Part 1
As Saralta's mind drifted back from the flashbacks of the previous day, she found herself staring at an unfamiliar white ceiling.
How did I get to this room again?
Memory returned in fragments. Her insistence that James teach her to read his world's language immediately, the equipment manual clutched to her chest. Bisera's gentle but immovable refusal.
"Tomorrow. He'll teach you tomorrow. But first, sleep."
Sleep. As if sleep were possible when an entire world of mechanical wonders waited to be understood.
But then James had shown her to this room. Bisera had given her a sleeping gown—soft fabric, modest cut, apparently standard nightwear in this world. After they had left, Saralta had begun removing her armor, unbuckling leather and setting aside metal piece by piece. Then her tunic. She remembered lying on the bed, intending to rest for a moment before putting on the sleeping gown.
She remembered the mattress yielding beneath her.
She remembered nothing after that.
Pale morning light filtered through gauze curtains.
Mid-morning, at least. Perhaps later.
"Treacherous mattress," Saralta muttered, pressing her palm flat against the surface. It yielded with that same impossible softness, swallowing her hand past the wrist. "What sorcery is this?"
She pushed herself upright, silk sheets tangled across her legs. The fabric slithered against her bare skin—smooth, cool, utterly unlike the wool and felt of Rosagarian bedding. Somewhere in the night, she had burrowed beneath covers she didn't remember pulling over herself.
The sleeping gown lay untouched on a chair by the window. She was still wearing only the blue sports bra that she had worn like a second skin.
I fell asleep so fast. Like a child.
Then, the bedframe behind her caught her attention. She twisted at the waist to examine the headboard, sheets shifting but remaining pooled across her lower body. Burgundy leather quilted in diamond patterns, secured with brass nail-heads, mounted on solid oak aged to honey-gold. She had never seen such a style before.
Saralta crawled toward the headboard and knelt at its base, her fingers tracing the tooled leather.
"This would buy so many horses in Rosagar," she breathed. "The workmanship... Father's throne is not this fine. The joins are invisible."
She sat back on her heels, then leaned forward again, squinting at a brass fixture.
Knock knock knock.
"Saralta?" Bisera's voice through the wood. "Are you awake? It's nearly midday."
Midday.
Horror flooded her chest. She had never slept this late. Not once in her military career. Her brothers would mock her for months if they knew.
The mattress. The treacherous mattress had stolen my discipline.
"Come in," she called, not turning from her examination.
The door opened behind her.
"Bisera, you must see this bedframe. The leather joins the wood so precisely I cannot find where one ends and the other begins—"
That smell.
Something was in the air. Something rich, savory, utterly unfamiliar, and magnificent. It hit her empty stomach like a fist, and her body turned toward it before her mind caught up—an instinctive pivot at the waist, reflexes repurposed for hunting breakfast.
She saw the silver tray first. Steam rising from strips of meat, from rounds of yellow and white, from cylinders of brown that glistened with fat. The aroma intensified with the visual confirmation, and her stomach growled loud enough to echo.
Then she registered that Bisera was not alone.
Then she registered James's face—the sudden tension in his jaw, the flush climbing his neck, the way his gaze had flicked to her and then away with a smoothness that spoke of deliberate effort.
Then—slowly, like sunrise creeping over a winter horizon—Saralta registered why.
The half-turn of her torso had pulled her upper body toward the doorway while her lower body remained oriented toward the headboard. The silk sheet, tangled from her examination of the bedframe, had dragged across her legs but pooled to one side—leaving one hip fully exposed, the athletic curve of her waist bare, the side of her buttock clearly outlined beneath the sheets. The sports bra covered her bosom but concealed little else of her torso. Her raven hair hung loose over bare shoulders.
Kneeling there, half-turned with morning light filtering across her skin, she reminded James of the nymphs from the classical paintings—except far more fit, far more real, and infinitely more alluring.
