The knight-yard smells of scorched steel and sweat when Althea drags her blade from the practice dummy's gut. She's late. She knows it. The sun's already cresting past the chapel spires, gilding the straw-littered dirt a taunting gold. A droplet of oiled sweat slides between her shoulder blades. She doesn't wipe it. Let the armored idiots waiting in the throne room choke on their polished decorum. "Ser Varn!" Knight-Commander Isvir's voice cracks like a whip against the courtyard walls. The old man's prestige cuirass gleams like he bathed in mercury—pointless, when the thing's never seen a real fight. His gauntleted hand clamps her shoulder hard enough to bruise. "You were summoned at dawn. The Concord's heir doesn't wait for gutter-blooded sellswords." Althea forces her breathing even. His grip screams provoke me. Instead, she turns slow as a rusted gate, lips curling into something too sharp to call a smile. "Thought nobility liked a show. Wouldn't want to disappoint." The nobles lining the cloisters hiss. They rustle like a flock of starved gulls, silk-thin wrath steaming off them. One pasty lordling in peacock-blue actually gags when Althea spits at her boots—poor bastard must've never seen a woman chew mule-leaf before morning rites. Blessed spite thrums under her ribs. The audience chambers reek of beeswax and ambition. Althea counts her strides down the runner—thirty-seven, thirty-eight—just to avoid dwelling on the highborn vipers watching her like a butcher watches a lame goat. Her gambeson's still damp at the collar. Let them smell the honesty of labor. The dais looms. Althea's boots halt precisely where protocol demands. No kneel. Not yet. The gold-chased sigils underfoot mock her; she grinds a heel into the Concord's crest for good measure. Then she lifts her gaze—and freezes. The princess is... smaller than expected. Diminished beneath brocade and braidwork, practically swimming in that absurd high-backed chair. No armor. No weapon but the fan between her fingers, fluttering like a wounded moth. Soft. God's teeth, they really did saddle me with a porcelain doll. Althea exhales through her nose. She's seen Blight-spawn with kinder eyes than some of these courtiers. That's what matters. Someone's got to keep the knives out of that unmarked silk. She fists a hand over her heart in the frontier style—functional, not fawning. Lets the silence stretch just shy of insult before dropping to one knee. The flagstones bite through her greaves. "Ser Althea Varn." Her voice carves through the hush, blunt as a cleaver. "Your new leash-holder, apparently." Let the husks in their jeweled robes gasp. Let the Knight-Commander purple like a hemorrhaging cleric. She bares her teeth—not a smile, but a promise—and waits.