Chapter 3: The Empty Room (#2)

The next day, the queen walked towards her study with the weight of Dyan's letter pinned to her chest. His absence had left a hollow that ached with every step. Two weeks, she thought, might be a short time for some things, but for the important ones, they feel like eternities, especially when reason aches like a thorn lodged in the heart. The worst part was knowing that none of her duties allowed her to stop and heal the wound; instead, she had to press on with it open, pretending everything was under control.

Every evening, after finishing her duties, Eleanor found herself alone—she no longer had her advisor to consult, nor anyone to confide her doubts in. And every morning, the urgency of royal matters forced her to dress and leave without respite. Dyan's letter had reproached her in a way that didn't seek to hurt, but every word had sunk deep: "You were my light for many years…" She, who had cast him out of the palace with shouts, had branded him a traitor without daring to show her own sorrow. Now, every phrase from the wizard resonated with painful precision in her mind.

In front of the ancient oak gate that opened into the East Wing corridor, Sir Armand Levet waited with the impeccable rigidity of a marble pillar. Even the armor he wore seemed to have absorbed his tension.

Eleanor sighed and gestured him in with a cold movement. She knew that, for him, her study was becoming more a temple than a home.

"Majesty." Armand stood at attention and lowered his gaze for a moment, respectful. "Good day."

"And you? Shouldn't you already be choosing the delegate to quell the revolt?" she responded brusquely, as they walked through the hall adorned with family banners. "Unless you prefer to know firsthand the matter I have in mind."

Armand tilted his head, regaining his composure.

"I have already appointed a competent captain. He departed this dawn with a small squadron, in case negotiations fail and a show of force is necessary."

Eleanor crossed the threshold of her study, where tables were piled high with mountains of parchments and open books. Everything retained the scent of melted wax and fresh ink, as if awaiting her orders.

She paused by the window overlooking the inner garden, where maids swept the paths and a group of guards patrolled slowly, amidst the warm morning air. From there, she could even see the palace's high gates: a reminder of her limits, or perhaps, of her golden cage.

She turned to Armand without looking away from the view.

"What do you think will happen if those men are executed?" she asked, without looking at his documents. "For every pardon you deny, there will be a family that holds a grudge against the crown. How can I continue to be Eleanor 'The Benevolent' if I start erasing my own subjects?"

Armand pressed his lips together. He knew the queen spoke from an ancestral place in her heart, but his duty weighed on him just as heavily as on her.

"Wise words, my queen," he replied sincerely. "Perhaps there is a more conciliatory way, though…"

"I'm not seeking diplomacy," she interrupted, turning her gaze back to the cluttered table. "I seek justice, justice with measure."

The warrior nodded and waited, giving her space to decide. Finally, she sat behind the desk, her face barely visible among piles of parchments.

"There are other matters postponed during these last few weeks," she said at last.

"I know, Majesty. I will keep your priorities in mind when returning to the Councils." Armand bowed slightly, attentive.

"Send a missive to the new Archmage," she ordered. "I need her to lend some of her mages to supervise the works 'the traitor' left planned: prioritize the bridges, aqueducts, and city drainage. I want no more excuses."

Armand remained silent for a moment, conviction and displeasure mixed on his face.

"Majesty… are you sure about following our former advisor's plans to the letter?"

Eleanor raised an eyebrow, shaking her quill with a slight movement.

"I have no other option. The plan is sensible, and reformulating everything would be absurd. If you have a better alternative, I'm listening."

"We could commission a new project from the builders' guild," Armand suggested delicately. "Perhaps they have more practical solutions than a mage."

She nodded without looking at him.

"Good. Schedule them for tomorrow. I want a detailed plan. I don't want to postpone it any longer. What else?"

"There is information from the Chinsonite border," Armand said with a stern expression. "They have attacked several outposts. There are no major casualties yet, but they are becoming bolder. Furthermore… our spies claim that rumors of Dyan's departure reached Chinsonite ears. They see it as a sign of weakness."

Eleanor gripped the handle of her quill with such force that veins stood out on her hand. Hatred bubbled in her chest, a bitter meringue that wished to break any shell in its path. She wanted to accuse the wizard of having tainted the kingdom's reputation, of having left an incomplete and dangerous legacy. But she took a deep breath, remembering she had to appear composed.

"Go yourself," she said firmly. "Take half the army. And ask the Archmage to send us someone she trusts. Let them go show that valor they boast so much about. If she herself could appear at the border, even better."

