Chapter 8: The Weeds Within
1133 Words
There is peace.
But not silence.
The war had been won, the Council pushed back into the southern provinces, and the Keep still stood—its stones repaired by ancient magics, its halls no longer moaning under the weight of memory. Vivienne should have felt triumphant. Victorious.
Instead, she heard whispers.
They slipped through the tapestries. Crawled between cracks in the walls. Not the voices of the Throne this time—but those of her people.
They did not call her Queen.
They called her the Hollow Rose.
And that, somehow, was worse.
Lucien lingered by her side more often now. Not as a guard, not even as a lover—but as someone who feared what power was doing to her.
“You haven’t eaten,” he said, brushing his knuckles against her wrist. “You haven’t slept.”
“I don’t need either,” she murmured, eyes fixed on the scrying pool—a glowing mirror that pulsed with threads of the kingdom.
“You do.”
She finally looked at him.
“I’m not Seraphine,” she said. “But I’m all they have. I can’t afford to rest. Not when every province plots, not when the Keep’s foundations still bleed, not when half our army doesn’t even believe in me.”
Lucien said nothing. But the silence between them cracked like ice underfoot.
Malric stood in the council chamber.
The room was smaller than the old one, less ornate. Vivienne had ordered it to be rebuilt without gold or marble. Simplicity bred honesty—or so she hoped.
“Do you know what they’re saying in Aelwyn?” Malric asked, pacing before the flame-lit table.
Vivienne didn’t reply.
“That you’re the Warden Queen. That you’re keeping your own allies under lock and shadow, and you’ve replaced one crown with another.”
“I’ve given them stability.”
“You’ve given them fear.”
She stood. “Would you prefer chaos? Riots in the streets? Another Council rising from the ashes of the old one?”
“No. I’d prefer a leader who sees beyond the throne.”
Vivienne’s hands curled around the edge of the table.
“I see everything, Malric. That’s the burden of this power.”
She saw more than he knew.
The Throne had changed her—not just in magic, but in perception. Every time she walked through the Keep, she saw trails of memory. Ghosts of conversations. Imprints of emotion.
She saw Seraphine arguing with Caius in the eastern wing.
She saw Lucien as a child, bleeding from the hand his father crushed.
She saw herself.
Weeping. Laughing. Breaking.
It was not a gift. It was a torment.
And now, as whispers turned to shadows, she felt the pull of betrayal.
Caius had disappeared.
No one knew when.
The library reported last seeing him four days ago. His chambers were untouched. His notes on the Binder—the weapon sent by the Council—had vanished.
And with him, so had one of the three Royal Seals.
Lucien paced the chamber.
“He wouldn’t turn,” he said. “He supported you.”
“He supported knowledge,” Vivienne corrected. “And right now, knowledge is power. He could sell it to anyone.”
Malric arrived not long after, jaw clenched.
“A rumor’s spreading through the southern towns. That Caius claims to be the rightful heir to Seraphine’s legacy. That he has documents proving your birth was... forged.”
Lucien exploded. “That’s a lie!”
Vivienne didn’t react.
Because part of her already suspected it.
The memory came unbidden that night.
Vivienne in the nursery, cradled not by Seraphine, but by another woman.
A voice: “She must never know.”
The woman’s face blurred, flickering like candlelight.
The Throne did not speak. But it revealed.
And in that moment, Vivienne realized: she had never asked to see the truth of her birth. She had assumed. Wanted to believe.
But the Throne had no loyalty to assumptions.
Lucien pressed her for answers.
“You’re hiding something. I can feel it. We’ve bled together, Vivienne. That makes us more than allies.”
She turned away.
“If I’m not who they think I am—if the line isn’t pure—what happens?”
He stared. “Nothing. You are who you’ve become. Blood isn’t what makes a ruler.”
“Then why do they all act like it is?”
Because power, she thought, is always traced back to origin. Never to effort.
Malric gathered the leaders of the three factions.
The Ember Cloaks were restless. They had followed Seraphine, not Vivienne. The Hollow Guard were loyal, but wary. Only the Reclaimed—the former rebels now aligned with Vivienne—stood firm.
“We need unity,” Malric told her. “Or we’ll fracture. One rumor, one spark, and it all burns.”
Vivienne stood before them that night.
She wore no crown. No armor. Only a simple black robe stitched with silver thread.
“You doubt my blood,” she began. “So do I.”
A pause. Sharp. Honest.
“But I am the one who stayed when others fled. I am the one who heard the Throne’s pain and answered it. I am the one who faced the Binder. Who walked into battle when I should have been buried.”
She stepped forward.
“I do not ask for faith. I offer results. If you follow me, we rebuild. If not, you are free to leave. But know this: if you return to war, it will not be against a girl. It will be against everything I’ve become.”
They stayed.
Even the Ember Cloaks.
But Caius’s betrayal had done its damage.
Now there were factions in the south calling for a new republic. A movement was rising, speaking of liberation not through bloodlines, but through voice. Democracy.
Vivienne listened.
And for the first time, she asked:
“Do I rule out of fear—or necessity?”
Lucien joined her in the scrying chamber.
“I’ve made contact with a scholar from the Republic,” he said carefully. “She wants to meet. Privately.”
Vivienne arched a brow. “To negotiate?”
“No. To warn.”
She leaned in. “About what?”
Lucien looked grim.
“About what Caius is building.”
That night, as Vivienne walked through the memory halls, she heard a new whisper. Not from the Throne. Not from her ghosts.
But from herself.
You are not what they think you are.
You are something new.
And perhaps that would be enough to save the kingdom.
Or damn it.
Either way, the weeds had taken root.
And war was no longer at the gates.
It was within.
To be continued...
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