Sleep, when it finally came, didn’t last long enough.
Helios woke to Seraphina’s voice through the door of the small chamber the Council had insisted on calling “the King’s quarters” despite it being barely furnished, little more than a bed, a washbasin, and a window overlooking the square where last night’s celebration had finally burned itself out.
He found her already dressed for the day, composed in a way that made him suspicious she hadn’t slept at all.
“Apologies for the hour, Your Majesty. Something’s arrived at the northern boundary marker. You’ll want to see it yourself.”
The northern boundary marker turned out to be a plain wooden post at the very edge of Rexnest’s claimed territory, and the something turned out to be a person, standing exactly on the line where Rexnest’s border met unclaimed forest, making a visible point of not stepping over it.
She was tall in a way that had nothing to do with elf proportions, skin a deep grey-blue like something carved from wet stone, twin curved horns swept back from her temples, and a stillness to her that made the ambient forest noise around her seem louder by comparison.
Not an elf.
Not anything Helios had a name for.
“A Stonekin,” Kaelen muttered beside him, low enough for only Helios to hear.
“Haven’t seen one of those in—” He stopped himself, jaw tightening at whatever he’d been about to say.
“In how long?” Helios asked quietly.
Kaelen didn’t answer that.
He rarely did anymore, when the question circled too close to the thing neither of them had actually talked about yet.
The woman at the marker inclined her head as they approached, unhurried, clearly having expected the wait.
“Rexnest,” she said, testing the name like she was confirming it against something.
“You’re smaller than the reports suggested.”
“We’re new,” Helios said, which felt true enough not to qualify as a lie.
“Everyone’s new,” she said, something almost sympathetic in it.
“I represent the Vellmarch Trade Concord. We’re three days’ travel north of here, past the ridge line your scouts haven’t reached yet. We’d like to open trade before someone less patient does it for you.”
Helios turned that number over, feeling the shape of the world stretch a little wider than it had been an hour ago.
Rexnest wasn’t alone out here.
It had never been alone out here, and until this exact moment he hadn’t let himself think seriously about what that actually meant, or how many other Vessas and Vellmarches were out there right now, going about their own first days in a world he’d assumed, foolishly, revolved mostly around him.
“Define less patient,” Kaelen said.
The Stonekin’s expression didn’t change, which was somehow more unsettling than if it had.
“The Ashen Dominion’s outriders were spotted two days ago, north of the ridge, moving in your general direction. I’d assume they’re not coming to discuss trade terms, though I could be wrong. Empires that size rarely bother explaining themselves either way.”
Helios kept his face carefully neutral, though something cold settled low in his chest at the name.
He’d seen it once, briefly, sitting alone at the top of a leaderboard category no other domain had qualified for yet.
Seeing it again this soon, moving, felt less like coincidence and more like a clock he hadn’t known was running.
“You’ve dealt with them,” he said.
Not quite a question.
“Recently, or is this reputation talking?”
“Once. Briefly.” The Stonekin’s tone flattened, careful in a way that told Helios exactly how much she wasn’t saying.
“I’d prefer Vellmarch not need to deal with them again anytime soon, which is part of why I’m standing at your border instead of theirs.”
Seraphina stepped forward, smooth and diplomatic, sliding into the gap before the silence could stretch too long.
“Rexnest would welcome the Concord’s trade, and any information that comes with it. Might we discuss terms properly, somewhere with chairs and considerably less standing in a field?”
The ghost of a smile crossed the Stonekin’s face.
“It will be,” Helios said, more firmly than he entirely felt.
Vessa studied him a moment longer, something unreadable in her expression, then turned and walked back into the tree line without further ceremony, unhurried in a way that suggested she wasn’t remotely worried about anything following her.
The walk back to Aldrenhal was quieter than the walk out had been.
Helios found himself replaying the conversation piece by piece, the casual way she’d said everyone’s new, the careful way she hadn’t finished a single sentence about the Ashen Dominion.
“Rexnest, and now Vellmarch, and an empire big enough to make a trade concord this nervous,” he said finally.
“How much of this world haven’t I even seen a name for yet?”
“Most of it, Your Majesty,” Seraphina said.
“Elysia is considerably larger than the borders you’ve walked so far.”
“Comforting.”
“I didn’t say it to comfort you.”
Kaelen fell into step beside them, unusually quiet for someone who normally filled silences on instinct.
When Helios glanced over, he found the general staring north, toward the ridge line neither of them could actually see yet, jaw set in a way that looked less like caution and more like recognition.
“You’ve heard that name before,” Helios said.
“The Ashen Dominion. Somewhere further back than a leaderboard entry.”
Kaelen’s silence lasted one beat too long to be nothing.
“Later,” he said finally.
“Ask me later, when I’ve figured out how to explain it without sounding insane.”
Helios let it go, for now, and added it to the same growing list everything else eventually joined, a list that seemed to get longer every single day rather than shorter, no matter how many answers he found.
He wondered, not for the first time, how long a list could grow before it stopped being a mystery and started being a warning.