Armand struck his greaves with a metallic clink, like a promise.

"It shall be done, Majesty."

Eleanor raised her hand in a sign of dismissal.

When Armand left the study and quietly closed the door, the queen felt a terrible weight spread across her shoulders. The crown hurt more than ever. She wanted to erase everything Dyan had built, as if removing his name from the parchments would suffice to uproot his actions. However, she knew that many of those improvements were now essential: what he had erected for the good of the kingdom, she had to continue even if rage corroded her.

She looked at the scattered documents and decided it was time for a more visceral release. She took a blank sheet and dipped the quill in ink, with decisive, almost furious movements. Her lines cut across the parchment with angular strokes, each letter filled with resentment and brokenness:

Dyan, Your words, so soft in appearance, have only fanned my fury: "Did you wish for an embrace? A last kind word?" I owe you no comfort. You scorned your oath. You left my side in an instant of cowardice disguised as a search for happiness. You cast me into solitude, into the ingratitude of a crown without an advisor. I do not ask you to return. You demonstrated your intention when you marched without looking back. Now I pay the consequences of your emptiness with bitter decisions. If you intend to write again, remember that every word of yours will be read with the edge of my scorn. I was "your light," you say, and I, foolishly, believed in your faith. No, Dyan. I do not believe in the goodness of one who flees. And your betrayal will be remembered when your plans fail, when the people suffer for lack of one who could have remained. I am no longer the queen who acts with pity. Until my spirit is freed from your shadow, I will rule with an iron hand.

— Eleanor, Queen of Willfrost

The still-wet ink trembled on the page when she dropped the quill. When she finished, she felt a part of that inner venom dissipate. It wasn't relief, but something closer to duty: the act of writing had been an exorcism of rage. And, paradoxically, she felt—for the first time in those two weeks—a little lighter.

The afternoon sun stained the high stained-glass windows of the royal study amber, casting long shadows over the shelves and portraits of ancient monarchs. Eleanor was still there, clinging to her work like a shipwreck survivor to a plank. She reviewed, signed, corrected, ordered. Sometimes, she didn't even read, so automatic was the weight of routine. The crown might be gold, but her days were made of lead.

The door opened softly. Silvania entered without announcing herself, as only a mother can in a daughter's domain. She wore a dark gray velvet dress and an imperturbable expression. Her gait was serene, but laden with intention.

Eleanor didn't look up. "I have no time for visitors."

"I'm not here out of courtesy, my dear," Silvania replied with the calm of one who has already weathered too many storms. "The Witan has written to me. They want me to remind you—again—of the necessity of choosing a consort."

Eleanor sighed, exasperated. She rubbed her temples, as if the mere mention of the council of barons gave her a migraine. "I've already given them my answer."

"I know. And so do they. But a refusal doesn't stop a machinery that has been running for centuries. They insist, and rightly so. Your lineage depends on it."

"My lineage or their comfort?"

Silvania approached the desk with measured steps. Her eyes swept over the papers, the maps, the parchments with seals still wet. Then she paused at a separate sheet, with ink still gleaming in certain strokes, and a barely contained rage in every word.

"And this?" she asked, without touching the letter. "You said you would never write to him."

Eleanor's face hardened. "I wasn't going to. I don't know why I did. I haven't sent it."

"But you wrote it. Since when do you do things you're not willing to take responsibility for?"

The Queen leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. "Since I can't talk to anyone without them throwing my words back at me like knives."

Silvania remained silent for a few seconds. Her gaze softened, but her voice remained firm. "You are governing from pride. Not from duty."

"And what do you suggest? That I call him back? That I apologize to him? That I act as if he hadn't disobeyed my orders?"

"I suggest you remember that the kingdom needs more than decisions motivated by personal wounds. And you need more than this isolation. The Witan doesn't just ask for a consort to have heirs, Eleanor. It asks that you build something, that you move forward. And besides..." The silence was brief, but heavy, "...you need a new advisor."

Eleanor pressed her lips together, angry with herself for not having hidden the letter better. "I already know that. I'm thinking about it."

"Don't think about it too much. Emptiness is not neutral. What you don't fill, someone else will. Sometimes silence also conspires."

The Queen sat up, leaving the letter on the desk, as if its weight burned in her hands. "What if I don't trust anyone?"

"Then delegate to someone they can fear," Silvania replied, with a gaze that shone with severity and compassion at once. "You don't have to love your advisor. You just need them to do the work you can't do alone."

