"You dumb fool," Svana said. "The Games are insanely difficult if that was not obvious by Ser Erik's injury in training. You should not have agreed to them so young!"

"I think you're missing the part where I didn't have a choice," I said. "Unfortunately, someone had told her what I'd said after the party, I learned. She was so offended. This... This was your mother's way of leveling the field between us."

"You could have apologized then," she insisted. "Perhaps if you had swallowed that pride, she would have released you from the bet, Candy."

"Be that as it may, I was a very a stupid man. And don't make me regret telling you that nickname."

"You already should, I will now never not call you Can—"

"—I think it's important to note, so that it's clear, I had no idea the wiles of a woman. Let alone what it meant for my ego to be bruised. Up until Eliza, I had never had an ego to put on display, for anyone."

"Again, dumb fool," she sang.

"I find it funny you should say that," I told her. "Your mother once donned me with the very same accusation."

By this point in our story, I had been honored with being Her Majesty's Knight for a little over a few weeks...

In that time, I never experienced another one of her 'lows.' It was all sunshine and smiles, that disarming thing across her face– and, on one of those mornings, I even witnessed her greeting a cardinal in the gardens.

It wasn't long before I realized the occasional, witty insult was simply her way of forming a connection with somebody. She wasn't trying to be mean. She was just...

Eliza wasn't like the ladies of the court.

While her social calendar remained too bland for any real interest, I did have an ample amount of time to entertain the differences between her nature and those she encountered. That of the Countesses', a particular Duchess', and the random assortment of other parties'. What I found the most prominent fact, lunch after lunch, tea after tea, was that Eliza was exactly as Uncle Dalton had portrayed her.

Kind.

She didn't listen to other women when they would kick up the sands of gossip– She shut it down. She was always very polite to the maids and the help at other estates, and she not only learned the names of each and every person she spoke to, class aside, but she retained and used them.

She was a stark contrast to your father in that sense. It may come as a shock to you, but most staff and knights talk amongst themselves. And I would hear them and what they would say about His Majesty.

War-torn, they'd remark. Stressed, and stretched thin across politics and taxes. Chalke was ready for the War, and your father, he was... Too excited to initiate it.

I think he enjoyed violence more than any man should ever admit.

There was a day, a night actually, that by chance, and on my way to the barracks, I happened upon a young woman I recognized from your mother's agenda. She was a petite young thing, red hair that stuck out against the hour's cloudy sky.

I wasn't sure why she was where she was, so I stepped into an alcove and watched her pass through the back door. The servant's door, the door that connected our barracks house to the castle. Any other man might have assumed she had been there to see a Knight and called it a day. But she wasn't entering any part of the Knights Quarters, or coming from them. She was entering the castle.

I waited a few moments before I followed her in. She wasn't hard to locate, womens' heels make a lot of noise against these stone floors. I was; however, very confused to find her at the door of the Master Chamber. I left. I went to bed, and I should've forgotten what I saw, but instead I sought my uncle's counsel in the morning, in his office, in the servants hall.

"Is it common that the King and Queen invite outsiders into their bed?" I'd asked. It seemed like a fair question and the only real explanation for the late caller, but what did I know of royalty?

He lost the contents of his stein as he choked on my words. "Come again??" he urged.

"The King," I closed the door. "And the Queen. Do they often... entertain...?"

"No," he said. "I comprehended the words. Not their meaning. The meaning of your asking, rather."

"I see. I saw someone enter the Master Chamber last night, and–"

"Ah," he nodded. He set his mug down, wiping the splashed coffee off his desk and loose parchment. "You do realize the King and Queen have separate chambers? Yes?"

"Well," I considered it. "I..." had not. I had always met the Queen at the Library. She and Cory arrived in tandem at the start of every day. I assumed she and her husband shared a bedroom, but now that I had revisited the castle layout, the woman had knocked on the door just south of the room I knew to be Her Majesty's. They still had to be conjoining, I thought. "I don't follow."

"Christ," Dalton said. He crossed his arms. "The King and the Queen sleep separately." He waited to see if I could catch up. "In separate rooms. Separate beds."

The addition is what it took. "In separate...? Oh!" I gasped. "Then did I...? Wait. What did I see?"

He sighed, returning to his work. "One of the King's many acquaintances, I would assume. What did she look like?"

"How do you know it was a she?"

He narrowed his eyes at me.

"Right." I swallowed. "But that's... adultery. What you're suggesting?"

"I am suggesting nothing," he said. His eyes found the door as if someone might barge in. "What I am saying is that you should forget about His Majesty's friends."

"But I– Wait? Friends, plural?"

"You nothing. If you ever intend to replace me at this post, you must realize something, and quickly so. We are not here to whisper secrets, or tattle tale on the King's sins. We are here to hide them, protect the Oreian people from their consequences, and help His Majesty win this war. And any other war there is to come."

I paused. "The Oath says–"

"I know what the Oath says. I live the Oath."

