Vangelis smiled at that, something warm and unhurried in it. "I am perfectly fine, dear. You should return to bed. You have had a long night." He turned and walked out, his footsteps fading quietly down the corridor. Roxanne stood in the middle of her chamber and listened until there was nothing left to hear. Then she exhaled slowly and sat on the edge of the bed, her hands folded in her lap, her mind already running through what a public demonstration of Soul Command.
A man was already seated when she arrived. She stopped. In the darkness of the hall she had not been able to take him in fully. His smell had reached her first, something clean and deep and quietly overwhelming, and his silhouette beneath the moonlight had been striking enough to hold her attention. But daylight was an entirely different thing. He was more than she had prepared herself for. His pupils were light, silver and almost transparent, catching the morning light in a way that made them look less like eyes and more like something the moon had left behind. His white hair was styled into a half up half down arrangement, effortless in the way that only naturally beautiful things are. His features were still and symmetrical and carried the particular quality of something that had not been made by ordinary means. He is not human, she thought, the certainty arriving before she had finished looking at him. Whatever he is, he is not human.
"So, Mr. Cassius would like to know what it is you want," he said, glancing between them both.
He looked at her with those silver eyes and waited. "I want to know everything about you," she said.
The innkeeper burst into laughter, the sound rough and disbelieving in the early light. Cassius remained unfazed. His eyes stayed fixed on Rosie, dark and unblinking, boring into hers with a weight that made her skin prickle and her breath shorten.
"Then you become my personal pleasure toy," he said, the words low and final. He turned and left without another glance, the door closing behind him with a soft, decisive click.
Silence hung for a moment. The innkeeper's amusement faded as he looked at her.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked.
Rosie kept her gaze on the closed door, her pulse still unsteady from the force of Cassius's stare. Heat lingered low in her belly despite the fear. "He will be able to take me to my family. I have that feeling."
"Why are you so confident in that?" the innkeeper pressed.
"Because he said I look like someone, feel like someone and smell like someone that could be my sister. I remember when I was taken away, my mother was pregnant," she answered, voice quieter now.
"He was dragged and drunk. He can't be trusted," the innkeeper warned.
Rosie lifted her chin, though a faint tremor ran through her. "A drunk man never forgets the smell of someone he loves or hates."
The innkeeper studied her for a long second, then sighed and waved a hand. "You can go and clean the rooms. It's already morning."
Rosie turned away, the words personal pleasure toy still echoing through her. Each step she took felt heavier, her body already aware of the bargain she had just accepted and the man who would collect on it.
"Your Grace, it is time," the maids said in unison, their voices soft but certain.
"I am ready," Roxanne replied.
She followed them out through the palace doors and into the open park that stretched before the building. Above her on the highest balcony Vangelis and Fiona stood side by side, looking down at the gathered crowd below.
The air was still and expectant.
"Bring out the horses," the commander called.
Five horses were led into the open space, their coats gleaming, their hooves restless against the ground. They sensed something in the air that the humans around them could not yet name.
The commander turned to Roxanne.
"Your Grace, your task is to command all five horses to cease breathing. Hold that command until it is done."
Roxanne looked at the horses. Something shifted in her expression.
"Is that not cruel?" she asked quietly.
A figure stepped forward from the gathered officials. He was striking in the way that people who carry genuine authority tend to be, effortlessly so, his presence settling over the park like a change in weather before he had spoken a single word.
"Your Grace," the Grand Wiseman said, his voice carrying without effort. "In one hundred years no one has manifested Soul Command. You are the first." He held her gaze steadily. "And this is the only true measure of it. No will is stronger than the will of a living thing fighting against its own end. If your command can override that, there is nothing it cannot reach."
Roxanne looked at the five horses again.
Then her silver eyes began to glow.
"You are right, Master," Roxanne answered.
She closed her eyes. The silver glow beneath her lids pulsed steadily as her will reached outward, quiet and absolute, wrapping itself around five living things and commanding them to be still.
The horses felt it immediately.
They grew restless, jolting and rearing, their hooves striking the ground in desperate rhythm, their bodies fighting against something they could not see or outrun. One dropped first, its legs folding beneath it without warning. Then another. Then the next, each one falling in quick succession until all five lay still on the park ground.
The silence lasted exactly one breath.
Then the applause broke.
It rolled through the gathered crowd in waves, loud and unrelenting, rising up to the balcony where Vangelis stood with his hands on the railing.
"Remarkable," he said.
Beside him Fiona watched the scene below with an expression that had moved past surprise into something quieter and more complicated.
"Now I understand why Uncle Camelo worked so hard to suppress her," she said. "She had the potential to surpass me entirely. She always did."
Vangelis turned to look at her. "You knew about this? You watched it happen?"
"My parents were never a king or queen," Fiona said, her voice steady but carrying old weight. "It was my eldest uncle who was the King. Mr. Canelo was a caretaker of the throne before after the king passed.
Vangelis was quiet for a moment.
"Then what is stopping you from helping your cousin now?" he asked.
.