Chapter 17: When Falcons Feast

The storm came not with thunder, but with silence.

In the days following the Autumn Court Banquet, the Queen's court grew colder. Whispers replaced proclamations. The gold-threaded halls of power buzzed, not with celebration, but tension. For all her smiles and public poise, Queen Elaria had revealed a single, crucial truth—

She could be challenged.

And Caelan Thorne intended to break her with that knowledge.

But to do so, he would need what his family had never possessed: the backing of the Falcon Duchies.

The southern duchies were lands of sun-bleached cliffs, sprawling vineyards, and old blood. They were not kings, but they ruled like it — with pride, tradition, and savage cunning. House Faeloran, the Falcon of the South, had once been second only to the royal family in prestige.

Until Elaria had clipped their wings.

A generation ago, Duke Faeloran had stood against her ascension. He refused to bend the knee, claiming she had murdered her husband — the late king — and stolen the regency with lies and blood. Elaria responded as all queens do.

She razed his ancestral city, executed three of his heirs, and declared the rest traitor exiles.

Yet not all falcons died.

Some survived in shadow. Some waited.

Caelan stood now at the edge of a crumbling estate deep in the saltcliffs of the southern border, where the wind howled like ancient ghosts and sea foam cracked against sharp rock.

"This is suicide," Vale muttered as he stepped beside him.

"If it is," Caelan said, "then it's the only kind that matters."

They had traveled under the crest of a minor trading house, forged in old wax — a falsified cover crafted by Lys. The Falcon Duchies did not welcome royal envoys. They slit their throats.

A single knight opened the rusted gate.

His armor was scorched and dull. His sword was clean.

He looked Caelan over, lingering on his pin — a sapphire eagle's eye etched into silver.

Then without a word, he turned and led them inside.

The estate was more fortress than home. Towering stone walls, faded war banners, narrow corridors where whispers died before they could echo. The falcons lived like exiles in their own land.

They entered a sunlit chamber where five figures stood, cloaked in black and deep crimson.

At the center stood Lady Aelira Faeloran — the Duke's only surviving daughter.

She was beautiful in the way fire is beautiful — red-gold hair braided with threadbare silk, a curved scar down her left cheek, and eyes like storm-lit steel.

"You," she said, "are either desperate or delusional."

Caelan bowed once. "Both, my lady."

She raised an eyebrow.

He met her gaze evenly. "But I'm also your best chance."

Laughter echoed through the room. A tall man with a jagged silver pauldron — one of her brothers, likely — barked, "The bastard prince thinks he's clever."

"I'm not a prince," Caelan said smoothly. "My mother died before she could bear that title. As did my father. Both for refusing to kneel."

He stepped forward. "And so did yours."

That silenced the chamber.

Aelira's smile thinned. "You speak of treason in a house where that word costs lives."

"I speak of justice," Caelan said. "And strategy."

He laid it out like a map of war:

The Queen's court was splintering. The failed assassination, witnessed by dozens of nobles, had shaken the illusion of her control.

The minor houses — once loyal by tradition — were beginning to doubt.

And most crucially: the south had long been bleeding slowly, taxed and starved by the crown in quiet punishment.

"Strike now," he said, "and I'll ensure the royal forces are divided when you do."

Aelira tilted her head. "And what will you give us, Lord Thorne?"

He knew the answer before she asked.

"My vow," he said, "that once the Queen is dethroned, the Falcon Duchies will be restored."

"Words," her brother spat.

"Not just words," Caelan replied, and pulled out a scroll — sealed with the stolen crest of the royal archivist.

"I broke into the palace's sealed records," he said. "This contains the original writ of condemnation. It proves your house was never officially declared traitorous by the Council of Twelve. Only the Queen."

Aelira took the scroll.

Unrolled it.

Read it.

And for the first time, her hand trembled.

"My gods…" she whispered.

"You've lived as exiles for twenty years," Caelan said quietly. "You were never disinherited by law. Only by fear."

She looked up.

"I want the Queen's throne," he said. "You want your home. Let's make them both bleed for what they did to us."

The council met again that night.

Caelan stood in a long, echoing hall with frescoes of dead falcons above him, while behind closed doors, the Faeloran siblings debated his offer.

Vale leaned against the wall beside him.

"You really stole that scroll?"

"I had Lys bribe the archivist," Caelan admitted. "Then stole it myself when the man got cold feet."

"You're insane," Vale muttered.

"Maybe."

"But brilliant."

Caelan smirked. "Took you long enough to admit it."

Hours later, the doors opened.

Aelira stood at the threshold.

"We'll back your rebellion," she said. "Under one condition."

"Name it."

She stepped forward. "When you win — you don't sit on the throne. You destroy it."

Caelan blinked. "You don't want me to rule?"

"I want no one to," she said. "The monarchy rots everything it touches. Tear it down. Build something new."

Silence stretched.

Finally, Caelan nodded.

"Agreed."

That night, the falcons feasted for the first time in decades.

Caelan dined with exiled generals, tacticians long thought dead, spies who had survived entire reigns by vanishing and reappearing when the air turned bloody. It was a different kind of court — one built not on lineage or title, but on survival.

He watched them laugh, drink, sharpen blades, toast to war.

And for the first time, he felt it.

Not victory.

But momentum.

Before dawn, Aelira approached him alone in the old library.

"You knew exactly what to say to convince us," she said.

"I told the truth."

"But only parts of it."

Caelan didn't deny it.

She studied him, then said, "Be careful. You're becoming the thing you're trying to destroy."

"I know," he murmured.

And meant it.

He left with twenty new allies.

Not just soldiers — but voices. Names. Secrets.

The Queen would feel it soon. A slow cracking under her throne.

The falcons had taken flight again.

And this time, they were hunting.