Chapter 188: My King, You Look Wasted

The sun was setting when he returned to his chambers, his body screaming for rest, his mind still churning.

A servant helped him remove his training clothes. Another brought water for washing. By the time Kaelen was alone again, the evening was deepening toward true night, the candles lit in his chambers casting dancing shadows across the stone walls.

He stood at the window of his sitting room, looking out over the palace grounds.

The day of decisions had exhausted the kingdom in ways he could feel even from this distance. Word of the Selection’s ending would be spreading through every house, every servant’s quarter, every noble dining room in the capital. The machinery of political consequence was already grinding into motion.

But that was not what occupied Kaelen’s mind.

What occupied him was the simple fact that Morgana was no longer surrounded by competition. The noble daughters were being sent home. The Selection was over. The framework that had defined her position in the palace was dissolving.

Which meant everything had changed.

Which meant the hunger that GLACIUS had been fighting for weeks, that Kaelen himself had been fighting, could no longer be denied by circumstance or strategy.

He needed her.

The realization was not new, it had been building since the moment he cupped her face in his hands at dinner, since he watched her eat from his spoon, since she asked him for something and he gave it without hesitation. But now, with the Selection ended, with the political framework shifted, with nothing standing between them but time and opportunity, the hunger was becoming something that could not be controlled by reason or strategy.

It was becoming something that demanded action.

Kaelen reached for the bottle of whiskey that sat on the table beside his chair. He poured a glass and drank it slowly, the burn of the alcohol doing nothing to calm the fire underneath his skin.

He was still holding the glass when the knock came at his door.

"Enter," Kaelen called, not turning from the window.

The door opened, and Lysander stepped into the chamber.

Lysander had served Kaelen for nearly a decade. He was perhaps in his early thirties, with dark hair and the kind of face that suggested he had seen much of the palace’s hidden workings. He moved with the ease of someone who understood his king completely, who knew when to speak and when to remain silent, who understood the line between service and something approaching friendship.

He did not bow or scrape. Instead, he simply began his work.

The training clothes were gathered from where Kaelen had discarded them on the floor. The empty whiskey bottle from the previous night was retrieved. A cup that had been left on the shelf was collected. The chamber, which showed signs of Kaelen’s restless agitation, was being slowly restored to order.

As Lysander worked, he spoke.

"The palace is becoming lively again, my King," he observed, moving around the sitting room with practiced efficiency. "Did you hear the excitement in the kitchens this morning?"

Kaelen did not respond, simply continued looking out the window.

Lysander pressed on, undeterred. He had been doing this long enough to know that sometimes his king needed to hear the world’s mundane details while his mind worked through larger problems.

"The stable boys are betting on which noble house will be most angry about the Selection ending," Lysander continued, setting a chair that had been overturned back into its proper place. "Young Marcus....you know, the one with the red hair and no sense, he thinks House Thornwell will send someone directly to lodge a complaint. Foolish boy."

Lysander shook his head as he moved to collect more items from around the chamber. A discarded training belt. A book that had been left on the floor. A set of arm guards.

"And the maids have been talking," Lysander said, his voice taking on the lighter tone of one sharing servant gossip. "They say once the daughters leave, there will be less work in the halls. Less laundry from the noble guests, less food to prepare for the constant entertaining. Though I doubt it. The kings will simply find other ways to keep them occupied."

He paused, looking at his king, assessing him with the comfortable familiarity of long service.

"The talk in the kitchens is all about celebrations, my King. Once the daughters are finally gone, some of the servants think there might be feasting, or at least a night where the usual rigid rules relax slightly. Simple people have simple hopes."

Lysander continued his circuit around the chamber, his hands moving from task to task with practiced grace. He adjusted the curtains slightly, ensuring the candles were positioned safely, straightened the books on the shelves.

The work was simple, routine, the kind of servant’s labor that happened thousands of times daily in the palace and was never truly noticed unless it went undone.

But the talking mattered more than the doing.

Lysander had learned long ago that his king sometimes needed to hear the world described aloud while he was trapped in his own thoughts.

Lysander had finished collecting most of the obvious disorder when he finally positioned himself directly in front of Kaelen.

The king was still at the window, the glass of whiskey held loosely in his hand, his pale eyes fixed on something beyond the palace grounds.

Lysander studied his king carefully.

In the candlelight, with the exhaustion of hours at the training grounds written across his features, Kaelen looked like what he was: a dragon barely contained in human form. The tension in his shoulders. The burn in his pale eyes. The way his jaw was clenched so tightly it seemed the bone might break.

This was not the careful Kaelen who had been managing the Selection. This was not the youngest king controlling his beast through strategy and distance. This was something rawer, something closer to the surface.

"My King," Lysander said quietly, "you look wasted."