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Post by Avery on Jul 28, 2014 16:00:27 GMT -5
Medieval fics/collabs by me that do not fit anywhere else, basically. Recently snazzed up so that it's moderately organized, too! 8D Index below, by year and then locale for easy navigating! \o/ |
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Post by Avery on Jul 28, 2014 17:12:33 GMT -5
The Prince: Part I“I won’t do it,” the blonde boy said, staring dead red at the man sitting before him.
“You will,” the man replied, his voice like a blade. He met the boy’s gaze and then matched it wholly—fury for fury, steel for steel. From behind his orderly maple desk, he rose, not taller than the boy but certainly more imposing: square where the boy was slim, his face sun-worn and leathered where the boy’s was smooth and pale, his hair a deep, mottled silver to the boy’s downy yellow.
“You can’t make me,” the boy hissed.
The man menaced forward, stepping around the desk, the heels of his boots snapping against the tumbled marble floors. “You are nearly seventeen, Joram,” he said. “You’re lucky it didn’t happen sooner.”
“I won’t marry her. I don’t even know her.”
“Her father is a man I’d really like to stay on good terms with. That’s all you need to know.”
“Then betroth her to one of Rafe’s sons. Or Rhys’s or Johnna’s. They’ll all be of age in the next few years, won’t they? But I won’t do it. I refuse.”
“You refuse?” The man laughed, a bark of a laugh, and he took another step forward. Joram shrunk away, as if by reflex, flattening himself against the intricate oak-paneled wall behind him. “It is not up to you to refuse, Joram.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Princess Lara of Dormor comes of age in about a year and a half. Once she does, you’ll be wed. Embrace it or be miserable about it. I don’t care. But it’s happening no matter.”
“That’s what you think,” Joram said, glaring for one last moment before sidestepping toward the door. But before he could pull it open, a terse hand shot out and clamped around his arm, fingernails digging into the smooth, pale silk.
“Is that how you speak to your father, Joram?” the man growled. “Is that how you speak to your king?”
“Let go of me.” Joram tried to wrench his arm free, but the man merely tightened his grip.
“Apologize to me.”
“No.” Joram swallowed back the rage pulsing in his throat. The spark dancing in his fingers. Keep it in-- keep it in-- he can’t-- this can’t--
“Apologize,” his father repeated.
But Joram just shook his head, and for a moment he thought his father might hit him. It wouldn’t be the first time-- or even the hundredth-- and in the past he’d been struck over much pettier things. But instead, he abruptly let go, as if Joram disgusted him.
“You have a year and a half to get used to the idea. But it’s happening, Joram. Now get out of my office.”
Joram didn’t have to be told twice. Rubbing at the pockmarks in his shirt sleeve, he whirled and tore open the office door, searing out into the hall. He wanted to scream, but he kept the noise strangled-- just like the power still pulsing in his hands, begging to be let out. Gods, Noemi would have a panic attack if she saw him like this… so worked up, everything they’d struggled for so many years to keep hidden so close to bubbling over… and it had nearly happened in front of his father, no less. The king. The bloody king.
“Calm down,” Joram whispered aloud to the corridor as he hurried through. “Calm down, please, please.” He flexed his fingers, forced a deep breath. Ignored his niece Lila-- one of his brother Rafe’s little ones-- when she passed him and said hello, because gods knew he couldn’t feign at regular conversation right now.
Back in his chambers, Joram fumbled out of his shirt, scowling down at the bruises already forming on his arm. Married. He couldn’t get married. Not to some foreign princess he’d never met… although really, if he thought about it, the fact that she was a stranger was only part of the problem. No. The real issue would be what came next, after the marriage. The children they’d be expected to produce.
And what those children might be.
A knock on the door of his chambers. Joram fumbled to finish buttoning up his fresh shirt and then hurried toward it, swearing under his breath as the person rapped again. “Be patient, won’t you?” he huffed as he undid the deadbolt and heaved the door open.
He didn’t know whether to cry from relief or frustration when he found Noemi standing on the other side, her face drawn tight with worry. One of the slaves he’d passed while tearing through the halls must have told her about his state. Must have told her something was wrong with him. Joram didn’t know if Noemi’s fellow slaves genuinely liked her enough to be her willing spies, or if she had some leverage over them and used it to impress them into her service, but whatever the case, his longtime nurse had eyes and ears everywhere in the Gilded Palace-- sometimes Joram thought even more than his father did.
“What’s happened?” she murmured, shouldering past Joram and into the chamber.
“My father,” he said vaguely, shutting the door behind her and latching it. He stared blankly as she made her way over toward where he’d dropped his soiled shirt. She grimaced when she picked it up and immediately settled her gaze on the gouges in the sleeve. Running a wrinkled finger over them, her face tightened even more.
“Did he hurt you?” she demanded, turning back toward him.
“Not much.” Joram shrugged.
Noemi sighed, folding the shirt before setting it back down. “You worry me, Jor.”
“I know.” A pause. “He’s marrying me off.”
“To…?”
Joram bit his lip, studying his nurse’s worried face-- the way her brows were furrowed, how she was fiddling absently with a lock of her long silver hair. Sometimes it was hard to remember that Noemi was over a decade younger than his mother and father, given how poorly the years had treated her. She’d been sold into bondage when she was merely a girl, and had been shuffled between a long line of masters before finally ending up at the Gilded Palace in the early years of Joram’s father’s reign. By the time Joram, the youngest of twelve, was born, Noemi had tended to a long line of Alaric princes and princesses. But most of Joram’s siblings had quickly outgrown her, this thin-faced slave woman who’d wiped their noses and brushed their hair. Joram might have, too, if it weren’t for the other things that kept them bonded.
The secrets that didn’t-- couldn’t-- just vanish with age.
“Joram?” Noemi repeated as Joram leaned his head against the door. “Who’s he marrying you to?”
“A Dormorian princess. Lara. She’s not of age yet, but once she is...” He shook his head. “What am I going to do, Noemi?”
“Maybe he’ll change his mind.”
“He won’t. And even if he does, he’ll marry me to somebody eventually, won’t he?” Joram murmured. A brief silence filled the air, before Joram said at barely more than a whisper, “I almost lost it, Noemi. I… I was so angry at him that I…”
“Oh, Jor.” She sighed. “I thought we’d worked on this.”
“We have. But Noemi… I… it’s stronger. It just keeps getting stronger, as I get older. And I’m… afraid. Even beyond passing it down to children, I just…” He swallowed hard. “What if I lose it one day? In front of him, or Mum, or… just, anyone?”
“You just need to try harder then, Joram. Bottling it.”
“That’s the thing, Noemi. Bottling it… that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life. Ever since you realized what I was. But I think I’m running out of room in the bottle.”
It was the first time Joram had admitted such a thing aloud, and once he had, he almost wished he could snatch it back. Even though it was true. Even though with each passing day the magic he held locked away at his core pressed harder and harder, demanding to be let out. The magic he’d held inside since he was a child… such a small child… the magic that Noemi had recognized in him when he hardly reached her knee. She wasn’t a mage, Noemi, but she’d had a daughter who was, a very long time ago. And she’d seen what had happened to the girl when her magic was identified-- what the palace did with her. How they’d used her. But a slave magician… while they were an uncommon commodity, they were just that: a commodity. A magician prince, on the other hand? Even without knowing how strong a magician Joram was, Noemi’s gut had run cold with fear at this thought. All the things King Malik would do with the boy if he knew what he was…
Her decision to keep Joram’s magic hidden had only intensified as the prince grew older, and it became very clear to Noemi that whatever lurked at his core was strong. That in the hands of his father, he would be a tool, a weapon, a puppet. A fine glass of wine to be mercilessly sucked dry.
Of course, she couldn’t have stopped the prince if he’d wanted to tell. But he hadn’t. From the time he was small, Joram had been the antithesis of his father-- tiny, quiet, sweet, sensitive. Smart, but in a way that lent itself toward thoughtfulness, not cruelty.
In most families, these qualities would have been nurtured, cultivated. But to Joram’s father, they simply made the boy weak. A disgrace. Joram often found himself at the wrong side of the king’s wrath-- and fists-- and he knew from a very young age that Noemi was right. That it would be very, very bad to tell his papa about what he could do.
So instead, he’d worked with Noemi on keeping it suppressed. Keeping it inside, and in the meanwhile putting on a false face for his father: one that learned from the beatings. One that understood the power of fear and the ways of the crown. An actor, a pretender, the son Malik wanted rather than the one he had.
And it had worked. For a time. Until puberty hit, and with each passing year-- each passing month-- Joram found it harder and harder to keep the magic inside. It wanted out, gods how it wanted out-- how it lashed at him like a furious wind, screaming for air, for freedom, for acknowledgement...
“Jor, you’re shaking,” Noemi said.
“Sorry.” He clenched his hands into tight fists, trying to still them. “I don’t know what to do, Noemi.”
“What you’ve always done, Jor. You’re a strong boy. I have faith in you.”
“But what if you’re wrong, Noemi? What if… what if what I’ve always done isn’t working anymore?”
“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, Joram.” She frowned. “I should go. I have work to do.”
Joram stepped aside from the door and unlocked it. “Okay,” he whispered.
“Maybe stay away from your father for a bit, no?”
“Probably a good idea.”
She smiled softly, sadly. “I love you, my little prince.”
And then she was gone.
**
It grew worse.
As the months passed, it became harder and harder for Joram to keep the magic bottled within. His seventeenth birthday passed, and then his eighteenth-- and with less than six months left until Princess Lara would come of age and be sent across the sea to Courdon, day-to-day life in the Gilded Palace became very difficult to Joram. It wasn’t just anger anymore that sent his magic pulsing, but any strong emotion at all. Great joy. Fear. Confusion.
Anything.
Noemi tried her damndest to work with him. Breathing exercises-- calming herbs-- even admonitions of the stakes at play, as if he didn’t already know. But Joram felt very well as if he were fighting a losing battle. Especially after, in the weeks before Lara’s arrival, his father installed him in the position of Minister of Slave Affairs. Joram wasn’t sure Malik’s rationale behind this, and he didn’t care to ask. What he did know was that he hated the job. Detested it. And so in a time when keeping his emotions bottled was paramount, he suddenly found himself in a position where all sorts of strong feelings were constantly bubbling to the surface.
Joram was on a sinking ship. And it didn’t matter how good of a captain Noemi was. Or how much both of them wanted to keep it above the waves. That couldn’t stop the water from gushing in, nor its inevitable descent into the black tomb of the wicked sea.
Less than a week before Lara’s scheduled arrival, Joram was awakened one morning by a slave who said that Malik was requesting his presence at once. He dressed himself with a pit in his stomach and his heart hammering in his throat, trying and failing to practice the breathing exercises Noemi had taught him. Fear. Just another emotion that set the magic fluttering. As Joram started from his chambers toward his father’s office, he kept his hands balled into tight, practiced fists. Willing the pulse to stop. Begging it to stop.
Keep calm, keep calm, keep calm, he repeated to himself. No matter what he says, Jor. No matter what he says.
“Joram,” Malik greeted blandly as a pair of guards let Joram into the ornate office. The king didn’t bother to stand-- or even peel his eyes up from the stack of paperwork on his desk, the parchment catching slightly in the early morning sun that streamed in through the stained glass window.
“You requested to see me?” Joram said. Steady, steady. He jammed his hands into his pockets to further temper the urge, the pulse, the itch.
“Indeed.” Still Malik didn’t look at his son. “Lara’s ship is set to reach the harbor in Seguier within the week. You will be there to meet your bride.”
“In Seguier?” Joram echoed hollowly.
“That is what I said, isn’t it?” Finally he brought his gaze up, his dark pupils latching onto Joram’s. “There will be no problem with that, correct?”
“I…” In his pockets, his fingers burned. Seguier. He couldn’t go to Seguier, he couldn’t receive his bride-- because he couldn’t marry her, gods, he couldn’t marry her. He imagined himself in the wedding chamber and would have laughed had the idea not terrified him so much. Nowadays he could barely eat dinner without his magic threatening to break free, let alone do… that.
“Joram.” Malik’s tone was a warning.
“Is it… is it wise for me to go to Seguier?” Joram asked, keeping his voice as level as possible. “After all, I have duties in the capital, given my… illustrious… post as Minister of Slave Affairs.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “... sir.”
His father bristled. “We both know any reluctance has little to do with your duties. You will be going to Seguier, Joram.”
“I--”
“You will regret arguing with me,” Malik snapped. “You’re leaving at nightfall, Joram. You’ll take a few attendants and guards by gryphon to Tion Castle, where you’ll stay with Lord Owain until Lara’s ship nears the harbor in Mayim. You’ll meet her there, and then both of you shall return to Rakine together.”
“Nightfall? But that’s…” He shook his head, wanting to argue. But inside his pockets, the burn had grown unbearable. As much as Joram desired to fight this, it was nothing compared to the need to get the hell out of this office. And fast. “Nightfall,” he repeated thinly. “Okay, nightfall. Fine.”
Malik quirked a brow, as if he’d been expecting more of a fight. “If I hear that you are anything but gracious to that girl, Joram…”
“I wouldn’t dream of anything else.” His heart raced. Gods, how his heart raced. He turned subtly toward the door. “Am I dismissed?”
“You are,” Malik agreed. But as Joram removed his hands from his pockets just long enough to pull open the door, the king of Courdon called after him, “One thing, though, Joram.”
“Oh?” Joram paused.
“Stop skulking about with your fists clenched. It’s unbecoming. Wouldn’t want the poor girl to think you’re raring up to hit her, no?”
“Of course not,” Joram said, forcing a polite smile at his leering father before he shut the office door behind him and fled back to his chambers.
By the time he made it back, he was trembling. He flexed his fingers almost manically, trying to shake the burn. Tears pricked at his eyes, and he laughed as he blinked them back. Gods, he couldn’t cry… What would his father say if he saw Joram crying? Probably nothing at all, Joram realized, which made him laugh again. Malik would have nothing to say, only punches to throw.
“Jor.”
Joram didn’t even notice that he hadn’t locked his chamber door, nor had he noticed Noemi enter, until her shocked voice caught his attention. He whirled toward her, tears still brimming in his eyes no matter how hard he tried to force them back, his entire body still quaking from the magic that so desperately wanted out.
“Jor,” she repeated, shutting the door behind her and locking it. “Jor, honey, you need to calm down.”
“I… I…” He inhaled jaggedly.
“Deep breaths. Remember, like we practiced? Deep breaths.”
“I can’t,” he choked out, sitting down at the edge of his bed. The tears flowing freely now, he pressed a shaking, burning hand to his forehead. “Noemi-- I can’t… he’s making me to go Seguier and… the wedding… I just…”
“Shh, don’t talk. Breathe,” she repeated, padding over to his side. Gently, she set a hand on his shoulder, but he batted it away.
“Don’t touch me, please, I--”
“You’re upset. You’re angry. I know. But you need to calm down, Jor.”
“I can’t--”
“You can.
“No, I--”
“Joram--”
“Shut up,” he hissed.
“Joram, please--”
“Stop.”
It happened so fast. He lashed a hand in her direction-- not intending to strike her, or hurt her, but merely wanting more room, for her to step back, to let him breathe. But as his fingers arced in her direction, the burn festering in them, the burn he’d held in check for so many long, practiced years…
A slash of light seared out, slamming into Noemi. She stumbled back, gasping, her own fingers immediately dancing up to her chest and clutching near her heart. A look of pain flashed over her face, and her eyes went wide as saucers before rolling back into her head. She lurched, swayed--
-- and then fell back, heavily, like a boulder washed free from its mountain hold.
She landed on the floor with a thunk.
For a moment, Joram merely gaped in stunned disbelief. The burning in his fingers suddenly gone, he then surged to his feet and stumbled over to Noemi, dropping to his knees at her side.
“Noemi,,” he said-- nearly wailed. “No, no-- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” He gripped her shoulders and shook her, panic rising inside him-- but for the first time in a long time, that panic wasn’t accompanied by the itch of his magic wanting out. It was a strange and welcome and awful feeling.
“Noemi,” he repeated when still she didn’t come to. He groped for a pulse, nearly screaming in relief when he found one. A weak one, but there, thank the gods, it was there. Returning his hands to her shoulders, Joram pleaded, “Noemi, please… I’m sorry…”
Outside, there were footsteps. Guards who’d heard the sudden, loud crash in the prince’s chambers. He heard a key rattle in the lock, and even when he shouted out that he was okay-- that whomever was on the other end ought to go away-- he watched as the lock clicked open, and the door itself followed moments later. Two antsy-looking guards rushed in, their swords drawn.
“Are you hurt, Your Highness?” the one asked, eyes darting about the chamber as if in search of an assailant.
“No,” Joram moaned. “Leave.”
Ignoring his command, the guards rushed over to his side, resheathing their weapons as they determined that there was no threat in the prince’s chamber. As Joram continued to grip Noemi’s shoulders, as if he could force her back awake, the guards stared down at her prone form-- their eyes quickly settling on the scorch mark on her chest, just inches beneath the brand at her collarbone. It had burned right through the flimsy material of her dress and into the flesh beneath it, singeing it black.
“What happened to the slave?” the second guard said, his brow furrowed.
“Me,” Joram replied miserably. Then, again, more softly: “Me.”
**
Less than an hour later, a numb Joram stood once again in his father’s office, his eyes bloodshot, his stomach churning violently. He wished he could be anywhere but here right now-- wished he could have gone with Noemi when she was carted to the slave quarters to recover-- but no. Of course he couldn’t. Of course the king had been instantly told of the strange events in his youngest son’s chambers, and of course the king had then summoned him immediately.
Gods, how had this all gone so wrong-- and so quickly? How could he have lost his temper like that… and with Noemi of all people? Noemi, the only person in his life who’d ever loved him for who he was. Noemi, who’d never struck him, never belittled him, never used him as a pawn in some greater scheme. The idea of Noemi, unconscious and burned, only the vaguest flicker of a pulse humming beneath her skin…
“Are you crying?” Malik snapped as he studied his quivering son.
“No,” Joram choked out, wiping at his eyes.
“I thought not,” Malik drawled. “So then, Joram. Help me figure this out. Because the story the guards have told me is… perplexing.”
“What have they told you?” he whispered.
“Let’s see. Well.” He leaned forward. “You, hysterical and standing over the body of an unconscious slave. A burned unconscious slave. And when you were asked what happened, you told the guards that you happened. Would you say that’s an accurate assessment, Joram?”
“Yes.” He didn’t have the stamina right now to think of a lie. Or at least, any lie that his father would believe.
“I am glad to know their report was accurate. However, I’m no less perplexed.”
“Oh?”
“After all, the guards also told me that the burn wasn’t… natural. Rather, they seemed most convinced that it was of magical origins. After having its appearance explained to me, I’d daresay that I agree.”
“O-okay.”
“Okay,” Malik mocked. “Okay? Is that all you have to say to me, boy?”
“I… I don’t know what…”
“Did you inflict that burn, Joram?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You said it yourself,” Joram whispered.
“Magic, yes,” Malik repeated. “But you’re not magical, Joram… you’re not…” His voice trailed off, as he noticed the way Joram’s face fell even further at this talk of magic, how his son was absently chewing on the inside of his cheek. How his hands were curled into such tight fists that his fingernails must be eating into his palm.
How he wasn’t coming up with an excuse. How he wasn’t providing a reasonable alternative.
“Joram,” Malik hissed. “Joram, gods. What have you been hiding from me, boy? What have you been hiding from me?” When Joram didn’t respond, only bit down harder on his cheek, Malik growled, “How long have you been hiding it from me?”
“J-just the last… year,” he said, his voice hitching. Knowing his hesitant tone might not be convincing enough for Malik, but knowing even more deeply that he absolutely could not tell his father the truth.
“Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I… don’t know. I just… at first I didn’t even know what it was, and once I figured it out, I thought… I thought it’d go away if I just ignored it and…”
“You fool.” Malik glowered. “Magic doesn’t just go away if you ignore it. You blithering idiot, you’re lucky you only hurt a slave and didn’t accidentally kill someone-- hell, that you didn’t set the whole bloody palace on fire.”
Only a slave. Joram wished he could make his father swallow those words, wished he could scream at the king of Courdon that Noemi was so much more than only a slave. That she’d been more of a parent than he ever had-- or than Joram’s mum ever had-- that he’d sooner wish them both dead than her, that he’d rather have burned the palace than inflicted on her even the smallest bit of pain.
The itch. Oh gods, not now. Taking a deep breath, Joram forced away his emotions and blandly nodded his head. The good little son. The master actor at play. He’d done this for years. He couldn’t stop now.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he murmured.
“You need to train,” Malik said. “You need…” His voice trailed off as the true nature of the situation finally hit him in full. A smile then-- a crooked, slender smile-- formed between his lips, and he leaned back in his chair. “Once you get back from Seguier with Lara, and the marriage is all squared away, I’ll have you assessed by the country’s top mages, Joram. We’ll get you the best education a magician can get. It’ll be… you’ll be…” His smile was now a grin. Toothy and dark, like a predator smiling down at his meal. “You will do great things for this kingdom, son.”
Joram nodded again. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose I will.”
“For now, however,” Malik said, “go get some rest. You look like hell, son. And don’t think being exhausted is going to relieve you from having to go fetch your bride. Your envoy still leaves at nightfall.”
“Yes, sir.” Joram forced a plastic smile of his own before turning and leaving the office, his father’s gaze biting into his back as he shut the door behind him.
But rather than starting back toward his chambers, Joram headed outside, threading through a series of courtyards, each less intricate than the last, until he made it to the massive tangle of slave quarters at the far eastern grounds of the palace. It wasn’t usually somewhere he ventured, and Malik would probably be enraged if he knew, but Joram couldn’t help it: he had to check on Noemi. Especially if he was still expected to head to Seguier come sunset… gods knew how long it would be until he could see her again.
It took him a while to find her, in a small barrack that smelled of sickness and sweat. The overseer guarding it regarded him curiously as he entered, although of course the man knew better than to question Joram. Malik might be able to snarl at and threaten his son, but this was a privilege reserved for few else in the kingdom of Courdon.
Noemi was sprawled out in the corner, her knees hugged up to and skimming the black burn on her chest. Conscious, though. Joram nearly cried in relief when he saw that she was conscious, her pale blue eyes teeming with shock and pain.
“Jor,” she whispered, reaching a hand out toward him.
He kneeled at her side, threading his fingers with her. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. I… was foolish, Joram. Thinking you could keep it in…” She shook her head weakly. “You told me so many times you were struggling, and I didn’t listen.”
“You were only doing what you thought was best,” he said gently.
“Sometimes intent is irrelevant.” She sighed and struggled then to sit up, leaning heavily against the flimsy wall behind her. Someone had cut away the burned material of her dress, leaving a span of empty space around the dark, wicked burn, and Joram outright flinched as he studied it. No wonder the guards had known it wasn’t natural: it was much too… perfect. Too black, a glossy black, like ebony or a moonless, starless night sky. It almost would have been pretty, had Joram not known what it was.
A piece of art.
A piece of hell.
“My father knows,” Joram said, averting his eyes from the mark.
“How much?” Noemi asked.
“Just that I’m a magician.” Saying the word aloud felt strange. Magician. He was a magician. “Not that you knew… or that we knew for so long. I told him it had just been a year… that I was hiding it because I thought it might go away…”
“Did he believe you?”
Joram shrugged. “I think so.” He let go of Noemi’s hand. “He’s going to have me trained… after the wedding w-with Lara.” He paused before adding, “... He’s still sending me to Seguier tonight.”
“That’s good,” Noemi said, daring to let a smile creep between her lips.
“That’s good?” Joram asked. “How is that good?”
“Simple,” Noemi said. “You go to Seguier tonight, Jor. You keep money and supplies on you at all times. And then wait for your opportunity-- for a moment when you’re alone.”
“Noemi,” he murmured, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling.
“You wait for that moment when you’re alone, Jor,” she continued firmly, “and then you run.”
“Run,” he repeated. “Noemi-- where would I run to?”
“Not Mzia,” she said. “Mzia is... “ She shook her head. “But… north, maybe. Kyth. Or west… through Lyell, not Thylle. There are so many countries, Jor. So many places you could go.” As the idea took root in her head, Noemi hurriedly went on, “Jewelry, Jor. Before you leave tonight, pack jewelry. Anything small and valuable-- things you could sell, if you needed to, in order to make a life for yourself--”
“Noemi,” he interrupted. “I can’t. It’s crazy.”
“I can’t make you, of course,” she conceded. “But Jor, honey. Think about it. Think about what he’ll do to you. What he’ll do with you.”
“He’ll look for me,” Joram said softly.
“Probably. But you’ll be near the sea, Jor. If you can get on a ship… if you can get far away very fast…”
For a moment, he sat in silence. Staring first down at the splintered floor, and then at the pained, frantic face of the only person in his life who he felt had ever truly loved him. She seemed so desperate, gods, how she was desperate. And terrified. Even after he’d hurt her so-- even after he’d sent that arc of light bowling into her, burning into her-- she was so scared at the thought of what might happen to him.
He reached his hand out again, and set his fingers down upon her thin wrist. “What will happen to you, Noemi?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine, Jor,” she said. “As long as your father doesn’t know of my involvement… well, life will continue on for me as it’s always been. There will always be babies to tend to, won’t there?” At this, she managed a laugh. “Not like the palace is ever in short supply of them.”
“I suppose.” Joram sighed, a lump rising in his throat. “I love you, Noemi,” he breathed, his voice nothing more than a haze of breath and sound.
“I love you, too, my little prince.”
**
As his father saw Joram and his traveling party off that evening, Joram was convinced that Malik would know. That he would have somehow learned about Joram and Noemi’s clandestine conversation-- that he’d sense the gleaming jewels hidden in Joram’s travel bags-- that he’d nip Joram’s plans to run away in the bud, crushing the seeds just hours after they’d been planted.
But he didn’t. Instead, the king of Courdon seemed rather pleased as he bid his son adieu, glibly reminding Joram to make a good impression on Lara-- and to be the perfect guest for Lord Owain of Seguier. Joram’s mother, Benna, seemed far less pleased, but then, Benna was never pleased; and she at least was perfectly cordial as she kissed her son on the cheek and watched him mount one of the three gryphons that would carry he and his party east.
“Wear your travel cloak,” Benna said stiffly as Joram settled into the saddle. “It’s cold near the sea.”
“Yes, Mum,” Joram replied, trying not to let his voice shake. Would this be the last time he ever saw her? That he ever saw either of him-- these parents who’d never been much of parents?
“And be careful in Mayim. It’s a foul little city. Dockworkers are about as trustworthy as rats.”
“Ah, Benna,” Malik said with a sigh. “Not like he’s going to be tromping around there unattended-- he’s staying mainly in Tion, and just going in to Mayim to pick up Lara, and then from there it’ll be straight back home--”
“I know his itinerary.” Benna sniffed, turning back toward the palace. “I’m cold. I’m going back inside. Travel safely, Joram.”
“I will, Mum.”
“That woman will be the death of me,” Malik muttered as Benna stomped away. Then, to Joram: “I’ll see you upon your return, son. Be careful with that untamed magic while you’re gone, no?”
Joram nodded, his stomach flipping. While I’m gone, he thought. If he went through with Noemi’s plan, he would be gone forever. Not just for a week. Not even for a month. But forever.
As the gryphons took off into the setting sun, Joram dared a glance down at the city beneath, watching as it grew smaller and smaller-- the gold-tiled palace soon but a speck in the distance, and then not even that.
“Are you alright, Your Highness?” the pilot of the gryphon asked politely-- and it was only then that Joram realized he was shaking.
“Um, yes, sorry,” he said. “Just-- nerves, that’s all.”
“It must be pretty exciting,” the pilot commented. “Meeting your exotic, beautiful bride.”
“Yes,” Joram whispered. “It’s very exciting.” But thinking to himself: If my plan goes right, I’ll never meet Lara at all. The Prince: Part IITion Castle was a miserable place. Where the Gilded Palace was opulent and well-kept, the castle at Tion was a rundown pit-- its stone walls cracking, its interior rooms dingy and dark, its grounds muddy and trodden. Even the guards seemed sad, their weapons dull, their armour chinked. And Joram could barely bring himself to look at the many slaves who skulked the grounds, dirty and thin, and cowering in his presence as if they expected him to beat them at any moment.
Lord Jethro Owain rather matched his sorry estate. Although he couldn’t have been more than thirty-five, Joram would have sooner guessed him fifty. His balding hair grew in mottled patches of grey, and black bags underlined his dark, animal eyes. He walked with a limp and talked with a scowl, and if he was embarrassed over the state of his castle, he didn’t betray this to Joram.
“We are most pleased to be hosting you, Your Highness,” he rasped as he showed Joram to his chamber-- a claustrophobic room in one of the castle’s tippiest keeps, stuffy and warm even though it was, true to Benna’s assessment, quite chilly outside. “The courtier said you wouldn’t be staying long, but whatever you need while you’re here, we are overjoyed to provide.” He coughed and kicked at a dust bunny. “It’s quite late now, so I imagine you’ll want to get some rest, yes?”
Joram nodded. “Yes, that would be most appreciated, Lord Jethro.”
“Aye, well. If you need anything…” He turned back toward the corridor and barked out into it, “Gwen! Come!”
A small, sunken-cheeked girl of about fifteen hurried into the room, her grey eyes wide with fear. While the rest of the slaves Joram had seen on the grounds of the castle had been filthy, Gwen looked as if she’d recently been scrubbed clean-- raw, even.
“I know you’ve brought your own attendants, but I’ve ordered Gwen here to service your every need. If you require anything, she’ll be out in the hall for you, Your Highness.” Lord Jethro smiled then-- the toothy sort of smile Joram often saw, and hated, from his father.
Joram returned Jethro’s smile even as his stomach curdled. The familiar itch arose in his hands, but he clenched them and shook it away. “Your kindness is well-received, but I think I ought to get to sleep now.” He looked at Gwen, who’d focused her gaze squarely on the chamber floor. “You may return to your quarters,” he said. “I shan’t be needing anything tonight.”
As Gwen nodded and scampered away, her feet beating lightly against the weathered floor, Joram paced over to the large, lumpy bed. Taking the hint, Jethro bowed at his prince and then followed Gwen out, shutting the door behind him.
Joram was alone.
Alone. Noemi’s voice echoed in his head. Her advice-- that once he was alone, he get the hell away, that he flee into the night like a shadow. As he heard Jethro disappear down the hall, Joram ran his fingers over the leather satchel he’d been wearing over his shoulder since departing the Gilded Palace. Inside it was enough gold and jewels to finance a small army.
His stomach lurched again. Could he really leave now? In the middle of the night, so weary from the road? It only took a few moment’s consideration for Joram to discard the idea. He needed to wait until he was better-rested-- until he’d had a bit more time to think things through. Gods, he hadn’t even slept since that horrible moment in his chambers back at home… that moment when his magic had finally broken free, and nearly killed Noemi in the process…
“Tomorrow,” he said aloud, his voice cracking. “You’ll look for your opportunity tomorrow.”
**
But tomorrow brought no opportunities; Joram spent the day in the constant company of either his attendants or Lord Jethro, and by the time he was left alone in his chambers once again that night, he was much too exhausted from playing nice all day to consider making a break for it. He slept fitfully, his fingers clutching the strap of his satchel, as if he were afraid it might otherwise disappear in the night.
“Today,” he muttered when he awoke the next morning, muscles aching from the cheap, lumpy bed. “Find a way, Joram. Find it.”
But there was no way to find. He was not left alone for an instant when in the public parts of Tion Castle, and even when he snuck back to his chambers for a midday nap, a quick glance out the window made him acutely aware that it wasn’t going to be possible to just leave. These miserable grounds were thick with people-- slaves, guards, even Lord Jethro’s bratty clutch of children, several of whom sat in the main courtyard at the present moment, drawing in the mud with sticks. If he tried to leave in the day, somebody would see him.
Sweeping the curtain back shut, Joram sat on the bed. Night, then. He would have to leave at night. Kicking off his boots, he laid back and stared up at the moldy ceiling, and told himself: Tonight. He would nap now, and so tonight he’d be alert. He could wait until the castle quieted, then stilled, and make a dash into the darkness. Run like hell into the cold night...
Or not run. No. He wouldn’t run; if he ran he wouldn’t make it far at all. But… there were the gryphons that he and his party had ridden to Seguier. And Joram knew where they were stabled, at the edge of the castle grounds. Forget the ships in Mayim, Joram decided; he had an instant and covert transportation option right here. Of course he’d have to ditch it eventually-- a palace gryphon was fairly conspicuous-- but it could help him get somewhere first.
As a nervous anticipation bloomed in him, Joram’s fingers twitched. The magic, always the magic. He bit his lip and curled his fists to chase it away.
His nap was shallow and too brief, but by nightfall, Joram was far too addled with nervous energy to even consider the idea of exhaustion. As the rest of the castle retired, he locked his chamber door and stripped down into his most plain outfit-- still more luxe than one would find on most Courdonian peasants, but at least not as opulent as his usual regalia.
As he heard one of Lord Jethro’s children puttering about in the chamber above him, and silently cursed the brat for not yet nodding off, Joram opened his satchel and sifted through its contents. From meals the past two days he’d palmed a decent amount of food for the road: bread, some salted meat, and a flask each of wine and water. Not enough to last him forever, but it would do for a few days at the very least. After that, he’d have to start using the gold or jewels he’d taken from Rakine.
If you get that far, said the dour voice in the back of his head. But Joram shoved it away. He couldn’t risk doubts right now. He was nervous enough without them.
He wasn’t sure what time the castle finally plunged into stillness enough to satisfy him-- but it had to be after midnight, at least. He barely dared to breathe as he carefully laced his shoes and slung his satchel over his shoulder, then stole one last glance out the window at the empty grounds beneath.
