His hands were still on the wheelchair when the second wave hit.
[Synchronizing host memories...]
Not pain, exactly; pressure, as if a lifetime that wasn’t his was being poured directly into the space behind his eyes while the hall around him kept moving, oblivious. Names surfaced first. Then faces. Then the rest followed suit: A father’s disappointment, worn so long it had gone quiet. Debts owed to at least three separate taverns. A litany of wrong decisions, made deliberately, by a man who’d apparently decided that being born with everything meant he was entitled to waste all of it.
And then her. His wife.
Princess Cordelia Virellon. First child of King Aldric Virellon. Only daughter, among four. Once heir apparent, before—
The memory didn’t finish the sentence. It didn’t need to. Rivelius understood the shape of it well enough without the details. A firstborn who should have inherited a throne, quietly and thoroughly written out of that future the moment three younger brothers and one crippling injury gave everyone a reason not to argue about it.
He understood, too, exactly who Rivelius Kane the Second had been. A wasted, sulking disappointment, drowning a mediocre life in wine because no one had ever once told him he needed to be anything more.
Pathetic, he thought, and meant it clinically.
[Memory sync complete.]
[System Designation: WARDEN.]
[WARDEN will monitor objective progress and issue rewards accordingly.]
Warden. Of course. Not a guide or an ally. A jailer, dressed up as a favor.
"Lord Kane!"
The voice arrived a half-second before the hand did. A portly noble in Kane-house colors, was already pumping his arm before Rivelius had fully returned to his own body. Behind him, a second well-wisher was closing in, and a third, the hall’s earlier restraint dissolving now that the ceremony itself was over and it was simply, safely, a party.
"Never thought I’d see the day," the noble was saying, already grinning. "Married off at last. Your father must be relieved you managed to stay upright through the vows."
Rivelius looked at him the way he had once looked at surrendering generals who still thought they had room to negotiate.
The man’s grin faltered, just slightly, though he clearly couldn’t have said why.
Beside him, still silent, still composed, Cordelia Virellon watched the exchange with the flat, practiced patience of a woman who had spent years learning exactly how little it cost her to say nothing at all.
The crowd was still thinning around them when the prince arrived.
Rivelius knew him instantly, and not from any memory sync. The resemblance to Cordelia was unmistakable in the jaw and the eyes, even if the rest of him carried none of her stillness.
"Sister." The word came out smooth, affectionate on its surface, with something colder running just beneath. "You look radiant. Marriage suits you."
Cordelia’s expression didn’t move. "Cassian."
"I must confess, I wasn’t sure you’d manage the ceremony without incident." His gaze flicked, briefly, deliberately, to the wheelchair, long enough to make the point, brief enough to claim later he hadn’t meant anything by it. "But here you are. Married. Settled. One less thing for Father to worry about."
He said it like a kindness. It wasn’t one, and every noble still lingering close enough to overhear understood that perfectly.
Then his eyes moved to Rivelius, and his smile widened by exactly the amount required to make it an insult rather than a courtesy. "And you. Kane’s disgrace, finally given a purpose. I imagine even you can manage to push a chair." He let that sit for a beat, waiting, for anger, for embarrassment, for anything at all to work with.
Rivelius didn’t give him one.
He simply looked at the prince the way he might have looked at a minor lordling in a conquered province, or a man whose name he hadn’t bothered to learn, and had no intention of remembering. There was no offense in it. And that made it worse.
The silence stretched a half-second too long to be comfortable.
Cassian’s smile held, but something behind it recalibrated quickly and involuntarily.
"...Well." He inclined his head, first to his sister, then — barely — to Rivelius. "Congratulations, to you both."
He walked away smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes anymore.
Beside Rivelius, for the first time since the ceremony ended, Cordelia turned her head — just slightly — and looked at him.
She said nothing. But it was the first time all evening she’d actually looked.
The reception dissolved eventually, as these things did; nobles peeling off in twos and threes, the last of the wine disappearing, servants beginning the quiet work of undoing an entire hall’s worth of decoration. Rivelius had spent the better part of an hour cataloguing faces he now technically remembered and offering nothing more than the bare minimum required to avoid suspicion. It had, apparently, worked. No one seemed to expect more from him than silence and a passable scowl.
"Lord Kane." A steward stepped forward. "The carriage is ready, whenever you and the Princess wish to depart for the estate."
Rivelius turned toward him, and in the same motion, without thinking, his hands left the wheelchair’s handles and crossed over his chest.
[Warning.]
[Objective compliance interrupted: hand contact with wheelchair lost.]
[Reminder: going home requires completing the objective. The objective requires you to actually do it.]
[Time until you go home will be increased if you do not put your hands back.]
He went very still.
Increased. By how much.
Explain.
Nothing. The System, evidently, did not consider that part of the deal.
Fine.
His hands were back on the handles instantly, knuckles paler than the moment required.
The steward, mistaking the sudden stillness for eagerness, smiled. "This way, my lord."
Rivelius said nothing. He gripped the handles, turned the chair with more care than the gesture strictly needed, and followed the man down the hall.
Cordelia, silent beside him the entire walk, said nothing either. But she was watching his hands.