Page 43 of Maksym

That answer opened my eyes. My father rarely granted theology the dignity of sincerity. The Creator, The Goddess, fate—he treated them as powers to be acknowledged when useful and defied when necessary.

“But cruelty is not the only possible end,” he continued. “Listen to me, Maksym.”

“I am listening.”

“Good. Then hear what I say and not merely what your instincts dislike. Your bond will demand closeness. It will lie to you in the language of protection. It will tell you that fear is danger, that distance is abandonment, that her pain requires your hands immediately.”

Every word struck too accurately.

“You must not obey every truth it tells you,” he said. “A thing may be true and still not be yours to act upon.”

I said nothing.

“She will find her way to you, or she will not. You cannot drag her across that distance and call it destiny. Patience. Presence. Those are required of you now. Not possession. Not proof. Not grand vows that ask her to comfort your guilt by believing them.”

I looked down at my empty hand.

“She asked if she was alone,” I said.

“And what did you tell her?”

“That she was not.”

“Then make the words true, quietly.”

Quietly. The simplest commands were often the most difficult.

“I do not know how to hold this,” I admitted.

The confession entered the room like blood in water. My father did not seize upon it. He did not correct the vulnerability or tell me I was a king and should already know the shape of all burdens. He let the sentence exist.

“No,” he said at last. “You do not. No man does when it first happens.”

His voice softened by a degree that would have been invisible to anyone who had not spent centuries learning the makeup of his restraint.

“You will fail in small ways. Apologize quickly. Learn faster. Do not make your pain larger than hers. Do not mistake the bond for love, but do not dishonor it by treating it as an inconvenience only. It chose both of you. That means both of you must survive what it has interrupted.”

I breathed once. Slowly.

“And Devereux?” I asked.

“Find the body before you cut the throat.”

It was a blessing and a command.

“Yes, Father.”

“But when the time comes, son?”

The old country sharpened the last word.

“Yes?”

“Leave enough of him for me to recognize.”

The line went dead.

Exhaustion pulled me toward my bedchamber. I had given Grace my room and taken the one across the hall. I stopped before I intended to.