In the morning Savern invited Elian to meet him.
He did not order Elian to appear or send guards for him. He invited him. On a silver tray lay a card bearing the regent's arms and a single sentence: "If you want to know why your death is more useful than your victory, come to the northern map room."
Miran said:
"It is a trap."
Tavel said:
"Naturally."
Vestra, who could now appear at Elian's side without explanation, said:
"A trap reveals the hunter's intentions. Go, but do not take everyone with you."
Elian looked at her.
"Are you giving orders already?"
"I paid dearly for our alliance. Now I am making sure my purchase is not damaged."
Miran took a step towards her.
"Call him a commodity again and you will lose a tooth."
"Which is precisely why you should not go. Savern knows how to make use of honest anger."
Elian left Miran by the gallery, sent Tavel to the archive and went to meet Savern with Vestra. Unpleasant as it was to admit, she had a point. If the regent meant to intimidate them, Vestra was more likely than Miran to notice exactly what he hoped to achieve.
The northern map room had been locked since Elian's childhood. The late king used to say it held old wars. Elian now saw that this was almost true.
Dozens of maps of Astern hung on the walls, each depicting a different form of the kingdom. On one, the river ran through the capital. On another, there was no capital at all, only a black stain around the Empty Throne. On a third, the northern border ended abruptly, as though someone had burnt through the paper.
Savern stood alone in the centre of the room, without guards. It was his way of showing that he did not fear his guests.
"You came," he said.
"You invited me."
"I hoped you might have some curiosity left after all those deaths."
Elian did not answer.
Savern ran a hand over the nearest map. Five outlines of Astern overlapped so closely that the roads merged into black knots.
"The Old Fracture," the regent said. "Five Drafts opened within a single month. Each had its own heir, its own oaths, debts and laws. Everyone believed his own world was the real one and tried to bring back the person he had lost in another Draft."
Vestra stood a little behind Elian, listening closely without interrupting.
Savern pointed to the burnt place by the northern border.
"Mayra's branch was here."
Elian's breath caught.
All he knew of his mother was that she had died before the court recognised her. Later he had been told that her name had never appeared in the family register, and eventually people had stopped speaking of her altogether. Now, for the first time, Savern said her name aloud.
Mayra.
A sharp pain struck Elian's chest. The system said nothing, but the Empty Throne had clearly responded to Mayra's name.
"Who was she?" he asked.
Savern answered with his usual composure.
"Someone your father tried to save from every Draft at once."
"And you erased her."
"No. She was erased by the error you now call a road to salvation."
Savern lifted a thin sheet of dark glass from its stand and laid it over the map. The lines beneath the glass began to move. Five forms of Astern started to overlap. Roads aligned, castles changed places, houses appeared in the middle of fields and graveyards in children's bedrooms. Names flickered and went dark one by one.
"When Drafts overlap without a choice being made," Savern said, "the world does not grow richer. It rids itself of those whose existence has too few witnesses to confirm it. Servants vanish first, then younger branches, unregistered children and women whom kings loved without the Council's permission."
Elian stared at the black stain.
"My mother."
"Yes."
The word sounded almost gentle.
It made Elian want to strike him all the more.
Savern continued:
"Your father was not weak. He was afraid. He saw the Empty Throne reaching for Mayra and the child she carried. So he chose a world in which the child would survive but would not be recognised as an heir or attract the Throne's attention."
"He struck Elian out to hide him," Vestra said quietly.
Savern looked at her with cool approval.
"Princess Lo always hears the price before anyone else."
For a moment Elian could not breathe.
All his life, Elian had thought his father refused to recognise him out of shame, and later out of cowardice. Now Savern offered a third explanation: his father had renounced his son to save his life. There had been mercy in that decision, but Elian still could not forgive him.
"Why are you telling me this?" Elian asked.
Savern went to another map. There the Empty Throne was drawn not in the hall but far beneath it, among the roots of a black tree.
"Because you think I fear your power. In truth, I fear your pity. You are already preserving the names of those whom the established order considers unimportant. It is noble and very dangerous. An attempt to bring back the erased once fractured Astern."
"You killed me for being noble?"
"I executed you because you are a door."
The same words. Without the crowd, they sounded more honest.
Savern bent over the map.
"A door is not to blame when the dead pass through it. But it is still locked at night."
The system had not preserved Mayra's name or named her as a witness. Even so, Elian now knew that his mother's name existed and that the Empty Throne recognised it.
"If you know the Drafts so well," he said, "why have you not closed the Empty Throne yourself?"
For the first time since the meeting began, Savern's expression changed.
His lips twitched almost imperceptibly.
"Because someone pays for a closed door too."
He tapped a finger against the burnt stain on the map.
"And because I have already chosen once whom to leave outside."
The system remained silent, but Elian understood without it: Savern had lost someone too, and called it order so that he would not have to call it murder.
As they left the room, Vestra said:
"You are more dangerous now."
"Because I know my mother's name?"
"Because you can pity your enemy."
Elian wanted to object.
But his chest still ached at the thought of Mayra.
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