I did try to hold back my fury as I told her everything. From the King's accusation, Ser Dalton's betrayal and... and his demise. But, as you may be starting to gather... I was less successful than I might have thought to be at the time.

I left Ser Derek's knowledge of our affair out.

"Will you still love me?" I asked her when I was done with my explanation. "Knowing what you know? Knowing that I have forsaken His Majesty's order?"

"What do you mean?" Her eyes wandered the floor. "Of course I love you..." but her voice was drifting off.

"I couldn't kill him. He was just a boy. It isn't right. A Knight accepts a challenge from an equal, but not..."

"You don't have to recite the Oath of Chivalry to me; I've been to the ceremonies."

I told Eliza out of a desire to confide in her. To free myself from the weight upon my chest. Though I knew I was morally just, I had still defied the Crown; defied her by proxy. And still, once the words had left my mouth, I buried the memory in a box; never to visit it again. ...It took root inside of her, and too soon to stop.

"The King, he?" She was unsure, but she trusted me. I could see it on her eyes. "He ordered you to slaughter him? Their son?" She hurried to smooth her skirt back into place. "You're absolutely certain? That was his meaning?"

"I'm sorry," I sang. "Dalton confirmed it."

"How dark," she noted.

"Murdering women and children... it goes against my vow. Knights protect them. Not..."

Her eyes narrowed. Her expression cooled. "You think I am disappointed you spared his life?"

"...He is the future of our enemy," I explained. "I'd understand if you were. The Prince could very well possibly be the reason for our deaths one day."

"Then so be it." She made a sharp, short noise of some sort. "I'd rather lose the War and die than– How could he be so cruel? When I married him, I knew... But Nikolai..."

Eliza looked up at me, now finally returning from wherever her mind had taken her, and very quickly, her hands raised. She trekked closer to me, taking mine. She was shivering, as I had been a moment before.

"We must go," she sang. "They will be looking for you. You're Commander now. Hard to explain why you're down here with me."

"I care not," I said. "I'll tell them you were grieving the ancestors of His Majesty if anyone dare ask."

"You can say whatever you like, but I am to receive a new guard with ascension, I suspect. This meeting with me will merit some questions because of it."

"Then tell them we are friends. Tell them you wish to retain me as your sword. Tell them anything, but I will not leave your side. I will remain your personal escort. So you do not have to fear."

"Noble, but that's not how things have ever worked," she said. "In the past, the King–"

"Things will no longer be as they were in the past. I am here now, as God must see it fit. And I will remain yours if you see it fit."

She paused, inspecting me. "And you wish that?" she asked. "Do you want to stay by my side? Instead of rising to His Majesty's? That was your dream, was it not? Or is this out of obligation? We don't know the child is yours. You can still run."

"As I see it," I shrugged. "This child is His Majesty's for any onlooking eyes, but if I wanted nothing to do with you, I could have nothing to do with you. I could have perished in Chalke, started over. But instead, I have raced home to declare that only you have kept me breathing, and you are still so unsure of my devotion? Of my feelings? You must find yourself asking me, 'do I wish it'?"

"I..." She nodded. "I might see your point."

"You might?" I joked. "Yes. Eliza, I wish to remain by your side. With the storm that's headed our way, I trust no one but myself to see to your safety. To our child's safety. You understand?"

"How very kind of you... If this is your preference... You'll need to work a little harder for it." She took her hands. "His Majesty will require a good reason to deviate from protocol. Luckily for you, his ego leaves him easily convinced. You'll do best to make him think it is his own idea."

"Tell me how."

"You won't like it," she said.

"I don't like many things, tell me anyway."

"Mask your treason as Ser Dalton's."

"...Mask my? I–"

"Tell him..." She swallowed. "Tell him that your uncle changed his mind in the final seconds before you could harm the boy. Tell him that is why Dalton did not return. Tell him he let the child go, or he provided a distraction, whatever you like. But tell him you are the Patriot here. That it was your knife in his throat."

"You want me to openly declare that I agreed with his awful scheme?" I growled, horrified. "I cannot."

"It is the only way! He will ask!" She urged me. "He will ask, and if you are not prepared to lie to him, he will hear it in your voice as you fumble. He will catch you in your fear!"

"I am not afraid!" I spat.

"Then tell him you are not!"

"You ask me to allow him to think that I believe in his ...his sick voice of Justice?"

"I do not ask anything! You are the one who wanted to know how to stay by my side! I am the authority on this knowledge. If you tell the King that Ser Dalton betrayed the Crown, he will fill the remaining blanks in himself. He will think you prevented an offense against him. He will think you are both bold and righteous, and he will keep you in your position as Commander! You'll be able to affect the change you want!"

"At what cost? My soul? No change is worth that."

"Am I worth it?" She sighed. "Things will be contained. His Majesty will not release the information of his intentions. He strikes painfully, yes, because he plays to win, but that is a side of him he keeps away from Oreia. He will not want the people to see it. To see who he really is. To question him. Even a little. He is the type of man who would never show his hand, or in this case, the depths of which he is willing to dig to get what he wants."
"A hideous fact."

"Yes," she agreed. "But a fact, nonetheless. And based solely on the idea that you are blindly devoted to his reign, he will wield you as his right hand, and you will wield him right back. I will help you. I promise you."

"I had plans to convince him another way. Through reason."