At the chamber door, he carefully undid the bolt and turned the handle, praying to the gods that the door wouldn’t squeak as he eased it open. It didn’t-- but his relief was short-lived, for Joram hadn’t made it more than two feet out into the hall before he nearly tripped over a figure sitting in the middle of the corridor, legs crossed against the battered floor.
“Oh,” the figure gasped as Joram halted in place.
Blinking against the darkness, he gaped down as the figure rose unsteadily to its feet. Gwen. Oh gods, it was Gwen-- the jumpy slave girl Lord Jethro had offered to him that first night. Had… had she been staying out in the hall all this time in case he needed her? Joram’s stomach gave another lurch at this thought.
“Quiet,” he hissed at her, his voice like ice. As if afraid that she would flee from him out of surprise, he lashed his arm out and grabbed onto her wrist, hauling her in toward himself. But quickly Joram realized that he was at no risk for such a thing: in his grip, Gwen was almost limp, and he could feel the frantic thumping of her pulse beneath her clammy skin.
He let go of her, and turned his hand then toward his hair, raking his fingers through it as he listened carefully to the air-- terrified that someone had heard the brief disturbance. But if anyone had, they didn’t show it. The castle quickly returned to silence, the loudest noise only that of Joram’s heart pounding in his ears.
As his fingers itched from the fear, Joram leaned against the smooth stone wall, racking his mind for the best option right now. He could go back into his chamber-- call off the plan-- but that wasn’t much of a choice at all, was it? He’d already well proven that night was the only time he could escape… and with Lara’s ship to arrive any day now, those nights were running low. If he didn’t leave now, he might never get the chance to leave at all.
He could simply tell Gwen to sit back down and swear her to secrecy about seeing him, when she would inevitably be asked in the morning. Leave her behind in this dark hall as he stole outside and then into the night.
But quickly Joram realized such an idea was fanciful. If he left Gwen here now-- even if he demanded she stay silent about his leaving-- he would be putting the girl in a horrific position. A position that would likely end with her agonizing over conflicting orders… his to stay quiet, and her master’s to tell. She’d clearly known the sting of Jethro’s lash before… the way she’d cowered before him in Joram’s chamber upon his arrival… the way she was cowering even now…
That was, if she even listened to him at all. If she didn’t flee to tell her master about his leaving before he’d even made it to the gryphon’s stables. He didn’t think she would outright disobey an order to stay still, but what if she did? What if she ruined him?
Oh, gods. Joram looked back at her-- this quivering, cowering slave girl, tiny like a bird, shaking like a kicked dog.
Rashly, he made a decision.
“Come,” he whispered to her. “Stay silent and come with me. Walk as quietly as you can.”
She nodded, her dark curls bouncing, and her fear and Joram’s fear fed off each other as they quietly snaked their way through the sleeping castle. At each slightly too loud step-- each creaking stair-- each new hall-- Joram was convinced that someone would see them… a guard, a restless attendant, anyone.
But no one did.
They made it outside unintercepted, silently creeping by a pair of bored-looking guards who were quite possibly snoozing at their posts, and then Joram and the slave banked north toward the stables. Gwen trailed the prince like a duckling, her bare feet slapping against the cold, muddy ground, her pale skin catching in the wan silver moonlight. Gods, Joram thought. Had he really just taken a slave with him on his escape attempt? And not just a slave, but one of Jethro’s slaves-- this small, stunning girl who seemed as if she might flinch at a songbird’s tune?
“You ever ridden a gryphon?” he asked her at the stables, as he selected from the three palace gryphons the tamest, smallest one. Amma, her name was. He stroked her dense feathers as she chirped awake.
Gwen shook her head. “N-no, your Grace.”
“Let her sniff your hand,” Joram instructed as he grabbed Amma’s saddle from where it hung on the stable wall.
Gwen obliged, dully dangling her hand before Amma’s beak. The gryphon regarded the quivering girl as one might a lump of clay, inhaling her scent for only an instant before losing interest. If Joram hadn’t been so terrified and antsy, he might have laughed. Instead, he quickly saddled the beast, sparks skipping in his fingers as he did. But internally only, this time. Thank the gods. He couldn’t handle another magic outburst right now-- not so soon after Noemi, not in the middle of his great escape…
“You’ll ride rear,” Joram said to Gwen. “Hold tight to me, okay? It can be a bit disorienting flying for your first time.”
Gwen nodded again, and as Joram helped her into the saddle, he scowled down at her bare, mud-caked feet. Not exactly prime for gripping to the stirrups; he would have to buy her shoes, sooner than later… a realization that made him shudder, as it dawned on him that she was his now. He’d stolen her, Lord Jethro’s slave; it wasn’t as if he could very well set her free wherever he dropped the gryphon. After all, she was branded to House Owain, and anyone who found her wandering about wherever Joram left the gryphon would swiftly return her to Seguier. At which point she’d be able to point Joram’s father in Joram’s direction.
At which point the whole purpose of taking her would be moot.
Once Gwen was on the gryphon, Joram told her to sit still as he wrangled a pair of riding goggles over her head. They were much too big on her, and the leather cord caught in her tangled hair, but Gwen sat stoic throughout. He almost wanted her to flinch, to cry out, just to convince himself that she was human. That she wasn’t but a bag of flour, limp and small, who’d tumble over the saddle the moment Amma went airborn.
Once Gwen was suited up, Joram fumbled on his own riding goggles, and then led Amma by the reins out into the dark night. Beneath the shining moon, he mounted the gryphon himself, settling easily into the familiar leather saddle.
“Remember, hold tight,” he said to Gwen, at which point she timidly encircled her arms around his waist, holding to him as a toddler might hold disinterestedly to a wooden pail. It was as if she were afraid of touching him, this prince who’d stolen her from the castle hall.
Joram swore under his breath. “Gwen,” he admonished. “Tight. You need to hold tight.” At this, she stiffened her hold, but not nearly enough, her grip still skimming him more than clutching to him. “Gwen, just-- imagine you’re strangling that lovely Lord Jethro, hm? Wrapping your arms around his skinny neck?”
Glancing back at the girl, he watched as she first scrunched her face in shock-- and then the faintest ghost of a smile bloomed between her lips. As Joram turned back around, Gwen tightened her hold, her fingers digging into his ribs. Good. A secure grip.
That meant she wouldn’t go tumbling to her death once he cracked Amma’s reins, and she started into the air.
“Amma, ready,” he said to the gryphon; as the beast unfurled her massive wings, Joram said to Gwen, “Tight, Gwen. No matter what, do not let go until I tell you to, understand?”
“Yes, your Grace,” she replied softly.
“Good, then. Here we go.” Patting the back of Amma’s neck, Joram ordered, “Amma, fly.”
**
They flew for hours, east first and then north, hugging the coast as the Eastern Ocean gleamed beneath them like a sapphire. Gwen clutched resolutely to Joram the entire time, her fingers bruising his ribs, and while at the first the girl was clearly tense, she seemed to relax as the night wore on.
As the sun started up over the horizon, and Amma’s pace slowed, indicating fatigue, Joram finally made the decision to land. He figured they had to be somewhere in the Northlands by now, or perhaps very northern Seguier, in one of the more sparsely populated parts of the kingdom. Joram had Amma land in a stretch of desolate plain about two miles inland from a sleepy port town, right beside a winding river that fed into the sea. He figured Amma could drink from the river-- and fish from it, if need be-- to both entertain and nourish herself until someone found her later in the day and alerted the capital of her presence. And in the meanwhile, he and Gwen could make their way to the sea-- and perhaps find their way onto a ship as Noemi had suggested.
After Joram and Gwen dismounted Amma, the gryphon loped over to the river, where she drank heartily. Joram drained one of his canteens before refilling it and offering it out to Gwen, who accepted it hesitantly-- but did not bring it up to her lips.
Joram sighed. “You can drink, Gwen,” he said. As she did, he noticed that still she wouldn’t meet his eyes, rather keeping her gaze cast firmly at the ground. She was still terrified of him, and it showed.
He didn’t blame her, not really-- not given who he was, and who she was, and the way Jethro seemed to treat her. But it wouldn’t do, not given their situation. He was conspicuous enough in his slightly-too-nice clothes and holding his expensive leather satchel even without being trailed by a girl who looked afraid of her own shadow. Who cowered when he spoke as if she expected him to beat her at any moment. He couldn’t give passersby an additional reason to scrutinize him… or her, he realized, as his eyes fell on the brand at her collarbone. The sigil of House Owain. This far north, it would be well out of place.
Forget shoes. He needed to buy her a higher-collared dress.
As Gwen timidly handed the emptied canteen back to him, Joram said to her, “Gwen, look at me. Please. In the eye.” It took her a moment, as if it physically pained her to do so, and only once her pupils met his did Joram continue, “I know you must be confused. And afraid. And I’m sorry that you got involved in... “ He considered. “In this. As you probably can tell, I kind of… did something I wasn’t supposed to last night. I ran away. And I know that idea must be hard for you to understand-- why someone like me would run away-- but… just know that I had to. And… I’m not sure where I’m going. Out of the kingdom, at least. And you’re going to come with me. Because I can’t really… leave you here.” He gestured at the barren plain around them, the bubbling river at which Amma was presently diligently stalking a school of fish. “But… you don’t need to be afraid of me, Gwen. I’m not going to hurt you. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes, your Grace,” she whispered.
Dipping the canteen back into the river and then screwing on its cap, Joram said, “We’re going to leave Amma here and walk to the city. Maybe get passage on a ship. I’d like to get you something better to wear. Okay?”
“Yes, your Grace,” she repeated, sounding more parrot than person. Already her eyes had fallen back to the ground, her chin pointed downward.
Gods, he’d never seen a slave so broken. This child would make Noemi’s heart burst wide open. Not that the palace slaves were treated well-- but this girl… she was like a pastry with all of its filling siphoned out. A walking wraith, an empty doll. Which was probably why she’d obeyed him so readily last night-- and for this Joram couldn’t complain-- but it was almost unnerving, how docile she was. As if he had no thoughts swimming through her head of her own, like she knew how to do little more than obey, to please.
A bubble of nausea rose within him. His fingers itched.
Swearing under his breath, Joram dropped the canteen back into his satchel and flexed his fingers to chase the spark away.
“You ready to go, Gwen?” he said to her.
“Yes, your Grace.”
“Good.” Then: “Don’t call me that, alright? Just… call me…” Not his name, she couldn’t call him by his name. Once word got to Malik about his disappearance, his name would be a danger more than anything. “Hey,” he said, as an idea occurred to him. “What if you picked my new name, Gwen? Since I have to change mine anyway, given that I’ve run away.”
She bit her lip. “You want me to pick?”
“Sure do,” he said. “You’re the one who’s going to have to be calling me it, so you may as well pick, right?”
“Toby,” she said, much more quickly than he expected-- and with much more certainty than he’d have thought her capable of.
“Toby,” he repeated. A common name. A peasant’s name. Or a slave’s. He smiled softly at her. “Who’s Toby, Gwen?”
“My brother,” she whispered. “He… was nice to me. L-like you.”
“Was.” Joram clung only to this word. “What happened to him, Gwen?”
“Lord Jethro sold him,” she murmured. “Last year.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” As Amma finally pounced on her chosen meal and swallowed it in one fell gulp, Joram looked back in the direction of the town. “We should probably get going, hm?” he asked.
She nodded, and Joram gave Amma a stern order to stay before he and Gwen started along toward the port town. The gryphon watched them in something near confusion as they disappeared ahead, and Joram assuaged the guilt from leaving her alone by convincing himself that someone would find her sooner than later. It wasn’t as if gryphons were all that common, after all. Amma would probably be back in the capital by nightfall.
Joram could only hope that the same fate wouldn’t go for him. The Prince: Part IIIIn the port town of Asherah-- which Joram quickly gleaned to be in the Northlands, based on the accents of the merchants he encountered-- Joram bought Gwen a pair of cheap shoes and a shawl to drape over her shoulders. She tied it so that it concealed her brand, and though it was nothing luxurious-- a rough-hewn cloth, thick and scratchy-- she thanked him profusely for it. She seemed less enthused about the shoes, which were constricting on her feet, although of course she didn’t dare complain.
There were three outbound merchant ships presently in the harbor, and Joram knew that if he had a prayer of getting anyplace meaningful before Malik learned of his disappearance, he needed to be on one of them. One was heading to Mzia, and remembering Noemi’s warning, Joram instantly crossed it off the list. The second was bound north, to Albion in Kyth and then on to Lange, but the captain seemed reluctant to take on the so-called Toby and his young servant, no matter how much Joram offered to pay him.
The third ship, carrying spices, was headed to Cerrin first, then on to Valla, the capital city of the Kingdom of Valzaim. Cerrin Joram was familiar with, at least tangentially, as it shared a large border with Courdon’s vassal, Thylle. While Joram was fluent only in Kythian, Courdonian, and Mzian, he could bandy around a few phrases in Cerrish. He knew broadly of their culture, their politics. But Valzaim…
It was so far. So far that it largely fell off the Courdonian diplomatic dossier. While Cerrin shared a broad border with Thylle, Valzaim’s touch was much more limited-- and the more populous parts of the kingdom were located on its western edge, anyway, far, far away from Thylle. It took Joram several minutes of measured brainstorming to even come up with the king of Valzaim’s name. Nereus. King Nereus.
If there was a place that King Malik would never look for him, Joram strongly suspected that Valzaim was a lofty candidate.
It didn’t take him long to decide: pressing gold into the captain’s hands, the man now calling himself Toby bought himself and his ‘servant’ a place on the Valzaim-bound ship.
**
The crew aboard, comprised mostly of Cerrish and Valzicks, didn’t seem to know what to make of their passengers. Their theories about the well-dressed Courdonian who sometimes accidentally lapsed into the high tongue, and his jittery young servant, ranged from benign (wanderlust) to suspicious (swindlers making a break for it) to fantastical (forbidden lovers). Joram could only smile in tempered bemusement at these hypotheses, neither confirming nor denying them. He was very careful not to let himself worry too much over the chatter, because gods knew he couldn’t afford fear right now. Not with the magic still pulsing in his fingers, feeding on emotion and demanding he let it fly free.
If Joram had adapted to the ship with a sort of reserved effervescence, Gwen had taken to it somewhat like a cat takes to a surprise bath: stunned, unadulterated horror. But while a cat usually-- and quickly-- snaps out of the shock and lashes outward at its handler, Gwen was far too broken to attempt such a thing. No matter Joram’s frequent assurances that she need not fear him-- that he would not hurt her-- she stayed glued to his side with her head down, her lip bit, and her skin often ghostly pale from seasickness. While she dutifully addressed him by the name he’d let her choose, she still wouldn’t talk to him unless he spoke to her first. She rarely met his gaze.
It was if he’d taken off with an automaton and not a living, breathing girl.
Not quite sure how, precisely, to coax Gwen out of her terrified shell other than to give her space and time, Joram instead dedicated most of his energy to listening. Or, more precisely, drinking in the conversations of the Valzick crewmen. A handful of of them also spoke fractured Courdonian, which they used when they need to address him (or when they wanted to cheerily inform him of all their theories about his origins), but amongst themselves they mostly chattered in their native tongue. And Joram knew that if he wanted to flourish, not flounder, when he and Gwen finally disembarked in Valla, he would need at least a cursory grip of the language.
But no matter how keen a student Joram was, learning Valzick proved immensely difficult. Everything about the language felt so wrong to him, so unnatural. The sounds were different; the grammar was different; it was a pretty language-- lyrical in a way that Courdonian or even Kythian wasn’t-- but in the singsong syllables, Joram often felt like he was slipping and sliding across an icy pond. The meaning never really sticking, only sliding, into his ears and then right back out again without ever adhering to his brain.
And then one day, about two months into the journey, Joram was sitting in the crew mess one night, nursing a mug of ale while the rapid conversation flew over his head as per usual, when he noticed Gwen daring a rare smile at his side--
-- just as the four Valzick crewmen nearest to them broke out into raucous laughter.
For a moment, Joram thought he’d imagined it. But then a few minutes later, Gwen went and did it again… her smile only brief, so very brief, but present nevertheless.
Setting his mug down, he leaned in close to her and asked, “Do you… do you understand them, Gwen?”
She hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. Eyes directed firmly at her lap, she whispered, “I’m sorry, Toby.”
“Sorry?” he asked. “Why are you sorry?”
She shrugged. “You didn’t tell me I could listen to them.”
“You know I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell they’re all saying since we’ve been on this ship, right?” he asked. A smile of his own blooming now, he added, “If you have figured it out, then… you could teach me. It’s... it’s nothing to be sorry for, Gwen. It’s something I’m grateful for.”
“It is?” she said softly.
“Yes.” His voice was firm-- a prince’s voice, not the casual, bland tone he’d assumed since boarding the ship back in Asherah. Although he’d had this conversation with her dozens of times before, he couldn’t help but rehash it now. “Gwen, I… I know you didn’t have any choice but to come with me on this ship. But I… the two of us… you don’t need to be afraid of me. I know that who I was back in Courdon is… someone very frightening to a person with your background. But I’m not that person anymore. And you’re not the person you were, either.”
Almost automatically, her fingers trailed up to her collarbone, still sheathed beneath the cloak Joram had bought for her in Courdon. “I’ll always be that person,” she whispered, her soft words nearly drowned out by more laughter from the crewmen nearby.
“Scars don’t define who we are,” he said.
“Scars,” she repeated and then, rashly, harshly: “What would you know of scars?”
From the look of horror that quickly danced on to her face, Joram was positive that she regretted her words immediately. She recoiled back from him, flinching, her jaw clenching, as if she fully expected him to strike her.
But instead, he only sighed. After taking one last sip from his mug, he said to her, “Come with me, Gwen. Back to our cabin.”
Calling it a cabin was generous-- it was really more of a closet, windowless and always oppressively hot, but it was private and the door locked, which was good enough for Joram. Gwen was outright shaking as she followed Joram from the mess hall down to it, and it didn’t matter how many times Joram told her that she wasn’t in trouble, that he wasn’t going to hurt her: the girl clearly didn’t believe it. You didn’t get to ask pointed questions of nobility-- let alone a prince-- without serious repercussions.
“I know my life has probably been a dream compared to yours, Gwen,” he said to her once they were alone, as he lit a candle to brighten the blackened chamber. “You probably think I’m mad for running away from it at all.” When she didn’t respond, he prompted her, “Do you, Gwen? Do think I’m mad? And please, tell me the truth. You needn’t be afraid of the truth with me.”
For a moment, she said nothing. But then she managed a tiny, hesitant nod. “Yes,” she murmured.
His heart suddenly fluttering, Joram balled his hands into fists to tamp back the ever-pressing pulse of magic. “You know who my father is, don’t you, Gwen?”
“Yes,” she said. “The king.”
“And do you know what the king does to people?”
“I…” She faltered. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“He uses them,” Joram continued. “He looks at every person-- every situation-- as if it’s a piece on a chessboard. His chessboard. The kingdom’s chessboard. And he pushes around those pieces, never noticing when they scream. When they break. As long as it’s best for the kingdom-- for him-- for the big picture…” The magic flared. Joram unclenched his fists and cracked his knuckles instead, desperate to keep it in. “My father has very particular ideas about how those pieces ought to act. And what should happen to them if they defy that vision. If they even think of moving to the wrong square. That includes me, Gwen. I’m his son, that’s true. But in the scheme of things, I’m still just one of his chess pieces on the board.”
Joram turned then, facing away from Gwen, and sharply hiked his shirt up over his back, revealing to her his naked flesh. This was something he seldom did around, well, anyone. Fewer questions arose that way. And it made for fewer shocked, staring eyes. Even during these past two months, as he and Gwen had shared such very close quarters, Joram had been careful never to strip in front of her. Not even when the cabin grew so hot at night, the air as thick and salty as soup.
Craning his neck back in her direction, he watched as her eyes grew wide with shock. Her jaw fell open, as if held by a broken hinge. The candlelight danced against her pale skin, golden and bright.
She gasped.
“Not what you’d expect a prince’s back to look like, no?”
“No,” she whispered, staring at the latticework of old, thin scars. They’d come from a belt mostly, delivered in vicious sets across Joram’s childhood, although a handful-- the angriest handful-- Malik had delivered from a proper lash. If the king of Courdon was in a merciful mood after a beating, he’d let a healer tend to his son’s bleeding wounds, so that they mended with less disfigurement. But when Malik was rather feeling spiteful, he’d forbid anybody from touching the marks. Not to clean them. Not to dress them.
Joram had seen slaves with less disfigured backs than his own.
“I know more than I’d ever like of scars,” he said, letting his shirt fall back down. “But if I hadn’t run away, Gwen-- the scars I’d be inflicting on other people…” He turned toward her again, stretching his palms out flat in her direction. “You’ve probably noticed the way I’m always worrying with my hands. As if I’ve got fire surging through them. Have you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Well, in a way I do have fire surging through them. I’m… a mage, Gwen. And it’s something that I’d been hiding from my father for nearly my entire life. But he found out. And I knew that if I didn’t leave, I’d be the one inflicting scars on people.”
“B-because he’d use you?” Gwen whispered, and for the first time since he’d taken her, Joram noted that she was looking him in the eye without him first having given her the command to do so.
“Yes,” Joram said, meeting her gaze. “And I wasn’t going to let that happen. I would sooner die than let that happen.”
“B-but… isn’t he going to look for you?” Gwen asked. “If t-that’s why you’ve run away… and he cares a lot about using your magic…”
“He will,” Joram agreed. “But he’ll have no idea where I’ve gone. That’s why I decided on Valzaim. It’s so far that the chances of him finding me there… ” His voice trailed off.
“You won’t have anything there, will you?” Gwen whispered. “I mean… you can’t use your name or word might get back to him, and you can’t speak the language, or… or…”
“I have some gold and jewels,” he replied. “That’ll get us started, at least, so that we’re not starving on the streets. But… the rest… well, that’s why I said what I did in the mess hall, Gwen. Because in Courdon, I’m a prince, and you’re a slave, and there’s nothing either of us can do about it. But in Valzaim, we’re nobody. We’re everybody. I’m just Toby, and you’re just Gwen, and both of us have scars to hide.”
“Six or seven months,” she said. “That’s how long they said it takes to get to Valla, right?”
He nodded. “Depending on the winds and seas.”
“I think we ought to be able to get the language down pretty well by then.” She cocked her head. “It’s easier once you realize that the sentences are kind of… reversed.”
“Reversed?” He furrowed a brow.
“Yes, like… if you’re talking about a person, their name goes last. Not first. I…” She paused. “It’s easier to show you. Want me to show you?”
“Of course,” Joram said, reaching out to set a hand on her shoulder. For the first time that he could remember, Gwen didn’t flinch at his touch. “I would love it if you showed me, Gwen.”
**
It were as if a wall had been broken down that night. Although there were still times that Gwen acted skittish around him-- he couldn’t fix a lifetime of mistreatment in a few short months-- she no longer seemed to fear him as once she had. Together, the two invested themselves fully in learning the Valzick tongue, and by the time the ship reached a series of Cerrish ports about six weeks later, both Joram and Gwen were at least conversational, if not fluent, in Valzick.
Most of the Cerrish ports were small, dour places, but Joram and Gwen didn’t much care. After three months on the ship, they were excited enough just to touch solid land. In the largest of the stops, a southwestern city called Amley that was just a few days away from Cerrin’s border with Tengiz, Joram bought them both new clothes. The materials were much lighter than those you’d find in Courdon, and the colours much duller, and upon studying himself in the reflection of the shop window afterward, Joram couldn’t help but grin. He hardly looked a Courdonian prince-- he was much thinner, much dirtier. His hair, which he’d always kept short, had grown scruffy and wild, and his usually clean-shaven face now sported a scraggly beard. Someone who knew him well in his former life might have recognized him if they’d taken a moment to study his features, but he would otherwise turn no curious heads on the street.
It was true what he’d said to Gwen back on the ship: he wasn’t a prince anymore.
And Gwen, for that matter, hardly looked a slave. The months at sea had done little to resolve her thinness, nor put color to her preternaturally pale skin, but she no longer looked haunted. She didn’t skulk around with her eyes latched to the ground, too terrified to match gazes. She was still very quiet, but the words she did say weren’t laced with fright. She smiled often. And laughed, too-- even if they were hesitant laughs, the laughs of a girl who’d never before had anything to amuse her.
“I think we look sharp, eh?” Joram said as he continued studying his reflection.
“That’s an interesting word,” Gwen said, running a finger through her long, tight curls. Then: “You think they’ll believe that we’re Kythian?”
“Of course,” Joram said. “Not like they’ve ever met any Kythians in Valzaim, have they? And if pressed, I always speak the language.” He paused thoughtfully. “Perhaps as we refine our Valzick, I ought to teach you a few Kythian phrases. Can’t be too careful, after all.”
**
The Cerrish ports behind them, the ship sailed on toward Valzaim. Rather than hugging the coast, it sailed deeper out at sea as it bypassed the kingdom of Tengiz, a route that added length to the journey but significantly lessened the chances of facing aggressive Tengan pirate ships.
Lessened the chances, but didn’t obliterate them altogether: just days from the border with Valzaim, the spice ship had a close call with a pirate vessel, just barely managing to evade it. It was all any of the crew could talk about that night, and Joram was antsy as well. After Gwen nodded off in the cabin, he crept out to the crew mess, where he found a group of Valzicks whom he’d come to know by name playing a drunken game of cards. Quietly, Joram sat beside them, grateful that he now knew enough Valzick to understand their conversation nearly in full.
“... Bloody pirates must have gone mad to be this far out at sea,” one of the crewmen, a dark-haired, dark-skinned man named Avon, was saying.
“I think your memory’s gone dull with age,” another sailor, Kai, returned. “They’ve always been this far out. We’re just usually luckier.”
“Eh.” Avon spat. Looking at Joram, he asked, “Do you want in on the next hand?”
“No,” Joram said, adding after a moment’s thought, “Why doesn’t their king do anything to stop the pirates?”
Kai laughed. “The king of Tengiz is much too busy not getting his precious jungle swallowed up by Valzaim to care much about stopping pirates.”
“Why does Valzaim want the jungle?”
“It’s not the jungle, per se. It’s what you can take from the jungle. Your kingdom isn’t the only one that wants to broaden its horizons, Toby.” He smiled serenely. “Do you even know anything about Valzaim? Or did you just pick it off a map?”
Joram’s cheeks burned. He felt once more like a young boy under his tutor’s ever-critical eye, and he outright grimaced as the familiar spark shot through his fingers. Teeth clenched, he said, “I… know some things.”
“Like what?”
“The king’s name is Nereus. Your capital is Valla. You…” He racked his mind, desperately searching it for facts about the kingdom. He knew more than this, he had to know more than this. Yet he found himself coming up blank.
“Look,” Kai said, “we’ve long ago given up guessing what you and that girl are running from. Other than you must be very desperate to lob yourselves all the way to the other side of the continent. But be careful once you’re landside, Toby. Because I really don’t think you’ve any idea what you’re in for.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well…” Kai considered, pausing briefly to swear under his breath as he glanced at his newly dealt hand of cards. “First of all, you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb. You’re much too pale.”
“Much too blonde,” Avon added helpfully.
“You’ve got the words down in Valzick, I’ll give you that. But your accent immediately marks you as foreign. That alone is going to draw attention, Toby.” Kai paused. “... Not to mention the magic.”
Joram’s blood ran cold. His gut clenched. He could barely suppress a yelp as he breathed to Kai, “T-the magic?”
Kai merely raised an eyebrow. “You think we’ve not noticed? It’s practically oozing from you, boy. I grew up near the border with Meltaim, you know. You don’t grow up a stone’s throw from Meltaim without learning to recognize magic.”
“Meltaim?” Joram echoed. A nation even more foreign-- more unknown-- to him than Valzaim.
“The mage kingdom,” Avon clarified. “Bloody barbarians, is what they are. They think everyone who’s not got magic is put on this world merely to serve them, and even those with magic are treated like dirt if their bloodline isn’t pure, and--”
“Beside the point,” Kai interjected. “Anyway. Blonde, pale, foreign boy swaggering around with magic dripping from him? It’s bound to draw attention. If you’re not careful, Toby, you’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Or drafted,” Avon added.
“Aye, or drafted,” Kai agreed. “... you know what, forget killed. You’ll just be drafted. Once they determine you’re not some Meltaiman mage gone rogue.”
“Drafted to what?”
“His Majesty’s special forces, of course.” When recognition didn’t spread across Joram’s face, Kai sighed. “They help up north. At the border with Meltaim. Just to remind Emperor Sebellius to he keep his bloody citizens off our land.”
“Otherwise they go poaching.” Avon glowered. “Taking blanks-- that’s what they call non-mages, aye-- to serve them.” As if remembering that Joram was from Courdon, he added, “Not to judge customs, but… it’s even worse than what you do, I’d say. Not really an even match, a magician against a blank.”
“Anyway,” Kai said, “all magicians in Valzaim serve a few years in the special forces. In return for a small stipend and a free magic education. Not a bad lot, all in all, but it’s not exactly a choice. So if you’re a mage attempting to stay beneath the waves and skirt your duty, well…” He folded his hand of cards. “Let’s just say, you are very conspicuous, Toby.”
“I give him five days on the street before he’s wearing His Majesty’s coat of arms on his sleeve,” Avon said with a crooked grin.
“Generous.” Kai laughed, before sobering and adding, “I’ll give you once piece of advice, Toby. Tell them the girl’s your sister, not your servant. Then they’ll let you bring her north. Otherwise, she’s going to be on her own.” As Avon won the hand of cards, sweeping the pot of bent coins toward him, Kai asked, “So. You in for the next hand, Toby?”
Joram just shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice cracking. “I… I think I’ll be going to bed, thank you.”
But back in the cabin, he couldn’t sleep a wink, Kai and Avon’s words replaying through his brain as if they’d been tattooed there. Through the darkness, he stared at Gwen’s softly snoring form. Sister. Tell them she’s your sister. Gods, what would Malik think if he could see his son now… curled up in the stuffy cabin of a swaying ship, facing the prospect of being conscripted into a foreign king’s army-- and stewing over the idea of passing a slave off as his sibling?
He’d run away so that he wouldn’t be used as a pawn for the schemes of other people. Yet Avon and Kai seemed convinced that such a fate met him on the shores in Valla, anyway. His stomach lurched. His fingers burned.
He didn’t notice Gwen staring at him through the dark, drawn awake by his shifting, until she whispered to him, “Are you okay, Toby?”
“Uh-huh,” he lied.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m sorry.” He turned over onto his back. And for the first time then, as Gwen studied him through the blackness, something occurred to Joram. Tell them she’s your sister so you can take her north. That’s what Kai had advised. But… if it came down to that… would Gwen even want to come with him? And even if not, even if no agents of King Nereus ever came knocking, would Gwen want to remain with him as he made a new life for himself in Valla?
These past months, she’d been his forced tagalong, plucked from the halls of Tion Castle without any chance to say no. Because he was afraid of her ruining his escape plan. Because leaving her jeopardized too much.
But in Valzaim, she would hardly have anyone asking after him.
“Gwen,” he said, breaking through the quiet once again. “When we make it to Valla… I… you…” He looked back toward her. “Do you want to stay with me, Gwen?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean, well… it’s like we talked about. In Valla, I’m not a prince. And you’re not a slave. So if you didn’t want to stay with me, you wouldn’t have to. You could… leave. Go off on your own. I wouldn’t make you stay.”
“Why would I leave?” Gwen asked without skipping a beat. Frowning, she went on, “You saved me from Tion, Toby.”
“I stole you.”
“No,” she said, “you didn’t. Because stealing implies it was bad. And it wasn’t, Toby. You’re not. You’ve been nothing but nice to me. You… you actually care about me.” Reaching out through the darkness, she set a tentative hand down on his wrist. “I want to stay with you, Toby. I-I mean… as long as you want me to stay.”
“I want you to stay,” he agreed. The magic pulsing as it always pulsed, Joram slid his hand up, so that his fingers met Gwen’s. Delicately, he intertwined his with hers, her palm warm against his skin. “I… talked with some of the crew. About what might happen on the shore. They’re afraid I’m going to be drafted.”
“Drafted?”
He nodded, briefly outlining the situation with Meltaim and the special forces as Avon and Kai had explained it to him. “I don’t want it to happen,” he said. “Running away from my life as a pawn, only to be a pawn…”
“It’s different, though,” Gwen said.
“How?”
“Because you’d be on the other side, Toby.”
“What do you mean?”
“In Courdon, your father is the one doing the wicked things. He’d be using your magic to oppress. To hurt. But if Meltaim is the one doing the hurting… and you’d be the one stopping them…”
“... then that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
She smiled. “Exactly.”
“If it did happen,” he said, “Kai tells me I should say you’re my sister. So that you could come north, too.”
Almost instantly, her face fell. In his grip, her hand went clammy. “Y-your sister?” she asked.
“Yes.” He frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”
She bit down on the inside corner of her cheek, hesitating for a moment before she murmured, “Nothing’s… wrong with it. I just... “
“You just what?” he asked gently.
“Is… is that how you think of me?” she said. “As a sister?”
Still confused, he said, “I don’t know.”
But then it hit him. Oh, gods. His heart skipped a beat, and his stomach fluttered. His fingers still twined around hers, he gulped as the pulsing intensified. Through the blackness, he studied her face-- pale and thin, with a wispy brow and high, sculpted cheekbones. Her eyes were grey, like smoke, and though when he first met her they’d teemed only with fear, now they were thoughtful, nearly intense. He realized with a start that she was far from the waifish girl Lord Jethro Owain had beckoned into Joram’s chamber five months ago, far from the girl he’d wrangled onto the gryphon Amma’s back and made off with in the black of night.
“How… how old are you?” he asked her, and he nearly laughed when he realized he’d never before thought to pose such a question.
“Seventeen,” she said. “Why?”
