CHAPTER 5
At twelve years old, Atyas finally struck Captain Seraphina. She drove him backwards across the training yard, controlling the centre as she always did. Atyas gave ground until she committed her weight to the next attack. Then he stopped retreating. He stepped outside her right shoulder, turned around the path of her blade and let her own forward movement carry him into a new angle. His breath settled where Seraphina had taught it. Atyas let a restrained thread of the current enter his legs—enough to quicken the turn, not enough to pull it beyond his balance. The edge of his wooden blade caught her left shoulder with a sharp crack. For one glorious moment, he stood frozen in disbelief.
Then he raised the sword above his head.
“I won.”
Seraphina looked at the place where the blade had touched her armour.
“No.”
“I hit you.”
“You did.”
“That means I won.”
“It means I made a mistake. And Alaria taught you that step.”
Atyas lowered the sword.
“She calls it refusing to stand where the enemy decided to strike.”
“Alaria has a talent for giving bad habits impressive names.”
“That sounds like something people say when they lose.”
Seraphina stepped closer.
“You struck me because I looked towards the gate.”
A messenger stood beneath the arch leading into the training yard. His horse was covered in foam, and mud darkened the silver of his uniform. Atyas had noticed him arrive. He had assumed Seraphina had not.
“You saw him,” Atyas said.
“I saw his insignia. Western frontier.”
“But I still hit you.”
“Without knowing why.”
“I used the current correctly.”
“You gathered it before you moved. I felt the warning through your feet. A trained opponent would have struck while you were still congratulating yourself for finding it.”
She took the wooden sword from him.
“Next lesson, the same step. While I am looking at you.”
The messenger approached and bowed.
“Captain. His Majesty has called an emergency council.”
Seraphina’s expression hardened.
“What happened?”
“The western beacon line has gone dark.”
“How many towers?”
“All of them.”
The satisfaction of landing the strike disappeared. Atyas looked towards the western sky.
“What does that mean?”
Seraphina handed his sword to one of the waiting guards.
“It means your lesson is over.”
Maps covered the central table and several walls. Black markers showed the fortresses, villages and signal towers that had stopped responding during the previous month. There had been five at first.
Now there were hundreds.
King Eridan stood at the head of the table. Isolde remained beside him, reading reports as quickly as the scribes could deliver them.
Generals of the Silvercrest Legion occupied one side of the chamber. Seraphina stood opposite them with Rian Mer, Cel Varo, Garran Vos and the other senior officers of the Lunar Watch. Alaria represented Feenix, her red-and-ash cloak stark among Asehria’s silver uniforms. As First Blade of Feenix and Solara’s senior envoy to Asehria, she possessed authority to speak directly for the Queen within the mutual-defence commission she carried. Her current rotation had been intended to review shared supply roads, border countersigns and the Feenix engineers still working in Asehria’s southern districts. The darkened beacons had turned routine liaison work into the reason another sovereign could answer from inside the room.
No one objected when Atyas entered.
That frightened him more than if they had ordered him away.
“Report,” Eridan said.
General Varek placed another black marker on the map.
“The entire western beacon line failed within the same hour. We sent riders to the three nearest towers. None returned.”
“Could weather have damaged the network?” Isolde asked.
“Not across that distance.”
“Sabotage, then.”
“Almost certainly.”
Seraphina examined the map.
“What of the garrisons?”
“Silent.”
“Bodies?”
“None reported.”
Atyas moved closer to the table. Villages remained where the map said they should be. Roads still crossed the mountains. Rivers still ran towards the capital.
Only the people had disappeared.
“What do the people behind this want?” he asked.
Several members of the council looked towards him. Eridan did not tell him to remain silent.
“Power,” one of the generals answered.
“Then why abandon the fortresses? Why not keep them?”
The general hesitated.
Alaria spoke from the opposite side of the table.
“Because they are not trying to hold the frontier.”
