Work Text:
To His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Khaslana of Okhema,
It is with esteemed reverence that we, the Council of Elders, inform Your Highness of the forthcoming union between Lord Anaxagoras of the Grove of Epiphany and Lygus, Heir of House Theros.
This alliance has been sanctioned with unanimous approval by the Amphoreus Assembly, as it serves to strengthen the ties between the Epiphanian sanctum and the Therosian court — both vital contributors to the continued peace and prosperity of our realm.
As tradition dictates, a celebratory ball shall be held under the crescent moon in the Hall of Mosaic Waters, to which Your Highness is graciously invited. The event will mark the formal declaration of betrothal, witnessed by noble houses from across the archipelago.
We are confident that Your Highness understands the political significance of this arrangement. Lord Anaxagoras, though young, has been long admired for his exceptional intellect and reflective virtue, qualities which we believe shall temper and refine the ambitions of House Theros.
May the gods favor your continued rule and wisdom, Crown Prince. Your presence at this occasion would honor us all.
In the name of unity and order,
The Council of Elders
Amphoreus
Khaslana does not look up when the letter is placed before him.
He is reclined in a lattice-backed chair on the palace’s westward balcony, one leg lazily propped over the other, ankle glinting with a band of electrum and star-steel. The air smells of citrus blossoms and warm ink; a servant stands at attention by the pillar, eyes lowered, pretending not to watch the Crown Prince’s thumb flick idly over the spine of a sealed scroll.
“Hm,” Khaslana hums, bored. The wax seal is unmistakable: the triple-helix sun of the Amphoreus Council of Elders, pressed into thick ivory stock. A flourish of old pride. Nothing useful ever came from those letters. He turns the scroll over once, twice, as though it might become more interesting by sleight of hand.
It doesn’t.
Still. He snaps the seal with his nail. Unfolds the parchment. Skims it, because he is supposed to, because the queen will ask.
And then he reads it again. Slower.
By the third line, his brows have knit so tightly they could form their own diplomatic union. By the fifth, he exhales — sharp and unimpressed. And by the final elegant signature, the paper is already curling at the edges in his palm from the heat gathering beneath his skin.
"…forthcoming union between Lord Anaxagoras of the Grove of Epiphany and Lygus, Heir of House Theros…”
Of course. Of course that’s what this was.
He stares at the signature line like it has personally offended him. Perhaps it has.
“The audacity,” he says aloud, tone flat with disbelief. “To waste my time with this.”
The servant flinches slightly, uncertain if a response is required.
Khaslana does not offer clarity. He rises from his chair with the kind of elegance that makes you forget it was ever a lazy posture to begin with, and walks — not hurriedly, but with unmistakable purpose — toward the ornate oil lamp perched on the corner ledge. A slow-burning flame, steady even in the breeze. A ceremonial light meant to honor Okhema’s ancestors, but Khaslana has never much cared for symbolism when the practical use is more satisfying.
He holds the letter over it, deliberately, carefully.
The parchment catches immediately. The fire devours the base first — curling, browning, blackening the edges like the bloom of rot — and for a moment, he watches it disintegrate with the same calm attention he might give to a game of stones or a lover’s undressing. No rush, just quiet destruction.
When only cinders remain, he exhales again, sharper this time. Almost satisfied.
“To send a letter — a letter — to the Crown Prince of Okhema about some irrelevant provincial wedding,” he mutters. “Amphoreus must be running out of parchment. Or sense.”
He returns to his seat with a flourish of robes and sunlight, arms draped over the sides like a throne carved from air.
“Lord Anaxagoras,” he repeats, with mock grandeur. “Of the Grove of Epiphany. How poetic.”
A pause.
He taps one finger on the armrest, almost rhythmic. Not irritation now, but thought. The name Anaxagoras is familiar in that way most noble names are — spoken at banquets, cited in passing on diplomatic reports, muttered in corridors like a theory you can’t quite prove.
Was he the one who quoted cosmology in his public pledges? The philosopher-priest, then, from that strange sanctum north of the mosaics. Reclusive. Idealistic. Hm.
And Lygus — yes, that name he knows. House Theros was always more noise than substance, bristling with the old weight of war banners but half-rotted underneath. This marriage is political, obviously. A bid to stabilize failing prestige with borrowed grace. The council must be desperate, to call it unity.
Still. What gall, to send it to him as though it were anything but a ploy.
Khaslana leans back, basking in the sun like a spoiled feline. The stone beneath his feet is warm. Somewhere in the distance, a courtier’s bells jingle as they cross the southern walkway, but it barely registers.
He’s already thinking of what to do next.
If there’s one thing the Council of Elders hates more than irreverence, it’s spectacle. And Khaslana? He has always been good at spectacle.
Maybe he will attend the betrothal ball, uninvited. Or better — maybe he’ll host a rival banquet that same evening, drawing every noble worth a damn into his court and leaving the Grove of Epiphany to toast their sanctity alone in a hollow hall. The thought makes his mouth curl, amused. That would rattle a few bones beneath the amphoras.
Or perhaps he’ll send them a reply. Nothing scathing, no. Something polite — dripping with false courtesy and backhanded compliments. He could draft it over breakfast. Add a little line at the end about how he hopes Lord Anaxagoras finds the “inner illumination” to handle House Theros’ scandalous accounts.
Yes, that would be lovely.
“Khaslana,” someone calls from beyond the archway — a guard, perhaps, or a cousin bold enough to use his name without title. He doesn’t answer.
Instead, he rises again, stretches his arms wide like wings, and casts a final glance at the ashes near the lamp. Gone now. Good.
The Elders haven’t changed. They cling to their little systems, their ancient titles, their rituals etched in gold. And Khaslana’s never liked being told what things are supposed to mean.
They wanted his attention. Now they have it.
“Let’s see how far we can push this.”
It is halfway through the evening when the golden doors part, and the room stills.
No announcement precedes him, no trumpet nor fanfare. It does not have to. The scent of myrrh and cedar heralds him first—sharp and slow-burning, a scent made to linger—and then comes the rustle of velvet-lined silk, the hush that rolls across the marble like a ripple in a still lake. Eyes rise from their crystal glasses, dancers pause mid-spin. Courtiers’ conversations die in their throats, left unfinished.
He arrives fashionably late, of course. Khaslana of Okhema has never arrived on time for anything in his life.
It is not vanity. It is strategy.
Let them wait. Let the room settle into complacency before he sweeps it away like a tide.
He steps into the ballroom not as though he owns the place—but as though it is owed to him. And in some unspoken way, it is.
There are rumors about the crown prince of Okhema. That he has the blood of old spirits in his veins. That the sun glints too brightly off his hair because he once bathed in divine ichor. That to look him in the eye for too long is to find yourself forgetting what you were saying, what you were doing, where you even are.
Tonight, he leans into those stories.
He wears white and gold, the shade of imperial banners and celestial arrogance. A long draped cloak trails behind him like a bridal train, embroidered in silver thread so fine that it catches every flicker of candlelight. His collar rises high, framing his throat like a statement. On his hands, rings—onyx and opal and sapphire. On his ears, thin chains that catch the light when he turns his head.
And his face.
Softly shaped, sharply framed. His mouth, upturned in the faintest of smiles—always that unreadable, calculated smile. His eyes, lined with kohl and rimmed in disdain, though few would ever know the difference. And between his brows, a small mark—a single star, subtle but deliberate.
A symbol not of birthright, but of something else. Something older, something unspoken.
"Oh gods," someone whispers as he passes. "He’s unreal."
But Khaslana hears it. He always hears it. He walks past them all with the confidence of a man who knows every word said about him, and lets them linger like perfume in his wake.