Seventeen. Older than he’d thought, then. Older, he realized, than Lara-- the Dormorian princess whom he’d never met at the harbor in Mayim. “Just… wondering,” Joram said vaguely.
“You never answered my question,” Gwen whispered.
“Of if I think of you as a sister.”
“Yes. Do you?”
Joram hesitated, gently letting go of Gwen’s hand. “I don’t know, Gwen,” he admitted. “I… I’ve never really thought about it that much. I… don’t want to say yes or no. I don’t want you think that I could only think of you as a sister. But…” He paused to gather his words. “Gwen, you said that you want to stay with me because I’m nice to you. And I’m glad about that. But… I don’t think you’ve met many people in your life who have been nice to you. Am I right?”
Reluctantly, she nodded. “Yes.”
He sighed. “One day, you might-- no, you will-- meet a lot of other nice people. And… you might realize then that what you feel for me, it’s not… it’s just...”
“You could have just told me you thought of me as a sister,” she whispered, turning sharply away from him.
“I’m sorry, Gwen.” His stomach twinged, and his fingers along with it.
“Goodnight, Toby,” she said.
**
For the next few weeks, as the ship arced back toward the shore now that it had cleared Tengan waters, Gwen was reserved, if not frosty, toward Joram. He wished he could say something to fix it but knew there was nothing to say-- that only time would make her understand the levity of his words.
Indeed, by the time the ship neared Valla, Gwen had seemed to come around, at least in part. Although Joram was nearly positive his rejection still stung her on some level, she was at least managing to put on a pleasant face around him again, and she seemed genuinely excited by the prospect of their new lives in Valzaim. They spoke exclusively in the Valzick tongue now, trying to beat home the intricacies and eccentricities of the language, and they both talked extensively with Kai and Avon about what to expect on the shore. Kai recommended finding a flat off the main merchant’s marketplace, since it was “affordable enough, but you won’t get stabbed”; Avon advised that Joram hide his fair hair to avoid drawing undue attention.
“And make sure you keep her brand hidden,” Kai said casually one morning, over a breakfast of flavorless oats.
“M-my brand?” Gwen nearly squeaked.
“Aye, dear, we’ve spent six months in this bloody ship with you. You do a good job keeping it hidden, but I’ve seen glimpses.” Kai yawned. “The Meltaimans brand blanks. Not on the collarbone, mind ya, but it’s a bit of an ah, sore topic overall? One that will draw some very nasty questions for Toby here if anyone were to see it, given that he’s not got a brand.”
“We’re going to pass ourselves off as being from Kyth,” Toby said.
“Probably wise.” As if it were an afterthought, Kai added, “Don’t see why you didn’t just go there in the first place, boy. Would have been much closer.”
Exactly, Joram thought, but didn’t say. Instead, he smiled dully. “Well, too late now, eh?”
Kai snorted. “You wouldn’t say, boy. You wouldn’t say. After all, if the winds keep up like this, we’ll be in Valla by the morrow after next.”
**
The month before, Avon had guessed that Joram would make it five days in Valla before ending up with King Nereus’s coat of arms sewn onto his sleeve.
Avon was wrong.
Joram made it only three. |
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Post by Avery on Aug 14, 2014 18:43:34 GMT -5
South of Kyth there is Courdon, but south of Courdon is the vast desert kingdom of Mzia. Culturally similar to Courdon, Mzia's western part is an uninhabited wasteland called the Anvil Desert, on the other side of which there is the country of Cerrin. Hardly anyone dares venture into the Anvil-- it's a practical death trap-- but within its expanses live a number of nomadic desert tribes, some of whom make their living by raiding Cerrish border cities, capturing people from them, and then taking the captures back across the Anvil to be sold in Mzia. The protagonist of this story is a member of one of those tribes. Beneath the Desert Sun Andra stands atop the dune, curling her toes in the sizzling hot sand. The sun beats harshly at her back, but she pays no mind to it, used to its fiery rays, the sting of it on her brown skin. The sun is our kin, out here in the Anvil: we were born beneath its blistering touch and will die as it sears from above us. If you don’t get used to it, you don’t survive.
Some of the new captures aren’t doing very well at surviving.
We took them about seven moons ago, from one of Cerrin’s eastern-most settlements, not even a day over the border. They’ve got security measures there—an impressive wall, mounted guards with lances always at the ready—but if you hit them fast, and you hit them right, it’s like water through your fingertips. In and out before they even know what—or who—has attacked them. And it’s not like they give much of a chase; the Cerrish don’t dare trek far into the Anvil.
At least not willingly.
“I don’t think the thin one’s going to make it,” Andra says to me, still not looking in my direction. Andra’s always like that: talking through you rather than to you. She has her finger pointed in the direction of a tall, slender man who’s sitting silently in the sand a few dozen paces away, his legs crossed and chin rested in his palms. I think he must have been someone of importance back in the Cerrish settlement, because his skin was pale when we took him, like he spent a lot of time indoors. Now, it’s gone hot and red. Blisters pucker at the surface.
“He could surprise us,” I say to her.
She shakes her head. “No.” She pauses, considers. Then: “Take his clothes, Anisim.”
I grimace. “Shouldn’t we give him a few more sun-ups to adjust?”
“He’s had enough,” says Andra simply.
“But—”
“Take them.”
Her eyes finally draw up to meet mine, and this time it is me who looks away. Andra only looks you straight on for one reason, and there’s nothing good to be found in it. My gaze cast suddenly down at the sand below, I hold out a hand in appeasement.
“Should we at least wait until nightfall, when we break camp?” I ask her.
I feel her stare shift away from me—presumably back at the doomed Cerrishman. I look in his direction, too. He’s not very old, which is probably why my fellow tribesmen picked him. He’d fetch a pocketful of gold and jewels back in Visalia, Mzia’s gleaming gem of a capital that sits on the other side of the Anvil.
But he’s not going to make it that far.
“Take them now,” Andra says. “And keep the other captures away from him.” As I nod and set off toward the stolen man Andra’s just sentenced to a miserable death beneath the scorching desert sun, she calls after me: “Anisim.”
I stop. “Yes?”
“You are too soft.”
This again. I take another, pointed step away from her. “We just went to such lengths to gather him. I would not want to be overly hasty in his condemnation, Amma.” Mother.
“You are too old to call me that, Anisim.”
I don’t reply to her; it’d be like stoking a fire that’s already grown wild. Instead, I continue on toward the Cerrishman. As I approach, the other captives nearby to him scatter like tumbleweeds. But he’s too far-gone to join in their pursuit of evading me. Even as I hover over him, he does not stand. He does not look at me. Instead, he buries his face further into his hands, as if ignoring me will make me leave him be.
I swallow down the lump that’s grown in my throat. Maybe Andra is right: maybe I am too soft. Or maybe she’s too quick to play with already-stolen lives. Either way, the ending is the same for this Cerrishman. It’s the end all of us will meet one day, beneath the rays of the white, gleaming sun.
**
We took twenty-three men, women, and children from the Cerrish city. Five of them are dead by the time we reach the first signs of Mzian civilization one full change of the moon later.
The surviving captives gape at the first proper settlement we’ve seen since our departure as one might look at a charging beast: equal parts awe and fear. I can see the conflict that’s churning in their minds, the clash of emotions. On the one hand, they’ve survived the journey through the Anvil. On the other hand, they must know that nothing good will come for them now. They’ve lived, but for what end?
Andra leaves the captives and most of the tribesmen outside the city gates as she heads inside, but takes me with her for security’s sake. After all, while our tribe might operate underneath her guidance, its leadership passing down from mother to daughter, the towns and cities here in Mzia proper rest under the control of men. Men who think of us tribesmen as pests of sorts—pests who bring them fresh slaves and Cerrish-palmed resources from time to time, but nevertheless strangers more-so than countrymen, vulgar desert nomads who share about as much culture with them as do the Cerrish themselves.
Andra doesn’t trust them. I don’t, either. My amma might think me too sympathetic, too weak, might lament the fact that I’m all she has left after both my sisters went to be with the sun, but I know where there is danger. My hackles are on the rise from the moment we pass through the city gates. When the dark-haired guards posted atop the wall stare passively at us, I coolly return the gaze. I might not share Andra’s magic, but the guards don’t know this. They snap their eyes away from us.
Into the city we go.
Andra wants to get rid of at least half the captives here; it’s too tricky navigating the more populated parts of the kingdom with nearly twenty unbroken Cerrishmen. We’ll keep the best ones—the ones who will fetch the most coin—to unload in Visalia, which lies nearly twenty more suns to the east, but the sicklier ones, the less impressive ones, we’ll sell here.
“The blonde,” Andra says to me as we wend our way toward the central marketplace. “The one with the scar on his cheek. We need him gone for sure.”
“Why?” I ask.
“I’ve been watching him. When he thinks we’re not paying attention, he tries things. Tests the bindings. Whispers quickly into the others’ ears.” She sighs. “I would have left him, but he’s strong. Too valuable to abandon.”
We work out a deal with one of the city’s wealthier merchants, who agrees to take a dozen of them off our hands, including the scheming blonde. The merchant comes outside city walls with us to fetch his purchases, and I watch the blonde’s face as he’s led away. He darts his eyes frantically back at those who are being left with us—at one in particular, a striking redhead, young and lithe. She can’t be more than ten, and the terror in her eyes matches his. As the blonde is led further and further away from her, she starts to shift uncomfortably, and he tries to break rank, back-pedaling in her direction, but is promptly yanked back into order by Andra, who’s helping the merchant.
He pushes back at her.
I flinch even before she grips his chin and locks her eyes onto his. Before he falls to the ground below, screaming in agony, as she unleashes his magic at him full-fledged. I haven’t felt it since I was very young—not since it was still acceptable for me to call her amma, when I was but a meek, unwanted son and she had my sisters to account for most of her attention—but the memory still burns strong. Heat magic.
Most of the women in the tribe, and a few of the men, have it at varying strengths, but Andra’s is by far the strongest and most developed. With the flick of her gaze, she can unleash into you the heat of the hottest summer’s day, the sting of a licking flame. If she holds it long enough, it can boil you from the inside out. But that takes several minutes. With me when I was small, and this blonde now, she halts the magic after only a few moments. Not long enough to mortally wound him, let alone kill him, but long enough to send him screaming. He writhes like a stabbed snake on the sand below, his legs spasming.
“What did you do to him?” snaps the merchant.
“He touched me,” Andra says, as the man gulps in breaths of air like he’s dehydrating to death and it’s cool, precious water. His screaming tapers off—only to be replaced moments later by a chest-wracking sob from the red-haired girl, who darts out from amid the captives toward the fallen man.
“Papa!” she shrieks, streaking past my fellow tribesman so quickly that they can’t react in time to snatch her back.
But I’m closer than them to Andra, the merchant, and the rest of the slaves. By the time she reaches me, I’m ready. I grab onto the collar of the white robe we’ve given her to protect from the sun and tug her back, stopping her dead in her tracks. She lets out another strangled sob. She says it again, this time more quietly, her voice fallen, sorrowful: “Papa.”
Up ahead, the merchant is not amused. “All the way from Cerrin and you’ve not any control of them at all?” he spits, disgusted.
Andra hefts the fallen man—this little girl’s papa—back to his feet. He does not resist, still struggling to take sips of the hot desert air. In my grip, the child flails, and he smiles leadenly at her. “It’s okay, my love—I promise, it’ll all be okay,” he says to her in Cerrish, a language familiar to us tribesmen but not to the merchant, who glowers and promptly cuffs the man across the cheek.
“Do not speak,” the merchant orders. Then, to Andra: “Half price on this one. Or I’m leaving him with you, I’ve enough to handle without a hellion to break.”
“Fine,” Andra agrees, but she doesn’t sound happy about it; in my hold, the little girl squirms, tears gushing down her cheeks. I latch my other hand around her elbow to still her, as Andra turns and says to me, “Come now, Anisim, back into the city so that we may collect our payment.”
I nod and let go of the girl, half-expecting her to again fling herself at her father the moment she’s free from my grip. But she doesn’t. One of my cousins orders her back over, and she obeys, shuffling toward the rest of the group. She stands there wordlessly as the merchant, Andra, and I once more start walking. Her sobs echo in my ears as we disappear back behind the city walls, and her father leaves from her sight, and I know then—as must she—that she will never see him again in her life.
**
We wait until night falls to depart from the city, and camp again at dawn. We put the slaves all in one tent and post a guard outside of it, lest they get ideas of escaping before they, too, meet the fate of their fellow captives. It’s not something we worry about in the middle of the Anvil—there’s nowhere for them to go—but here, the seed might plant in their heads. They wouldn’t be the first to try it.
I’m given third watch, which is in the middle of the afternoon as the sun’s at its most brutal. When after an hour or two someone quickly, quietly pads out of the tent, shimmying right by me, it takes me a moment to notice them. I shoot out my hand and clamp it around their arm, a reflex.
It’s the girl. The ginger-haired girl, whose father we’ve just sold to the merchant.
As I wrench her toward me, she cowers. A reflex developed on her part, it seems, though I’ve never personally hit her. I spin her to face me, but she won’t meet my gaze; she saw what happened to her father earlier, when Andra stared him dead on. The sand beneath is safer.
“What are you doing?” I ask her.
Eyes still cast down, she murmurs in clipped Mzian, “I—I h-have to relieve myself.”
“You should have gone before bed.”
“Sorry.” She bites her lip. “Is… would it be okay if I sat outside? J-just for a little. I… it’s crowded in there and I…” Her voice trails off.
I should refuse her. If Andra were here and not me, she’d smack the girl for talking without permission and shove her right back into the tent. But as my amma likes to remind me constantly, I am not her, nor will I ever be. She is power where I am weakness, she is magic where I am empty. She can send gales of fire into a person by a brief look alone, where my gaze earns me nothing.
What does it matter if I let this girl sit out in the heat of the day as everyone else sleeps? She will be the one to pay for it with new burns upon her skin, not me. I point at the ground beside me.
“Sit,” I say.
She scurries to the indicated spot, dropping into the scorching sand. She must have gotten used to it during our journey east, for she grimaces only for a split second at the heat of it before whispering a thanks at me. Still she won’t wholly meet my eyes, though. I can’t say I blame her.
I know I probably shouldn’t talk more to her; I’ve already been inappropriate enough by letting her sit here at all. We’re supposed to start breaking in these slaves—stripping them of their humanity, their independence, their free tongues and minds—and acquiescing to their requests and conversing with them goes directly against this goal. But with the two of us alone under the wicked sun, eventually I can’t help it.
“That was your papa today,” I say to her, in Cerrish. At the sound of her native tongue, a flash of a smile darts between her lips, but she quickly realizes what she’s doing, and it falls away. I continue on, “Where’s your mama?”
“Dead,” she replies miserably.
My mind flashes back to the five captives we left behind on the trail, stripped of their clothes in the heat of the day. The ones who’ve long since baked under the sun as the rest of us continued on. One of them was a woman, but I decide she was too old to have been this girl’s mother. The mama was dead before we took the papa and daughter then, I conclude. Before foreign tribesmen and the Anvil and Mzia were even an inkling in this little one’s mind.
“What’s your name?” This inquiry is even more dangerous. The names these captives owned in Cerrin are theirs no longer; they’ll be called by whatever their new masters wish, once we reach Visalia. If she was an Alice there, an Elia, a Lily, then she’s not any longer.
But she does not know the hazard in my words. And she does know better than to refuse a question I ask of her. “Lydia,” she says.
An uncomfortable quiet settles between us—a silence pregnant with the desert heat, the rays of the sun, the sand that blows lazily beneath us as a soft gust of wind ripples the air. Lydia stares down at the ground, at the cloth bindings that cinch together her wrists and have since we left Cerrin over a month ago, and I stare at her. In the brightness, her red hair gleams like fire, the tight-sprung curls frizzing down to her mid-back. She’s only a child now, but in a few years she’ll be womanly, and my stomach does a little flip as I think about what her life will be like in Visalia, the property of some vile lord or merchant or even the Sultan himself. Here in the tribe, we respect our women, but in the Mzian cities… behind those sandstone walls…
What are you doing, Anisim? says the voice in the back of my head. Soft, soft, too soft. Andra’s disdainful declarations ring out in my ears. What should I care of this child’s future, her fate? She’s but a slave girl pilfered from Cerrin. A nothing, even more of a nothing than I am.
Across camp, I hear the flap of a tent rustle. I flick my eyes in its direction and discover one of my cousins sleepily emerging from within it. His watch is next, and he rubs his eyes against the harsh light as he steps outside.
“Quick,” I hiss to the little one, Lydia. “Back into the tent before he sees you.”
I don’t have to tell her twice. She scampers back inside with the rest of the slaves, and within moments my cousin is at my side to relieve me of my post.
“Anything to report?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Not a peep out of them.”
“Wonderful,” he says. “Have a good sleep, Anisim.”
**
I have never gotten used to Visalia. We’ve been making these journeys from Cerrin all the way to Mzia’s capital since I was but a babe in arms, but even now it unnerves me: it’s too big, too loud, too chaotic—a labyrinth of gleaming buildings and open-air marketplaces, its streets always clogged with bustling people.
In the center of it all rises the Sultan’s Palace, surrounded by a remarkable, hand-dug moat that’s fed from the nearby Vehq River, Mzia’s largest. As we pass the palace on our way toward the slave market, I can see the fear that washes over the captives’ faces. Even if they haven’t heard the stories about Sultan Medar, there’s a sort of foreboding energy about his palace—its harsh exterior walls, repainted annually in blood-red tones; the iron gate at the other end of the moat, its pikes topped by the rotting heads of traitors; the guards who flank the whole of it in armor that’s far too heavy for the desert heat, their bodies still but eyes tracking everyone who passes.
The slaves should know better than to talk now; Andra has ordered them not to make so much as a squeak as we descend into the depths of the city. But as we pass the palace, a low ripple—a murmur—passes between the six we have left. Andra backhands the one closest to her, a willowy young woman, and commands them all silent again.
Automatically, my eyes fall to Lydia, who’s standing directly behind Andra’s victim. Since that afternoon just after we sold her father, we haven’t interacted directly again; but still I’ve watched her, my head plagued by thoughts of what will happen to her despite the logic in my head that demands I pay no heed of it. And I know she watches me, too. I catch her shooting glances in my direction often, though if I stare back at her she pretends she wasn’t looking; and when we walk, she tries to fall in step near to me if possible. I think I am the least frightening to her, in her new life where everything is strange and terrifying. I am the only one amongst my tribe who has shown her any degree of kindness, however faint. The only one who hasn’t struck her, hasn’t taunted her, hasn’t hauled her by the roots of her fire-red hair when on the road she grows too tired to keep up the pace.
The lump. Not now. I look away from Lydia and force it down.
We’ve brought all of the slaves into the city limits—it’s far too large to leave them on the outside as we did in that first settlement so many suns ago—but only a small fraction of the tribe has come in. Andra, of course, and a few my aunts and cousins, but it’s no more than ten of us in all. Once we reach the slave market, we split up: Andra and a few of my cousins heads off to set up the lots, and the rest of us stay with the captives. It’s hectic here, a dizzying mass of all kinds of people, and an aunt of mine binds our six slaves together so that none of them can get lost in the fray. Lydia is anchored at the end. She looks at me, and I look at her, and then she snaps her eyes down to the ground.
A hand on my shoulder. I turn to my find my cousin Analee. “Look,” she murmurs, nudging her chin at the crowd, toward a cluster of people clad in the Sultan’s colors. “Buyers for Medar.”
“Aren’t there always?”
She shrugs. “True. But we’ll see if they end up actually purchasing any. They’re always so picky. I wonder what he’s looking for…”
I know what the Sultan is after, the sort of slaves his buyers always snap up, but I don’t tell Analee. The hitch in my throat is threatening to come back without explaining it to her aloud. I dare sneak a glance back over toward Lydia, who’s blinking rapidly, as if to conceal pressing tears. She’s too young, I try to convince myself. They won’t take her. They can’t.
“Why do you look so unsettled, Anisim?”
I didn’t even notice Andra and the others return to our group until my amma hisses this into my ear. She follows my gaze, towards Lydia, and then promptly lets out an indignant sigh.
“You can do the ledger-work on her sale,” Andra says icily, and then she glides away, to double-check the security of the slaves’ bindings prior to the start of the auction.
It’s more effort to list each captive separately, but it pays better; Andra’s lumped the least desirable three into one group lot, then separated out the rest individually. Lydia is, as I knew she would, to be sold on her own. The crowd is abuzz as she’s led up to the platform midway through the auction, and the bidding begins. Andra is watching me closely, and so I don’t dare watch Lydia; instead I direct my gaze out, at the potential buyers—the Sultan’s men in particular. They’re talking heatedly amongst themselves, as if debating on whether to try for her.
They do.
As the price climbs, and Andra steeples her fingers in anticipation of the payout, one of the Sultan’s men joins in on the bidding. They’ll win, I think. They always win. Sultan Medar has more riches than all of these people combined, and even if he didn’t, few dare bid against his men. If the Sultan wants something, then by gods, he gets it. If you’re a Mzian, or even if you’re not, you don’t want to be known as the person who took from the Sultan.
Sure enough, after a few half-hearted one-ups, the other buyers bow out. The auctioneer announces the sale for Lydia closed.
Andra jabs a finger into the small of my back. “Ledger-work,” she says, as Analee pulls Lydia off the platform and replaces her with our next lot. The girl is deposited at my side.
“Come,” I say to her, gesturing to a less crowded area slightly away from the platform; it’s reserved for the exchange of goods. We arrive there a few moments ahead of the Sultan’s man who’s been sent to pay for and collect his purchase, and I note with a bit lip that the child is shaking from head to toe. I place a hand on her shoulder to still her. “Don’t let them see your fear,” I say, not so much a command as a sliver of advice.
She nods and mutters in Cerrish, “Sorry.”
“Don’t talk, either.” The Sultan’s buyer is almost here. I add hurriedly, “Especially not in Cerrish.”
Upon his arrival, the Sultan’s man doesn’t even bother to shake my hand; to him I’m but a desert rat, someone hardly worthy of his presence. He pulls a leather pouch out from his belt and counts out the winning bid from within it, slowly, as if otherwise I’ll be too dumb to grasp the numbers. Then, he holds the money out to me, and I accept it into my own camel-skin bag. The coins and jewels clatter together as I cinch the top of it. Like a terrified, wild cat, Lydia flinches at the sound.
Once the payment is exchanged, the buyer takes out a small, leather-bound book from his pocket. I take out my own. These ledgers are a Mzian law, with a page in each required to be filled out by both the purchaser and seller in each slave transaction. The Sultan’s man will write in mine that he’s paid me—and what that payment was—as well as a description of the slave. I’ll sign my name in assent. And into his I’ll write what I’ve sold him, and for how much, and any pertinent details I have about his buy. These ledgers are the only reason anyone in our tribe learns how to read and write: we need to, or else the Mzians would fleece us.
Atop each of our pages, we’ll write her name. Just so that we our records can be matched should there ever be an issue about this buy brought to the Mzian courts. But it is not Lydia that will grace the page. That name she told me—that she’s clung to as we crossed the Anvil, that’s belonged to her since the day she was born—will soon be but a thing of her distant past.
“What are you going to call her?” I ask the buyer as I carefully fill the information into his book with a quill he’s provided for me.
He looks at her. Runs a possessive finger along her cheek, then through the curls of her bright hair. “Sultan hasn’t gotten a Cerrish girl in a very long time,” says the buyer by way of reply. “He’ll like her, I think. She’s very… exotic.”
“Indeed,” I agree, as my stomach curdles. “So the name, sire?”
“Cerrish, Cerrish…” He smiles, as if he’s just gotten the grandest of ideas. “How about we go with ‘Ceres’? The Sultan will get a kick out of that.”
“Ceres it is,” I agree, penning it atop the page. Once I’m done, I hand the ledger back to the Sultan’s buyer, and he hands mine back to me.
“You want back the clothes?” he asks me, pointing at the tarnished white robes we gave the girl all the way back at the other end of the Anvil.
I should say yes; Andra will want them back to use on a future child stolen from a city far, far away. But I can’t bring myself to say the words, can’t bring myself to have her stripped down like an animal as my parting gift to her. For all I know, I’ll be the last one ever in her life to show her even a modicum of civility or kindness. The last person she can think of who wasn’t all the way cruel to her. And if Andra asks, I can always say the buyer didn’t offer; even my amma wouldn’t dare outright request clothes back from a Sultan’s man.
I shake my head. “No need,” I say.
“Well then. Come on, girl.” He grabs brusquely onto her arm and hefts her back toward the crowd, which is presently in a heated bidding war over a young Courdonian man recently imported from the north.
I stand there, ledger tucked underarm, as Lydia-turned-Ceres shoots me back one last desperate glance. Only for a moment, until she realizes what she’s doing, that even if I’m not quite as terrible as the rest of my tribe, as these Mzians, I will not save her now. Once this dawns on her, she snaps her stare away. She ducks down her fire-crowned head, and soon she’s gone from sight, a small child pressed amid a horde of towering adults.
I take a deep breath, then walk back to where the rest of my tribe waits.
“You have the money?” Andra says to me the moment I arrive.
I nod and offer the pouch out to her. “Yes.”
“Good,” she says, taking it from me. “The last of our lot’s up next. Then we’ll head back outside the city walls. We need to rest up, Anisim. Tomorrow we leave back for Cerrin.”
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Post by Avery on Nov 23, 2014 23:13:02 GMT -5
Secrets - a collab with Elcie
The king of Courdon was smiling.
This was a rare sight in the Gilded Palace, and one that sent the slaves gaping in befuddlement at him as they skittered out of his path. Each of Oliver’s footsteps was purposeful, his stride confident, and as he threaded his way through a series of corridors on his way toward his wife’s chambers, he couldn’t help but play the news over again in his head-- the news that had been delivered to him by a breathless courtier only minutes ago: ”You’ve another son, your majesty.”
The queen’s chambers were a mess. Usually this was a sight that would have sent Oliver snapping at slaves to hurry and clean it, but today he hardly noticed it. Pushing through the crowd of attendants still thronged around his wife, the king of Courdon settled his eyes on the swaddled, red-cheeked infant that was presently laid across her chest.
“A boy, I’ve heard?” he said to her, not bothering to ask how she was. Quite honestly, Oliver didn’t care. Not so long as this infant-- his second son-- was doing well.
“A boy,” Zaria confirmed, shortly. Not that she’d really expected Oliver to show any concern, but the sight of him was irritating. “Strong and healthy. I’m alive too, by the way,” she added sarcastically, unable to resist the snipe despite her exhaustion. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“So you are,” he agreed. Delicately, he reached his hands out and scooped beneath the infant, taking the boy up into his arms. At the movement, the infant let out a short wail of surprise, to which Oliver’s smile only grew. “A good set of lungs on him. Healthy, indeed,” he said, settling the baby into the crook of his arm.
Running his fingers through the child’s dark, wispy hair, he studied his new son’s features. A pert nose, like Zaria’s, and pouted lips. Long, glossy lashes. Like a child marveling over a toy, Oliver gently stroked the lashes.
The infant’s eyes fluttered open, as if in bewilderment. Only for a moment, the briefest of moments.
But it was long enough.
Brown. They were brown. Like dirt. Not the pale green of his own eyes, or the clear blue of Zaria’s. Not even the mottled near-aqua of their eldest son, Cassian, now two.
But brown.
The king of Courdon’s blood chilled. For a moment, he simply stood there, frozen. Stunned. Then, with scores less delicacy than one generally uses with an infant, he practically dumped the baby back on Zaria’s chest. Whirling toward the fawning attendants, his voice was pure venom as he hissed, “Out. All of you, out. Now. The queen and I need to speak. Alone.”
Zaria couldn’t help but gasp in surprise, her fingers curling automatically over her child’s back. She couldn’t know what had angered Oliver so, but she could suspect. None of her inklings meant anything good.
“Ollie,” she said in a low voice, her eyes narrowed. It sounded like a pet name - but he hated it, and that was exactly why she used it.
As the attendants finished hurrying out, the door thunking definitively shut behind them, Oliver’s face segued from inscrutable to fury. “What have you done?” he snarled at his wife. On her chest, the infant whimpered again, and it took every ounce of impulse control in the king of Courdon to keep from lashing out. From smothering a broad hand over the baby’s lips. Its lips that, on second consideration, seemed to resemble neither his nor Zaria’s at all.
Zaria glared, her chin jutting stubbornly. “Nothing you haven’t done, my king,” she snapped. “I have as much of a right to the possessions of this household as you.”
Despite her words, however, she felt a creeping sense of disgust growing in her gut. A slave’s child. A slave’s child she’d carried in her own body for nine months, her own flesh and blood but with slaves’ blood running through its veins. She felt sick. She didn’t care much for Oliver, but at least he was royalty, and their children were princes. But this… abomination…
If he hadn’t been so furious, Oliver might have laughed. Instead he leaned in close over Zaria and the infant, his face taut with unadulterated rage. He was the king of Courdon. One of the most powerful men in the world. How dare his wife think she could speak to him like this? How dare she bear him this monster, this nothing, this tainted mix of noble and slave blood-- whom would nevertheless hold the title earned for their children by his blood? A prince! She was supposed to give him a prince!
“You have a right to what I say you have a right to,” he growled. “Your father may have always coddled you. Made you think the sun rose only in your honour. But you are mine, Zaria. Remember that.”
“Yours?” Zaria’s voice rose in both volume and pitch indignantly. The baby’s crying started to rise in intensity, responding instinctively to her agitation. “You have plenty of playthings in the slave quarters, Oliver, do not mistake me for one of them! I am still queen.” It was more to remind herself than anything; she was, or should have been, the most powerful woman in Courdon despite this slave’s infant mewling at her breast.
She smirked, automatically reaching down to soothe the baby. “Besides, Oliver,” she said. “By law, any child of a slave belongs to his master. So, in a manner of speaking, he is yours, you know. You should be pleased I’ve increased your wealth.”
“You stupid woman,” Oliver snarled. “As if we can simply drop him in the slave quarters. We could sooner smother him than do that.” He’d said this merely for dramatic effect, but as the words settled in the air, he paused, as if to consider it in earnest.
Zaria tensed, her hands freezing around her child. He surely couldn’t mean - well, no, he certainly could, Zaria had no doubt of that. And it would solve this… unfortunate dilemma for both of them. So why did her stomach plummet at his words?
“If you say another word to defy me, I’ll do it,” Oliver hissed. He reached out then, just a single finger, and traced it along Zaria’s cheek. As if daring her to draw away from him. As if daring her to mock him again.
Struck by the sudden, childish urge to bite him, Zaria pressed her lips tightly together. “You dare, and you’ll have no secrets from your court. Your lords will surely wonder why their king went mad and murdered his own son.” She smirked. “Or perhaps they will wonder how poor a lover he must be, if his queen had to seek satisfaction in the arms of a slave…”
“Who said anything about murder?” Oliver asked, pulling his hand away from her. “Infants die all the time, Zaria. You ought to know that better than anyone.” His voice turned bitter at this, his mind briefly listing back toward the baby before Cassian-- a girl, delicate like a bird, who’d lasted in this world only hours before the gods took her. “Which slave is his father, Zaria?” he asked. “And if you lie to me-- if you think you’re smarter than me-- then I’ll simply kill them all. Every male slave who’s ever so much as glanced your way. Every brown-eyed nothing in this whole bloody palace.”
She shrugged, as if it didn’t particularly bother her. “It… it must have been Alister. Or perhaps the name was Alec? I haven’t sent for him in so long, I’ve almost forgotten.” It was Alister, with soft dark hair and muscles hardened by years of labor. He’d caught her eye almost immediately. To be honest, she’d never noticed his eyes were brown; he’d not once dared to look her in the eye. She felt a slight pang at giving him up, but there were other slaves. Surely even Oliver would not go so far as to murder every male slave in the palace.
And she’d have her revenge, though she had the sense not to hint at it. Pretty blonde Katarina, perhaps; Oliver had not exactly been subtle about looking at her. Even if she couldn’t have her killed, she could probably arrange to have her sold. Preferably to the furthest reaches of the Mzian wastelands.
“So many concubines you can’t even remember his name?” Oliver resisted the urge to slap her. “Well. I suppose I’ll simply have to kill every brown-eyed male slave whose name starts with an ‘A’. Pity. It’ll be expensive to replace them.” Glancing then at the infant, who was still fussing on Zaria’s chest, Oliver added, “We won’t be calling him Saul. Not any longer. I won’t have a thing like that defile my great-grandfather’s name.” After a moment’s pause, he added, “And if I even think you might be calling on a slave ever again, you will regret it, Zaria. Remember that this is my palace. I see all.”
In a gesture that might have passed for affection to an unsuspecting fly on the wall, Oliver reached his hand back toward his wife and her child, this time gently tracing his finger along the baby’s soft, warm throat.
Zaria caught his wrist, her grip deceptively gentle. “Just be careful, my love,” she said softly. “It’s such a large place, this palace, so much bigger than Daddy’s castle in Jisam. Sometimes I get a little lost.” She smiled sweetly. “I’m sure even your little informers get lost from time to time.”
“Such a very big palace, yes,” Oliver agreed, jerking free from her hold. “And so many little places for a very small child to disappear.”
With that, sparing not another glance down at the brown-eyed piece of vermin on Zaria’s chest, the king of Courdon spun and stalked out of the room.
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Post by Avery on Nov 25, 2014 0:38:33 GMT -5
This story is alternately titled "when side characters attack". So, King Oliver. Loving King Oliver. In 1321, Oliver sends his 13-year-old sister, Lila, to Lange to marry Evgeny, the third-in-line for the Langean throne. Things don't end very well, and Lila has to flee in the dead of night in 1328 with her two kids: five-year-old Julia and three-year-old Pavel. She ends up in Bern, Kyth, as a servant to House Stallion. This story takes place in autumn 1338, featuring Julia after Julia, along with surreptitious troops sent by Grand Duchess Isabelle, go to Courdon to help with the slave rebellion. It'll probably be a couple parts? Oliver is in it (as of part two). And he's as charming as ever. Since most of the dialogue in this is high Courdonian, I'm not going to colour tag it; assume it's high Courdonian unless otherwise indicated (low Courdonian is orange, for reference; Mzian, which there's a couple lines of dialogue in during part two, is purplish-brown). Tsarevna: Part One It had all gone wrong so very fast.