Atyas looked at her.
“Then what are they doing?”
“Blinding us.”
She traced the darkened beacon line with one finger.
“The towers do more than warn of approaching armies. They coordinate troop movements, supply roads and evacuations. Without them, every commander sees only the ground directly in front of them.”
Seraphina placed markers along the northern and southern routes.
“And while we move soldiers to restore the western line, we weaken every other approach.”
“A distraction,” Atyas said.
“Possibly,” Eridan replied.
“From what?”
No one answered. A palace officer entered carrying a narrow wooden box.
“Recovered from beneath the northern aqueduct, Your Majesty.”
General Varek opened it. Inside lay the grey coat of a civilian aqueduct inspector. The fabric had been carefully folded. Dark blood stained the collar, and the thread where its owner’s name should have been recorded had been cut away. Beneath it rested a genuine Silvercrest transit seal and a small black token marked by a symbol Atyas did not recognise. Alaria lifted it by the edge and studied both sides.
“Do you recognise the mark?” Seraphina asked.
“No.”
No one else around the table did either.
The room became silent.
“Whose seal?” Varek asked.
The palace officer consulted his report.
“Lieutenant Saren Vol. Nine years in the legion’s transport command. He answered the southern arsenal muster before noon.”
“Then either he lost a genuine seal without reporting it,” Varek said, “or the man who answered was not Saren Vol.”
“Or Saren Vol placed it there himself,” Seraphina said.
“Find him,” Eridan said. “Varek, suspend his transit authority. Send his description to the aqueduct posts. Seraphina, I want a Watch officer to see him in custody.”
Varek sent two runners from the chamber. Seraphina wrote a separate instruction for the officer taking the southern arsenal route, then turned back to Eridan.
“The Silvercrest Legion has millions of soldiers, labourers, drivers and civilian contractors moving through its roads. If someone has entered that structure, closing the frontier will not remove them from the capital.”
Murmurs spread around the table.
General Varek shook his head.
“The aqueduct patrols report every six hours.”
“Whoever left this does not need to replace the Lunar Watch,” Alaria said. “They need the people who deliver its food, repair the gates and carry orders to everyone beyond it.”
Eridan looked towards the maps of the capital. The city sprawled across multiple districts, river crossings and layers of ancient construction. Beneath its streets ran water channels, abandoned foundations and tunnels older than the kingdom itself. Searching all of them would require an army.
“Seal every passage leading into the palace district,” he ordered. “Double the Lunar Watch at the inner gates. No unit moves without confirmation from two separate officers.”
Eridan looked towards Alaria.
“Send two warnings to Solara by separate routes. One under my seal and one in your personal cipher.”
“She will begin moving soldiers before the threat is confirmed,” Alaria said.
“Good. If I am wrong, she can spend the next decade reminding me. If I am right, we cannot afford to let courtesy delay her.”
Alaria was already pulling blank paper towards her.
“Send a third warning to King Aldren,” Eridan continued. “Include the northern treaty cipher. Tell him to close the Marren Bridge to any military company whose orders he cannot verify through it. Civilian passage remains open for as long as Caldris can hold it.”
General Varek looked up from the western markers.
“Aldren may turn our own retreating formations away.”
“Then our commanders will learn to answer a question before crossing another kingdom’s border.”
“And Valanor?” Isolde asked.
Eridan considered the darkened western crossings.
“Warn its king through the royal embassy. Ask for every report gathered on the Valanorian side of the border. Information only. No troops enter Asehria without my invitation.”
“The western courier may require four days,” one of the ministers said.
“Then send copies by river and mountain road,” Eridan replied. “King Renvar cannot answer a warning he never receives.”
Isolde set aside the report in her hands.
“I will contact the river principalities and the southern crowns. If the roads close, their first aid will reach civilians faster than any army.”
He looked towards General Varek.
“The Silvercrest Legion will reinforce the western and southern approaches. You will command the outer defence.”
