Lucien’s POV
I wake before the bells now.
It isn’t habit or discipline that pulls me from sleep, but absence—the quiet knowledge that something has already been taken before my eyes open. The Anchor never announces itself.
It doesn’t ache or burn. It subtracts gently and persistently, like water drawn from stone one patient cup at a time.
The chamber is still dark, dawn pressing faintly against the heavy curtains. I lie on my back for a long moment, breathing carefully, and measuring myself the way I once measured wounds. There is no sharp pain to locate, no weakness dramatic enough to alarm anyone else.
There is simply less.
Beneath my ribs, the familiar hum is there—Vera. It’s stable and calm. Balanced in a way that still unnerves me. The Anchor ties my vitality to her equilibrium, and most days I tell myself this is how it should feel: quiet, contained, and sustainable.
This morning this quiet feels heavy.
I sit up slowly, giving my body time to follow my intention. There is a fraction of delay now between command and response, a pause so small no one else would see it. I see it, and I can feel it. I catalogue it, the way soldiers do with losses they cannot afford to acknowledge.
When I stand, the room tilts briefly. I wait it out. Discipline covers what strength no longer does.
…Training comes before court.
The yard is wrapped in mist when I arrive, the stones damp beneath my boots. I draw my sword and begin the forms—not the wide, forceful patterns of my earlier years, but the reduced ones. Economy of motion. Conservation. The Anchor punishes waste.
Steel moves through air with a familiar whisper. My breathing stays measured. I count heartbeats between strikes, tracking how long it takes the hollow sensation in my chest to settle.
I am not training to grow stronger. Now, I do that to decline slowly.
“Your stance is tightening,” Caelen says from the edge of the yard, voice calm and precise. “You’re bracing too early.”
I complete the sequence before answering, letting the blade lower under control.
“I’m anticipating resistance,” I tell him. “That’s not a flaw.”
“It is when the resistance isn’t physical,” he replies, stepping closer. His gaze is sharp and clinical. “You’re compensating. Shortening reach. Saving breath. You’re adapting to depletion.”
I meet his eyes. “That’s called discipline.”
He studies me for a long moment before speaking again, slower this time.
“It has another name: survival. And you know that survival always leaves evidence, whether you want it to or not.”
I sheath the sword. The motion costs more than it should.
“The court doesn’t need to see it,” I say.
“They already do,” Caelen answers. “They just don’t know how to name it.”
We walk the perimeter of the yard together. Silence between us never was a problem, but it’s comfortable only because we’ve learned how to hold it.
“She didn’t sleep,” I say finally.
He doesn’t ask how I know. “You felt it,” he says instead.
“And that’s the problem.” I reply. “The Anchor carries more than power, but restraint. Grief.”
Pressure compressed into stillness. Vera doesn’t let those things surface, so they move inward—and I receive them all the same.
“She held the council well yesterday,” Caelen says carefully. “The reforms are settling. That always invites inspection.”
“They presented the fertility petition,” I tell him.
“Publicly?” Caelen stops walking and exhales through his nose. “Then that explains the pressure I’ve been sensing.”
I nod. “She won’t speak it, which means it builds.”
“And you carry it with her.”
“That was the vow,” I say. “Shared burden.”
Caelen’s gaze sharpens. “Lucien, shared doesn’t mean silent. I’m sure you understand that.”
I don’t answer. We both know she will not be pushed. Not on this.
I leave him at the yard and head toward the inner court, positioning myself where I can see without intruding. Vera stands at the center of the ritual circle, crown absent and hands bare. This is a minor blood working—ward maintenance, nothing demanding. Celene guides the cadence quietly from the side.
Vera is flawless at first. Controlled and precise, even too precise I would say.
I feel it through the Anchor before I see it: the way she meters herself, the careful rationing of power as if she’s guarding against a future deficit. She’s not unstable in the way the court fears.
She’s unstable in increments.
The chant shifts. Her fingers tremble—just once. The sigil flares half a beat too long before settling, and it lands in me like a needle.
“Pause the sequence,” I say, stepping forward.
Celene looks up sharply, scroll still open. “King Consort, the cycle is not complete. Interrupting it—”
“—will not destabilize anything,” I interrupt, keeping my voice calm. “End it here.”
Vera turns toward me, surprise flickering across her face before smoothing into composure.
“Lucien,” she says evenly, “it was nothing. A misstep.”
“It was early,” I answer. “That matters.”
Celene hesitates, then closes the scroll. “We’ll resume tomorrow, Your Majesty.”
The attendants disperse quickly. When we’re alone, I move closer, lowering my voice.
“You’re bleeding power in smaller quantities now,” I tell Vera. “That’s new.”
She folds her hands together, posture perfect. “You’re not meant to notice that.”
“I’m not meant to notice many things,” I reply. “I notice anyway.”
Her gaze meets mine, and for a moment the Queen recedes, leaving the woman who presses her hand to her stomach in mirrors and says nothing.
“I’m fine,” she says.
The Anchor hums with contradiction.
“I don’t think so,” I say gently. “And you don’t have to protect me from that.”
“That wasn’t my intention,” she counters. “If I want to protect you from anything, it is about protecting you from worrying.”
A faint, humorless smile touches my mouth. “You realize that makes it worse.”
She exhales, shoulders dropping slightly. “I know.”
Silence hugs us slowly, intimate and heavy with things neither of us wants to give voice to.
“I felt the petition,” I say at last. “When they presented it.”
Her fingers tighten. “Then you felt what followed, but you’re still here,” she says quietly. “Still standing.”
“For now,” I answer honestly. “Vera, this isn’t about heirs or ceremonies. It’s about you carrying something alone when the Anchor was meant to make that impossible.”
She looks away. “The Anchor shares power. It doesn’t erase grief.”
“It shares everything,” I reply. “That was the vow.”
Her expression softens, but unease lingers. “Then tell me,” she says, voice low, “what you felt when my hand shook.”
I take a breath before answering, because the truth matters.
“Fear,” I tell her. “Yet, it is not because you’re losing control. Vera, you’re controlling too much. I’m afraid that you’re rationing yourself like you’re preparing for an end.”
She swallows. “I don’t want to become something I can’t undo.”
I reach for her hand, careful and grounding. “Then don’t decide alone. Let me feel it with you. That’s what the Anchor is for.”
She closes her eyes briefly, leaning into the contact. The hum between us steadies, softens. However, I feel the truth settle like iron beneath it: not a collapse but erosion.
Erosion is harder to fight, as it happens quietly—one morning at a time.