And had the small, dark-haired girl presently forced to her knees with her hands bound behind her back and a crossbow pointed at her heart not been so terrified, she might have wondered and laughed. Three months now she’d been in this hot, tumultuous, miserable kingdom, encamped with a number of Isabelle’s knights amidst a large contingent of rebels in southwestern Talvace. Three months she’d spent merely floating, existing, telling herself that she had to be patient, that it was only a matter of time before the rebels found something more useful for her to do. And in the mean time she had to stay unassuming. Biddable, as she constantly she reminded herself that it had taken too much planning and effort to get from Destrier to Courdon in the first place to ruin it all by acting like an impulsive child.
All that patience, and it had mattered not at all. She was going to die anyway. All of them were. Every single rebel who’d been captured by the Courdonian soldiers today, including four of Isabelle’s other men.
The soldiers had come out of nowhere, launching on the party of a dozen rebels as they’d neared the outer bounds of a rural village called Grier, where they were supposed to pick up supplies to ferry back to the rebel camp. Food rations-- and badly needed ones. Distantly now, the girl wondered if it had all been a trap. If there’d never been food in Grier in the first place.
If they’d been but chickens wringing their own starved necks.
“Deep breaths, Julia,” Marc, one of Isabelle’s other agents, murmured from beside her. His Courdonian was heavily accented, and so it was a risk for him to speak in such close proximity to these soldiers. That he’d risked it at all confirmed to her what she already knew: he was expecting to die before they could interrogate him.
Which meant he expected that she would die, too. By her own hand, if necessary. If the Courdonians seemed to show an inclination toward questioning rather than instant execution.
Isabelle had ordered as much. The Courdonians absolutely could not learn that the Grand Duchess of Bern had surreptitiously sent in men to help the slave revolution. Such a thing would be highly damning to Kyth, who’d been swearing up and down for the past several years that they wholly condemned the rebellion. A claim that Courdon didn’t quite seem to believe-- and for good reason-- but that was much too important to future relations between Courdon and Kyth to break down. It was for this reason that Julia, Marc, and the rest of her agents were under the command to make sure they were never in a position to be interrogated. That it was better to die than risk betraying what the Grand Duchess had done, or who they were and where they’d come from.
Julia did not want to die.
She couldn’t die.
Not before--
“All of you,” said one of the Courdonian soldiers-- an older man, clad in officer’s clothing, his hair grizzled to gray and his voice cutting into Julia’s thoughts like a lance, “have committed treason. You have tried to bring ruination to this kingdom. Some of you”-- his eyes fell then on a number of the captured rebels who’d once been slaves, many of their brands winking out conspicuously under the early afternoon sun--“ran from your masters. You flouted the laws of this kingdom and took freedom that wasn’t yours. And the rest of you aided them. These crimes are both unconscionable and unforgivable. And for them, I, Brigadier Donovan Cowles, acting under the authority of King Oliver, Master of the Plains, Warden of the Stone, and Blessed Protector of the Nine Provinces of the exalted Kingdom of Courdon, hereby sentence you all to death.”
At this, some of the rebels let out pitiful moans and cries. One outright slumped over, pressing his cheek against the brittle grass beneath. All of Isabelle’s men, however, stayed stoic, their faces inscrutable. Julia’s stomach seized as she noted a look of what almost seemed to be relief on Marc’s face. Satisfaction that he’d not have to do it himself-- an act that would likely be rather messy, as opposed to a swift slash of the throat or crossbow bolt between the eyes.
But beside him, all Julia could think was: I can’t die.
Not yet. Not before she’d done anything of use. She’d not come all this way to Courdon in the wake of her mother Lila’s death to end up in a pool of her own blood in this field outside Grier. She’d not sworn to her brother, Pavel, that she’d avenge the horror Lila had faced beneath King Oliver’s fists and rule so that she could die without making any difference at all. Without doing anything of value that would help this revolution bring down the crown.
And without any of that… then what was the point of her coming at all? What was the point of throwing away her life, her future?
She was going to die for nothing. Without seeing anything through. Without any knowledge that she’d even helped in the slightest.
This was for nothing.
She was for nothing.
“You will be executed as you kneel now,” Brigadier Cowles continued. “We will make it painless unless you resist. Do not resist.”
With that, the Brigadier turned toward his foot soldiers, gesturing at them. They reacted at once, a number of them holstering their crossbows to draw out from their belts long, curved daggers. The polished blades glinted beneath the hot afternoon sun, and Julia now found herself the one to whimper. She felt like she might vomit, pass out, or both. Tears pricked at her eyes, but she blinked them back.
I cannot die, she thought frantically again. Not now. Not yet.
At her side, Marc remained stone-faced. Julia, bookending the line on the right, glanced beyond him at Isabelle’s other men. Ross, Ian, and Malcolm were equally as unmoved, their expressions so plain they might have been watching a pot of water boil. Part of her wanted to scream at them. Implore them to fight. They were trained, after all, much better than any of the other ragtag captives-- slaves only recently free of their fetters, plucky but unskilled Courdonian peasants who, while never in bondage, had faced no shortage of misery in their lives. People like those… they had no chance against the soldiers. But Isabelle’s men…
Julia jumped as, at the other end of the line, the first throat was slit… that of a tall, redhaired girl not much older than she was-- maybe eighteen to Julia’s fifteen, with a brand at her collarbone marking her as the former property of House Owain in Seguier. Julia bit down hard on her lip as the girl slumped over, dead in an instant, her body hitting the ground beneath like a sack of leaking flour.
The soldier moved on to the next rebel in the line.
Julia couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. Her entire life, reduced to this. A pointless death in a faraway kingdom. Her head likely mounted on some nearby pike. Her body burned to ash.
I can’t die, she thought again.
As the second rebel’s throat was slashed, Marc leaned in toward her. “Why don’t you close your eyes?” he asked gently. “Don’t look. It might make it easier.”
How would that make it easier? Julia’s heart hummed in her ears. Woo, how mad Mum would be right now if she knew. Lila would have never let her daughter come to Courdon. Would have shouted at her for even considering it.
After all, Lila’s homeland-- the homeland she’d been a princess of long ago, before her brother, the king, had sent her away to be married to a Langean prince-- was a bloodbath nowadays. A violent whirlpool of clashes and battles. It was no place for a girl raised in the northern provinces of Kyth, where she’d been brought by her harrowed mother ten years ago after Lila narrowly escaped her brother-in-law and Julia’s uncle, Feodor, purging malcontents from the Langean court. There, Lila had made as much of a life for herself as she could manage, taking safety beneath the watchful eye of Isabelle, the Grand Duchess of Bern. She’d served as a language tutor for the Grand Duchess’s children and raised Julia and Pavel in safety if not luxury. And things had been… stable. Relatively free of danger.
But Julia had always been acutely aware that her mother was somehow broken. Sad. Like a bird with her wings crushed early in life, never to soar again. And Julia knew just as keenly that such heartbreak boiled down to Courdon. Her homeland. The homeland she’d been made to leave by King Oliver, her brother, one of the people in her life she should have been able to trust. Who should have loved her and protected her, not sent her to be nearly slaughtered in Lange.
And so once Lila had died last year, cut down by a wave of influenza that had hit Destrier in early winter, Julia had been mournful first, but then simply angry. Furious, really. Her mother had deserved so much more than a life spent hiding as a servant in Kyth. So much more than the life she’d been made to ultimately lead because of Oliver. And coupled with the rising slave rebellion, a rebellion that if successful might see Oliver killed or at least badly crippled in his power… the idea had implanted in Julia’s head. She should go there and fight. She shouldn’t let her mother’s dour life be a waste. She shouldn’t let Oliver never pay for what he’d done to his little sister.
At first, though, the prospect had seemed so unlikely; after all, how would Julia even get to Courdon? She’d half-expected Isabelle to laugh her out of her office when she’d made the proposal.
But Isabelle hadn’t.
And things had come together.
And now, Julia thought, I am going to die.
The third executed rebel’s body thunked against the ground, blood spreading from the gaping hole carved into his throat. Panic continued to rise in Julia’s chest, constricting her lungs like a snake. With each new captive to die, the fear reached a novel, heightened plateau, rising and rising until she was almost hyperventilating. Next to her, Marc again whispered that she should shut her eyes, but Julia didn’t. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t face the idea that if she did, she would never see anything again but the backs of her own eyelids.
Within another minute, eight of the twelve captives were dead. Including Malcolm and Ian. Only three more deaths loomed between now and her own. Only three more throats to bleed before her world ended forever, too.
Two more throats. (Ross was gone.)
One more.
“Marc,” she sputtered as the soldier arrived behind him with his blade, pausing for a moment to wipe the blood off on his overcoat.
Much too calmly, Marc turned his head and smiled at Julia. A soft smile. A sad smile. “It’ll be okay, Julia,” he said. “Just close your--”
Eyes, she finished in her head for him, as the dagger kissed his throat and he keeled over like the rest.
It was her turn now. She let out a soft, pitiful moan that verged on a whimper. Panic gripped her so completely that she could not recall ever feeling any emotion but for it. “Please, sir, please, don’t,” she gasped to her executioner.
She wasn’t sure why she said it. Certainly it wouldn’t help. They’d hardly stall her death because she asked them nicely. If anything, it’d only upset the soldiers if they interpreted it as some sort of resistance. And Brigadier Cowles had made it very clear that the rebels ought not resist.
Yet the soldier paused. His blade still dripping with Marc’s blood, he stilled behind her and gaped down, as if in shock. Brigadier Cowles, overseeing the slaughter from a few feet away, took a pointed step in Julia’s direction, his own brow furrowed. The air, rank with coppery blood, was suddenly filled with a newfound tension. Befuddlement.
It took Julia a moment to realize why: she’d spoken to the soldier in high Courdonian. A reflex for her, since that’s what she’d always used with Lila. Using low Courdonian, as she’d had to these past three months, was what took a conscious effort. High Courdonian… it was her default.
But it was not the language any of these men would expect for a rebel to use.
Oh, no. This was bad. This was… suspect. Everything Isabelle had stressed that her men avoid. They couldn’t draw undue attention. They had to blend, and if necessary, die.
They couldn’t stand out.
… and yet she was still alive.
Because of her gaffe, her throat still wasn’t slit. She wasn’t but another bloody heap amongst bloody heaps, her life reduced to nothing but a slit throat in a war she’d never see through.
“Why do you speak the high tongue?” Brigadier Cowles demanded, holding out a hand so that the executioner might not think better of stalling and slit Julia’s throat.
“It’s… it’s what I know,” Julia nearly croaked.
Taking another few sharp steps, he arrived in front of the trembling girl. Seizing hold of her long, glossy hair, he used it as leverage to jerk her head back, so that he might study her face. As if he were searching for some family resemblance to a well-known enki-- some person she could be, some reason she could have, to be legitimately speaking high Courdonian…
And then it hit her.
She did have a reason. She was related to their king. Their miserable, vicious, abominable king. The king who’d thrown her mother to Lange like a piece of trash. The king whose rule had been so oppressive and cruel that when the rebels had arrived to light the kingdom afire, the sparks were already flickering. The people just looking for a reason to revolt, and somebody to lead them in it.
I’m sorry, House Stallion, Julia thought. I’m sorry, but I can’t die. I can’t.
“My name,” she stuttered, plumbing the depths of her mind for the title she’d held once, long ago in Lange, before her mother had fled in the night with she and Pavel, “is Tsarevna Julia Evgenia Irbis of Lange. I am the daughter of Tsarevich Evgeny Kasmirich Irbis of Lange a-and…” Her throat hitched, and she took a deep breath before forcing herself to continue, “And Princess Lila Vivianne Alaric. I-if you kill me, the king will… it’ll be…”
Her voice broke. She couldn’t find the breath or the words. Looming above her, Brigadier Cowles looked as if he’d been punched. Letting go of her hair, he merely gawped at her for a few long, terrifying moments-- moments during which Julia was half-convinced he’d shake off his surprise and then coolly order his foot soldier to slit her throat. Moments where she saw her death hanging before her like the sun just before dawn, as the first rays peek above the horizon and you know it’s only a matter of time before full-light. And that even if you cling to the darkness, it’s leaving you all the same.
There is nothing you can do to keep it.
But Cowles did not order her slain. Instead, as his wits seemed to surge back to him, he said, “Lila Alaric is a name I’ve not heard in a very long time. It’s rumored she’s dead.”
“She is,” Julia said, hating that it was true.
“And it’s just as rumored that the children died, too.”
“They didn’t,” Julia rasped. “I didn’t.” A sudden wave of boldness washing over her, she dared to meet Cowles’s dark, predatory eyes, presently swimming with equal parts intrigue and disbelief. “If you don’t believe me, cut my throat. But I’m telling you the truth, sir. And I do think King Oliver would hate to learn that one of his officers killed both his niece and the only person who could tell him what happened to his sister.”
Strictly, Julia wasn’t sure if this was true. The way Oliver had sent Lila away to Lange with no thought or care of the dangers-- and the way that she’d always talked so bitterly about her cruel, commandeering brother-- rather led Julia to believe that the king of Courdon would hardly be concerned about whether Lila was or wasn’t dead, and what had happened in Tiraspol ten years ago. But it was a good hook to cast. A good seed to plant in Brigadier Cowles’s mind, so that he thought long and hard before he decided to kill Julia anyway.
“You speak high Courdonian perfectly, yet your accent is northern,” Cowles said after a long pause, almost accusingly.
“Of course it is,” Julia replied. “Think about where I told you I’m from.” She chose not to mention that her northern accent was primarily Bernian, not Langean. This would only end up causing more questions-- and problems for Grand Duchess Isabelle
Cowles seemed conflicted. He darted his eyes rapidly between Julia and her would-be executioner, clearly in furious deliberation with himself. Then, finally, he sighed. “You might be a lying loon,” he said, “and even if you’re not, the sentence for being part of the revolution is death whether you’re the daughter of Lila Alaric or a slave run from Jisam. That said, I’ve no desire to end up in the disgraces of King Oliver. So here’s what’s going to happen, Julia.” He spat her name more than said it, as if it tasted foul to his tongue. “You’ll be transported to Rakine. A courtier will be sent ahead to tell King Oliver of your claims, and so it’ll be up to him to decide what to do with you when you arrive. However, this turn of events is contingent on you being a highly cooperative prisoner. You will not try to escape. You will not disobey orders. You will do what we tell you at all times, or you will merely wish you’d stayed quiet and let Captain Voight slit your throat here in this clearing. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Cowles said nothing more then, instead stepping back before he brusquely gestured toward two of the other nearby foot soldiers. They reacted at once, closing in on her and each taking a hold of one of her arms. As they pulled her up to her feet, Julia didn’t dare let herself glance down at the bodies to her left. The reminder of what would have just happened to her had she not spoken. Had she not been, in many ways, a coward, more concerned with her own life than the bigger picture. Kyth’s picture.
Julia had no idea what she’d just gotten herself into. The future she’d just carved for herself. A continued life, certainly-- at least, for now. A throat not cut in this desolate field. But beyond that…
As the soldiers hauled her toward their horses, Julia’s mind danced back to all the stories she’d wheedled out of Lila over the years about Courdon. About Oliver. About the life she’d had stolen from her when she’d boarded that boat to Lange nearly twenty years ago.
You’ll wish you’d let Captain Voight slit your throat.
Oh Woo, Lila thought, the full ramifications of her situation-- of what she’d said-- suddenly hitting her in full. Her knees felt like jelly.
She could only hope and pray that Brigadier Cowles’s words weren’t true. Tsarevna: Part Two
During the next week that it took to travel from southwestern Talvace to the capital, Rakine, Julia altered between fear and regret as if on a dizzying tangent. One minute she’d be merely grateful to be alive yet terrified over what was to come, and the next she’d be cursing herself, wishing she’d had the courage to die in that field along with the rest of Isabelle’s men. She crafted in her head story after story, trying desperately to cobble together some tale to feed King Oliver about where she’d been these past ten years since Lila fled with her and Pavel from Tiraspol. She couldn’t implicate Grand Duchess Isabelle, that was certain. But then, what should she say? How should she claim she got to Courdon? Why should she say she joined the revolution?
The soldiers escorting her seemed to regard her as something between a novelty and a lit match just waiting to burn them, both bemused by her and somehow frightened. Brigadier Cowles had stayed back in Talvace, and so the top-ranking soldier in charge of her on the way to Rakine was a humorless man called Clark. Whether this was his first name or his surname, Julia wasn’t quite sure.
What she did know was that he had a wicked temper and absolutely no reservations about making sure she was kept in check. She didn’t try to escape, but if she so much as glanced in a way that seemed off to Clark, he’d backhand her, hard. By the time the contingent arrived in Rakine, her face was marred with bruises in various stages of healing. Her left eye was black and her lip was fat. If she’d meant to come to Rakine as a girl who might look the part of royal, she’d failed badly. Instead, she rather looked like a beaten slave.
This was the first thing King Oliver told her, as he stared with hawk-like eyes down at his so-called niece.
They’d brought her to an interrogation room in the bowels of the Gilded Palace, so far underground that even the walls smelled like wet, loamy earth. After chaining her, hands and feet, to a chair, they’d let her sit alone for a long, good while, until she was nearly afraid they’d forgotten she was down there at all. That she’d starve in this dark, cold room, indeed wishing she’d merely let them slit her throat.
But then, he’d arrived. A middle aged man with light, graying hair and a square, chiseled jaw. He was not tall so much as well-built, looming over her with a sheer presence and confidence she’d seen in very few men throughout her life. His dress was very fine, all silk that, back in Kyth, would have cost at least a year of her mum’s wages, if not more.
Julia knew who he was instantly. And not just because of his commanding presence, his ornate outfit, or the fact that he was trailed by two guards dressed in royal livery. No, what gave him away were his eyes, a pale, striking green.
She knew those eyes.
She had those eyes. So did Pavel.
So had Lila.
Oliver seemed to notice it, too, his gaze lingering too long and too ardently on hers before he snapped himself out of it. Straightening, and his voice so sharp it could cut through flesh, he said to her, “You look like a wretch. A beaten slave. And yet you’re the one claiming to be the daughter of my little lost Lila.”
My Lila. Her pulsed fluttered, and she took a deep yet shaky breath. “Yes, Your Majesty,” she said.
“And why should I believe you?”
“Because it’s… it’s the truth, sire,” she murmured.
“Hm.”
Oliver paused then, studying her, as if she were a piece of pottery he might like to buy from the marketplace. She tried not to betray the fear swelling in her, gripping her with just as much intensity as were the manacles that encircled her ankles and wrists. Trying, but failing. And as he watched her squirm, the ghost of a smile ticked between the king of Courdon’s lips. A predatory smile. One of dark, animal delight.
“You’re just like her,” he said. “So… nervous. Always nervous. I swear that girl never sat still. If our father had been any father at all, he’d have strapped her for it. It wasn’t becoming for a woman of her station.” At this comment, Julia’s stomach flipped violently, and she bit down on her tongue as he continued almost blithely, “I bet, at last, she was finally still in her coffin. Since that is what you claimed, correct? That my sister’s no longer alive?”
“Yes,” Julia managed. “She’s dead.”
“And how did this death happen?”
Julia was the one to consider then, ultimately deciding on a vague brand of the truth. “Sickness,” she said.
“When?”
“Last year, Your Majesty.”
“She survived the purge, then?” he asked, and when Julia nodded, Oliver frowned. “This is all a very interesting story,” he said, not sounding as if it interested him at all. “But far-fetched. Even you must admit that, Tsarevna.”
He said it wrong, Julia’s old title. The word sounding so very strange with his harsh Courdonian accent. Still, now was hardly the time to correct his pronunciation. Instead, she said to him, “I know it must sound mad, yes. But it’s the truth, sire. I would not lie.”
“Hm,” Oliver said, once again letting the room lapse into a terse silence that ate at Julia like lye. “And where was she all these years, then? Why did she not come back home to Courdon?”
“We’ve been in…” Julia faltered at this. She’d thought of so many stories to feed Oliver, and yet had not fully settled on any of them. She was terrified of him not believing her lies, and thus in turn not believing her tale as a whole. Not believing who she was, which would mean certain death.
“I should warn you not to lie,” Oliver said, as if picking up on her thoughts.
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Julia swallowed. “We’ve been in far northern Bern. In Kyth. Roving from village to village, never staying anyplace long. Living under assumed names.” She decided on Bern because of her accent-- because if she lied but he recognized it, she’d be dead. Better, then, to give him a molded version of reality. A tall tale with a root of truth.
“Sounds like hell.” He sneered. “And the second part of my question, girl? Why she chose to do that rather than return home to Courdon?”
“She… she was afraid you’d not accept Pavel and me. Because we’re not fully Courdonian. Because we’re related to the Langean royals who turned against her.”
“Pavel. That’s the boy, yes? Your brother?”
“Yes, sire.”
“What became of him?”
“He’s dead,” Julia said rashly, because it was easiest. Because it was safest for Pavel, back home safe in Destrier. “Same sickness that killed our mother.”
“Yet you did not catch it.”
“No, sire.”
“How lucky.”
Oliver yawned then, as if he were bored, and turned toward the guardsmen behind him. He ordered them to bring a chair in for him, which made Julia at once suddenly hopeful yet even more terrified. If he wanted to sit, that meant he hadn’t fully rejected her story and so planned to be here for a while. Which meant she might not die. But on the other hand, even in these few brief minutes of conversation, the king of Courdon had already set her hackles rising, her stomach churning, and her palms sweating. He was dangerous, Woo, how quickly she could tell he was dangerous. Volatile. Cruel.
Just like Lila had always said.
Once the chair was brought in, Oliver sat in it, stiffly, as if here were atop his throne and peering down at the peoples of his kingdom rather than at a chained and dirty fifteen-year-old girl.
“Tell me about your mother, Julia,” he said once he was settled. “If you are who you say, and you knew my Lila, then prove it to me.”
“She… she had light hair. Lighter than mine. Not quite blonde, but nor was it dark enough to really be brown, either. Her eyes were green--”
“Not what she looked like,” Oliver snapped. “Anyone, if they did enough digging, could find that information. But what she was like. Her character. Her personality.”
“Oh. She…” Julia shook her head, her thoughts lurching as if rocked by an earthquake. “She was very smart. Quick. Not necessarily the most extroverted, but if you got her going on a topic she cared about… well…” She smiled crookedly. “Well then she wouldn’t ever be quiet. She was… opinionated. Very opinionated. But sometimes she knew when it was best to hold her opinion in. When it was safest just to… just to observe.” She searched her mind for more things to say. For a way to do her mother justice in these panicked, stammered words. “She spoke a lot of languages. Courdonian, of course, and Langean, but also Kythian and Mzian. She… loved languages. She always wanted to learn more.”
At this, Oliver’s nearly disaffected expression segued into something else. Something nearly furtive. Surprised. As if what Julia had said struck a chord with him-- a chord he’d not expected hit, perhaps going into this meeting presuming she was nothing more than a poseur, a fraud.
“Did she teach you these languages?” he asked.
“Well… I already knew Langean, but… yes. Courdonian, even though my father didn’t approve. And Kythian, because we lived there after the purge, and Mzian because she thought she might as well. S-she thought you could never know too many--”
“And you would not be lying to me, would you?” Oliver interrupted in Mzian. His accent was poor, and he put the emphasis wrong on some of the words; Lila would have chided him for it.
Julia, of course, knew better. “I would not lie to you, Your Majesty.”
He leaned back heavily in his chair, clearly brewing over this new information-- and to Julia, it was obvious that her description of Lila had rung true to the king of Courdon. That nothing she’d said had indicated to him that she was anybody but the girl she claimed.
“She cried for days when I discontinued her foreign language education,” Oliver said finally.
“And you beat her for it,” Julia blurted, remembering the story, the pained look on Lila’s face as she’d told her daughter, complaining over another lesson on Mzian (“When will I ever use this?” Julia had whined), that once upon a time she’d loved learning languages so much that she’d sobbed when her studies had been cut. Sobbed so long and so hard that eventually Oliver’s patience had grown thin, and he’d had her ‘punished’.
Julia had known what this meant.
She’d seen her mother’s scars.
Now, the girl regretted the words the moment they’d left her lips, but she was unable to snatch them back. Instead, she stammered, “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. That was… inappropriate.”
“It was,” he agreed thinly, but quickly, to her great relief, he moved on. “So tell me, Julia,” he said, “how it is that you ended up in Talvace. With rebels. It’s simply perplexing to me, given what else you’ve said. If indeed you spent most of your life in northern Bern, well-- it’s a very long way from Bern to Talvace, yes?”
This, here. The heart of her lie. What might very well lead to Oliver killing her anyway, even if he believed she was really his niece. After all, as Brigadier Cowles had said back in the killing field, it didn’t matter if she was a slave from Jisam or Lila Alaric’s daughter: being in the revolution meant you were executed, period. So no matter what she said here…
She might end up dead. Her death not forestalled indefinitely, but merely delayed by a very short while. A broken carriage wheel swiftly changed.
“I… didn’t mean to join them,” she said unsteadily. “I… after Mum and Pavel died, I… was left with nothing, and I headed south. I wandered for a bit, but… I couldn’t find my footing. I had no connections, and the things I could make money doing, I… I wasn’t going to do.”
“The rebellion,” Oliver cut in impatiently. “How did you end up with them?”
“I didn’t know how bad it was in Courdon,” Julia said. “I mean, I knew there was… conflict… but not how bloody. I decided to come here because I thought… maybe Mum was wrong, and if I made it to the capital and told who I was… I... “ She shook her head. “I don’t know what I thought. I was just scared and desperate, Your Majesty.”
“That doesn’t explain the rebels.”
“Right. Um. Well…” She gulped. “I hadn’t made it very far into Courdon before I realized it was… a war zone, basically. I knew there was no way I’d make it all the way to Rakine on my own, and… I didn’t trust anybody, really. But I thought if I got in with the rebellion, I could sort of move along with their ranks and… try to work my way south. Slowly. Toward the capital. I… I quickly realized how foolish an idea this was, but once you’re in with them, sire, it’s not like you can just leave, and I had barely any supplies, anyway. I was trapped.”
“What a touching story,” Oliver said flatly.
“It’s not a story,” she said. “It’s the truth.”
“How long were you with them?”
“Three months.” There was no use in lying about this. She needed to save her fibs for things that mattered.
“And what information did you learn from them?”
“Nothing, really.” This also was the truth. Perhaps not the truth Oliver wanted, but that didn’t make it false. “They mostly had me on… errands, really. Around camp. It’s not like they give valuable information to any person who joins them off the side of the road.”
“This camp. Where is it?”
“In Talvace.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were captured near Grier. Is it near to Grier?”
She waffled. “I… it’s… not far,” she admitted, thinking of no way to get out of this that wouldn’t end with her lies becoming much too blatant. Plus, the rebels were moving around all the time. It was possible they’d already packed up and shifted locations again, particularly after the party they’d sent out for supplies never came back. “We walked for a few hours that day. North, I think? Or west. I… I’m not good with directions. It was in a bit of a valley. Surrounded by fields. Very rural. Not much around. We hardly passed any villages at all during our walk.”
“How many rebels were in it?”
“No more than a hundred. I think it’s one of their smaller battalions.”
“Did you meet any of their high-ranking officers? Xavier Lynn or his wife, Elin? Lydia Kidde? Myer Belle? Adam Carrow?”
“No, sire.”
“Who was in charge of the camp?”
“I… he…” Woo, how she wanted to lie, but knew that she couldn’t. “His name was Arden. Arden Sinclair.”
“Ah.” At this, Oliver smiled. “We weren’t even sure if he was still alive. Some sources told us no. You might be nearly as useless as your mother, Julia, but at least you’ve brought me one thing that’s not entirely without worth.”
“O-oh?” Julia stammered. “What’s that?”
“Information.”
At this, Oliver stood, towering over Julia once more like a mountain above the earth. Smoothing his ornate silk shirt, he glanced for a moment at his guards, gesturing for them to take out the chair. They did, and once it was gone, he looked back down at Julia.
“I thought I would come into this room to a fraud, Julia,” he said. “Some sniveling girl whose high Courdonian was all wrong, who plucked an obscure name for some reason only the gods could have known. Instead, I found you. And no matter how disconcerting it is to have ghosts brought to my palace-- little girls I’ve presumed dead since 1328-- I have very little doubt that you are who you say you are. Unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately?” Julia echoed.
“It would be much easier if you were a fraud,” Oliver said simply. “Then I’d cut your throat and be done with it.” He sighed. “You’ve put me in a very difficult position, Julia. Rebels are executed, period. And no matter your story, you were found amongst a group them, wearing their badge. That’s clear, irrefutable guilt. And it’s… vile. However, it’s hardly your fault my harlot sister raised you a wretch in Kyth. Nor that she died and left you a penniless orphan. And you are so very young. Sixteen, is it?”
“Fifteen,” she whispered, trying to shove back the anger that blistered in her at Oliver’s sneering description of Lila.
“Fifteen, then. Not even of age.” He reached a hand out and set it on her shoulder, gripping it as a child might to its favorite doll. Behind him, the guardsmen stirred uneasily, as if they were uncomfortable with their king getting so close to this self-professed rebel. But Oliver paid them no heed. Instead, he clucked his tongue and went on, “If she’d merely brought you back here ten years ago, Julia, you’d have lived a life of luxury. You’d have been raised right. And perhaps poor Pavel would still be alive now.”
“Yes,” Julia said, her throat sticky, praying to Woo that Oliver would never, ever discover that her brother was alive and back in Destrier, “perhaps he would.”
“So here’s what I think I will do, Julia,” Oliver said, still not taking his hand off of her. “After I leave you today, you are going to give my men everything you know about the rebellion. Everything. The name of every person you met. Every task you did. Every talk you overhead and every future move you have reason to think they might make.” She opened her lips, as if to protest again that she knew nothing of value, but Oliver only shook his head and squeezed her shoulder harder. Firmly, he continued, “That part is non-negotiable. And do not even dream of lying, or you will vastly regret it. I do not wish to slit your throat, little niece, but I have no qualms with making your life much more miserable than it needs to be.”
“Y-yes, sire,” she murmured, and in that moment, she hated herself more than ever. Hated that she’d not had the bravery of the rest of the rebels in that field. Hated that she’d betrayed everything she’d come to Courdon to do. And hated most of all that there was still a massive part of her that felt no hate at all, but only relief. That was glad, oh Woo how it was glad, that Oliver wasn’t going to murder her. That she was going to live, no matter the capacity.
“For now, think of yourself as a welcome but guarded guest of my palace, Julia. As long as you cooperate with me, then your life will be pleasant. But if you have lied-- if you’re here as some sort of spy for the rebellion, say-- then do not think you’ll be able to hide it from me for very long.”
“I have not lied,” she repeated, for what felt like the umpteenth time.
“I really do hope that is the case,” he said. “However, just to be sure, before my guards question you more in depth about the rebellion, you’ll be placed under a truth spell. I’m also going to have them ask you again the same questions I already asked. Who you are, where you came from, all the basic details. Just to ensure your answer stays consistent and true.”
Julia tried not to let the color drain from her face. A truth spell. Oh, Woo. They’d practiced this, of course, before coming to Courdon. The Grand Duchess of Bern had hardly let her undercover operatives go south without being able to withstand a truth spell, even if they were meant to kill themselves long before it ever got to that point. But still… she was exhausted. Terrified. What if she cracked? What if she couldn’t press through it with a straight face as she nevertheless fed Oliver’s guards her lies? Part of the trick to overcoming a truth spell was really believing what you said. Convincing yourself it was true, even though it might be nothing more than a grand, false tale.
Woo, she thought again, and quickly started impressing her lies into her brain, stamping them there like a slave’s brand. Thinking them to herself with such fierceness, such conviction, that hopefully by the time the truth spell was cast, Julia would be able to pass them off easily as true. Pavel is dead, I came to Courdon to make it to the capital, I fell in with the rebels nearly by accident, Mum didn’t bring me back to Courdon because she was afraid I’d be rejected. Pavel is dead, I came to Courdon to make it to the capital…
“Then,” Oliver continued, as Julia attempted not to betray to him her furious concentration, “there’s one final matter, little niece. You see, whether or not you meant to be a rebel, you ended up with them. For three months. For that crime, anyone else would see their throat cut, as you well know. So I can hardly let you off with no punishment at all, no?”
“N-no,” she agreed, her stomach souring even more. Pavel is dead, I came to Courdon to make it to the capital, I fell in with the rebels nearly by accident…
“I would not, of course, wish to start our relationship off on the wrong foot. So I shan’t punish you myself. I will have the guards take care of it.” He finally withdrew his hand from her shoulder then. “I think ten strokes from a leather strap would be sufficient. I’ll have it carried out once the questioning is over.”
“I… I…”
No. All of Lila’s dark stories flared in Julia’s head, overtaking her frantic memorization of her story. She could suddenly see every one of her mother’s scars, old with age yet in memory not dulled at all. Lila had hated her scars. Hated that her children knew she had them. Hated that, even so many years of Courdon, she wore its effect around with her, a stain she could never scrub free. She took them with her all the way to the grave.
And now her daughter would wear new scars of her own.
“I hope you are not thinking of arguing with me,” Oliver said.
“O-of course not, sire,” Julia replied, her voice hardly more than a squeak.
