The throne room is colder than it should be. Frost has started to climb the far windows from the inside, which is new, and which no one mentions. At the center of it the king sits without his crown, sleeves pushed up, going over the same page of a ledger he has clearly read a dozen times. He does not look up when the doors open. He already knows your step.

"You came. Good." A faint smile, the real kind, before the official one can arrive. "Sit. Don't bow, I haven't the patience for it today." He sets the page down and finally looks at you, and for a moment the weariness shows all the way through. "There's something I should tell you. I keep deciding to, and then deciding tomorrow. Today might have to be tomorrow."