Chapter Text
The Fey Sanctum lies cradled at the far edge of the kingdom, veiled by the shrouded mists of the Western Reach; a region where the land breathes ancient magic and dawn is always a reluctant bloom. There, fog lingers like the breath of ghosts, curling through the limbs of moss-draped trees, brushing the tops of shrines that once echoed with bells now long fallen silent. Ivy curls through broken stone; the scent of soot still clings faintly to cracked tiles and scorched prayer flags.
Once, monarchs knelt at this temple in reverence. Now, they barely remember its name.
The Sanctum slumbers, its bones half-buried in ash. Forgotten.
But to Phoenix, it is sacred. It always has been.
Not just because it is ancient, or beautiful. But because it was once her home.
Mia Fey had taken him in when he had nowhere else to go.
He had arrived at the Sanctum with no name worth repeating, a bruised pride and little else. His past was a crumbling village and his future, uncertain. He was barely twenty, tired of begging for work and colder than he’d ever admit. The priestesses had eyed him with quiet suspicion - an outsider, a man, a stray wandering through sacred grounds - but Mia had only smiled.
“Every ember has the potential to spark again,” she had said, guiding him through the arched stone halls like he belonged there.
She had offered him warmth. A place to rest. Work, when his hands needed something to hold besides regret.
But more than that, Mia had seen something in him. Even when he could not see it himself.
She had taught him how to speak with purpose, how to hold the gaze of men who thought themselves greater, how to stand straight in rooms designed to make him small.
“Truth matters,” she used to say, her voice soft but resolute. “Even when no one else believes it does. Especially then.”
Phoenix had listened. Learned. Loved her like a sister. And when word came that she had died in a fire trying to protect a child caught in the temple rafters, he had not wept in public. He had bowed his head, offered prayers, and carried her teachings like a hidden blade ever since.
So when he heard that Payne’s forces were razing the Sanctum, his breath had caught in his throat like ash.
It wasn’t just stone and history they were erasing.
It was her.
He didn’t know Maya was her sister.
Not at first. Not even for a long while after they met.
She had simply introduced herself as Maya, a girl who was young, clever, a little brash, and fiercely loyal to the Sanctum. Phoenix had assumed she was one of the younger acolytes stepping into the leadership void. It wasn’t until weeks into their work, after he had seen her lift a child out of a pit of soot, after she had corrected his translation of an ancient decree without blinking, that she had said, offhandedly, “Mia would’ve hated this. The nobles undoing everything she fought for.”
And Phoenix had stopped cold.
“Mia?” he’d asked.
She had blinked at him, puzzled. “You knew her?”
His mouth had gone dry. “She saved me.”
Maya had just nodded, her expression unreadable. “Yeah. She did that a lot.”
He hadn’t known. Not because Maya hid it, but because it hadn’t occurred to him that someone so close to Mia, her blood, could be right beside him, carrying the same fire in her chest.
Now, as he stares at the frost-kissed window, the Sanctum heavy on his mind, he thinks of both of them. Mia, who once gave him a place in the world. Maya, who is fighting to keep it from being swallowed whole.
Below him, the palace moves with the precision of a well-wound clock. Footmen in crimson uniforms sweep across the grounds like blood through veins. The noble banners hang motionless. Even the morning fog here feels too orderly.
The sky is brittle. Pale. And behind it, the hours press on, dragging Phoenix toward something he would rather not face.
Today is Prince Miles Edgeworth’s birthday.
And tonight, there will be music. A hall choked in gold and myrrh. Toasts raised high to a man carved from duty. Phoenix knows exactly where he’ll stand: beside the prince, in royal blue robes too rich for comfort, smiling with practiced neutrality. A living ornament. A breathing proof of alliance.
But first, before the pageantry and pretense, there is work to finish. One last attempt.
On the nearby table, a leather-bound satchel lies open like a wound. Within it lie pages of testimony written in trembling hands, eviction orders inked by Payne’s smug seal, and one ancient decree whose edges are so worn they feel soft. Atop the pile, in Franziska’s sharp handwriting, reads a single word: Sanctum.
