The throne room was cold. Not the chill of winter—that he could have prepared for—but the particular cold of marble seeping through silk, through wool, through skin, until the stone was in his bones. Alaric kept his spine straight, his hands still on the gold-chased armrests, and watched the doors swing open.
The guards dragged him in like cargo. Iron chains clinking against stone. A torn tunic, one sleeve hanging by threads. Dark fabric stained darker at the shoulder, blood drying to rust against his knuckles. The prisoner didn't stumble when they shoved him to his knees. He caught himself, shoulders set, spine coiled with something that wasn't surrender.
Then he looked up.
Amber eyes. Burning. Finding Alaric's across the length of the throne room like they'd been looking for him. No bow. No duck of the head. No flicker of fear. Just contempt so pure it sat in the air between them, a blade already drawn.
The court murmured. Someone gasped. An advisor shifted his weight, waiting for the prince's command.
Alaric's fingers tightened on the armrest. The gold was warm from his grip. The heat in his chest wasn't anger—he knew anger, had worn it like armor through a dozen council meetings. This was different. Lower. Curling in his gut like something waking up.
His pulse hammered. He felt it in his throat, his wrists, the hollow behind his knees. He leaned forward anyway, voice steady despite it.
"What is your name, soldier?"
The man's smirk was sharp enough to draw blood. He didn't look away. Didn't lower his chin. Just held Alaric's gaze like they were equals, like the chains were a costume he'd shrug off when he was done performing.
"Lucien Ashford." A pause. The smirk widened. "And you're the prince who couldn't win a war without burning villages."
Alaric rose. The motion was smooth, rehearsed—centuries of princes rising from that throne, each one the same. But his fingers left dents in the armrest gold, and his pulse was a drum in his throat as he stepped off the dais. The marble was cold through his boots. Each step echoed, deliberate, carrying him closer to the man on his knees.
The guards shifted. One hand went to a sword hilt. The court held its breath—Alaric could feel it, the collective inhale of a hundred lungs, waiting for violence or pardon or something they'd never seen before.
He stopped three feet from Lucien. Close enough to smell the dust and blood and something underneath—sweat, iron, the particular musk of a body that had been running and fighting and refusing to fall. Lucien's smirk held. His amber eyes tracked Alaric's face like he was reading a battlefield, looking for the weak point.
"Lucien Ashford." Alaric said it slow, tasting the name. It was rougher than he'd expected, syllables that didn't belong in silk and marble. "You burned villages."
"Your villages." Lucien's voice was lower than Alaric remembered from the interrogation reports. A rasp, like he'd been shouting orders or screaming defiance. "Full of your people. Your grain. Your conscription lists." He tilted his head, chains clinking. "They burned beautifully, Your Highness."
The title was a blade dipped in mockery. Alaric felt it slide between his ribs. His chest tightened—not with anger. With want. A raw, stupid want that had no place in a throne room full of witnesses.
He leaned down. Slow. Close enough that Lucien's breath ghosted warm against his jaw. The guards tensed. One drew steel—a warning scrape of metal.
"You should be terrified," Alaric murmured, so low only Lucien could hear. "I could have you flayed in the courtyard by sunset."
Lucien's smirk didn't flicker. But something shifted in his eyes—a flicker of heat, or recognition, or both. "You won't."
"Why not?"
"Because you want to know what I saw." A pause. "And you want me to say your name when you find it."
Alaric's hand trembled. He clenched it into a fist at his side, the knuckles white. The court was waiting. His father's advisors were calculating. The guards were ready to drag Lucien back to the cells.
"Take him to the east tower," Alaric said, straightening. His voice carried clear across the marble. "My chambers. I'll question him myself."
The chains caught the light as the guards hesitated. A moment stretched like pulled taffy—the captain's hand half-raised, two soldiers with their grips loose on Lucien's arms, the whole court suspended in the space between Alaric's order and its execution. They were waiting. For him to take it back. For the prince to remember himself and send the prisoner to the cells where he belonged.
Lucien's amber eyes hadn't left his face. The smirk was gone now. In its place, something sharper—watching, calculating, as if he too was waiting for Alaric to flinch.
Alaric didn't flinch. He held the gaze, let the silence stretch until the court began to shift, uncertain. His pulse was still a drum, still loud enough to drown out reason. But his voice, when it came, was carved from the same stone as the floor beneath them.
"East tower," he repeated. "My chambers. Now."
The captain's hand dropped. The guards moved, chains rattling as they hauled Lucien to his feet. He rose with a soldier's grace—no stumble, no wasted motion—and as they turned him toward the side door, he looked back over his shoulder. The smirk returned. Smaller this time. Private. Like they shared a secret the throne room wasn't ready for.
"Your Highness." The two words, low and mocking, carried across the marble. Then the door swallowed him.
Alaric stood in the silence. The throne room breathed again—whispers rising like steam, advisors exchanging glances, someone muttering about protocol and precedent. He didn't hear them. His hands were shaking. He pressed them flat against his thighs and counted the beats of his heart until they steadied.
My chambers. He'd said it without thinking. The east tower was the royal residence, his private wing, a space no servant entered without permission and no prisoner had ever seen. He'd claimed a captured enemy soldier for his own rooms, in front of the entire court, and the scandal was already spreading like fire through dry grass.
He turned and walked back toward the dais. His legs carried him. His face was a mask he'd worn since childhood. Inside, something was burning.
He wanted to follow. He wanted to see Lucien in his space, in his light, standing where no enemy had ever stood. He wanted to close the door and find out what happened when the chains came off and there was no throne room between them.
Alaric reached the dais and stopped. His hand found the armrest, still warm from his grip. The court was watching. His father's advisors were watching. The whole kingdom would know by morning what he'd done.
He didn't take it back.
He sat down on the throne and waited for his hands to stop trembling.