Varek bowed. Eridan turned to Seraphina.
“Every member of the Lunar Watch answers directly to you until this threat has passed. You remain in the palace and command the inner defence.”
“As you command.”
Seraphina did not wait for the council to end before dividing the work. Rian retained the royal shelter guard. Cel would verify the western posts and hidden-route approaches. Garran took responsibility for comparing the Watch’s palace lists against Thalia’s civilian columns so that protection of the royal family did not erase everyone moving around it.
“Chancellor Thalia will prepare the shelters and civilian evacuation routes before we announce the threat. Food distribution must continue. If the outer districts believe we are abandoning them, our enemy will not need an army to create chaos.”
“What shall we tell the population?” Thalia asked.
“The truth,” Isolde said. “There is a credible threat, and the city is strengthening its defences.”
“That could create panic.”
“Discovering we concealed it will create more.”
Eridan nodded. The officers began carrying out their orders. Atyas remained near the table.
“What should I do?”
Eridan looked at him.
“For now, return to your lessons.”
“You let me attend the council.”
“Because you needed to understand the danger.”
“Then let me help.”
“You are helping by learning.”
“I’m not six any more.”
“No,” Eridan said. “You are twelve.”
“I have trained with Seraphina for years.”
“With wooden and blunted weapons.”
“I can fight.”
Seraphina answered before his father could.
“You can perform drills. That is not the same thing.”
Atyas felt his face grow warm.
“You said I was improving.”
“You are. That does not make you ready to kill someone—or watch someone die.”
“I’m the heir to Asehria.”
“Which is precisely why your first duty during an attack is to survive.”
Atyas looked towards his father. Eridan’s expression left no room for argument.
“Go with your mother.”
When the chamber had emptied, Eridan asked Alaria to remain.
Seraphina stayed near the doors.
Eridan turned the Silvercrest seal over beside the bloodstained inspector’s coat.
“We cannot identify the force behind these disappearances,” he said. “We do not know whether they intend an invasion, an assassination or something else entirely.”
“Then why assign me to Atyas?” Alaria asked.
“Because you stand outside every Asehrian field command in this room,” Eridan said. “A forged legion seal cannot move you, and Atyas already trusts you.”
Eridan looked towards the bloodstained coat and the seal beside it.
“Because I know Seraphina’s officers. I no longer know how far a false order can travel before it reaches them.”
“You have Seraphina.”
“Seraphina must command the palace and every Lunar Watch officer protecting its routes. I need someone beside Atyas while she does it—and someone he already trusts.”
Alaria glanced towards the closed council doors.
“He trusts me because I do not ask him to behave like a symbol.”
“He trusts you because you have spent twelve years earning it,” Eridan said. “The rule-breaking may have contributed.”
“He still has all his fingers.”
“Despite your best efforts.”
“What exactly are you asking of me?”
“Remain close to Atyas. Watch everyone who approaches him. If the alarm sounds, protect him and take him to the royal shelter.”
“And if someone brings different orders?”
“You obey only me, Isolde or Seraphina. No messenger has the authority to countermand you.”
“If none of you can be reached?”
Eridan hesitated.
“Use your judgement.”
“You are giving a foreign soldier authority over the heir to Asehria.”
“I am giving that authority to someone I trust.”
“And the hidden passage?”
“A final contingency. Every heir should know how to escape the palace. You use it only if remaining inside becomes more dangerous than leaving.”
Alaria glanced towards Seraphina.
“If the palace is attacked?”
“Seraphina remains with me,” Eridan said. “She will command the Lunar Watch and coordinate the defence of the inner city.”
“And the evacuation?”
“Chancellor Thalia will oversee the shelters and civilian routes.”
“Isolde?”
“She has been ordered to enter the royal shelter.”
Alaria studied his face.
“You don’t believe she will.”
“If Atyas is not already with her, she will go looking for him.”
