CHAPTER 563: SUCCESSFUL ENDEAVOR (2)

"Back already, my lord? We were about to send a search party for your appetite."

"It’s already here," Lyan said. "It got home before me." He tapped the sideboard where the midday lists hung. "Add ’rest day’ columns. Give the staff permission to mark it without asking you. Two days a month to begin."

Her mouth went a little open. "With pay?"

"With pay. Rest keeps bread from burning."

Her eyes shone for a heartbeat before she squinted at him to hide it. "You’ll ruin discipline."

"I’ll ruin exhaustion." He took a crust end from yesterday’s loaf, bit, and added around the chew, "You’ll make it work better than I can say it."

She sniffed as if he’d accused her of a compliment. "Out. You distract my yeast."

He took the hint with a grinning bow, and nearly collided with a trio of maids hustling past with buckets. He gentled his voice to them as he had to the boy. "Take it slow today. We earned small steps."

They smiled, bobbed, and did slow down—half for his sake, half because the buckets sloshed in warning when they didn’t.

As the door flapped behind him, the world narrowed again to his footsteps and the quiet presence in his mind that he had stopped fearing. With a thought, he called the Grimoire of Love. The air quivered like heat above a road, and the book weighted itself into his hands—black leather with that odd, living feel; sigils breathing faint gold from the cover as if they were fireflies trapped under glass.

"Everything started because of you," he said softly into the leather. He didn’t say it accusingly. He said it like a man greeting an old teacher.

(Flatterer,) Lilith purred, the word a stretch of silk. (Say it again. I like it when you talk to dangerous books like lovers.)

Hestia’s voice came warm and brisk, like a hearth by a ledger. (The book opened the door. You carried the crates through it. Do not undersell labor, boy.)

Cynthia sang a little note that sounded like a bell struck with a fingertip. (Ah, humility. It looks good on you. You should wear it more.)

Arturia cleared her throat. (Perhaps you are finally becoming wise.)

Azelia’s small voice chimed in, bright as leaves. (He’s been wise for a while. He just forgets. Like when squirrels hide nuts and then don’t remember the tree.)

Griselda snorted—thunder over a hill. (He remembers what matters. He remembers where steel should stand.)

Sylphia fluttered, hesitant. (I—I like the new flags. T-they tell me where the air wants to go.)

Eira, always the minimalist: (Focus.)

Lyan smiled down at the Grimoire, stroked the sigils with a thumb. "It wasn’t the book that kept us," he told it. "People did."

(That is a rare admission, Master,) Arturia said, but there was real approval there.

The book warmed slightly in his palms, then went cool—content, or neutral, it was hard to say. He let it fade. The air shivered again, and it was gone.

He stood a moment longer by the courtyard rail, watching his keep move under the morning. He catalogued it, because that was how he calmed the piece of himself that still scanned rooms for exits and enemies. North gate: latch repaired. East roof: tile shifted two hands left, fix before rain. Drill lines: loose by intent. Watch posts: heads up, not down. Cooks: more mint than thyme today; ask why. Ant lines: thicker near the herb beds—check the sugar bin for spills. Joy was strategy. A bright keep was a shield. He believed that like he believed the glaive would lie true in his hands.

Across the yard, near the barracks shade, two guards had forgotten that air carried words. "He faced all the mistresses again last night," one whispered with the relish of a man repeating a myth he wanted to be true.

"He’s a monster," the other breathed, not disapproving. Worshipping, a little.

Lyan’s mouth didn’t move, but his brain did a flat little sigh. So that’s one kind of hero worship. He kept the neutral face he used in council and passed them by, eyes forward. He could feel, like a discipline drilled into bone, the impulse to glance at the seam of a maid’s dress as he crossed paths with a laundry line. He did not look. He had learned the art of seeing without being seen seeing.

(Your eyes are not invisible,) Arturia said, crisp. (Nor are you.)

(I’m trying.)

Lilith laughed low. (Trying is adorable. You can admire a sunrise without licking the window, lover.)

Cynthia’s smile spilled through him like champagne. (It is

a sort of public service, seeing beauty and then choosing restraint.)

Hestia clicked her tongue. (Restraint is a luxury of men who schedule it. Keep walking.)

He did. Past the armory arch where oil and iron made the shadow smell like promise; past the scribe room, quills ticking like many small metronomes; past the infirmary door left ajar to let honey and herbs join hands with air. Every doorway sparked a small decision—ask, don’t ask; praise, don’t interrupt; peek, don’t pry. He made the choices as if they had weight. They did.

The training hall waited with its own weather—the cool, steady light of high windows, the close scent of sweat that had been honest when it left the body and honest still in the wood. This place had been echo once. It had learned to be music.

He took a sword from the rack. Not his best, not ceremonial—the practice blade whose nicked edge told the story of mornings spent going through forms until muscle forgot to argue with mind. He rested the weight across his palm a beat, greeting it as one greets an old dog. One deep breath, a step forward that set his hips where they belonged, low guard as the spine asked for it—and he moved.

Moon-cut. The blade drew a crescent before his face and whispered at the turn. Pivot. The edge described a clean diagonal and came to rest without showing off. Glide. Feet silent on the floor, shoulders riding the core as if they had no ideas of their own. He let breath and weight and the straight line through his arm decide the pace, and the hall obliged with that soft attention that good rooms give to good practice.

