Caelum’s POV
I could not recall the question that had just been asked. Nor the three that came before it.
The council chamber was stifling. Too warm, too crowded, and far too loud. Words passed around me like smoke—meaningless, shifting. I nodded once, as if I had heard, and watched her instead.
Seraya sat diagonally across from me. Her posture, as always, was composed, her expression unreadable. But I had learned her tells.
She twisted her rings again. Not often. Just once, then again several minutes later. The motion was smooth, unconscious, like a habit born of stress and practiced in silence. I knew now it meant she was anxious, and since learning that, I could not stop watching for it. I had spent the entire morning observing her fingers instead of hearing the petitions laid before me.
My attention slipped again.
By the time the steward addressed me directly, I offered only a curt reply and stood before the session adjourned.
I told myself I had work. I told myself I had a route to walk. And yet my steps carried me down the southern hall, past the corridor of her chambers.
I passed once. Then again, several hours later.
I stopped myself from knocking. But I paused at the corner, longer than I should have, listening for movement. A servant girl passed and dipped her head. I asked, without thinking, whether the Queen had taken her breakfast.
“She asked for fruit and a roll,” the girl said, blinking at me with wide eyes. “Took both.”
I offered no response. I continued walking, though I couldn’t have said toward where.
Later, I found her in the eastern gardens. She wasn’t alone—two of the palace women walked beside her, speaking quietly, pointing out the changing blooms—but she didn’t seem to hear them.
She tilted her face up toward the sun, laughing softly at something unseen. It wasn’t the courtly laugh she offered at dinners or to quiet disapproval. This one was real. Uncontrolled. Short-lived, but true.
I stopped walking. It caught me so off guard that I froze in place.
She didn’t see me. She passed around the corner hedge and disappeared into the rose path, and still, I did not move.
I stood there, watching the space where she had been, like a man bewitched.
That evening, we gathered again—this time to review the treaty’s final phrasing. The same ministers who had bickered for weeks were now bartering over phrasing, over whether “mutual concord” sounded too forgiving.
I was barely present until I heard her name.
“She’s clever, I’ll grant that. But I doubt the Queen has the patience to see this through. Too much flair. Not enough substance,” a voice drawled. I turned my head. A Virelian minister. Fat, smug. Loyal to Theron.
I did not think before I answered.
“If you speak of Her Majesty again with such ignorance,” I said coldly, “you may find yourself cut from the next round of negotiations.”
The silence that followed was immediate. No one moved.
The minister’s face turned pale. He muttered something and did not speak again for the remainder of the evening. Neither did I.
I left without offering thanks or farewell.
Elowen found me in the east corridor before I could retreat to my quarters. She did not shout or scold. She simply walked beside me for a time before speaking.
“You’re not just helping her anymore,” she said, voice quiet. “You’re unraveling yourself.”
I didn’t answer.
I wanted to deny it. To remind her of the strategy. The pregnancy. The timing. But my mouth did not move. There was nothing to say.
That night, I returned to the corridor outside Seraya’s chambers. I didn’t know why. My feet simply carried me there. I stood before the door for nearly fifteen minutes, hand raised but never touching wood.
She was just beyond that door. I could have entered. She would not have stopped me. But I did not knock.
Eventually, I turned away. My steps felt heavier than they had all day.
The following morning, I summoned Elowen before the court convened.
“We may need to delay the treaty’s finalization,” I said. “A few weeks, at least.”
She looked at me carefully, eyes unreadable. Then, slowly, she nodded.
“I see,” she said. “Do let me know when you decide whether it’s politics… or something else.”
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