“Of course she will.”
Eridan placed one hand upon the map.
“Starting tonight, you will remain in the chamber adjoining his. If the alarm sounds, you do not wait for Seraphina, Isolde or me before securing him.”
“He will object to having a guard outside his bedroom.”
“Let him.”
“And if Isolde reaches us?”
“Protect them both.”
Alaria placed one fist against her heart.
“Then my order is to protect him.”
“Nothing more.”
“That,” she said, “is more than enough.”
That afternoon, Eridan took Atyas beneath the palace. They descended a servants’ staircase behind the western gallery and entered a corridor lined with statues of forgotten rulers. At its end stood a mosaic depicting the sun surrounded by silver stars. Eridan pressed his hand against the iron sun. Something moved behind the wall. The mosaic opened upon a narrow stairway descending into darkness. Atyas stared through the opening.
“How long has that been there?”
“Longer than Asehria.”
“Where does it lead?”
“Beyond the old southern wall. From there, another passage reaches the edge of the forest.”
Eridan handed him a small lantern but did not enter.
“If the palace alarm sounds, Alaria will take you to the royal shelter. You follow her instructions without question.”
“What about you and Mother?”
“The shelter is where we are supposed to reunite.”
“Supposed to?”
“An emergency rarely respects the plan made for it.”
Eridan indicated the open passage.
“If Alaria decides the shelter is compromised, she may bring you here. Press the centre of the sun and then the three stars beneath it.”
Atyas repeated the sequence.
“Sun. Three stars.”
“The passage opens for ten breaths. Once you are inside, pull the lever on the right. The door will seal behind you.”
“Then what?”
“Follow the passage beyond the southern wall.”
“And wait for you?”
Eridan placed his hands on Atyas’s shoulders.
“You follow Alaria’s judgement.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“If she decides you must leave the city, you leave.”
“I’m not leaving without you.”
“You will.”
“No.”
“Atyas.”
“I’m supposed to protect our family too.”
“By surviving.”
“That’s not protecting anyone.”
“One day, the lives of billions may depend upon you. You do not have the right to throw that life away because you are afraid of leaving us.”
Atyas stepped back as though his father had struck him.
“You said I shouldn’t make promises without understanding their cost.”
“I did.”
“Then don’t make me promise that.”
Eridan’s expression softened.
For a moment, he was no longer the King of Asehria. He was simply a frightened father standing before his son.
“I hope you never need to keep it,” he said.
Atyas looked into the darkness beyond the hidden door.
“What do I do if we reach the forest?”
“Find the river and follow it west. Continue until you reach the stones marked with the royal seal.”
“And after that?”
Eridan repeated the words his own father had taught him.
“When night swallows the light, seek the heart of the forest.”
Atyas waited.
“That’s all?”
“The rest will become clear when you reach it.”
“That sounds like something the priests would say.”
“I have always disliked that part.”
Despite himself, Atyas smiled. Eridan pulled him into an embrace. Atyas could not remember the last time his father had held him so tightly.
Isolde spent the remaining afternoon turning names into roads. The eastern record room had been cleared of tax ledgers and filled with district maps. Chancellor Thalia stood at the central table while clerks carried population counts between her and the officers responsible for the royal shelters. The numbers were too large to move as one evacuation.
They always were.
Isolde divided the capital into places people might actually recognise: the glassworkers north of the second canal, the families living above the river warehouses, the hospital quarter beside the old southern wall, the labour settlements built along the aqueducts.
“Do not announce one road for the northern districts,” she said. “Give each ward the nearest shelter it can reach without crossing the river.”
An evacuation officer adjusted the markers.
“That leaves the outer canal communities without access to a royal shelter.”
“Then stop calling only the royal chambers shelters. Reinforce the freight vaults and the stone cistern halls.”
“They have not been inspected for civilian use.”
“Inspect them now.”