He was dimly aware that the doorway had gathered witnesses. A maid slowed, rag in hand, and forgot to wipe. A lanky scribe—Bram, the one who always smudged his chin—had stopped mid-stroke; his quill hovered above the ledger as if afraid to land. Somewhere, a basket thumped softly to floorboards when its owner realized she’d set it on nothing and gravity still applied. He didn’t look. He didn’t perform. He let the rhythm arrange him.

(Stamina jokes incoming,) Cynthia trilled, delighted. (Truly the miracles of discipline and devotion—how noble!)

Griselda crackled. (He knows they’re watching. Watch his wrists. He’ll show off in half a count.)

(I am not flexing on purpose,) Lyan muttered inwardly, then adjusted his grip by a hair so the blade’s line flashed just a little prettier in the window light. He heard Lilith’s wicked smirk without seeing it.

Azelia piped up, bright. (You move like the creek under the willow. When it’s happy.)

Sylphia stammered approval. (S-smooth. Like wind through the laundry. S-sorry. D-don’t mind me.)

Eira’s assessment was cool and correct. (The low guard was late by half a breath.)

"Noted," he thought, and did it again, one breath cleaner.

He finished the set with a flourish he would have claimed was accidental even if hauled before a magistrate. The sword slid home with a sound that made the hall feel finished. For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then someone clapped—one sharp, honest pop of palm to palm—and froze as if they had just struck a bell in a hush house.

Lyan let himself bow a fraction lower than necessary. "Glad to know at least one of you appreciates the sound of clean steel."

The hall exhaled. Laughter jumped like a startled cat and then sat down to purr. The maid with the rag pressed it to her mouth to hide her grin; Bram the scribe gazed down as if to scold his hand for betraying him, then dipped his quill with the slow care of a man rededicating himself to ink after a sudden flirtation with metal.

The spell broke not because anyone willed it, but because a pair of heels struck the stones outside at a run, and urgency changed the air. A maid burst through the arch—braid coming loose, breath coming hard, both hands white-knuckled around a leather satchel.

"My lord—" She bent at the waist, drew breath like she’d counted to ten while sprinting, straightened again with dignity she refused to drop. "From the Crown Prince. Urgent."

Lyan took the cloth at the hall’s edge and wiped his hands slow so the room could see he wasn’t rattled by speed. "Tell His Highness I’ll read it after the noon board."

She flinched; not at him—at the instruction. "He bade me say—truly urgent, my lord."

The words had that certain tremble that meant she had seen the seal herself and hadn’t liked the weight it put in her mouth. Lyan held out his hand. She placed the satchel in it as if passing a coal that looked like a coin. He drew the letter free, turned it over. The wax was intact; the crest heavy as a pebble someone had thrown and expected to hit a window. The hand on the outside lines was too careful to be casual, the kind that tried to speak calm while sweating.

He broke the seal where he stood. No secrecy in his halls—not unless secrecy saved lives. The room gathered closer without moving forward, as if the air had become rope and everyone had taken hold of the same length. He felt eyes on him the way one feels the sun through linen.

His gaze moved down the page. His mind prepared for phrases like dispute and levy and summons. His shoulders assumed they would be needed. At first, the words behaved. The formal salutation. The swift apology for haste. The immediate request.

Then his brows knit. His eyes tracked back to the start of the sentence as if the paper might, if asked very nicely, choose different language this time. His lips parted and then almost—almost—curled in disbelief.

He read the line again. Slowly. Then once more, slower still, as if adding water might make bitter tea sweet. It did not.

Silence reached tall, touched the rafters. Somewhere, a quill dropped and the sound cracked like a twig in winter. Bram flinched as if someone had thrown a pebble at his ear. No one else moved. Even the dust took a vow.

Lyan blinked twice, a man testing his own eyes for pranks. He looked at the messenger, at the letter, back to the messenger as if perhaps she had handed him not ink on paper but theater. She did not smile. The paper did not change.

"T—The Prince..." he began, and his voice did a small, almost comical, hop on the first consonant. He squinted again at the impossible sentence and discovered that it remained, stubbornly, precisely what it was.

He swallowed because the body sometimes insists on ceremony. "The Prince is having... erectile dysfunction!?"

No one breathed. Someone made the soft sound one makes when a laugh collides with a swallow and returns home confused. From the doorway behind the maid, Josephine’s voice drifted in, sweet as poison on pastry. "Well, my lord," she sang with the delight of a cat discovering cream, "looks like your legend just gained another comparison."

Lyan closed his eyes for a heartbeat, dragged a hand down his face, and found every line of it exactly where it had always been. Inside, Cynthia laughed so hard he could feel the fizz of it in his temples.

Lilith practically purred. (Oh, the plot. The possibilities. Do we schedule a royal... consultation?)

Hestia coughed delicately, which for her was nearly a shout. (A problem is a market misfire. Diagnose demand. Provide a service. Charge appropriately.)

Arturia made a sound that might have been the ghost of a gasp. (Restraint, all of you.)

Griselda snorted lightning. (At least it isn’t a coup. Yet.)

Eira, cool as the north side of a stone: (A body’s failure becomes a court’s storm. Move carefully.)

Azelia, solemn for once: (If a prince cannot plant, some trees don’t get planted.)

Sylphia squeaked, mortified. (D-do we... do we have to say the word again?)

He exhaled through his nose and stared at the letter as if he could press the ridiculous back into the paper like a wrinkle from a shirt. Around him, his keep waited—curiosity polite, but uncontained. He could feel the moment tipping, deciding what kind of day it would be. He chose to hold it in his bare hands without flinching.

And that was how the calm morning of Grafen ended—with its lord staring at a royal letter and the entire keep wondering if this, too, would somehow become his problem.