Every virtue is equidistant from two vices. Patience is the virtue between inaction and hastiness. Meditation is the virtue between sleep and restlessness. Love is the virtue between indifference and idolization. Thus is every behavior of man a triangle, and thus is the triangle the sacred geometry at the heart of all things.

-The Triptych; Book of Heights, Panel 3

Castle Tern, Dridon

Lucanh blocked Sir Godwald’s attack. He was growing more consistent with his blocks, and they both knew it. Pride surged through him. Then the knight evaded his block and pressed the tip of his sparring sword against Lucanh’s unarmored belly. The prince grunted angrily.

“Better,” said Sir Godwald, “but not good enough. Again.”

They ran the drill for the twenty-fifth time this session—Lucanh had been keeping count. He yearned for a new lesson, new forms, new drills, but Sir Godwald had been particular about perfecting a routine before moving on to another one. Something was different about the man now; he was more uptight and demanding of Lucanh than usual. He treated him less like royalty and more like a proper student.

“Do you think they’ll succeed?” Lucanh asked.

The knight followed through with the rest of the routine and beat the prince even faster this time. He furrowed his brow with disappointment. “Bad form. We’ll have to run that again, but you were distracted. You can do better next time.”

“What do you think?”

“Your problem is that you’re overthinking each move. You can’t be this slow and calculating in the field. You must be dynamic with your moves, so practiced that they become like reflexes that you—”

“Sir Godwald,” the prince interrupted. “The Eloheed. My mother said Dridic patrol ships saw them sailing west. That they must’ve declared war. You don’t have to hide it from me anymore. Do you think they’ll win?”

The knight sighed. “I have no way of knowing that, my prince. All we can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst.” He frowned down at his sparring sword. “Knowing Grackenwell, I’d place my wager on the worst.”

“But the Eloheed are the greatest soldiers in the world. They have an army of four hundred thousand. Don’t they? Forty thousand in the navy, and more ships than the Stone Continent and Xheng Yu Xi combined. How could they possibly lose?”

“Think it through. There are a great many factors that decide a battle. What did I tell you about your sword and the size of your muscles?”

“Right.” Lucanh instinctively tapped his boot on the stone floor, finding sure footing. “Ever since Grackenwell took the Grand Archipelago, and whatever happened in Zan Vayonado... They seem like children testing their own boundaries. Seeing what they can get away with. It can’t possibly last, can it?”

The knight rested the end of his sparring sword on the stone floor and folded his hands over the hilt. “All due respect, it’s best you don’t concern yourself with these matters right now, Your Grace. Just hone your skills and pray to Triad that you aren’t forced to use them. That’s all any of us can do.”

“Does that mean we’re done for the day?”

Sir Godwald smirked. He picked up his practice blade again, twirling it in one hand. “Nice try. Just for that, we have to run that last drill three more times even after you perfect it. Now, again.”

Lucanh sighed and readied his own pretend sword. He wished he knew more about the ensuing war to the north. He said a silent prayer to Triad that the Qardish army succeeded in cracking down on this Grackenwelsh defiance, that order would be restored to the world.

But a secret selfish sliver of his heart hoped that Grackenwell would invade Dridon one day. He couldn’t deny his own burning curiosity for the rush of battle, what war was really like. The slavers deserved to suffer for what they did.

Then he could finally prove himself.

***

The dinners served in Castle Tern were waning thinner and thinner. On this day, they had only a chicken breast and a few florets of steamed broccoli each. The seasonings were light. Lucanh was free to have two goblets of milk, at least, and his mother’s helpings of wine had actually increased since this whole rationing business began. For dessert, there was a freshly baked blackberry pastry, tart and flaky. Small, though.

Rationing most food was the least that Dridon’s royalty could do. Dark days loomed on the horizon, and they were the only ones who could truly prepare the nation on a large scale. Silos swelled with grain that would last a long while; jars filled up with vegetables and fruits pickled, fermented, preserved. Jerky hung on racks to dry in smokehouses while fromagers rolled out wheel after wheel of hard cheese for aging. All of it was orchestrated and paid for by Castle Tern, and the laborers they conscripted were doing upstanding work.

Hopefully it would all prove unnecessary. At least, that’s what Lucanh’s mother would always say.

She’d grown quieter ever since the day that news arrived from Zan Vayonado. She sulked, frowned, moved about the castle like a sad shut-in, sighed bitterly and often. She attended less to official royal business and drank more wine than ever. Sometimes even spirits. The drink was the one thing she showed no interest in rationing.

“Where are you going after dinner?” Queen Rhoda slurred. She’d hardly picked at her food; it would go to her four royal dogs behind the castle yet again, and the pets’ breakfasts would be that much lighter. “You never stay and talk anymore. I hardly see you.”

“Nowhere, mother,” Lucanh replied.

“Do you promise?” She fixed her half-lit eyes on his. “I worry about you.” He hated the way she acted when she drank too much, and it made him vow never to drink a drop of the lightest ale or the weakest wine even when he came of age. He was sure of it.

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“Yes, mother.”

“Sir Godwald will tell me if you’ve been fibbing. He’ll keep a good eye on you.”

Lucanh scoffed. “So? Sir Godwald isn’t even the High Knight. He has no authority over me.”

Queen Rhoda jabbed a finger at her son, outraged. “Lucanh!” She swayed a bit, blinking ineffectually, pursing her lips. The flash of anger faded from her face as quickly as it had appeared. “It’s not safe to wander outside at night anymore. Even if you do think you’re a man now. I don’t care how much you’ve trained with Sir Godwald. Do you understand me?”

He rolled his eyes. “Somehow.”

“What is this new attitude of yours?”

