The Heir of Asehria

Seven months after the silver comet first appeared above Asehria, it still rose with the evening sky. Its light had weakened with the passing seasons, but night after night it returned to the eastern sky. Priests continued to argue over its meaning. Scholars continued to assure the court that it would vanish eventually. The people had stopped waiting. They called it the Silver Omen now, although whether it promised salvation or disaster depended upon who was speaking. Merchants sold charms shaped like falling stars. Mothers hung silver ribbons over their children’s beds. Every few weeks, another self-proclaimed prophet appeared in the city square to announce the end of the world.

King Eridan had ordered six of them removed for blocking the grain road. The seventh had drawn such a large crowd that arresting him would have caused a riot, so Eridan had given him a permit and charged him for the use of the square. Isolde had laughed for nearly a minute when she heard.

Now the kingdom had gathered beneath the comet to celebrate the Festival of Lights—and the child expected before its end. The midwives expected an early delivery by the usual Accalon term and had asked for extra blankets and a cradle beside the warming stove. By the festival’s final week, nearly eight million registered visitors had entered the capital. The outer districts had overflowed into the surrounding valleys, where temporary markets, shrines and entire streets of tents stretched beyond the defensive walls. Every inn was full. Private courtyards had become camps, and hundreds of ships waited for space along the river docks. To the people, it was the greatest celebration in living memory. To Captain Seraphina, it was a security nightmare.

“Eight million registered visitors,” she told Eridan. “Perhaps another million who never passed a census post.”

They stood near the edge of the palace ballroom while musicians played for a crowd of nobles, ambassadors and distant relations Eridan barely recognised. Seraphina wore the silver armour of the Lunar Watch, polished for the occasion but no less functional than what she wore into battle.

“How many did you turn away?” Eridan asked.

“Not enough.”

“That is not a number.”

“It is the most accurate answer I have.”

Eridan surveyed the ballroom. Servants moved between the guests with trays of wine. Lords who had ignored Asehria during years of poor harvests now smiled as though they had always been the kingdom’s closest friends.

“What concerns you?”

“Too many strangers and too many gifts. Every foreign delegation brought its own guards. We have searched the public rooms, doubled the watch outside the royal chambers and restricted access to the eastern wing.”

“And the guests accepted this?”

“Half complained that we had insulted them.”

“Then everything is as it should be.”

Seraphina did not smile, although he saw the attempt. Her gaze continued moving across the room, never resting for more than a moment. She had commanded the Lunar Watch for four years and trusted celebrations even less than she trusted battlefields. On a battlefield, she often said, at least the enemy had the courtesy to carry a weapon. Lieutenant Rian Mer held the protected route between Isolde’s rooms and the western shelter, his long frame visible above the attendants passing between them. His sandy hair lay flat where he had removed his helmet. Cel Varo controlled the procession of gifts after discovering three ceremonial chests large enough to conceal a person. Officer Garran Vos compared every foreign escort against the names supplied before the festival.

Rian had surrendered a night of leave that would have placed him beside his eldest daughter in the lantern choir. Cel had already offended two dukes by opening their presents. She braced one knee against the next chest, broad through the shoulders and short enough to have to reach for its lid; a close crop of black hair left her face unobscured as she inspected the lining. Garran had found four guards whose delegations insisted they had merely been forgotten by the scribes. He rubbed the bridge of his crooked nose while they explained, his thick dark brows drawing together.

Seraphina trusted all three.

“I want additional guards outside Isolde’s chambers,” Eridan said.

“Already done.”

“And the foreign delegations?”

“Each has an escort and a Watch liaison.”

“Even Solara?”

“Her escort has spent the last hour trying to persuade Alaria that palace rules apply to her.”

Eridan looked towards the ballroom doors.

“How is that going?”

“Poorly.”

Before Eridan could answer, the ballroom doors opened. Conversation faded as Queen Solara of Feenix entered with Alaria at her side. Solara wore a formal coat of black and deep red rather than a gown. A narrow copper circlet rested against her dark hair, and the phoenix worked across her shoulders marked her as clearly as any crown. Ambassadors bowed as she passed. Solara acknowledged them with a turn of her square chin; lamplight warmed the deep brown of her face.

