That night Caspian and I ate alone in our chambers.Not a feast. Not ceremony. Just food on a table by the window with the lights of Thorncross spread below us and the bond doing what it always did in the quiet between us, filling the space that words left empty.He had been controlled all day. Perfectly. Every meeting, every briefing, every tactical decision. His two centuries of rule showing in every measured word, every precise gesture.The control had a cost. I felt it through the bond like heat beneath ice."Talk to me," I said.He cut a piece of bread. Set down the knife. "About what?""About what you've been not saying since last night."He was quiet."The bond means I feel it anyway," I said. "You might as well use words."He looked at the window. At the city below. At the kingdom he had built and neglected and come back to and was now preparing to defend from something older and angrier than anything it had faced before."I keep thinking about the severing," he said."I know."
Last Updated : 2026-04-05 Read more