"I—" Bisera started, her cheeks coloring. "Saralta, I'm so sorry, I should have announced that James was—I didn't think—"
James had turned his body forty-five degrees, presenting his profile to the room. His posture remained composed—the controlled stillness of a man accustomed to maintaining dignity in unexpected situations—but the flush had reached his cheekbones now, visible even in profile. He studied the doorframe with almost the same intensity with which Saralta had studied the water filtration system the previous night.
"My apologies for the intrusion," he said. His voice was level, carefully neutral. "Bisera mentioned you might be hungry. I should have waited outside."
Part 2
Twenty minutes later, Saralta found herself perched on a stool that was somehow both backless and perfectly comfortable, her bare feet hooked around its legs like a child's. The kitchen island stretched before her—a gleaming expanse of white marble with edges carved in layers so precise they might have been sliced from a single impossible stone. She had paused beside it upon entering, running her fingers along the cool surface, testing whether such flawless craftsmanship could truly exist outside of temple altars.
It could, apparently. This world hoarded miracles the way her father hoarded warhorses.
But it wasn't the marble that had stolen her breath.
It was the light.
The kitchen opened directly into a dining area through a wide archway—no doors, no barriers, just flowing space that invited the eye onward. And beyond the dining table, huge windows stretched across the entire wall like a wound in reality, flooding both spaces with morning sun. The light poured across the polished island surface and pale wood cabinets, turning everything golden, warm, alive.
Saralta had frozen in that archway, her plate of strange crispy meat forgotten in her hands. Her throat had closed around words that refused to form.
On the steppes, homes were dark. Felt walls and small openings, designed to keep out wind and cold and the endless hungry sky. Even her father's palace—grand by Rosagarian standards—had narrow windows that admitted light grudgingly, like a miser parting with coins. Darkness meant safety. Darkness meant warmth preserved against the killing winters.
But this...
"It's like being inside sunlight itself," she had whispered. "The room glows."
James had smiled at that, setting down a fresh pot of tea on the island. "The windows face east. Mornings are nice."
Nice. The word was so inadequate it bordered on insult.
"James, in Vakeria, a room like this would be considered a place of worship. People would make pilgrimages. They would weep." She had finally moved to the island, setting her plate down, still staring at the way light transformed everything it touched. "To wake every morning to such beauty..."
Now, settled onto her stool with the magnificent windows at her back, Saralta had completely forgotten the embarrassment of the earlier encounter—burned away by sunshine and architectural wonder. She bit into another strip of the crispy meat James had called bacon, and the salt and fat exploded across her tongue like a revelation.
This world, she thought, is so abundant in everything. Even something as precious as salt could be enjoyed on a daily basis.
James, however, still carried traces of crimson across his cheekbones. When their eyes met across the island, he looked away with the studied casualness of a man pretending very hard that nothing was wrong.
Saralta noticed. Saralta always noticed.
"James." Her voice came out direct, amused—the tone she used to call out hypocrisy. "You're still embarrassed."
"I'm not—" He cleared his throat, a sound like gravel shifting. "I'm fine."
"You won't meet my eyes."
"I'm looking at my breakfast." He pushed eggs around his plate with excessive focus. "I like to concentrate when enjoying food."
Saralta set down her fork with a sigh.
"It's not as though you haven't seen my body before."
James's fork stopped halfway to his mouth, suspended in air as if time itself had stuttered. Beside him, Bisera's teacup paused—just for a fraction of a heartbeat—before she completed the motion and took a deliberate sip. But Saralta caught it. The tiny hesitation. The way Bisera's blue eyes sharpened over the rim of her cup, suddenly focused with the intensity of a hawk sighting movement in tall grass.
When Bisera set the cup down, her voice emerged perfectly calm. Professional. The voice of a general assessing terrain before committing cavalry.
"What do you mean?"
It was a simple question. No panic, no confession. Just direct inquiry, watching Saralta's face for information.
James, however, had gone very still beside her, his face cycling through several interesting colors. Bisera's hand found his knee under the island counter—not panicked, but warning. Stay calm. Assess first.
Saralta tilted her head, clearly enjoying their reaction. "I mean exactly what I said."
"I see." Bisera's tactical mind was already running through scenarios. The tent. The bathing. Had Saralta somehow detected it? Or was this about something else entirely? "And when did this... seeing... occur?"
