The corridor of the upper Palace ran the length of the central wing in pale stone and gold trim, lit at this hour by the late evening sun coming through the high arched windows. The kind of corridor designed to make people walk slowly and look impressed.
Flaure was walking at a normal pace and was not impressed. She had walked this corridor for centuries.
Footsteps behind her—fast, soft, the particular footsteps of household staff catching up with someone who was not supposed to be kept waiting. She stopped without turning around.
"Your Majesty."
The servant came around to her front and bowed. Letter in hand. Sealed.
"From a Mister Lethryniel," Sebastian said. "Delivered this morning."
Flaure's expression did not change in any way that a casual observer would have noticed.
"Very good, Sebastian." She accepted the letter. "Have there been others?"
"Others, Your Majesty?"
"Other letters from the same name? I want the records checked. Anything that might have arrived under that name and been processed without reaching me."
"It has already been done, Your Majesty. As you instructed. There are no prior records."
Flaure paused.
"You confirmed before I asked."
"You instructed last week that any correspondence under the Lethryniel name was to be flagged and prioritized. I confirmed the records the same day."
A small, quiet, genuinely pleased smile crossed Flaure's mouth before she put it away.
"Very good," she said again, with slightly more warmth. "Thank you."
Sebastian bowed and left. Flaure tucked the letter inside her sleeve and resumed walking.
She had taken three steps when the wind hit her.
It was not real wind. It was the wind made by something moving very quickly through a corridor, that had swiftness no ordinary could reach. Her cape lifted briefly off her shoulders. The hem of her robe rippled.
A man knelt in front of her where, two seconds ago, no one had been.
Black uniform. The insignia of the Vanguard at his collar. Head bowed.
"Your Majesty."
"Report."
"Northern district church—empty. Central, western, southern districts—all confirmed empty. Today's report from the eastern district also empty. The Seer is not at any known Sanctuary location."
Flaure's teeth found her thumbnail.
She did not bite down yet.
The Vanguard officer was still kneeling. Awaiting dismissal. Patient.
A second set of footsteps came up the corridor behind her. Slower than the Vanguard's, but quick—the brisk efficient pace of a Palace Affairs officer with paperwork.
"Your Majesty."
She turned. He bowed.
"Report from the South Gate residency office. Refugees and slum residents have been gathering in unusual numbers along the black-sand coast outside the wall over the past several days. They appear to be forming a procession. The residency officer estimates between two and three hundred people, increasing daily, moving collectively toward an unspecified destination."
Flaure bit her thumbnail down to the quick.
"Your Majesty—" the Vanguard officer began.
"Your Majesty!" the Palace Affairs officer continued.
A third set of footsteps. A clerk, very young, holding a stack of papers and looking like he had been sent to deliver something and had not anticipated finding the corridor full of higher-ranking people. He saw the situation, his face shifted, and he opened his mouth to add the only sentence he was equipped to deliver.
"Your Majesty—"
The thumbnail tore.
"Your Majesty—!"
"Your Majesty—!"
"Your Majesty—!"
Flaure took a small breath.
"Ahem," she said.
The corridor went silent.
She lowered her hand.
She looked at the clerk. The clerk had developed the slightly translucent expression of a man who was reconsidering several life choices in approximately one second.
"Whatever you are bringing me," she said, with the warm efficient tone of someone who had been performing serenity for a long time and was good at it, "Sebastian will handle. Yes?"
"Y-yes, Your Majesty."
"Excellent."
The clerk fled.
The Palace Affairs officer, sensing his moment, bowed deeply and began to add context to his report. Flaure listened with a perfect attentive expression for ninety seconds, gave him three short instructions that were mostly correct, and dismissed him to act on them.
He left.
The corridor was empty except for the kneeling Vanguard.
She turned to him.
"Claude," she said.
He raised his head.
"I need someone in the southern district. The procession at the coast. Discreetly—Infiltration, not engagement. Find out where they think they are going." She paused. "You are still the fastest of the Vanguard. Among the artifact-bearers."
Claude smirked, very slightly. The smirk did not reach insubordination, but it walked the property line.
"It is gracious of Your Majesty," he said, "to acknowledge the speed of one whose protective artifact was, after all, gifted by Her own divine hand."
Flaure looked at him.
"By Your Majesty's will," he continued, with the smooth insincere humility of a man who had practiced exactly this tone in mirrors. "Your radiant and merciful command from that divine temptation of a lips shall be obeyed."
He bowed once. Stood. Was gone in roughly two seconds, leaving only the small vacuum of displaced air where he had been standing.
Flaure remained still in the corridor for a moment.
Her cheeks, very faintly, were warm.
She bowed her head slightly so that no passing servant would see her expression.
"That insufferable—" she muttered.
She continued walking.
---
The royal bedchamber occupied the highest floor of the palace and was the only place in the building where Flaure was reliably alone.
She closed the door behind her, locked it, walked across the room, and let herself fall face-first onto the bed.
"Hhhhh!"
The exhale was very long. It went on for several seconds. By the time it ended she had reached out, captured the long bolster pillow that lived along the headboard, and pulled it down into a hug. She rolled onto her side with the bolster against her chest, then onto her back, then onto her side again, in the unhurried distressed motion of a woman who had been performing composure for several hours and had finally been given permission to stop.
She had not even bathed yet.
She did not bathe yet.
She lay there with the bolster for some time.
---
After approximately fifteen minutes she sat up, retrieved the letter from her sleeve, and broke the seal.
"All right," she said aloud, to no one. "Let's see if you can finally tell me why you keep using my last name."
She unfolded the paper.
"Or if you're just a stalker," she continued, conversationally, to the letter. "Some weirdo who decided he liked the sound of *Lethryniel* and is going to ride that name into the sunset—" She rolled onto her stomach and propped herself on her elbows. "—and propose marriage by the third letter."
She paused.
"Although," she added, more quietly, "if you looked like Claude, I might consider it."
She kicked her feet against the mattress once, slowly.
"Oh, what am I saying. I'm leading a country. And you can't even be bothered to sign your real name?"
She began to read.
Her smile faded by the first and only line.
"...may be a god?"
She blinked.
She read the line again.
She read the line a third time.
"One who may be a god?" she repeated. "What does that even — who? Who may be a god? You? Me? wait I'm already one. Some third party? Why are you writing this to me?"
Flaure scanned the rest of the letter. It did not become more helpful. The previous letter had been similarly cryptic — a few elegant fragments, no clear referent, the kind of writing that gave the impression of a meaning without ever quite landing on one.
She threw the letter onto the bedside table.
"This person istoo strangeughh," she said to the canopy of her bed. "Two letters. Two. And neither of them said anything understandable for me AT! ALL!"
She was quiet for a moment.
"...what does that mean. May be a god."
She rolled over onto her back. Stared at the ceiling.
"Nothing makes sense today."
She reached over and turned the lamp down.
The room went dark.
Somewhere in the wall opposite the bed, the dim shape of a sleeping queen, pillow held tight, her bare foot hanging slightly off the edge of the bed.
The mirror held the image.
---
Somewhere in a room undescribed—a woman smiled, a small satisfied smile.
"Lucia Lethryniel.. never failed to impress me.."