The winter wind rattled the shutters of Duke Elric's office. Papers lay scattered across her desk—maps of the border, medical inventories, handwritten notes from her healers—but she could not concentrate on any of them. Her fingers tightened around the edge of her chair as she stared out the tall window at the endless white fields.
She had ordered the household on alert. No one from the palace was to know that the Hero Campaign was here, wounded and hidden under her roof. Reinhardt had warned her on the night of his arrival: "The palace will move against us. They will try to paint us as traitors."
Three days had passed since that conversation.
Three days in which the snow never stopped, and Reinhardt never left Kael's bedside.
Elric exhaled slowly, rubbing her temples. She remembered Jaesper's grim words to Reinhardt about Kael's condition, the cold way the half-elf had said there was a way to save him but at an unspeakable price. Even Elric—who had seen war, famine, and demon attacks—had felt her stomach twist at the sight of the unconscious hero and the haunted look in the prince's eyes.
She felt pity for them both, but she also felt powerless. She was, after all, only a duke guarding the northern gate. An outsider to their inner circle.
Outside her office, the estate was busy with the wounded soldiers. But she knew Kael's condition was worsening. The potions, the healers, even Jaesper's skill—all had only delayed the inevitable. Reinhardt still had not made his decision, and the hero was fading by the hour.
A soft knock at the door broke her thoughts.
"Come in," she called.
Her butler stepped in, bowing deeply, an envelope on a silver tray. "A letter from the palace, Your Grace."
Elric's stomach tightened. A premonition flickered through her mind: Reinhardt's voice from the night before. "You'll receive a letter from the palace soon. Be ready."
Her fingers trembled as she took the envelope. The royal seal glared up at her in blood-red wax.
With deliberate slowness she broke it open.
Her eyes skimmed the words once, then again. The room seemed to tilt.
Prince Reinhardt Alvis Von Emestrild, who joined the Hero Campaign, has been proven a traitor to the kingdom. He and the Hero are to be captured and punished accordingly.
The letter slipped from her hands, fluttering to the carpet.
For a heartbeat she could not breathe. "No…" she whispered.
She bent to pick it up again, her knuckles white, her whole body shaking. The king had declared Reinhardt and Kael traitors—Reinhardt, the prince who had saved the front lines from collapse; Kael, the hero who had bled for this kingdom until nothing was left of him.
The weight of the crown's seal pressed like ice into her palm. "They saved the world," she murmured. "And now…"
Her butler watched her pale face anxiously. "Your Grace?"
Elric straightened, folding the letter with a snap. She schooled her features into a mask, though her voice trembled. "Say nothing of this to anyone. Not the soldiers, not the servants. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Your Grace."
When the butler left, Elric let her back press against the window frame. Outside, snow swept across the fields, white and relentless. Somewhere in the east wing of her estate, Kael still lay fighting for breath, and Reinhardt still sat torn between choices.
Now the king had branded them both enemies of the crown.
And Elric knew—Reinhardt had been right all along.
She looked down at the letter one more time. Her hand was still trembling. "What will you do now, Prince Reinhardt…" she whispered, her breath fogging the glass as the storm outside howled like a warning.
-----------------------------------------
Snow whipped the windows in thin curtains of white. Inside the healer's chamber, the smell of herbs and hot broth lingered—small comforts against the cold worry that sat heavy in the room.
Elric pushed the door open and found Reinhardt seated at Kael's bedside, one hand pressed to the hero's clammy forehead, the other loosely curled around Kael's hand. His face was unreadable, a mask of controlled exhaustion; Elric had seen that expression before and knew how many storms it hid. For a moment she only watched him, then she crossed the floor and set the folded letter gently on the table.
Reinhardt turned without surprise. He had expected the news. He read the envelope with a single, slow glance and did not need to open it to know the contents.
"Let me guess," he said quietly before Elric could speak. "Prince Reinhardt Alvis von Emestrild, who joined the Hero Campaign, has been proven a traitor. He and the Hero are to be captured and punished." His voice was dry; the words tasted like ash. He hadn't opened the letter—he didn't need to. He already knew the kingdom's verdict.
