Chapter — The King Without His Quiet.
The throne room had not been used for its intended purpose in eleven days.
Kaelis had been using it for other things. Summoning people at hours that made no sense. Dismissing advisors mid-sentence. Overturning trade negotiations that had taken three months to construct because the envoy had used a phrase that reminded him of something he was not going to think about. The court had learned, in the way courts always learned — through a rapid and brutal process of trial and survival — that the king was not receiving counsel. He was receiving presence. Bodies in a room so that the room was not empty. So that the silence in it had somewhere to go that was not directly into him.
On the twelfth day, he sent riders to Sereveth.
Not diplomats. Riders. The distinction was significant and everyone understood it to be significant and nobody said so out loud.
The message they carried was unsigned. This was also significant.