Lucanh stood from his seat at the royal table. “I don’t think I am a man now. I am a man now! I’m getting stronger by the day. And you’ll have to start treating me like a man if war comes to Dridon!”

He thought his words would move her, especially in her emotional state, but she waved a dismissive hand. “So quick to throw yourself into harm’s way, no matter how desperately I try to protect you." She went to drain her chalice of its wine and paused. “Like father, like son.”

He slammed his hand down on the table. “Don’t talk about my father like that! How many times have you told me not to speak ill of the dead?”

His mother drew back and softened. “I’m sorry. I know you aren’t my little boy anymore and you just want to be brave. That’s what worries me, Luke. I just want you to be safe.”

He rolled his eyes again. “Never mind. This is why I can’t talk to you about anything.” He stormed past her on his way out of the hall. “I’m going to go read.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” his mother said quietly, to herself or no one in particular. He said nothing in return.

He wanted nothing more than to get away from her and back to more important business.

***

The lighting in the royal library was woefully inadequate. Candles and tall shelves of books didn’t mix well. Lucanh squinted to read the finely printed text of the Book of Heights, so much of it packed together so as to conserve space, walls of undivided text taller and tighter than anything a mason could make of stone. Every shred of his concentration was hard at work. It didn’t help that it was such a boring book. But there was knowledge to be found in every corner of the Triptych—or so he’d been told.

The Book of Heights also happened to be the book with the fewest illustrated panels. Panel Three, some dull lesson about virtues, Panel Eleven, that stupid boy and the beehive, and then Panel Twenty-Six, the Winters of the Squirrel and the Bear. Virtue, faith, patience.

Generosity, restraint, prudence. Preparedness, stoicism, strength.

Boredom. Tedium. Monotony.

“Prince Lucanh—”

He jumped. In the doorway was Sir Godwald, who held out his hands in apology.

“It’s you,” the boy exhaled.

“I meant not to startle you, Your Grace,” said the knight. “I only came to check on you during my rounds.” He eyed the open Triptych on the pedestal. “Reading the Book of Heights, eh? Glad to see that.”

Lucanh closed the immense tome. His finger traced the triangles and triskelions engraved in interlocking patterns of threes across the cover of the book. “Has Triad ever answered your prayers?”

“Of course,” the knight answered without hesitation. “Not always in the way I expected, though.”

“I don’t mean like that. I mean, have you ever really felt Triad’s answer? For example... you’re a knight. Have you ever asked Triad to make you stronger?”

“Can’t say as I have.”

Now even Sir Godwald was beginning to frustrate him. He rolled his eyes. “So you were just born this way.”

“Not at all, Your Grace. I worked at it when I was your age. Just like you are.”

“And you never asked for help to get stronger? You never asked Triad to give you...” Lucanh searched for the right words. “...you know, strength beyond a normal man’s?”

Sir Godwald shook his head. “Not in the way you’re asking. I suppose I felt I was strong enough to do what needed to be done.”

This did not mesh with Lucanh’s understanding of the word, or the world at large. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t you want to be stronger than you are?”

“Strength and skill and even wisdom aren’t the end goals,” the knight answered.

Riddles within riddles. “What is that supposed to mean? Then why train or learn anything at all?”

“They all mean nothing if you only wield them on your own behalf. It’s others who are most important. It’s others you must protect. This is the code of a knight.”

Lucanh still didn’t understand. Of course that was what a hero did—protect others, ride into battle on behalf of the weak, and save the day. That was what made them heroes. That is why he wanted to become stronger, faster, smarter, better than he already was. He couldn’t envision getting to the point that he lost interest in bettering himself.

“That will be all, Sir Godwald,” said the prince.

“Your Grace,” he said with a bow, and he turned to leave.

“Wait.” The knight paused in the doorway, turning back around with his hands held dutifully at his sides. “Before you go... I am a man already, but I know I still have some growing left to do. I think I can still get a lot stronger if I’m diligent about it. When in your life did you feel strongest?”

The knight gave him a sad smile. “When I had to be.” The knight left him with yet another riddle and ventured out on his rounds through Castle Tern.

Lucanh was done with reading for the night. He was done with the Triptych, except maybe one panel that motivated him through his training sessions. It came from the Book of Earth, Panel Twenty. He dropped to the floor of the royal library and did pushups. He had a routine where he would work and work and work until he felt he could do no more—but this was his mind failing him, not his body, and that was when he knew to keep going.

He recited the verse to keep his focus. “‘A boy lives by his first wind alone,’” he grunted. “‘A man must find his... second wind and persevere.’” His arms bent and pushed him fast at first, but his dwindling stamina would soon slow him down—that was when he would find his second wind to keep going. “‘A hero is he... who finds a third wind... beyond it.’”

He had never found his third wind. He knew he would someday, though.

Lucanh kept going until the muscles of his arms started to give out beneath him. This was a trick his mind played—it was not that he couldn’t keep going, only that it required willpower. He willed himself to push past the burning in his muscles and the instinct for weakness. Sweat trickled down his forehead to the tip of his nose and a droplet fell to the floor.

It was usually at the hundredth pushup that he found his second wind. Today, he’d gone even longer.

I can do this, he thought. Mother doesn’t understand. My teachers don’t understand. Sir Godwald doesn’t even understand. No one understands me—but I don’t need them to. I can get stronger all by myself. Then they’ll see I was right all along.

“‘A boy lives... by his first wind... alone,’” he grunted, repeating the mantra.

Lucanh decided it was noble to chase after his own goals and ambitions even if only he alone could realize them, even if others didn’t understand. It was noble to be alone and without the help of others.

It was something a man would do.