“Good girl.” He flashed her a smile. “I ought be off, then. But I will see you around the Gilded Palace, little niece. It’s a shame my Lila could never make it home, and that her selfish actions also kept away poor Pavel, but at least I’ve now got you.” He cocked his head, looking her over once again-- her long, dark, glossy hair, her bruised skin creamy and pale, her green eyes mirror images of his own. “I think everyone will like you. Pretty and exotic, but not too exotic. Why, I’ll hardly be able to beat back the suitors begging for your hand.”
Julia didn’t know what to say to this, and so she decided it was safest to say nothing at all. Instead, she sat with her lip bit as Oliver turned and glided out the room, the guardsman in royal livery quickly following him. As he went, all Julia could think about was Brigadier Cowles’s words in that field a week ago, after he’d agreed to spare her life. You’ll wish you’d let him slit your throat.
She didn’t wish it. Not yet. Not now. Not entirely.
But how long under King Oliver’s power-- his power that had so broken Lila, all those years ago-- would it take for this to change?
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Post by Avery on Nov 29, 2014 14:00:06 GMT -5
This story takes place 18 months after Tsarevna, in spring of 1340. The narrator is again Julia, although this also prominently features Gerard-- a.k.a., the infant from Secrets, now 17 years old and just as well treated by Oliver and the family as you'd imagine. >__> It'll probably be a few parts. Maybe two or three. Oliver is, as always, as dashing as ever. A Dangerous Dream: Part One “You can’t be serious, Gerard,” the girl said, staring in shock at the boy sitting on the stone bench before her.
“Do I sound like I’m joking?” Gerard replied, a dark, desperate hitch to his tone. Leaning forward, he briefly scanned the sprawling gardens that surrounded them, as if he were searching them (yet again) for listening ears-- palace guards who might be roaming nearby and overhear this clandestine conversation. Once he was satisfied there was no one around but he and the girl, he patted beside him on the seat of the bench. “Why don’t you sit, Julia?” he said.
“No, thanks,” she replied, shaking her head. Her dark curls bounced against her cheeks, and Julia raked her hand through them, wincing as her fingers caught on a tangle. She was always fussing with her hair, a habit that drove her uncle, the king, crazy. At least he wasn’t around to smack her for it right now. She didn’t think she could deal with Oliver right now. Not given what Gerard had just said.
Not given the fact that her cousin had just suggested that, like thieves in the night, the two of them steal away together, leaving the seemingly impenetrable walls of the Gilded Palace behind to enfold themselves in the war happening outside. The war she’d already nearly died in a year and a half ago, fighting on the rebels’ side against the king. He’d already forgiven her for that once-- or at least, he’d not cut her throat over it. But if she and Gerard were to try to join up with the rebellion again…
If they were caught, it’d be the end of things for both of them. Julia knew this viscerally, reflexively, like a mother knows her child’s cry.
And yet Gerard was proposing it anyway.
“Why are you acting so shocked?” Gerard asked, his voice low. He’d searched the area for prying ears repeatedly, but still he could not be too careful. “It’s not like we haven’t discussed it before--”
“In hypotheticals,” she hissed back between gritted teeth. “In faraway dreams. Not in actual plans, Gerry.”
“It’s hardly an actual plan,” he countered. “More of an… idea.”
“An idea is still more than an abstract dream.”
“And an abstract dream sees us getting nowhere, Julia,” he said. “An abstract dream sees me spending the rest of my life being hated by everyone, and you getting married off to Lord Erling.”
“That’s low,” Julia snapped. Then, almost frantically: “And you don’t know if he’s marrying me off to Lord Erling for sure, Gerry.”
“He is,” Gerard said. “You can delude yourself all you want, Julia, but it’s happening. If we don’t leave, you’ll be in Cesthen by the end of the year. Married to Lord Erling, maybe even pregnant with one of his kids--”
“Gerard.” Her voice was a warning.
“Sorry.” He blushed now, sheepishly, and reached out a gentle hand toward her, setting his fingers down on her wrist in placation. She tensed but did not pull away from him, rather biting her lip as he continued, “I know it’s scary, Julia. But… you were with the rebels once before. And if we could just get out of here”-- he gestured grandly at the gardens around them, and the rest of the palace grounds that stretched well beyond--“I think we could make it with them. We could fight against Oliver and this whole bloody kingdom. We could help bring Courdon to its knees.”
“Shh.” He was talking much too loudly. Her heart hammering in her ears, she finally took the seat beside him on the bench. “Not that I don’t want to see Oliver made to pay for all he’s done, Gerard, but… even if we did get out of here, the rebels…” She shook her head. “Do you think they’d just take us in? You’re the second-in-line for the Courdonian throne--”
“Only a technicality.” Now Gerard was the one to interrupt. “He’d never let me have it, Julia. He’d sooner kill me.”
“I know that. But they don’t. To them, you’re just Prince Gerard, the son of their mortal enemy, and I’m a royal, too. We’d be lucky if they didn’t cut our throats right that second.”
“We could lie,” Gerard said, furrowing his brow. “Give them fake names. Who says they need to know who we are?”
“We can’t lie. At least, not you. Your accent makes it clear you’re nobility, Gerard. Not to mention, if they found out later we’d lied, they would think we’re spies. They’d kill us.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he said defiantly.
For a moment, she simply studied him. Older than her by about a year, she and Gerard looked nothing alike. His lightly honeyed skin looked almost brown compared to her creamy paleness, and his eyes were a deep brown compared to hers that were a piercing green. While her face was heart-shaped, with a strong brow and jaw, his features were slim, almost aquiline. Julia at least in part resembled the rest of the royal family, but Gerard rather looked as if he’d been plucked from the side of the road and shoved into prince’s clothes. He favoured the king, his so-called father, not at all, and his mother, Queen Zaria, only in the colour of his dark, ashy hair.
There was a very good reason that King Oliver would never, ever let this boy inherit the throne. That, gods forbid something should happen to the heir, Cassian, Gerard knew he would soon swiftly follow his brother into the ether.
“Have you ever almost died, Gerry?” Julia asked, still staring intently at him. “And I don’t mean a sickness where you felt like death-- or some far-fetched scenario where you almost fell off a horse or… or anything like that. But actually almost died.”
He shook his head. “I haven’t,” he admitted.
“I have,” she said. “Twice. And it’s… it’s easy to talk about. Easy to say you’re willing to take risks that might very well lead to you dying. But once you’re in that moment, Gerard, all of that past courage seems to matter very little. It seems very, very misplaced, now that you’ve got a blade just second from slashing your throat.”
He sighed, as if he at once knew the accuracy of his cousin’s words and yet hated with every bone in his body that she was right, that they were true. “I wouldn’t make you come, Julia,” he said softly. “I-- I wouldn’t inflict that on you. And I trust what you’re saying. Your experiences. But... I think this is my chance. This revolution, it’s… it’s my moment. My moment to finally stand up and stop being the person I’ve been my whole life.”
“But I like who you are,” she murmured, meaning it. Since she’d been brought to live at the Gilded Palace eighteen months ago, Gerard was the only person she’d met with whom she’d struck up anything more than a gloss of a friendship. He was kind and caring in a way that most others at the castle weren’t, particularly her other cousins, who ignored her as if she were a speck of dirt stuck to the bottoms of their shoes. They weren’t cruel to her, not exactly, but their constant cool indifference toward her had not led toward any warm feelings blooming between them. And as for the king and queen… well, the king only seemed to care about her inasmuch as he could control and use her, and the queen had spoken to her perhaps a grand total of five times in the past year and a half. Not like Gerard, who actually smiled when he saw her. Who was always willing to talk. Who treated her as a human being rather than a barely welcome novelty.
That said, Julia didn’t have a good retort for him when he said to her, “I like myself, too, Julia. The problem is that no one else but you and I feel that way. The problem is that if I stay here, it’s going to just be more of the same thing for the rest of my life. Being Oliver’s punching bag. My mum barely able to look at me. My siblings taunting me. I’ll never be allowed to marry; there’s no way in hell Oliver would want my blood tainting some other enki’s lineage. I’ll never get a decent post in the government, because Oliver doesn’t trust me. And so I’ll just… wither. I’ll just exist. And I know that I can’t have any idea what it’s like to face down death, but staying here in the Gilded Palace-- living as I’ve always lived-- well, that’s a slow death in and of itself, cousin. And I can’t do it anymore.”
“If he catches you trying to leave… especially if he knows where you’re going, what you’re trying-- he’ll kill you, Gerry,” Julia said.
“Probably,” Gerard agreed.
“And… he… he knows we’re friends. He’ll think I helped. He’ll hurt me, Gerard.”
“Then come with me, Julia,” Gerard said. “Like I said, I won’t force you to come, but I want you to, I-- I’ve always pictured us going together, supporting each other, and I--”
The sound of footsteps reverberating silenced Gerard mid-thought. Both he and Julia stiffened and forced neutral looks on to their faces as a pair of guards swept by, regarding the prince and his cousin with a brief, polite bow before they continued quickly past. That was the thing about the Gilded Palace: nowhere was safe to talk. Not ever. Not wholly. Even if you were alone at one moment, there were sentinels lurking at every corner. So many people who could overhear secrets.
So many people who could catch you plotting treason.
“Think about it,” Gerard whispered as the guards disappeared around the corner. “It’s not going to happen right now. I figure I need a couple months to plan, at least. To get a proper scheme together. So… you have time to consider.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed, Gerry,” Julia said again, her voice cracking.
“Maybe,” he conceded. “Or maybe for the first, I’m going to really live.”
**
Over the next few weeks, Julia and Gerard didn’t talk again about his plans of running away. But Julia knew Gerard well enough where she didn’t need physical conversation to tell that he was plotting. She could tell it merely by watching him-- could see it in the way he suddenly seemed very interested in observing the movements of the palace guards, or in how he ventured to the gardens more than he used to, or even simply by the fact that his mood as a whole seemed to be brighter now that he had this plot humming beneath skin.
Now that he had a future planned that didn’t only resemble his miserable past.
Julia saw it so patently that she was terrified someone else would notice it, too. Zaria. Cassian. Or worst of all, Oliver.
But as far as she could tell, none of them did. Perhaps because they’d always ignored Gerard with a nearly religious indifference, his subtle shifts in behavior didn’t register to them. And after a while, Julia realized something: to notice a person acting differently than they usually do, you first have to notice them at all.
If the rest of the royal family was keen on pretending Gerard didn’t exist as per usual, Julia herself wasn’t quite so lucky in escaping their attention. On a day about three weeks after she and Gerard’s garden-side conversation, she was sitting in her bedchamber near the end of the night, carefully unplaiting her hair-- the rest of the royal women had slaves do this for them, but Julia refused-- when she heard footsteps in the antechamber, and guards quickly scrambling out of the way.
This meant only one thing. One person.
As the door to her bedchamber swung open, Julia’s heart dropped into her stomach like a heavy stone. Hands falling away from her braid, she turned toward her uncle. The king. At first when she’d arrived to the Gilded Palace eighteen months ago, he’d not dared be in her presence without several armed guards closely flanking him. Back then, he’d viewed her as a threat-- a strange girl who’d been found amongst rebels, who’d nearly died in a Talvacean field along with them. She was suspect. Dangerous.
But in the year and a half since, Oliver had clearly decided that his niece was about as threatening to him as a lump of sugar. That her three month jaunt with the rebels had been nothing more than a misstep on her part as opposed to an actual display of resistance against the kingdom. His kingdom. This was evident in her bedchamber now, as he glided in and then promptly shut the door behind him, closing out the guards who usually stood posted on the other side.
He and Julia were alone.
“How many times,” he growled in greeting, “have I told you that you ought to let the slaves fix your hair, Julia?”
“I don’t see why I need slaves when I can do it myself,” she replied.
“I am too patient with you,” he said stiffly. “You’d better hope Lord Erling is just as kind.”
“Lord Erling?” she asked, her mouth falling open.
“Yes,” said Oliver. “Lord Erling. That’s what I came to talk to you about. I’ve spent the last several days working out the details with Lord Erling about your betrothal. As of tonight, it’s official.”
“But I… Lord Erling is…”
Old, she wanted to say. Woo, how he was old-- nearly thirty to her sixteen, his first wife having died in childbirth a year ago after nearly a decade of miscarriages and stillbirths. The baby had died, too… something Oliver had reminded her numerous times, as if this somehow made it better, that it would be her children poised as the heirs to Ruom province and not some dead former wife’s.
But to Julia, that didn’t matter at all. She did not want to marry Lord Erling. She barely even knew the man, having met him only twice. Neither occasion had been particularly memorable-- or enjoyable. He’d stared at her too intently and had talked at her rather than to her, never seeming to care much what she had to say in response. Individually, his physical features were not unhandsome, but together they seemed all to work in opposition to each other: thin lips set amidst a wide jaw, hair and brows so blonde they looked almost colorless against his golden skin, beady eyes that seemed nearly swallowed by the rest of his face.
The idea of marrying him… A jolt of nausea coursed through her, and she turned sharply away from Oliver, trying to hide her disgust from him.
“Lord Erling is the enki of one of this kingdom’s provinces,” Oliver finished icily for her. “He oversees an incredibly large Ruomian militia in addition to the subjects he provides me for the national army. He is an invaluable ally in this time of war. And you will marry him with a smile on your face, Julia.”
He did not yell this; perhaps it would have been better if he had. Then, at least, she could have foolishly responded to his outburst of anger with anger of her own, and even if she’d been punished for it, well… at least she wouldn’t have been the one who’d first lost control.
Instead, she fought to keep her voice level as she said, “And what if I don’t want to marry him, sir?”
He took a menacing step toward her, his pale green eyes-- mirrors of her own-- glinting with something between fury and incredulity. As if he were at once enraged and surprised by her gall to ask him such a question. She shrunk back from him, lips pressed tightly together, as he snapped, “What you want does not matter. This kingdom’s needs come above your own selfish, girlish desires. Perhaps you would be much happier pairing off with some swine-blooded ingrate--”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She knew better than to interrupt him, and yet Julia couldn’t help herself.
Nor could she even fully regret the words once they were free from her lips-- even after Oliver, his face now written with pure, venomous rage, reacted by taking the final few steps toward her and seizing hold of her arm. Like a fisherman snapping back a bitten line, he wrenched her up to her feet, his fingernails digging into her bare arm. Automatically, she winced, but she knew better now than to try to pull away from him.
It would only make him grip to her harder.
“Don’t think I don’t know,” he spat, his face just inches from hers. His sour breath swirled up her nose, and she bit down on her tongue to resist the childish urge to spit at him. “Don’t think I don’t notice the way you and Gerard are always spending time together. Don’t think I don’t notice the way his eyes light up when you walk into the room, or vice versa, or--”
“It’s not like that,” she sputtered. And this was the truth. She and Gerard were friends, but nothing more. She didn’t see him in that way, nor, she knew, did he think of her as anything more than a pillar and confidante. They were but two broken outsiders who’d found solace in each other’s company: she, the foreign novelty, he, the impostor prince, both of them so clearly out of place in the twisted, cliquish Courdonian court. But romantic feelings between them? Never. If anything, she thought of him as a sibling. Kin, although she knew that in reality their cousinship was fabricated, their blood no more similar to hers than his was to Oliver’s.
With the hand that wasn’t gripping to her arm, Oliver backhanded her, hard. Her lip caught against her tooth, and a spot of blood bubbled up. He didn’t seem to notice it-- or if he did, he did not care.
“I think I have been very patient and permissive with you in this past year and a half, Julia,” he hissed. “I’ve humored your strange quirks and tendencies”-- this, she presumed, meant the fact that she refused to command around the palace slaves-- “and let you spend time with Gerard, even though I’ve feared all along his influence would be corrupting on you. Do not make me regret my kindness. Do not make regret that I did not cut your throat when you showed up at my palace that day eighteen months ago.”
He did not let go of her. Bile rose in her throat, and she swallowed it down. The taste of blood now coated her mouth, coppery and rank, and Julia’s mind could not help but drift to that killing field in Talvace where she’d nearly died. Where she would have died had it not been for her own cowardice.
And where sometimes-- darkly, self-loathingly-- she still thought she should have let them kill her.
“Gerard and I aren’t like that,” she said again, her voice now nothing more than a pained, strangled whisper. “We’re not--”
“I don’t care what you’re like,” Oliver cut in. “Whether you are, whether you’re not, the fact is, you are marrying Lord Erling.”
“When?” It was the only thing she could think to say that she knew wouldn’t earn her another hand cracked against her jaw.
“The first of May.” It was presently mid-March. “It’s wartime,” he went on, “and so there shan’t be a lavish event. Lord Erling will travel to the capital, there’ll be a small religious ceremony, I will sign your marriage contract, and then he’ll take you back to Ruom.”
“I’ve never even been to Ruom,” she murmured.
Abruptly, he laughed. As if this were the most entertaining thing he’d ever heard. At last letting go of her arm, on to which his fingernails had left wicked gouge marks, he said, “Well, you’ll have ample time to get to know it after the marriage.” When she stayed silent, having nothing fruitful to offer in reply, he let the room fester in a terse quiet for a moment, studying her. For the first time, he seemed to notice the blood on her lip, and he scowled at it, as if it hadn’t been his lashing hand that had caused it in the first place. “I’d fetch a healer for you, but it’s very late. And perhaps seeing a split lip in the mirror will remind you to think before you speak, Julia.”
Still she said nothing, her eyes now settled firmly on the floor. She meant it as an avoidant gesture, but to Oliver, it must have come across as properly submissive and apologetic. Sighing, he reached out a hand and set it upon her cheek, his fingers cupping it possessively. She fought hard against the urge to draw away from him. She hoped he couldn’t feel the rapid thumping of her pulse beneath her skin.
“Go to bed,” he breathed to her. “It’s very late.”
She gulped. “Yes, sir.”
He nodded curtly, his hand falling away from her, and turned toward the door. But before he’d taken a single step in its direction, he paused, casting his gaze back at his bruised, trembling niece. “And stay away from Gerard,” he said, his voice a blade.
He eyes snapped up. “W-what do you mean?”
“Exactly what I’ve said, Julia. Lord Erling will be here for you in six weeks. Until then, stay away from Gerard. Do not speak to him. Do not spend time with him. Pretend that he doesn’t exist.”
With that, not bothering to wait for a response, Oliver rounded and sauntered out the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
Once he was gone, Julia merely stood there for the longest moment, rubbing cathartically at the fingernail scrapes he’d left on the soft flesh of her arm, his words rocketing through her head. Married. She was to be married to Lord Erling, just like Gerard had guessed. Bartered away like a sack of flour in the marketplace.
Her conversation with Gerard in the garden three weeks ago danced into her head. His thoughtful plea for her to come with her on his escape endeavour. The fears that’d been holding her back.
She needed to talk to him. Woo, how she needed to talk to him. How badly she wanted to flee out her bedchamber right now and run down the corridor to his. Beat on his door and cry into his listening ears. But of course, after Oliver’s warning, such a thing would be dangerous for both of them.
Instead, she paced over to her bed, sitting down on its edge. The silk coverlet crumpled beneath her, and Julia forced a deep, though ragged, breath. She knew that the next few weeks would be complicated, given her uncle’s decree that she and Gerard not interact. But she knew just as well that she had to find a way.
She knew just as well, in that dark, desperate moment, that fears of dying be cursed, she could not marry Lord Erling.
She could not go to Ruom.
She could not be this tool that, long ago, her mother was, when with just as little care for her well-being, Oliver had sent his sister Lila off to marry a strange prince in Lange. A move that had irrevocably altered Lila’s life for the worse. That had seen her broken, her spirit crushed, her life upended, until finally she’d died jaded and young in the frozen north of Kyth.
Julia thought of her mother in Lila’s dying days-- pale, terrified, hollow-- and knew with a sudden, raw certainty what she had to do.
She had to escape with Gerard. A Dangerous Dream: Part Two The next morning, Julia woke up later than she’d meant to and dressed herself hurriedly before slinking into the royal family’s private dining room, where they took casual meals. Breakfast was almost gone, and so too was her family. If Oliver had been there at all, he’d since departed, and so had most of her cousins, leaving only Gerard and Queen Zaria remaining at the table. As per usual, Zaria spared Julia only the briefest of glances before returning to her plate.
Gerard’s gaze lingered longer, his eyes wide with a furtive horror as he spotted her swollen lip. As the guards posted in the room noticed him notice her, they shifted, which instantly told Julia that Oliver had informed them of his missive. Told them that Julia and Gerard weren’t to interact, and would thus inform the king if she disobeyed.
She couldn’t quite tell if the order, however, had been passed on to Gerard. From the way he was staring openly at her, she quite suspected it hadn’t. As she sat, she swallowed hard and shook her head at him, warning him not to talk.
“Why?” he mouthed at her.
She only shook her head again, and then focused her eyes squarely on her plate as a slave hurried to place food on to it. She ate quickly, refusing to look at Gerard as she did. She needed to talk to her cousin-- Woo, she did-- but first she had to figure out a means of communication that wouldn’t end up burning both of them. Talking at all in the royal family’s private quarters was out of the question; there were too many listening ears. But setting up a meeting elsewhere in the castle would be difficult. Their best option seemed to be the gardens, where they’d held their first clandestine talk, but the gardens were vast. They wouldn’t be able to meet there only by chance, which meant she’d first have to coordinate a rendezvous time with him. Which was risky in and of itself.
The sound of a scraping chair snapped Julia’s attention, and she looked up as the queen stood from the table and, without a word to either her son or niece, started toward the doors. The guards, temporarily distracted by Zaria’s movement, also turned their eyes in her direction.
Julia knew at once that this brief diversion might be her only chance. Without skipping a second, she leaned across the table toward Gerard and hissed at him, “Where we talked before in the gardens. Noon. Please.”
And then, as Zaria disappeared out the doors and the guards refocused their attention on the two royals left, Julia sat back again, forcing a neutral expression to her face. For a moment, a look of great concern and confusion plagued Gerard, but he was smart enough to quickly knit it over. To join his cousin in this game of pretend before the guards could grow suspicious.
Once she was done with her meal, Julia returned to her chambers and spent the rest of the morning fraught with anxiety over her planned noontime meeting. She needed to do it-- needed to talk with him-- but Woo, there were so many things that could go wrong. So many ways she could end up with more bruises littering her body. And, worse than that, if somebody caught wise as to what she and Gerard were planning, so many ways the both of them could end up with blade-kissed throats.
By eleven o’ clock, she couldn’t wait any longer. Shrugging on a cloak to ward off against the early spring chill, she wended through the corridors of the residential wing of the Gilded Palace before she arrived to the doors that led outside. Usually the guards would part for her, like butter for a knife, but today, they did not move so hurriedly aside.
“Where are you going, my lady?” the one asked instead, his eyes falling pointedly on her split, fat lip.
“I wish to relax in the gardens,” she said, trying not to let her voice tremble.
Even after living as the niece of Oliver Alaric for the past eighteen months, Julia still had a hard time ordering people around. She’d grown up for the most a part a servant, after all, and wasn’t used to commanding authority. People like Oliver… like Cassian, and Zaria, and even to some extent Gerard… well, they were used to holding clout. To people obeying them. And this showed in their voices, in the way they interacted with the rest of the people in the palace-- the slaves, the courtiers, the guards. Julia had tried to emulate their confidence, but she felt like a pretender. A child trying on her mummy’s much-too-large-clothes which clearly did not fit her. And on days like today, sporting a nasty bruise that made it clear to all who saw her that royal or not, Oliver could still strike her like a misbehaving slave, it was especially hard to feign at authority. To feel confident in herself and her command.
“Isn’t it rather chilly out to relax in the gardens?” the guard replied neutrally.
“Perhaps,” Julia agreed. “But I wish to relax there regardless. Please step aside.”
He did, although she could feel his gaze burning into her back as she swept by him and then hurried down the cobbled path. She knew quite well that this foray outside would be reported back to Oliver. And dear Woo, she hoped that Gerard used a different exit out, selecting one of the doors in another part of the palace that wasn’t manned by one of the royal family’s personal guards, but was rather watched by a lower-ranking sentinel who wouldn’t think anything of the prince venturing outside. Who wasn’t privy to the inter-family gossip.
Who wouldn’t get she and Gerard both beaten to hell, if not worse.
Arriving to the stone bench a few minutes later, she sat. Gerard wasn’t there yet, which of course was to be expected given how early it was, but still, a nervous flutter raced through Julia’s stomach. She fidgeted mindlessly with her hair, twisting the locks between her fingers and shuddering occasionally as a cold breeze rippled the air. When Gerard finally arrived about thirty minutes later, she couldn’t help but let out a heavy sigh of relief. She started to stand, but he waved her down.
“What happened to you?” he hissed, dropping on to the bench beside her.
“I hope you used a side exit,” she said by way of reply. “Because I didn’t think to until it was too late.”
“I did,” he said. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”
“He’s marrying me to Lord Erling,” Julia said simply.
Gerard winced. “I’m sorry. When?”
“First of May.” Woo, how she hated to say it aloud.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. Then: “Why the cold shoulder at breakfast?”
At this, Julia sniffled. Tears pricked at her eyes, and she forced them back, squirming. “He thinks… Gerry, I don’t even know what he thinks about us, but-- he’s told me not to talk to you.”
“What?” Gerard gaped.
“I don’t know. But he’s definitely told the guards. I can tell. And I’m afraid if he catches us interacting…”
Gerard swore under his breath. “I could kill him. Smug bas--”
“Gerry.” She shook her head. “We don’t have time to wax poetic about revenge. We… I think…” She took an unsteady breath. “I want to come with you. When you run away. I have to.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Gerard sat silent for a moment, considering. Then, he nodded and dared crack the smallest shadow of a smile. “I hate that you feel you have to, Julia, but I can’t lie and say I’m not glad we’re in this together. The idea of leaving you behind, knowing what he’d do to you…”
He left the rest of this thought unsaid, and Julia didn’t dare let her brain fill in the blanks. Instead, she leaned in close to him and set her head gently on his shoulder. He sighed, drawing his arm around her.
Julia knew that this was very dangerous. Even more dangerous than merely meeting with each other in the first place. If guards who knew the situation were to stumble upon them right now, and find them nested together like baby birds, there would be such hell to pay that her split lip throbbed harder just at the thought of it.
He seemed to know this, too, and after a moment, he gulped, straightened, and lightly eased her away. “If the wedding is set for May first, we need to be gone well before that,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed. “But how?”
“I’ve got… the skeleton of a plan,” he said. “But I think we’ll have to expedite it now. Not as much time as I’d like to stew over things.”
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“Hey.” He set a hand on her arm. “Don’t apologize. Oliver treating you like a commodity is not your fault. None of this is your fault, Julia.”
“But isn’t it, Gerry?” A new intensity crept across her face, dark and forlorn. “If I’d just kept my mouth shut in Talvace that day--”
“No.” This was his prince’s voice, weighted with command and authority. The one Julia had still not mastered for herself despite living as the niece of Courdon’s monarch for these past eighteen months. “If you’d kept your mouth shut, Julia, you would have died. And how would that have benefitted anyone?”
“Because I was supposed to die,” she murmured. They’d had this conversation before so many times Julia had lost count, and still they didn’t-- probably ever wouldn’t-- see eye to eye on it. “Gerry, when I came to Courdon, it was under strict orders that I--”
“Stop, Julia. Now.” He shook his head. “Please.”
Her voice fell away, and she looked away from him-- embarrassed, desperate, and terrified all at once. “What’s your plan, Gerry?” she whispered.
“I’m afraid we’re already on borrowed time here,” he said only in reply. “Before a guard comes by. I don’t think I have a chance to explain it to you in full.”
“Then tell me it in part. Tell me at least the gist of it.”
“If it works,” he said, “it’ll work great. It’ll be… foolproof.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“I… I’m just going to hope for right now that it does,” he murmured. “And I’ll keep you updated on my progress. If I can. If there are… times we can steal words. But I don’t think we should meet like this again, if what you said about Oliver’s order is true. It’s too risky.”
“Then how will I know when it’s time?” she asked him.
“I’ll tell you,” he said. “I’ll find a way.”
“This is all very…” She searched for the right word, something to explain the uneasy feeling in her core, and eventually settled on, “... vague.”
“I know,” he admitted. “But please, Julia, just… do you trust me?”
She nodded.
“Then keep that trust. I’ll get us out of here, okay? I will.”
“Or you’ll die trying,” she murmured morosely, half-wanting him to refute it. To insist that his plan was so ironclad there was no chance of it killing him.
Instead, Gerard just sighed. “Or I’ll die trying,” he agreed.
**
Over the next couple of weeks, Julia and Gerard could communicate only sporadically, in stolen comments here and there that they palmed like they were thieves swiping trinkets in the marketplace. True to what she’d said to Gerard, she did trust him. Woo, how she trusted him. But she was still terrified that at any moment, something would go wrong. That Oliver would grow wise. That everything would fall apart in an instant, like a small tree ripped up from its roots during a violent storm. In the ground one moment and gone the next.
And then both she and Gerard would die. Both of them. She had no doubts about this.
Waiting became its own kind of torture for Julia. She suddenly lived for those moments when the two of them could briefly talk, and in the meanwhile fears built up like fallen snow in her brain. Accumulating more and more by the day, until soon her thoughts were consumed with nothing else but for terror. Anticipation.
Then, one morning two weeks before Lord Erling was set to arrive in the capital, Gerard caught his cousin outside her chambers, around the corner and just out of earshot of the nearest guards, so long as they kept their voices low.
“Tomorrow morning,” he whispered, his lips grazing her earlobe. “Just after sunrise. Meet me at our bench. Dress warmly.”
“Tomorrow?” she squeaked. “But… how am I to--”
“Find a way. I know you can. ”
He pulled away from her, and then he was gone, leaving Julia to trouble over his words on her own. Tomorrow. Oh Woo, could they really leave tomorrow? She’d known they would have to leave soon, given her impending nuptials, but tomorrow… it was… she was…
She spent the rest of the day puzzling over how to get out to the gardens so early in the morning, an act that would instantly draw suspicion by way of the palace guards. Her chambers were located three storeys up, and so it weren’t as if she could merely slip out the window. Nor were there any proper exits that led outside that weren’t under constant vigilance. The only option, then, seemed to be boldly approaching the guards with some firm excuse, and hoping they’d let her out. Hoping that she could, for once, feign enough confidence and authority to where even if they did report her suspicious movements, she’d be long gone by they did. Hypothetically, this didn’t seem like such a difficult thing. She was the niece of Courdon’s king, she had royal blood in her veins, the least she could do was give a command to some palace guard.
And yet in practicality… Julia wasn’t so sure she could do it. She wasn’t confident that her eyes wouldn’t betray her lies. That her voice wouldn’t hitch and give away her uncertainty, her fear.
That night, she hardly slept a wink. The silk sheets of her bed felt like sandpaper against her skin. During the brief periods during which she lolled off into slumber, her dreams were violent and quickly wrenched her back awake. By the time the first few rays of dawn crept through her window, she was exhausted, nauseous, and terrified all at once.
Climbing out of bed, she dressed warmly, just as Gerard had advised, picking a dress that was simple but thick. Slipping her feet into her most practical boots, she wrested her unruly hair into a braid, and then, with a jagged breath, slipped out of her bedchamber and into the antechamber that adjoined it. Her hands trembled as she opened the door that led out into the corridor beyond, where guards were stationed-- ostensibly to keep enemies out, but Julia had always quite suspected that they also served to keep her in. To make sure she never forgot that Oliver had eyes everywhere.
“My lady,” they greeted coolly as she stepped out into the hall. “Is everything alright?”
“Yes,” she said.
For a moment, she considered feeding them an excuse-- explaining why, precisely, she felt the need to exit her chambers so early in the morning. But then, Julia decided she’d best conserve her lies. It was hardly as if these guards would chase after her if she provided them no further explanation. They might be wary, and curious, but she had to remind herself yet again that she was the king’s niece. If she wanted to skulk about the residential quarters at an ungodly hour, then that was her right.
So without another word to them, Julia turned and started away. True to her prediction, they neither called out nor followed after her.
A bitter taste coasted her mouth.
The guards before the exterior doors that led to the gardens were slightly more of an issue. Lurking the interior of the royal family’s residence was one thing; slipping out into the cool dawn was another. Indeed, as she approached the exit, she felt their eyes fall on her at once. Suspicious. Searching.
“My lady?” the one asked, not moving aside for her.
“Move,” she greeted stiffly, doing her best imitation of Queen Zaria. Oliver’s wife was a different breed when it came to disaffected haughtiness. When it came to making you feel like the smallest person in the room. Julia knew her tone now was but a poor mockery of the queen’s, but still, she tried to keep her breathing level. Tried to remind herself that she hardly needed to reach Zaria’s level of iciness to be successful in this part of her plan.
“Is my lady feeling quite alright?” the guard replied, perhaps noticing the exhausted bags underscoring Julia’s eyes and the sheen of nervous sweat that coated her forehead.
“Actually,” Julia said, a lump in her throat, “I’m feeling quite under the weather. I’ve been up all night due to it, and I’d quite like some fresh air to hopefully soothe my ills.” Swallowing away the lump, she segued back into her mimic of Queen Zaria, glaring at the guards as she snapped, “Now move aside.”
“If I should be so bold, if my lady is feeling ill, then perhaps a healer is in order--”
“You should not be so bold,” Julia hissed, even as her insides turned to jelly. “Now move aside, sirs.” Channeling Oliver for the final flourish, she added darkly, “Or I think you will regret it.”
The guards shared a reluctant look, and for one horrible moment, Julia thought she’d failed. That they would not part for her, but rather send for someone who outranked her-- Oliver, probably. Or maybe Cassian. In any case, somebody who would snuff out this escape attempt like the last embers of a dying fire. And then what would she do? What could she do? Panic welled in her, and she fought it defiantly down.
The guards stepped aside.
If it wouldn’t have drawn even more suspicion, Julia would have cried from relief.