The soldiers reacted differently to Alaria.

Fists touched breastplates throughout the room. Officers of Asehria, Feenix and Caldris, as well as veterans from two smaller allied kingdoms, acknowledged the First Blade of Feenix without being ordered. Alaria returned each salute with the smallest movement of her hand. She was almost Eridan’s height, lean through the waist and strong across the shoulders. Her chestnut hair lay in a close braid that had survived the road better than her cloak. She wore no ceremonial dress. Her red-and-ash cloak rested over one shoulder, fastened above armour marked by the long journey from Feenix. A sword remained at her hip despite the protests of the palace attendants trailing behind her.

The First Blade was no ceremonial bodyguard chained to Solara’s doors. Feenix had generals to command its armies and captains to hold its palace. Alaria carried the Queen’s authority wherever a treaty, a threat or one difficult decision required someone Solara trusted completely. Since the southern uprising, that duty had brought her to Asehria more often than to any other foreign court.

Seraphina glanced at the weapon.

“She refused to surrender it,” Eridan said.

“Of course she did.”

“Are you going to remove it from her?”

Seraphina considered Alaria for a moment.

“No.”

That was as close to admiration as Seraphina usually came. Solara reached Eridan first. He began the formal bow owed to a visiting sovereign. She caught his shoulders before he completed it and embraced him.

“If you bow to me at your own celebration, I will tell Isolde you have finally become unbearable,” she said.

“She reached that conclusion years ago.”

“Then I will tell her she was right.”

Alaria looked him over.

“You look terrible.”

“It is good to see you too.”

“I almost didn’t recognise you beneath all the gold.”

Eridan embraced her before anyone could remind them that kings were not supposed to greet foreign soldiers like old friends. He turned his head to free her cloak from his collar, exposing the pale scar beneath his left ear.

“You both came a long way for a celebration,” he said.

“Isolde crossed half of Accalon when Feenix needed her,” Solara replied. “I can survive a royal carriage for several days.”

“You complained during every one of them,” Alaria said.

“That was how I survived.”

“And Feenix survived your absence?” Eridan asked.

“My sister remains there with the continuity council.”

“Then it is probably safer than Asehria tonight,” Alaria said.

Solara gave her a patient look.

Her sister governed Feenix’s western provinces and sat first on its continuity council. Solara had left the continuity seal with her. Eridan looked at Alaria.

“You came farther when Feenix needed us.”

“That was a war.”

Alaria surveyed the ballroom. “This seems more dangerous.”

Seraphina gave the smallest nod of approval.

“Where is Isolde?” Solara asked.

“Escaping her own celebration.”

“Good,” Alaria said. “At least one of you still has sense.”

Solara and Alaria left them together, disappearing through a side door leading towards the royal apartments. Eridan watched them go. Solara had fought beside him and Isolde during the southern uprising, then spent years turning a battlefield alliance into something closer than diplomacy. She was one of the few rulers who wrote to Isolde without a title and argued with Eridan without first checking who might overhear.

Alaria had carried Eridan from that same battlefield when an arrow lodged beneath his shoulder and had once threatened to throw Isolde’s entire council from a balcony. He trusted both women with his kingdom and his life. Isolde trusted them in ways no treaty or title could describe.

“Your Majesty.”

Eridan recognised the voice before turning.

Lord Arcanis bowed with the familiar precision of a man who had spent half his life moving between royal courts. His straight black hair fell neatly behind his ears. When he lifted his head, the lamplight caught the hollows beneath his high cheekbones and the attentive brown eyes above them.

“Lord Arcanis.”

“A magnificent celebration,” Arcanis said. “Asehria appears stronger than ever.”

“Tonight, it almost believes that itself,” Eridan said.

“Valanor has always valued its friendship with Asehria.”

“Especially when your musicians are better than ours.”

Arcanis returned the smile.

“A royal child changes more than the line of succession,” Arcanis said. “It changes how other kingdoms see the future.”

“The child has not yet drawn breath, and you are already discussing politics.”

“Politics began discussing the child months ago.”

Eridan could not dispute that.