Eleanor looked out the window. The sky was beginning to turn a pale gray, and the breeze stirred the branches of the garden trees as if the whole world was moving on without her.

"I will do what I must do," she said, at last. "But not for the Witan. Nor for Dyan. But for the kingdom. And for myself."

Silvania nodded, satisfied, though she knew that promise had no concrete form yet. But it was a beginning. And beginnings are also acts of power.

"Then start by deciding who you will place beside you. And who you will leave behind. The kingdom needs you present. Not trapped between what was and what cannot return."

When Silvania left, Eleanor took the letter and reread it. Then she folded it carefully, sealed it with wax, and placed it on the outgoing messages tray.

Because sometimes, even when you say you won't... you write anyway. And then, even when you say you won't send it... you do anyway.

Because the heart, unlike the crown, is not governed by decrees.

The crackle of the fire was the only sound filling the room, along with the occasional creak of old wood that refused to completely yield to the passage of years. Like her. Despite Dyan's concoctions, time had settled into her body like persistent frost. It didn't advance violently, but she felt it at the roots of her hair, in the curve of her back upon waking, at her fingertips, which grew numb as evening fell, as if life itself was slowly retreating from her limbs, leaving her on the shore.

Before her, on the low, cracked ivory table, lay two open letters. The ink of the last one still had a faint metallic scent, that special kind of ink used by southern messengers, quick to dry, intense to write.

All were from Dyan.

Silvania had read them in silence, again and again, as if the words might dissolve upon rereading, or perhaps take on another meaning. But they didn't. Dyan wrote with a clarity that stung. His tone was not insolent, not even defiant; it was painfully honest. Like a young man who had allowed himself to break, but not to forget. Like someone who still sought comfort, even from a distance.

"It wasn't she who banished me, but what she expected of me." "If you ever ask me if it still hurts, you'll know the answer just by looking at me." "I don't know if writing to you is betrayal or necessity, Silvania. But I do it anyway."

Silvania closed her eyes. For a long time, she had been a woman of certainties. When the king died, when Eleanor ascended the throne too young, when alliances faltered and families pressed, she had been the rock. The guide. The voice that did not tremble.

But with Dyan... with him... she never quite knew what to do. She had supported him initially. She had believed in his devotion to Eleanor, in that grave and luminous gaze of his, which she had only once seen on another face: that of her daughter's father.

And then, when everything went wrong, when duty imposed itself like a slab and Eleanor chose the crown over her heart, Silvania had kept silent. She had advised in private, yes, but she had not interceded. Not enough. And that haunted her.

Now she read those letters as one listens to a prayer not addressed to the gods, but to oneself.

Her hands trembled slightly. Not from emotion, not yet, but from that insidious stiffness that arrived in the evening, when Dyan's concoction began to lose its strength. Her pulse, once firm as the steel of a new blade, was now a slow, deep echo, as if her body was preparing her to disappear with dignity.

"'Don't ask me to write back to her,'" she murmured to herself, as if speaking to Eleanor even though she had already left. "Because I can't. Because I wouldn't know whether to do it as a mother, as a noblewoman... or as a woman who still remembers what it is to lose."

The fire crackled, and a spark rose into the air before extinguishing itself. Silvania picked up one of the letters and held it close to the light. Dyan's handwriting was firm. Beautiful, even. Like a young man who didn't want to forget who he had been, despite what absence forced him to be.

Silvania didn't cry. She hadn't cried for years. Not because she had no reasons, but because crying had become an unnecessary luxury. Instead, she let out a deep, long sigh, like a silent confession.

"I wanted you for her," she said softly, as if Dyan could hear her, as if that letter were a conversation stopped by the years. "I defended you when no one else did. But I also lost you. As I lost so many things I can no longer even count them."

She rose slowly, feeling the numbness claim every vertebra, every phalanx. She didn't complain. It wasn't her style. But the body spoke in whispers when the mind still screamed.

Silvania carefully gathered the letters. She didn't burn them. She didn't reply to them. She simply placed them in the hidden compartment of her desk, alongside other memories that had no name, but did have weight.

Tomorrow she would speak with Eleanor again. She would advise with patience, with firmness, with that tough love only aging mothers know how to give. But tonight... tonight was for Dyan. For the young man who hadn't stopped writing, even when the world had tried so hard to forget him.

And for her, who couldn't quite forget him either.