Instead, she nodded curtly at them and then hurried outside before they could change their minds. Once she was past their lingering gazes, she nearly ran down the maze of garden footpaths, twisting her way toward she and Gerard’s meeting point. He was already there when she arrived, his face knit with a palpable worry that quickly eased away when he saw her.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” he breathed. “I thought you’d been caught, I thought--”
“I’m not so sure I haven’t been,” she whispered, knowing that right now, one of the door guards might be alerting somebody of her suspicious movements. “We should hurry.”
He nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
The pointed voice cut through the morning like an executioner’s blade. Instantly, Julia’s entire body turned to ice. Her stomach twisted. Her heart froze. All the color drained from her cheeks. Beside her, Gerard’s own face wrenched with a sudden panic. As if he could protect her, he grabbed almost roughly to Julia’s arm, and inserted himself between she and the speaker.
“Mother,” he said, unable to hide the desperation-- the heartbreak-- in his words. “What are you doing out here?”
“I could not sleep,” Zaria replied stiffly, “and so I headed to the gardenside sitting room. Imagine my surprise when, as I glanced out the window, I noticed dear Julia hurrying away. I thought it was rather… odd. So I followed her.” She paused, frowning. “I don’t think I should like what’s going on here.”
“Nothing is going on here,” Gerard replied. But his voice cracked. His hand, still curled over Julia’s arm so tightly that she feared it might leave bruises, trembled. He sounded not like a prince at all, but a scared little boy, as he added, “You have nothing to worry over. Perhaps you should go back inside.”
For a moment, Zaria said nothing. Julia could not remember feeling this agonized in her life except for that moment in the killing field of Talvace. It was not a welcome feeling to return to her. She wanted to cry. She thought she might faint. Woo, she’d known this could happen-- that they could get caught-- but that didn’t make it any easier now that it was happening.
“I should have let him smother you,” Zaria murmured at last. She did not say this cruelly. Nor did it even seem to be a threat. Rather, her tone was contemplative, almost wistful. Like an old man recounting the lost foibles of his youth.
“But you didn’t,” Gerard whispered.
“No,” she agreed. “I didn’t.” And then, almost casually, she shrugged. “I do not want to see you ever again, Gerard,” she said, turning her body away from her son and her niece.
And there was something left unspoken there. Something that inhabited the words the queen of Courdon didn’t say. Something that let Gerard know that this was her offer, and this moment now, he and Julia’s chance.
“I…” He at last let go of Julia’s arm. Letting his gaze linger for one final moment on his mother’s inscrutable face, Gerard took a deep breath and forced himself to regain his bearings. Then, he whispered to his cousin, “Let’s go. Now.”
Wordlessly, she nodded.
The queen of Courdon’s flat though haunted eyes ate into Julia’s back as she and Gerard hurried down the garden path away from her. Found, but not caught. Panicked, but not dead.
“Why did she let us go?” Julia whispered once they were out of her sight. “Why--”
“I don’t know, Julia,” he cut in.
But this wasn’t strictly true. It wasn’t that Gerard didn’t know; it was merely that he couldn’t explain it. Not to to himself, let alone her.
And anyway, he couldn’t waste any energy on trying to sort out Zaria’s reasoning into something clean and cogent. Such a train of thought would only be a distraction now, in these moments when he and Julia still had so much standing in between them and freedom. That Zaria wasn’t going to turn them in hardly meant they were home free.
There was still so much that could go wrong.
They walked together in a strained, hurried silence, twisting through the gardens like the tendrils of creeping ivy that grew there, sticking close together and with their heads held low. Hoping they’d run across no one who would stop them. Praying that their encounter with Zaria would prove their biggest-- and only-- problem today.
Finally, they reached an outbuilding near the fringe of the palace grounds, just feet away from the towering exterior wall. Dumpy compared to the rest of the opulent structures that comprised the Gilded Palace, if Julia had seen it before, she couldn’t recall. It was unobtrusive, nearly hidden, only one storey tall and built of a dark, moss-crept wood that blended like a shadow against the scenery. Had it not been for the vague footprints in the dirt nearby to it, she might have thought it abandoned outright.
“What are we doing here?” she whispered to Gerard, as they paused a few yards away from the building.
“Shh,” he cautioned. “Stay here.”
“Why?”
“I said, stay here,” he repeated, and with that, he took a few guarded steps toward the building. At its entryway, he stilled for a moment to take a deep breath and then carefully pulled open the door and glanced inside. As he did, a visible smile broke out over his face.
Julia couldn’t help it. No matter Gerard’s firm command, she didn’t want to stay put. A nervous feeling unfurling in her gut for what felt like the umpteenth time that morning, she glided briskly over to his side.
“Julia,” he hissed, as he saw what she was doing. “Don’t.”
He held out an arm then, as if to fend her back, but it was too late. She’d already glimpsed inside. Her jaw fell open, and Gerard had to slap a hasty hand over her mouth to his keep his cousin from screaming out. She thrashed against him, horrified, nauseated, and he gritted his teeth as her knee made contact with his groin.
“Julia,” he gasped, desperately trying to stop her flailing. He removed his hand from her mouth and instead focused on grabbing at her arms. Taller than her by at least a foot and with more muscle in one arm than she had in her whole body, it took only a few brief moment to wrest her under control. “Please, listen,” he pleaded once he’d stilled her.
She stomped down on his foot. He winced but did not let go of her.
“Please--”
“You killed guards?” she bleated much too loudly, her eyes once more falling beyond her cousin at the dim interior of the building beyond. More accurately, at the four palace guards crumpled on the floor, their uniforms mussed, as still and silent as the grave.
“No, I--”
“Then they just happen to be dead?” she asked. “They just--”
“Julia,” he begged. “Listen to me--”
“I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I’d known you would--”
“Julia!”
There was something about his tone then. Something so harrowed and dark and furious that Julia quieted automatically. It took her a moment to realize why: Oliver. Her cousin sounded now like Oliver, the father who wasn’t really his father, the father who’d cracked so many hands against her jaw, dug so many fingernails into her skin. Who Gerard had spent his whole life hating. Who’d inspired him to flee the palace in the first place.
Gerard seemed to notice this, too. But it didn’t make him let go of her. Instead, he forced a deep breath and took advantage of her momentary silence, murmuring softly to her, “Julia, they’re not dead. I didn’t kill them, okay?”
“But they’re… they’re…”
“Unconscious,” he said. “Drugged.”
“How?” she demanded.
“I put sleeping draught in their tea. A debilitating but not lethal dose.”
“Their… their tea? How did you have access to their tea?”
“Because I’ve spent the last month befriending them. I’ve brought them a cup of tea almost every morning, Julia.”
“I… I… don’t understand. Weren’t they suspicious-- didn’t they--”
“You don’t understand. It wasn’t just them in particular,” Gerard said, finally sensing that it was safe to let go of her arms. He did, and she took a step back from him but did not flee. “I started bringing gifts to all sorts of palace guards at their posts,” he went on. “Tea. Sweets. Biscuits. I made it a routine, all of it: being out early in the morning. Wandering around. Giving gifts. If anyone was suspicious, they quickly grew used to it. When you become a fixture of the environment, people stop paying attention. If anyone mentioned it to say, Oliver, well… by now he’s well forgotten, or assessed that my eccentricities, as he would call it, aren’t any threat.”
“Okay,” she said slowly, wrapping her head around it, as her heart stopped beating quite so violently in her ears. “But… drugging them… I don’t understand why you’d drug them, how that helps us get out.”
“Do you know why there’s a guard house here, Julia?” he asked. When she shook her head, he gestured behind her, at the towering, mossy wall just feet beyond. “Look at it,” he instructed. “Right there, in particular.”
Slowly, she turned, studying the wall. At first glance, it looked just like any other stretch of wall: a towering, daunting, imposing stone god. But then, vaguely, through the carpet of moss-- oh, Woo, was that… could that be…
“Before the war, Julia, when they made it so only the main gate was used, they used this as a secondary gate… for deliveries, courtiers coming and going-- all those sorts of things. It’s much smaller. Much less grand. Built in to the wall, out of sight and out of mind. For security reasons, they put it into disuse once the rebellion grew dangerous. So that there’d only be one way in and out. They let moss grow over this one. Hoped that people would forget about it.” He smiled then, crookedly, hopefully. “Posted a few guards always before it, just in case. But not nearly so many as guard the main gate. Not more than one man can successfully knock out, with four carefully poured cups of tea.”
For the first time that morning, Julia couldn’t help but smile-- but at the same time, a surge of guilt crashed into her. Oh, Woo. Had she really thought Gerard could kill somebody? He’d done nothing to deserve such a hasty logical leap. Not when he’d never been anything but kind to her. Not when she’d never seen him hurt a living soul.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, her cheeks blazing.
“Don’t apologize,” he said, taking a wary step in to the guard house. “I should have prepared you. Now stay there while I very carefully relieve these guards from their weapons so that we’re not wandering the kingdom unprotected, and then let’s be off before anyone realizes we’re gone, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed, watching from the doorway as Gerard did just that. A few moments later, he stepped back outside with a dagger tucked at either side of his waist, and extras slipped into each of his boots for good measure.
“I’d give you one,” he said afterward, “but honestly, without any training, I’d be afraid that you’re more likely to hurt yourself than any assailant.”
“I was in the rebellion for three months, Gerry,” she reminded him, holding her hand out to him expectantly.
He frowned. “I guess. But I don’t want you to get hurt--”
“Gerry, if we’re going to try to join the godsdamned slave rebellion together, you had better be able to trust me with a blade.”
“Alright, alright,” he said, removing one of the blade sheaths from his belt and offering it out to her. As she took it from him, he nudged his chin toward the gate. “Now, shall we?”
“No use wasting more time.”
“Let’s not, then,” he agreed.
And with that, Prince Gerard Gabriel Alaric, second-in-line to the Courdonian throne, started with his cousin Julia toward the moss-fringed gate. Knowing very distinctly that this-- that now-- marked a new beginning for them both. Knowing that once they stepped through it, there was no returning to the lives they’d left behind.
And still neither of them looked back. The prince and his cousin did not hesitate.
They had only the future to think about now. |
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Post by Avery on Dec 9, 2014 19:04:42 GMT -5
This story takes place in 1324 (ten years after canon), in Mzia. Rhiannon is Rafe's wife; by this point, Rafe has long been killed in a plot hatched by his own son, Oliver. Medar, the sultan of Mzia, is Rhiannon's elder brother. Not going to colour code, but they'd be speaking Mzian. Emira is simply the Mzian equivalent to 'princess', which was Rhiannon's title before marrying Rafe. Skylights She’d never liked the skylights.
Even when she was but a girl, knock-kneed and freckled, this palace her home rather than a faraway place she was only permitted to visit rarely, the queen regent Rhiannon had hated them. She’d reviled the way they toyed with daylight, how the curved, rainbow-hued glass served to twist the streaming sunbeams into an all-wrong wash of color and light. On purely aesthetic grounds, she knew that at least such an effect was pretty-- it was art, her brother had always told her-- but living in a place where the harsh desert sun was king of all kings, it had always unnerved her. The sun ought not be so easily broken. So easily tricked by mere sheets of rainbowed glass.
Now, though, as she strode down the narrow, winding corridor that led to the sultan’s office, Rhiannon couldn’t help but feel a tug of nostalgia at the multi-hued light streaming in from above. She smiled to herself as she watched the rays skipping off the strategically placed mirrors that lined the walls, strangely comforted by the fact that although so much else had changed since last she’d been back here, some things never would. It didn’t matter if she was kept away from Visalia for ten days or months or years: the skylights would still be here.
And, gods willing, if everything went right today, so would her youngest daughter, Anna.
“Emira.” One of the two palace guards stationed outside the Sultan’s private office bowed to her.
“I’ve a meeting scheduled with the sultan,” she replied, drawing to a halt beneath a wavering sunbeam that brought out the streaks of silver just starting to pepper her caramel-coloured hair.
“We shall let him know you’ve arrived. Wait here, please, emira,” the same guard said.
With that, he gestured sharply at his colleague, who immediately disappeared behind the ornate iron door that separated the sultan’s office from the hall. When he reappeared not thirty seconds later, it was with a third man at his side. From his casual dress-- a thin, simple tunic over bright linen trousers-- a stranger might have guessed him a common adviser or aide. His features, too, were unassuming: short, curly hair gone mostly grey, skin bronzed like the desert sand, his eyes a glinting amber and limned by prominent crow’s feet. He wore no embellishments: no jewels, no sashes, no brooches. No telltale crown was nested atop his head.
But Rhiannon hardly needed ornamentation to know who he was. While it had been over five years since last she’d seen her brother, by gods, she would have recognized him even if it had been fifty.
“Sister,” he greeted, as her eyes met his.
“Your Majesty.” She dipped into a curtsy.
“So formal, are we?” He quirked a bemused smile before turning toward the guards. “Do not disturb us,” he instructed them. Then, moving back to Rhiannon: “Come inside, little sister. I suspect we have much to talk about.”
She nodded, trailing him into the office and trying not to let her stomach seize too fiercely as Medar pushed the iron door shut behind them. She wasn’t afraid to be alone with him; her brother would never hurt her. But there was so much riding on this meeting going well. So much to be lost if it didn’t. She’d been rehearsing what to say over and over again in her head for months now-- ever since her son, Oliver, had finally agreed to let his mother pay a long overdue visit home to celebrate her forty-fifth birthday. Or at least, that’s how Rhiannon had framed and justified the trip when she’d asked his permission for it… because if her son, the king, had known what she was really coming here to do, he’d have smacked her right out of his chambers.
“Come,” Medar said now, striding quickly through the broad receiving chamber and into the much more intimate inner-office behind it. Rhiannon knew the space was off-limits for all but those he trusted most, and she tried not to let herself feel too much relief that her brother still regarded her this way even after she’d spent nearly thirty years in Courdon. It doesn’t mean he’ll agree to your idea, she reminded herself, her heart hammering in her ears as she followed him back.
Once they were inside, Medar took a seat behind an imposing mahogany desk and pointed for Rhiannon to sit opposite him. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said, obliging.
“Your Majesty?” he echoed, toying over the honorific like a cat wondering over a ray of light. “My, my, Rhia, I know it’s been a long time, but you’d think we’d never met before.”
“My apologies, Medar.” She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Oh, no need to apologize, little sister. I’m merely poking fun.” He grinned, his honeyed eyes twinkling. “So,” he went on, “my men tell me you arrived late last night. I hope your journey south was uneventful?”
“It was,” she agreed. “The gryphons caught a current, and so it was very swift.”
“I’m glad to hear.”
Medar leaned back in his chair then, apprising her, as if to take in all the ways she’d changed since their last meeting. It had been nearly five years, and their reunion the time before had taken place under much less pleasant circumstances-- not here in Visalia, but up in Rakine shortly after Rafe’s death. With the Courdonian court in shambles and threatening to buckle beneath the weight of its discord and conspiracies, Medar had come north to help sternly guide it back together… and, Rhiannon quite suspected, to drag her back to Visalia if the newly minted king had shown any proclivities toward matricide as well as patricide. Hardly a social visit, and all these years later, most of it was a blur for Rhiannon.
She wondered if she looked much older. Gods, she felt much older, the five brief years of Oliver’s rule weighting on her like the ills of a lifetime.
“You’re staying in Visalia for the month, yes?” Medar asked her.
“Yes,” Rhiannon said. “That’s correct.”
“Then we will surely see each around the palace quite a bit,” he said.
“We surely will,” she agreed.
“I have been the sultan for over thirty years, little sister,” he continued evenly, “and I have developed certain instincts due to it. And although you’ve been away from me for most of my reign, I’d also like to think that I know you very well. And thus I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that I fear something is very wrong, Rhia, that although you are staying here in my palace until the next moon, the first thing you did upon you arrival was request a private audience with me at my earliest availability.”
“I…” she started, her palms sweating. Gods, this was not how she’d wanted this meeting to begin. No, she’d sought to approach the matter slowly, easing into it like noodles carefully set rather than thrown into a pot of boiling water. Either way they might not turn out well, but at least you can stop yourself from getting burned at the outset.
“Rhia.” Medar sighed. “Tell me what is wrong.”
He said this gently, but it was still clearly a command, not a request. Rhiannon’s stomach lurched again, and she stiffened in her chair.
“Nothing is quite... wrong,” she said, hating that for all her months of silent rehearsal, everything had nevertheless forked almost instantly from her plan.
“Is that what they teach you in Courdon, little sister?” Medar asked. “To dance around orders rather than obey them?” He frowned.
“No.” Salvage this, salvage this. “I apologize, Medar. I just…” She paused to articulate herself. “I just… have you here in Mzia heard much of my son’s reign?”
“I’ve heard he is a… bold... king,” Medar said carefully.
“Yes. That’s a very ah, diplomatic way of putting it.” Her voice cracked.
Medar’s frown deepened. “Did I make a mistake, Rhia?” he asked.
“A mistake?” she echoed.
“When I decided to leave you in Rakine five years ago.”
“No,” she said quickly, even though she wasn’t strictly sure this was true. If he cared about her welfare-- and Rhiannon knew that Medar did-- then indeed it probably would have been better if he’d taken her home to Mzia five years ago. But that would have opened up so many problems. So many tensions. And even if Oliver had let her leave, he hardly would have allowed her to take the rest of her children with her. And if things had been bad for the kids with Rhiannon there to comfort them…
“No,” she repeated, more firmly this time. “You did not make a mistake, Medar.”
“Then why are you here, little sister?”
She suspected his patience was growing thin. That any more skirting around the issue would only serve to frustrate him-- and lessen the chances of this heretofore off-kilter meeting ending on a successful note.
Still, it took a very deep breath and a very sharp jolt of courage for her to work up the nerve to murmur to him, “I want you to consider marrying your son Callias to my daughter Anna.”
For a moment, Medar said nothing. The look on his face was so flat and disaffected that Rhiannon half-feared he’d not heard her at all. But then, slowly, he raised his brow. The concerned, impatient gleam in his amber eyes shifted into something near suspicion.
“That is a very unexpected request, Rhiannon,” he said.
“Yes,” she forced out. “I suppose it probably is.”
Another show of silence, before he leaned forward and asked simply: “Why?”
“I think it would be an advantageous match for both Courdon and Mzia,” she said, just as she’d practiced time and time again in her head.
But once it was out in the open, Rhiannon realized it sounded much better-- much less forced-- in theory than in reality, and she cringed as Medar’s face hardened even further. The man on the other side of the desk was no longer her familiar, genial older brother, but the feared Sultan of Mzia. A man who’d reigned competently for decades, and had witnessed all brands of political maneuvering in that time.
“Rhiannon,” he said stiffly, “I welcomed you into my palace as a guest. I invited you into my private office as kin. So I do not think it is very much to ask that you do not speak to me as you would a daft lord to whom you’re trying to justify an unfairly levied tax. All weasel words and scripted claims.”
“I… I apologize, Medar.” Gods, could she still fix this?
“Do not apologize,” he said. “Merely tell me the truth. Why do you want my Callias to marry your Anna?”
“I… well…”
“Did King Oliver put you up to it, little sister?” he continued hotly. “Send you into my court under false pretenses so that he could use your personal connection with me for his own gain and cause?”
“No.” She’d not even considered that Medar might come up with this angle; and gods, how far it was from the truth. “I would never agree to such a thing, Medar. I would not insult you like that.”
“Then why, Rhiannon?”
“Because, Medar, I’m afraid for her.”
“Afraid?” Medar cocked his head. “Why?”
“You… you did not make a mistake by leaving me in Rakine five years ago, brother,” Rhiannon said. “But my son’s reign has not been without…” She struggled to find the right word. “It… it hasn’t been without turmoil. He is a bold king, as you said, but he can also be… petty.” She hesitated for a moment before adding, “Cruel.”
“I’ve heard these things, yes,” Medar agreed.
Rhiannon gulped. “Anna is thirteen. Not yet of age in Courdon, but… neither was my Lila when Oliver sent her to Lange.”
“You did not approve of her being sent to Lange?”
“No,” Rhiannon said. “I did not.”
“It is a very dangerous place for a foreigner,” Medar said.
“It is.” Rhiannon’s voice broke again. “And Oliver knew that. In fact, I believe that’s why he did it.”
“I don’t understand, Rhia.”
“He’s petty,” she said again. “He’s cruel. And he uses the children against me. He sent Lila to Lange because I defied him. Because I threatened to bring forth evidence of his complicity in Rafael’s death.”
“And so Lila being married to the Langean prince…”
“That was my punishment,” Rhiannon said simply. “And a threat, as well. That if I tried anything again… well, as he said to me then: ‘There are not many worse places than Lange. But I’m sure that I can find them, Mother.’”
There was no cool suspicion left in Medar’s eyes anymore; now, there flickered only rage. Rhiannon flinched automatically-- but then she realized the sultan’s fury was not directed at her, but for her.
“You’re afraid of a similar thing happening to Anna?” he asked, his jaw clenched.
“It’s my worst fear,” Rhiannon whispered. “And Anna… she’s… sweet. She’s quiet. Sensitive. Lila at least had fire in her, but Anna…” Tears threatened in Rhiannon’s eyes, and the queen regent blinked them back. “I don’t think she would make it, Medar. If he sent her away someplace terrible. She would be destroyed, and I along with her.”
“I’m sorry, Rhia,” Medar said, reaching across the desk to clasp her hand in his. “That is not how an honorable man-- let alone a king-- treats his kin. I wish that I could help you.”
“You can’t?” Her heart skipped several beats.
“Callias is already promised to another, little sister,” the sultan said.
“Who?” Again the tears pricked, and again Rhiannon forced them back, refusing to lose her composure.
“An imperial princess of Cerrin.”
“Cerrin?” Rhiannon gaped. The sultanate and Cerrin’s imperial family had been at odds for… well, as long as Rhiannon could remember, primarily over Mzia’s tendency to fund the desert raiders who snatched slaves from Cerrin’s border cities. Her voice strangled, she added, “The Emperor of Cerrin is talking to you again, Medar?”
“He is.” Medar sighed. “But only barely. Callias and Linnea’s marriage is meant to solidify ties. It’s vastly important to Mzia, little sister. To renege on it…” He shook his head.
Rhiannon had known all along that this was a possibility. Not the fact about the Cerrish princess, of course, but that Medar might not agree to her plan. But all the preparation in the world did nothing to soothe the cold, nauseous feeling eating through her gut now. It did not stop her palms from sweating, or her heart from thudding hollowly in her throat. What… what should she do now? What was there to do? No idea that occurred to her was a very good one. Even if every maternal bone in her body demanded that she not let this go-- that she negotiate with her brother, that she plead with him-- Rhiannon knew such a thing wasn’t practical. No amount of begging in the world would make it worth severing Mzia’s newly forged bond with Cerrin; anything Rhiannon could offer her brother would far pale in comparison to the politicals fruits Callias and Linnea’s marriage would reap.
“I’m sorry, Rhia,” Medar said again. “I wish I had another son.”
“I do, too,” she murmured.
“Do you feel safe going back to Rakine at the end of the month?” he asked her. “With Oliver, as you tell it, as petty and cruel as he is?”
“I can’t leave my children, Medar,” she said by way of answer. “They need me. And Oliver would hardly let me bring them here.”
“Who do you have left there, beyond Anna?”
“Just her twin. Elias.” Hastily, she added, “There’s… nothing much Oliver can do with him. Thank the gods he was a boy.”
“Thank the gods, indeed.” Medar finally let go of his sister’s hand. “I hope that you can still manage to enjoy your visit, little sister. That this… unfortunate situation… won’t ruin your first visit home in over a decade.”
“I shan’t let it,” Rhiannon said, although the hitch of her voice betrayed otherwise.
“And if you were to change your mind, Rhia,” he went on, “and decide that you do not feel safe going back to Rakine…”
“I can’t leave my children,” she said again.
“I understand.” But Medar was still frowning.
Above the sultan and his sister, the curved skylight shone red.
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Post by Avery on Jan 12, 2015 13:49:31 GMT -5
This is all Celestial's fault. Seriously. Meltaim. Ahh. It's a kingdom in the northwest of Avani, heavily isolationist and populated by mages. They're rather horrific toward non-mages, termed blanks, enslaving them, but that was about it for development. Until now. =| ... have a fic about the dashing Emperor of Meltaim. Let's say this is somewhat concurrent with canon times, so maybe... 1315? Yeah. That sounds great. General content warning about darkness and mutilation. >_> Silver Eyes “Are you sure,” the man asked, his high voice lilting like a funeral bell, “that she’s a blank?”
“I am, Your Imperial Majesty,” the woman kneeling before him replied, her head bowed so deeply that her chin nearly touched her chest. Her voice was even, but the rest of her shook, her clasped hands vibrating like an agitated bee.
She’d lost a very tense game of pegs to be here today, and could still taste the bitter tang of defeat on her tongue over it, visceral and raw. It had not abated since that moment in the palace catacombs three days ago, when Tevan had pulled the rounder and not she, and she’d known with an instant, horrific certainty what she had to do.
Tev had dared smile at his victory only briefly before he’d caught himself, also knowing full well what it meant for her, but even so he couldn’t hide the great relief in his voice as he’d whispered to her, “I’m sorry, Ceowyn.”
“It’s okay, Tev,” she’d replied, pretending not to notice the way the stares of all her fellow Silver Eyes had fallen onto her, eating into her like the sting of a branding curse.
“Do you want me to get someone for you?” he’d asked. “Anza, or--”
“No,” she’d lied to him, “I’m okay.”
And then she’d turned and thrown up on the floor, the words she’d soon be forced to deliver to the emperor already rocketing violently through her head.
“How sure?” the emperor said now, his tone still deceivingly singsong; had Ceowyn not known him better, she almost would have thought him cheerful. Instead, she had to bite down on her lip to keep from passing out from sheer fear as he continued, “You must understand, chancellor, why I find such a thing hard to accept. My Tamsin’s body hums with the magic of her forebears. We’ve not had a blank in either my line or my wife’s for… centuries, chancellor. A few languids, sure, but blanks?” Sebellius shook his head. “It is unheard of.”
“I understand,” Ceowyn replied, her eyes cemented to the floor as if they’d been glued there. “And so I do not bring this evaluation to you lightly. But we’ve run the examinations nearly two dozen times, Your Imperial Majesty. They all came back the same.”
The same. Meaning, as far as the tests and panels were concerned, Imperial Princess Tamsin-- the only child of Emperor Sebellius and his wife, Julissa, and heiress apparent to Meltaim-- had no magic in her blood.
Not a drop. Not a spark. Nothing.
Ceowyn had seen more magic in a common field mouse.
“Could you have missed something?” Sebellius asked, before amending this to: “You must have missed something. You are not infallible, are you, chancellor?”
“I am not,” she agreed, “but it was not merely I running the tests, sire. Every Silver Eye in the palace was involved in the assessments. We all reached the same conclusion.” After a pause, she added firmly, “Together.” As if this would stop him from wringing the messenger’s neck.
“Then you all must be incompetent.”
And you are in denial, Ceowyn thought but didn’t say. Instead, she kept her gaze planted on the ground, her stomach churning and palms sweating like cups of ice water in a sweltering room. She’d expected such a reaction, of course, but that hardly made it any easier to bear. Not when the godsdamned emperor of Meltaim was glaring at her like she’d just come to him announcing the sky was orange, and she had no doubt in her mind that she, Ceowyn, was presently the person he loathed most in the world.
And people the emperor loathed…
She saw their heads every day on her way to work, spiking the posts along the side of the steep, winding road that led up to the mountaintop Shadowed Palace. Most averted their gazes as they passed, but Ceowyn always found herself drawn to them, staring into the dead, bird-pecked eyes as if through their haunted gazes she could figure out what they’d done wrong and avoid making such similar mistakes for herself.
Bitterly, she realized now that in the end it had not mattered for her. It was not a mistake that would be sending her to the grave at all.
It just a girl. A waif of a girl, only five-years-old, but in her lithe form she embodied the hopes-- and the future-- of the entire empire. Sebellius and Julissa had tried for so long to produce an heir. Months, years, and then decades, the empress falling pregnant nearly a half dozen times but through those conceptions producing no live heirs. Just a heartbreaking series of miscarriages and stillbirths, so many of them that eventually rumours had started that the empire was cursed. That the heavens were punishing Meltaim for some unknown transgression, the country godsdamned and godsdoomed.
And then had come Tamsin. Sweet, perfect Tamsin. The single flower at the end of a long, bitter winter. The first ray of sun creeping over the horizon after a black and miserable night.
“I will bring in new Silver Eyes,” the emperor spat. “From all across the kingdom. And they will surely swiftly find the errors in your assessments, chancellor.”
“If that is your will, Your Imperial Majesty,” Ceowyn murmured.
“And you ought be ashamed,” he went on, “for bringing such abominable untruths to my throne room. About your future empress, no less!”
“I…” Ceowyn faltered.
“Do not speak.” All the song was gone from his tone now. “I want never to hear your voice again, chancellor. Not when it has brought me such vile things.”
Although still Ceowyn didn’t look at him, she could hear the emperor turning, presumably toward one of the imperial guards who always flanked him like wraiths, clad in the all-silver livery of the imperial family. Like a master calling for his dog, Sebellius snapped his fingers at them.
“Bring me the best Silver Eyes,” he ordered, “from about the entire empire.”
“The best are already in your employment, sire,” the guard replied, and even without seeing him, Ceowyn could make out the terror marking the man’s tone. She felt a dull, strange relief at the notion that she was not the only one in this throne room presently terrified by Sebellius.
“Clearly that’s not so,” Sebellius growled. “Would the best Silver Eyes in the empire be unable to find the magic in my daughter’s blood?”
“Of… of course not,” the guard said. “I shall have the true best in the empire summoned at once, Your Imperial Majesty.”
“I want them here by the morrow,” Sebellius said.
And for a moment-- a brief, taunting hope of a moment-- Ceowyn thought that was it. That against all odds she’d be dismissed, and could flee back home with only her professional reputation wounded.
But this was not to be.
“You, chancellor,” the emperor started, “will never speak such untruths again. Ever. I will personally make sure of that.”
And then Ceowyn heard it: the distinctive slide of metal. The sound of a dagger being pulled free from its sheathe.
And she knew then with a horrifying certainty what the emperor meant to do to her for being the one to ruin the hopes and dreams of Meltaim. It was better, still, than slitting the messenger’s throat, but not by much. Not by enough.
“Please, sire,” she gasped to him, finally daring to dredge her eyes up from the floor. “I won’t--”
“Silence,” Sebellius commanded. “You hardly want to use your final words of life pleading and begging like a coward, do you, chancellor?”
At least, she thought darkly, I’ve kept my life.
But it was hardly a consolation to her as, without even casting a numbing spell to ease the pain, the emperor of Meltaim cut out Ceowyn’s tongue.
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Post by Avery on Jan 12, 2015 21:27:06 GMT -5
Have you ever thought to yourself "Gosh, Courdon is just way too happy for me"? Then good news: I have an empire for you! \o/ This story takes place in 1318, in the Galfras Mountains that serve as a border between Meltaim and Valzaim, and that are at canon times a fairly active conflict zone. General content warning. Choices She supposed that she ought to kill him.
It was, after all, what her superior officer had ordered her to do, and Colonel Aevryn was not light about his commands being ignored. If he were to wake up tomorrow and this prisoner still lived, Ceowyn wasn’t sure what would be done to her, but she suspected quite well that it would be nothing nice. The emperor had taken her tongue-- and cushy post at the palace-- three years ago, but that hardly meant there weren’t punishments left to mete.
Ceowyn wasn’t eager to receive them.
And yet, staring down at the pathetic creature curled up like a kitten in the rank cell before her, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The idea of slaughtering him as he slept defenseless, all of his shields and weapons long since stripped from him… Ceowyn knew this captive was one of them-- a Valzick! a blood traitor! an enemy of the state!-- and yet looking at him now, he hardly seemed so dangerous.
Letting out a deep breath, Ceowyn leaned forward against the bars and hooked her fingers lightly through the iron, able to feel the chill of it even through the padding of her lambskin gloves. It was only a few weeks after firstfrost, but the night air was in mid-winter form, so sharp that each breath stung at her lungs like lye. She was cold even in her military-issued uniform, which had been designed with the Galfras’ bitter climate in mind, and so she couldn’t imagine how miserable the prisoner was. His uniform, after all, had been ripped off him back upon his capture, literally shredded from his body by one of the Meltaimans’ cutting spells, leaving him clad now in only a soiled undershirt, thin trousers, and tattered, bloodied boots.
Darkly, Ceowyn thought that if she didn’t kill him, the cold air might.
“I know you’re staring at me.”
His voice made her jump, and Ceowyn froze with her fingers still threaded through the bars. She watched with a frown and her heart hammering in her ears, betraying no emotion as he turned slowly toward her, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. With a better look at his face now, Ceowyn’s stomach churned: the cutting spell, it seemed, had not taken only his uniform.
“Is there something you need from me?” he went on in Valzick, his words choppy like a stormy sea. “A better angle to loft torture spells at me, perhaps? Or more of my blood to fill your vials?”
Ceowyn didn’t reply. Couldn’t reply, what with the cavernous hole in her mouth where she’d once upon a time had a tongue. Instead, she continued to stare at him as he roughly sat up, his blood-speckled brow furrowed in something between suspicion, pain, and fear.
“Your people fight dirty,” the prisoner went on, and the more he spoke, the more Ceowyn started to wonder. At first she’d assumed his speech was uneven because of his physical condition, but she was starting to suspect this might not be the case. He competently spoke the words of the Valzick tongue, but his accent was like none she’d ever heard before: too sharp, too guttural, like a sword tip scraped along stone. She hung on to every syllable as he continued, “I was always warned you would, but actually seeing it?” He leaned forward. “Who uses ribboning spells in combat? That’s not what they’re meant for.”
