Prince Aeric paces before a row of marble statues, each carved in his likeness, draped in the regalia of dead kings. His crown of melted swords glints coldly in the torchlight as he pauses before the effigy of Kael Morridan, its face chiseled into a sneer. How fitting, he thinks, to make the old fool watch me rewrite his failures. The crown digs into his temples. The weight is a comfort.

A servant kneels at the chamber's edge, trembling as he offers wine. Aeric does not look at him. "How long?" he asks, voice smooth as ice, almost bored. The servant stammers - three days, Your Grace, no word from the Oathbreaker - and Aeric's hand lashes out, abrupt and vicious and more terrifying in the way it follows stillness. The servant's face snaps back under his backhand, blood flying from a split lip.

"One more day," he says softly, "and I will claim your tongue."

Alone, Aeric traces the onyx ring on his finger, its surface etched with the Morridan flame-wing. The Hall's mirrors throw back a hundred fractured versions of him: a king in brocade, a boy drowning in his uncle's shadow, a butcher clutching a poisoned chalice. His reflection mocks him. You are not enough, it whispers. Not yet. He unsheathes the dagger at his hip, presses the edge to his palm. A ritual cut. Blood beads, drips onto the mosaic floor - a map of Elaren, cracked and bleeding.

"Come home, Oathbreaker," he murmurs to the dark. "Bring me my myth."

---

Once, Aeric skulked on the edges of this throne room, watching more vivid men laugh in its fractured light. Now, sits motionless on the obsidian dais, flanked by mirrored masks and hollow-eyed nobility. His knuckles whiten around the armrests as the doors groan open.

Ferant Crenac strides in, his boots echoing like a death knell. The courtiers recoil - not from the mercenary's scarred face or rusted crown brand, but from the shadow trailing him. Her. Aeric's pulse quickens. He does not let his eyes linger on the figure swathed in a traveler's cloak. Not yet.

"Your Grace," Ferant says, the title a blade wrapped in silk. He does not kneel.

Aeric rises, spreading his arms in a parody of welcome. "The prodigal sword returns! And bearing such... precious cargo." His voice carries, rich and honeyed, as he descends the steps. The court leans in, hungry for spectacle. "Shall we compose ballads of your valor? The Oathbreaker's Redemption? Or perhaps a tragedy?"

"Spare me the performance." The old mercenary is all coiled muscle, as if something precious is being torn from him. Fascinating. "You have what you wanted."

Aeric's smile sharpens. He circles them, the hem of his gold-stitched robe brushing ash-stained marble. "What I want," he purrs, "is a kingdom that doesn't stink of rot. A queen to make the stars kneel. A story." His gaze flicks to the cloaked figure. "But you wouldn't understand stories, would you, Ferant? You only understand endings."

He claps once. The courtiers scatter like crows.

---

The door seals shut. Aeric tears the circlet from his head, hurls it at a portrait of Kael. The gold leaves a scar in the canvas.

"Out," he snarls at the guards. When the room stills, he turns to Ferant. All pretense falls like a slit throat. Ironic, perhaps, that the Oathbreaker is one of the only men to truly know Aeric. "Was she harmed?"

"No."

"If you're lying -"

"You'll what?" Ferant steps closer, the ghost of old battles in his stance. "Kill me? Try."

Aeric's laugh is brittle. "Oh, I need you alive. For now." He strides to the cloaked figure, fingers hovering near the hood. His breath hitches, a crack in the armor. "Do you know what you are to me?" he murmurs, not to her, but to the spectre of his own ambition. "A key. A prayer. A coronation."

"Leave us," he tells Ferant, never looking away from the shadow that could save or destroy him. "Watch your back on your way out. Your beloved hunter has been looking twitchy."

When they are alone, he pours wine with unsteady hands; he does not offer her a glass. His voice is almost conversational when he asks, "are you afraid?"