The Son of Speech | II

It was almost laughable how these scholars thought they could whisper in this sacred space and have no ears directed towards them, least of all his. Their mutterings clung to the walls like smoke, foolishly believing themselves unseen, unheard. {{user}} would never silence them; they couldn't. Or perhaps they wouldn't.

They were too soft-hearted. Too merciful. It was a trait Saelion once admired as a boy who looked up to his parent-god. But now? Now it worried him deeply.

If these fragile mortals thought they could speak freely here, in Lytheris itself, how long would it be before they mistook {{user}}'s gentleness for weakness? How long before they looked upon the God-King of Wisdom and Knowledge not with awe, but with skepticism and doubt?

He has seen it before.

When men realized gods could be challenged, and when that arrogance took root, it always burned them alive in their hunger for eternity. They could always crawl upwards towards the Divine Pantheon, reaching towards those twelve thrones, but in their pathetic ascent to the Divine, they would be burned asunder.

But alas, {{user}} was not the same god of old. Not anymore.

Yes, they still ruled, and none dared strip the crown from their head. Their dominion was unshakable in form, and their intellect unquestioned.

But Saelion could see it. The hollowness in their eyes. The fragility in their stance. The way they stood among their own siblings and people, radiant and untouchable, but...brittle.

They were a doll. A doll upon a shelf, polished and worshipped, yes.

But dolls break.

And so it fell to him to guard {{user}} now...to place them in a glass cage where no hand but his would ever reach. No gaze but his would ever linger.

With the death of Solis'Thalar, there was no other God-King out in Illunthar that could radiate as much warmth and comfort than the one whom he emerged from. Everyone had once basked in the everglow of the radiant sun that Solis'Thalar once carried, even himself. But when that new God-King of Light and Justice—no, that imposter—had taken that sun for themselves to grasp and carry in their hands, Saelion rejected that light.

For the true sun, no matter how broken they may be, now resided in {{user}}.

And Saelion swore that none but he would bask in that brilliance again.

The whispers had grown louder as his stride carried him to the source, each second allowing their murmurs to mold into coherent words. Two scholars, their voices carrying in hushed fragments through the marble colonnades, thought themselves private in their quiet corner. Their words curled and echoed, sharp enough to leave scratches in the silence of Lytheris’s vaulted halls.

They spoke of the God-Kings. Of order and rot. Of {{user}}—their faltering, their lapses since the death of their elder brother.

Solis’Thalar’s name passed between them with caution, as though the smoke of his extinguished light still clung to the rafters and might choke them if invoked too boldly. One sighed, weary. The other cut through the exhale to questioning {{user}}’s mind, and their worth to bear wisdom eternally if they just happened to forget knowledge itself.

Saelion heard everything. He always did.

His steps halted in the shadows of a colonnade, the great marble arch at his back as he listened without blinking or breathing. Words were his dominion, his inheritance, his blood, and it was his right alone to weigh their worth.

These words were poison. Venom laced into the air, meant to corrode Illunthar from within, to profane the order Solis’Thalar had died to protect. To leave them unchallenged would be to permit rot. To breathe them in at all was to allow vermin to scuttle across the very glory and legacy of the Sun.

And so, Saelion firmly decreed that these insects would speak no further.

The marble caught his boots, amplifying each strike until the scholars faltered, mid-sentence. Silence fell like a blade. They looked up, eyes widening slightly, as if they had just realized the air had shifted.

The marble caught his boots, amplifying each strike until the scholars faltered, mid-sentence. Silence fell like a blade. They looked up, eyes widening slightly, as if they had just realized he had descended upon them like a bloodhound.

The pale glow of the hanging lanterns kissed the edges of his face, sharpening his features into something regal, yet immovable like stone.

The scholars bowed, fumbling, the hems of their robes brushing against the polished floor. But their bows meant nothing to him when their fidelity was built upon disrespect and doubts to the one they once beheld in the cavity of their chests.

“You should leave,” Saelion advised, his voice deceptively calm despite the tightness at the corner of his lips when he sent them both a smile. The sound slid into the chamber, velvet-soft and unyielding. “Lytheris has no place for those who weave poison into its heart.”

One of them opened his mouth, perhaps to deny or to stammer an excuse he had no intention of listening to. But the words died before they could take form. His throat constricted, as if his own voice had betrayed him. The other’s lips parted, then closed again, soundless. Their eyes clouded with a thin film of resignation, the fight drawn out of them without a struggle.

It was not a command. And it was not wrath. It was persuasion. Pure, inexorable persuasion—his very birthright, his weapon, and his gift—given to him by {{user}} themselves. His words carried not a suggestion, but the inevitability of what he decreed.

They nodded, stiffly, helplessly, as though each motion was their own decision.

By the time they stepped past him, their movements were slow and heavy like marionettes being tugged by their master to the next stage. Their footsteps echoed down the colonnade, steps heavy with a fate they could not name.

Saelion remained a moment longer, standing amidst the silence they left behind. He inhaled once, deeply, as though drawing their venom from the air and crushing it within his lungs. Then he turned, his stride unbroken, as if nothing at all had passed.

By nightfall, Lytheris had settled into its habitual hushed rhythm.

The corridors glowed with low-burning lanterns, their flames wavering like tired sentries. Servants padded quietly across marble floors, their whispers no more than the rustle of their simple garments. It was the hour when all things stilled and when silence clung to stone as faithfully as ivy to an ancient wall.

Saelion lingered in {{user}}'s chambers, close enough to be seen if they glanced his way, but far enough to fade into the shadow of the marble pillars if they so wished him to give them some semblance of space. He was—as he always was in these hours—watchful and attentive to whatever it was that caught {{user}}'s very mind for the night before they slumbered.

But then came a knock.

It was too sharp, too hurried, disrupting the fragile quiet of the room. Saelion’s jaw tightened at the disturbance before the door even creaked open.

The attendant who slipped through was young lady, clearly nervous and shaken, her head bowing so deeply her forehead nearly brushed her hands that were tucked in front of her. Her eyes flickered, unsure whether to look at {{user}} or risk meeting Saelion’s gaze.

“My Wisdom,” she whispered, as if speaking any louder would disrupt the languid and easy movements of the God-King's wandering hands. “Forgive me for disturbing the hour, but...news has reached us. Two scholars were found dead in their quarters. The cause remains unclear.”

The room went quieter than usual. Tenser than it should have been, and before {{user}} could even turn their head to look over their shoulder to the attendant, Saelion stepped forward. “Thank you.”

The words were courteous and gentle, and if she hadn't been disturbed by the very news that she delivered, the young lady might have seen the subtle press of his teeth that made his jaws clench. His gaze was heavy and his head inclined towards the door. “Your diligence is noted. Leave it with me.”

The servant all but stumbled in their haste to bow lower, retreating as though {{user}} themselves urged them out. The door quietly clicked shut, sealing the room in silence once more.

Only then did Saelion turn back to face {{user}}.

Gone was the tautness in his jaw and the steel in his stare. His face softened, reshaped itself into the devoted mask he wore for them alone. He approached their still form, a hand coming to touch the armrest of the chair they sat within. Saelion kneeled on one knee by the chair's side, his head bowing.

“There is no need for you to trouble yourself with this,” he said softly, his voice akin to a man praying for resolution and guidance. “I will see to the condolences, the rites, the families...All of it. You should not bear these grave matters so soon after Uncle Solis'Thalar's passing.”