He does not glance left. He does not glance right. He lets the room fall silent, lets their eyes drink him in.
And all the while, he is already thinking.
Anaxagoras.
The name rolls in his mind like a drop of something precious on silk—so easily stained, so impossible to forget. He had not expected the Council of Elders to be so bold in their defiance, so determined to slip a leash around something they do not understand. Sending him a letter as though he were an idle spectator to this farce of a wedding. As though he would stand aside while they traded away beauty for political leverage.
The letter had burned quickly. A flick of his wrist, a glance toward the lantern. Ashes now, curled and crumbling.
But not forgotten.
He catches sight of the Council members now, lingering near the pillars like vagrants dressed in silk. They smile when they see him—tight, brittle things, all knowing teeth and no joy. They nod, and he looks away. Deliberately.
Let them boil in their own arrogance.
He has not come to acknowledge their schemes. He has come to undo them.
A butler approaches him with a tray of fluted champagne, and he takes a glass without looking. The drink is cool, crisp, and he sips once before offering the glass back.
He is not thirsty. He is hunting.
Not long after, he sees him.
Lord Anaxagoras of the Grove of Epiphany.
Not the most powerful noble in Amphoreus, no—certainly not in comparison to the prince of Okhema—but something in the way he holds himself suggests a man entirely unbothered by that fact. His garments are of the forest: green and ivory, edged with woven gold, the color of old groves and forgotten places. His hair falls like night down his back. His eyes are impossibly calm. He stands near House Theros—beside the would-be husband, Lygus—but slightly apart, like an afterthought, like an ornament.
But he is not.
He is the room’s gravity.
Khaslana sees it instantly. Every conversation around him falters. Every man within reach has his attention snared in the gentle curve of his mouth, the way his fingers hover lightly on the edge of his glass, the way he smiles at nothing, like a secret kept just for himself.
They all want him. Khaslana can see it. They want to possess him, wear him like a medal, place him on a pedestal to be admired.
But Khaslana realizes he wants something else.
He doesn’t want to claim Anaxa. Doesn’t want to tame him or gild him in silks. The thought makes him recoil. They see a prize, a crown jewel. But Khaslana—gods help him—sees something holy.
He wants Anaxa to look at him and know. Not because of politics or prophecy, not because his name commands fear—but because something ancient in both of them aches in the same place. He wants to be known, down to the ruin and fire beneath all the gold.
And that want blooms into something sharper the longer he watches.
Because it’s not just desire. It’s not even love—not yet. It’s recognition.
Like breath pulled from the lungs of a former life. Like remembering the shape of a home he has never seen, only dreamed.
The moment crystallizes: Khaslana sees Anaxa turn, laughing at something the groom has said—elegant, unguarded, a little defiant—and for a terrible, brilliant moment, the entire room shifts.
The music dulls. The color drains.
And in that liminal hush, Khaslana knows: This is not the first life they’ve met in. This will not be the last.
He’s sure of it. As sure as he is of his own name. That whatever gods wove their threads, they did so tightly—painfully—without mercy or reason, but with intention.
He was not meant to witness this night as a guest. He was meant to remember.
He walks through the crowd like a knife through water, his smile sharpening with every step.
Let them stare. Let Lygus boil in his own insecurity. Let the Council tighten their jaws and whisper to one another.
Because this?
This is not about politics.
This is fate.
When he reaches Anaxagoras, he does not wait for permission. He offers his hand, head slightly bowed.
“A dance,” he says.
It is not a question.
Gasps echo through the gilded hall.
It is improper. Scandalous. Unheard of.
Lord Anaxagoras of the Grove of Epiphany stands at the center of his own engagement ball, adorned in silver-trimmed ceremonial robes, the sigil of House Theros stitched over his shoulder in fresh embroidery. And yet — it is not his intended, Lygus, who steps forward through the archway of white banners and braziers.
No.
It is Crown Prince Khaslana of Okhema.
The music does not falter. It swells — as though emboldened by the audacity of it all. The violins do not tremble, and neither does Khaslana.
When he extends a hand toward Anaxa, there is a stillness that falls over the chamber, like everyone is holding their breath.
Anaxagoras does not move at first. His expression is unreadable. Then, after a pause — he takes the offered hand.
And as their palms touch, Khaslana smiles—genuinely, brightly, a sun rising over the ruins of someone else’s plans.
Let the gods weep, he thinks. The stars have aligned again.
Scandal sharpens into spectacle.
Their fingers thread together.
The court parts.
The two begin to dance.
Their steps are deliberate — slow at first, ceremonial, mirroring the practiced forms of older Amphoreus traditions. Each movement is measured, a study in grace and defiance. Khaslana leads with one hand resting lightly at Anaxa’s waist, the other warm against his palm. They are the center of the room, but speak like no one is watching.
“Tell me,” Khaslana murmurs, voice dipped low. “Is it true, this engagement of yours?”
Anaxa’s gaze flickers — not away, but down, as if weighing the question. “It is true by contract,” he says evenly. “By seal. By politics.”
“Ah,” Khaslana replies. “Then it isn’t true by you.”
“That is not what I said.”
“But not what you denied either.”
Anaxa tilts his head, only slightly. “A person of your status ought not to be here.”
“I go where I please,” Khaslana says, his smile soft, dangerous. “And besides, they did send me an invitation.”
“To observe, not to interfere.”
“Yet here we are.” His thumb brushes over Anaxa’s knuckles. “And the room has already begun to forget your fiancé exists.”
“That is not—” Anaxa begins, but the words die when Khaslana pulls him closer for the turn.
The prince’s voice lowers to a near whisper. “They may dress you in another house’s colors and call it allegiance, but I remember who you were before all this. You are not meant to be tethered.”
“And what,” Anaxa says quietly, “do you think I’m meant for, Your Highness?”
The crown prince leans in too close. The air between them seems to ripple, golden and heavy. His answer is low, but certain.
“Not him.”
Anaxa swallows. Their steps carry them across the polished floor. The music spirals.
Khaslana’s gaze remains on him, sharp with something half-tender, half-cruel. “Say it then,” he says. “Tell me you want this arrangement. Tell me I came here for nothing.”
Anaxa says nothing.
That is all the answer he needs.
Khaslana smiles, the kind that feels like a promise. “Then his flimsy engagement with you won’t be for long.”
The music draws to a close.
The crowd still watches, speechless, but no one dares interrupt. The prince releases Anaxa’s hand only when the final chord fades, but the weight of his words lingers — bold and burning.
Anaxa steps back, but just barely. Enough to compose himself. Enough to breathe.
The final note fades.
A beat of silence.
Then the scrape of a chair, loud against marble.
Lygus rises.
Not a single soul speaks.
He descends the dais with slow, deliberate steps. His pale robes shimmer with gold threads — the colors of House Theros — and his face is stiff with fury.
“So,” he begins, voice low but sharp. “My intended dances with the Crown Prince in front of all our guests. A performance, was it?”
No one breathes.
Khaslana doesn't move. His expression is unreadable — something like amusement held barely in check.
But Lygus’s eyes are on Anaxa. “Do you think this is acceptable?” he demands. “You humiliate me, here, in front of the realm. In our hall.”
Anaxa does not flinch. His gaze is level. Calm.
“It is still my hall.”
Lygus’s jaw tightens. “And I am still your betrothed.”
“By decree,” Anaxa replies. “Not by desire.”
A ripple moves through the crowd. Somewhere, a lady gasps behind her fan.
Khaslana shifts, as if to speak — but Anaxa lifts a hand. He doesn’t need defending.