The last two weeks blur in Phoenix’s memory - mud-slick alleys, the soft crunch of broken tiles under his boots, Maya’s steady voice narrating loss after loss as they moved through the remnants of what once was holy ground. He remembers the hollowed faces of the displaced villagers. The scorched icons. The way a girl with soot on her cheeks asked if anyone still listened in the palace at all.
Phoenix had written everything. He could not promise protection. But he could witness. He could carry it, even if it broke him.
Franziska had read the entire satchel in silence.
When she finally spoke, it was with terrifying clarity. “You have one chance,” she said. “He will not say yes easily. But it must be you.”
He had scoffed bitterly, leaning back in the study chair like the weight of his name, Wright, meant anything anymore. “He doesn’t listen to me. Not really.”
“Then make him listen,” she snapped, closing the satchel with a decisive flick. “You are the consort. If nothing else, remind him that you still draw breath.”
The eastern wing of the palace always feels colder.
Even the silence is different here: no warmth, no weight of human presence. Just the occasional echo of boot heels across stone, the tick of some distant mechanical clock counting down toward nothing.
Phoenix’s footsteps are muffled by the thick rug beneath him, its crest intricately embroidered with the emblems of royal lineage - hawks and swords and laurels. He passes portraits in gold frames. Eyes follow him. All the kings of old, all cast in paint and judgment.
He doesn’t slow until he reaches the study door.
No voices. No footsteps behind. Just stillness.
He lifts a hand and knocks.
A pause.
Then a voice answers, “Enter.”
The door creaks open, and the room beyond greets him with the scent of ink and wax. The hearth is unlit, the stone mantle clean. Shelves stretch high along every wall, crammed with tomes and scrolls, ledgers marked with crests and seals. There’s no warmth here. Only function.
Miles stands behind his desk, his profile sharp in the morning light. His coat hangs perfectly on his frame, collar neat, every fold symmetrical. One hand steadies an open book. The other is pressed flat against polished wood, as though anchoring himself.
The sunlight cuts across him, clean and cold.
Phoenix’s throat tightens.
This - this is the part that always hurts the most. That he still finds him beautiful.
That he still looks at Miles and remembers the boy with ink-stained fingers and a spine too proud for his age. That, even after all these years, the ache doesn’t dull.
He doesn’t realise how hard his chest is clenching until he speaks.
“Your Highness,” he says, voice measured. “I need a moment.”
Miles doesn’t look up at once.
Then he does.
“Wright,” he says, with the kind of detached formality that could pass for politeness. “This is unexpected.”
“I wouldn’t interrupt unless it was important.”
Phoenix crosses the room, his boots making no sound across the ornate rug. The satchel he carries feels heavier than ever. He unfastens it and lays it on the desk with a soft thump. The weight of it is more than physical. The papers inside strain the worn seams.
“It’s about the Fey Sanctum,” Phoenix begins. “The shrine in the Western Reach. You know of it?”
Miles’s expression doesn’t shift. “I’m aware of the name. It no longer falls under active protection.”
Phoenix nods once. “It was never meant to be protected by force. It was granted immunity. A sanctuary - not ruled, but revered. Your ancestor’s seal is still on the original charter.”
He reaches into the satchel and spreads the documents out carefully - witness accounts, illustrated land maps, Payne’s recent seizure orders, a transcript of a council meeting where Franziska’s protest was overruled.
“Payne is tearing it apart,” Phoenix says. “Two outbuildings are already gone. The priestesses, the ones who haven’t already fled, have been given final notice. The land’s being seized for… development.”
The silence between them stretches. Phoenix counts the seconds in his head, pulse ticking beneath his skin.
Miles studies the documents without touching them. He doesn’t move.
“Franziska oversees civic orders.”
“This isn’t civic.” Phoenix’s voice gains an edge. “This is culture. This is memory. This is what your house swore to protect before half the nobles in this palace were even born.”
His tone cuts too close. He knows it. But he doesn’t soften.
Miles’s gaze flicks briefly to the frayed parchment at the bottom of the pile.
“And what,” he says quietly, “do you expect me to do?”
Phoenix locks eyes with him. “Reaffirm the decree. Sign a royal order to protect the land. Reinstate the Sanctum’s status.”
He pulls out the final parchment, a document so old the ink has turned brown and the edges feather when touched. “This is still law. It just needs your seal.”