“Valanor has educated generations of rulers. When the time comes, our tutors and scholars would be honoured to assist with the child’s development.”

“My child will be raised in Asehria.”

“Naturally. An education need not be an exile. Our libraries can travel more easily than a prince.”

“You intend to send books to a newborn?”

“Only the illustrated ones. I would like Valanor to be remembered kindly.”

“Then choose carefully. Isolde will blame you for every dull page.”

“A diplomatic risk I am prepared to accept.”

Eridan looked towards the side door through which Solara and Alaria had disappeared. He had spent most of the night being observed by people who wanted something from his child. If he waited much longer, the three people beyond that door would decide he preferred the court to their company.

“If you will excuse me,” he said.

Arcanis followed his gaze and bowed.

“A king should never keep three such women waiting.”

“That may be the wisest thing you have said all evening.”

Lieutenant Rian Mer did not bar Solara’s path to the royal apartments. He did, however, place one silver-armoured hand across the inner door.

“Her Majesty asked not to be disturbed by anyone from the ballroom.”

“We are no longer in the ballroom,” Alaria said.

Rian had fought beside both women during the southern uprising. Familiarity did not alter the procedure. He looked through the open panel towards the attendant stationed inside rather than moving aside on Solara’s title alone. Before the attendant could carry the question farther, Isolde’s voice reached them from beyond the chamber.

“If that is Solara, let her in. If Alaria is with her, make certain she has not brought the musicians.”

“Only my sword,” Alaria called back.

“That is usually quieter.”

The attendant opened the door from within. Only then did Rian lower his arm. Solara found Isolde upon the western balcony with both hands resting on the curve of her stomach. The music from the ballroom reached them as a distant pulse through the palace walls. Out here, millions of lanterns filled the streets below, and silver ribbons caught the light of the comet overhead.

Isolde looked between them. “How bad is it?”

“Eridan bowed to me,” Solara said.

“Here?”

“In his own palace,” Alaria added. “At his own celebration.”

Isolde’s expression became grave. “Then the kingdom is in greater danger than we thought.”

“I can hear you.”

Eridan stood in the balcony doorway.

Alaria glanced past him. “Did the Lunar Watch allow you through without verification?”

“It is my palace.”

“That is the sort of reasoning Seraphina warns people about.”

Solara moved aside to let him join them. “We were deciding whether Asehria still possesses a functioning government.”

“And?”

“Isolde remains here,” she said. “So there is hope.”

Eridan looked to his wife for support.

“You did bow,” Isolde said.

“I regret coming out here.”

“No, you don’t,” Solara said.

His shoulders had already eased. Solara understood why. The ballroom held kings, ministers and people already arranging the unborn child’s future. The balcony held the three women with whom Eridan had once ignored orders, crossed a burning district and ended a battle before their superiors finished agreeing how it should be fought. None of them needed him to perform a crown. The child shifted beneath Isolde’s dress. Her hand moved lower.

“He dislikes parties,” Alaria said.

Isolde looked at her. “How can you possibly know that?”

“He has been kicking since I arrived.”

“Perhaps he dislikes you.”

“Then he has excellent instincts.”

Solara rested one hand over Isolde’s upon the balcony wall. “Or he has inherited his mother’s judgement.”

“Both of you travelled for days to insult me in my own home,” Isolde said.

“You crossed half of Accalon when Feenix needed you,” Solara replied. “This seemed the least I could do.”

The laughter left Isolde’s face, but not its warmth.

Somewhere in the lower city, the crowd began singing an old Asehrian hymn.

“They love him already,” she said.

“They love what his birth will settle,” Solara said. “That is not the same as knowing him.”

“They do not know him at all,” Alaria said.

“No.” Isolde looked across the lanterns. “That is what frightens me.”

Everyone spoke as though the child already belonged to them. The council called him Asehria’s future. The priests called him the child of the comet. Foreign courts were discussing marriages between children who had never met.

“And what do you call him?” Alaria asked.

“My child.”

Eridan placed his hand beside hers upon the curve of her stomach. “Then we begin there.”

“One day he will have to carry all of this,” Isolde said.

“One day,” Alaria replied. “Not tonight.”