What he had said was not the truth, if he was so adamant about covering these lies. I had studied the Oath of Chivalry. I had memorized every word since I could read it. The foundation it was harbored on was composed of Honor, Honesty, Justice and Loyalty.

It said, right there in the text; 'at all times to speak the truth, and to respect the honor of women.'

The Queen was indeed a woman, and I was in possession of something that would injure her honor.

"I do want to see you succeed. You are like a son to me, I hope you know."

I nodded, obediently, but the air was thick.

Before I left, Uncle offered me a final; "Do worry about yourself, Candy." I think he used the tag to bring a little humor back into the room.

Some days I wish it hadn't bothered me so much. That I was born the kind of man that could discover something so awful and still hide it from its conception. Instead, that was a learned survival skill that I'd have to find.

The secret didn't take long to fester.

It tore across my soul, eating away at it, like a sickness, and overnight. By the time that I had left my bunk, I had diverted off my usual route to the Library, and, in a flurry of urgency, I dispatched towards Her Majesty's chamber. No regard for orders or decency, though I did have the presence of mind to knock instead of barge in.

Cory's face was already knit in confusion when she saw the visitor was me.

"What do you want?" she asked. "Her Majesty is not composed."

"I," I realized I had arrived rather abruptly and against the Queen's strict expectations. "Apologies," I stumbled.

"Who is it, Cory?" I heard her say.

"It's your Blade," the maid sang back. "He looks scared."

"I'm not scared," I hissed. "I should have not have arrived here like this. Please extend my condolences to Her Majesty, I will—"

"I should have known," Eliza moaned. "Always with the theatre. Go on then. Let him in."

"Your Majesty?" Cory hummed.

"Now. Before anyone sees him."

My heart raced; my eyes darted around the hall. Someone could see me!

When I was in the room, the lady's maid closed the door behind me and she scurried back to tend to brushing Eliza's long waves. They shared a quiet swap of words.

"What is it?" Eliza asked. She didn't meet my face, or even seem bothered to receive my company.

I noticed immediately that she was only partially gathered; she was sitting at the vanity in her chemise. At least her corset had already been tied. But the silhouette of it caught my attention, and I breathed rather sharply.

When she repeated her question, her reflection found mine in the mirror. My eyes must have traveled to Cory's presence too quickly, because she understood my hesitation, and well.

"Leave us," she told her maid.

"Alone?" the other asked.

"I shall scream very loudly if I should require you to fetch someone for me," she said. "But I do not think Ser Elías is whom we must worry about. He is my Knight. I'm often alone with him in town and in the carriages, you'll recall."

"Aye," Cory agreed. With a stout nod she went into the corridor, and shut the door.

"Yes?" Eliza turned on the stool, placing her hands into her lap, over the climbing edge of her slip.

"Your Majesty." I was so disheveled.

"You've never looked worse, Elías." It was the first time she'd ever dropped the Ser for me. "Did you run here?"

"I would never injure you," I said clumsily.

That tilted her head. "What a strange thing to announce. I do hope not. I've trusted myself alone with you. In my bedroom, no less. Like this."

"I meant," I gestured towards the exit. "You told Miss Coraline you would scream?"

"A jest," she said, sighing. "You are very lucky I have been given the chance to learn your temperament before this moment, as I have decided to ask you once more before I must have you removed; what is it you want?"

"I..." I heard the Oath chorus in my head. I had to tell her, I knew I did. I just didn't know how.

"Right." I watched her mouth come together, and if I had been less distracted by the red she'd painted her lips, I might have stuttered less.

"The King," I blurted, shaking my head. "Apologies," I struggled. "His Majesty. He? You?"

"He? Me?" She waited.

"The other night... I... I'm so sorry I must be the one to tell you, but I cannot lie in silence upon this terror I have discovered. I must, I must tell you, and I am, again, so very sorry, I–"

"Oh, I see what's happening here," she declared. She might have laughed somewhat, but her legs swung back around to the vanity and she started to dress her ears and hands with jewelry.

"Beg your pardon?" I started. "I have something rather serious to– Something awful–!"

She stalked me, back in her mirror. "Awful is it? Oh my... Are you quite finished?"

"Finished? ...Your Majesty, I have not even–"

I felt a distinct drop in my gut. I was certain I was about to be flogged, or hanged, or, God knew what. She was clearly mad with power. If I told this woman what I knew, how long did I have before she would she tell the King that it came from my mouth? Would she embellish it? Did I actually see what I saw?

Finally she spoke, rescuing me from my dismay. "You're dumb aren't you?" were her words.

"...What?"

"Dumb. Lame. Sloow. You're an idiot? Yes?"

"I'm afraid I do not follow?"

"How could you, given the capacity in which you understand things?" She smirked.

There was a weird silence between us, and she spun around again, standing from her chair. Eliza approached me with a very serious hunt about her and she eyed me from the floor up.

