Nobody told him being king entailed meeting women whose eerie smile and sinister gaze could send all the hair on his arms to their ends. If they did, he wouldn't have gone through all the trouble, because he didn't want to be squirming on the throne while looking down at a woman with mahogany red hair who looked at him as if she knew everything about him.

Tobin swallowed against the lump growing in his throat. He didn't want to break the wall of tranquil thickening between them, because that'd be rude. This woman was ages older than him, and with her taut skin and pristine features, it's impossible to pinpoint an exact number.

Not that it mattered anyway. He knew this woman even before she stopped a few distances from the foot of the steps leading to the throne and gave him a quick, if not entirely disrespectful, dip.

"I am grateful for your decision to grant me an audience, Your Majesty," the woman said, teeth flashing against the afternoon sun glinting past the thick sheets of velvet covering the windows. Her tone betrayed her thoughts, though. She expected him to grant her an audience because she'd do something if he didn't—a veiled threat, but a thread nonetheless. He didn't need to be a king to catch that.

Tobin glanced at Ariam who stood by the side of the throne, a passive gaze pointed towards the woman. He would give a bounty to know what was going on inside the knight's head, if Arim distrusted every word out of the woman's mouth as well. If Ariam knew what Tobin and the rest of the Council did, it wouldn't be far-off.

The woman straightened and lowered the hand she put on her chest earlier to compliment her bow "I am the Sovereign," she said in flawless Ylanenla. "And I represent Synketros."

He took a deep breath and recalled every lesson about holding audiences the scholars taught him in the first week of his reign. "What have you come to me for?" he asked. It was a customary question to start off these proceedings.

The Sovereign's smile widened. "Synketros has heard of the plight Cardina has befallen after the coup," she said. "I am sure you recall that it was our soldiers who helped instill you on that throne."

His eyes narrowed. Was she implying they were the ones who put him on the throne, which made him under their thumb to begin with? Was he merely a puppet king, one controlled by strings and sticks during theater performances? If this woman was anything, she was utterly shameless. But hey, she was powerful enough to command an organization with enough people to storm a palace. She could afford to be haughty.

"We simply request that you honor our accidental partnership by turning it into a real one," the Sovereign finished. "I have come to ask for Your Majesty's approval to make Cardina Synketros' affiliate."

Tobin snuck a glance at Ariam again, but the soldier didn't move. He wasn't even looking at his king.

"I am afraid the captain of the guard has no right to provide you an answer, Your Majesty," the Sovereign's sardonic tone tore through the throne room, commanding his attention back to her. It was a relief the hall was empty, seeing as he sent all of the Council back to the Nobility region with the apology of taking up too much of their time. "We do not ask servants about decisions fit for kings."

At the surface, it looked like the Sovereign was admonishing him, reminding him of the authority he held, of his right, and of his power. But between the lines lay the threads of mockery, as if she implied he wasn't a king if he kept looking at Ariam for a sense of stability and assurance he wasn't doing anything embarrassing.

"What are your terms?" Tobin said instead, aiming to buy enough time and to make it seem Cardina was interested in the Sovereign's approach.

She gave a soft chuckle. "It appears you have found your stride." Her back straightened as she took a deep breath to prepare for the demands she prepared. "Should we push through this affiliation, Synketros will have a vote on how we proceed with things inside the territory. The Council will be composed of my aides, the duchy, and of course, you and me. To make things more interesting, Synketros is interested in your security as well as the criminal activity in the regions. It will serve you better to relegate control of the military."

To someone more experienced in using it for every means possible. The Sovereign didn't need to add it; Tobin could discern it painted beneath her sweet words and laced around her tone. She didn't come here to improve human lives. She's here because she had convinced herself Cardina had something she needed to fulfill her plans.

Whatever those plans could be, Tobin would be the last to know. It's not like he wanted to, anyway.

Tobin pretended to consider her terms, to mull in his head about the best way to turn the tides and make use of Synketros' offer to benefit the territory. He let it go on forever, testing the Sovereign's patience. Probably not the best thing to do, but it revealed a lot about her character.

She waited. Her features never faltered into a look of impatience and annoyance. She smiled at him as if she was thrilled to be here, standing in front of a young king from a lost dynasty. Her stance told him how proud she was at how he managed to crawl back to the throne stolen from his line by a friend. Gods of Calaris, if Tobin analyzed it to the barest bones, it looked like the Sovereign knew how that betrayal went because she had been there.