Lygus stares at him, incredulous. “You would cast me aside for a prince who toys with nations like game pieces?”
Anaxa’s voice is quiet, but precise. “Better a player than a pawn.”
Lygus recoils like he’s been slapped. “You disgrace your House—”
“I am my House,” Anaxa cuts in, and this time his voice carries. “And if you think I will spend the rest of my life chained to a coward with a title, you are mistaken.”
The silence after is louder than any music.
Lygus’s face flushes deep red. He stares at Anaxa for one long, shaking moment—then turns on his heel and storms off the floor, robes sweeping behind him. The Theros delegation hesitates then rises, one by one, to follow.
They leave without a word to the royal family.
The council of elders, high above in their carved seats, murmur amongst themselves — their whispers cold as wind over snow.
And through it all, Khaslana watches Anaxa.
There’s a faint smile curling at his lips, quiet and burning. Awe, yes — and something hungrier.
This is who Anaxagoras is.
Not a pawn. Not a prize. Not a sacrifice for politics.
He is brilliance, veiled in frost.
And Khaslana knows — the moment he leaves this ballroom, the engagement will be undone. He’ll see to it himself.
Because the realm may plot and whisper and scheme, but Anaxa will be his.
A Proclamation from the Council of Elders
Let it be known throughout the realm — from the sanctified halls of Okhema, the Eternal Holy City, to the frost-veiled streets of Aidonia; from the gates of Janusopolis, ever-turning, to the shining coasts of Styxia; from the hallowed Grove of Epiphany, seat of the sages, to the indomitable bastions of Castrum Kremnos — that the engagement previously declared between
His Grace, Lord Anaxagoras of the Grove of Epiphany
and
Lord Lygus of House Theros
is, by unanimous decree of the High Council and with the mutual assent of both noble houses, hereby nullified.
It is with due respect to both Houses that this course has been taken, following careful deliberation and with the wellbeing of the realm foremost in mind. No fault lies with either party, and this decision reflects only the natural divergence of paths which, despite noble intention, no longer align in shared vision.
House Theros remains held in high esteem by the Council, and Lord Lygus in particular is recognized for his enduring patience, grace, and unwavering commitment to duty throughout this arrangement.
Let this serve not as a mark of division, but as a reminder that unity within the realm takes many forms, and that peace is preserved through wise partings as well as fortuitous unions.
May all Houses receive this with understanding, and may the gods guide the hearts of our noble sons.
By the hand and seal of the Council of Elders,
on the 23rd day of the Winter Moon, Year 764.
The proclamation is read aloud in the solar.
Khaslana listens in silence, standing with his arms crossed as the words echo against the painted stone walls. Outside, the frost of Aidonia still clings to the arched windows, the chill of the Snow City seeping into every breath. But it is not the cold that makes the servants nervous.
It’s the stillness of their prince.
The letter ends with practiced grace, as expected of the Council. It’s a tidy thing—sanitized, diplomatic, gilded in enough golden phrasing to pass for a blessing. Mutual assent. Noble intentions. Enduring patience. As if Lygus had been the one wronged. As if Anaxagoras had been plucked from his arm and placed into Khaslana’s by force. As if he had not seen the look in Anaxagoras’ eyes—quiet fire, unyielding—when he spoke his truths at the ball.
No fault lies with either party.
What a lie. What a coward’s veil.
The letter crumples in his fist before anyone sees it hit the floor. A fire crackles behind him, too gentle to match his storming mood.
"Send word to the Grand Hall," he snaps. "I’ll not attend the midday council. Let them sit in their own rot and smile through it."
A servant bows so quickly she nearly trips, vanishing like a shadow down the corridor.
The newer staff retreat to the edges of the room. Fear tightens their shoulders. But the old ones—those who’d known him since he was a sharp-eyed child with too much weight on his shoulders—exchange weary glances. They’ve seen this before. This tantrum wrapped in authority. This ire wrapped in care.
He’s pacing now. The black of his coat flares behind him like a flag of war.
“They think they’re protecting him,” he mutters to no one in particular, voice edged in venom. “By softening the blow. But all they’ve done is make him look less as if he were something to be pitied.”
That, more than anything, enrages him.
Because Anaxagoras is not fragile. He is the opposite—unyielding in silence, sharper than any blade. To make him into a passive figure in a story written by old men? Unforgivable.
Khaslana pauses at the window, hands braced against the stone. Okhema glistens below, and somewhere far to the south, the Grove of Epiphany rustles beneath golden branches.
“They think he needs their protection,” he says again, quieter this time. “Fools. He does not need their dirty hands.”
His reflection in the glass stares back at him: a man scowling at his own restraint.
Tomorrow, he will laugh again. He will wear his easy charm like armor. He will send roses, perhaps. A letter, perhaps not.
But today, let the castle burn around him if it must.
Anaxagoras deserves better than diplomacy, and Khaslana has never been known for patience.
The prince storms from the solar not long after the proclamation is read. His footsteps echo sharply through the hall, fast and uneven. The newer servants scurry to clear his path, pressed flat against cold stone walls like ghosts hoping not to be seen.
They’ve heard the stories: Khaslana in a rage is not easily calmed. He does not shout, not often. He doesn’t need to. His silence is worse—the way it coils and tightens and drags the room into a hush. The way his commands sharpen with each breath, leaving no room for question.
“Clear the west wing,” he snaps to a steward. “And have the council chamber sealed.”
“But, Your High—”
The prince’s glare stops the words in her throat. She bows low, murmurs something apologetic, and flees like a servant in a burning house.
The castle’s energy shifts. Cold becomes biting. Shadows lengthen.
But in the servants' quarters—those tucked past the main kitchens, behind thick old stone—they do not panic. Not really.
Old Marra, who swaddled him as an infant. Tollo, who once hoisted the young prince onto his shoulders to reach a stubborn book. They exchange glances, share a sigh.
“He’s sulking,” Tollo says.
“No,” Marra replies, scrubbing at a cloth. “He’s enraged. There’s a difference.”
“He hasn’t lost him yet.”
Marra looks up from the basin, eyes sharp as a hawk’s. “Yes, he’s known from the start that he wouldn’t.”
Despite the tension, they move with practiced rhythm. The castle breathes under their care, and so long as no glass is shattered, no thunder of power splits the floor—this is survivable. It always is.
Then the order comes. Not for a warhorse prepared. Not a cloak or sword called for.
But parchment. Ink. A letter.
“A letter?” the scribe repeats, stunned. “To Lord Anaxagoras?”
“To request an audience,” confirms the steward. His tone is as confused as anyone else’s.
No one speaks for a moment.
The prince does not ask, he arrives. He storms gates or breaks past silence or moves the board so pieces must follow. He does not sit and wait for the other to answer.
This is new.
The scribe glances up toward the high tower, toward the firelit room where their prince has shut himself in. His eyes were thunder earlier—storm-bright and burning—but beneath that…something else. A weight. An ache he couldn’t cover this time, not even with pride.
“…He means it,” someone whispers. “He’s not bluffing.”
Marra sets down her cloth. “Then we write.”
So they do. Slowly and precisely, with ink that does not smear and trembling hands that still manage to obey.
The letter is written in his voice, but softened at the edges, tempered by hands that once cradled his fury and called it grief. It requests a meeting with no demands, no veiled threat—just a single line, at the end, underlined in Khaslana’s own hand.
“If you will have me.”
And with that, the letter is sealed in black wax, and sent northward with the wind.
The servants return to their tasks. The castle holds its breath.
It is not rage that haunts the halls tonight.
It is something far quieter, and far more dangerous.