The officer bowed and left. Every time the door opened, Isolde looked towards it before she could stop herself. Atyas had left the council with Eridan. She knew that. Two Lunar Watch officers had confirmed it, and a third had seen them enter the western servants’ stair. Knowing where her son was did not quiet the part of her that wanted him within reach. She forced her attention back to the map.
“The food stores?” she asked.
Thalia placed a report beside the canal districts.
“Enough for twelve days if every registered shelter fills to its intended number.”
“They will exceed it.”
“Then eight.”
“Move grain before the threat is announced. Small deliveries beneath ordinary market orders. If people see the palace emptying warehouses, they will decide the city has already been abandoned.”
“And if the warning proves unnecessary?”
“We will have paid workers to move food closer to hungry people.”
Thalia marked the order.
Three foreign messages waited beside Isolde’s hand. The river principalities could move healers faster than armies. Soreth controlled barges capable of carrying entire districts’ worth of grain. Oradan disliked Eridan’s Vahran charter and would question any military request, but its southern observers saw roads Asehria could no longer trust. Isolde wrote to each ruler differently because friendship, interest and suspicion did not require the same language. She asked none of them to save Asehria. She told them what had gone dark, what Asehria did not know and which civilians would reach their borders first if the roads failed. The truth would have to survive without demanding affection.
Preya Dorn entered carrying a list from the western frontier. She had risen from the night copying desk to the royal archive during Atyas’s childhood and still carried documents as though every loose page had personally threatened her.
“The missing garrisons, Your Majesty.”
“Names?”
“Where we possess them.”
Isolde read the first page. The council map held hundreds of black markers. The list contained signal keepers, cooks, stable hands, partners and children living beside the towers. One failed beacon meant more than a lost point of light. She wrote the names of the nearest relatives beside the first three garrisons and handed the list back.
“Copies go to the family office before sunset. No public death notices. They are missing until someone proves otherwise.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
When Preya left, Thalia studied her.
“You should enter the protected wing before the announcement.”
“My son is beneath the palace with Eridan.”
“Which means both of them know where to find the shelter.”
“It means Eridan is showing a twelve-year-old how to leave us.”
Thalia did not offer comfort. Isolde had chosen her because she rarely confused comfort with an answer.
“If the alarm sounds,” Isolde said, “you lead the evacuation.”
“The Queen traditionally—”
“The Queen has spent twelve years raising the child the enemy may already be approaching.”
Isolde met her eyes.
“If Atyas is not inside the shelter, I will look for him. Eridan knows this. So do you. The evacuation cannot depend upon me pretending otherwise.”
Thalia was silent for a moment.
Then she bowed.
“I will hold the routes.”
“Hold them for the people using them, not for the palace.”
Isolde gathered the completed letters.
“Seal these through separate offices. No two copies travel with the same courier company.”
The evening bells sounded while Thalia separated the copies. Isolde waited until each had its courier, then left to eat with her family.
They ate dinner together in Isolde’s private chambers. No advisers were permitted inside. No servants remained after the food had been delivered. For the first time in months, the three of them sat around a table small enough to hear one another breathe.
Atyas barely touched his meal.
“Your father showed you the passage,” Isolde said.
He nodded.
“And now you both expect me to act as though everything is normal.”
“No,” Eridan replied. “But the soup has already surrendered, and it seems wasteful not to accept its defeat.”
Isolde tasted it.
“I believe it died before reaching the table.”
Atyas tried not to smile.
His mother noticed.
“There he is.”
“Who?”
“Our son. He disappeared into a council chamber this morning and was replaced by a very grim old man.”
“I’m twelve.”
“Ancient.”
Atyas pushed a piece of bread around his plate.
“Are the people who did this going to attack us?”
“We do not know,” Eridan said.
“Do you think they will?”
“Yes.”
Isolde shot him a look.
“What?” he asked. “We agreed not to lie.”
“We also agreed not to terrify him.”