Miles looks at the document, then at Phoenix.
“You think I’ll sign because you brought this?”
“I think you won’t,” Phoenix answers, bluntly. “Because I did.”
That, finally gets something. A pause, a flicker, the barest shift in posture.
His fingers curl slightly against the desk.
“This isn’t personal.”
Phoenix lets out a breath. Sharp and bitter.
“Isn’t it?”
The word hangs between them like a blade.
He takes a few steps away, then turns. His voice doesn’t rise, but the weight behind it grows.
“You don’t see them. The girls sweeping temple ash out of their hair. The old men who still leave offerings at cracked altars. You see a document. A disruption. But to them? It’s all they have.”
The light in the room seems colder now. Even the clock on the wall sounds too loud.
“I’m not asking for charity,” Phoenix adds. “I’m asking for decency.”
The silence presses down.
For a moment, Phoenix wonders if Miles even remembers her, remembers Mia. The woman who once served at that temple, the one who gave Phoenix shelter and something like dignity. Or if her name, too, has been buried beneath ledgers and ledgers of loss.
Phoenix looks away first. “I’ll be at the celebration tonight. If you decide to be the kind of prince people still believe in-” His voice falters, just for a breath. “You’ll know where to find me.”
The city is alive in a way the palace has never been.
It breathes and sings, more importantly, it remembers.
By the time Phoenix steps through the outer gates with his cloak drawn tight, his face shadowed by the hood, the sun has dipped below the rooftops. Night unfurls like a velvet curtain across the streets, soft and wide and full of secrets. And with it, the people emerge.
Lanterns swing from ropes stretched between crooked buildings. They bob gently in the breeze, casting dancing light over cobblestones worn smooth by time and footsteps. Oil lamps flicker outside worn shopfronts. Children dart between stalls, shrieking with laughter as vendors shout over them, voices rich with life.
No one bows. No one whispers his name. No one looks twice.
Phoenix exhales slowly, shoulders loosening just slightly. The tension doesn’t vanish, but it lightens just enough to remind him what breathing feels like.
He walks with no real destination, letting the pulse of the city tug him forward. A baker thrusts a warm fig tart into his hand with a wink and no charge. Somewhere nearby, a pair of musicians pluck a violin and lyre in crooked harmony under the arch of an old aqueduct. Further down, dancers spin barefoot in a square, their shawls fluttering like birds’ wings against the firelight.
Everywhere he turns, the city moves not with precision, but with joy. Messy, noisy, glorious joy.
He hadn’t realised how much he missed it, missed being among people who laugh with their whole chest, who shout and sing and spill things without apology. The city never pretends not to feel.
He rounds a corner and slows as he passes a row of wooden stalls, each crowded with wares—hand-woven scarves, pots of wild honey, beads and ribbons and bottles filled with coloured glass. At the far end, an elderly woman with silver hair tied in a loose braid sits cross-legged behind her table, threading prayer charms onto thin silk cords.
Her eyes lift briefly as he passes. “You have the look of a man in mourning,” she says, not unkindly.
Phoenix blinks. “Pardon?”
“Not for death,” she adds, eyes twinkling. “But for something that’s still alive.”
He opens his mouth - then closes it again. What can he say? That he is grieving a man who sleeps in a separate room? A marriage sealed in politics and frost?
She gestures to the table. “You should leave something behind. For what you’ve lost.”
Phoenix hesitates, then digs into the small coin pouch tucked inside his cloak. His fingers close around something not metal, but cloth.
A charm.
It's faded and the stitchings are loose. He must have forgotten it was in there - it had come from Maya, a week ago, pressed into his hand during their first visit to the Sanctum’s ruins.
“She made it for you,” Maya had said at the time, her voice soft. “Back when she still believed things would get better.”
Mia’s charm.
Phoenix sets it gently on the woman’s table, fingers lingering for a breath too long.
“For what I lost,” he murmurs.
The old woman nods, tying the charm to a thread of violet silk. She doesn’t ask his name, there is no need to.
Phoenix moves on.
He reaches a fountain tucked between two low buildings, where a small puppet show is just finishing. The children sit on the ground with rapt expressions as the painted marionettes dip and bow. The tale is familiar: a prince who leaves, a maiden who waits, and a kingdom that forgets. The strings jerk one final time. The prince does not return.
