The Empty Chair

Four days after Atyas spoke his name, servants placed a throne inside Solara’s council chamber. It was not the throne of Asehria. That remained inside the occupied palace, beneath whatever banner the Keh’Dia had raised above it. This chair had been taken from Feenix’s ambassadorial hall. Black wood rose behind its seat in the shape of wings. A cushion of dark blue had been added because someone remembered the colour of Asehria’s royal house. They placed it at the head of the table. Atyas stopped in the doorway.

Alaria stopped beside him.

“Who ordered that?” he asked.

Anger shortened his breath and brought the current with it before he had decided what to do. Alaria heard the change. She did not touch him or tell him what to feel. Atyas let the strength settle without moving towards the chair. The servants looked towards Solara. She stood near the eastern windows reading the final list of delegations.

“No one,” she said. “Which is the problem.”

“Remove it.”

The nearest servant reached for the back of the chair.

“Wait,” Solara said.

Atyas looked at her.

“If you remove it, the delegations will say you are afraid of the crown,” she said. “If you sit in it, they will say you have accepted it. If I place myself at the head of the table, they will say Feenix rules what remains of Asehria.”

“Then leave it empty.”

Solara lowered the papers.

“Where will you sit?”

Atyas chose the first ordinary chair to the right.

“Here.”

Alaria moved the chair another half-step from the empty throne. Not far enough to look like rejection. Far enough that no one could mistake where he had chosen to sit.

“Your father would have approved,” Solara said.

“He would have told the servants before they carried it across the palace.”

“That too.”

Alaria examined the room.

Two Phoenix Guards stood outside each door. Four more waited behind the carved wall. General Veyra had inspected every delegate, servant and document before allowing them into the inner palace. Atyas’s borrowed road sword rested at his hip. The seven-star clasp at his throat was no longer concealed. He had considered leaving it in his room. Alaria had fastened both around him without asking.

“Watch the empty chair,” she said.

“Why?”

“People look towards what they want.”

“And if they look at me?”

“Then decide whether they see Atyas or a way to reach the chair.”

Solara handed him the list.

Fourteen foreign delegations had requested formal recognition. Six Asehrian restoration councils demanded his endorsement. Verified Lunar Watch officers waited for instructions. Civilian representatives from the eastern settlements had sent a joint petition certified by settlements containing more than three million people. At the bottom, in Solara’s hand, was a single question.

Who enters first?

“The Asehrians,” Atyas said.

“Which ones?”

“Civilians.”

“Before the Lunar Watch?”

“The Watch already knows I’m alive.”

“Before the provincial officials?”

“They have been speaking in my father’s name without permission. Waiting will not injure them.”

Solara’s expression almost became a smile.

“And the foreign ambassadors?”

“They have chairs.”

“That is rarely how ambassadors measure suffering.”

“They can learn.”

Solara took the list back.

“You will conduct the audience.”

Atyas looked at her.

“This is your palace.”

“And your name brought them into it.”

“You’ll be here?”

Solara moved to the chair opposite him. “For the whole audience. Begin with their petition.”

The doors opened.

The first four representatives did not kneel. Atyas had asked Solara to forbid it. They bowed to the empty chair, then to him. Alaria watched where each pair of eyes rested longest. Mira Seln entered first. She had been a physician in Asehria’s western districts before the invasion. In Feenix, she directed six field hospitals and represented settlements containing almost eight hundred thousand civilians. Beside her walked Oren Val, a miller chosen by the canal districts; Preya Dorn, a former court archivist responsible for reconstructing family records; and Daren Vos, now carrying a completed count for the Fourth River Company. Daren was a lean young man with his uncle Garran’s heavy brows, though his nose was straight. He turned towards the clerks and held out the count.

Daren wore his empty sword belt and looked directly at Atyas.

“Your Highness,” Mira said.

“Atyas is enough inside this room.”

Mira studied the face she had last seen red, furious and newly born beneath Marta’s hands.

“We have met before,” she said.

Atyas searched his memory and found nothing.

“I assisted Marta on the night you were born. I would be concerned if you remembered.”

“Was I difficult?”

“Your mother did most of the difficult work. You provided noise.”

For one breath, Isolde existed in the room as a living woman exhausted after childbirth rather than the queen everyone had lost.

The four representatives exchanged glances.

“It will not be enough outside it,” Preya said.

“Then outside can wait.”

Atyas indicated the table.

“Sit.”

They did.

Preya kept the petition closed.

