The candles in Fran’s study had burned low by the time Sir Elden Rhyve arrived.

  A light spring rain ticked gently at the glass panes, streaking the windows in threads of silver. Beyond them, Vartis rested beneath a veil of cloud — the streets slick, the banners still, the ducal palace a fortress of shadow and flickering gold. Inside, the hearth burned slow, more for atmosphere than heat, and the Duchess of Foher stood by the far wall, sorting a tray of wax-sealed messages as if they were mere housekeeping matters.

  She did not look up when the old knight entered. Nor did she rise to greet him. That, Rhyve noted, had changed.

  Once, the woman had bowed too quickly, spoken too softly, stammered when uncertain. Now, she moved with the quiet confidence of someone who had buried doubt beneath layers of scrutiny and will. Still, something in her posture — the tension in her shoulders, the careful arrangement of her hands — told him she was not at ease.

  He stood tall at the threshold, broad-shouldered as ever, his greying hair swept back in a soldier’s knot. His face was weathered into unreadable lines, but his eyes were sharp — too sharp to be merely ceremonial.

  He bowed his head, deeply and properly. “Your Grace.”

  Only then did Fran glance up. Her expression was unreadable. Her brown eyes lingered on him — not warmly, but not coldly either. She nodded toward the chair opposite her desk.

  “Sir Rhyve. Thank you for coming.”

  “I’m always at your disposal.”

  “No,” she replied, calm and quiet. “You aren’t. You’ve served this palace for over thirty years. That doesn’t mean you serve me.”

  A pause.

  Rhyve tilted his head, as if considering the remark. “Perhaps not. But I serve Foher. That has not changed.”

  Fran said nothing to that. She took her seat, and he followed.

  The silence that followed was not awkward — it was deliberate. She let it stretch, studying him across the desk the way one might a blade in uncertain light. Not to see if it was sharp — but if it was clean.

  At last, she said, “You served my uncle to the end.”

  “I did.”

  “You attended every council meeting, every inspection, every ceremony. You were there when the grain shortages began. When the ledgers shifted. When the eastern roads began to rot from neglect.”

  He said nothing.

  “You saw it, didn’t you?” she asked, voice steady. “You saw what was happening.”

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  “I did.”

  “And you said nothing.”

  This time, his answer was slower.

  “I did… not enough.”

  “Why?”

  “I gave my counsel when asked.”

  “Did you?”

  A breath. Not quite a sigh.

  “I gave it where I thought it could still be heard.”

  Another silence. This one heavier.

  Fran’s fingers tapped once against the polished wood.

  “You remained silent,” she said, “while the council turned into a feeding trough.”

  “I remained loyal.”

  “To what?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She leaned back. The firelight played across her face — not softening it, but casting the hollows in her cheeks into sharper relief. She looked older tonight, Rhyve thought — not in years, but in wear.

  “Sir Elden,” she said, dropping the formal veneer for something closer to truth, “I summoned you because I need someone I can trust to hold the palace steady while I clean out the muck. There will be a final operation. Soon. I need order when it happens. No panic. No retreat. I need quiet strength behind the walls. And if you tell me right now you can’t give me that, I will thank you for your honesty and ask nothing more of you.”

  She paused.

  “But if you say yes, then I need to know why you stayed silent.”

  The question lingered, unspoken in its weight.

  Rhyve sat very still.

  Outside, thunder rumbled faintly behind the hills.

  The knight’s hands, clasped on the armrest, tightened. He looked not at her, but at the fire.

  “He was not a man made for grief,” the knight said at last. “He could survive war, famine, betrayal. But not grief.”

  She waited.

  “He lost his sister and her husband when you were barely walking. That wound never closed. But Callen—”

  He said the name as if it were a blade’s edge dulled by use. Not “Lord Thorne.” Not “His Grace’s steward.” Just Callen.

  “Callen steadied him. He was the brake. The quiet voice Alric would always listen to — even in rage, even in madness. They… loved each other. No need to pretend otherwise, not here. I knew. Thalyra knew. We all did, those of us close enough.”

  A breath. A memory in it.

  “They never said it. Not out loud. They didn’t have to. It was in the way they stood beside each other. The way Callen would rest a hand on his shoulder when Alric’s temper flared. The way Alric’s voice softened when he spoke to him, no matter how furious.”

  “And after he died?”

  Rhyve didn’t answer. He just nodded once, slowly.

  “That day,” he murmured, “Alric locked himself in his solar and didn’t come out for three days. When he did, he was… different. Still sharp, still proud. But hollowed. A man walking behind his own shadow.”

  “He stopped seeing the rot?”

  “No,” Rhyve said bitterly. “He saw it. He simply didn’t care. The duchy he built no longer mattered — not without someone to hold it with him. He made sure you were safe. That Candlekeep was sealed and whole. But the rest? He left it to liars.”

  “And you?”

  Rhyve blinked. His hands trembled, once. Then stilled.

  “I should have done more,” the knight said quietly. “I should have shouted. Forced his hand. But how do you raise a sword against grief?”

  He turned, finally, and looked her in the eye.

  “I failed him. And you.”

  Fran did not look away. “Then don’t fail me now.”

  “I won’t.”

  She stood. So did he.

  Before he turned to leave, he looked at her one last time — not with deference, but something heavier.

  “Frances…”

  She stiffened, just slightly. No one called her that. No one alive who remembered.

  “...you're not him. But I think you might do what even he couldn’t.”

  She didn’t ask what that meant.

  Instead, she simply said, “Thank you, Sir Elden.”

  He bowed. Not deeply, but sincerely.

  Her hand was already on the handle, when he said one more thing.

  “I loved them both. Alric and Callen. And I watched them lose each other without a word. That silence… was the worst of it.”

  Fran turned slightly. Their eyes met.

  “No more silence, then,” she said.

  And let him go.