The palace woke differently after the Autumn Banquet.
Isolde noticed it immediately—not in noise, but in restraint. Servants spoke more softly. Courtiers lingered a fraction longer before choosing a corridor. Names were not repeated the way they had been days before, as if the walls themselves had learned discretion.
The room remembered.
Isolde sat at the writing table in her outer chambers, sunlight filtering through gauze curtains, when Prince Corvin's messenger was announced. The boy bowed and presented a sealed document, the wax impressed with a foreign sigil she recognized at once.
Vaeloris.
Isolde broke the seal without haste and read.
The letter was brief. Impeccably formal. Almost dull.
To Her Highness, Princess Isolde Lysoria,
By courtesy and in good faith, I request a brief audience to better acquaint myself with the customs and protocols of the Golden Diadem, following my recent arrival as envoy under the Pact of Red Accord.
—Prince Adrien Vaeloris
No flattery.
No apology.
No urgency.
Isolde read it again.
Marcus, standing near the window, spoke without turning. "That was quick."
"I agree," Isolde said. "It looks like it is intentional."
She set the letter down. The request was public enough to be known, but harmless in its framing. It was in courtesy and protocol. Nothing that invited scandal or speculation.
Yet it carried weight all the same.
"He's making the first move," Marcus said.
"He has to. If he waits, someone else will claim him." Isolde replied. "It looks like he rather choose than be claimed by other princesses."
Marcus crossed his arms. "Princess Valerica will notice."
"I am sure she already has." she replied.
"And Princess Caelia?" he asked.
"She will not see him as a necessity." she said. "But Elara can deem him useful as a prince of a neighboring kingdom."
Marcus frowned. "Then why did he choose you?"
Isolde rose and walked toward the window, gaze drifting over the inner gardens. "Because refusing the other princesses makes him vulnerable," she said quietly. "And me summoning him makes me vulnerable."
She turned back. "So, it is favorable to us that he extended his hand first."
Marcus studied her. "Then you will accept—but on your terms?"
"Yes." she replied.
She returned to the desk and took up her pen. Her reply was even shorter than Adrien's request.
Prince Adrien Vaeloris,
Your courtesy is acknowledged. An audience may be arranged.
—Princess Isolde Lysoria
No time given.
No place named.
Control.
She sealed the letter and handed it back to the messenger. "Have it delivered," she said. "And say nothing else."
When the door closed behind the boy, Marcus exhaled slowly. "You're inviting foreign eyes closer."
"I'm allowing them to choose where to look," Isolde replied. "That's different."
Isolde waited two days.
It was enough time for speculation to ferment without curdling. Enough time for Valerica's spies to note the exchange. Enough time for Caelia's Temple contacts to wonder if foreign diplomacy was slipping from their reach.
On the third morning, Isolde sent word.
The meeting would take place in the eastern garden pavilion—open-sided, visible from the main path, attended at a distance. No secrecy. No intimacy. No accusation of impropriety.
Marcus objected immediately.
"It's too open," he said.
"Exactly," Isolde replied. "No one listens where everyone can see."
He considered that, then nodded once. "I'll stand close."
"You'll stand where you're meant to," Isolde said. "Not beside me."
Marcus stiffened. "You're asking me not to guard."
"I'm asking you not to be a threat to him." she corrected gently. "There's a difference."
He looked at her for a long moment, then inclined his head. "As you command."
When Prince Adrien arrived, he did so precisely on time.
Isolde saw him first as a figure moving along the garden path—red hair pulled back, posture controlled, steps unhurried. He wore no Lysorian colors, only neutral court dress, carefully chosen to offend no banner.
He bowed when he reached the pavilion. Not deeply. Correctly.
"Your Highness," Prince Adrien Vaeloris said.
"Prince Adrien," Princess Isolde Lysoria replied. "Thank you for your patience."
"Thank you for granting the audience." he said.
They did not sit immediately.
That, too, was deliberate.
Isolde gestured toward the stone bench only after a measured pause. Prince Adrien accepted, seating himself with care. Marcus remained several paces back, visible but unobtrusive, a silent boundary rather than a presence.
The garden was quiet, birdsong threading the air. Servants passed at a distance, pretending not to look.
Prince Adrien spoke first.
"I will be direct," he said. "I requested this audience because silence after the banquet would have been misread."
Isolde inclined her head. "By whom?"
"By everyone," Adrien replied calmly. "Including those who would prefer I belong to them."
Isolde did not contradict him.
"I am not seeking protection," Prince Adrien continued. "Nor favor. I am seeking understanding."
"Of what?" Isolde asked.
"Of which silence means restraint," he said, meeting her gaze, "and which silence means consent."
The question was sharper than its delivery.
