The Shape of Peace

Erynd Vale watched the sparring ring from the shade of the colonnade, hands folded behind their back, saying nothing.

Steel rang against steel below—measured, controlled, the sound of practice rather than war. The cadets moved in pairs across the packed earth, each exchange punctuated by shouted corrections from junior instructors. Footwork. Guard. Distance. Again.

It was a good morning for training. Clear skies, a light wind off the plains, the kind of day that made violence feel hypothetical.

Erynd had learned, over many years, to distrust days like that.

“Your stance is drifting,” they said calmly, without raising their voice.

Prince Caelum adjusted instantly, planting his heel more firmly, blade angling to compensate. He did not look toward the colonnade, but Erynd saw the faint tightening of his shoulders—the effort of being corrected without bristling at it.

Across from him, Mireya Solen did smile, quick and sharp, as her blade darted in to exploit the opening.

“Too slow,” she said.

Caelum parried, barely.

“Enough,” Erynd said.

Both students stepped back at once, breathing hard. Thane Rhos, who had been observing rather than participating, inclined his head in silent acknowledgment and handed Caelum a cloth.

The three of them—heir, strategist, and champion—stood together in the dust, sweat-soaked and unremarkable in identical Accord training colors. For a moment, they could have been anyone.

That was the point.

“You’re anticipating each other too much,” Erynd said, descending the steps into the ring. “That works in drills. It fails in battle.”

Mireya wiped her blade clean with efficient motions. “Anticipation is how you survive.”

“Anticipation is how you misjudge,” Erynd replied. “You know each other. You won’t know the enemy.”

Thane spoke then, voice steady. “The enemy always reveals themselves eventually.”

Erynd looked at him for a long moment. “If that were true,” they said, “history would be much shorter.”

Thane accepted the rebuke without visible reaction, though his fingers tightened briefly around the haft of his weapon.

Around them, training continued. Recruits laughed, argued, failed loudly. The Accord compound spread outward in clean stone lines—barracks, lecture halls, negotiation chambers. Flags hung side by side along the inner walls: the Solar Crown’s sunburst, the Compact’s interlocking sigils, the Concordat’s ash-gray standard.

Peace, displayed carefully, like a collection of fragile things.

“You’re all thinking about home,” Erynd said.

Caelum blinked. Mireya scoffed softly. Thane did neither.

“It’s obvious,” Erynd went on. “Your letters arrived this morning.”

Caelum hesitated. “My father requests my presence for the summer conclave.”

Mireya snorted. “Requests.”

“He phrased it politely,” Caelum said, and then, quieter, “For once.”

Mireya folded her arms. “The Compact doesn’t request. They inform. Apparently my city wants my assessment on naval expansion.”

“Expansion invites conflict,” Thane said.

“So does stagnation,” Mireya shot back.

Erynd raised a hand before the argument could find familiar grooves. “You’ll all go,” they said. “When the time comes.”

Caelum frowned. “Together?”

“No.”

That gave them pause.

“The Accord exists to teach you how to stand beside enemies,” Erynd continued. “Not to pretend you won’t become them.”

The words settled heavily.

Somewhere beyond the compound walls, a bell tolled—midday. Ordinary. Routine. The sound carried farther than it should have.

Mireya broke the silence first. “You make it sound inevitable.”

“I make it sound possible,” Erynd said. “There’s a difference.”

Thane studied the flags above the walls. “If conflict is inevitable,” he said slowly, “then is peace only delay?”

Erynd felt the old ache stir in their chest—not pain, exactly, but memory.

“Peace,” they said, “is the space where people decide what they’re willing to lose.”

Caelum swallowed. “And if they decide wrong?”

“Then history decides for them.”

The wind shifted. Dust lifted along the far road beyond the compound, the faint outline of a caravan approaching earlier than expected.

Erynd watched it with narrowed eyes.

Too early.

“Training’s over,” they said. “Go. Clean your gear. Read your dispatches.”

The students obeyed, though reluctantly, drifting apart in different directions.

Erynd remained in the ring alone.

They stared at the scuffed earth where blades had crossed a hundred times without consequence. They thought of borders drawn and redrawn. Of compromises made in quiet rooms. Of how often peace depended not on agreement, but on exhaustion.

The caravan passed through the outer gate.

Erynd felt it then—a familiar, unwelcome weight, like a storm gathering without clouds.

The shape of peace was changing.

And they were no longer certain they could hold it together.