The letter arrives just before dusk — when the citadel is beginning to slip into its nightly hush, and the glow of gold-tinged torchlight dances along the pale walls of the high halls. It is delivered not by a courier in livery but by one of the discreet messengers sent to the Grove of Epiphany days prior, cloaked in travel-dust and exhaustion, head bowed as he kneels before the prince.
The seal is unmistakable — no grand crest or ostentatious flourish, only a single sigil inked with quiet confidence: the emblem of the Grove, etched with a precise hand. Khaslana studies it for a moment in silence, one hand resting over the back of a carved wooden chair, the other outstretched to take the letter with calm, deliberate motion.
He breaks the wax seal in a single movement, and the letter unfolds with a whisper. His eyes trace the writing — lean, spare lines in dark ink. He knows the script instantly. It is unmistakably Anaxagoras’, precise and measured yet wholly unadorned.
To His Highness, Crown Prince Khaslana of Okhema,
The Grove of Epiphany will receive you. You may arrive at your convenience.
— Anaxagoras
That’s it.
No request for the reason. No courtesies, no bowing flattery. No false humility. Simply: “You may arrive.”
There is a beat of silence — so long that the kneeling courier dares a glance upward. But the prince isn’t angry. No — Khaslana’s mouth curls, just slightly, as he reads the lines again.
Intrigue flickers in his eyes, sharp and alive.
That barefaced audacity. That refusal to bend, even in ink. That maddening honesty — it never changes.
Khaslana’s thumb brushes over the final signature. Not Lord Anaxagoras, not Sage of the Grove, not any of the titles he’d been granted or could have wielded with ease.
He exhales through his nose, more amused than anything, and folds the letter carefully, as though it were a relic worth keeping. A weight settles over him, not heavy but certain — a feeling he hasn’t known since the last time he saw those dark eyes filled with reckless defiance, backlit by candlelight and the flickering stares of an entire ballroom.
He tucks the letter into the inner fold of his coat, and without looking at the messenger, speaks, “Have the horses readied by dawn. I ride for the Grove at first light.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the messenger breathes, already bowing out the door.
Khaslana remains where he is, fingers drumming thoughtfully against the table, eyes cast to the long windows.
So he agreed. Just like that.
There is no gloating in his smile. Only wonder. Only the slow, deliberate thrum of fascination growing stronger in his chest.
The Grove of Epiphany was quieter than Khaslana remembered it — or perhaps he had simply forgotten how silence here always felt like being watched. The old trees, ever radiant with their silver-blue sheen, whispered with the breeze as though eavesdropping. The walk to the inner sanctum was unguarded. No grand reception, no retinue. Only Anaxagoras, waiting.
He stood beneath the ancient boughs, spine straight, robes plain — ceremonial only in color, not embroidery. Regal and remote, like a relic of the grove itself.
When Khaslana stopped before him, Anaxagoras raised a brow.
“Speak,” he said, with no room for pleasantries. “Why me? Why provoke scandal? Why shatter your image, invite disgrace, unspool the threads of treaties older than our own names?”
Khaslana took a breath. He looked not at Anaxa’s eyes, but at the line of his mouth — so familiar, so disdainful, so distant — and for once, unguarded.
“I could not bear,” he said slowly, voice low but full, “to watch a lesser man place his hands where only divinity belongs.”
Anaxagoras blinked, caught for a heartbeat.
Khaslana continued, stepping closer, the scent of leather and clove trailing behind him. “They would have given you away to House Theros as if your name meant nothing but ink on parchment. But I looked at you and I remembered what it is to belong to something greater than duty. Greater than peace.”
“You would throw away an empire for a whim?”
“I would tear one apart,” Khaslana murmured, “for the certainty that no one else deserves to stand beside you.”
A long pause.
“You mistake obsession for affection.”
“Do I?” he tilted his head. “Then call me obsessed. But I have known you in a thousand lifetimes, Anaxagoras, and I will ruin this one gladly if it means I can know you again.”
Anaxagoras exhaled sharply, lips curling in a near-sneer. “You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re beautiful when you're angry,” Khaslana replied with infuriating calm.
“You came all this way just to flatter me?”
“No. I came because I would not stand idle while the realm mistook you for a bargaining piece. Let them whisper. Let them call it madness. But you — you — were never meant to be anyone’s pawn.”
Another silence.
“I’m not flattered,” Anaxa muttered, but the edges of his voice betrayed something thinner, more fragile than disdain.
“I’m not asking you to be,” Khaslana said. “I’m asking you to see me.”
Anaxagoras looked at him for a long moment. Truly looked.
And for once, he said nothing back.
The silence stretches like a thread drawn taut — delicate, near-breaking.
Khaslana watches him, but not like a conqueror demanding surrender. He’s still, reverent. Not touching. Not pleading.
Then, softer than the wind rustling through the silvered leaves, “Say no,” Khaslana murmurs. “And I’ll leave you be. No chains. No consequences. I’ll return to my lands, and the realm will mend what I’ve broken.”
Anaxagoras narrows his eyes, as if waiting for the catch. There is none.
“But say yes,” Khaslana continues, “and the crown is yours — not as a symbol, not for strategy, not for show. Yours, because you chose it.”
He steps back one pace. Enough to make the moment honest. Enough to mean it.
“I will not name you consort. I will not steal you. I will not win you. That’s not what this is.”
Anaxagoras stares at the ground for a long moment.
The weight of weeks presses on him. Of whispers behind closed doors, signatures demanded, alliances arranged with no regard for his voice. Every step carved for him by someone else’s ambition.
And now, in this grove where nothing false can stand — a choice.
He breathes in, then he looks up.
“I don’t want your crown,” he says, voice steady. “Not for power. Not for prestige.”
Khaslana doesn't flinch.
Anaxa steps forward — a breath closer now — and says, with quiet finality, “But I do want to choose. And right now… I choose this. I choose you.”
The wind shifts. A hush falls.
And somewhere in that stillness, Khaslana smiles — slow, solemn, almost stunned. As if he'd been waiting lifetimes to hear those words.
Not because they proved him right, but because Anaxa said them freely.
Two days later, the royal palace issues a formal proclamation. Sealed with the crest of the royal family and penned in unmistakable golden ink, it is read aloud at noon by the Royal Herald from the balcony overlooking the Plaza of Twelve Banners — the heart of the capital.
“Let it be known throughout all provinces of the realm of Okhema, under sky and seal, that by the will of His Royal Highness Khaslana, Crown Prince of the Sovereign Line and Heir to the Thousand-Year Reign, and with the blessing of Her Majesty the Queen, a union has been decreed.
Lord Anaxagoras of the Grove of Epiphany — guardian of sacred traditions, scholar of divine arts, and chosen keeper of the West — shall henceforth be named Consort Presumptive to the Crown, and is to be wed in accordance with the rites of royal union at a date soon to be declared.
All prior negotiations of marital alliance have been formally dissolved by royal prerogative. All oaths are voided by sovereign decree. Let no house or council contest what has been spoken.
This union stands not as a symbol, but as truth. Let joy be shared across the kingdom.
Long live the Crown.”
It is not just a declaration — it is a thunderclap.
The capital goes feral. By nightfall, the nobility is ablaze with indignation, disbelief, and morbid curiosity. Parlors buzz like hornet hives, silk fans flutter like wings of birds in distress, and old generals sit back with wine, muttering that the young prince has finally gone mad — or worse, been played.
They whisper:
“He seduced the prince!”
“He bewitched him with false rites and charms.”
“He’s planned this for years.”
They dredge up the past — Anaxagoras, the heretic who defied the Synod, the exile who turned his back on royal scholarship, the boy who laughed in the face of doctrine and vanished into myth.