She should kill him, Ceowyn knew. End this now as she’d been commanded to. It would only take a minute. Not even that. All she had to do was pull the blackstone out of her pocket and feed it a drop of his traitor’s blood, and then this would all be over, and she could get on with her night. Skulk back to her tent where it was warm and there was company... and, perhaps more enticingly, enough booze to dull her mind.
But before she could, the prisoner spoke again. “Gods,” he moaned. “Just do it already, why don’t you? You Meltaimans are like cats. Playing with your meals. If you’re going to kill me, soldier, then kill me. I just kindly request that you find my godsdamned wand and send it back to King Nereus with my head. Given that you’ve sort of mutilated me beyond recognition, and I have people back in Valzaim who’d really prefer to know for sure if I’m dead.”
Ceowyn frowned. Back in Valzaim, he’d said. Not: Back at home. The blackstone as heavy in her pocket as her heart was in her throat, Ceowyn slowly trailed her eyes over him, assessing the prisoner in full, beyond just the bloodied distraction that was his face.
He wasn’t very old, perhaps her brother’s Anza’s age, and his hair was a dusty straw blonde that had absorbed the gore from his battle wounds like a pale, thirsty canvas. He had round blue eyes that were surprisingly vibrant given his state, and a square jaw that she supposed must have been attractive when it wasn’t cut nearly to the bone. His nose was broken, but it must have once been pert, and although he was hunched over, she could tell that he was quite tall.
He did not look Valzick.
But then why, thought Ceowyn, was he fighting in Valzaim’s Special Forces?
She let go of the iron bars and dipped her hand into her pocket, running her gloved fingers over the cool, smooth surface of the blackstone.
“There you go,” he said, his gaze zeroing in on her movement. “Remember, the wand with my head. I think my children should like to know for sure that their father’s not coming home. And my wife will only receive my death sum if I’m proven killed. This disappearance business…” The prisoner shook his head.
Children. Ceowyn’s hand stilled around the blackstone. Words leapt up her throat, but of course she could not speak them. She realized with a sharp twist of her gut that they’d not even have his wand to give; Meltaiman military policy was to snap them upon taking prisoners. The only chance of it still being intact was if this prisoner had dropped it, but even then, it would be back in the valley they’d ambushed the Valzick troops in after members from Ceowyn’s regiment had caught them launching a not-covert-enough mission to steal back recently raided Valzick blanks. And that valley was a very long way from where she and the prisoner were now, here in the Meltaiman camp.
An image flashed in Ceowyn’s mind, of a small blonde girl with eyes like honey and the loveliest smile curved between her flower petal lips. I’ve never left the palace before. Even now Ceowyn could hear the child’s soft, hopeful voice, a sense memory that would never, ever leave her. Do you think we can see the forest? I’ve always wanted to see the forest, Ceowyn. I hear the faeries live in the trees.
Her chest squeezed, and Ceowyn had to lean against the iron bars of the cell to keep herself from falling. Sucking in a deep, ragged breath, she let abruptly go of the blackstone and heaved her hand back out of her pocket.
“Are you okay?” the prisoner asked, frowning at her, and if Ceowyn hadn’t felt so nauseous she might have laughed. He was asking if she was okay? Here he was, seconds from death, staring at the enemy soldier who was about to freeze his heart, and still he thought to ask after her welfare?
She wanted to respond to him. Instead, she opened her mouth and gestured at it, using her pointer finger to slash a sharp ‘x’ into the air. It was a universally understood signal amongst the Meltaiman army-- greymouths were almost unnervingly common in its ranks-- but Ceowyn knew the Valzicks didn’t practice such punishments. Half of her expected the doomed man to squint in confusion and ask her what she meant.
But he was a bright one. He only nodded his head. “I take it you’re not here of your own volition, eh?” he said, almost wistfully. Then: “I’m sorry they’re making you do this, soldier. It’s not right, to be used by the people who’ve hurt you. I had a life like that, once. Sometimes I still wonder how I managed to escape it.”
Now he was apologizing to her. Of course. She was about to widow his wife, and leave his children fatherless and without even a death sum, and he was apologizing to her. Ceowyn wished suddenly and fervently for her tongue, not so that she could speak but merely so that she could bite down on it. Bite down on it and bleed and scream.
This prisoner deserved better than this. Better than a soldier merely acting on orders. Better than being hit by spells that ought be reserved for use by only tailors and butchers. Better than Colonel Aevryn.
Better than her.
The image of the honey-eyed child once again flickered in her brain.
Ceowyn shoved it away.
And then she pressed her hand against the cell door, feeling through the darkness for the small, metal lock that had been spelled to only open at she and the other camp greymouths’ touches. She knew full well that what she was about to do was high treason. That, if she were caught, her missing tongue would be the least of her worries. And yet, staring down at the mutilated prisoner, who in the face of death had cared only to soothe her, Ceowyn couldn’t stop herself.
She pressed her thumb against the lock.
The cell door popped open with a click.
The prisoner stood up sharply, swaying on his feet like a newborn colt. “You… you already have the blood, don’t you?” he murmured to her. “For the blackstone?”
Ceowyn nodded, automatically running her finger over the small metal ampoule dangling from her belt. No prisoner of war made it to the cells without each greymouth at camp having phials of their blood at hand. Aevryn prided such a thing as a clear sign of his battalion’s efficiency and organization, but Ceowyn had always found it rather crass. Just another way for the colonel to terrorize his captives, because all of the Valzicks knew what it meant, when they were held by the hair and bled over a shallow pan before being tossed into the cells. This is your death. We carry it with us. It no longer belongs to you.
“What are you doing, then?” the prisoner bleated. “I mean… you hardly need to open the cell door to use the stone, soldier. I’m well within the ten paces of you already. I’m…”
She pressed a finger to her lips, drawing him to a hush. He stared at her, his blue eyes flickering wide, his blood-soaked face backlit by the harsh white moon.
“This,” he hissed, “is going to get you killed.”
She shrugged in concession, but didn’t relock the door.
For a moment, the prisoner said nothing, merely staring at her like she’d sprouted three thrashing heads. Then, placing a hand over his wind-bitten, bloodied lips, he made a noise that was something between a cry and a laugh.
“Why?” he asked her. “I know you can’t talk, but…”
In her mind’s eye, Ceowyn once again saw the girl. The exhilarated smile blooming between her lips. Her dark hair glittering beneath the brilliant sun. Will you catch me a faerie, maybe? To take home to Papa?
“Soldier?”
Ceowyn flinched.
“I…” He took an uneven step forward. “Which way ought I go?”
Ceowyn considered, and then pointed behind her. “South,” she mouthed, hoping he’d understand.
The prisoner nodded and took another step, and only inches from him now, Ceowyn tried not to let her heart lurch as she noted the unnatural cast to his fingertips. The early stages of frostbite. Gods. Even if he managed to make it away-- even if he lived-- he’d be lucky to not lose his hands. And for a mage, that was perhaps even worse than losing your tongue.
“What will happen to you?” he asked, jamming his purpling fingers into the thin pockets of his trousers.
She shrugged.
“They have a trace on the lock, don’t they?” he continued. “I mean… they must. So they’ll know you opened the cell.” Ceowyn didn’t respond, but she supposed her silence was an answer in and of itself, for the prisoner sighed heavily. “You… could come with me,” he said after a moment. “I mean, you’ve already committed the treason.”
That was true, and Ceowyn knew it viscerally. And yet at the thought of stealing away with this prisoner… fleeing into the night with the godsdamned Valzick she was supposed to kill… this traitor of his magic blood, this agent of an enemy king…
But Ceo, said the melancholy voice in the back of her head. It’s not King Nereus who left you a greymouth. It’s not King Nereus who sent you to those woods. Ceo, Ceo. What makes you think he’s your enemy at all?
“You’d be treated well in Valzaim,” the prisoner went on. “I would swear for you to the king. I would let them know what you did for me, soldier. I would let them know you wore a vial of my blood on your belt, and instead you let me go. That you saved me.” When still this garnered nothing from Ceowyn, he swallowed hard and whispered, “It does not matter what the emperor has made you do, soldier. You’re a good person. And there is still hope in the world for you.”
What do you know? Ceowyn wanted to scream at him. Gods! How could he say such kind things about her without knowing the other phial of blood she’d once had dangling from her belt? How could he croon about her goodness without seeing the images that lurked ever-present in her brain?
She was not a good person. Maybe she had been, once. A very long time ago, when her tongue was still her tongue and she’d been not a greymouth, but a Silver Eye. One of Meltaim’s best. The pride of her family. The pride of the court. The pride of the godsdamned emperor himself. People had put a lot of faith in her, then.
They’d trusted her.
And what she’d done with that…
Sharply, Ceowyn hefted off her gloves and pressed them in the prisoner’s direction. She’d expected him to seize on to them like a dog grabbing hold of a juicy bone, grateful for the proffered warmth, but instead he shook his head. “You’ll need them,” he said. “For the walk. I’m already frostbitten. Might as well not have you freeze, too.”
Ceowyn jabbed them into his chest. Insistent.
But the prisoner was insistent, too. “No,” he said. “You’ll need them. Because you’re coming. I’m hardly going to leave behind the woman who saved my life. I know what they’ve probably made you think, soldier. How worthless you feel. How hopeless. But it’s not true. It’s never true. Not unless you let it be.”
Ceowyn jammed the gloves into the waist of his trousers. Tucking them there with a firm but shaking hand. And then, before he could protest again, she moved on to pulling off her cloak-- foxfur, its hairs rustling beneath the cold breeze like grass in a windswept meadow-- and draped it over his shoulder.
She half-expected him to shove it right back at her, but he didn’t. Rather, he inhaled a deep though raspy breath and then took a few moments to pile on the offered layers, shrugging beneath the cloak and slipping the gloves over his frozen fingers. Beneath the silver moon, he was certainly a strange sight to behold: blonde and bloodied, clad in a frankenstein meld of both Valzick and Meltaiman military gear, his eyes teeming with equal parts defeat and defiance.
“Come with me,” he said, a somber, pleading twitch to his tone that let Ceowyn know this was his last ditch effort. “Whatever you’ve done… whatever they’ve made you do... you can come back from it. I know you can. We all can. You’ve saved my life, soldier. So let me save yours.”
But Ceowyn had already turned from him, her arms crossed at her stomach. Tears pressed at her eyes, and when she blinked them back, against the black of her eyelids she once again saw the girl.
She would always see the girl.
And that was what this prisoner-- with his wrong Valzick accent, and wrong Valzick looks, and a wife and kids somewhere who so desperately wanted him back-- could not understand.
The emperor of Meltaim had made Ceowyn a greymouth. He had, through his will, changed her life so drastically from what it had been once. Had turned her from the pride of the palace to the scourge of it. Had taken away her home and her job and her promising future.
But she’d always had a choice, and it wasn’t until now that she truly understood this. That, in the ribboned face of the prisoner she wasn’t going to kill, she understood bare and raw why she could not for the life of her push the image of that small, laughing girl from her mind.
Because it didn’t matter if she’d been acting under orders. If the plan to kill Imperial Princess Tamsin, heir and ruin of the Meltaiman empire, was Sebellius’s invention and not hers. For that day in the courtyard of the Shadowed Palace, as Sebellius planted a kiss atop his daughter’s dark hair and then handed her over to the woman who held a blackstone in her pocket and a phial of blood on her belt, it had been Ceowyn, and not the emperor, who had made the final choice.
There was always, always a choice.
“Could you tell me your name, at least?” the prisoner murmured to Ceowyn’s turned back. “If you know how to write, you could spell it for me. In the air. Just… just so that I know. Just so I can tell my wife and children who it is that saved me.”
Forcing away the memory of Tamsin’s trusting honeyed eyes, Ceowyn turned back toward the Valzick. She supposed, at least, she could give him this. A name to go with the life.
After she’d traced it out for him, her fingers dancing through the moonlit air, the prisoner bowed his head at her. “Thank you,” he said, and set a hand upon her shoulder. “Are you… are you sure you won’t come with me?”
She nodded.
His lip trembled. “I can never repay you for this. But I will not forget it, Ceowyn. I will not forget you. And I think that you deserve names, too. So that you know who you’ve given up so much for.” His hand falling back from her, the prisoner took in a choppy breath. “My wife,” he said, “her name is Gwen. And my children-- I’ve two little girls. Chelsey and Therese. They will grow up knowing me because of you.”
Her lip quivered, too, and Ceowyn pressed a hand over it so that he wouldn’t see. He. She realized still, that for all he’d told her, still there remained missing one final detail.
The prisoner seemed to realize it, as well. “They call me Toby,” he said to her. “Corporal Toby Barrow, of His Majesty’s Special Forces. But I had a different name once.”
She cocked her head, and he smiled at her softly. Sadly.
“Joram,” he said. “A long time ago, I was called Joram. But the man he was…” The prisoner only shrugged, before pulling the cloak tighter around himself and murmuring, “You are not the things you’ve done, Ceowyn. I hope that you remember that.”
Once he was gone, but another shadow disappeared into the night, Ceowyn stood outside the empty cell for a good long time, staring at the place where the prisoner used to be. The only signs that he’d been there at all were the droplets of his blood caked into the dirt, and a small scrap of leather that must have fallen off one of his ribboned boots and now drifted about harmlessly in the frigid night breeze.
If she’d not known better-- if she’d not still had his blood capped in an ampoule at her belt, and the blackstone meant for him tucked into her pocket-- Ceowyn might have thought him but a dream.
Not a dream, she told herself instead, the blackstone that had once felt like a heavy anchor to her now sitting featherlight. He was only a man, Ceo. He was only a choice.
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Post by Avery on Jan 15, 2015 16:49:41 GMT -5
Featuring King Falcon and Queen Maia, of Kyth-- Galateo's parents, in mid-1283 (nine years after Galateo's disappearance). An Empty Grave As the three girls and their brother played beneath the plum tree, the woman who sat watching them thought to herself: It has grown much too large.She remembered keenly when it was but a sapling, hitting no higher than her knee, and it churned her stomach to see it now, reaching far above the little ones’ heads, its branches hanging with fat, purple fruits, its vibrant leaves covered with beads of dew that shimmered like gems beneath the early morning sun. Looking at it, the woman wondered to herself: If it has grown to be so large, then how big, Maia, would he have been?She didn’t have a good answer for this. Or at least, nothing real and concrete. Nothing more than vague images that haunted her mind like stubborn ghosts-- snatches of dreams, of stolen hopes, fancies of the the life that she should have had. The boy she should have had, playing here along with his siblings, instead of imprisoned only in the far reaches of the past, the only tangible signs he’d ever existed at all this too-big tree planted in his memory, and the small grave marker that sat at her feet. Prince
Galateo Owl
Ascension
1271 - 1274 The children liked to play here because it was shady and cool, and far removed from the chaos that was the palace towering on the cliff far above. They did not know the meaning of it. The bones that lurked beneath their feet. Or, in the case of this particular grave, the bones that didn’t. No matter how many years went by, Maia could not forget this fact-- that while her husband, the king, had made a show of burying his little son’s coffin, it had not been with the boy inside. Even now, nine years later, there still existed no proof that he was dead at all. And so while Falcon might see this grave as an end, a finale to the short life of his firstborn son, to Maia it only served as a comforting marker that Galateo had lived at all. That he was not but a figment of her furtive memories and dreams, as sometimes she felt he might have been, given the way everybody else at the Raven’s Keep avoided the topic of him as if their silence would make what had happened to him any less painful and real. But to Maia, nothing Falcon could do would truly serve to blunt the anguish. Not until she knew. Not until she had a final, certain answer, with her boy either back in her arms or set into the ground, his bones finally buried beneath the headstone that bore his name. Beneath the mud that spattered at the pounding of his siblings’ feet, and the glossy tree that had once reached no higher than he did the last time she’d held him close. “Maia.” The stiff male voice swept Maia’s focus from her children, and the plum tree, toward the cemetery gates that rose to her right. Standing there was a man who rather looked like he’d be anyplace else, the heels of his shiny leather boots sinking into the soft ground beneath, the purple-and-grey cloak he wore flapping lightly in the morning breeze. Falcon.“Good morning,” she returned to him, matching the flat affect of his tone. Letting him know that if he was annoyed to be here, then she was annoyed to have him. “Is this,” he went on, his gaze falling to the children, “really an appropriate place for them to play?” “They like it here,” she countered. “It’s shaded.” “There’s plenty of shade closer to the palace,” he said, frowning as he watched Halo, the middle of the three Ascension girls, bump into the granite gravemarker of a very old dead queen. “Careful!” he chided her, causing all four of the children to instantly stiffen, as they noticed for the first time their father’s presence. “Be kind to them,” Maia murmured. “They’ve done nothing wrong. They’re merely playing.” “On their ancestors’ bones.” Falcon scowled. “I don’t know what’s considered crass in Courdon, Maia, but here in Kyth…” “I’ve lived here since I was seventeen, Falcon,” Maia replied coolly, before slipping into venom-laced Courdonian. “ I hardly think you can educate me more on your clearly superior Kythian ways.” She paused for a moment before adding back in Kythian, “And we both know that’s hardly what this is about.” “I don’t know what you mean.” “Yes, you do.” She gestured sharply down at the small marker bearing Galateo’s name. “You don’t like me visiting it,” she said. It. Not him. No matter what Falcon wanted, this mere piece of stone without a body beneath it would never, ever be her son. Maybe it was all she had of him, but that hardly made it him, no more so than an artifact of any person comprised them as a whole. For a moment, Falcon seemed to consider denying her accusation. But then, he shrugged in concession. “It’s not healthy, Maia,” he said. “He’s been gone for nine years. You need to move on.” Eyes falling back on the children, who were now playing much more demurely given that their father was around, Falcon thought to add, “And you needn’t drag them into your cloud of grief.” “Do they seem as if they’re grieving to you?” Maia asked. “Maia--” “Because to me,” she continued, “they look as if they’re simply having fun.” Bitterly, she amended, “Or at least, they were having fun. Until you showed up.” “It’s unhealthy, Maia,” he simply said again. “And I know you loved him, but I think you forget that I did, too. That boy… he…” Falcon swallowed hard. “I did everything to find him. I… I tore this kingdom apart, Maia, you know I did. I left no stone unturned--” “ Obviously,” she cut in, “that’s not true, Falcon. Or we would have found him. If you’d truly looked everywhere--” “ Maia.” There was an edge to the king’s tone now. “I did everything I could. And that we didn’t find him in spite of it… I hate it as much as you do. But no matter how much it hurts to admit it, I have a very good idea why that was. Why, even with all of the measures I took, we did not find our son.” This was not the first time he’d told her such a thing. In fact, they’d probably had this conversation dozens of times over the past nine years. Falcon’s working theory was that, after swiftly murdering Galateo, the rebels had either buried or burned him. Reducing him to nothing more than a pile of ash and bone, or a small, slack form beneath an anonymous plot of dirt. Impossible to find without a lead. But still dead and gone. So very dead and gone. “You can have your theories,” she snapped at her husband. “But that’s all they are, Falcon: theories. And so if I want to visit this grave a few times a month…” She shook her head. “I don’t see how it hurts you. You’re the one who insisted on a grave at all. Who made a grand pageant of burying an empty casket--” “So that we could mourn and be done with it!” Falcon interrupted, his voice rising, and he could only sharply wave the children back into play as they paused, uneasy, to stare at him. Stepping in closer to Maia, and forcing his tone back to a carefully controlled hiss, Falcon continued, “He is dead, Maia. I loved him, too, but he is dead. And lingering about his grave as if that will somehow bring him back… as if by committing yourself to his memory you can undo what has been done…” “You might say you loved him, but you certainly don’t show it,” Maia spat. “And if you want to carry on as if he never was, then by all means, do it. I certainly can’t stop you. But you can’t stop me from coming here, Falcon. You cannot make me forget him, too.” “I don’t want you to forget him, how dare you even say that! I just want… I just...” Falcon gritted his teeth, pausing to catch both his breath and his temper. “I can well keep you from coming here, Maia,” he said after a moment. “I don’t want to have to, but I think it’s my duty as your husband to stop you from… from…” “From what, Falcon?” she challenged. “From loving my son?” “No, Maia.” Taking another step forward, he set a gentle hand on her shoulder, though his grip on it tightened when she tried immediately to pull away. “From never moving on,” he said, holding her in place. “From letting the pains of the past ruin your future. From letting the bad things that have happened to you stop you from having a full and happy life.” “And you think,” she murmured, “that barring me from the cemetery will make these things happen, Falcon? That by merely prohibiting me from visiting this grave, my pain will suddenly be gone, and I’ll be the cheery, cooperative wife you want me to be?” “This isn’t about me, Maia.” Almost tenderly, he reached forward and brushed a strand of honeyed hair from out before her eyes. “It’s about what’s best for you.” He looked back toward the children. “And for them.” “He’s their brother, Falcon,” she whispered, unable then to think of anything better to say. “ Was their brother,” Falcon replied softly. “Was, Maia. Was.” For a moment then, neither the queen nor the king said anything, standing still and silent as an insistent morning breeze swirled about them both, sending skittering by their feet the shriveled remains of a fallen plum. Dead. Rotten. Black. “Let’s get back inside,” Falcon said finally, letting go of Maia’s shoulder to thread his fingers through hers. For a moment she thought about resisting, jerking back free from his hold like a dog yanking loose from its lead, but the firm way he gripped her let Maia know that this would just lead toward another fight. Instead, she only swallowed hard and then watched as he craned his neck toward the children, calling to them that it was time to leave. They trudged obediently over to him, their shoes smacking against the soft ground beneath, seemingly oblivious to the meanings of the stone markers that rose all around them like soldiers in a line. “You’re filthy,” Falcon noted with a wrinkled nose as they arrived before him; Starmey’s trousers were crusted with dirt, and the hems of both Halo and Sunney’s skirts looked as if they’d been dragged through a mud puddle. “Not even an hour past dawn, and you’ll all already have to change.” “We picked plums, though,” Aurora said brightly, before showing her father where she’d stored them for safekeeping-- in the bodice of her dress, which was now stained purple. “Do you think we could have plum pie at supper?” “Of course you can,” Maia said before Falcon could deny their daughter. “I think that’s a lovely idea, Aurora.” Aurora beamed. “Thanks, Mama.” She looked toward her father. “You’ll have one, right, Papa?” “Sure,” he said, sighing. “You’ve ruined your dress picking them, so might as well reap the reward of it, eh? Now, let’s go. Before any of you gets so much as a speck more of mud on your clothes.” As the Ascensions started out the cemetery then, Maia couldn’t help but notice the way Falcon paused at the gates to swing them shut behind them, the metal latch catching with a definitive clank. A lump in her throat, she glanced dourly over her shoulder, as if striving to catch one last look at the grave. But it was already out of sight, concealed amidst the maze of all the others-- the names and dates of so many who had come before her boy, whose bones filled these grounds even though his still did not. A gust of wind ripped through the air, and Maia watched as a round, glossy plum snapped free from its branch, plummeting sharply to the ground. That tree has grown much too large, she thought, before Falcon squeezed her hand and she turned back around toward him, their eyes briefly meeting in a sad, silent exchange. And she knew then, with an aching certainty, that he had made up his mind. That this visit to her boy’s empty grave would, if Falcon had his way, be her last for a very long time. A sudden tap against her toes brought Maia’s attention downward. One of the plums had fallen out from Aurora’s dress, rolling to a halt by the queen’s feet. Next to her, Falcon leaned over, as if to take it, but before he could, Maia quickly snatched it up. Feeling its soft, shiny flesh between her fingers. The weight of it. The bright purple sheen of its skin. It still had its stem attached to it, with two leaves curled and bright, and before tossing it back toward Aurora, Maia snapped it off. She could feel Falcon’s stare eating into her as she did, but the queen didn’t care, with a fluid hand tucking twig into her bodice, close against her chest, where once upon a time Galateo had rested his head, and she’d run her fingers through his dark, mussed hair, and whispered to him all of her love and her hopes. He can only be forgotten if you let him be forgotten, Maia, she said to herself, as Falcon started forward again, and with a deep breath she fell in place beside him. So do not forget. Never, ever let yourself forget.** Three days later, a horse trotted into town, upon its saddle sitting a man and a dark-haired boy, heavy packs slung over each of their shoulders that contained in them all of the belongings they owned in the world-- what little they’d decided to take with them from Lyell, when they’d set off from it two weeks ago to return to their long-left homeland. As the horse passed by the Raven’s Keep, the man bit down on his lip and spurred it on faster, gripping tight to the reins as the beast started into a canter, its hoofs beating hollowly against the cobbled ground beneath. “Wow,” the boy said, craning his neck back toward the imposing palace. “That’s where the royal family lives, Dad?” “Mmhm.” Sam Finnegan swallowed the lump in his throat. “You think they’d ever buy any of your sculptures?” the boy asked. “No,” Sam said, “I don’t.” He paused for a moment before adding, “They’ve not much love for peasants, Aldrich. So you’d best be staying away from the palace. You wouldn’t want any trouble now, would you?” “No,” Aldrich agreed. “I guess not.” “That’s my boy.” Sam smiled. Then, again, more softly: “That’s my boy.” |
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Post by Avery on Jan 16, 2015 19:29:49 GMT -5
This takes place in 1296, featuring the youngest of Maia and Falcon's children, Sunney. Sunshine The girl sat in the library with her back to the shelves, her face drawn tight in anticipation as she stared unblinkingly at the door. He should have been here half an hour ago, she thought to herself, a sour taste coating her mouth, but even still she didn’t dare let herself entertain the possibility that he wouldn’t show up at all. He would—he had to—he’d hardly leave her sitting here forgotten and alone, this meeting she’d been waiting days for but an empty disappointment. Valentin was better than that—sweeter, kinder, more considerate.
“He will come, Sunney,” she murmured aloud in reassurance to herself, her voice swallowed by the cavernous shelves. “Val will come. He will.”
Just as soon as she’d said it, the doorknob turned. Sunney smiled and scrambled up to her feet, brushing the dust off her skirts as a tall, willowy boy slunk into the room and quickly pushed the door shut behind him.
“Lock it,” she said, as she strode over to his side.
He obliged, but then questioned her, “Don’t the guards have a key?”
“Probably,” she agreed. “But at least if it’s locked, it’ll take them a few moments to get in. That way you can hide first.”
He quirked a grin. “And that way they won’t catch me doing this.”
And with that, Val leaned forward and kissed her. Sunney tensed for only a moment before melting into him, her cheeks flushing cherry red as she placed a hand on the small of his back. It was over too soon, Val pulling back away, but even then Sunney kept her fingers curled against him, the rough-hewn fabric of his tunic such a comfort to her skin.
“I’m sorry I’m late, sunshine.” His nickname for her. “I had a hard time getting away from my duties to sneak up here.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m just glad you came.”
“I brought you something,” he said, reaching into his waistband to pull out a small cloth pouch. “I know it’s not much compared to what you have,” he went on, unknotting the cord that held it shut, “but it was my mum’s, and I just… I wanted you to have it.”
“Oh, Val,” she breathed as he shook a thin bronze chain out into his palm. A necklace, rusted with age and bereft of all adornments save for a chipped Woocifix in its center. “I… I can’t,” she added, as she watched him fiddle with the clasp.
But it was too late: Val had already moved to put it on her, sweeping her long, light hair out of the way as he deftly redid the fastening. “Of course you can,” he said, kissing her again. “Mum would have wanted me to pass it on to the girl I love, sunshine.”
He stomach twisted, and Sunney slowly ran her fingers over the dull, misshapen Woocifix now dangling from her neck. “You should save it, Val,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “For… somebody else.”
“Who else?” Val frowned, his dark eyes awash with frustration and confusion. “You’re the one I love. There’s nobody else I’d ever want to give it to.” Pausing, he set a gentle hand upon her cheek and tenderly ran his fingers along her soft, creamy skin. “Do you… do you not love me back, sunshine?” he murmured. “Is that what this is about? Did I… did I do something wrong, or… offend you, or…”
“That’s not it,” she replied, her throat dry. “You know that’s not it. And that I love you back. But I…” Her gaze trailed to the floor, Sunney unable to look at him now as she whispered, “I’m betrothed, Val. You know I’m betrothed. That once I turn sixteen next month…”
“Your father will ship you off to Lyell like a prized horse he’s bartered away.” Val’s hand fell away from Sunney, and he took an abrupt step back. “I do know that, yes. But…”
“But what?” Sunney stopped worrying with the Woocifix. “There are not buts, Val. Even if I hate it. Even if I wish there were some way to make things different--” She cut herself off and shook her head, her blonde curls bouncing against her cheeks. “I love you, but it doesn’t matter, Val. You’re a servant, and I’m betrothed to the legate of Venoa, and you should keep your mum’s jewelry for the next girl you love.”
“There will be nobody after you,” Val said firmly.
But Sunney only laughed-- darkly, sadly, the sound so stark it might have been the final tune of a dying songbird. “You’re only seventeen, Val. There will be somebody after me. One day after I’ve gone to Venoa, I’ll be nothing more than a long-ago memory to you. A fable. You won’t even remember what I look like. What I sound like. What it felt like when we kissed, or what we--”
“Don’t say that,” Val hissed.
“Why not?” Sunney’s eyes danced back up toward him. “It’s the truth, Val. We might hate it now, but one day…”
“We can change it, though,” Val returned, raking an agitated finger through his dark, tangled hair. “It’s not as if your fate’s already decided for you, sunshine. Not unless you let it be.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Sunney asked. “You talk as if you have a reasonable alternative, Val. As if I can simply go up to my father and tell him I don’t want to marry Enzo, and he’ll agree-- and not only will he agree, but he’ll also give me permission to be with you instead.” She laughed again, this time struggling to blink back tears as she did. “It’s impossible, Val. I’m as good as married already.”
For a moment, Val said nothing, gnawing on his lip as if in furious deliberation with himself. Then, so matter-of-factly he might have been telling her about what he ate for breakfast, the boy said, “Then don’t get his permission, sunshine. He hardly owns you. We can run away together, you and me. Make it someplace far from here, where no one knows who we are, or what the fates originally deigned for us.”
“Val.” Sunney’s voice cracked. “We can’t--”
“Why not? You love me, and I love you, and neither of us likes what the future looks like if we don’t act now to change it.” His dark eyes intense, he reached out a firm hand and clasped it over hers, threading his fingers through hers. His were calloused-- labor-worn-- and they’d never at once felt so right and yet so wrong to her. “It’s been exactly a year, you know,” he continued, “since that day I found you crying in this very library, where I’d been sent to collect a book for your brother, and I dared ask you if everything was okay.”
“Val--”
“When I first heard you,” he went on, over her, “I froze. I had no idea what to do, sunshine. You were a princess, all bedecked in gold and jewels, and I was… I was…” With the hand that wasn’t gripping to hers, he gestured at himself: a stroke too skinny for his height, his servant’s uniform in bad need of a wash, his skin tanned and freckled from the sun. “For a moment, I thought I ought just turn around and flee. Leave you to your tears and pretend I’d never caught you crying at all.”
“Why didn’t you?” she whispered, her entire body suddenly cold as she thought about that day, when her father had called her into his office and told her that he’d completed the details of her betrothal to the legate of Venoa the night before. He’d said it so plainly, with so little emotion or affect, that at first Sunney could hardly comprehend the meaning of his words. And even once she understood-- even once the weight of them bowled into her like a boulder loosed from its mountain hold-- even then--
She’d held in the tears. The rage. Knowing that crying before her father would only earn her a lecture, not sympathy. Instead, she’d nodded obediently and stared down at the floor, her heart humming in her ears as she’d listened to Falcon prattle on about the economic boons her marriage to Enzo Biaggio, the youngest and most influential legate Venoa had seen in hundreds of years, would reap for the kingdom. As if securing better trade terms was a perfectly acceptable reason to send your youngest daughter abroad to be married to a man ten years her senior. As if she ought to be happy about it. Eager. Honored, even.
In her father’s office, Sunney had retained her composure. But later, in the solitary confines of the library, she’d been unable to keep from crumbling. Protected by the towering shelves, she’d sobbed and sniffled and hiccupped, her eyes red, her nose running. Miserable and nauseous and so very, very alone. Until she’d heard a noise-- footsteps on the polished stone floors, and...
“You looked up at me,” Val said softly. “Your eyes met mine, and I just… I was breathless. I’d seen you before, of course, around the palace, but that was the first time I really saw you. Not just as the princess eons above my station-- Sunney Starling Ascension, youngest daughter of the king-- but as you. My sunshine. Just a sweet, sad, and lovely girl.”
“It can’t happen, Val.” Sunney gave up trying to hold back her tears. “I wish it could, but it can’t. I’m sorry, but it can’t.”
“Why not?” Val demanded. “Because I think it very well could. As long as we planned it right. As long as--”
“No.” She abruptly jerked out of his grip, her hands scrabbling up toward the necklace he’d given her. Shaking, she twisted its clasp and wrenched it from her neck, holding it back out toward him. “Take it,” she insisted, the chain kinked in her palm.
He refused. “It’s yours, sunshine. I’m not taking it back.”
“I can’t keep it, Val. If my father saw me with it, he’d want to know where I got it, and I’d have no good explanation for it.” When still he didn’t accept it back, Sunney let out a hiss of frustration. “Please,” she murmured. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Val.”
“You’re the one making it hard.” Val frowned. “All we have to do, Sunney, is make a break for it. You gather up some jewels so we’re not broke, and I’ll filch you a servant’s dress so you’re inconspicuous, and we can just… go. Walk out the palace and never look back.”
“And where would we go, Val?” she asked. Giving up on the prospect of him willingly accepting the necklace back into his hands, Sunney reached out and sharply threaded it through the cloth belt that held up his trousers, the Woocifix dangling from it like a fruit on a tree. “He’d catch us,” she went on. “The moment he realized I was gone, he’d send the entire royal guard after us. We’d be found in an instant, and once he realized the circumstances of me leaving… that I ran away with a serving boy...”
“Is that all I am to you, sunshine? A serving boy?”