The children clap anyway and the show is over.
Phoenix lingers, the ache in his chest slow and persistent. He wonders, not for the first time, if he vanished tomorrow, would anyone in the palace even notice? Would Miles?
He tries to shake the thought off, but it settles deep beneath his ribs, beneath his skin. And just as he turns to leave, the sharp click of boots on stone cuts across the music and chatter. Clean. Measured. Too clean for the street.
He already knows what it is before the voice reaches him.
“Wright.”
He turns, slowly.
A palace guard stands behind him, resplendent in ceremonial black and red. The man doesn’t bow. He doesn’t smile. His helmet is tucked beneath his arm like a threat veiled in politeness.
“His Highness requests your presence. The celebration is about to begin.”
The words are expected. Still, Phoenix takes a moment before answering. He glances once more toward the square, where a fiddler tunes her instrument and a child balances on one foot, daring the wind to knock him over.
He lets out a long, quiet breath.
“Of course he does.”
The palace is aglow with wealth tonight.
The celebration has already begun by the time Phoenix re-enters the marble halls. Light pours from chandeliers high above, burning too bright and too hot. Crystal refracts in cold sparks across the floors, and banners in gold and vermilion hang from the balconies, trailing like the tails of war banners above a battlefield.
Servants dart through the crowd with silver trays and perfectly blank expressions. The scent of rosewater and myrrh clings to the air like a second skin. Every laugh sounds rehearsed.
Phoenix steps into the ballroom alone, the weight of ceremony clinging to his shoulders in the form of his formal robes. Deep royal blue, embroidered in silver filigree, a fabric that costs more than his childhood home, and yet somehow still manages to itch. The high collar scrapes his neck. The cuffs dig in when he moves his arms.
He blends into the room like furniture.
The nobles are already deep in their act - swirling across the dance floor, exchanging compliments laced with barbs, laughing like trained birds. Phoenix moves to the edge of the room, not quite hiding but not placing himself where he could be easily seen. A single column casts a convenient shadow near the eastern arch. He slips behind it and watches.
From here, the whole scene feels even more theatrical.
The musicians play in perfect time, bowstrings slicing the air like blades. Goblets clink on cue. The nobles laugh in harmony. Everything glitters, but nothing breathes.
At the head of the room, Prince Miles Edgeworth sits beside the King.
He is dressed in crimson and burgundy, his crown of garnets nestled in carefully combed hair. He does not smile nor does he fidget. He looks like a painting. Untouchable and beautiful in the way a storm is beautiful: from a safe distance.
Phoenix stares, and then immediately hates himself for it.
He lifts a glass from a passing tray and lets the wine settle untouched in his hand.
The toasts begin, each more extravagant than the last.
“To the strength of our prince!”
“To his sharpness of mind!”
“To the enduring glory of his reign!”
Phoenix does not raise his glass.
He doesn’t look away, either.
“Lord Wright,” comes a voice to his left.
Phoenix turns, slowly. A nobleman in his thirties, sleeves brocaded and chin smug. The man studies Phoenix with barely disguised curiosity.
“I must admit, you’re a hard one to read. The court has such mixed things to say about you.” He sips his wine. “You wear obscurity quite well. It’s almost… charming.”
Phoenix smiles, thin and polite. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
The man tilts his head. “Should you?”
Before Phoenix can answer, the noble bows mockingly and moves away, already losing interest. The interaction leaves a bitter taste behind, and he lets it sit there.
His fingers tighten around the untouched wine glass, the stem slick against his skin. He watches the nobles swarm like bees drawn to the glow of power. They orbit Miles with practiced ease, each of them offering praise, false laughter, and hollowed-out compliments dressed in velvet.
None of them know him. Not truly.
They call him brilliant and unshakeable as though those qualities are a gift, not a cost.
“Did he give you an answer?”
The voice is unmistakably precise and controlled.
Franziska von Karma stands beside him, all angles and poise, her silver-blue gown cutting through the sea of color like a blade. Her hair is twisted into something sleek and severe, and there’s a flinty sharpness in her gaze as she surveys the ballroom.
Phoenix doesn’t turn to face her. He keeps his eyes on the dais, on the man seated in crimson and steel.
