Winter came early that year. Snow started falling in late autumn and didn't stop. By midwinter, the city was buried, streets turned into canyons between walls of white. Trade slowed, then stopped. Supplies dwindled. The poor started dying.
Orion saw them for the first time on a rare clear day when his mother took him to the temple for a prayer service. The carriage wound through streets he'd never seen before, narrow and dark, lined with buildings that leaned toward each other like old men sharing secrets. People huddled in doorways, wrapped in whatever they could find. Children with hollow cheeks and empty eyes watched the carriage pass.
"Don't stare," Seraphina murmured, but she was staring too. "It's not polite."
"Why are they like that?"
"Because they're cold. And hungry. The winter has been hard on everyone, but hardest on those who had nothing to begin with."
"Why don't we help them?"
Seraphina was quiet for a long moment. "We try. Your father has opened the granaries. He's ordered extra patrols to keep order. But there are too many and there's only so much we can do." She reached out and took his hand. "Being king isn't just about sitting on a throne, Orion. It's about this. About seeing this and knowing you can't fix it all."
The temple was warm, at least. Braziers burned at every corner, and the priests moved among the crowd with baskets of bread. Orion watched them distribute the loaves, watched the desperate hands reach out, watched the priests move past those who grabbed too eagerly.
"Why won't they give bread to everyone?"
"Because there isn't enough. They have to choose. The old first, then the young, then the rest. That's what the teachings say." Seraphina's voice was sad. "Sometimes kindness means making choices. Hard choices."
The service was long, full of chanting and incense and prayers for the sun to return. Orion knelt beside his mother and tried to pray, but his mind kept drifting to the children in the streets. Their faces haunted him. He'd known, intellectually, that there were poor people in the kingdom. He'd heard Master Varen talk about them in lessons. But knowing and seeing were different things.
After the service, as they were leaving, a woman pushed through the crowd and grabbed at Seraphina's sleeve. Guards moved instantly, pulling her back, but not before Orion saw her face. Young, younger than his mother, with desperate eyes and cracked lips.
"Please," she gasped, struggling against the guards. "My baby. She's sick. Please, I just need a healer. Just someone to look at her. Please."
Seraphina held up a hand. The guards stopped, but didn't release the woman. The queen stepped closer, close enough to touch.
"Where is your baby?"
"Home. In our room. I couldn't bring her, it's too cold, she's too weak—"
"Take me there."
The guards protested. Seraphina ignored them. She took Orion's hand and followed the woman into the maze of narrow streets, the guards trailing behind, their faces tight with worry.
The room was one of the leaning buildings Orion had seen from the carriage. Up three flights of stairs so narrow the guards had to turn sideways. A single room, cold despite the small brazier burning in the corner. A baby lay on a pile of rags, too still, too quiet.
Seraphina knelt beside her. She touched the baby's forehead, felt for breath, listened to her chest. For a long moment she didn't move. Then she looked up at the mother.
"She's alive. Just barely. She needs warmth and food and medicine." She turned to the guards. "Bring them to the palace. Both of them. Find them a room in the servants' quarters and send for the court physician."
The mother collapsed, sobbing. Seraphina caught her, held her, murmured words Orion couldn't hear. He stood in the corner of that tiny, freezing room and watched his mother do what kings and queens were supposed to do but so rarely did.
That night, he wrote in his journal. Not about conspiracies or assassins or dead birds. About a woman and her baby. About his mother kneeling on a dirty floor. About the difference between knowing about suffering and seeing it.
Being king, he wrote, isn't just about protecting the throne. It's about this. About rooms like that one. About people like her. About choices.
He closed the journal and hid it behind the stone. Then he went to find his mother.
She was in her sitting room, alone, staring at the fire. She looked up when he entered and held out her arms. He crossed to her and let her pull him close.
"The baby?" he asked.
"Alive. The physician says she'll recover. Another day in that cold and she wouldn't have."
"Why did you help them? Father says we can't help everyone."
"No. We can't." She stroked his hair. "But we can help some. And that woman—she had the courage to ask. To push through guards and grab a queen's sleeve. That kind of courage deserves an answer."
"Is that what being queen means? Answering courage?"
Seraphina smiled. "That's one way to put it. Another way is that being queen means being able to look at yourself in the mirror every morning. And I couldn't do that if I'd walked past that woman." She tilted his chin up so he had to meet her eyes. "Your father makes hard choices every day. He has to. That's his burden. But my burden is different. My burden is reminding him—and you—that behind every choice is a person. A face. A story."
Orion thought about that. About the difference between his father's weight and his mother's. About how they balanced each other, completed each other.
"I want to be like both of you," he said finally. "I want to make hard choices and still see the faces."
Seraphina kissed his forehead. "You will, my love. You already do."
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