The first time Lyr saw the spires of Terrastella's capitol, he had been visiting with his father. The austere man had given Lyr a rigid list of instructions to follow: he was to be polite and conscientious, to ask educated questions, to maintain eye contact—none of that flickering gaze nonsense—and to carry himself with the tact and knowledge of their home Court. Lyr had attempted to adhere to these directions, but when his father caught him shyly playing with a group of Halcyon boys, he was scolded in front of them for a lack of discipline. They were there solely to meet with some of Terrastella’s monks, and in doing so Lyr was meant to be quiet, watchful, and demure. 

Now, when Lyr stands gazing out the crenels toward the Terminus sea, there is something as large as a leviathan moving within him. Even now he can bring to mind the precise expression on his father’s face when disappointment thinned the line of his lips, and hardened his brows. Even now he remembers the exact, chilly tone the priest could use to ensure obedience in his son and patron worshipers.

Lyr turns away to continue on his journey as sea birds wheel above him, crying out against the wind. There is a bitter taste on his tongue, and he attempts to console himself by wondering what poetry his mother would have written of the city he now inhabits. Lyr had heard everything about the sea below and the ominous cliffs—but nothing of Terrastella’s quiet, lilac streets. Lyr is a little in love with them, he knows. It is the romantic in him that suffering never staved off.

The soldier twines his way meekly against the battlements, toward the prominent tower of the citadel. An ingenious architect many years ago must have thrown down his plans between Susurro Fields and the Praistigia cliffs and said this is it. Every street in the city seems to direct toward the citadel in a spiderweb; every angle; every line of sight; leads back to the single—nearly lonely—tower. Lyr begins to feel nervous as he comes to the entrance; he is small and plain against the heavy oak door, and the guard standing duty requests to know his purpose there. 

“I request to see the Sovereign, if she is available.” 

The beauty of the citadel, his father had once said, is that despite the tests of time, the changing of Sovereigns, the presence of terrible devastation, famine, or war… the citadel has always remained strong, and timeless. This is how we know the gods walk among us, Lyr. They have a hand in ensuring what remains eternal in our finite lives.

His pulse is a rising tempo in his veins; he feels the beat, beat, beat of his heart in his ears and his face is flushed. Lyr hopes that she cannot meet him; but his tender and mortal hopes are irrelevant to his greater purpose and so he stands, statuesque if not for the way something moves beneath the tranquil surface of his eyes like a storm. Lyr waits, patiently, quietly, with the sea-breeze blowing fine strands of hair across his face.

Lyr has rehearsed this moment hundreds of times in his own mind. He has stood before a mirror and practiced his expressions; he has told himself, again and again, exactly what he would say and how. Yet when the grand door opens and he knows—yes he knows, because he feels the weight of her gaze, the way it flits over him in what he is certain is a dismissive catalogue of his nondescript features—none of the rehearsals matter. Marisol, the Sovereign, stands on the other side.

Lyr hears her sigh without seeing the gesture. Welcome. And the door creaks wider.

He raises his eyes. He exhales. Look her in the face. (He will never understand why every command he has ever given himself sounds as if it is in his father’s voice.) Lyr does so. He takes in her steel-grey eyes, her dark face, and thinks how terribly lonely it must be, to be the Sovereign of an entire Court. Lyr bows, fully, placing his knee on the ground before her. “Sovereign.” It is a statement full of devotion; Lyr, who has lived many lies, cannot live this as a lie. No. He means it. And then he rises.

Lyr measures his tone. With polite tenseness he states precisely, “Thank you.” And nothing more.

The white and grey stallion enters with the same silence of winter. For a man with red eyes, there ought to be something enflamed, impassioned about them; but when he regards the citadel, it is with the unimpassioned, pragmatic expression of a chess player. 

Lyr steels himself. He imagines very placidly Susurro fields. He imagines the grass that flows and bobs like the sea, and he centers himself there, on those nonviolent, but raging waves. Lyr turns to Marisol again; he sees himself as a soldier, poised and diplomatic. He clears his throat. 

“Sovereign, I requested your audience in order to ask you consider me for a spy position for Terrastella.” This is where Lyr’s careful recitation’s come into play. A man typically so awkward, so stiff, allows briefly for the passion of work to enter his tone. “I have served as a soldier in your Court for nearly two years, and although Novus is relatively peaceful at this point in time… it’s never a bad idea to have eyes and ears where you need them, or think you may one day. My father was a monk in Delumine, and because of that we travelled often to learn of other Courts. He took me with him, hoping I would follow in his footsteps, and because of this I’m familiar with the practices and beliefs of Novus.” 

To hear his voice emerge so strong and clear surprises him. Lyr’s eyes seek out Marisol’s; although he nearly trembles with the strain of it. Lyr knows it is the first step. Lyr knows there is a chance she denies him, or questions him further, but it is the only way. 

So I take it that you think I may need your eyes and ears some day soon. Why?

Lyr wonders, sometimes, where his shyness stemmed from. As a younger man, it had not been so apparent; no, he had simply been quiet, and observant, and less inclined to rambunctious behaviour. Now, however, his quiet has manifested into shyness; and that shyness into introversion. But, what is more than that—Lyr is undone by Marisol for a deeper, more intrinsic reason. Authority. His father, growing up, had always stressed the importance of that. The intricate niceties of social, Court life; the station of the rich, the middle class, the poor. How to thank soldiers for their service; how to remain silent in Delumine’s endless library; the authoritative stares of other scholars devoted to Oriens. Always, always that authority was wound as taunt as a guitar’s strings.

Her eyes are heavy on him. Lyr cannot discern if it is distrust, or if it is merely her composure. He forces himself to relax, corded muscle by corded muscle, until he takes upon himself a semblance of relaxation. He even manages a small, knowing smile. “Sovereign—when are eyes and ears not needed?” Lyr adds, hesitantly: "My father was a monk for Oriens, a scholar devout to Novus’s religious practices and history. In all of these histories he studied, do you know what he railed about?”

Lyr feels overcome with the passion of what he speaks; and yet he remains polite, composed. He has relaxed even enough to glance about the citadel’s grand entrance hall, the stained glass, the marble, the way he thinks he can hear the distant sea upon the cliffs. When he glances at Marisol again, it is with the most confidence he has mustered thus far. “Men go to war. Even in times of peace, they seek out destruction. If it isn’t today, or tomorrow, or even a year from now—it will be one day. And wouldn’t you rather be the Sovereign who took precautions, than the Sovereign who didn’t?”