Isolde studied him then—really studied him. The careful neutrality. The controlled tension beneath it. This was not a man accustomed to choosing safety. This was a man accustomed to surviving it.
"You assume I consented to what occurred at the banquet?" she said.
"I assume," Adrien replied, "that you allowed it."
A faint smile touched Isolde's lips. "Those are not the same."
"No," Prince Adrien agreed. "That is why I am here."
They sat in silence for a moment, the garden filling the space between them. Isolde felt no need to hurry. Adrien did not press.
At last, she spoke. "You arrived under the Pact of Red Accord."
"Yes." Prince Adrien replied.
"A treaty written to prevent war by making princes expendable." Isolde added.
Adrien's jaw tightened—just enough to be visible. "It prevented war," he said.
"It also ensured fear for the lesser kingdom." Isolde replied. "Fear is expensive."
Adrien looked at her with new focus. "You understand the cost, then."
"I understand the cycles." Isolde said. "And what sustains them."
He leaned forward slightly—not enough to challenge, just enough to engage. "The banquet showed me something," he said. "Not about you but about this court."
"And what was that?" Isolde asked while inclining her head a little to the side.
"That cruelty here is not punished." Adrien said carefully. "It is observed."
Isolde did not deny it.
"The Empress watched." he continued. "And she did not intervene."
"No, she rarely does" Isolde said. "And that is due to reasons unknown to you or to me. She is the reigning monarch of this empire, and she needs not to explain herself."
Adrien held her gaze. "Then the future of this empire depends not on mercy—but on who inherits restraint."
The words settled between them, heavy and precise.
Isolde folded her hands in her lap. "You are asking me if I intend to be that person."
"I am asking," Adrien replied, "whether aligning with you increases my chances of survival."
Blunt. Honest. Dangerous.
Isolde did not bristle.
"I do not promise safety," she said. "I do not promise reform. I do not promise you will never be used."
Adrien absorbed that without flinching.
"But," she continued, "I promise this: I do not make decisions lightly. Especially when lives are attached to them."
That was all.
Prince Adrien bowed his head—deeper this time, not in submission, but in acknowledgment. "Then this meeting was worth the risk."
He rose when she did, stepping back rather than forward. "I will not trouble you further," he said. "But I would welcome future conversations."
Isolde met his gaze, calm and unreadable. "That will depend," she said, "on what you do when no one is watching."
A pause.
Then Prince Adrien smiled—brief, genuine, gone in an instant. "Understood."
He took his leave without lingering, footsteps measured, retreat unremarkable.
Isolde remained in the pavilion a moment longer, watching the garden settle back into stillness.
Marcus approached at last. "He's careful," he said.
"Yes," Isolde replied.
"Dangerous?" he asked.
She considered. "Only to those who mistake restraint for weakness."
Marcus nodded slowly.
As they turned back toward the palace, Isolde felt the first thread of a new alignment take hold—not binding, not claimed, but present.
Prince Adrien Vaeloris had not asked for her protection.
He had chosen her judgment.
And that, Isolde knew, was how empires began to change.
On the way back Marcus and Isolde did not speak until they were well beyond the garden pavilion.
The path back to the palace curved through cypress and trimmed hedges, the sound of water following them like a measured breath. Marcus walked a pace behind Isolde, as ordered, eyes scanning the periphery with the vigilance that never left him.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low and unadorned.
"He could be a spy." Marcus said.
Isolde did not slow. "Yes, he could be."
"For Vaeloris," Marcus continued. "Or for someone who thinks they can use Vaeloris."
"I know." she nodded in agreement.
Marcus frowned, the crease between his brows deepening. "You're not troubled by that?"
"I am," Isolde replied calmly. "I'm not surprised by it as well."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice further. "Envoy-hostages are trained to listen. To remember and t report. It's how their fathers keep them alive."
Isolde stopped then, turning to face him. The garden fell quiet around them, servants, and passersby distant enough to pretend privacy without granting it.
"Marcus," she said, evenly, "everyone here is a spy."
He held her gaze, unyielding. "Foreign ones answer to foreign crowns."
"And domestic ones answer to ambition," Isolde said. "Which is often more dangerous."
Marcus exhaled slowly. "You're considering him."
"I'm considering the consequences," she corrected. "I am still gauging if having him by my side would be helpful to me or would it bite back at me when the time comes."
He studied her for a long moment, then inclined his head. "Then let me be clear. If he enters your orbit—if he draws closer—he will be watched by me."
"As he should be." Isolde smiled tenderly.
"And if he ever becomes a consort—" Marcus stopped himself, jaw tightening.
Isolde's expression did not change. "That decision is not imminent."
"But it is possible," Marcus said.