There was the slightest emphasis on "seeing," a probe to determine what exactly Saralta was referring to.
"At the citadel," Saralta said, reaching for more bacon with apparent innocence. "In Podem."
The citadel? Bisera's eyes narrowed fractionally. That was before the capture. Before the tent incident. Which meant—
"The doors," James suddenly blurted out, his face now approaching crimson. "They looked identical—"
"James walked into my room," Saralta continued cheerfully. "The day before I charged Alexander. I was changing, and he simply... walked in."
Bisera's sharp gaze swung to James. Her expression remained controlled, but something flickered in her eyes—relief, quickly masked, followed by a different kind of calculation.
"The doors looked identical!" James's voice cracked slightly. "I thought it was my room! I was exhausted, and the corridor was dark, and I made an honest mistake—"
"An honest mistake that resulted in you seeing her—" Bisera gestured vaguely at Saralta's torso, her voice still measured but with an edge now.
"I turned away immediately!"
"He did," Saralta confirmed, crunching bacon with evident satisfaction. "Spun around like a startled deer. Very honorable. Very amusing."
"You never mentioned this," Bisera said, her voice dangerously calm. Not the panic of someone caught, but the controlled displeasure of someone learning her betrothed had kept a secret.
James opened his mouth, then closed it, clearly realizing there was no good answer.
"It didn't seem important." Saralta shrugged. "On the steppes, such accidents happen constantly in military camps. Bodies are just bodies. His reaction was actually quite endearing—most men would have stared. He apologized to the air."
"I apologized to her! While facing away!"
Bisera studied them both for a long moment. Her tactical mind had already pieced it together—Saralta truly meant the citadel incident. Not the incident at the Gillyrian tent. Just an accidental encounter in a dark corridor.
The relief was profound, though she would never show it.
But there was still the matter of James not mentioning it.
"So this morning," Bisera said slowly, her eyes locked on James, "was the second time you've accidentally seen her—"
"I saw NOTHING this morning." James's voice had gone slightly desperate. "I turned away instantly. Both times. I have seen nothing. I remember nothing."
"Such careful answers," Saralta observed to Bisera, her dark eyes dancing with mischief. "He's quite good at those."
"Saralta, you're not helping."
"Bisera, truly—it meant nothing. Your betrothed is the most honorable man I've ever encountered. He treats women's dignity like sacred ground." A pause, and Saralta's grin turned absolutely wicked. "If I were you, my concern would be more with his... enthusiasm. All that pent-up honor must be quite intense when finally released."
Bisera's face flooded with color even as she tried to maintain her general's bearing.
James had buried his face in his hands.
"Could we perhaps," he said with remarkable dignity despite his crimson face, "change the subject? To anything? Literally anything else?"
Bisera's hand found his shoulder—a brief touch, barely a heartbeat long, but warm. I'm teasing, but I trust you. When James looked up, her eyes held no real anger. Just the faint curve of amusement she reserved for moments when she loved him most.
"The sunlight," Saralta said immediately, gesturing at the windows beyond the dining area with her bacon, curiosity finally winning over mischief. "Tell me more about these windows. How do your craftsmen create glass in such enormous sheets?"
James seized the topic like a drowning man grasping driftwood.
As he launched into explanation, Bisera rose and began collecting the empty plates from the island counter, relying on the memories of her previous visit.
Part 3
James had barely finished explaining how modern glass manufacturing involved molten silica and controlled cooling when Saralta interrupted.
"James." Her voice carried that particular tone—the one he was learning meant trouble. "You promised to show us your world."
"I did. And I will. But—"
"The sun is already high. We have wasted half the day." She gestured at the windows. "I do not wish to merely look at your world through glass. I wish to walk in it."
"Saralta, you can't just walk outside dressed in—"
"Then provide appropriate garments." She crossed her arms. "You promised. Last night, you said 'tomorrow.' It is now tomorrow."
Bisera returned from washing the dishes. "She's been remarkably patient, actually. I expected this demand at dawn."
