—once cloaked in velvet and quiet dignity—laid upon the unforgiving stone, his form marred with dust and darkening bruises, his breath so faint it had seemed, for a terrible moment, as though it had ceased altogether.
What could have driven such a thing?
What word—what slight—could have warranted so merciless a spectacle?
Nevan had never taken to the sword.
That truth was known to all who served within those walls.
And yet—
he had been made to stand.
To face.
To endure.
"Will that be all, my prince?"
The words slipped gently into the stillness, drawing Nevan from the quiet depths of his thoughts.
His gaze shifted, slow and distant, as though returning from somewhere far removed.
"Hmm…?"
The sound was soft. Uncertain for the briefest of moments.
Then, steadier—
"Yes. That will be all."
A pause.
Measured.
Carefully placed.
"I would rest."
His voice remained low, worn thin at the edges, yet controlled—each word shaped with deliberate restraint.
"I shall not attend supper. See that I am not disturbed."
Thomlin bowed his head at once.
"As you wish, my prince."
He did not linger.
The chamber door opened with a muted creak, then closed just as softly behind him, leaving the room to its silence once more.
Nevan did not move. The quiet settled around him, thick and unmoving, pressing in from every side.
His gaze lowered. Not to the floor. Not to his hands. But inward.
How—?
How was he to face them?
The thought came slow, heavy, dragging through him like something unwilling to be named.
To sit among them.
To share their table.
To endure their presence as though nothing had passed between them.
His father. The image rose unbidden. Not of anger. Not of command. But of absence.
He had stood.
He had watched.
And when it was done—
he had turned away.
Left him there.
Something tightened in Nevan's chest.
Not sharp.
Not sudden.
But deep.
William followed.
Always composed. Always certain.
That quiet, knowing look—cold and settled—as though the outcome had never once been in doubt.
And Eric—
A flicker of something darker stirred beneath the surface.
Not fear.
Not yet.
But something that burned hotter.
Closer to anger.
His hand curled slowly against the fabric beneath him.
Fingers tightening.
Not enough to tremble.
Not enough to betray.
But enough.
He had wished, in that moment, to strike them.
To wipe that certainty from their faces.
To tear it away—
But he had not. Because he could not.
The truth settled into him with a quiet, suffocating weight.
He had been wrong.
A mind—however sharp, however disciplined—
meant nothing
when the body that carried it failed to answer.
His jaw tightened. He still despised it.
The sword.
The crude, brutish nature of it. The mindless exchange of force. The barking of orders. The dull obedience of those who trained only to strike and be struck.
It was beneath him.
And yet— If that was the price—
If strength, true strength, demanded it—
Then he would pay it.
Slowly, his fingers clenched tighter.
This time, the tension did not fade.
It settled.
The next time— The thought formed, quiet but absolute.
The next time they raised a blade against him—
He would not stand as he had.
He would not falter.
He would not be seen— like that.
Something stirred within him then.
Not wild.
Not uncontrolled.
But cold.
Focused.
A promise.
And though no word passed his lips—
though no witness stood to hear it—
it burned within him all the same.
The next time—
they would regret it.