"Yes," she agreed. "Which is why it terrifies everyone."
Marcus said nothing to that. He turned and resumed his place at her back, the warning delivered, the line re-drawn.
That evening, Isolde dismissed her attendants early.
She stood alone by the window of her chambers, watching the lamps flicker to life along the inner courtyard. The palace was quieter now, the loudest dangers past—replaced by the subtler kind that grew in silence.
A foreign prince in her harem.
The thought settled with weight.
On parchment, it was catastrophic. The Temple would object first—foreign blood, foreign faith, foreign loyalties. Princess Valerica would sneer and call it weakness, proof that Isolde needed outside support to stand. But she would want him to herself as well.
Princess Caelia would frame it as sacrilege, a corruption of the sacred balance.
Princess Mireya would see it as theft.
Princess Elara would see him a waste, since he could be more useful to her.
And yet—
Isolde closed her eyes briefly.
A foreign prince brought something none of the others could.
Distance.
If Prince Adrien Vaeloris stood beside her—when, not if, the succession narrowed—the court would hesitate to turn cruelty into spectacle. Foreign eyes made blood expensive. Scandal costly. Assassination… inconvenient.
But benefit always demanded payment.
Prince Adrien would listen.
Prince Adrien would report.
Prince Adrien would remember.
And if she rose too slowly—or fell too quickly—his loyalty would not be hers to command.
Isolde opened her eyes.
The question was not whether Prince Adrien would spy.
The question was whether she could make his interests align so cleanly with hers that spying became… cooperation.
Not yet, she decided.
But not never.
Prince Corvin came at dusk, as he often did, slipping into her sitting room with the ease of someone who belonged there by habit rather than rank. He carried no papers, no seals—only information.
"Our sister Valerica knows you met him," he said without preamble.
"Of course she does." Isolde replied with a smile.
"She doesn't know what was said." he added.
Isolde smiled faintly. "Then she's already behind."
Prince Corvin leaned against the table, arms folded. "Caelia's asking questions through the Temple. About treaty protocols. About envoy privileges."
"She's testing boundaries." Isolde said.
"Sister Elara could be your rival for him." Prince Corvin said. "She sees him as useful to her."
"Well, he is a foreign prince that can help with merchant trade." she said. "She sees him as a diamond in the rough."
"Yes," Prince Corvin agreed. "And Mireya—"
Isolde lifted a hand. "I know."
Princess Mireya's loss at the Autumn Banquet had not cooled her. It had sharpened her. Prince Corvin did not need to finish the thought.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked.
"Nothing," Isolde said. "Nothing yet."
Prince Corvin raised a brow. "That's rarely your answer."
"Because rarely is everyone else this eager to make mistakes." Isolde said.
She moved closer, lowering her voice. "Let them assume. Let them whisper. If Prince Adrien is useful, they'll reveal how by trying to take him from me."
Prince Corvin nodded slowly. "And if he's dangerous?"
"Then they'll show me that too." she said.
He studied her, then smiled—a small, proud thing. "Your father would've approved."
The name lingered between them, gentle and sharp all at once.
Isolde turned back to the window. "I know."
Night settled fully by the time Marcus returned to his post outside her inner chambers.
Isolde sat at the writing desk, not writing. The candle guttered, wax pooling like time spent without action. She thought of Raphael—of how he had moved the room without asking permission. Of Marcus—holding the line even when it burned. Of Adrien—choosing judgment over safety.
Each man represented a different kind of power.
Marcus: force restrained by loyalty.
Raphael: influence wielded without ownership.
Adrien: distance sharpened into leverage.
A harem could be an army—or a liability.
Isolde closed her eyes and imagined the board as it would look if she won the crown princess seat. Who would stand beside her when the laws were rewritten. Who would bleed? Who would betray?
A foreign prince would complicate everything.
Which meant he might be exactly what she needed.
She opened her eyes and made a decision—not a commitment, but a direction.
He will not be claimed, she thought.
Not yet.
If Prince Adrien wished to stand with her, he would do so without title, without bed, without promise. He would prove alignment before desire. Loyalty before law.
Isolde rose, extinguished the candle, and moved toward the bed chamber, the palace quiet around her.
Outside, Marcus straightened as she passed, his presence steady, protective.
She paused at the threshold.
"Marcus," she said softly.
"Yes." he answered instantly.
"You were right to warn me." Isolde said.
A beat. Then, "I'll warn you again if you ask."
She smiled—small, unreadable. "I will."
The door closed behind her, the night settling into place.
Somewhere beyond the walls, a foreign prince weighed his survival.
And somewhere within them, Isolde Lysoria weighed whether turning an enemy's son into her ally would crown her—or destroy her.