A blasphemer. A pariah. A man whose name was once spoken only with caution and spit.
But through it all, Anaxa stays silent. No rebuttals. No appearances. No desperate bid to clean his reputation. If anything, he seems disinterested in clearing his name — content to remain in the shadows of the Grove, where the wind is thick with moss and memory.
The prince does not offer an explanation. He does not hold press nor council. But he is often seen walking the palace gardens now, more slowly than before, with his gaze tilted skyward, thoughtful.
His once imperious tone, once sharpened like a blade, has gentled — not dulled, but refined. He listens more. His words carry less weight and more warmth. He speaks of the future not as a burden, but as a possibility.
And the people — the people of Okhema, who grew up loving their prince despite his cold, stone walls, who feared he would one day be carved into marble like every monarch before him — they begin to understand.
They know who Anaxa is. They’ve heard the rumors, the wild stories, the defiance. But if this is the man who softened their prince's voice… if this is the man who steadied him — who made him choose instead of inherit — perhaps there is room to forgive.
Perhaps even a blasphemer can be a blessing.
The formal letter was already a wildfire—hot, furious, and all-consuming. It ignited before anyone had the chance to stop it. Before a single noble could draft their outrage or file their dissent, it had been delivered. Publicly. Deliberately. Signed in Khaslana’s own hand, stamped with his seal. A declaration, not a request. A statement of devotion, not politics.
But in the days that follow, no more flames rise. No retaliation. No noise.
The palace—and all of Amphoreus—goes unnervingly quiet. Not peaceful, not calm, but still. That terrible, heavy stillness before the ground splits open again.
The court watches. Waits. They circle like carrion birds expecting a body. Surely the council will object. Surely the marriage will be annulled. Surely the Queen will step in. Or Anaxa will be whisked away in the night, declared a traitor, a blight, an embarrassment to the throne.
But none of it comes.
Instead, Anaxa stays.
He lives quietly in the room adjacent to Khaslana’s—grander than any room he’s ever occupied, and no less ornate than the prince’s own. The staff are unsure how to treat him at first. Some bow too deeply. Some refuse to meet his eyes. A few mutter prayers beneath their breath when they pass him in the halls.
But he says nothing. He does not demand or scold. He simply exists, quietly, like a stone dropped into a lake—the ripples inevitable.
He begins to take walks at dawn through the garden terraces, before the city stirs. Once-overgrown hedges are being trimmed again. Forgotten paths swept. Flowers replanted. Birds have started nesting in the high beams once more, where it’s quietest, and when Anaxa walks there, he doesn’t speak. He only listens to them.
A new wardrobe is commissioned for him. The tailors whisper to each other when taking his measurements—some still don’t believe he’s real. The fabrics are sumptuous but not gaudy; made from the silks of western looms, dyed in soft seafoam, twilight, blood-pink. He wears them with the ease of someone born into neither wealth nor shame. A silver hairpiece is placed in his braid. He does not remove it.
Khaslana does not parade him around. There are no feasts, no formal introductions. But still, Anaxa appears beside him during council sessions, during dinners with foreign dignitaries, and seated quietly in the royal box during performances. He does not speak unless spoken to, but he is always there.
And Khaslana… Khaslana begins to change.
He attends every council meeting—every single one not just in body, but in presence. The fire in his tone is still there, but it’s no longer sharpened to a blade. Now it glows—a steady flame, held close, tempered.
He interrupts ministers only when necessary, and even then, with care. His words are considered, and his tone, patient. When the nobles push back against his new proposals—more grain sent to the desert provinces, reforms to tenant farming laws, softer punishments for heretics—he does not shout. He does not threaten.
He simply smiles. A soft, sincere smile. The kind a man wears when he already knows the future is his.
And that, more than anything, unnerves them.
The queen says nothing, but her presence at his side has grown steadier. She offers her nod of approval in small, precise moments. A glance. A hand placed gently over his on the armrest of the throne. Silent confirmation.
The people are confused.
They know Anaxa’s name. They remember the stories—he who blasphemed against the gods, who committed the sin of defamation and slander, who corrupted the youths into his own ideologies… They had whispered his name in fear, once.
But now he stands beside the prince, not as a prisoner nor concubine, but as something else. Something impossible.
He is quieter than they imagined. Softer. But not weaker. He holds himself with the calm of someone who has already survived the worst thing imaginable and came out the other side alive.
Whispers fill the capital like smoke curling under doors:
“I heard he spoke the unnameable rites and lived.”
“They say the prince dreams differently now—lighter.”
“He’s the one who laughed in the face of the Oracle, isn’t he?”
“Maybe it’s not sorcery at all.”
“What if he really does love him?”
“…What if he always did?”
And somehow, that frightens them more than any spell ever could.
Because love—that kind of love—is not something you can outlaw. It doesn’t burn itself out. It lingers.
And no one—not priest, nor court, nor king—can predict what it might become.
One evening, as the sun sinks over the gilt domes of Okhema, casting gold over white stone and still water, the palace heralds emerge in full ceremonial regalia. A crowd gathers, thick with breathless anticipation.
The announcement is brief, but it cleaves through the capital like lightning:
“His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Khaslana of Okhema, shall undertake the Rite of Binding Vows at the coming Annual Ascension Festival. The rite shall be offered in full. The chosen consort: Lord Anaxagoras of the Grove of Epiphany.”
It is ancient, this rite—dust-covered in most histories, tucked into scrolls as cultural relic more than law. A tradition of love, not alliance. Once performed only when the royal heart was freely given, never for diplomacy, never for duty.
So when the proclamation is made, the capital erupts.
Whispers spill from every terrace, every wine hall, every noble house and market stall.
“He’s really doing it.”
“This isn’t politics.”
“This is a binding vow.”
“It’s not just a ceremony—it’s belief!”
Some are appalled, others are quietly moved, but most are stunned. Because to bind oneself through the rite is to declare, unequivocally: I choose this person, in front of gods, court, and country. I vow with heart and hand.
Anaxa hears the announcement like the rest—standing barefoot on cold mosaic tiles, half-dressed, comb in hand. He had known nothing.
The silence that follows is deafening.
He doesn’t storm the court, doesn’t demand an explanation. Instead, he goes to the western halls and finds Khaslana already seated, writing calmly with a reed pen. The candlelight flickers off his face, unbothered, quiet.
Anaxa doesn’t speak, but he stares.
And Khaslana looks up and says, voice low, “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want it to feel… obligated. I wanted you to see it for what it is. I choose you—publicly, permanently. Before the eyes of the realm. Not because I have to, but because I want to.”
And for the first time, Anaxa has no witty retort. No scoff, no coldness.
He only says, very quietly, almost more to himself, “You really are mad.”
Khaslana smiles. “Then it’s fortunate you’ve already said yes.”
Outside, Okhema blazes with speculation. But inside the palace, the heart of the empire thrums not with scandal or fury—but the steady, slow beginning of something sacred.
Day 1 — The Firstlight
The sky is still silver when Khaslana steps onto the eastern balcony. Pale light drips over the marble like water, and the wind combs through his hair with cold fingers. Below, the city still slumbers—curled in shadows, soft in silence. But already, Amphoreus feels poised on the edge of breath.
He does not wear a crown. He does not bring a retinue. The silk across his shoulders is plain, unbelted, and the sigil ring at his hand is turned inward so its face touches his palm. It is important, he thinks, to be bare for this.
He stands alone—not by accident, but by design. That is how the rite begins. Not in the temple. Not in the court. But here, where the wind carries what is spoken to every ear in the city, if the heart is listening.
When he speaks, it is not loud—but clear. Crisp as frost on the edge of dawn.