It's chilling to think, considering the Human-Fairy War happened a thousand years ago. Which made her...

He would have chuckled and shook his head had he not been in the Sovereign's presence. Nobody who was thousands of years old could have a sprightly form and a mind so cunning she had the guts to march into territories and lay out her demands. Then again, maybe because she was that old, making it easier to do them?

In the end, there was only one answer, and it's the one she wanted to hear. "The Crown accepts all your conditions," Tobin declared with a wave of his hand. "I will tell the Council to draft the official word after we speak. Captain?"

Ariam stepped forward and regarded Tobin. "Yes, Your Majesty?"

"See to it that it will be so," Tobin said. "Immediately."

The knight ducked his head without hesitation. He knew how to play his part well, Tobin had to give him that. "As you wish," he said.

Tobin turned back to the Sovereign who watched the entire exchange with a glint in her eye. "I suppose you and your aides will be visiting often?" he said. "Shall I reserve a wing in the palace for such occasions?"

"There is no need to do that, Your Majesty," the Sovereign put a hand to her chest and bowed again. "My aides and I will find ourselves a place to stay in this wonderful territory. I am sure there are a lot of estates willing to take us in."

Tobin's eye twitched at the impending doom he gleaned from her words. She didn't give him enough time to ponder about it further because she fixed her stance and leveled her gaze at him. "This is where I take my leave," she said. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Why did Tobin feel like he was the one being dismissed? "I enjoyed our time, Your Majesty, no matter how brief."

Before Tobin could say anything else—a farewell or something—she turned, and with a poof of light and soft breezes, was soon gone. The afternoon sunlight had dimmed into a stale shade of amber, fighting to burst past the curtains' influence during their entire talk. It didn't seem that long, but it was. Nevertheless, it marked the end of his long day, so he edged out of the stiff throne and started walking back to his room.

The corridors flanked with treasures untouched by the coup cluttered his periphery. Having walked these halls for as many times as he did, it's only given he could traverse this path on his own. Which didn't explain why the captain of the guard insisted on staying by his side, and apart from the Sovereign's watchful glare, stared at him as if intending to burn a hole through his head.

"What is it?" he whirled to Ariam as soon as he turned the last corner leading to the King's quarters. "Do you have something to say?"

"If I may, Your Majesty—"

"Tobin," he corrected.

Hesitation colored the knight's face, but he bobbed his head. "This is foolishness," Ariam waved his hands in the air to prove his point. "You just signed away Cardina's freedom. Our freedom."

Oh, really? He hadn't thought of that. What's freedom, anyway?

"It is reckless, playing right into the Sovereign's grasp," the Captain of the Guard continued, following Tobin beyond the arch—a point where the servants and soldiers were to stop and not bother the King anymore. "You just gave her the answer she wanted."

Tobin whirled back to the knight. "Exactly!" he hissed, lowering his voice to a sharp whisper in fear of unwanted ears listening through walls, or air, or the shadows bleeding from their feet. He looked around and cleared his throat, bringing his tone back to the commanding demeanor he adopted most often than not. "We only need to comply with the Sovereign's demands in the days to come. We do not need to rack and knock our heads together in trying to fix this territory."

He had a visible point. He inherited a broken throne, and the problems that came with it weren't his problems at all. Sure, he's affected at some point, but life would go on without the monarchs and their policies. If he didn't become king, he would still be in the fields—attending to the herds, drying up leathers, and tilling the soil so he could have a fresh harvest of ovone, pumkess, and fresda before the dry season rolls in again. None of the trade policies, the schemes in economic revival, or the Synketrian take-over would have made a difference to how he lived every day.

The Royalty and the Nobility were a million fortweres away, and it should always be so.

Ariam, obviously, wasn't satisfied with his answer or with the reasoning behind it. Perhaps he heard from the Council the transgressions Synketros had made to other territories since they started making their presence known. Perhaps he had found out some things during his time as the Captain of the Guard. Better yet, maybe he had the first-hand experience to argue the Sovereign didn't have any of their best interests in mind, and to that, Tobin would agree.

Tobin moved towards his room once more, but Ariam leaped in front of him, arms splayed open. A look of distress flashed across the knight's face upon realizing what he just did. "I–I am...I apologize, Your Majesty," he tucked his arms to his side and bowed so low his upper form was now parallel to the ground. "I pray that your punishment will be light."

