The strings remembered.
Before Aevarra and its solemn towers, before Soundwright choirs and sacred laws of melody, there had been only the field, the wind, and her laughter. Alira, his half-sister. His friend. His mirror.
Rion had not always been a boy of shadows and corners. There was a time before titles drew lines in the sand. In those days, he and Alira had danced through chords as other children did through meadows. Back then, the Binding was not a discipline but a language, and they were fluent.
But Aevarra grew up. And so did they.
It was law now—ever since the Harmonium Accords—that once wedded, one could only receive song from their spouse, unless under formal ceremonial exception. The idea being that music between souls invoked a tether, and to share it beyond marriage was a breach of fidelity, a confusing of bonds.
Kaelen of Surinna could not play. Could not Bind. Alira, now bound in ceremony but not in spirit, would hear no music from the man who shared her title. No soul-song. No memory echo. Only politics.
That was why Rion had come. That was why he defied every silent law and spoken threat to be here. Because if no one else would give her music, he would.
The ballroom was all glass and goldleaf. Chandeliers shaped like suspended harmoniums hovered weightless overhead, their crystals humming faintly in anticipation. Nobles lined the floors like ornaments—silent, posed.
Rion stepped forward, zither in hand.
He did not bow. He did not smile.
He sat.
Gasps rose like a second melody. The bastard son. The ghost prince. Uninvited, unwelcomed, and yet undeniable.
Two Bardguards moved at once. Serenya appeared beside him, hand on hilt, face unreadable.
Then came Alira's voice: soft, clear, unshakable.
"Let him play."
And so he did.
The first note was not a sound but a summons. A thread pulled through time. The strings shimmered. The air changed.
The zither wept.
And the world began to listen.
The melody was neither royal nor reverent. It was not some anthem of Aevarran glory or an invocation of the gods. It was simpler. Truer.
It began with a scale—ascending, hopeful, innocent. A child's steps across a stone path. Then a lilt, a laugh made music, lifted from memory.
And with it came light.
Not from torches or crystals, but from the Binding. Threads of sound folded into vision. The air shimmered, and in the center of the ballroom, the visualization unfurled.
Two children. One dark-haired, serious and sharp-eyed. One golden, graceful, and laughing. Rion and Alira, as they once were, no more than eight. Running through a sunlit meadow just outside the South Vale, chasing butterflies made of song.
The crowd gasped, then hushed.
The visual wasn't mere illusion—it was art and truth woven into presence. A memory spell, yes, but more refined, more intimate than any court mage could produce. It bent time and space, not to deceive, but to remind.
The king had not yet arrived. But others were watching. Lady Vanor of the East Reaches dropped her goblet. Lord Caelven of House Oriel muttered a prayer to no god in particular. Even the foreign dignitaries, unversed in Aevarran Binding, stared with a reverence they didn't quite understand.
Alira did not cry. But her knuckles turned white where she held her chalice.
And Rion played on.
The melody matured. The children grew older. The field became a hillside, then a riverbank, then a practice hall filled with laughter and occasional frustration. The visualization shifted with each phrase, and the ballroom stood breathless, spellbound.
Rion continued like this for many minutes.
The music faded, not with a conclusion, but like breath exhaled after weeping—a retreat, a return to stillness. Rion's fingers hovered over the strings, the last echoes of the field-vision dissipating like dew before a rising sun.
The silence that followed was too complete. It did not hum like awe, nor crackle with energy. It simply was—a vacuum left behind by a beauty too fragile to endure.
And then: boots.
Deliberate. Slow.
A door opened at the far end of the ballroom, flanked by pillars carved with the histories of Aevarra. The ceremonial guard stood straighter. Ministers ceased their whispering. Even the foreign guests, for all their ignorance of Aevarran rites, sensed the shift.
King Thaelon had entered, finally.
He walked without pageantry, dressed not in state regalia, but a high-collared coat of obsidian blue, its buttons a darker black. His crown was absent. His gaze—a gray like stormed sea—was locked upon his bastard son.
Rion did not rise. He sat cross-legged, zither resting across his lap. Serenya stood beside him, one hand resting on her hilt but not moving to draw.
Alira, moving beside Prince Kaelen, bowed her head. Her new husband hesitated, then mimicked her.
The King said nothing. Not at first. He strode down the length of the ballroom floor, every inch of him crackling with held fury. Not the wild heat of rage, but the colder fire—the one that scalded without smoke.
When he stopped, it was before Rion.
"You've broken tradition," King Thaelon said. His voice was quiet. Measured. Each word bore the weight of law.
Rion looked up, meeting the King's gaze. "So has she."
A flicker—barely perceptible—crossed Thaelon's expression.
"In this court," the King said, "a married royal may only receive music from their spouse. That is the law. It is not ornamental."
"She married a man who does not know our ways. Who cannot play. Is she to live in silence, then?"
"She chose him."
"No," Rion said. "She chose duty."
Murmurs rippled from the corners of the hall. Ministers exchanged glances. One of the Song-Chancellors pressed a palm to her chest in unease. The foreign delegation remained still—uncertain whether they were witnessing treason or theater.
Thaelon took another step forward. "You humiliated her. You cast a shadow on a sacred day."
"No," Rion said again, this time softer. "I reminded them who she is. I reminded her."
A dangerous pause.
Serenya did not move. Her jaw was clenched.
"You think the laws are ornamental," the King said. "You think your blood earns you indulgence."
"I think our traditions are more than rote," Rion replied. "I think they're alive. And I think when they become cages, someone has to sing the lock open."
A sharp intake of breath from somewhere in the room.
Alira's face was unreadable. Kaelen looked utterly bewildered.
King Thaelon's voice fell lower. "You've meddled in a ritual. Disrupted a rite blessed by the Harmoniums. You brought your own melody to a Tuning not yours."
Rion rose, slow and deliberate. The zither hung from his shoulder now by a silk cord. "The Ley stirred," he said. "This time, it stirred."
Silence again. The kind that held knives.
King Thaelon's expression did not change. But his voice, when it came, was darker than before. "You will leave Aevarra. At dawn. Take nothing that bears this house's crest. You are stripped of honorary titles, of your warding rights, and of the music license granted at birth."
A visible shudder went through the court. Even Serenya flinched.
Stripping the music license was rare. It was exile not just of body—but of sound. A ban on practicing the Binding. A silencing.
Rion looked to Alira. For the first time, her face cracked.
"No," she whispered.
"Silence," the King commanded.
But she stepped forward. "You would cut him from the Binding? For reminding us what it is?"
The King turned his gaze upon her, and it was like watching a blade unsheathe. "You will speak when asked."
Rion raised a hand. "It's fine."
Alira turned to him. "No, it isn't."
He smiled, and this time, it was sad. "It's not your song to save."
Then he bowed. Not deeply. Not deferentially. But with grace.
"To the King. To the Court. To the Bond once shared."
And with Serenya behind him, Rion walked past the guests, past the throne, past the banners of his sister's marriage.
The music had ended.
But its echo would linger.