"I would have made it at dawn," Saralta said, "but the treacherous mattress stole my discipline."
James looked between them—Saralta's eager determination, Bisera's quiet curiosity. They had crossed dimensions to be here. They had survived battles and sieges. And now they sat in his kitchen asking only to see more.
He sighed. "Fine. But not yet."
"Why?"
"Because you'll get arrested within ten minutes."
Saralta's hand dropped to where her sword would normally hang. "For what crime?"
"For carrying weapons. For not understanding traffic signals. For trying to pay with gold coins." He held up a hand. "My world has rules. Before I take you outside, you need to understand the basics."
"Then teach us." Saralta's eyes gleamed. "Quickly."
"It's not that simple."
Bisera leaned forward with that intensity James recognized from war councils. "Then show us. Whatever method is fastest."
"Alright," he said. "Follow me."
They settled in the living room. Saralta perched on the sofa's edge, eyes fixed on the great dark rectangle mounted above the fireplace.
"You called this a television," she said slowly. "Last night, you said it can teach us knowledge by demonstration."
"That's right."
"I did not believe you." She studied the blank screen—her own reflection staring back, dark and flawless as still water. "I thought perhaps you were exaggerating. Or speaking in metaphor."
"It's not metaphor." James held up the remote. "Watch."
He pressed the power button.
The screen exploded into color and movement and sound.
Saralta was on her feet with her hand grasping for a sword that wasn't there before the first image fully resolved. Bisera had risen too, though her reaction was more controlled—weight shifted to the balls of her feet, ready to move.
"What—" Saralta stared at the tiny people walking across the screen, their voices filling the room. "They're inside it. James, you said it wasn't sorcery—"
"It's not. They're not actually inside. It's... like a painting that moves."
"Paintings do not speak."
"These ones do."
"Then they are possessed."
It took considerable effort to convince her that the figures on screen were recordings—echoes of real events, captured and stored, not trapped souls crying out for release. Bisera grasped the concept faster, though her questions were different.
"These images," she said, watching aerial footage of James's city fill the screen. "They were captured by someone. Stored somewhere. And now anyone with this device can view them?"
"Essentially, yes."
"So information can travel instantly. Across any distance." Her tactical mind was already churning. "The military implications alone..."
James let a documentary about city life play while he answered their questions. For Bisera: governance, infrastructure, how disputes were settled without trial by combat. For Saralta: how everything worked—what powered the vehicles, why buildings didn't collapse, how machines stayed aloft.
"It's all electricity," James explained. "Not magic. Science."
"Science is merely magic that has been documented," Saralta countered. "My mother's people call their powers 'cultivation' and claim it has nothing to do with the supernatural."
James opened his mouth to argue, then closed it.
The documentary shifted to a segment on fashion, then to footage of a beach, then to what was clearly a beauty pageant—women in bikinis striding across a raised platform while crowds cheered.
Saralta watched with narrowed eyes.
"This is a slave auction?"
"What? No—"
"They parade before buyers wearing almost nothing. The crowd evaluates their bodies." Saralta's voice had gone cold.
"It's not—they choose to participate. They want to be there. It's considered an honor to win."
Saralta stared at him as though he had announced that water burned and fire quenched thirst.
"It's considered prestigious to win."
"You are saying they want men to ogle them? And that it is a privilege they had to compete for?"
"Some women enjoy being admired for their beauty. It's... complicated."
Saralta's brow furrowed. She turned back to the screen, watching another woman stride across the platform with practiced confidence, smile gleaming, hips swaying with deliberate allure. The woman looked happy. Triumphant, even.
A memory flickered through her mind. Her mother, Yuying, standing in the great hall of her father's palace. Visiting nobles stumbling over their own words, eyes helplessly drawn to her despite—or perhaps because of—her apparent meekness. Men forgetting their arguments mid-sentence. Her father's rivals making foolish concessions for one of her mother's rare smiles.
And beneath that demure exterior—that faint curve of satisfaction. Saralta had always known her mother enjoyed the attention.
