CHRONIC UNFITNESS

   Chapter 9: Chronic Unfitness

   Lyra

The banquet hall glittered under heat lamps designed to look like captured sunlight.

I sat in my assigned place near the lower end of the high table, shoulders curved, expression carefully blank, the picture of a chronically unfit spare who knew better than to draw attention. The ceremonial title in question was minor, an old honorific tied to the eastern watch towers that carried almost no real power and a surprising number of residual access privileges. I had kept it precisely because no one else wanted it. The access tokens attached to it had let me request certain logistics summaries without higher countersignature. Kaelan had clearly decided that quiet usefulness was no longer acceptable.

He rose after the second course, wine cup in hand, and the hall quieted the way it always did when the Crown Prince chose to speak. Raven hair is perfect. Glacier eyes reflecting the artificial light. He did not look at me. He did not need to.

“It has become necessary,” he said, voice carrying without effort, “to address certain matters of fitness within the bloodline.” His gaze passed over the gathered nobles in a slow, deliberate arc. “Chronic unfitness cannot be allowed to diminish the dignity of the imperial house. Effective immediately, the title of Watcher of the Eastern Towers is revoked from the Second Prince and returned to the crown’s direct authority.”

Laughter rippled through the hall, soft, quick, cruel. Someone near the middle tables raised a cup in mock salute. A woman in emerald silk whispered behind her hand. The sound landed on my skin like heat. I kept my face empty, my hands still around the stem of a wine cup I had no intention of drinking. Inside, the humiliation cut exactly where he intended, sharp, public, impossible to ignore. He had not stripped a meaningless honour. He had severed a quiet artery I had been using for months.

Ashford, seated farther up the table, watched with bright, restless interest. He did not join the laughter. His hazel eyes stayed on my face a moment too long, as if measuring how deeply the cut had landed. Ren stood in his usual place along the wall with the other military officers. His expression did not change, yet I felt the weight of his attention like a hand pressed between my shoulder blades. The slow-burn awareness of both men mixed with the public shame until I could barely separate the sensations.I rose when protocol demanded, bowed the exact depth expected of a chastised spare, and sat again. The rest of the banquet passed in a haze of forced smiles and the low, vicious burn of suppressants working harder than they should under stress. Every time someone glanced my way, I felt the court’s amusement like another layer of fever. Kaelan returned to his conversation as if the matter were already forgotten. That, too, was deliberate.

Night gave me the only advantage I needed.

The catacombs beneath the old logistics wing were cool and damp, lit by thin strips of emergency lighting that never fully pushed back the dark. The air smelled of stone and old water. The high-ranking officer was already waiting near the third junction, exactly as the coded message had arranged. He was older, careful, the kind of man who survived by knowing which favours would not get him killed.

“You no longer hold the title,” he said without greeting. “The privileges died with it.”

“Not all of them,” I answered. My voice stayed soft, tired, the Second Prince still performing even here. “The access tokens were issued in my name, not the title’s. They remain valid until the next full audit. That gives us until the new moon.”

He studied me for a long moment, eyes moving over the practiced weakness of my posture, the faint tremor I could not quite hide. Then he nodded once and passed over a slim data crystal. “Troop movements for the eastern and southern ridges. Three months. Including the ones that were never entered into the official ledgers.”

I took it. The trade was clean. He disappeared back into the dark without another word. I remained still until the sound of his boots faded completely, then started the long walk back toward the inhabited levels. The crystal sat cold against my palm inside my sleeve. Kaelan had taken the title in front of the entire court to remind me of my place. He had also handed me the exact leverage I needed to map the next layer of the empire’s quiet wars.

The suppressants pulsed a warning as I climbed. The public humiliation, the tension of the meeting, the constant low-grade heat, all of it was eroding the margin I had left. I kept the limp in place and my breathing shallow.

I was halfway up the final stairwell when a familiar cold voice spoke from the shadows above.

“Interesting place for a late walk, Second Prince. ”Kaean stepped into the thin light. Glacier eyes, unreadable. The stairwell suddenly felt far too narrow, the airrair thin. He did not move aside.