A sudden pain tightened across Isolde’s abdomen. Her fingers closed around Eridan’s sleeve. Solara caught her other arm before her weight could shift against the balcony wall.

Above them, the silver core of the comet brightened. It lasted only as long as the pain. A cold sheen travelled across the rooftops, too brief to overcome the lanterns, and then receded as Isolde released her breath.

Eridan looked from her to the sky. “Did that—”

“Yes,” Alaria said.

“It has happened before,” Isolde said.

“The pain or the sky?” Solara asked.

“The pain.”

“That was not the reassuring answer you thought it was.”

Another contraction cut off Isolde’s reply. The comet sharpened above Asehria a second time. Then warm liquid ran down the inside of her leg. She looked down. Alaria followed her gaze. For perhaps the first time in all the years Solara had known her, the warrior from Feenix appeared genuinely alarmed. Alarm struck Solara as well, one hard beat behind her ribs. She gave it a task.

“Rian,” she called towards the chamber. “Send for Marta, Mira and Seraphina. Clear the inner stair.”

Eridan slipped one arm around Isolde.

“I can walk,” she said.

“I know.”

“Then stop looking as though I have been stabbed.”

“I know what to do when someone has been stabbed.”

Despite the pain, Isolde laughed once. Solara took her other side, and together they guided her from beneath the silver light.

Within minutes, the midwives had taken control of Isolde’s chambers. Solara had removed her copper circlet and formal coat. She stood beside Isolde with her sleeves rolled above her elbows while Alaria moved every piece of furniture the midwives decided was suddenly in the wrong place. Mira Seln, a young physician Marta had brought from the western districts, recorded Isolde’s pulse and the interval between contractions. She was a compact woman with a broad nose and tightly curled hair bound clear of her face. Her hands were steady against Isolde’s wrist. She had spent most of the festival treating people injured in overcrowded streets and appeared unimpressed that her final patient occupied the royal bed.

Marta, who had delivered half the noble children in Asehria, pointed to a chair near the bed.

“Sit there.”

“I can help.”

“You can stay out of my way.”

“I am the King.”

“Not in this room.”

Alaria turned away to hide a smile. The hours that followed reduced the kingdom to the size of a single chamber. Pain made time meaningless. Isolde cursed Eridan, the gods and every midwife who had ever claimed childbirth was natural. She demanded that he hold her hand, then ordered him to release it, only to seize it again moments later. Eridan obeyed every command. He had faced cavalry charges with less fear.

Solara remained on Isolde’s other side. When Isolde accused her of conspiring with the midwives, Solara agreed immediately and offered her more water. Alaria guarded the door until Marta threatened to put her to work. After that, she guarded the water, the towels and anything else placed within reach. Seraphina remained outside the chamber. Rian controlled the inner stair, Cel removed every guest who believed friendship with the Crown made childbirth a public audience, and Garran carried verified reports between the room and the city command. Every approach to the room belonged to someone Seraphina trusted.

Shortly after midnight, Isolde cried out as another contraction seized her. Cold silver light flooded the chamber. For an instant, every candle seemed to dim. The curtains shone as though dawn had come hours too early. Eridan looked towards the window.

“Again,” Alaria said.

He crossed the chamber and pulled one curtain aside. The comet had grown brighter. Its silver core burned above the eastern horizon, larger than he had ever seen it.

Then the light receded. “Eridan.” Isolde reached for him. “Do not leave me.”

He returned to her side and took her hand. The comet flared again with the next contraction. The two brief answers upon the balcony might still have been dismissed as tricks of cloud, pain or festival light. By the fifth pulse, no one who could see the sky believed that. The music in the palace stopped. Guests poured onto balconies and terraces. Throughout the capital, families emerged from their homes as waves of silver light passed across the rooftops.

The same pulses reached beyond Asehria. Caldrin watch posts upon the Marren heights recorded silver daylight without thunder. Towers in Feenix rang an observation bell before anyone there knew Isolde’s labour had begun. At Valanor’s royal observatory, unattended needles moved across smoked glass while scholars ran for the upper galleries. No report could yet connect the rhythm to a child. On the palace walls, soldiers of the Lunar Watch lowered their weapons and stared towards the heavens. In the temple district, priests fell to their knees.

