CHAPTER 114

  THE PRICE OF POWER

  Eleanor stood near the hearth, lean and still in a robe of deep green silk. The light of the fire caught on the shiny metalwork on his robe.

  He watched Reina lace her coat with steady fingers. She didn’t flinch under his gaze. She never did.

  “Holy lands?” he asked, his voice low. “Now? You pick now to go chasing spirits? That shadow family realm is on a thread, Reina.”

  She didn’t look up. “It’s not chasing. It’s claiming. This might be the last chance.”

  Eleanor crossed the space between them with the quiet grace of a man who’d fought without armour and survived.

  “Last chance for what?” he asked. “Allynna and Riftal are growing too. I’ve kept the throne intact through every failed assassination and smiling betrayal, and you—what? Want to vanish into the holy lands for spirit bonding, for—” he looked past through the window. His eyes tracing the boy in question who was tearing apart clouds after clouds.

  She leaned into his chest, her arms curling around him like they used to, back when ambition hadn’t yet frozen the warmth between them. “I have to bind him to the swan spirit. The speed he’s growing… he’ll cross Grade Sixty before month Nine.”

  Eleanor's jaw tensed. “Exactly my concern. No one grows like that. Not without old blood. The kind the world forgot for a reason.”

  “He’s not ordinary,” Reina said.

  “That’s not a virtue. That’s a warning.” His voice dropped, edged with something darker now. “Do you even know what he is? What it would mean if the old elven bloodlines are waking? I wasn’t opposed to training him but giving away our—your royal spirit is not the answer, Reina.”

  She remained silent.

  Eleanor stepped back from her embrace, as if trying to see her more clearly. “You used to be cautious. Calculated. You built a kingdom with whispers. Now you’re betting everything on a boy whose origins might shake your roots.”

  “The Knight’s Convention is in three months,” she said. “He has to be ready.”

  A pause.

  “You plan to throw him into that den?” Eleanor asked. “Dijkstra will be there.”

  “He knows,” Reina said. “And he wouldn’t let me hide him even if I wanted to. He’s not built for shadows.”

  Eleanor turned from him, one hand on his temple. The firelight painted his cheekbones in bronze and regret. “Let him rise slower. After we settle the Shadow Family. After we regain control of the North.”

  “We don’t have time,” Reina said.

  “Of course we have.” Eleanor said, holding her by the shoulders, assuring. “As long as I stand beside you. No one can touch what is yours. Parvian tried and they are trapped in their own kingdom. Martys will fail—I’ll see to it. Just wait a bit.”

  There was silence again. Long and close.

  She mocked herself, thinking about those words—as long as I stand beside you—but husband, what if you can’t?

  She stepped toward him, laying a hand against his chest. “I’ll be gone until the convention. You’ll need to keep the house steady while I’m away.”

  He caught her wrist gently. “Reina… are you attached to the boy? You said he was a pawn once. Just a piece on the board.”

  Her fingers tightened slightly in his robe. Then let go.

  She didn’t answer.

  Instead, she kissed his cheek—the kind of kiss meant to soften, not explain—and moved past him to the door.

  “Hold the house for me, my king,” she said.

  Then she was gone, and the wind at the window howled louder, as if mocking the silence she'd left behind.

  A quick summon had called Theodred back like a kite pulled back through strings.

  But this wasn’t the palace. She had called him to the royal gardens—an oasis of quiet heresy tucked away behind gates etched with scripture. The air here was thick with the perfume of rarities—flowers that should not bloom outside their native planes, and trees that hummed faintly with dormant magic.

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  A gardener’s paradise, a mage’s temptation. A place like this could unravel a kingdom if its secrets were made public. Which was precisely why it was sealed off from most of the court.

  If allowed free, he’d have started researching, modifying his arsenal of spells as the solar mage, but excessive greed begets the downfall. In here, it literally meant the whole kingdom ready to burn him at the stake.

  Hans—no, Theodred, as Reina insisted—landed in the grass with a thud, panting, exhilarated. His robe clung to him with the moisture, his hair wind-whipped and defiant.

  “You saw that?” he grinned, his eyes bright. “Pretty sweet, right? I flew.”

  Reina, standing beneath a flowering arctus tree, didn’t move. Her expression remained inscrutable.

  “I saw. How’s your aura holding?”

  “Not great. Half of it’s gone just to stay airborne. I can barely last thirty minutes at peak.”

  She nodded. “That’s the price of my skills.”