“I give my name to Anaxagoras,” he says. “Who has undone me.”
The words strike the hush like a bell. He can feel them part the air, feel the echo tremble in his own chest. His breath fogs, caught on the still-cool air, and for a moment, he does not speak again.
He thinks of Anaxa's hands—how they moved like fire and felt like truth. He thinks of the way he knows Khaslana, not because anyone told him to, not because it is useful, but because he wants to. Because he listens.
He closes his eyes. He is not the crown here. Not the heir. Not the son of anything. He is simply a boy who fell in love, and has chosen not to lie about it.
“I speak this not as duty,” he continues, voice steadier now, though quieter. “Not because the rite calls for names. Not because the old laws demand it. I speak it because the feeling leaves no room for silence.”
He shifts slightly, facing the wind more fully, as though it might carry him forward. “I speak it because I have known beauty. Because I have known grief. And in him, I have found something larger than both.”
“I name him not for favor,” he says. “But for the way he walks beside me. The way his laughter breaks against my ribs and stays. The way he looks at me and doesn’t flinch from the things I’ve hidden, or the things I fear.”
He draws in a breath, deep and cold and clean.
“I name him because I cannot not name him.”
The wind stirs around his ankles, circles his throat like a collar. Somewhere far below, a gull cries—sharp and sudden. Khaslana lifts his chin, eyes still trained toward the horizon, but softer now.
“I choose you, Anaxagoras.”
And this time, the words are not an announcement, but a vow. Almost a whisper. Not meant for the city, but for him.
Wherever he is.
Day II — The Offering
The temple is silent at nightfall. Torches crackle against stone pillars, casting long shadows across the marbled floor. The air tastes like old incense and dusted gold—sacred, and watching.
Khaslana kneels before the altar alone.
By rite, no one else may witness this part of the vow. Not his council, not his mother, not even Anaxagoras. What is spoken here is not for love to hear, but for the gods to guard. Only the High Oracle waits behind the veil, silent and unseen, to record and seal his truth.
He doesn’t hesitate.
“I have a fear,” he begins. His voice sounds too loud in the hush, even when spoken softly. “I’ve had it since I was a child. It comes without warning. In it—I stand in the throne room. My crown is heavier than it should be. And everything is ash. Burnt tapestries. No guards. No advisors. No family. No voice but mine. It echoes forever, and I am the only one left.”
He swallows.
“I wake from it with my hands curled around nothing.”
Silence answers.
He straightens, breath trembling, not from fear, but from the weight of what he has just handed over. His secret. The thing no one could know, because to know it would make him vulnerable, and he cannot afford vulnerability.
But this is the vow. This is what the vow demands.
“I do not want to rule alone,” he says. “I never have.”
The air shifts. A ceremonial scribe seals his words in lacquered script. The scroll is taken—locked, archived, and buried beneath the temple stone, as per rite. It will never be opened unless the bond he’s forming is broken.
In the hours after, it’s Anaxagoras’ turn.
Khaslana isn’t allowed to hear it—but he sees the change in Anaxagoras’ face when he returns.
There’s something subdued about him. Still graceful, still sharp-tongued and composed, but quieter. Softer, in a way that startles Khaslana more than it should.
And later, in private, Anaxagoras speaks. Not as a formal rite, not as an obligation—but because, perhaps, he wants him to know.
“I had a sister,” Anaxagoras says, voice a near-whisper. “She was... everything. Before the storm, before the ship. People think I was born alone, came here alone, belonged to no one. That’s why they all thought they could claim me and mold me into something for their own design.”
Khaslana looks at him, unmoving.
Anaxagoras meets his gaze. “But I had her. And I lost her. And if they knew that, they’d use that too.”
His hand curls slightly, as if to grasp something invisible. “I am not an orphan. But I had to become one. I’m still grieving. I think I always will be.”
For a moment, Khaslana says nothing. He only watches him. Not like a prince, not like a witness, but like someone looking into a reflection he wasn’t prepared for.
Then, softly—more honestly than he means to—he answers.
“I know that kind of silence.” His voice doesn’t waver, but it gentles. “The kind you keep, because the truth makes you vulnerable. Because grief makes you easy to break.”
He shifts slightly, just enough to lean closer. “When I was a child, I dreamed of the palace filled with ash. The throne room empty. No voices. No footsteps. Just me—crowned, alone.”
Khaslana’s hand finds Anaxa’s, resting between them on the stone floor.
“I never wanted to rule alone,” he murmurs. “Not then. Not now.”
He doesn’t cry. Neither of them do.
But Khaslana feels something shift inside him—like the opening of a gate that had long rusted shut.
No true love comes without cost. Without something willingly given. Not a gift, but a surrender.
And tonight, they have both surrendered.
Day III — The Crossing
The stones of the River Causeway are warm underfoot, heat rising in thin waves that shimmer over still water. Khaslana walks slowly, the weight of the ceremonial blade steady in both hands, wrapped in cloth like a quiet apology. Every step is deliberate. There is no rush, no pageantry. Just the sound of water and wind, and the soft slap of bare soles against stone.
The blade was given to him at fifteen. The first time he was expected to watch an execution, not as a witness, but as heir.
A show of power, his mother had said. A king must not flinch.
He did flinch. He couldn’t help it. He never lifted the sword. He had knelt after, sick behind the gardens, the metal still biting cold in his palm. The blade had not tasted blood, and still it felt like it had scarred him.
He carries it now not out of pride, but because it was the first thing he ever said ‘no’ to.
And because Anaxa deserves to know what that ‘no’ cost him.
From the opposite end of the causeway, Anaxa approaches—unarmed, barefoot, as the rite demands. In his hand, a small shape, unadorned. The wind moves through his cloak like a banner, catching strands of hair and making them gleam silver in the sun. He doesn’t look afraid. He doesn’t look anything but sure.
Khaslana remembers what Anaxa had said the night before, in the temple, with his secret sealed in shadow:
“People think I was born alone, came here alone, belonged to no one. That’s why they all thought they could claim me and mold me into something for their own design.”
And now—here is the proof of that someone.
A blackened ring. Cracked and weathered by fire. A sibling’s keepsake. A grave marker in disguise.
When they reach each other, there is no hesitation.
Khaslana reaches out, and Anaxa does the same. The exchange happens in silence, hands brushing just long enough to feel the warmth of the other’s skin. When Khaslana’s fingers close around the ring, something inside him settles.
Not because it’s easy. Because it’s honest.
He looks down at the ring in his palm, the faint curve of it scorched at one edge. It’s fragile. So was love, once.
He meets Anaxa’s eyes.
They don’t speak, but they don’t look away. That has always been the difference between this and everything else—no matter what’s given, they never turn away.
Khaslana swallows. “I was afraid I would give this to you, and you’d think less of me for what it meant.”
Anaxa shakes his head, eyes steady. “I would never.”
A pause, and Khaslana adds, with that rare, quiet candor that only comes when no one else is listening, “I’m not afraid now.”
Anaxa’s expression softens—not into pity, but into something fuller. Something that says I see you. I’ve always seen you.
They walk back together, shoulder to shoulder.
The crossing is complete, but neither of them feels like they’ve left anything behind. Only that they’ve been met, fully, in return.
And love, Khaslana thinks, is not a thing you drag or chase. It walks beside you. It chooses you back.
Day IV — The Unveiling
The atrium feels colder today.
No music. No ceremony. Only light, pouring down in long golden shafts from the open skylight above, slicing across the pale stone floor. The throne is empty. The court is seated. And in the center — no crown, no guards, no armor — Khaslana kneels.
Before him were five elders, and behind a high balustrade above stood Anaxagoras. Silent. Watching.