On the western terrace, Lord Arcanis stood beside two astrologers from the Valanorian royal observatory. Diplomacy had made him known across Accalon, but the study of the heavens had been his first discipline. While prayers rose around them, the three scholars counted the intervals between the pulses and argued over whether any instrument could measure the changing light. Within the royal chamber, the time between Isolde’s contractions grew shorter. With each one, the comet answered. Its light swelled and faded like the beating of some vast, distant heart. Solara watched the silver light pass across Isolde’s face. The title, the court and every prepared word for the birth disappeared from her expression. She held her friend’s hand and said nothing.

Marta paid no attention to the window.

“One more,” she told Isolde. “Give me one more.”

Isolde cried out and crushed Eridan’s hand within her own.

High above Asehria, the comet’s silver heart contracted to a single point.

Then another voice filled the chamber.

Small.

Furious.

Alive.

The comet bloomed.

Silver light swept across Asehria, turning night into day. For one breathless moment, every tower, street and distant field stood without shadow. Then the light withdrew. The comet’s long tail broke apart into a thousand fading sparks. Marta lifted the child into the stillness. Mira checked the chamber clock and marked the birth record: nine minutes after midnight.

“You have a son.”

Isolde began to cry. Eridan stared at the tiny, red-faced creature protesting his arrival with all the force his new lungs could summon. He had imagined a prince. An heir. A future king who would inherit every triumph and failure of his reign.

He had never imagined this.

A child small enough to fit between his hands. Marta cleaned the boy and placed him against Isolde’s chest. Mira watched his breathing while Marta wrapped them both in warmed linen. His cries softened as Isolde held him.

“He is perfect,” Isolde whispered.

Eridan sat beside her. The child opened his eyes, although Eridan knew he could see little more than light and shadow.

“What shall we call him?” Isolde asked.

They had prepared a list. Each name belonged to a dead king, a forgotten hero or some ancestor whose greatest achievement had been surviving long enough to have a portrait painted. None of them suited the child before him.

“Atyas,” Eridan said.

Isolde repeated it softly.

“Atyas.”

The child wrapped his hand around one of her fingers.

“Atyas,” she said again. “Yes.”

Solara remained where she was. Throughout the labour she had answered every accusation, fetched every cup and refused to let fear move her from Isolde’s side. Now that the room had fallen quiet, she seemed uncertain whether the moment belonged to her.

Isolde noticed.

“Come here.”

“You should rest.”

“I have had enough people tell me what I should do tonight.”

Solara crossed to the bed and sat beside her. She touched one finger to the dark hair lying damp against Atyas’s head, then leaned her forehead briefly against Isolde’s temple.

“You came,” Isolde whispered.

“Of course I came.”

For a moment they simply sat together while the celebration continued far beyond the shuttered windows. Marta gave them less than a minute.

“I still need to examine you,” she told Isolde.

“He stays.”

“He stays in the room. Someone else holds him.”

Eridan reached for Atyas. His fingers felt too large for every part of the child.

“His head,” Solara said.

“I know about his head.”

“Then put your hand beneath it.”

“It is beneath it.”

“More beneath it.”

Isolde laughed weakly as Eridan adjusted his grip for the third time. Atyas protested the movement, then settled against his father’s chest with one fist pressed beneath his chin. Alaria used the distraction to move closer to the doorway.

“Alaria,” Isolde said.

She stopped.

“I am giving the family privacy.”

“You are hiding behind a chair.”

Alaria looked down at the chair between them as though it had betrayed her. When Marta finished, Eridan returned Atyas to Isolde. Alaria came no closer until Isolde uncovered one of the child’s hands and held it towards her.

“I am not going to break his hand,” Alaria said.

“A promising beginning.”

Alaria offered one finger. Atyas closed his entire hand around it. She waited for him to release her.

He did not.

“Is that normal?” she asked.

“You have been captured,” Eridan said.

“I wasn’t asking you.”

Isolde shifted Atyas carefully towards her. “If he intends to keep you, you may as well support the rest of him.”

