The door at the far end of the boardroom, the door that did not open to a corridor or a lobby or any public-facing space, but to the office that had belonged to the head of the Vale empire for four generations.
The office where decisions were made that did not appear in newspapers. Where the real conversations happened in the spaces between the conversations that anyone knew about.
His grandfather's office.
His father's office.
His mother's, for the years she had held it together with her own hands while the world assumed someone else was holding it.
His brother's.
And now…
He opened the door.
Amara walked through first. His mother followed. Julian came last, and turned, and stood with his hand on the edge of the door, and looked back once at the empty boardroom the long table, the signed documents, the chair at the head of it where, two hours ago, the empire had pressed its seal into dark wax and named him king.
He thought of Kalian's smile.
He thought of his daughter.
