Trust Is the First Heir

The chamber smelled faintly of fresh lime oil and parchment.

It was the third hour past noon in Veyrakar, and the council of Harkoraal sat gathered beneath the high vaults of the Throne room. Sunlight spilled through the tall windows onto the long pinewood table, illuminating faces marked by ash, age, or ambition.

Senjar sat at the head.

He wore a simple dress and dark leather armor on it, and blade at his side. His expression was distant as the scribe read the final report, grain figures from the low valleys, levies pledged from two captured towns, and a new tax proposal submitted by Mara.

When the scribe finished, Senjar looked around the table.

"Thoughts?" he asked.

At first, only silence.

Then Melam, one of the elder lords, leaned forward with his thick fingers clasped. His white beard twitched as he spoke.

"My Arl… we are honored by what you've built. What we have all bled to make real. But a house must be more than walls. It must carry a name. A future. It is time you take a wife."

Senjar blinked.

Before he could answer, Morva, the tall elder woman added, "Or if not a wife, then at least a concubine. One of the noble daughters from the clans would be suitable. They are loyal. Fertile. Strong."

Several others nodded.

"We are a state now," Rell said carefully. "The people will expect a line. You have earned this legacy, Arl Senjar."

"Legacy?" Senjar repeated, low.

He rose from his seat.

The room quieted. Chairs shifted. Even the guards at the wall straightened.

Senjar stepped forward, his jaw tight.

"It's been a month," he said. "A single month since Tivar Crossing. Since we laid our dead across the fields and burned them ourselves. Since I carved a banner from the blood of twenty thousand men."

He looked from face to face.

"And now I call you here to plan grain routes, to write laws, tell me about potential trade and this is what you bring me?"

The room remained silent.

"I am twenty-three," Senjar said, voice hardening. "I am still young and since the fall of Harkoraal in the east, I have been at war with the Empire for months. We do not even know if the Duke to our west plans to march on us, or the Emperor is sending an army. And you want to weigh dowries and breed sons like mares in heat?"

Garrin winced but said nothing.

Morva lowered her eyes. Melam flushed and shifted uncomfortably.

Senjar's voice dropped, but sharpened.

"You insult me. You insult Harkoraal. If I needed a bride, I would choose her. Not be sold one by you like a fattened calf at spring market."

No one met his gaze.

Then, with a sharp turn, Senjar stepped back toward his seat. He didn't sit. He placed a palm on the edge of the table.

"Session is ended," he said. "Leave me."

Chairs scraped quietly. Papers rustled. One by one, the elders and scribes filed out of the chamber. Only Garrin lingered at the door, but when Senjar didn't look up, he too left.

Senjar stood in silence for a long time, one hand braced on the table, the other resting on the pommel of his blade. His eyes remained fixed on the grain-map laid out before him.

But he wasn't seeing the lines.

He was seeing wolves dressed as allies.

And fires, burning too close to the walls.

The hour was late when Mara entered the chamber.

She didn't knock. She never had.

The great council doors groaned open, spilling torchlight across the polished stone floor. Scrolls lay scattered where the elders had left them. The room smelled faintly of ink and old smoke.

Senjar stood by the eastern window, one hand resting on the sill, his other curled into a loose fist.

Mara approached with the soft thud of boots and unhurried calm. She wore a deep blue tunic belted with black cord, dust still clinging to the edge of her sleeves.

"You called for me?" she asked.

Senjar didn't turn. "They want me married."

"Yes," she said. "They do."

He was silent.

"They mean well, some of them," she added after a moment. "Others just want their daughters in your bed. And their names in your bloodline."

He turned now.

The look he gave her was sharp, unamused.

"You think this is funny?"

"No," she said simply. "But it is predictable."

Senjar's jaw clenched. He crossed the room and dropped heavily into the chair at the head of the table, his elbow braced on the carved arm.

"I built this. I bled for it. I didn't kill twenty thousand men to become some pawn in a marriage game."

"I know."

"I called them here for counsel. Strategy. Stability."

"You called men who've never ruled a thing in their lives and gave them a city," she said. "What did you think they'd ask for?"

He didn't answer.

Mara stepped closer, then stopped just short of the edge of the dais.

"You're young, Senjar. But you're not stupid. They're not wrong about the heir not entirely. Just wrong about how they go about it."

He looked up. "What's your advice, then?"

She tilted her head slightly.

"Take someone. Anyone. It doesn't have to be a marriage. Just a name. A presence. Someone beside the throne to keep the others in check."

"No," Senjar said flatly.

"I don't want a women, about whom I know nothing. What motives she will have, I can't share my bed with a women, whose intentions will always be in a doubt by me."

She studied him for a moment.

Then she said, quiet but clear, "Then take me."

The silence that followed landed like a sword dropped on stone.

Senjar leaned forward, slowly. "What?"

"You heard me," Mara said. "You don't trust the others. And you shouldn't. Every noble elder in this Arlic wants their blood married into yours. It's how they gain power without earning it. I've seen it before. I've seen it done."

He said nothing.

"I have also a noble," she continued. "My father is dead, I have no brother nor any family alive whispering behind a door. I serve Harkoraal and you, not myself."

"You're also the one writing the laws and also in charge of treasury," Senjar said. "And if I take you to bed, they'll say I'm letting my lover run the state."

"They already say that," Mara replied, dry.

That startled a small sound from him. Something between a laugh and a breath.

She walked up the final step of the dais and stood just beside him now. Not in deference. Not above. Just level. Her voice softened.

"You need someone beside you. Someone you already trust."

He looked at her truly looked.

