The corridor outside the throne hall still felt too quiet.
William had only just gotten his breathing back under control.
Not fully. Just enough that his hands weren't shaking like they had a minute ago. Elizabeth stood close enough to keep teasing him. Victoria looked like she was enjoying every second of it. Henry was pretending not to. And Aldric had reached that dangerous point where one more sentence would make him unbearable.
Then the great doors behind them opened.
The sound rolled down the corridor like a warning.
Voices followed—measured, noble, already splitting into sharper little private conversations as the gathered houses spilled out of the report hall in twos and threes. White, red, black, silver, gold. Court faces sliding back into place now that the King's judgment was over.
Henry's posture changed first.
Only a little. Enough.
Victoria noticed it and straightened too. Elizabeth stepped half a pace away from William, just enough to make the hallway proper again.
Aldric, of course, leaned in and whispered, "Ah. Here comes the part where everyone remembers they're snakes."
William muttered, "You're included in that."
Aldric smiled. "Yes. But I'm an affectionate snake."
The first to spot William was not Lancaster.
It was Vutor.
Octavian came out of the hall already speaking to an older retainer, black-and-silver Vutor colors cut so perfectly they made half the corridor look underdressed. Tall. Controlled. Clean in the way people got when they never had to touch anything real unless they wanted to.
He stopped mid-step.
His gaze found William.
And held.
Moor Town rose in William's chest all over again—lean faces, underfed children, lazy garrison, all of it sitting just beneath Octavian's immaculate collar like a private insult.
Isolde was with him, a step behind and to the side. Blue-black silk. Composed face. Eyes quieter than her brother's. She noticed William too, then the line of him, then Elizabeth near him, and something unreadable moved behind her expression before it vanished.
Octavian changed direction without asking anyone's permission.
He walked straight toward William.
Not fast, Not angry, Relaxed.
"Ah," he said when he reached them, voice smooth as polished stone. "If it isn't the Gate Knight himself."
No bow. No warmth. Just enough courtesy not to be a challenge. Just enough disrespect to make it one.
"Honestly," Octavian went on, eyes moving over William's bandages, his posture, his face, "I didn't think I was going to see you in person. Not after I heard you stayed behind in Ashford."
Aldric's grin vanished. Henry's shoulders locked. Elizabeth's face didn't move at all.
But William saw Victoria's eyes sharpen.
Octavian stepped closer.
"But here you are, cousin," he said. "Lesser house, and now owner of a lesser village, with your boyfriend—"
He glanced at Aldric.
Aldric put a hand to his chest. "First of all, insulting. Second, if I were his boyfriend, he'd dress better."
William didn't even look at him.
Octavian continued like Aldric had not spoken.
"—and somehow claiming the glory again."
He stopped close enough that the corridor had to acknowledge it now.
Face to face.
William met his eyes.
Octavian's were calm. That made them worse.
William's voice came out flat and steady.
"Sorry to disappoint," he said. "We Lockharts are very stubborn. Hard to kill."
Octavian's mouth curved.
"Oh, I know," he said at once. "Like roaches. Or rabbits."
William's hand balled into a fist before he could stop it.
Octavian saw it.
Of course he did.
He smiled wider, slow and almost kind.
"Oh, don't hurt me, great Gate Knight," he said. "I'm just playing."
He lifted one hand.
Two fingers first.
Then one.
And slowly—deliberately—a point of light gathered at the tip of his raised finger.
Not enough to fire, Just enough to make the air tighten.
Crown Light.
Controlled. Refined. Casual in a way William hated immediately.
The glow built in a thin white-gold line along Octavian's finger, hot and precise, like a threat sharpened into a needle.
A few nobles farther down the corridor slowed without looking like they were slowing.
Octavian kept his eyes on William the whole time.
"Don't think for a second," he said quietly, "that waking your Crown Light puts you in my league yet."
The light at his fingertip brightened another shade.
"I could end you any time I wanted."
He pointed it directly at William.
Henry moved in the background—just one step, but it changed the whole corridor. The look on his face was no longer brotherly irritation. It was the look of a Lockhart officer measuring exactly how quickly he could break somebody elegant.
William stepped forward too.
Right into the line of that glowing finger.
His pulse jumped once. Not from fear. From fury.
"Do it," he said.
The words came out low and deadly.
"I'll show you I don't need Crown Light to beat you to death."
That did it.
The whole hallway went taut.
Aldric stopped smiling completely. Isolde went pale by a degree. Victoria's hand found Henry's sleeve—not to stop him, but like she knew exactly how close this was to becoming a story nobody could clean up.
Octavian's eyes sharpened.
And then Elizabeth moved.
She stepped right in front of William.
Not dramatic. Not rushed. Just decisive.
The glowing finger was suddenly aimed at her instead.
Elizabeth looked at Octavian like he had become tiresome.
"Will you hurt the King's daughter?" she asked calmly. "I don't think that would be wise."
That landed.
Hard.