"Your Maj—?"

"You're here to confess that you've seen my beloved husband misbehaving? Am I correct?"

I paused. "You know?"

She was unfazed. The Queen strut across the floor and laid her hand on a book by her nightstand. "And you believe it's necessary to tell me this? Why?"

I was confused; she cut me off again.

"Look at you. You're a mess. You did you run here, didn't you? Half the Capitol will have heard your armor ringing down the halls by now. I thought a band had arrived for some event I'd forgotten about."

"I don't—"

"Do you like to read, Ser Elías?"

"I... Yes. But I don't–?"

"Your uncle, Dalton, you're his ward. Therefore I could have guessed this fact about you, without your declaration. Do you know how?"

"...I do not."

"It's simple really. I'm not an idiot."

"I never—!"

"—Noo, of course not. You'd never call your queen an idiot. Not in those words. Not to her face. You'd only boast about her reception of you at a party, never taking into account that perhaps she was upset over something else. Say His Majesty. It had to be about you, personally. Am I far off?"

"If I've offended you? I've only meant," I hurried. "I came here with the purest intention of sparing your honor!"

"Ser Dalton and his boys, they all like to read. It's only natural you would be raised the same. I'm told you intend to be Lord Commander one day. You'd have to be well versed in many things for that. Well educated. And not once, but twice, I've caught you perusing the shelves of my library. That room was a gift from His Majesty, you know?"

"I am sorry, I do not mean to overstep. I'll never—"

"Just as Lady Abigail of Chesire's mother slept around, her fair faced daughter does the same. That is who you saw, yes? Red hair?" She rolled her eyes. "Frail little doe we had sandwiches with last week? She told you she liked the pony on your armor, yes? She seems to be the favorite as of late."

"I–"

"I won the King's hand, surely you remember?"

"Of course I do, it was Empire news."

"Thirty of us Ladies, all competing for one heart. And I won."

"Yes."

"Because I pay attention. I look for details. I study. I read. Where I cannot; I have someone else. I use that information to my advantage. My mother taught me to survive. I may look the part, but I assure you, I am not the fool you take me for. You have never, and will never meet a force such as the one that stands before you now."

"...I do not think you're a fool, my Queen."

"Good. Then you and I will remain friends," she smiled for only a moment before the second half of her statement pulled the corners of her mouth back down. "And I'll go further and rephrase my original inquiry to you, in a manner I think you can keep up with."

"Alright..."

"Do you think so little of your Crown, that a husband whoring around is enough to wound it? Or do you not see me as your better, but your worse? A damsel in distress, that exists solely in the need of your righteous saving?"

I flustered.

"My mother would say, the Queen should be as sharp as the Blade that protects her. There will be a time he cannot come."

I could feel how hot my face was; I could do nothing about it. "I do not know what I think." Her brow arched. "But it is not that," I assured her. "It is nothing ill of your wit. Or distress. I– I will say, and I do not wish to insult your mother, before you accuse me of that, but there will be no time that I do not come for your call. I am no coward!"

The corner of her mouth twitched.

"If anything," I went on. "This has been a proper dressing down, and I wish only to convey my remorse for my interference. And for the poor judgment I used when expressing my concerns about your feelings. I–"

"Stop apologizing," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"...Dumb is fine," she sang to me. "You may be a fool, but at least you're a noble fool. And apparently my noble fool. Do not mistake, I realize the implication of your little act of bravery here. I bet you were shaking the whole way here. Chivalry must run so very deeply through those veins of yours, dear Ser, for you to forsake your King. How very dangerous nobility can be for a man in your position."

"I know," I muttered. "But I thought—"

"Think nothing of it. A dumb fool is.... Well. There are worse things you could be." She pointed to the skirt laying on the bed. "Now. If you would be so kind as to scurry off to the Library and wait for me there. I would like to get ready. Certainly this has been enough of a show for you?"

"Oh Heavens! You mercy, I apologize! A thousand times!"

"Just once will do, Ser Elías. No need to ten-fold everything."

"Of course, Your Majesty."

"Your Majesty. Your Majesty. Your Majesty. ...Eliza will be fine."

I paused just as she had said it, my hand stalling at the handle. "...I could never," I whispered.

She grinned. "Of course not. Not in public, Fool. But when we're alone, as a fair trade for your devotion, I should allow it. Besides, I rather like how similar mine is to yours. Eliza. Elías."

I had twisted at the waist to see her face, just as she formed my name, drawing out the middle of it. She was too busy stepping into her dress to realize I had taken notice.

"Don't you?" she asked.

"...I could never."

"One last thing, Blade." She pulled the shoes out from beneath her bed as I gripped the door. "In the future, when you come to my chamber unannounced, you'll be more discreet."

"When I...?"

"And if no one's told you," she went on, "You don't have to wear the entire metal get-up on Castle grounds. Your lighter armor will do. It'll be far quieter, at the least."

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