Mara's face was composed, as always, but there was something behind the steel the faintest flicker of vulnerability. Not performance. Not calculation.

A quiet gamble.

"I'm not offering just love," she said. "But if you want to keep this state intact if you want to keep the wolves off your back, then you need someone whose loyalty is already earned."

"What do you want by this Mara?"

"What everyone else wants, power. The most trusted source of power will be having place beside you, Arl Senjar."

"You already have power. I have even gave you governing rights in my absence."

"Yes, but that is temporary."

Senjar leaned back slightly, arms folded. "And if I said yes?"

"Then the rumors become fact," she said. "And facts become power."

He looked away again, toward the dark window.

"I've seen what power does to people," he said quietly.

"So have I," she replied. "That's why I want to be near the only man I've seen wield it without drowning in it."

Another pause.

The tension between them hung like a drawn bowstring not sharp, but tight with something unspoken.

Finally, Senjar rose from the chair. He stepped closer, just a half step. Close enough to see the small lines beneath Mara's eyes. Close enough to feel the faint heat from her body.

He reached out. Brushed a single strand of hair from her cheek.

"You've always spoken plainly," he said.

"Someone has to."

Their eyes met.

"Not tonight," Senjar said.

Mara nodded. "I didn't expect tonight."

She stepped back, composed once more.

"But when you do decide," she said, "you know where to find me."

Then, with a bow, Mara turned and walked from the chamber her boots soft on the stone, her shoulders square, her pace steady.

Senjar stood alone in the quiet, the torchlight flickering against the carved iron wolf above his chair.

Rain tapped lightly on the stone ledges outside Veyrakar's high council chamber.

The fires had been drawn low. The hall was quiet, save for the faint crackle from the hearth and the soft creak of an old chair pulled back across the floor.

Kaelric stood in the doorway, removing his cloak with a grunt. He looked like a man carved out of road dust and old iron. His beard was short and streaked with gray. A scar tugged at his cheek when he frowned which was often.

"You summoned me, Arl," he said dryly.

Senjar, seated alone at the council table, raised a half empty bottle.

"I summoned you to drink."

Kaelric snorted and crossed the chamber. "Should've led with that."

He dropped into the chair across from Senjar and accepted the bottle with a grunt. No ceremony. No title.

They sat in silence for a while, sharing the wine the dark, strong kind brought in by smuggled barrels from the southern coast. Outside, the wind picked up.

"You finished the western towns?" Senjar asked finally.

Kaelric nodded. "Three cities, twelve holdings, four minor keeps. No resistance after word of Tivar. One noble tried to bribe me. Another tried to poison the stew."

"What'd you do?"

"Made him eat the rest of it." Kaelric took another drink. "They signed your decrees."

Senjar leaned back in his chair. "Good."

Then, after a beat: "I need your counsel. Off the record."

Kaelric's eyes narrowed slightly, but he nodded. "Speak it."

Senjar turned the bottle in his hands. "The council pushed marriage."

"They would."

"I refused. Then Mara came a week ago. She said... if I can't trust anyone else, I should take her. As concubine. Just... keep it in the family. Lock down the council."

Kaelric didn't speak immediately.

When he did, it was quiet. "She's thirty one. You're what twenty three now?"

Senjar gave a flat look. "Don't remind me."

Kaelric chuckled.

"She's never married," he continued. "No known lovers. Kept her life sharp and simple. Rumors, though."

"What rumors?"

Kaelric raised an eyebrow. "That you and she already are."

Senjar sat up. "What?"

"Please," Kaelric said, pouring again. "You think the Tribe doesn't talk? You think those guards standing outside your chambers are blind? Half of them are placing bets."

Senjar rubbed his eyes. "How come I never heard any of this?"

Kaelric leaned forward, elbows on the table.

"Because you've never been interested in rumors that were about you."

Senjar exhaled, slow. "I don't know what the hell to do."

"Do what your father Arl Drogmar never could, son." Kaelric said.

Senjar looked at him.

"Pick someone you trust, not someone the banners approve of."

They drank in silence for a long while after that.

At some point well past midnight, Senjar's head slumped back against the Arl's seat. The bottle rolled to the side. The fire guttered low.

Kaelric pulled a cloak over him and left.

The next morning came with soft light and a pale breeze through the high arches.

Senjar stirred awake slowly, neck stiff from the angle, eyes squinting at the gray dawn beyond the window. The sound of someone entering reached him only faintly.

Mara stood near the table, already in her dark slate coat. She looked at him for a moment, then set two scrolls beside the wine bottle.

"You look like you lost a fight with your seat."

Senjar sat up slowly. "I think the seat won."

Mara smirked. Then, her tone gentled.

"I heard you spoke with Kaelric."

He nodded once.

"Whatever you decide," she said, stepping a little closer, "I will always be with you and will support you unconditionally,"

He blinked sleep from his eyes, listening.

"You can still marry later," she added. "For alliances, if you must. I don't care about that."

She looked down at the scattered papers on the table, her fingers resting lightly on one.

"I just want it known if I take your name in any way, it's to be a called a Lady. So no will question."

He studied her closely. Mara didn't shift under the weight of his gaze.

Her voice lowered.

"If I stand beside you, Senjar, it's for the sake of power, I know. But it's to protect what we've built. To make sure no one else tries to steal it."

Senjar exhaled slowly.

Then, without rising, he said: "And if I don't say yes?"

"Then I go back to doing what I do best," she said, already turning toward the scrolls.

She paused by the archway before she left.

"Just don't wait too long," she said over her shoulder. "Even a wolf's shadow fades by dusk."

And then she was gone.