Octavian's hand didn't lower. But the shape of his control changed.
Then another voice entered the corridor.
Male. Clear. Easy. Dangerous only because it sounded so effortless.
"I think you should stand down."
A blade had appeared at Octavian's shoulder.
So cleanly that William hadn't even seen it drawn.
One heartbeat there was tension.
The next, polished Lancaster steel rested lightly against Vutor cloth and skin with the kind of courtesy that only existed because the man holding it did not need force to make his point.
Percival Lancaster.
William knew him at once, because how could anyone not?
Heir to Lancaster. The Most Noble House. The kind of young man boys in lesser halls heard about before they ever met him and decided whether to admire him or hate him later.
Tall. Fair. Not soft—never soft—but bright in the way proper knights were supposed to be in songs. And somehow worse for William's peace of mind: he carried it naturally.
Percival's expression was polite.
That made the blade mean more.
"That," he said mildly, "is one of our princesses. And a royal. I'd rather not explain to the Crown why I watched you threaten her in a hallway."
For one absurd half-second, every woman in the corridor seemed to go still.
Even William, against all reason, felt a hot little stab of envy looking at him.
Because of course a Lancaster would sound like that.
Of course.
Octavian's jaw shifted once.
Then the light at his finger died.
He lowered his hand.
Percival withdrew the blade in the same smooth motion he'd entered with. No flourish. No humiliation beyond the one already accomplished.
Elizabeth turned her head slightly, looking at Octavian now—not angry, not frightened.
Disappointed.
That was worse.
She stepped closer to him, voice quiet enough that the hallway had to lean in to hear.
"You remember when we were children," she said, "and we said if we both ever became great, we'd marry each other?"
Octavian held her gaze.
A small, stiff nod.
William hated how much he hated hearing that.
Elizabeth noticed. Of course she did. She noticed everything.
"Well," she said, "I never liked scumbags who bully other people just because they're in a position of power or wealth."
Octavian's face went still.
"No wonder my father gave my hand to a Lockhart," she went on, calm as winter. "They seem to have more heart than a Vutor."
There was not a sound in the corridor.
Not one.
Then Elizabeth turned her back on him.
Just like that.
She walked back to William, slipped her hand around his arm, and said in the same tone someone might use for discussing supper,
"Let's go eat."
It took William a full second to remember how his legs worked.
Behind them, the shock hit the hallway in silent waves.
Aldric's mouth actually fell open. Victoria looked delighted in a way she was trying very hard not to show. Henry's expression did not move, but William knew that look—he was impressed, and he would deny it under torture.
Even Isolde's eyes widened before she smoothed herself back into Vutor calm.
Percival, to his credit, looked only faintly amused.
Then he turned toward William.
"Sir William," he said.
William straightened automatically, Elizabeth's hand still on his sleeve.
Percival's expression warmed just enough to feel real.
"My congratulations," he said. "On Ashford. Noble defense."
William had to remind himself not to stare like a stable boy shown a saint's sword.
A Lancaster. Saying that to him.
On the outside, he managed something that almost resembled composure.
"Thank you," he said. "It… means a great deal hearing that from a Lancaster."
Percival smiled, easy and direct.
"Knight to knight," he said, "if you ever need help in future, ask."
That nearly finished William where he stood.
Aldric, recovering, made a strangled sound behind his hand.
Octavian brushed past them before anyone could build something kinder out of the moment.
He did not look at Percival.
He looked only at William.
"Fine," he said. "You're a knight now."
His voice was cool again, but not as controlled as before.
"Why don't you prove you still matter against me in two years? The Royal Crown Light Exhibition. Strongest house. Strongest young noble in Britannia."
He smiled slightly.
"Unless you're chicken."
Isolde closed her eyes for a second like she'd heard this speech before and never enjoyed it any more than the first time.
Octavian kept walking.
He was almost past them when William answered.
"Sure," he said.
The corridor stopped breathing again.
Octavian slowed just enough to hear it fully.
William's voice was steady now. Not loud. That made it land harder.
"Let's do it," he said. "But when I beat you—Moor Town is mine."
Octavian stopped.
Then he turned his head, not enough to face William fully, just enough to let the line hit him.
For the first time since stepping out of the hall, he looked genuinely displeased.
Good.
William held his gaze.
Octavian's mouth went flat.
Then he turned away and kept walking, Isolde falling into step beside him, the Vutor retainers following after like the corridor itself owed them more dignity than it had delivered.
Only when they were gone did Aldric let out the breath he'd been holding.
"By all the saints," he whispered. "That was the most romantic and violent hallway I have ever lived through."
Victoria laughed first.
Henry finally gave up and did too, short and sharp and real.
Elizabeth's hand was still on William's arm.
William looked down at it.
Then at her.
She lifted one brow.
"What?" she asked.
He stared at her for a second, still half in the argument, half in the impossible fact that she had just burned Octavian Vutor alive without raising her voice.
Then he managed, "Nothing."