The chamber’s doors opened and for a moment a slant of light seeped into the room and swept over the golden inscription that was carved over the unused, official throne:‘Purest of the Pure.’A man in a blue, yellow uniform entered the darkness of the spacious office.It took him a second or two for his eyes to adjust to the eternal dim but he was so used to the effect already that it seldom bothered him anymore.

Left to right he squinted as he tried to get a panoramic sense of the austere interior.“Sir?” he asked at length, clearing his throat.“Sir, your secretary said I could come in.”

A chair in the distance shifted in a long, pronounced creak.A figure leaned forward over a semicircular desk and spoke:“Doctor Pallas.Indeed, you said it was urgent.”

“Your son was in my office this morning, for his weekly treatment.Well,” he cleared his throat again and looked down to the floor for a moment, trying to gather together the words.“Well, it’s something that I’ve noticed happening for a while now and he’s begun to see it, too.”

“What is it exactly?” he asked, dispassionately.

“Our treatment is failing.”

Phaeton’s sigh was as loud and as chilling as a pang of thunder.

Pallas continued:“We always knew this day would come --”

The seated figure nodded his head.

“Admittedly, it’s happened earlier than we feared,” again he paused to clear his throat, “the problem was more serious than we had believed.”

An awkward pause followed.The lord leaned back on his chattering chair, his silhouette revealing murky hints of his hidden features.The doctor turned his eyes away, partly out of respect, partly out of fear -- toward the portrait of the Lady Xenobia, the late lioness.

“What do you suggest we do?”

“Breed him and quickly.If he does it now --”

“He’s barely out of boyhood --”

“The sooner the better.Your brother took long to mate and you know what happened to --”

“Yes, yes,” Phaeton said, relenting, his hands over his face.He remembered it well -- it could have been quite a scandal had anyone outside his most intimate circle known the truth, but the lioness had been put away and the rest properly taken care-of.“You are right, of course, Pallas.If it has to be done, then so be it.I’ll have Marsala choose a suitable, candidate, but I’ll be the one to tell my son the facts.I want him to hear it from me and me alone.”

“Understood, sir.”

Again he sighed as though realizing just then something he should have known all along.“He’s been sheltered from the truth long enough, I suppose,” the lord said in pensive thought, drumming his fingers over the tabletop -- and with that he turned his chair around, its shrill squeak echoing through the air.

The doctor scratched the back of his head, adjusted his collar and turned around to leave from whence he had entered.