Perhaps these women were all the same, Saralta thought, watching another contestant parade across the platform with radiant confidence. Perhaps everyone in this world possessed such power and abundance that the only scarcity was the appreciation of their peers.
It would explain much. The impossible buildings. The domesticated lightning. The casual abundance. A world of mages would look exactly like this.
Part 4
The tent had become a paper battlefield.
Scrolls covered every surface—stacked on tables, piled on chests, overflowing from leather satchets that arrived hourly from the coastal roads. Wax seals of a hundred houses gleamed in the lamplight like droplets of frozen blood.
Emperor Alexander stood at the center of this chaos, a half-read letter in his hand, his golden armor exchanged for simple campaign clothes. Around him, three secretaries worked frantically to sort the deluge into categories: military reports, supply requests, intelligence summaries, and—the pile that grew largest by the hour—accusations.
"This one claims she executed Senator Bardas without trial." Secretary Markos held up a scroll bearing the seal of House Xomnenos. "This one says she's imprisoned the Crown Prince in the eastern tower. This one—" He hesitated. "This one accuses her of practicing dark sorcery to bewitch the imperial guards into obedience."
"Dark sorcery." Alexander's voice was flat. "Helena."
"The accusation comes from Count Demetrios, Your Majesty. His family has served the empire for eight generations."
"His family has also been trying to marry into the purple for eight generations." Alexander set down the letter he'd been reading—another screed detailing Helena's supposed crimes—and rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. "What do we actually know? Not accusations. Not rumors. Facts."
Igor stepped forward from his position by the tent entrance. He had been reading the military dispatches—the ones that actually mattered for their current campaign—but the political avalanche had become impossible to ignore.
"The facts, as best I can determine: Duke Gregorios attempted something in the capital. Helena responded with force. The city gates were sealed for eighteen hours. Six senators are confirmed dead, though the circumstances vary depending on who's telling the story." He paused. "At least four provincial lords fled before her soldiers could reach them. They're now raising levies in their home territories."
"Civil war." Alexander spoke the words like a diagnosis. "While we're hundreds of miles away, besieging Podem."
"The timing is... unfortunate."
Alexander laughed—a short, bitter sound. "Unfortunate. Yes. That's one word for it." He turned to the map of the empire that dominated one wall of the tent. Podem sat in the north, marked with Gillyrian flags encircling its walls. The capital lay far to the southwest, beyond mountain ranges and river valleys, linked by roads that suddenly seemed impossibly long. And scattered across the provinces in between were territories garrisoned by troops loyal to many of the noble houses now crying for Helena's blood.
"Your Majesty." Another secretary approached, a single scroll in his trembling hands. "This just arrived. By imperial courier. Fastest relay."
The seal on the scroll was white wax, pressed with the image of a dove descending.
The seal of the Matriarch.
The tent fell silent.
Alexander took the scroll slowly, as if it might shatter at rough handling. He turned it over in his hands, studying the seal, the weight of the parchment, the careful way it had been bound.
Irene.
It had been years since he had last seen her. Nine years since she chose the Spirit over the crown, choosing righteousness over happiness, choosing—
He broke the seal.
The letter was written in her hand—that graceful script he would recognize anywhere, the letters flowing like water over stone. Not the formal calligraphy of an official document. This was personal. Intimate. The handwriting of the girl who had once passed him notes during tedious state dinners.
Alexander read.
Your Majesty,
I write to you not as Matriarch, but as one who loves you and your sister both. What I am about to relate will be difficult to hear. I ask only that you read to the end before passing judgment—on Helena, on me, or on the events I witnessed.
Early this morning, Duke Gregorios burst into the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom and claimed sanctuary at my feet. Hours later, Helena arrived in battle armor with soldiers I did not recognize—shadow guards, the servants whisper, though I cannot confirm this. She demanded I surrender Gregorios to imperial justice. I refused, citing the ancient laws of sanctuary that have protected the persecuted for five centuries.
What followed was... a confrontation. Helena drew her blade in the cathedral. I tried to prevent her from reaching Gregorios. We fought—physically fought, Alexander. She split my lip with a strike I could not deflect. In the end, she used abilities I could not match—mana flooded through her, and she moved past my defense before I could react.