"No!" She was adamant. "No, never try to reason with him. He is far too skilled a player. You must learn to be flexible in image. You must always be playing the board, not just the piece in front of you. Look all around you, all the time." She took a shallow breath, followed by a deeper one.

"I am not that man," I said, shaking my head. "I am not conniving."

"God knows that," she said. "You're kind. And good. I know that. And you know that. Is that not enough if it means you stay with me? With us?" She touched her stomach.

"And if the rumor gets out? If it seeds itself into the castle's whispers? If it becomes a universal truth; Ser Elías would've killed a child?"

"No one could ever doubt you," she assured me, her face softening. "No one could ever think badly of you. Not with the way you carry yourself."

"Not even him?" I gestured to her belly. "Could he ever believe it?"

"I think..." she mused. "Only you can decide that. If you wish for our child to know who you truly are, I will follow your lead. But only you can tell him... and to do that... You have to be alive. You must learn to play this game. To hide in plain sight. It is the only way we will ever bear the chance. ...Assuming you do still want the chance?"

There was nothing more for several seconds as I tried to contemplate where she could've gotten the idea that I wanted anything else.

She grabbed her shawl off the rock bench next to her, and she swung it over her shoulders, heading up the stairs. "As I said, you'll be wanted soon. I know my husband. He will need to hear the story from its source. Have you talked to the other knight? It was Linen, right?"

"Eliza," I called.

"No, that's me," she teased. "And I've been here. You'll need to find Linen and—"

"We're to call him Ser Derek now," I said. "I vowed it."

"Alright ...Ser Derek, then." She paused. "If you can, catch Ser Derek and set him on whatever path you take, and do it before your audience with the King. He–"
"Eliza," I said harder.

"I know," she nodded. "I am... not like-minded to other women. I would say I was sorry for it, but I am not. I am hardened by the years of having to exist in society, and I do what I must to–"

"—I love you."

"You...?" She turned. "You... love me?" she asked.

"Yes."

She searched around us. "You haven't said that before."

"No."

"Then why now? I have no intention of telling His Majesty of your defiance, if that's what you fear?"

"Fear?" I asked. "No. I bear no fear, only a single worry," I told her. I reached for her arm as I walked up a couple steps to meet it and she began to cry. "This upsets you?" I begged.

"What is your worry?" she pried, uncertain.

"...That I have withheld these words for too long to be worthy of them. That you will not hear them from me another time."

She scoffed, bobbing her head at first, then shaking it. "You love me?"

"I do. Do you still love me?"

"...Say it again, and I'll decide."

"Oof," I hissed. "Spiteful woman."

Her teeth flashed at me, playfully. "Say it. Your Queen commands you."

"...I love you."

Eliza's face came to life with a ruinous smile. "You didn't even put up a fight," she whined. "Pathetic."

"No," I sang back. "And I will no longer. I should've told you the moment I first saw you. The moment you said it to me. The moment before I left, and the moment I came back. I love you and every bit of you."

"Ha. I'm sobbing in a crypt," she declared, wiping her face. "You love this bit of me, too? And the impulse to be mean to you for saying it at all?" she moaned.

"Yes. I love even the thorns," I laughed.

"You've lost your mind. A shame. I was so fond of it."

"Perhaps you'll like me better this way? I won't go back."

"That's a comforting threat," she hummed. "Boy. You've gone and made this dramatic now, haven't you? Look at me, I was nearly gathered again and now I'm a wreck."

"Oh, what was my doing?" I cocked a brow. "I'm not sobbing in a crypt."

"Oh!" Her jaw tightened as she moved up another foot.

"Your Majesty."

She rolled her eyes as she looked back. "Yes, Ser Elías?"

"I do not say you are what kept me breathing to be dramatic, as you have accused me... but because it is the truth. While I was away; while I was fighting, I thought of you and our child every moment. Even if he is not mine... He is mine. I promise you."

"You promise me? Do you? How can you love a child that isn't yours?"

"I fought through fire to come home to you, and you ask me how?"

"Right. And you're not dramatic." She bit her lip. "How very silly of me, Fool."

I should not have been surprised to find that Eliza's advice was right. I was able to convince His Majesty of the offense belonging to Ser Dalton, therefore, I remained in my position. Ser Derek rose to my side as my second, as I had promised him.

The King told us then, that he was not surprised we had been the men he needed. That he was proud of us, even... and I wasn't sure of Ser Derek's feelings on the matter, but I was haunted by his praise for many moons to come.

I will say, while the War was upon us suddenly, and made many things difficult... Seeing your mother was not one of them. It was too easy to continue to exist within the affair. Your father was strictly busy at all hours with his plotting... and I was blessed to be the one making decisions for the Guard. I did care about my men, and the Queen, and the castle, the staff, and everyone within these lands, but because I was where I was, I moved freer through the halls of this mountain than ever before.

I could assign there to be a vacancy where and when I desired it. Fill the voids as I saw fit, say outside your mother's chamber, and, because there were waves of attacks at our borders that called for several deployments of Blades, no one had any time to question whether I deserved to be where I was or not. They referred back to my victory at the Knights' Games, and to me as Lord Commander Elías, and I did my best to earn it.

Yet, no true leader ever ruled from behind a desk. A wisdom my uncle had imparted upon me once upon a time.

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