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The Crystal Palace of Eso’entheas never knew the shadows, not truly.
Even at night, even with the three suns drowned beyond the horizon, their light remained– caught and imprisoned in the palace’s bones. The walls held it like a remembered blaze and the floors bled it back in pale gold.
It should have been comforting, to know you will never see true darkness, but even the richest people tire of the suns at some point.
Aelrie Valtanaleth sat with her spine straight and her hands folded as she had been taught. The chair beneath her was carved from a single translucent slab, cold as riverstone. The table before her was crystal too– an immense plane that caught the candlelight and fractured it into a dozen smaller flames, each one trembling with every shift of breath.
She swallowed a mouthful of citrus-braised quail and tasted heat and sweetness and iron. It wasn’t the food, but the air.
The air in all of Suvesia carried that thin, metallic scent, as if the world was still cooling from its creation of flame and destruction. Here, in the palace, it was stronger. The servants said the crystal was pure. The priests said it was blessed. The commoners said– quietly, behind hands and closed doors– that the palace drank the blood of the dead.
Aelrie kept her eyes on her plate anyway.
She could feel them watching without looking. The servants lined along the walls, still as statues, their heads bowed at the exact angle prescribed by tradition and fear. Even their breathing was disciplined. Their eyes never rose. Their hands never trembled, at least not where the royal family could see.
Across the table, Laeroth lifted his goblet and drank as if he owned the world and had grown bored of it.
Gold clung to him in every detail. From a chain at his throat, to rings on his long fingers, and embroidery that caught the light and threw it back in mocking brilliance. His hair– pure molten gold like Aelrie’s– was unbound tonight, spilling over his shoulders in a careless sheet. It made him look kinder than he was, and that annoyed her more than it should have.
When he set his goblet down, the wine left a dark crescent on the crystal, like a bruise.
Aelrie didn’t look up. She didn’t need to. She knew what his expression would be– that lazy amusement, the hint of something bitter underneath, like smoke trapped in perfume.
At the head of the table, Emperor Erolith sat as if the chair were a throne and the room a court and not a simple dining room.
He was not the sort of ruler who needed a crown. His presence made crowns feel like decorations. His face was sharp and beautiful in a way that seemed made to punish those who stared too long– high cheekbones, cold mouth, eyes like molten coins. Even at rest, he looked carved, finished, inevitable. He cut his meat with surgical precision, not bothering to hide his attention as it slid over his children.
Beside him, Empress Merethyl ate more slowly, her posture less rigid, her gaze softer, but only by comparison. Her beauty was the kind that made the room quieter. There was warmth to her, yes, but it was the warmth of embers beneath ash. Aelrie had learned young that her mother’s kindness was real, but never free.
To the emperor’s right sat Lady Consilium Tyrael Fenrora, her hands folded delicately, her expression composed into something almost gentle. She was dressed in pale silver that made her look carved from moonlight. Her eyes were dark, a stark contrast among all that gold. They moved like a fox’s– quick, curious, never still.
To the emperor’s left sat Lord Consilium Ivaran Valqen, broad-shouldered, austere, his hair bound back in a soldier’s knot. He looked less like a courtier than a weapon set down beside the throne, waiting to be lifted again.
Aelrie could feel the shape of the room pressing in. Not the walls, the hierarchy.
At any other table in Suvesia, the mere presence of a Valtanaleth would have made conversation die in the throat. Here, at this table, words flowed easily. Jokes were made. Wine was poured. Plates were filled and cleared, but the ease was a performance. It always was.
Erolith set down his knife. The tiny sound, metal against crystal, was enough to make the servants along the wall tighten as one creature. “I heard,” Erolith began casually, “that the arena-master is petitioning for a new pit.”
Ivaran’s mouth twitched. “He says the current one is too narrow.”
“Too narrow,” Erolith repeated, amused. “For what? For the beasts? Or for the men?”
“Both,” Ivaran replied without shame. “The crowds like the… collisions.”