Gregorios died in the cathedral. On sacred ground. Before the altar of the Spirit itself. I could not stop her.
But I must tell you what Helena showed me before she struck.
She presented documents—letters in Gregorios's hand, testimony from servants and minor nobles, detailed plans for what she called "the transition." I cannot swear to their authenticity; I am no expert in such matters, and Helena was not in a state conducive to calm verification. But Alexander, if these documents are genuine...
They describe a conspiracy. Gregorios and his allies planned to place Constantine on the throne through what they termed "accelerated succession." The documents included lists of nobles pledged to support the new emperor, schedules for a coronation ceremony, and—
I do not know how to write this.
There were instructions, Alexander. Detailed instructions for how the "regency problem" would be resolved. How the "succession question" would be settled. Helena's name appeared beside words I will not repeat in this letter. My own name appeared as well—I was to suffer "an accident during morning prayers" to prevent me from becoming "a rallying point for loyalists."
They planned to murder us both. Your sister and I, disposed of like inconvenient furniture.
But this is not the worst of what Helena told me.
She claims—and I must emphasize that I have only her word for this, given in a state of profound distress—that Constantine himself took a knife to her heart. Her own son. In the palace chapel, where she had gone to pray for guidance. She says she stopped the blade three inches from her chest. She says she looked into her child's eyes and saw a stranger wearing his face.
I cannot verify this account. I was not present. Helena could be lying, though I confess I do not know what purpose such a lie would serve. What I can tell you is what I observed with my own eyes: when Helena spoke of Constantine, something in her broke. Not visibly—she maintained her composure, her armor, her commands. But I have known your sister since we were girls together, and I recognized the hollow sound of a heart that has been shattered from within.
Constantine is now confined to the eastern tower under constant guard. Helena has begun... acting. Senators arrested. Nobles fleeing. The city sealed. I do not know how far she intends to go, or whether anyone remains who can counsel restraint.
I tell you these things not to condemn your sister or to justify her actions. I tell you because you deserve the truth—all of it, including the parts I cannot confirm and the parts I wish were not so. Helena violated sanctuary law. She raised steel in the Spirit's house. She killed a man before the altar while I stood helpless. These are facts I witnessed. But she did so as a woman who had just learned that her son tried to murder her at the urging of men she trusted.
I do not know what the right response to such betrayal looks like. I am not certain anyone does.
What I know is this: Helena is in pain. The kind of pain that makes people do terrible things. And she is alone in that palace, surrounded by enemies and shadows, with no one who loves her close enough to reach her.
I have failed her—I chose the law over her need, sanctuary over sisterhood, and it changed nothing. Gregorios still died. Perhaps that was right, to stand for what I believed. Perhaps the principles we serve must hold even when those we love are drowning. But I find I cannot stop thinking about the look in her eyes when she sheathed her sword and walked away.
She looked like someone who had just realized there was no one left to save her.
I am praying for her, Alexander. For you. For all of us.
May the Spirit grant you wisdom in the days ahead.
Irene
Alexander read the letter twice. Three times. His hands had begun to tremble by the second reading, and by the third, he had to set the parchment down to prevent it from shaking visibly.
"Your Majesty?" Igor ventured. "What does the Matriarch say?"
Alexander looked up. His eyes were bright—not with anger, not with the cold fury his generals had learned to fear, but with something raw. Something wounded.
"Constantine tried to kill her."
The words fell into the tent like stones into still water.
Igor went very still. "Your Majesty?"
"My nephew. My sister's son. The boy I used to carry on my shoulders during festivals." Alexander's voice cracked almost imperceptibly. "He put a knife to Helena's heart."
"That... surely that cannot..."
"Irene doesn't lie." Alexander picked up the letter again, handling it now like something infinitely precious. "She says she cannot verify it—that she only has Helena's word. But she also says she doesn't know why Helena would invent such a thing. And neither do I."
Igor moved closer, lowering his voice. "May I read it, Your Majesty?"