Alaria recognised the trap too late.

She accepted Atyas with the solemn concentration of someone carrying a vessel filled precisely to its edge. Every instinct told her to secure her grip. None told her how much strength a newborn could bear.

“What do I do now?”

“Nothing,” Isolde said. “Just hold him.”

Atyas opened his eyes, stared at nothing Alaria could identify and yawned.

“He appears unconcerned,” she said.

“One of you should be,” Solara replied.

Alaria stayed until Isolde asked for her son back. She surrendered him with visible relief, but before turning away she checked that his head rested securely against his mother. Solara followed her into the antechamber a few minutes later.

“Your spring rotation remains yours,” she said.

“I assumed it did.”

“You will visit him while you are here.”

Alaria looked through the half-open door towards the bed. “That was not part of the commission.”

“It is now.”

Alaria gave Solara a flat look.

“This is an abuse of diplomatic authority.”

“You may submit a complaint to the Crown.”

“You are the Crown.”

“That should save time.”

“Why?”

Solara did not answer immediately.

The comet’s light had withdrawn from the room, but a colourless afterglow still rested against the windows. Beyond the closed apartments, the palace had begun to stir around what it believed it had witnessed. Servants carried fragments of the story into the corridors. Priests would already be searching old texts. By sunrise, every delegation in the ballroom would have found a meaning useful to the kingdom that sent it.

“You saw the sky answer her,” Solara said. “Then you saw it answer him.”

“Everyone saw it.”

“Everyone saw light. That will not stop them claiming they saw an explanation.”

Alaria looked back towards Atyas. “Do you think he caused it?”

“He could not hold up his own head.”

“That has never prevented a priest from assigning responsibility.”

Solara almost smiled, but the expression did not last.

“I do not know what happened tonight,” she said. “That frightens me more than any interpretation would.”

The inner door opened behind them. Eridan entered the antechamber with his sleeves still rolled and red marks across the hand Isolde had crushed during the final hour.

“Marta has decided I am interfering with her examination,” he said.

“You were,” Solara replied.

“I was sitting in a chair.”

“You were doing it anxiously.”

Eridan accepted the judgement with what dignity he had left. Then he looked from Solara to the faint light at the windows.

“We were discussing the comet,” Solara said.

“Have you solved it already?”

“Alaria believes we should distrust anyone who becomes certain before breakfast.”

“That is not what I said.”

“It was the useful part.”

Eridan looked towards the closed windows. “It answered every contraction. Then it answered him.”

“That tells us when it changed,” Alaria said. “Not why.”

“Exactly,” Solara replied. “By morning, priests, astrologers and half the foreign delegations will have forgotten the difference.”

“The Lunar Watch can control access to him,” Eridan said.

“To his rooms,” Solara replied. “Not to the story growing around him. Some will call him blessed. Some will decide the comet validates their own faith or treaty. Others may fear whatever they think it announced. None of them need to understand it before their certainty becomes a risk.”

“Belief is not an army,” Alaria said.

“No. Sometimes it is a marriage proposal, a crowd outside a gate or a ruler making policy around a child he has never met.”

Eridan’s attention settled upon her. “What are you proposing?”

“That none of us reward certainty merely because it arrives dressed as faith or scholarship,” Solara said. “No proclamation will explain what the comet meant. No one receives private access to Atyas because they claim the sky granted it. Every request concerning him should be judged by what it asks of the child, not by the story it tells about the light.”

“Half the delegations downstairs will call that an insult,” Eridan said.

“Then breakfast will not be dull.”

Solara glanced through the half-open door. Isolde had closed her eyes. Atyas lay beside her while one of her hands rested near him, as though even sleep required someone to mark the distance between them.

“If that attention ever becomes a danger, Feenix will receive him as family rather than an omen,” Solara continued. “Its walls, its soldiers and its court will stand behind that. I offered you that friendship before tonight. The comet has not weakened it.”

Eridan’s expression softened. “You make it sound simple.”

“It will not be simple. It is still decided.”

Alaria looked from one ruler to the other. “And my visits?”