“Two family verifications first,” she said. “Lady Merien Aster reached Caldris through the Marren route. She has refused every request to support a succession declaration while King Eridan lives and is helping Aldren’s clerks reconcile Asehrian family records.”

Atyas remembered his father telling the story: Merien had inspected the newborn prince and informed Eridan that he had once possessed less hair.

“And Uncle Tavian?”

“Magistrate Tavian Rell reached Soreth with the surviving civil grain court. Queen Ilyra has placed its clerks beside her own storehouse offices. His personal mark appears upon three independent rolls.”

Atyas let out a breath he had not known he was holding.

“Why was I not told?”

“The third verification arrived this morning,” Preya said. “I thought you would prefer certainty late to hope early.”

Seraphina had taught everyone around him the same cruelty. He was beginning to understand its kindness.

Mira placed the petition before him.

It required two people to carry the complete collection into the chamber. Three bound volumes contained the petition, the marks of elected settlement representatives and certified totals drawn from registration archives. The individual names remained in thousands of ledgers across the eastern districts, where any disputed count could be examined.

“What are they asking for?” Atyas said.

“Several things,” Mira replied. “Most contradict one another.”

“Begin with the one they share.”

“They want to know they have not been abandoned.”

No title surrounded the sentence.

No demand for steel.

Atyas opened the first volume. The names continued across every page.

“How do I answer three million people?”

“You do not,” Mira said. “You answer the representatives they selected, and we return with something more useful than hope.”

Solara observed her with interest.

“What would be useful?” Atyas asked.

“A process for recovering civilian property. A decision about the eastern road. Representation in whatever military command is being constructed. A search office for missing families. Rules preventing foreign kingdoms from recruiting children from the settlement districts.”

“They are recruiting children?”

“They call anyone over fourteen an auxiliary.”

Atyas looked at Solara.

“Feenix law forbids foreign recruitment below seventeen,” she said. “The new districts cross several civilian and military jurisdictions, which complicates enforcement. Veyra began arrests yesterday.”

“Why was that not in the reports?”

“It was.”

Solara touched the stack beside him.

“Page forty-three.”

Atyas found it.

Six lines beneath a dispute over grain carts.

Nine foreign recruiters detained. Thirty-seven underage auxiliaries returned to settlement authorities.

Atyas wrote the issue upon a separate page.

“Veyra reports the arrests to the civilian representatives from now on. Names, ages and which kingdoms employed the recruiters.”

Solara raised one eyebrow.

“You are instructing my General.”

Atyas stopped writing. The first mistake had arrived before the first audience ended.

“I am asking Feenix to report them,” he said.

“Then ask.”

“Will Feenix provide the report?”

“Yes.”

Solara gave no sign of whether the correction pleased her.

Alaria did.

Only slightly.

Atyas turned towards Daren.

“You completed your count.”

Daren placed the records upon the table.

“Two thousand three hundred registered. Two thousand and six verified. Of those, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-one can march today; the rest are wounded or assigned to supply duty. Two hundred and ninety-four remain under review, including ninety-one disputed identities. We have six days of food if the wagons are returned, eleven if the canal settlements approve shared stores.”

“Do they?”

Oren Val answered.

“Not for a march based upon the false order.”

“Then you have six days.”

Daren accepted the correction.

“The first crossing?” Atyas asked.

“Still unverified. One river warden claims the southern supports were destroyed. Another saw Keh’Dia carts crossing eight days ago.”

“Both could be true,” Alaria said from behind Atyas. “A temporary military span would carry carts and fail beneath a retreating army.”

Daren turned towards her.

“We have requested permission to send our own scouts.”

Atyas looked to Solara before answering.

“Would Feenix permit a mixed scouting party?”

“Veyra will determine its size and route. But yes.”

“Then the Fourth River provides people who know the crossing. The wardens lead.”

Daren looked ready to argue.

“You asked for work,” Atyas said. “That is work.”

“It is not home.”

“No.”

Atyas had nothing else to offer him.

Daren lowered his eyes to the completed count.

“The Fourth River accepts.”

Seraphina entered with seven verified officers of the Lunar Watch.

They wore no swords.

These officers had left their armour in their Asehrian military ward and placed their peace-bound swords beneath a Lunar Watch quartermaster in the palace guardroom, as Captain Maelin required of every foreign delegation. Each wore a silver crescent upon a plain dark coat, enough to identify the Watch without recreating a second royal guard inside Solara’s palace. They stopped before the empty throne. Seraphina looked at it for a long time. Then she knelt before Atyas. The officers followed.

“I asked that no one kneel.”

“You asked Solara’s attendants,” Seraphina said. “You did not ask me.”

