The golden light slants sharply through the tall windows of Hollow Hall. Breakfast is too quiet, too elegant, too strange.

Cardan stabs his fork into a fig and watches it bleed.

“Must you glare at your plate like it’s personally offended you?” Balekin’s voice slices through the silence, cool and disdainful.

Cardan doesn’t look up. “Maybe it has.”

Beside Balekin, {{user}} gives a small sigh—the sound soft enough to be polite, pointed enough to warn.

Balekin hums and lifts his cup. “Your insolence is tiresome so early in the day.”

Cardan mutters, “So is your voice.”

The porcelain clinks loudly against the plate as Balekin sets down the cup. His expression doesn’t change. Not much. Just a tilt of the head. A shadow in the eyes.

“What was that?” he says, calm as still water before a storm.

Cardan stiffens. “Nothing.”

“Look at me when you speak.”

There it is. The snap. Cold and hard, like stone cracking.

Cardan lifts his eyes. Green and defiant. “I said nothing, my prince regent.”

Balekin stares at him a beat longer than necessary. The tension tightens the air like drawn bowstrings. Then—just as swiftly—he turns away. Like Cardan is beneath him again. Like he’s not even worth the heat of anger.

And just like that, he’s smiling at {{user}} again.

He touches her hand lightly, his voice slipping back into something silken. “I apologize, my love. He’s always been difficult in the mornings.”

She arches a brow at him, amused but unimpressed. “And you haven’t?”

A deep chuckle leaves Balekin’s throat. He reaches for a piece of honeyed bread and tears it in half, offering her the better piece. “Only before I met you. Now, I’m positively radiant at dawn.”

Cardan nearly chokes on his own breath.

Balekin ignores him entirely.

“I’m holding court in the east wing today,” he tells {{user}}. “Would you join me? I’ve dismissed half the council already—they’re dull, and you’re far more pleasant to look at.”

She smirks. “You shouldn’t say things like that in front of your brother.”

“Why?” Balekin shrugs. “He’s not blind. Let him see how a true bond looks. Not that I expect him to understand such things.”

Cardan’s jaw tightens, but he stays silent. He won’t give him the satisfaction.

Balekin leans in close to {{user}}, speaking low enough that Cardan only catches fragments—graceful… clever… the only one I trust.

It’s sickening.

The way he turns warmth on like a lantern. The way he savors her presence, adores her, even—while everyone else wilts beneath his cruelty. It’s all some kind of performance. Except Cardan can’t decide if Balekin is acting when he’s cruel or when he’s in love.

Maybe both are real. Maybe neither are.

When Balekin rises, smoothing the folds of his robe, he offers {{user}} his hand.

“I’d like you with me today,” he says. “You make the court less unbearable. And perhaps your presence will keep me from strangling someone.”

He says it like a jest. He might mean it.