Which begged the question about how the previous monarchs treated their men to condition them like this. Tobin wasn't a proper king, so he merely waved a hand and urged the knight to stand upright.

"Come with me," he whispered and grasped the golden arm brace circling Ariam's limb.

Before the knight could utter anything other than a shocked gurgle, Tobin steered away from the King's quarters and retraced their steps back to the throne hall. From there, he looked left and right, noting the absence of people from every blind spot he could have had. When everything looked good, he tackled the west exit and came across the lush gardens and the towering arches holding up the walls and bridges in between palaces.

The sight never failed to amaze him, urging him to stop and gawk at the spires jutting from the ground and aiming for the skies. The flags waving at him from their tips, albeit some torn and covered in dust, never stopped commanding a sense of reverence from him. This region, despite the traces of spilled blood and hidden atrocities scattered upon its surface, was a sight to see.

Ariam was mute behind him, looking towards his metal-tipped boots trudging across the unkempt grass carpeting the region's gardens. Tobin wasn't in the mood to talk, but he was eager to show the captain what he had discovered on the many times he got lost.

When he saw a huge chunk from one of the spires which had fallen to the ground, he knew he was close. He started jogging towards the tower it belonged to, forcing Ariam to do the same just to catch up. He stopped only when he was at the foot and planted a hand on the polished stone wall.

"Feel this," Tobin said, attempting to catch his breath at the same time.

Ariam, compelled by the king's word as well as his own curiosity, copied Tobin's gesture.

Tobin focused on the unworldly warmth tickling his fingertips. It seemed to be coming out of the quarry the tower was carved from, but he knew it wasn't the case. Something happened in this tower, and if the reports were to be trusted, this was also where the Queen met her end.

The real question was—what happened in this tower?

Tobin wasn't expecting an answer to that, but he did discover something about it when he wandered inside. "Let us go inside," he said upon seeing the confused look Ariam threw him after touching the wall. "I have to show you something."

The door to the tower's base opened with a shriek, the rusty hinges threatening to pop if Tobin swung hard enough. Ariam ducked inside, in time for Tobin to shut it behind them. Past the door, the veil of the strange magic was heavier, pressing against them like an unrelenting mortar. He craned his neck up, squinting against the shadow of the winding steps and the shaft of fading sunlight shining through the huge hole eaten through one part of the ceiling.

"What is this place?" Ariam lowered his gaze at Tobin after he finished examining the scene. "It is teeming with magic. I did not even need to look into the trail dimension to feel it."

Tobin bobbed his head. "It is not just a broken tower," he said. "I discovered it some time ago, but this place...it's a sanctuary."

Ariam frowned. "How so?"

"The magic in this tower is strong enough to deflect most of the spells the scholars know," Tobin waved his hand in the air to demonstrate his point. "I made them try it, and it is as if the air itself was rejecting their spells. And if it is capable of doing that..."

The gears in Ariam's head seemed to have clicked in place. "It is capable of deflecting the Sovereign." He snapped his fingers only to put them on his chin pensively. "But what did we come here for?"

Tobin clenched his jaw and turned to face the knight fully. Being angry at how he signed off Cardina's freedom gave him the right to be trusted with this dangerous mission Tobin was about to give him.

"You asked me how I could give away our freedom to that wicked witch," Tobin said. "It is rather simple. I did it because it is safer to concoct a plan underneath the Sovereign's nose while she thinks we are being compliant."

Ariam's eyes widened. "A hedil can bring down a human with a bite."

Tobin bobbed his head. The saying was generated by studying the behavior of a hedil. They were insects capable of using magic to hide themselves from plain sight and often used it to lay their eggs on fruits and other stationary objects. If threatened enough, they were known to turn on humans, wrapping tendrils of energy around their opalescent bodies before coming out of nowhere and delivering their deadly bite. While Tobin hadn't personally witnessed such adverse effects, he'd heard enough reports from the Common healers about how many had suffered after being bit by one.

In short, by being a hedil to the Sovereign's eyes, Tobin intended to bring Synketros to the ground with a single, venomous strike.

"Can I trust you with this plan, Ariam?" Tobin laid a hand on the knight's shoulder as a friend would to his comrade.

Ariam ducked his head before meeting Tobin's gaze. "Certainly, Your M—Tobin."

Tobin smiled and patted Ariam's shoulder pads which clinked under the impact of his knuckles. "Well, then," he said. "This is the plan."