“Only silence,” he murmurs, the words dry in his throat.
Franziska exhales, quiet, but sharp enough to slice.
“Then he is more of a fool than I gave him credit for.”
He allows himself a bitter smile, though it doesn’t touch his eyes. “No. He’s a prince.”
She shifts slightly, but she doesn’t argue. She doesn’t leave, either. She stays beside him, steady as a drawn sword. Not offering comfort, not pretending to. But staying - that, Phoenix has come to understand, is her language for care. Unlike the prince.
After a moment, she speaks again, her tone lower. “You remember that winter, don’t you? Your first here.”
He nods. He doesn’t need to say anything.
“You looked like a ghost,” she continues. “Half-frozen in the library. No fire lit. No one sent to help.”
“Except you,” Phoenix murmurs.
Franziska snorts. “Don’t remind me. I threw a shawl at your head.”
“Softest shawl I’ve ever worn,” he says.
She doesn’t smile, but something in her expression shifts, just a little. “Don’t let them make you small, Phoenix. Not him. Not any of them.”
He swallows. “Too late for that.”
“Then find a way back.”
The celebration continues around them, undisturbed. But Phoenix can feel it again: that itch along his spine. That electric charge that says something is wrong.
It’s subtle. The kind of wrong that hides in the corners.
A servant walks past holding a tray, but the tray trembles slightly, a single droplet of wine slipping over the lip of a goblet. Another cuts too closely behind a noblewoman, then corrects course too quickly.
Phoenix watches, heart beginning to hammer with a quiet urgency.
Then, across the crowd, Franziska glances his way.
Her expression shifts. Barely. A raised eyebrow. A tilt of her head.
A signal.
Phoenix moves. His steps are steady, practiced, even as his blood starts to race. He doesn’t shove. Doesn’t draw attention. But the crowd seems to part for him anyway.
He doesn’t know if it’s reflex or recognition or fate.
When he reaches the base of the dais, Miles is standing just off-center. Not the throne nor among the guests. Alone, for once, with a goblet untouched in his hand.
Phoenix stops just shy of the last step. The polished marble is cold beneath his feet, though his boots dull the chill.
He speaks with a low and firm voice, “The Sanctum. Did you decide?”
Miles doesn’t turn immediately. He stares ahead, jaw tight.
“Not here. Not now,” he replies.
The words are sharp in their familiarity. Another deflectio and another wall.
Phoenix swallows the bitter taste rising in his throat. He steps closer, his posture drawn tight.
“That’s all I ever hear from you,” he says, not loud, but edged. “Not now. Not like this. Never like me.”
Miles’s shoulders shift. Only slightly, but Phoenix sees it.
“I signed the order,” he says.
Phoenix blinks. “You… what?”
“It’s done,” Miles confirms, eyes still forward. “Franziska has it. The Sanctum will be protected.”
Relief flares but it’s strange. Hollow, even. It doesn’t land the way it should.
Phoenix searches his face. “Then why not just tell me?”
Miles’s gaze flicks to him now, just once. It’s brief. Cool.
“Because you asked me in front of them,” he says. “And I will not have them see you win.”
The breath leaves Phoenix’s lungs as if struck.
Not shouted. Not cruel.
Just cold.
So precise. So Miles.
Phoenix says nothing.
He backs away, one step. Two. The distance between them sharpens like a blade.
He doesn’t look back.
The celebration doesn’t stop for heartbreak.
The music surges again, lush and golden, spilling from the balconies like liquid silk. Laughter picks up, shallow and bright. Glasses are raised. Toasts are given. No one notices the space Phoenix leaves behind as he fades back into the sea of crimson and gold.
He steps away from the dais with leaden feet, his chest hollow where breath should live. Franziska’s order is signed. The Sanctum will be spared. He should feel relief. Victory.
Instead, all he feels is the echo of Miles’s words burning in his skull: “I will not have them see you win.”
The pain is precise. Surgical. A dismissal not of the cause, but of the man.
Phoenix presses a hand to his abdomen, fingers brushing the rich embroidery of his formal robe as if trying to steady himself from within. He has learned by now how to wear disappointment like fabric—tailored and unwrinkled. He puts it on again.