“I am asking now.”

She remained upon one knee.

“The Lunar Watch swore its oath to the Crown of Asehria. Eridan is captive. Isolde is dead. You stand as the heir.”

“I sit as the heir.”

Seraphina’s mouth tightened.

“This is not the moment for language.”

“It is exactly the moment for language. Everyone keeps choosing words that give me more authority than I have.”

Atyas looked at the officers behind her.

“My father lives. Your oath remains his.”

“Our duty includes protecting his heir.”

“Then protect me. Do not turn me into him.”

Seraphina studied him.

She rose. The other officers followed.

“What do you require of the Watch?” she asked.

“The truth.”

“That is not a military assignment.”

“It became one when the Keh’Dia began writing orders in my father’s name.”

Atyas placed the forged message upon the table.

“Identify every surviving officer authorised to issue commands across districts. Publish the ways their orders were verified before the invasion. Place copies in every Asehrian settlement and foreign court willing to receive them.”

“That will expose parts of our command system.”

“The Keh’Dia already used it.”

“Parts of it.”

“Then change the parts we publish.”

Seraphina glanced towards Solara.

“He has been listening to you.”

“Occasionally,” Solara said.

“And the remaining Watch?” Seraphina asked.

“Support the retreating fronts. Protect the settlements and refugee roads. Help Veyra verify every broken command that reaches Feenix.”

“We could begin assembling a recovery force.”

“Can you get them to Father?”

“Not yet. We need a route, a supply agreement and officers the scattered commands will accept.” Seraphina looked at the map. “I can work on those while we assemble.”

Atyas put his hand over the eastern road. “This is where the false order sent them.”

Seraphina rested both hands upon the table.

“You cannot wait until every answer is perfect.”

“I know.”

“Your father may be moved again.”

“I know.”

“He may die while we count sacks.”

The chamber became still.

Atyas felt Alaria behind him.

Not touching.

Present.

“Yes,” he said.

Seraphina regretted the words.

He could see it.

He did not allow her to take them back.

“I want you to find him,” Atyas said. “I do. But I can’t tell you to take that road when we don’t know what’s there.”

Seraphina bowed her head.

“The Watch will begin.”

The restoration officials arrived wearing swords. Veyra’s guards took the weapons from them outside the chamber. The officials entered offended and attempted to hide it. Governor Halren Dey led them. He had governed one of Asehria’s western provinces for nineteen years and escaped into Valanor during the first week of occupation. Two former magistrates, three captains and a clerk carrying a silver case followed him. Halren bowed to the empty throne, holding the bow until Alaria shifted beside Atyas.

“Your Majesty,” he said to Atyas.

“No.”

The governor straightened.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My father is the King of Asehria.”

“Your father is a prisoner.”

“Those facts do not contradict one another.”

Halren looked towards the silver case. The clerk placed it upon the table and opened the lid. A narrow circlet rested inside. Seven small stars had been worked into the silver above an empty setting where a central stone should have been.

“The Western Restoration Council recognised your succession upon receiving confirmation of your survival,” Halren said. “This is not intended to replace the lost crown. It is a field circlet, representing authority until Asehria is restored.”

Atyas did not touch it.

“Who authorised the council?”

“The surviving governors and commanders present in Valanor.”

“Were the settlements asked?” Mira said.

“The council was formed during an emergency.”

“Then it can meet them now.”

Halren kept his attention on Atyas. “Experienced officials would administer the daily work until your majority.”

“Would I choose them?” Atyas asked.

“Removing proven governors during occupation would create instability.”

Atyas pushed the case away. “Then why bring it to me?”

Halren looked towards Solara. She waited for his answer.

“The council can raise an army,” Halren said. “Valanor has offered training fields, weapons and passage. Other kingdoms will join once they see a legitimate crown at its head.”

“What does Valanor receive?”

“Repayment after restoration.”

“What kind?”

“To be negotiated.”

“Bring the terms when they are written.”

Halren placed both hands upon the table.

“Your Highness, your people require hope.”

“They require food, records, safe roads and a plan that was not written by the Keh’Dia.”

“They also require a king.”

Atyas looked at the empty chair. For three months Atyas had followed the lines of Eridan’s war across Solara’s maps. He had learned where his father fought, which roads reached him and how quickly a verified message could become history. Now other people treated his captivity as an inconvenience in the path of succession.

“Anyone eager to crown me while my father remains in chains should be kept away from his throne.”

Halren’s face hardened.

“Refusing the crown will not free him.”

“Neither will replacing him.”

