The imperial palace of Vectoria did not announce its wealth, it was more accurate to say it assumed it.
The hallway King Alessio Von Winterfang walked through stretched long enough that the far end blurred into shadow, its walls paneled in gold-veined stone that caught the afternoon light and gave it back warmer than it had any right to be.
Sconces of pale blue crystal lined the corridor at even intervals, each one carved into the shape of a rising flame, and it’s cool light pulsing faintly behind the glass.
Where the gold met the ceiling, the thin lines of the same blue gem had been inlaid into the stone in long deliberate ribbons, and they were tracing patterns that meant something to whoever had first drawn them and now simply looked beautiful to everyone who came after.
Tapestries hung between the sconces, they were a deep imperial blue threaded with gold, depicting battles and coronations centuries old, the kind of history stitched into fabric because it was too important to trust to memory alone.
He reached the guest hall near the end of the corridor.
The double doors stood open already, they were tall, very tall.
The wood was dark and old and banded in gold that had gone soft with age.
Beyond them, the room opened into something closer to a private hall than a guest chamber, high windows letting in long shafts of gold afternoon light that fell across a floor of pale marble veined with the same blue that ran through the corridor outside.
Alessio stepped through.
His eyes found the man at the center of the room immediately.
Cassian Von Vectorian had a way of occupying a space that made searching for him unnecessary.
The Emperor sat there casually.
He was built on a scale that made the chair beneath him look almost incidental, broad through the shoulders and thick through the chest.
His hair was gold, a shade unusual enough in the human empire that it had become its own kind of crown on top of the actual one, falling loose and straight past his shoulders with none of the careful arrangement most rulers bothered with.
A neatly kept beard traced the line of his jaw, the same gold as his hair, and above it his eyes were a clear, pale blue, sharp enough that they seemed to weigh whatever they landed on.
The crown itself sat low across his brow, gold spires catching the window light.
His robes were black shot through with gold thread, with a heavy fur collar rising white and soft around his throat in stark contrast to the dark fabric beneath it, gold squared off at each shoulder.
Rings crowded his fingers, gold, each one weighty enough to matter.
His face had settled, over centuries, into something that gave away exactly as much as he intended and not a single flicker more.
[ Image ]
"It has been a long time since we last met, hasn’t it, Alessio."
The Emperor’s voice was unhurried, carrying easily across the marble without needing volume behind it.
"It has been a while," Alessio said, crossing the room toward him.
"Please, sit. I’ve had the finest vintage in Vectoria brought up especially for you." Cassian’s mouth curved, faint and dry.
"You always did enjoy it more than the occasion called for, if I remember correctly."
Alessio lowered himself into the chair across from him, and found it absurdly comfortable, deep cushions upholstered in something that gave beneath him like it had been waiting specifically for his weight, the kind of comfort that came from centuries of practice rather than accident.
A maid entered without being summoned, moving with the quiet economy of someone who had served in this room long enough to know exactly what was expected and precisely when.
She bowed her head to both men in turn, set down two crystal glasses, and poured from a bottle of pale, almost translucent gold, the wine catching the window light as it fell and turning it briefly liquid, like something spun rather than poured.
She set the bottle down between them, bowed once more, and withdrew, the doors easing shut behind her without a sound.
"So." Cassian lifted his own glass, turning it slightly, the wine inside shifting gold against gold.
"Why the sudden visit, Alessio?"
There was intrigue in the question.
There was also, underneath it, the specific patience of a man who already suspected the answer and was simply waiting to see how his old friend chose to arrive at it.
"You already know about the announcement I made a few days ago," Alessio said, no preamble or easing in.
There had never been much use in that between the two of them.
"Yes." Cassian exhaled, the sound heavier than the single syllable should have carried.
"I do remember it causing something of an uproar across the whole empire, I’d say those old bastards are already moving, if I’m being honest with you."
"He awakened during the incident," Alessio said, and his voice had gone level and serious in a way that left no room in it for anything but the truth.
"That part of it wasn’t staged. Wasn’t softened. It happened exactly the way it was announced."
Cassian held his glass up toward the window a moment longer, studying the wine’s transparent, golden sheen as though the answer to something might be floating in it.
"You do understand the weight of what you’ve done." he said finally.
"By announcing it publicly." His eyes came away from the glass and settled directly on Alessio’s, dark and even.
"Don’t you?"
Alessio did not look away.
He never had, not from this man, not in seven hundred years.
"I know exactly what I did," he said.
"I controlled the narrative, rather than letting the public write it for me."
Cassian brought the glass to his mouth and drank, unhurried, the motion of a man who had learned long ago that silence, used correctly, said more than most speeches.
"I imagine," he said, setting the glass down.
"That you’d tell me there was no other way."
"I did what I had to do."
"This again!" Cassian shook his head slowly, something complicated moving behind his eyes now, old and worn smooth by repetition.
"If you were only ever a little more honest with yourself, Alessio, you might not have ended up in the exact situation you’re currently sitting in with your first wife."
Alessio’s jaw tightened.
He looked away, toward the window, toward the gold light falling across the marble, and said nothing.
There was no answer to that particular blow that wouldn’t cost him more than staying silent would.
Cassian watched him for a moment, then let it go, the way he always eventually did, and asked instead, "So. What is it you actually want from me?"
Alessio brought his eyes back around, steady again.
"I want you to not oppose the lockdown decree I passed in my kingdom," he said.
"At least for the time being."
Something in Cassian’s expression hardened at once.
"The decree you passed without so much as a word to me first." His voice had lost its earlier warmth entirely.
"You are no rookie, Alessio, you understand exactly what kind of trouble this invites with the other races, with every kingdom watching how you handle this, and their envoys are already standing at your border,"
"The only reason none of them have pushed further than diplomatic complaints is that Vespera is still there, holding the kingdom steady, while you sit here in my palace instead,"
"This has already grown into something far larger than one child’s awakening, and I understand why, I do, but you do not get to make decisions of this size unilaterally and simply inform me afterward as a courtesy."
Alessio’s eyes sharpened.
"So you won’t agree to it," he said.
He had already run this exact conversation in his head on the ride here, had already prepared for exactly this answer, already had the next several moves lined up behind it like pieces on a board.
"What do you propose inst-"
"Alright." Cassian cut him off, entirely unbothered, lifting his glass again and taking another slow, leisurely sip.
"But only this once."
"Huh?"
Alessio blinked, caught fully off guard for the first time since he’d stepped through those double doors.
’What is he actually thinking,’ Alessio thought, studying the Emperor’s face for some crack in it, some tell he’d missed.
"Why the sudden agreement?" he asked, suspicion coloring every word.
Cassian set his glass down and looked at him with something almost fond beneath the composure, the ghost of centuries shared between them surfacing for just a moment.
"Who exactly are you looking at me like that for?" he said.
"Have you forgotten how many times you helped me, back in our day? Consider this repayment for all of it."
"Hmm." Alessio sat with that a moment, turning it over, searching it for the angle he was certain had to be hiding somewhere inside it.
He found none he could name outright, not yet.
He reached for his own glass at last, lifted it, and let a small measure of the tension in his shoulders finally ease.
"Alright," he said. "That’s good."
He nodded once, and drank.
🌿 ─ ❦ ─ 🌿
End of Chapter 91: Old Friends, Old Debts
🌿 ── ❦ ── 🌿