Aelrie felt her stomach tighten. She kept her voice even. “The crowds like blood.”
Erolith’s gaze slid to her. It wasn’t anger. It was that cool curiosity he turned on problems he considered instructive. “And do you disapprove, Daughter?”
The title should have warmed her. It never did. Not from him.
“I disapprove of waste,” Aelrie replied carefully. “Every body thrown into the pit is a body that could have built roads, harvested grain, and staffed ships. We’ve been fortunate–”
“Fortunate,” Laeroth echoed, swirling his wine. “Or efficient.”
Aelrie ignored him. “--but fortune turns. It always does.”
Tyrael smiled faintly. “Spoken like a ruler.”
Aelrie did not look at her. Tyrael’s praise always felt like fingers at the back of the neck, testing where the skin was thinnest.
Merethyl’s gaze softened just a fraction. “Aelrie has always had a mind for consequences.”
“Laeroth has a mind for pleasures,” Erolith said, without looking at his son.
Laeroth’s grin widened. “And you, Father, have a mind for everything else. Between the three of us, we are a complete creature.”
“A three-headed beast that bites the hands that feed it,” Aelrie murmured before she could stop herself.
Silence rippled outward. Not full silence– Erolith would never allow the room to become tense unless he wanted it to– but a pause, a hitch, a breath caught.
Then Erolith laughed, a short sound. “Aelrie,” his tone was amused, “your tongue sharpens. Good. You will need it.”
There it was again. The reminder. The pressure. The invisible crown lowering toward her skull.
Aelrie’s throat tightened. “If I need a sharp tongue, perhaps the empire is dull.”
Merethyl’s fingers paused briefly against her goblet.
Erolith leaned back, studying Aelrie as if she were a newly forged weapon and he was deciding whether it would hold an edge. “Tell me,” he said, voice mild. “Do you think Suvesia fears me?”
The question was not a question, it was a trap dressed in silk. Aelrie felt Laeroth watching her now, gleeful, hungry. She could almost hear him thinking, Answer wrong. Please. Answer wrong.
Aelrie kept her chin steady. “Yes.”
Erolith’s golden eyes narrowed slightly, pleased. “Good.”
Aelrie continued, carefully. “But fear is not the same as loyalty.”
Erolith’s smile sharpened. “No.”
Merethyl spoke softly. “Fear keeps the peace. Loyalty keeps it when fear fails.”
Erolith glanced at his wife, as if acknowledging a useful addition to the lesson. “And what do you intend to use, Daughter?”
Aelrie’s hands were cold. She forced herself to meet his gaze. It hurt– an ache behind the eyes, a strange pressure in the skull that came from staring too long at starlight made flesh. Commoners sometimes fainted when they tried. Aelrie did not, she would not.
“Both,” she replied. “If I can.”
Laeroth laughed quietly. “How noble. My sweet sister wants to be loved.”
Aelrie turned her eyes to him. “And you want to be envied.”
His smile faltered– just for an instant, a crack in the gold-lacquered ease. Then it returned, brighter. “I already am.”
Merethyl’s voice was quiet but authoritative as she spoke suddenly. “Must I remind my children that even at this table we are watched.”
The servants did not move. They were perfect statues, eyes downcast.
Aelrie’s pulse quickened. She hated that. She hated that even her mother still treated the presence of servants as a threat. Still, she was not wrong, it wasn’t just servants.
Walls could listen in a palace like this. Crystal carried sound beautifully. It held things. It repeated them. Sometimes, Aelrie swore she heard old laughter in the hallways, or screams that weren’t her own, or the whisper of a name spoken long ago and never forgiven.
Erolith cut another piece of meat, unhurried. “Let them watch. Let them learn what they are.”
Aelrie’s stomach turned. She forced her voice to remain steady. “And what are they, Father?”
Erolith lifted his goblet, the wine dark as a fresh wound. On its surface, the candlelight danced like tiny trapped suns.