“I’m already terrified,” Atyas said.
His parents became quiet.
Isolde moved her chair beside his.
“Being frightened does not mean you are weak.”
“Seraphina says fear makes people move before they decide where to go.”
“Then decide now.”
“Decide what?”
“That if something happens, you will trust Alaria and follow the plan.”
Atyas looked down at his hands.
“What if the plan changes?”
“Then you listen to the people protecting you,” Eridan said.
“Even if they tell me to leave you?”
Isolde took one of his hands between hers.
“Then you leave.”
“But—”
“You leave,” she repeated. “You survive. You remember who you are, and you do not let grief decide what you become.”
“Nothing has happened yet.”
“No.”
“Then why are you talking like this?”
“Because there are things parents should say before they are needed.”
Atyas felt anger rise beneath his fear.
“I hate the plan.”
“So do I,” Isolde said.
Eridan reached across the table and placed his hand over theirs. For a while, none of them spoke.
Outside the windows, millions of lights filled the capital. Ships moved along the rivers, markets remained open, and music drifted from the lower districts. Atyas stayed at the table after he had finished eating. Neither of his parents asked him to leave.
Alaria placed a chair inside the chamber adjoining Atyas’s that evening. She left the connecting door open. He stopped between the two rooms.
“Are you going to sit there all night?”
“Yes.”
“That’s unsettling.”
“Go to sleep.”
“What if I need something?”
“Open the door.”
“What if you fall asleep?”
Alaria rested one hand on the sword across her knees.
“I won’t.”
“You said that when you taught me to ride.”
“You were six.”
“You fell asleep outside the stable afterwards.”
“I had ridden for nine days to reach Asehria.”
“Mother found you.”
“Your mother finds everything eventually.”
Atyas leaned against the doorframe.
“Do you remember the wooden horse?” he asked.
“I remember spending three days carving it.”
“The other ear fell off.”
“You ate that one too?”
“I was six when it fell off.”
“You still lacked judgement.”
Atyas smiled. Then his attention fell to the sword across her knees and the humour left him.
“Do you really think something will happen?”
“I think your father asked me to be here.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I know.”
Alaria shifted the chair closer to the open doorway.
“If anything happens, you will not face it alone.”
Atyas studied her for a moment.
“Good night, then.”
“Good night, Atyas.”
He returned to bed without closing the connecting door. Alaria remained where he could see her, listening as the palace slowly became quiet.
Before midnight, the southern arsenal reported Saren Vol held for questioning. The report named a locked room, two custodians and the transport captain responsible for him. Seraphina kept her own officer on the road to confirm it.
The room was empty.
The transport captain who signed the report had left the arsenal through its freight yard. Vol had gone ahead of him. At the aqueduct, a duty clerk had entered the suspension notice in the morning inspection bundle instead of carrying it to the posts below. Long after midnight, while the Watch officer searched the arsenal, Lieutenant Saren Vol descended into the tunnels beneath the northern aqueduct. The guards stationed there allowed him to pass.
They recognised his face.
The name sewn into his uniform belonged to him. So did the nine years of service recorded beneath it, the old burn across his wrist and the authority permitting him to inspect supply passages during an alert. He had not stolen a place inside Asehria that night.
He had built one.
Far below the streets, he reached an iron gate sealed before Atyas was born. He removed the black token hidden beneath his armour and pressed it into a narrow opening beside the lock. Something answered from the darkness on the other side.
Three knocks.
The man replied with two.
Then he began opening the gate from within.
Beyond the darkened western beacon line, canvas covers were pulled from shielded lamps. One row of light appeared across the hills.
Then another.
And another.
Siege frames began moving along roads Asehria still believed empty. Infantry columns rose from concealed camps, abandoned freight yards and valleys the silent towers should have watched. Barges without trade lanterns turned towards the capital’s outer canals. The barges passed below the dark beacon towers.
End of chapter