Alexander handed over the letter without hesitation.
Igor's eyes moved across Irene's careful script. His expression shifted as he read—confusion giving way to understanding, then to something approaching horror. When he reached the part about the assassination plot against both Helena and Irene, his jaw tightened. When he reached Irene's description of Helena's shattered composure, his hand clenched on the parchment.
"The Matriarch was also targeted," he said quietly. "Gregorios planned to murder her as well."
"Yes."
"And yet she still..." Igor looked up, genuine bewilderment on his scarred face. "She still defended Gregorios's right to sanctuary. She still fought Helena to protect a man who was plotting her death."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Alexander took the letter back, smoothing it carefully against the table.
"Because Irene believes that principles matter more than convenience. That mercy is not something you extend only to those who deserve it." His voice softened. "She could have let Helena kill him. She could have stepped aside, claimed ignorance, watched justice be done to a man who wanted her dead. Instead, she put herself between Helena's blade and the man who would have murdered her."
He shook his head slowly, something like wonder in his eyes.
"And then she wrote me a letter that could have destroyed my sister—every detail, every accusation, every damning fact—and instead of weaponizing it, she simply... told me the truth. Including her own doubts. Including the things she cannot verify. Including her fear that she failed Helena by choosing law over love."
Igor was quiet for a moment. Then: "The lords sending accusations... they speak of Helena as a tyrant. A usurper. A threat to the empire."
"They see armor and executions and they think they understand." Alexander's voice hardened. "They don't see a mother whose child just tried to murder her. They don't see a woman executing men who conspired to kill her and everyone she loves. They see opportunity. They see a chance to tear down someone they always resented, always feared, always wanted to diminish."
He turned to face Igor directly.
"Helena is in trouble."
"Your Majesty?"
"Not political trouble. Not the trouble of a regent facing rebellion." Alexander's hands clenched at his sides. "My sister just learned that her son—her child, Igor, the boy she raised from infancy—was turned against her by men she trusted. She learned that she was going to be murdered. That Irene was going to be murdered. That everything she'd spent sixteen years protecting was built on foundations of conspiracy and betrayal."
His voice dropped.
"And then she put on armor and started killing people. Because that's what Helena does when the world hurts her—she fights. She's been fighting since we were children, since our mother died, since our father—"
He stopped. Drew a breath.
"She's drowning, Igor. She's alone in that palace, surrounded by enemies, with her son locked in a tower and blood on her hands, and there is no one there who can reach her. No one who knows her well enough to see past the armor."
"The Matriarch—"
"Irene tried. She chose the law, but she tried." Alexander looked at the letter again. "And now she's praying for Helena instead of condemning her. Writing to me with truth instead of manipulation. Still believing, somehow, that mercy matters even when mercy has been denied to everyone."
He set the letter down with finality—not among the accusations, but apart from them, in a place of honor.
"That's why I trust her account above all others. Because Irene had every reason to bury my sister. Gregorios plotted to murder her too. Helena tried to cut down a man at her feet, in her own cathedral, before her own altar. Any other person would have written me a letter demanding Helena's head."
His jaw tightened.
"Instead, she wrote me this. Careful. Honest. Fair even to the woman who nearly broke sanctuary law over her dying body. Still seeing Helena, even after everything." He paused. "Still loving her. Still hoping someone can save her."
Igor absorbed this in silence. Then: "What will you do, Your Majesty?"
Alexander looked at the map—at Podem to the north, the capital far to the southwest, the rebel lords scattered across the provinces like infection spreading through healthy flesh.
"Finish what I started here. Take Podem. Secure the northern border. Return with the triumph needed to steady this crisis."
"And then?"
"Then I go home." Alexander's eyes found the capital on the map, and his expression shifted—the grief hardening into something colder, something sharper. "The nobles think they're gathering to depose a tyrant. They think they're protecting the empire from Helena's madness."
He smiled—and it was not a kind smile.
"I will protect them, but so will I protect my sister and my beloved. They shall have the justice they desired. But it will be untainted by rumor, unbent by opinion."