“They are ours,” he stated simply. “As the rivers are ours. As the arenas are ours. As the sky is ours. Suvesia is not a nation. It is an inheritance. And inheritances are not questioned.”
Laeroth raised his goblet in a mocking echo. “To inheritances.”
Tyrael and Ivaran drank gladly. Even Merethyl lifted her cup, though her eyes remained on Aelrie in a way that felt like warning.
Aelrie did not drink. Her hands trembled, barely, beneath the table. She curled her fingers tighter until the shaking stopped.
Erolith’s gaze found her goblet still untouched. “Not thirsty?”
Aelrie swallowed. “I am.”
“Then drink.” It was not commanded. It was a need for proof she would still obey.
Aelrie lifted the cup. The crystal rim was cold against her lips. She drank, and the wine tasted of spices and smoke and something that reminded her of blood on sun-warmed stone. Laeroth watched her over his own cup, smiling like a man watching a rope tighten.
Soon after that, the dinner ended the way all such dinners did– not with warmth, but with permission to leave.
Erolith rose first. The servants moved instantly, sliding back everyone's chairs in perfect unison. Merethyl followed, her hand brushing Aelrie’s shoulder as she passed– light, fleeting, a touch that might have meant comfort if it lingered longer than a heartbeat.
Tyrael and Ivaran departed together, already murmuring in low voices, their silhouettes stretching long and warped through the crystal corridors. The servants began clearing the table with reverent efficiency, erasing every sign that gods had eaten there at all.
Aelrie stood while Laeroth remained seated, his goblet half-full, his posture loose in a way that spoke of too much wine and too little restraint. His eyes tracked her as she turned, heavy-lidded, bright with that unfocused gold-glint that meant tonight would not end cleanly.
She sighed quietly.
“Don’t,” Laeroth huffed out quietly.
Aelrie paused. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t leave.” He smiled crookedly. “You always do.”
“I have duties,” she replied. “So do you.”
He laughed, sharp and humorless. “No. I have expectations. You have destiny.”
She didn’t answer as she turned toward the exit.
Laeroth’s chair scraped loudly against the crystal floor as he stood. The sound echoed, too sharp, too large. Several servants flinched before they could stop themselves.
Aelrie did not turn around.
“You know,” Laeroth continued, his voice following her like a thrown blade, “I tried counting it once.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Counting what?”
“The minutes,” he replied. “Twelve of them. I tried to imagine what you were thinking while I waited. Apart from the obvious of being born.”
Aelrie opened her eyes and turned back to face him.
Laeroth swayed slightly as he stepped closer, his bare feet silent against the crystal. Wine clung to him– spice-heavy, sweet, cloying. Gold at his throat caught the light with every careless movement.
“You weren’t doing anything, were you?” he said bitterly. “You were just… there. Existing. Taking what should have been mine.”
Aelrie’s jaw tightened. “I took nothing.”
His smile cracked. “You took everything.”
The servants had stilled completely now, statues once more. They knew better than to intervene. This was blood-business.
Aelrie lowered her voice. “You’re drunk.”
“Obviously,” Laeroth grinned, spreading his hands. “Isn’t that when people are meant to speak truth?”
“Truth without control is just noise.”
“Easy to say,” he snapped, “when the world listens to you regardless.”
She stepped closer, careful, and measured. “Laeroth. This conversation–”
“--happens every time,” he cut in. “Yes. I know. Funny, isn’t it? You’d think I’d tire of it.”
“And yet you don’t.”
“No,” he said softly. “I don’t.”
For a moment, the anger slipped. What remained beneath was worse.
“Why couldn’t you wait?” he asked. The question was slurred, but the pain beneath it was not. “Just twelve minutes. That’s all it would have taken. I would’ve been first. I would’ve been enough.”
Aelrie did not reach for him. She did not soften her expression. She did not lie. “I don’t control time,” she replied. “And if I did, I wouldn’t change it.”
His face twisted. “You don’t even pretend.”
“No. I don’t.”