The rite demands vulnerability. No aid. No interruption. No title. The beloved may bear witness — but they may not interfere. Not even to comfort. Not even to speak his name.
Khaslana lowers his head. He can feel the weight of Anaxa’s gaze, even from behind the lattice screen. That alone keeps him upright.
The elders begin.
“What have you lied about?”
“My anger,” Khaslana answers. “When I said it didn’t frighten me. When I said I didn’t sometimes dream of destroying everything I built just to feel something clean.”
“What did Her Majesty, The Queen, say when you told her about him?”
Khaslana hesitates, but only for a breath.
“My mother asked if I would survive loving someone like that.” He swallows. “I told her I wasn’t sure. She said: ‘Then you’ve chosen well.’”
“What do you fear Lord Anaxagoras will one day see in you?”
Khaslana swallows hard. His voice wavers for the first time.
“That I am not kind. That I do not know how to love gently. That sometimes I look at him and want to cage him just to keep him safe.” He exhales. “And that I might be brave enough to do it.”
“What do you envy in him?”
“His softness,” Khaslana says without hesitation. “His goodness. The way he walks through a room and people become better. I would burn the world to protect him, and he would ask why it must burn at all.”
“And what will you do,” the final elder asks, “when love is not enough?”
He closes his eyes.
“I will stay.”
A pause.
“I will stay even when he leaves. I will choose him even when he does not choose me. Not out of pity — not to be noble — but because I want him, not what he gives me. I want him in joy, in rage, in ruin. Even when love feels too small a word, I will stay.”
The silence that follows is not cold.
It is reverent.
The elder of legacy stands first. Then the widow. Then the rest, one by one, as the court follows. No trumpets. No declarations. Only bowed heads.
Above, Anaxagoras rises from behind the screen and descends the long staircase, slow but sure.
When he reaches Khaslana, he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t bow. He simply presses his forehead to his — a gesture so old it needs no name.
The unveiling is complete.
And Khaslana—bare, seen, and still standing—does not feel small. He feels held.
Day V — The Convergence
Twilight blooms like a bruise across the horizon, staining the sky in violet and amber as the palace exhales its last warmth of day. The moment has arrived.
And Khaslana is alone.
He has always known this moment would come, written into the marrow of his bones long before he knew what love truly meant. The Rite of Convergence — the final step, the closing door behind the life he lived before Anaxa. He had trained for it, rehearsed it, studied its meaning in scripture and song. But now, as the hour arrives, nothing he knows steadies his hands.
He doesn’t look back.
Anaxa had touched his cheek before parting. A soft, steady look — neither pleading nor afraid — and then they each turned away.
Khaslana’s path leads him to the Hall of Ancestors.
The doors open without sound, just as they had in the vision-dreams shown to him as a boy. The air is cold here, and the stillness is profound — not lifeless, but listening. Torches burn low along the columns. Their flames flicker like distant stars. Between them stand statues of the past: stone forms of those who came before, clothed in time and silence.
He passes them without rush, but not without reverence. He sees them now as he never did before — not as figures of myth, but as people who trembled too. Some faces are smooth with peace, others worn by sorrow. Some walked out of the Veil Gate hand in hand. Others walked alone.
He thinks of Anaxa in the garden, walking his own path in parallel. Separate, but bound.
The weight of tradition presses on Khaslana’s shoulders, but not cruelly — like arms around him, whispering: you are not the first. you will not be the last.
Still, his heart is a war drum. Loud enough, he thinks, to be heard in the garden.
For a second, he is afraid.
Not of Anaxa, not of rejection — but of the sheer magnitude of it. The finality, stepping into the mystery. He had courted with smiles, with flowers and flame and song, but this is no longer song. This is the silence between notes.
He reaches the end of the Hall.
The walls behind him vanish into shadow, and before him the Veil Gate rises — ancient and unyielding. Its silvered stone gleams with moonlight not present in the sky. It does not open. Not yet.
He is the first to arrive.
Khaslana closes his eyes.
There is a trembling in him, not from doubt — but from awe. A rawness he cannot sheath. He has been called brave his whole life, but here, in this moment, courage is not the absence of fear. It is standing here despite it.
He remembers the words his mother once told him — not as a queen, but as a woman who once stood at this threshold.
"Do not be afraid to carry your heart in open hands. It is the only way it can be received."
And so he waits. With his fear, with his hope. With the name of the one he loves folded beneath his tongue like prayer.
Footsteps.
He does not need to look to know it is Anaxa. There is no voice, no gesture. Just presence. A quiet understanding that moves between them like breath. The garden has leaves tangled in Anaxa’s hair, and Khaslana aches at the sight.
They stand side by side.
Two souls. Two choices. Neither tethered. Neither forced. But willing.
And then — as if recognizing the truth of that — the Veil Gate stirs.
It folds inward like petals retreating from dawn. A soft, seamless movement, untouched by time. A breath held for centuries finally released.
They step forward.
Inside, the chamber is darkness made tangible — not oppressive, but sacred. Obsidian walls stretch high and smooth around them. There is no echo here. No sound at all, as if the room understands: this is not a place for noise.
It is a place for truth.
Khaslana’s knees find the floor. His palms rest on the cold stone, and beside him, Anaxa does the same.
There is no ceremony beyond this. No priest, no witness.
Only them.
Before them lies a low obsidian panel — untouched save for gold-etched names that shimmer like constellations. Each one once carved by hands like theirs. Each name a world. Each one a vow.
He lifts the stylus — a slender rod of gold, heavy with intent.
His fingers tremble. He does not hide it. He does not need to.
And then, in his own hand, Khaslana writes:
Khaslana of the Third Moon, who feared the weight of his crown more than the loss of his name. Who feared loving so deeply it might tear him open. Who loved anyway.
He does not look to see what Anaxa writes.
Some things are meant to be kept — not as secrets, but as sacred offerings.
When they finish, the names shimmer for a moment longer… then fade, sealed into the obsidian, forever unread by others. But known. Understood. Received.
They rise together.
The Veil Gate behind them is still open. Still waiting. But they do not hesitate.
They step through as one.
And the moment they do, something shifts — not in the air, but in them. A quietness settles in Khaslana’s chest. Not absence, but fullness. The kind that comes from knowing: he is no longer alone.
When they emerge, the stars are bright overhead.
That night, beneath the stars that bore their names long before they knew one another, Khaslana kneels again.
Not before a throne, not before tradition, but before Anaxa.
Not in submission — never that — but in devotion. With every piece of him laid bare. All his titles and rituals and duties are discarded at this moment, because nothing matters more than this.
The torchlight flickers against Anaxa’s face. His eyes are wide—not from disbelief, but from recognition. As though he has known this moment was coming from the beginning, and still can’t quite believe it’s real.
Khaslana doesn’t reach for his hand, not yet. He speaks instead, voice low and unswerving.
“If the stars will not curse me for loving you, then let them bear witness. You are not my downfall. You are my vow.”
The words echo—not in the air, but in Anaxa’s gaze. In the breath he exhales. On the way he finally reaches for Khaslana’s face, cupping his cheek like something sacred.
And though neither of them says I love you, the whole world seems to know.
Because some truths don’t need to be spoken aloud. Some truths are written in gold.
And chosen, again and again, in every life they are given.
From the Court of Okhema
To all provinces, towns, and outposts under the banner of the realm:
By the will of the Ancestors, and under the eyes of the stars, let it be declared:
The Rite of Binding Vows has been fulfilled.
His Highness, Khaslana of Okhema, has entered the Veil Gate.
The chosen beloved has answered his call. Together, they have emerged.