“When you held him, you did not ask what the sky had made him or what he might one day give Feenix,” Solara said. “You worried that you might hurt him. Until we understand what others want, I prefer another person near him who sees the child before the symbol.”

“You have mistaken discomfort for virtue.”

“A useful beginning,” Solara said.

Beyond the windows, the first bells were being prepared while the palace decided which version of the night it would tell at sunrise.

The bells began at sunrise. Their sound rolled across Asehria, from the palace towers to the farthest districts of the capital. Millions poured into the streets. The celebration would continue for days, but even those who had not witnessed the birth had seen the silver light that announced it. Eridan stood at the window with his son in his arms while Isolde slept. Beyond the glass, the last lanterns of the festival flickered beneath the approaching dawn. The comet had vanished. Only a faint silver haze remained along the eastern horizon.

“So,” Eridan whispered. “Here we are.”

Atyas shifted against him.

“You have an entire kingdom waiting to tell you what you should become.”

The child answered with a small, tired sound.

“I feel the same way.”

“You are speaking to him as though he has answers.”

Eridan turned. Isolde had opened her eyes. Exhaustion remained across her face, but she was watching the child rather than the city beyond him.

“He has offered more useful advice than the council managed all week,” Eridan said.

“He screamed until everyone obeyed him. That may qualify him for government.”

Eridan carried Atyas back to the bed and placed him carefully beside her. For eight years, physicians, priests and councillors had spoken about an heir as though the absence belonged to the kingdom before it belonged to them. Every season without a child had produced another public prayer, another private examination and another rumour about which branch of the royal family should prepare to inherit.

Now the child existed, and the pressure had merely changed shape. Isolde touched the side of Atyas’s face.

“They will turn everything he does into a sign,” she said. “The comet. His first word. The first time he becomes angry. They will decide what it means before he understands the question.”

“I can forbid the priests from naming him in prophecy.”

“Then they will call your refusal part of the prophecy.”

Eridan sat beside her.

“I know how to protect him from a blade,” he said. “I do not know how to protect him from an entire kingdom without hiding the kingdom from him.”

“We don’t hide it.” Isolde moved one finger into Atyas’s open hand. “We teach him the difference between belonging to people and being owned by their expectations.”

“And if we fail?”

“Then we fail together and argue about whose lesson caused it.”

Eridan looked at her.

“You have already decided it will be mine.”

“I have known you a long time.”

Atyas made a small sound between them. Isolde lowered her voice.

“Before he is their heir, he is our son.”

Eridan placed his hand over hers.

“Our son,” he agreed.

A servant entered carrying the first of the gifts. The first family visitors had already come and gone. Eridan’s surviving aunt had kissed him, inspected Atyas with the authority of someone who remembered Eridan in a nursery and observed that three collateral households would find breakfast less exciting than expected. Isolde’s elder brother remained only long enough to place one hand against his sister’s forehead before leaving to reopen the civil grain courts closed for the festival.

Most of the gifts were harmless: blankets, carved animals, ceremonial clothing and wooden swords the boy would not be able to hold for years. Solara had ordered Alaria to bring something appropriate for a child. Alaria had refused to ask a merchant what that meant and carved a small horse from dark Feenix wood instead. Seraphina had given him a silver pendant bearing the emblem of the Lunar Watch. King Aldren of Caldris had sent a child’s round shield. The twin spans of the Marren Bridge had been carved across its face instead of a crown or weapon. His note contained no prophecy and addressed Atyas only once.

For the son of a friend. May he never need the bridge, and find it open if he does.

Eridan placed the note inside the shield and returned both to the servant.

“Keep these among the royal gifts.”

The final gift came from Lord Arcanis.

Inside a silver box rested a brass model of the heavens, small enough to fit in Eridan’s palm. Its rings turned around a dark red stone while tiny moons followed grooves cut into the metal.

Beneath it rested a note.

For the questions he has not yet learned to ask.

Eridan turned one of the rings. The little moons moved together.

“Put this with Aldren’s shield,” he told the servant. “He may understand it before I do.”

The servant bowed and carried it away. Eridan returned to the window. Atyas’s fingers closed around his own.

That evening, the people waited for the Silver Omen to return.

It did not.