Elric's hands trembled; she folded and refolded the paper as if the motion could smooth fate. "What will you do?" she asked. Her voice was small. "The palace doesn't know you—us—are here yet. We can keep him hidden while they think you've simply disappeared."
Reinhardt gave a short, humorless chuckle. "They will know," he said. His eyes, for a moment, flicked past Elric to the pale rise and fall of Kael's chest. "If you fail to appear in court when summoned, Elric, the court will notice. They'll ask why the new duke ignores the throne. Our silence will be a question too loud to ignore."
Elric's mouth tightened. The truth in his words stung. "So what then? Hide him in the north forever? Live in exile?" she demanded. "We can hold him here as long as we must—no one would dare storm the duke's house without a king's order."
"Not if the king can point fingers first." Reinhardt's jaw clenched. He set the letter on the bedside table and, with a practiced gentleness, wiped sweat from Kael's temple. The motion was small, tender—one of those tiny, human things that meant more than any proclamation. "Let them come with their proclamations and their forged proof. Let them brand me traitor on paper."
Elric searched his face. "You sound willing to be lost to them," she said quietly.
Reinhardt's laugh was a brittle thing. "I expected nothing less from Stephen. He never learned names; he learns usefulness. He called Kael only 'the hero' when I told him the truth—Kael's name didn't fit his convenience. He only remembers titles that feed his pride." He leaned closer to Kael, voice dropping to something rawer. "Had I not walked beside him, had I not bled beside him... would the king have remembered my name either?"
Elric's eyes flashed with anger for the slight—not just to the men at her side, but to the country that treated saviors like tools. "So what will you do? Fight the court, then? You can't take on the crown alone."
Reinhardt's gaze left Kael and met Elric's with steady intensity. For a beat his expression was soft—so tiredly soft it hurt to look at. Then the hardness returned.
"Let them be," he said. The words were simple and final. "You go back to Vaelthorn when you must. Keep the soldiers and the healers safe. Follow the shape of the law when you can; keep your head low so the men here can breathe. As for me…" He paused, his fingers closing around Kael's. "If they touch Kael—if they so much as lay a hand on him—then the kingdom will learn what it costs to break what protected it. I don't care what they write on paper about me. I will not let them take my friend."
Elric's mouth went very still. She saw the promise in his posture, in the way his hand tightened. It was not a threat made in a court of eloquence; it was a vow spoken straight from bone. She had seen what Reinhardt could do when ordered, and what he could do when betrayed. The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut.
She swallowed. "Then let us do what we can now," she whispered. "Keep Kael alive, hide him from the palace, and tend these men. I will not allow the throne to carry out its decree without a witness to it."
Reinhardt's lips twitched—almost a smile, almost something like gratitude. He lowered his voice to a dry humor that tasted of iron. "Good. Send my regards to the king; tell him his proclamation will find me where the dead will not."
Outside, the wind drove snow against the windows, but inside the room the warmth of determination began to gather. Elric moved to the small cabinet of medicines; Reinhardt adjusted the blankets. For a little while they were only three people in a room doing what they could: watching the only man between them and a kingdom that preferred legend over life.
At Kael's bedside, Reinhardt's hand never left the hero's. Time shrank to shallow breaths, furtive spells, the hush of nurses, and the thudding pulse of hope and dread. The king's letter lay folded on the bedside table like a small dark stone—an accusation that could be read aloud and become law, but a scrap of paper all the same.
Reinhardt bent and pressed his forehead to Kael's knuckles. He did not call his friend's name—no public display, no pronouncement—but the vow between them was as loud as drumfire.
"If they touch Kael," he murmured, so softly that only the walls heard it, "I will tear this throne down with my hands."
Elric did not answer—she did not need to. They both knew what Reinhardt meant, and the room seemed to hold its breath with them. Outside, the kingdom kept sleeping under its piles of wealth and wine, unaware that the marrow of its protection lay on a narrow bed, guarded by a prince who had nothing left to give but his oath.