As is tradition, their names now rest in gold upon the obsidian wall—
a testament to choice freely made, and a bond witnessed by stone and silence alike.
In accordance with custom, the union shall be sanctified five days hence,
on the evening of the seventh moon.
Let preparations begin across the realm.
Raise the house-colors of His Highness, and light the ceremonial fires.
May song carry through the streets, and lanterns be lifted to the skies.
For the rite is not merely a union of hearts—
It is the anchoring of fate, and the opening of the gate once sealed.
This is the word of the palace.
Let none speak against it.
Issued from the Inner Court of Okhema,
By hand of the Royal Scribe and sealed with the Mark of the High Seat.
Their wedding is smaller than expected, yet grander than all that came before.
There are no skyborne processions, no floating cities or choirs stitched from starlight. No twenty-tiered crown, no rainfall of petals from temple doves. It is not the kind of ceremony one carves into legend by scale.
But legend is already watching. It hums quietly in the bones of the palace.
Khaslana does not need spectacle — he already has victory, and he already has Anaxa, but who was he, if not someone who spoils the man he will bleed the sky for?
So the silks are the finest in the archipelago, their stitching done by hand and moonlight. The feasts are grown in secret gardens. The wine is so old it forgets itself mid-swallow. Anaxa's rings — plural, of course — glimmer with impossible cut stones, each chosen for an element of his name: sea-iron, tide-jet, pearl fire. Khaslana had the settings forged weeks before the Rite. “Hope is unbecoming,” the courtiers had whispered. He had worn it anyway.
The court simmers. Nobles seethe — some in silence, some in veiled smiles. A union like this leaves them reeling, scrambling to recalculate their games. Their sons had failed. Their daughters, too. Khaslana had chosen an exile.
Lygus drinks too much and leaves early, before the wedding even starts. Khaslana is not sure if Anaxa had extended an invitation, but he lets himself laugh at the mere thought, a breath of amusement ghosting behind his veil.
Anaxa is late, but only slightly — and it’s not out of carelessness. When he arrives, it is quiet and deliberate, every step as if walking from myth into the present. He wears no crown. No crest. His presence is enough.
Khaslana forgets how to breathe.
They marry beneath the open sky — the same one where Khaslana once prayed, begged, threatened, and wept. The stars are clear tonight. Not a single one dares look away.
They say nothing during the ceremony that is not required. The Rite has already been spoken. The vows already bound.
But Khaslana, at the moment of the kiss, whispers something only Anaxa hears, “Now the world may know what I already do.”
And when Anaxa smiles, just barely, Khaslana knows: this is the beginning.
Not of peace. Not of perfection.
But of a life he will protect with both hands and every drop of power he has left.
The ballroom is a cathedral of gold and shadow, light glinting off a thousand crystal facets as chandeliers sway gently overhead. Musicians tuck themselves along the far wall, strings and flute and harpsichord weaving through the air like fine thread. The scent of roses — real, enchanted, and long since extinct in the wild — drifts from the tall centerpieces lining the banquet tables. Every corner of the hall gleams with wealth and history, but all of it pales in the presence of the couple standing at the center of the floor.
No one quite knows how to look at them.
The prince, dressed not in white but in royal blue and silver, wears power like second skin. And beside him, the man who was never meant to stand here — Anaxa, the siren in exile, the outlaw turned consort — is radiant in midnight blue and cloud gray thread, hair pinned back with dark pearls from the deepest sea. His posture is confident, but he does not preen. He does not bow. He does not smile at people he does not know. He stands beside Khaslana with the casual defiance of someone who knows he belongs, and does not require the room’s permission to remain.
They are meant to dance. The first of the evening. A custom older than any monarch still breathing.
And so they do.
The court parts slowly as they take the floor — not because they are asked, but because there is a gravity in the air, a pressure that makes it hard to speak, let alone interrupt. Even the chandeliers seem to hum quieter, the musicians steadying themselves before the first note is played.
Anaxa’s hand slides into Khaslana’s, fingers long and sure.
“You could have chosen easier,” Anaxa murmurs, just for him. “Someone simpler.”
Khaslana doesn’t break eye contact. “I didn’t want easier. I wanted you.”
Their hands meet in the middle. Their bodies shift, find rhythm.
The music begins.
The dance is slow, elegant, and deliberate — not a performance, but a revelation. They are not trying to impress. They are making something known. Each step, each spin, each glance held longer than necessary is a statement more eloquent than any speech delivered at court. The room watches, breath held between sips of wine and thin smiles.
This was not the future they were promised.
And yet, here it is, swaying gracefully across the ballroom, utterly unbothered by disbelief.
Khaslana holds him like a man who knows what it means to lose. Anaxa lets himself be held, not because he is conquered, but because he chose this, chose him — even when it would have been easier to stay lost in the tide.
Around them, murmurs drift like pollen:
“Surely this is for show.”
“I heard he bewitched him.”
… And many others. The prince cannot will himself care.
He spins Anaxa gently, hand at the small of his back, their silhouettes carved in light. For a moment, the entire ballroom tilts toward them — every eye, every old man at the edge of retirement, every daughter trained from birth to curtsy prettily, every cousin with a claim to the throne too distant to matter. They all see what’s been made of this union.
Not a scandal. Not compromise. But something new. Something dangerous. Something enduring.
Anaxa says nothing, but his eyes speak plainly. You’re playing a dangerous game.
Khaslana’s smile — soft and wolfish — answers, Then let them gamble.
The music ends. Their hands fall apart with the reluctance of silk being drawn through a ring. And for a moment longer, no one dares move.
Then applause, tepid and uneven.
Then breath, shallow and uncertain.
Then the murmurs begin again.
But Khaslana does not hear them. He turns to Anaxa, lips near his ear.
“Dance with me again.”
“We’re meant to greet the nobles,” Anaxa replies, already smiling.
“I am,” Khaslana says. “You’re meant to dance.”
And he takes his hand again.
And the room — however reluctantly — learns its new rhythm.
The celebration has long dimmed. Candles flicker low, perfumed smoke curling toward the open windows like the remnants of old prayers. Musicians have packed away their instruments, laughter has dwindled to hushes. But above it all, behind closed doors, silence settles like velvet.
Anaxa sits before the mirror, moonlight glancing off the silver at his throat. The weight of his coronet is gone, but his earrings remain, his rings, the fine chains around his neck — ornaments of a role he never asked to wear.
Khaslana stands behind him, quiet.
He reaches first for the necklace, unfastening it with a familiarity that feels... practiced. Like he’s done this before. Not once — but in other lives. Other mirrors. Other nights.
Anaxa does not flinch. He leans into it, lets Khaslana peel him down like dusk from the sky.
“I should do this,” Khaslana murmurs, “as many times as you’ve carried me.”
“You already have,” Anaxa says, voice a thread of silk.
He helps Khaslana next — undoes the clasps of his outer robes, unfastens the buckles hidden beneath. There’s a reverence in it, not lust. Something quieter than want. As if each layer is another truth being laid bare.
No rush. No trembling hands. Only the steady patience of familiarity.
They move like shadows folding into each other. Breath for breath. Thread for thread.
By the time they reach the bed, neither speaks. Khaslana lies on his side, hair loose and dark as ink spilled across the pillow. Anaxa slides in beside him, exhaling. Their foreheads touch. Fingers find each other’s.
It’s not the first time they’ve done this — not really.
Even if it is, they both believe it isn’t.
“We’ve always returned to this,” Anaxa whispers.
“We always will,” Khaslana answers.
And in that room, no longer princes, not warriors nor sons of nations, they slumber.
For the first time.
For the thousandth.
For forever.