Across the city, while Raziel was staring at the ceiling of his dorm running interrogation post-mortems in his head, the Crown Prince of Phaedra was trying to break an old soldier in half.
***
CRACK.
The training sword came down in a vertical arc.
Ser Gainard's shield split at the center.
The veteran knight went to one knee, arms shaking before he'd even finished falling.
Aerion stepped back and waited.
He hadn't broken a sweat.
He never broke a sweat anymore, which meant he wasn't pushing hard enough to stop thinking, which meant tonight was going to be the same as every other night this month.
"Mercy, Your Highness," Gainard said, spitting onto the gravel. "My old bones can't keep your pace."
Aerion reached down and pulled him up.
"Rest. Tomorrow we work on your left flank, you open it every time you're tired."
He looked around the courtyard. The other soldiers were studying the walls and the ground with great intensity.
"Dismissed."
The sound of boots retreating.
Then new boots were running, from the far gate.
A palace messenger, young, pale, skidding to a stop in front of Aerion and almost taking out the weapon rack.
"Your Highness."
A clumsy bow. "Urgent summons from the High Inquisitor. He requests your presence at the Cathedral now."
The courtyard went quiet in the specific way it did when someone said something nobody wanted to have heard.
Gainard made the sign of the Goddess under his breath.
"The Inquisition?" Aerion said. "I am a Paladin of Zhalyr, not a witch hunter. On what grounds?"
"National security, Your Highness." The boy's voice dropped. "He mentioned the Crypt incident."
That was supposed to be a contained accident.
"I'm on my way."
***
The Royal Palace corridors were cold and long. Aerion kept his pace even and his expression controlled with the same discipline he applied to the training yard.
"Aerion."
King Aurelian stepped out of the shadow of the private corridor.
The man who had once made courtiers step back just by entering a room now needed a cane to cross thirty feet of marble.
His skin had gone grey and tight over his face.
His eyes were too bright, the way embers are bright when there's nothing left to burn.
He looked at Aerion's silver armor and did not look pleased.
"That costume again," Aurelian said. "You are the heir to Phaedra, not the Church's errand boy."
"The Inquisitor summoned me, Father. I was told it concerns the crown."
The King's expression shifted. Contempt moved sideways and made room for something more careful.
"The Inquisitors always see threats, It is their business model." He moved closer, lowering his voice.
"Be careful, Aerion. Those men have no loyalty to bloodlines. Whatever you tell them, they will file it away and use it later, give them nothing they can hold."
"I will protect the kingdom."
"Protect your neck first." The King turned away.
"The kingdom has survived worse than its princes. I am not certain the reverse is true."
He walked back into the corridor shadows without looking back.
Aerion watched him go.
His father had not asked what the summons was about.
Had not asked if Aerion needed anything.
Had warned him, which was the specific language Aurelian used for things that resembled concern.
Aerion continued on his way.
***
The Cathedral of the Goddess stood at the edge of the old quarter.
High stone, narrow windows, the kind of building designed to make you feel smaller than you were.
The nave was empty, red and blue light across the floor from the stained glass. One figure near the main altar.
Odessa Grand.
She had her hand on her sword pommel and her back to the door and she turned the moment his footsteps crossed the threshold. She'd been listening to him.
Her eyes were bloodshot, like she had three days without sleep, at minimum.
"You're late," she said.
"The King stopped me." Aerion crossed toward her.
"What's happening, Odessa? Your messenger was half a step from fainting."
She checked the confessional alcoves at both sides then she turned back and looked at him directly.
"The Inquisition is investigating two of my novices."
Aerion frowned. "The High Inquisitor called me out of the palace for students."
"One of them is from House Nyxian," Odessa said. "Youngest son."
"Then let the House deal with it."
"The other is a commoner, an orphan. Nobody." She paused. "No family, no connections, no reason for any faction to know his name."
"Then why are we having this conversation?"
Odessa's jaw tightened.
"Because the Inquisitors didn't arrest them for curfew violations." She lowered her voice until it barely carried across the empty nave.
"They found traces of magic in the Crypt. Not elemental or scholarly, its something that has no business in a fifteen-year-old's hands."
She held his gaze.
"They think one of those boys produced a Saint-level power. In the middle of a live necromantic ritual, contained the threat then walked out and went back to his dormitory."
Aerion said nothing.
"They want to take him apart," Odessa said. "To find out how."