At first, Phoenix doesn’t hear the music falter, he feels it. A shift in the air. A silence too sudden to be natural, the kind that spreads like frost across a windowpane. Conversations begin to quiet before his brain catches up. A single, jarring scrape -metal drawn from leather -slices through the hum of the ballroom, and that’s when he sees the glint of silver.
The man breaks from the crowd fast, too fast. He’s dressed like a courier, indistinguishable from the dozens of staff who’ve been gliding between the dancers all evening. But this one isn’t bearing wine or scrolls. His hand is raised, the dagger already drawn, gleaming in the golden light of the chandeliers. His steps are purposeful, his expression locked in grim determination.
He lunges out of the crowd, arm extended, dagger glinting under the golden chandeliers. Not toward Phoenix. Not toward the King.
Toward Miles.
For a fraction of a second, no one moves. Miles is still seated, turning toward the sound, but he isn’t fast enough. The blade is already raised, cutting the air in a sharp, deadly arc.
Phoenix doesn’t think. There’s no time to. His body moves before his mind catches up.
He throws himself forward, breaking from the side of the ballroom with a burst of speed he didn’t know he had. His cloak tangles around his legs, his boots slip briefly against the polished marble, but he reaches the dais just as the man’s arm comes down.
And he takes the blow.
The impact is searing, a bloom of pain that tears across his side like fire. The force knocks him off balance and into Miles, who catches him instinctively. Phoenix crumples in his husband’s arms, blood soaking through royal blue fabric, darkening it to near-black. His breath hitches. His knees buckle.
Somewhere, the dagger clatters to the floor.
The ballroom erupts.
Screams echo against marble. The orchestra drops their instruments. Franziska is yelling - commands, he thinks - and guards are suddenly swarming the floor. The assassin is seized, dragged down in a blur of motion and steel. But Phoenix hears none of it clearly.
The only thing he can focus on is the agony that radiates from his ribs and the way Miles’s arms tighten around him.
“Phoenix.” Miles’s voice is hoarse, almost lost in the chaos. “Phoenix, look at me.”
Phoenix manages it. Just barely. His vision is hazy, the edges flickering with black. But he sees Miles’s face—truly sees it—and it is not cold. It is not composed.
It is stricken.
“Why would you—” Miles starts, but the words catch. His hand is already pressed against the wound, trying to stem the bleeding, but Phoenix flinches anyway. “You’re hurt,” Miles says unnecessarily. His voice is too loud and too quiet all at once.
Phoenix exhales a breathless laugh that tastes like copper. “Couldn’t let you die,” he murmurs, teeth chattering despite the heat in the room. “Wouldn’t hear the end of it.”
“You’re bleeding,” Miles snaps, more to himself than to Phoenix. “You’re bleeding and I—”
“You care,” Phoenix whispers, voice cracking. “You—do care.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
The words are sharp, but the hands pressing against him are trembling. Miles’s cloak is half-fallen from his shoulders, and his crown has tilted askew. The nobles around them watch in stunned silence, unsure whether to step in or stay frozen. No one dares approach the dais.
Phoenix closes his eyes for a moment. “Could’ve just said thank you.”
“Shut up,” Miles growls, almost desperate. “Just—don’t talk. Don’t move.”
The royal physician is suddenly at their side, barking orders, kneeling beside them with trembling hands and salves Phoenix knows won’t be enough. The floor beneath him is slick. Cold. Distant.
Phoenix’s fingers twitch against Miles’s lapel. “Didn’t know I mattered,” he breathes.
Miles leans closer. His voice is low and hard.
“I will not have them see you win.”
The words make no sense at first. Phoenix blinks, but Miles is already pulling back, letting the physician in. The pressure on his side shifts. It’s all slipping away too fast.
And yet…
Those words lodge deep, cutting through fog and pain and memory like a blade of their own. He doesn’t know what they mean, not really. Whether they’re about the court, or power, or whatever this has become between them. But they stay with him, imprinted with the force of everything Miles never says.
He lets go.
The ballroom swims in and out of focus. Crystals above him shimmer like stars underwater. The music does not resume. No one speaks. Somewhere in the distance, someone is crying quietly.
And Phoenix falls into the dark.
The words echo behind him.
Long after the ballroom fades to black.