He laughed again, brittle. “Of course you don’t. You don’t need to.”
Aelrie felt the words land, sharp and deep, but she did not show it. She never did. She had learned early that showing hurt only taught people where to strike.
“You have everything,” Laeroth continued, his voice rising. “The army trains you. The priests bless you. The court watches your every breath like it's a prophecy. And me?” He gestured vaguely to himself. “I’m the spare. The almost. The if-only.”
“That’s not true.”
He stepped closer, too close. His eyes burned. “Say it again. Slower. Maybe if you repeat it enough, it’ll become real.”
Aelrie held his gaze, even as it ached. “You are second in line. You are wealthy beyond measure. You are trained, armed, protected. You are loved by the people.”
“Laid with by the people,” he corrected. “That’s not the same.”
“You are free,” she said.
He froze as the word hung between them like an accusation. “You think this is freedom?” he demanded. “Gold chains are still chains, sister.”
“And a crown is not?”
His mouth opened, then closed. “You don’t understand,” he hissed. “You can’t. You were born knowing the world would kneel. I was born knowing it would stop just short of me.”
Aelrie’s voice stayed level. “You were born knowing you would never starve. Never fear the arena. Never kneel to someone who could end you on a whim. Forgive me if I do not mourn your tragedy.”
The words landed hard.
Laeroth’s face went slack for a moment, then tightened with something ugly. “Gods, you really are Father’s daughter.”
“And you are not also his son?” she shot back.
Laeroth scoffed, as though debating whether or not to answer, and then he turned away abruptly, swiping a hand across his face. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, rougher. “I hate you,” he breathed out.
Aelrie inhaled slowly. “I know.”
The honesty seemed to deflate him more than any insult. His shoulders sagged. The fire burned down to embers. “I didn’t want to,” he muttered. “I tried not to.”
“I believe you.”
He laughed weakly. “You shouldn’t.”
Aelrie reached out– not to comfort, but to steady. She took his arm firmly. “Come.”
He resisted for a second, then allowed himself to be guided. His weight leaned into her, ungraceful, the way it always did when the wine finally won.
They walked the crystal corridors in silence. The palace whispered around them– light bending, footsteps echoing, history pressing in from every angle. Servants melted into alcoves as they passed. Guards lowered their eyes.
Laeroth stumbled once. Aelrie tightened her grip, more annoyed than alarmed.
“You train every day,” she muttered. “You should hold your drink better.”
He snorted. “Training is the only thing that feels honest. Steel doesn’t care who was born first.”
“So that’s why you like it.”
“Yes,” he replied simply. “And because sometimes I imagine the blade slipping.”
She stopped. “Laeroth.”
He waved a hand. “Relax. Not into you.”
They reached his chambers– vast, opulent, ridiculous. Gold-threaded tapestries. Low tables scattered with half-finished goblets. A faint scent of perfume that was not his.
Aelrie guided him to the bed and sat him down with practiced efficiency.
“Sleep,” she ordered quickly. He caught her wrist.
“For what it’s worth,” he murmured, eyes unfocused, “I think you’ll be terrible at it.”
“At what?”
“Being a God.”
She gently freed her hand. “I don’t intend to be one.”
He laughed faintly, then collapsed back onto the pillows, already drifting.
Aelrie stood there for a moment longer, watching his chest rise and fall, before she turned and left.
Her own chambers were quieter, smaller, less grand. She preferred it that way. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, finally allowing the mask to crack.
Her breath hitched once as her eyes burned.
She crossed the room slowly and sat on the edge of her bed, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles whitened. She did not cry. Valtanaleths did not cry. But the tears welled anyway, hot and heavy, blurring the crystal walls, turning the light into something indistinct and wavering.
Twelve minutes, she thought bitterly.
Twelve minutes that had shaped an empire. Twelve minutes that had made her a symbol instead of a person. She swallowed hard and lifted her chin, forcing the tears back where they belonged.
Dawn would come soon, and with it, the weight of a world that would never forgive her for being born first.