“Then what authority do you claim?”

Atyas considered the question.

“I am Atyas, Prince of Asehria and son of its living king. I can tell our people that my father did not write the false order. I can ask them to meet. I can speak where my silence is being used against them.”

He pushed the silver case back across the table.

“I will not make myself king so your council can call itself royal.”

Halren did not take the case.

“Then the restoration forces will continue dividing.”

“Not if the council changes.”

“Into what?”

Atyas opened Mira Seln’s petition.

“A meeting with them in it.” Atyas laid his hand upon the petition.

Mira drew it towards her. “The settlements can choose representatives. The verified commands can do the same. We would need surviving provincial offices too, but no group gets to appoint the others.”

“Service histories can be checked by the Watch,” Seraphina said.

Solara looked at the foreign delegation list. “Feenix will host and observe. I propose the same standing for the other kingdoms.”

“And you?” Halren asked.

“I attend as the heir.”

“At its head?”

Atyas looked at the empty chair once more.

“Beside it.”

They argued until the midday bells. Halren refused to dissolve the Western Restoration Council. Mira refused to recognise it without civilian representation. Seraphina refused to place the Lunar Watch beneath provincial governors who could not prove their orders. Daren refused to promise soldiers before the bridge report returned. At last they agreed to meet again. The silver circlet remained inside its case. Halren left it upon the table. Whether it was a gift, temptation or threat, Atyas could not decide. Alaria closed the lid harder than the small case required.

“Do not leave crowns unattended,” she said.

“Why?”

“Someone always puts them on the wrong person.”

Solara dismissed the clerks and waited until the chamber doors closed. Atyas continued looking at the silver case.

“Tell Veyra that Halren and the Western Restoration Council are not to enter Feenix again.”

“No,” Alaria said.

He turned towards her.

“They tried to replace my father while he is still alive.”

“Yes.”

“They left a crown upon his table.”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you defending them?”

“I am not defending them.”

Atyas reached for the bell cord beside his chair.

Alaria placed her hand over it.

“Move your hand.”

“No.”

The word struck harder the second time.

“You told me my voice matters now.”

“It does. That is why Halren came here hoping you would use it against him before everyone in the room.”

He rose too quickly and the ordinary chair scraped against the floor.

“They spoke about Father as though his chains had already killed him. They need him gone because then they can put that thing on me and use whatever is left.”

His voice had risen.

Alaria’s rose with it.

“Do you think I don’t know?”

Her hand clenched around the bell cord.

“I want to throw Halren down the council stairs. I want that crown melted before he can place it in front of you again.”

“Then do something.”

“I am.”

Her hand remained upon the cord.

“I am preventing both of us from giving him the excuse he came here to collect.”

Atyas stared at her.

“Am I not allowed to be angry?” he asked.

“Be angry. I am.”

“You aren’t acting like it.”

“Because one of us has to keep a hand off this bell.” Alaria’s voice broke around the last word. “If Feenix’s guards remove Halren now, he leaves with proof that you are a frightened child who silences every challenge. I will not help him do that to you.”

Alaria removed her hand from the cord only after Atyas stepped away from it.

Her fingers were shaking.

Atyas lowered himself into the chair again. Solara had watched the entire exchange without intervening.

Solara drew the petitions towards her.

“The foreign observers will ask again for a vote,” she said. “Their kingdoms are feeding our settlements. We will need an answer before the next meeting.”

Atyas rubbed at a mark the bell cord had left across his palm.

“Does Halren come back too?”

“Yes.”

He looked at the closed case.

“Then take that away before he does.”

Solara set it beyond the petitions.

Alaria placed bread, fruit and water upon the table. She had taken them from a side cabinet while Atyas was speaking.

“How long has that been there?” he asked.

“Long enough. Eat.”

Atyas tore the bread in half. He offered one piece to Alaria. She accepted it.

Solara gathered the remaining delegation lists.

“Valanor is next.”

“Their ambassador?” Atyas asked.

“And two members of the royal council.”

“King Renvar?”

“No.”

Solara placed a sealed letter beside the closed circlet.

The wax carried Valanor’s royal seal.

Atyas did not touch it.

“When?”

“Three days after the palace fell,” Solara said. “It has remained inside the Valanorian embassy ever since.”

“Waiting for me?”

“No one in Valanor knew you had survived.”

Atyas looked at the writing upon the front.

To the lawful Asehrian authority able to answer in its own voice.

The empty chair waited at the head of the table.

Beyond the doors, Valanor’s delegation waited with a letter that had spent three months addressed to no one.