  “Is that why you never taught your daughter?”

  It was a question he'd held for weeks, and Reina’s silence only emboldened him to finally ask it. She seemed, to him, in a rare good mood—at least in his point of view. So, he dared to be personal.

  Her gaze drifted upward to the pale, cloud-swept sky. There was a hunger in her eyes. A yearning for something long out of reach.

  “No, Disciple,” she said at last. Her voice was low. Weighted. “It’s because I’ll likely be the last Queen of Clandor. These skills weren’t meant to be passed to my children—I just wanted to pass them to someone capable.”

  “Princess Allynna’s not talentless,” Hans offered, more carefully now. “She’s got a good heart. Might be worth something, having a queen like that. Feels wrong, teaching an outsider instead.”

  “You are no outsider, Theodred. No outsider.”

  That struck deeper than he expected. He looked away, suddenly reminded of the strange comfort he felt in her presence, even when she was furious. Especially when she was furious.

  Am I becoming soft? Remember, man, she was out for your blood a few months back. And will be when the truth comes out. Don’t fall for it.

  Promptly recalling their enmity, he shook the thoughts.

  “Still…” he reluctantly said, “I don’t think anyone could lead this nation like you. Parv would tear Clandor apart the moment you step down.”

  He meant it, too. Somewhere in the mess of admiration and rivalry, he had come to respect her—as a strategist, a sovereign, and a predator who played the long game better than anyone he’d ever met.

  “I appreciate the gesture, kid.”

  “Then teach Allynna. Don’t let this die with you.”

  Reina’s expression turned distant. Then, cold.

  “The moment she learns the royal skills, she becomes a target. You don’t know the hidden knives are at my throat?” She laughed, bitterly. “My own family dreams of my fall. You think I’ll let them drag my children down with me?”

  She stepped away, the folds of her cloak brushing the grass.

  “Hell, only I should go when I die, its not a place my children’s to live”

  She turned silent for a moment.

  “I was only permitted to teach you because you have no claim to the throne—and because there’s an expiration date to my reign. Until the convention. After that, I abdicate, or the blood spills. Even my husband doesn’t know this. The choice is already made.”

  Hans frowned. “That’s insane. You should fight—this is your realm.”

  “Clandor is already broken,” Reina snapped. “I split the kingdom to save it. Now, what was once the strongest realm in the West is in two, and rivals like Parv—who once dared not look us in the eye—now send diplomats with smiles. I can’t keep it. Not without breaking it further.”

  He stayed quiet.

  That would be perfect for Parv, but man, it has to be her, he thought. I want to beat her, not some soft regent licking the boots of the Parvian Kingdom.

  Hans didn’t believe in easy victories. His ambition demanded worthy enemies. He thought and as he was putting them into words.

  She must have seen him coming up with them, because her voice softened and turned the conversation around.

  “So. What’s next for you?” she asked, not unkindly. “You’ve learned the skills, nearly mastered them. What does Theodred want, once he’s done being my pupil?”

  It was a change of subject. A warning not to press further. So he played along.

  “Not sure. I’m not one to serve. After I deal with Dijkstra, maybe I’ll try the Node. Heard the Blood Monks is a place of monsters. Might try my luck there.” He smirked. “Were you thinking of binding me here?”

  “No.” Her answer was quiet. “There’ll be nothing here for you once the crown leaves my hands. Only hypocrisy, and people who'll sell you out for a taste of power. You don’t belong in that kind of world.”

  She hesitated.

  “But I do have one request. Think of it like a payment, for my teachings.”

  Hans straightened. The air shifted. There was gravity in those words. In Parv, the culture of honorarium between master and pupil was sacred. Unbreakable.

  “That’s serious,” he said. “You only get one, Teacher. Have you thought hard?”

  She smiled—genuinely, for once. A rare warmth that looked strange on her usually composed face.

  “I knew you’d say that. You’re a knight, through and through. The old custom—the final offering.”

  “Then ask.”

  She didn’t blink.

  “Promise me this, Theodred. No harm will ever come to my children by your sword.”

  Hans nodded once. No hesitation.

  “Done.”

  She blinked, as if surprised by the ease.

  “That quickly?”

  “That’s what makes it an honorarium, Teacher.”

  Reina turned away, and her voice—though composed—trembled with something close to relief.

  “Pack your things.”

  She looked toward the sealed horizon, the wild north where the Spirit world slept beneath the holy lands.

  “It’s time I gave you your Spirit contract.”