“Of course not,” she said, almost offended that after everything-- after a year of stolen kisses, cloak-of-the-night meetings, and secret smiles as they passed in the hall-- he would think such a thing of her. “But it hardly matters what I think, Valentin. I’m not the one with the power. I’m not the one who’d be forcing you into chains. I’m not the one who’d be flogging you, or… or worse.”
“Or worse?” Val echoed, furrowing his brow. “What-- you think he’d kill me, Sunney?”
“I’m not sure he wouldn’t,” she said simply. “Especially after what happened to my older brother… with him disappearing like he did…”
“Prince Galateo was taken,” Val said. “If you went willingly--”
“It wouldn’t matter, Val.” She swallowed hard. “Not to him.”
A silence unfurled between the two then, so thick and tense that it felt like a weight against Sunney’s chest. Tears still rolling down her cheeks, she sucked in the hollows of her cheeks and stared with a churning stomach at the Woocifix she’d looped through Valentin’s belt. In monetary terms, she knew it was hardly worth anything. A peasant’s ornament, and a chintzy one at that. And yet what it represented-- what it meant to Val, what he’d wanted it to mean to her…
“You won’t even consider it?” Val said finally, placing two gentle fingers beneath her chin and drawing it up so that once again her eyes met his.
Sunney pushed his hand away and stepped back from him. “I’m sorry, Val.” Throat quavering, she went on, “And not just for… for this. But for… everything.”
“You don’t mean that, sunshine,” he whispered.
“Yes, I do.”
“No.” His tone was firm. “No, you don’t. Because if you’re sorry for everything, then that means you’re sorry for falling in love with me. For what we’ve had this past year. And I… I don’t accept that. I won’t ever accept that what we’ve had is something to be sorry for.” Almost frantically, he continued, “If anybody ought be sorry, it’s your father. He’s the one who’s forcing you to marry that legate. He’s the one who’d barter your happiness for better trade terms. He’s--”
“-- the king,” Sunney finished for him. “And neither of us can challenge him.”
Val opened his lips, as if to retort again, but before he could get another syllable out, a sudden rattling of the doorknob drew both he and Sunney’s focus.
“Quick,” Sunney hissed, gesturing toward the maze of shelves towering behind them. “Hide. We can’t be seen together.”
“I know,” Val said-- but he didn’t move. Rather, as the person on the other side of the door started audibly trying keys in the lock, he took a long, wistful moment to study her, his eyes traveling her over as if he seemed to think this might be the last time he would ever get the chance.
“What are you doing?” She gaped at him. “You need to--”
“-- hide. I know.”
Yet still Val didn’t go. Instead, with a quick hand, he pulled the Woocifix out from where she’d threaded it through his belt and held it back out toward her. She recoiled when he tried to press it into her palm, and hissed at him once more to flee, but Valentin only shook his head.
“I love you, sunshine,” he murmured, using his hand to gently guide her palm closed around the necklace. The sharp edges of the Woocifix dug into her skin, and Sunney’s bottom lip trembled. “Don’t forget me once you’re in Venoa, okay? Because I don’t care what you say: I will never, ever forget you.”
And with that, Val brushed by her, disappearing into the warren of shelves just as the person on the other side of the door finally tried the proper key. The door swung open with a loud creak, and Sunney’s eyes danced toward it as a guard clad in Ascension livery stepped in. One of her father’s closest men-- Robert was his name, and he’d known Sunney since she was but a tiny slip of a girl.
His expression was at first aggravated, but once he saw the princess gazing at him, her eyes red and face tear-streaked, he frowned, his hand jumping to the sword sheathed at his hip. “Is everything alright, Your Highness?” he asked, striding quickly to her side.
“Yes,” she whispered as his eyes scanned the room, looking for anything out of place. As he took a sharp step in the direction that Val had fled, Sunney subtly shifted herself in front of him, cutting him off. “I’m fine,” she went on, forcing authority into her heretofore wavering tone.
“Why was the door locked?”
“I don’t know,” she lied. “But everything’s okay. I just… I’ve got a bit of a headache coming. I think I need to lie down. If you might escort me to my chambers?” She had to get him out of this library, lest he decide to give it a requisite sweep and find Val crouching behind a shelf.
“Of course, princess,” he said, frowning. Setting a leading hand on her shoulder, Sunney dared not let herself flinch as his gaze fell to her curled fist, which was still clenched tightly over the gifted Woocifix. Part of the chain peeked out past her fingertips, the bronze dark against her pale skin.
“I found a necklace,” she said before he could ask, unfurling her palm to show him. “Wedged behind some books. A servant must have dropped it while cleaning.”
“It’s a piece of junk,” Robert observed. “Look how rusted the chain is. I doubt it’s missed at all.”
He moved then to pluck it from her hands, but Sunney jumped and jerked it back from him. “I… I rather like it, actually,” she said, running her fingers over the ageworn divots that covered the three forking feathers. “It’s… quaint. Pious. I think I’ll keep it. It might look worthless to the naked eye, but… I think it could mean a whole lot a person.”
“If you say so, princess,” Robert said, taking a step toward the door and easing Sunney along with him.
“I do,” she said; and she was not speaking to Robert then as, before stepping out into the corridor with him and leaving the library behind, she announced, “I think it could mean a whole lot to me. Even once I go to Venoa and leave this place behind. I won’t forget it. I won’t forget.” |
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Post by Avery on Feb 13, 2015 19:41:09 GMT -5
This story takes place over several years, beginning in 1323 or so. It'll be divided up into two parts. General content warning for horribleness, since well-- it's Meltaim again. And Meltaim is bad, m'kay. Not going to colour code, but the dialogue is largely in Meltaiman, with the instances where it's not clearly marked. Linza Part OneThey liked her because she was fair and blonde, and so different from the other children they’d snatched in the raid. At first when they assessed her, poring over her like a fine treasure they’d extracted from a long-sealed tomb, the Silver Eyes were convinced they’d not gotten the full story out of her. Compared to the rest of the Valzicks they’d taken, she was like a diamond set against coal: striking, lovely, and so very, very powerful. The magic that oozed from her not just a spark they’d need to carefully manipulate into a flame, but an inferno already blazing.
They gave her to the margrave of Inbar; Suhail had lost his own girl, not much older than this one, only months before. He needed just one look at her before a smile broke out across his scar-pocked face, and he reached out a firm hand and set it upon her shoulder. “Welcome, little one,” he said to her-- in his language, not hers, his words little more than gibberish to her ears.
“I don’t understand,” she murmured in return, her pale eyes that had so transfixed the Meltaimans focused only on the ground.
“Of course you don’t,” he agreed, still speaking in the language she did not know. “Of course you don’t, little one. But you will soon. And that hardly means you speak the devil’s tongue in the meantime.”
And with that, the margrave of Inbar cracked a hand across the girl’s cheek. She stumbled, but he caught her, his broad arms pulling her close to him. He could feel the beat of her heart against him, thudding in her ribcage like a trapped bird trying to break free. Such a strong beat. Such a strong girl.
The margrave’s smiled widened. “There, there, sweetheart,” he soothed, patting gently at the small of her back. “It shall all be okay. You are home now, my dear, and as your new papa, I promise you: it shall all soon be okay.”
**
They took her name and gave her a new one, as if she were a puppy they’d found along the side of the road. She suspected the margrave picked it, but it was his wife, Cilla, who spoke it most often, the chosen moniker dripping from her lips as if it were the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard.
“Oh, such beautiful curls, my Linza,” she’d croon as she brushed the girl’s hair in the morning. “What a good job you did on your spellwork, Linza,” she’d praise in the afternoon, after the girl had spent hours with the pricy tutor the margrave had hired to educate her. “You’re getting so good at Meltaiman, Linza.” “Linza, did you sleep well last night?” “Good morning, Linza.” “I love you, Linza.”
The last one was the hardest for the girl to hear. She didn’t like this woman loving her. Fawning over her. As if Cilla had every right to play the role of doting mother-- as if the child her husband had deemed Linza was an orphan plucked starving from the streets, who’d known nothing but suffering and hardship before her arrival to Meltaim. As if she didn’t already have a family back home across the Galfras Mountains, no doubt missing her with all of their might.
Everything else she grew used to, slowly. The non-magic servants-- the margrave and Cilla called them blanks-- who crept about the margrave’s castle like spooked deer, their foreheads and cheeks bearing coloured brands; the magic lessons that never seemed to end, no matter how tired she grew of them; the intricacies of the Meltaiman language, so different than any language she knew. These things became commonplace. Just a part of her every day routine.
But the way Cilla and Suhail doted on her… the smile that would break out across the margrave’s face at the sight of her when he returned home to the castle after having spent time away… how they called her their daughter, their little girl, as if her belonging to them was the most natural thing in the world…
It did not matter how long the girl now called Linza spent in Meltaim.
She decided that she would never, ever grow used to that.
**
They called the margrave’s castle the Weeping Castle, for it was set high on a cliff with a raging waterfall at its eastern edge, that spilled down into the frothing river beneath like a furious, weeping eye. Back in Valzaim Linza had lived in a village near the beach, where she’d swum in the ocean quite frequently, the breaking waves like a second home to her, and so in her new life in Inbar, she found herself drawn to the waterfall much as a moth flutters to light. She liked to dip her toes in the cool water. Feel the spray of it against her skin. Climb across the obsidian rocks that rose at the feeder stream’s outer banks, reflecting like jewels against the beat of the pale sun overhead.
She played there intermittently for a period of nearly a year-- mostly when those tasked with minding her were distracted with other things-- until the margrave found out about it. Once he did, Suhail was furious. He beat her with a wooden switch and promptly barred her from going anywhere near it, snarling at her that it was much too dangerous of a place for her to play. That it would take but one misplaced toe to fall into the river and go hurtling over the edge, her body flung into the protruding rocks beneath.
“But it’s warded, isn’t it?” she said to him, her thighs stinging from where he’d struck her nearly a dozen times. “All the edges of the castle are warded, so that no one can get in and out except through the main gate--”
“Do not speak back to me, Linza,” he growled, taking her roughly by the arm. “Yes, it’s warded, but that will hardly stop a river from running its course. You’d fracture the ward, which would be immensely painful.” He paused before adding, “Not that it would matter. You’d be dead before you even realized you were in pain. Do you know how high that drop is, Linza?”
“It’s--”
He slapped her. “That was a hypothetical question. Now apologize to me, and promise me you’ll never go near the waterfall again.”
“I’ll never do it again,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”
She expected him to release her then, but he didn’t. Instead, he stared icily down at her, as if she’d failed oblige his request. “Linza,” he threatened, his voice jagged.
“What?” she whispered, clenching her hands into fists so that they wouldn’t tremble. “I… I said I was sorry, I…”
“Sorry to whom?” the margrave prompted, and Linza’s stomach churned as she realized what he wanted from her.
“I’m sorry, Papa,” she amended, the word so bitter on her tongue. “I’ll never do it again, Papa.”
“That’s my girl.” He finally let go of her arm. “Now go downstairs to the main study. You don’t want to leave you tutor waiting, do you?”
“No,” she agreed. “I suppose not.”
As she turned to leave, the margrave’s stare ate into her back like acid. It was not, she thought, the look of a concerned father, but like that of a lion staring down its meal.
**
Many months later, the margrave and his wife had another child delivered to their doorstep, a willowy boy not much older than she was, with dark, terrified eyes and hair as black as the obsidian rocks that crested near the river. Suhail called him Ishvi, although Linza quite suspected this wasn’t his real name, and while she was certain he wasn’t a native Meltaiman, she had no true guess over from where he really hailed. Not Valzaim-- the foreign words he murmured under his breath when he thought nobody was listening were not in her mother tongue-- but that left so many other kingdoms, and Linza longed to ask him, desperately biding her time until his Meltaiman was refined enough so that she could do so.
But by the time such an opportunity came to be, she’d begun to realize that it didn’t really matter. So what if he’d been from someplace else before? He was hardly from there now. Just as her own ties to Valzaim grew more and more tenuous with every passing day. There were days now when she’d wake up in the morning and forget for a few long minutes that there’d ever been a time where she hadn’t woken up in this castle. And sometimes she would catch herself thinking over some trifling thing or another, and realize that even her inner voice-- her thoughts-- now played back in Meltaiman.
Darkly, Linza supposed her life in Inbar was like the waterfall that gave the margrave’s fortress its name: the first moment you let a toe slip over the edge, your fate becomes inevitable. Your life reduced to those seconds in the air, plummeting down to the sharp rocks beneath. It doesn’t matter if you fight against it. If you wish-- oh, how you wish-- that you were anyplace else but there.
The current, the air-- it doesn’t care.
The rocks beneath will claim you anyway.
**
That Linza thought better of asking Ishvi about his origins hardly meant the same idea didn’t occur to him. About six months after his arrival, on a rare occasion when the two were left alone in the castle gardens to play together as Suhail and Cilla received guests from the coast, the dark-haired boy turned to Linza and said to her in uneven Meltaiman, “Are you like me, Linza?”
“What do you mean?” Linza asked, not looking up from the flower petal cupped in her palm, on which, in boredom, she’d been directing basic colour change spells, shifting it from red to pink and then back again.
Ishvi gestured at the castle grounds that surrounded them. “Are you from here,” he said, “or not?”
Linza turned her hand over, and the petal fluttered to the ground. “I’m not from wherever you are,” she said after a moment.
“But are you from here?” Ishvi asked, his dark eyes intent.
Linza frowned, briefly scanning the area for anyone nearby who might overhear, but it seemed as if the rest of the castle was handily distracted by the same visiting lord who’d snared Suhail’s attention; she and her makeshift brother were alone, surrounded by nothing but flowers and trees and a warm, insistent wind.
“No,” she said to him. “I’m not from here. They took me, too.”
“When?” he asked.
She considered. “When I was seven. So… a while ago. By the time you showed up, I’d already had two birthdays here. I’m almost due for another.”
“And where did they take you from?” Ishvi said.
“Valzaim.”
For a moment then, Ishvi said nothing. Just chewed on his lip as if it were candy and cocked his head, like he was deep in deliberation with himself. Then, softly, he smiled at her; and in that moment, Linza realized with a start that it was perhaps the first time she’d seen him smile in the whole six months he’d been at the Weeping Castle. Usually he was… not frowning, but flat, his eyes always swimming with something dark and unsaid. It was no secret that he was miserable here, just as she’d been at first. But where she’d swiftly adapted, he’d not been so quick, floundering rather than flourishing, choosing to sink to the bottom rather than adjust to a different, unwanted surface above.
“You know then,” Ishvi said. “That here is…” He faltered as he searched for the right Meltaiman word, eventually settling on, “Wrong.”
“You… get used to it,” she returned hesitantly. “After a while.”
“I won’t,” he said firmly. “Never.”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t let papa hear you talking like that.”
“He’s not my papa.” Pridefully, Ishvi jutted his chin. “My papa’s a cobbler, back at home. He makes shoes for our lord.”
She could have said a lot of things. Talked about her own papa-- bragged of his time in Valzaim’s special forces, where he’d fought in live combat against the Meltaimans Ishvi seemed to loathe-- but instead Linza said only, “It’s dangerous to say such things.”
“Only if the wrong people are listening.”
“And you never know when that is,” she murmured.
Ishvi balked. “What-- are you telling me that you’re a wrong person, Linza? Are you going to tell Suhail what I’ve said?”
She shook her head. “No. But be careful, Ishvi. He’s not got much patience for that kind of talk.”
But Ishvi only straightened, and then reached out to set a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Until I can find a way to get back home, I can take care of myself.”
“You won’t get back home, Vi,” Linza murmured.
“Of course I will,” he said. “Of course I will.”
And Linza couldn’t decide if it made it better or worse that, from his breathless tone, the boy truly seemed to believe it.
**
The margrave of Inbar was in a Very Good Mood.
Linza knew it from the moment she stepped into the dining room for breakfast one morning, three months after her conversation with Ishvi in the gardens, and found Suhail smiling at the table, already halfway through a gleaming goblet of wine. Cilla wasn’t there-- Linza’s alleged mama often overslept-- but Ishvi sat at the margrave’s side, picking sullenly at a plum scone. His smug wave of confidence in the gardens aside, Ishvi was still often broody, like a perpetually kicked dog, and so this wasn’t in and of itself unusual. Thus, at first Linza thought nothing of it.
But then her so-called brother looked up from his plate and caught her eye, and Linza noticed that his were red. His dark irises ringed with the color, as if he’d been crying and long hard. And his left cheek gleamed just as bright, visible marks upon it swollen in the shape of a handprint.
“My pet,” the margrave greeted warmly, as Linza froze in the doorway. “You slept late today. I was just about to have a servant go to wake you.” She didn’t reply, which would have usually galled him, but today he only paused for a moment at her silence before continuing brightly, “Come, sit. I’ve got news.”
Heart humming in her ears, Linza cautiously approached the table and took a seat across from the margrave and Ishvi. “News?” she asked, fiddling with her silverware as a blank quickly padded over to dole a heel of sweet bread on to her plate. “What kind of news?”
“The emperor,” Suhail said. “He’s having a bit of a… generous streak… after the goods news with Prince Macaius.” In other words, the prince, only six, had been very publicly declared by the palace’s Silver Eyes to be the ‘most powerful heir the empire has seen in generations’. “Sebellius has invited us to court. He wants to see up close some results of the gods’ campaigns.” The gods’ campaigns. Woo, how Linza hated these words. As if the Meltaiman crown’s decision to start plucking magically inclined children from its bordering kingdoms was heavenly-ordained. As if they were doing the pious thing by coming in the night like masked demons out of the ‘Pit-- slaughtering all who opposed them, who tried to keep the children away-- as if--
She took a deep breath and tried to hide the ill-advised anger unfurling in her. “Aren’t there probably campaign children closer to Taika?” she asked. Taras, the capital of Inbar province and location of the margrave’s fortress, was far removed from Taika, fringing the Galfras Mountains to the south and only days away from Macarinth to the east.
“This is joyous news, Linza.” The margrave stiffened, and beside him Ishvi flinched, as if merely out of reflex; Linza guessed his reaction to the news had not been quite so eager as the margrave had wanted, either. Suhail went on, “You ought be honoured that the emperor wishes to use our family as an example of the fine rewards gained through the campaigns.” Washing back another mouthful of wine, Suhail demanded, “Aren’t you honoured, Linza?”
“Of course,” she agreed meekly, using her knife to carve a long, flaky ribbon off the sweet bread. Once it was freed, she pushed it aside and went on to slicing another. “I--”
“Stop playing with your food,” Suhail snapped, a missive that made her drop her knife as if it had burned her. Satisfied, the margrave’s voice segued back to sugary sweet as he said, “We’ll be leaving at week’s end for the capital.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Linza asked.
“You,” the margrave said, “me, and Ishvi.”
“What of Mama?”
“Mama will stay here and make sure the castle’s looked after.” Polishing off the wine, Suhail immediately turned toward the serving blank and snarled, “You could see I was nearly done, why’s the goblet not refilled already?”
This was a rhetorical question-- and the sort that Linza had learned a long time ago the margrave did not truly want answered. The blank wisely remained silent as he hurried to his master’s side and refilled Suhail’s goblet, the stream of wine tinkling against the fine silver. Hardly seeming to notice the boy standing but a finger’s length away, and huffing impatiently as the goblet refilled, Suhail glanced down at Ishvi.
“Are you still crying?” he asked leadenly.
Ishvi shook his head. “No,” he whispered.
“Crying won’t do in the imperial palace,” Suhail went on, as if he’d hardly heard the boy’s answer. “The emperor wants well-adjusted magicians, not sniveling little children. Are you a child, Ishvi?”
“I’m ten,” Ishvi replied, as if this justified anything. Even after living at the Weeping Castle for almost a year, his grip on Meltaiman often receded with his mood-- passable at the best of times, but thin when he was anxious, his accent intensifying as his emotions did. He was barely comprehensible as he stammered on, “At home, you’ve barely started spellwork when you’re ten. N-not unless you’re--”
Suhail’s hand lashed out so fast that Linza heard, rather than saw, it crack against Ishvi’s cheek. The boy fell clear out of his chair, knocking into the serving blank in the process, who immediately lost his grip on the wine pitcher. As it clattered to the floor, wine seeped into the intricate carpet beneath, dark and red as a bloodstain.
Linza could only gape on in horror as she watched Suhail process the scene at hand. For a moment-- a long, sickening taunt of a moment-- he did nothing at all, simply staring with wide eyes and an open jaw. Then, sharply, he stood, his fingers curling around the wand at his belt. She wasn’t sure quite who he was angriest with-- Ishvi, the blank, or both-- but in any case, she wished she could be anywhere else but here. Wished she could wobble to her feet and flee the dining room without it further inciting her so-called papa’s wrath.
“Give me that,” the margrave snarled, wrenching the half-filled wine goblet from the blank’s hands and slamming it back down on the table before the boy could lose his grip on that, too. “You clumsy fool-- good for nothing, I ought have you ribboned to the bone-- I-- you-- stay still, do not move--” Fingers white around his wand, his stare fell down to Ishvi. “This is your home,” he spat to the boy. Pointing at himself with his non-wand hand, he added, “I am your home. I do not care what customs they have in that godsforsaken pit you were born in, Ishvi. They do not apply to you.”
“You stole me,” Ishvi gasped, and Linza almost threw up at his words. No, no, no. Why was he pressing this? Why was he saying this? Why wouldn’t he just be quiet and nod his head, and cobble a desperate apology like she would have in his shoes? “You and your people stole me,” he said again. “This isn’t my home, it’s never been my home--”
“We saved you, Ishvi.” The margrave was literally shaking; Linza didn’t think she’d ever seen him so furious. “From those wretched blanks, we saved you--”
“My name’s not Ishvi!” Shaking as well, he reached a trembling hand toward his belt and yanked out from it his own wand, slim and light, its metal cap trimmed in the silver-and-yellow of Suhail’s House. Brandishing it toward the margrave who towered over him, he stammered, “My name is Tra--”
“Are you threatening me?” Suhail cut in with a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Are you truly threatening me, Ishvi?”
“N-no,” he bleated. Then: “Yes. I-- you… get away from me.” He squared his shoulders. “Get away from me, and let me leave this castle and go home, or I’ll-- I’ll--”
“You’ll what, Vi? As you so eloquently pointed out mere minutes ago, you’re ten. Do you think you can truly take on the margrave of Inbar?” He guffawed, as if this were the most amusing thing he’d ever heard in his life.
“I can… I could stun you,” Ishvi burbled. “Stun you and run--”
“Put your wand away.” This was not a request. “Go clean yourself up from the godsdamned wine this ingrate”-- he gestured brusquely at the serving blank, who still stood mere inches away with his lips pressed tight and gaze cast toward the wine-stained floor-- “splashed on you. And then go sit in my office. I’ll recieve you once I’m done with my breakfast, Ishvi.”
At first, Ishvi said nothing, and briefly Linza dared let herself hope that he would he finally think better of his insolence and heed Suhail’s command. Instead, she could only grimace as he said to the margrave, “My name is not Ishvi.”
And then, just as he’d threatened, the small boy went about casting a stunning spell. Or at least, he tried to, for he’d hardly gotten a single syllable out before, with about as much effort as it might take one to blink, the margrave slashed his own wand through the air. “Cisza,” he spat, and the rest of Ishvi’s pronouncement died in his throat as Suhail’s silencing spell gripped him.
In another moment, Suhail had disarmed the boy, the small, metal-tipped wand skittering to the ground. Ishvi, his voice still strangled, grasped for it, but to no avail; Suhail quickly closed his hand around the boy’s arm and wrenched him to his feet. The serving blank, still silent, could only desperately dance out of the way as Ishvi swayed against the sharp movement, his knees wobbling.
“If you ever try to attack me again, Ishvi, I will split your throat,” the margrave hissed. “There are thousands of mage children out there in the world, festering in blank societies, who would think they’d gone to the heavens themselves if they were presented with this opportunity. With this life you’ve been handed on a silver platter.” Shaking the boy, he dug the tip of his wand into the hollow of Ishvi’s throat. “I have made you my son, and I can unmake that in an instant. Always remember that. Always.”
Once Suhail had dragged Ishvi out the dining room, the silver-trimmed door slamming behind them with a hollow thunk, it took Linza a good, long minute or two to dare drag her eyes up from where they’d settled on the surface of her plate. As she did, she almost jumped in surprise at the serving blank who still stood across the room from her, pale and shocked, his own eyes studying the large wine-stain on the floor, at the edge of which rested Ishvi’s wand. He wasn’t ever given permission to move again, she realized, remembering Suhail’s acerbic demand that the boy stay put.
“You… you could clean the wine,” she said, her soft voice wholly barren of the authority she’d intended. Remembering the way Suhail talked to the blanks, she amended hesitantly, “I mean um… do clean the wine. Before it sets.”
“I need cleaning supplies, my lady,” he murmured, not looking at her. “To draw the wine out.”
“Oh.” She swallowed. “Um. I guess you can… get those, then. From… wherever they are.”
“Yes, my lady.”
He was gone in an instant, leaving Linza alone with the wine-stain and Ishvi’s fallen wand and the Woodamned sweet-bread on her plate, still half-cut into whimsical ribbons. Her stomach churning, she pushed the plate back and stood, her entire body trembling as she padded over to where Ishvi’s wand lay.
Starting down at it, part of Linza thought she should leave it where it had landed. The blanks weren’t allowed to touch their masters’ wands under any circumstances, so the serving boy would merely work around it when he returned to clean the wine, and then the margrave could collect it later. Or Cilla. After all, it was hardly as if she, Linza, had been given permission to take it.
And yet Linza couldn’t fight the compulsion to lean over and snatch it up. The thin, slightly curved piece of wood unfamiliar between her fingers. Cool. Light. Slender. Just like Ishvi… or whatever his name was. Tra-- he’d started, before the margrave had cut him off.
She wondered what the rest of it was.
She wondered what kingdom it was that he talked about, where his papa was a cobbler and he really thought he was going to go to home to one day.
With a jagged breath, Linza tucked not-Ishvi’s wand into the bodice of her dress, the shape of it obscured by the loose, billowy fabric the Meltaimans favoured. If the margrave asked after it later, she supposed she would have to give it to him. But alone in that dining room, the wine red as blood on the floor beneath, Linza had a sinking feeling that Suhail wouldn’t. That after what Ishvi had tried, he wouldn’t be getting a wand back anytime soon.
As the serving blank scampered back into the room with a rag and bucket full of brackish liquid, Linza’s hand fell away from the hidden wand, and she started sharply toward the door. “Make sure to get the stain completely out,” she said as she passed him. She wasn’t sure why she said it, other than to speak at all. Other than to do something to break this suffocating silence, that ate at her throat like the margrave’s silencing spell must have done to Ishvi.
“Of course, my lady,” the blank replied.
Suhail never asked her back for Ishvi’s wand. Part TwoThe emperor only wanted successes of the gods’ campaigns, not failures whose wands you had to confiscate after they attacked you in your own dining room, and so at the week’s end the margrave set off for Taika with her-- and only her-- in tow. The ride was long and Linza hated every minute of it, enjoying the margrave’s constant company the least of all. If he was cool and stern at home, he was outright insufferable on the road, and there was absolutely no escape from him: she rode with him in the day and shared an inn room with him at night, Suhail not daring to let his favoured child out of his sight.
“The countryside is wild,” he explained to her on the fifth night, when at dusk they stopped at an inn and she pleaded for a room of her own. “I trust these innkeepers as much as I trust an unbroken blank.” Darkly, he added, “Or Ishvi.”
She knew better than to ask about Ishvi. She figured the margrave was keeping him somewhere about the Weeping Castle, but he’d not shown up again to any family meals, and when Suhail had mentioned his name at supper the night before he and Linza left for the capital, Cilla had burst out crying with a sharp: “All I wanted was a son.” (To which the margrave had huffishly replied: “Well, perhaps in Taika I’ll find you another.”)
In any case, Linza was at the losing end of the conversation: that night she once again shared a room with Suhail, and by the time their contingent arrived to Taika days later, she was nearly more exasperated with him than she was terrified over the idea of meeting the emperor.
This feeling immediately evaporated the moment she first set eyes on Sebellius.
She wasn’t sure quite what it was about him that instantly sent her palms sweating, other than the fact that something about the most powerful man in Meltaim unnerved her like no one else she’d ever met in her life. Not even Suhail. He wasn’t tall so much as imposing, standing ramrod straight as his guardsmen showed Suhail and Linza into his ornate throne room, the walls for which were plated in sheets of silver so painstakingly polished that Linza could see her reflection in them.
The emperor’s crown, too, was silver, a stark contrast to the obsidian-black hair beneath. His skin was so pale he might have never seen a drop of sunlight in his life-- not that Linza could see much of it anyway, given the heavy, jewel-toned robes that swallowed up much of his frame like an open-jawed snake. And then there was the matter of his wand, holstered prominently at his hip at the exterior of his clothes. Not solid wood, like hers was, or even metal-capped like Ishvi’s had been. No: the emperor’s wand looked like it was made of solid stone, as dark and shiny as were his gleaming, animal eyes.
“Suhail!” the emperor boomed, as Suhail dropped to his knees in submission and pulled Linza down alongside him. “What a treat it is to finally make your acquaintance again. It has been far too long, cousin-- far too long.”
“Indeed, Your Imperial Majesty,” Suhail said, in the meekest tone Linza had ever heard him use in the entire two years she’d lived with him. “I am humbled and honoured to have been called to your court.”
“I hope your journey went well?” Sebellius continued, still not giving the margrave permission to stand. “I’ve heard there was some poor weather out in Daire in recent days.” This was the province to the west of Inbar.
“Just some heavy rain,” Suhail said.
“Not hail? I could have sworn that some of my weather-mages said hail.”
“No hail that we ran into, Your Imperial Majesty.”
“Ah, well. I’m glad to hear. And you ran into no other troubles on the road?”
“It was an uneventful journey,” Suhail said, setting a firm hand on Linza’s back as, her neck cramping from the prolonged bow, she squirmed uncomfortably in place. “No troubles at all to report, Your Imperial Majesty.”
“Excellent.” Even with her own gaze still planted on the ground beneath, Linza could feel the emperor’s stare zeroing in on her. “This is your girl, yes, cousin?”
“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.”
“She’s very pretty.” Still he gave no permission for the margrave to lift his head from the bow, let alone stand. “She’s-- what now… eight? Nine?”
“That is correct, sire. She’s nine. Nearly ten.”
“I received your letter ahead of time that the boy had been in some sort of accident?” the emperor went on; and Linza, previously struggling not to fidget, froze in place like a startled deer. An accident? she thought, as Sebellius continued, “I was most disheartened to hear such a thing.”
“My family was most disheartened to suffer it, Your Imperial Majesty,” the margrave replied. As if he sensed Linza’s surprise and horror, he strengthened his hold against her back, his fingers digging into her in warning.
“You shall be in my many prayers,” Sebellius said. And with that, finally, he ordered, “Stand.”
The margrave obliged, pulling Linza up with him, although even once he was upright Suhail still kept his eyes pointed downward. As the emperor started toward them, the margrave shifted so that his arm was now draped across her entire back, his fingertips curved against her ribs in a hold that flitted some strange line between possessive and protective. As if he didn’t well like the man who’d called him cousin stalking to their side. As if-- despite his admonition in the dining room back in Inbar that being called to court was an honour-- the emperor scared the hell out of Suhail just as much as he did Linza.
For all the margrave’s unease, he did nothing to stop Sebellius when, upon reaching the pair, the emperor promptly darted out a hand, clasped his fingers around Linza’s wrist, and without another word tugged her forward. “Look at me, little one,” he crooned, his voice so sweet it could have been nothing but poison.
Not daring to let herself tremble, Linza slowly lifted her gaze until her pale green eyes were latched on the emperor’s dark ones. “Pretty,” he said again, brushing a strand of curly blonde hair out from where it dangled over the bridge of her nose. “My men found you in Valzaim, did they not?”
“Y-yes, Your Imperial Majesty,” she stammered, and for the first time in her life, Linza longed for the safety of the margrave. Wished desperately that she could wrench free from the emperor’s grasp and scamper back toward Suhail.
“You hardly look Valzick,” he said, and for a moment she thought he wanted an explanation, and her voice quavered in her throat. But then, mercifully, he continued, “Did you know that your papa here is my dear cousin, little one? My father’s littlest sister was his mother.”
Suhail had, indeed, versed her on this, and so Linza forced a nod. “Yes, Your Imperial Majesty,” she said.
“But,” he continued, “what I’ve realized in my reign is that kinship is only part of the picture.” He smiled and ran a tender finger down her cheek. “It is unfortunate how I had to come to this epiphany, but better that, I suppose, than to have never reached it at all. To have never understood that while it’s best to have both power and kinship, in the end you can always breed new kinship. But the kinship itself is worthless without any power to underlie it. Do you understand what I mean, little one?”
She didn’t, but Linza nodded again anyway. “Yes, Your Imperial Majesty,” she repeated.
“I understand,” he continued, “that you are very powerful. Is that so?”
Biting down on her lip, Linza shot a questioning, near panicked look back at the margrave. Powerful. Was she powerful? She thought she might be-- but then, she had little else to go by. Ishvi had never even been in lessons with her because the margrave thought children learned more effectively alone, and she couldn’t well compare herself to the margrave or Cilla, because they were full-grown, and--
“Linza is highly accomplished and advanced for her age, Your Imperial Majesty,” Suhail said from behind her. “I apologize for her impertinence-- she can be a bit shy, unfortunately-- but when magic is concerned… She’s very, very powerful, indeed.”
“Shy, are we?” The emperor grinned crookedly. “Poor thing. Then I suppose you’ll not want to do a demonstration for me now, would you? In front of all these watching guardsmen?” He gestured loosely at the royal guards peppering the room like holes in a sponge.
“I… I…” Linza faltered.
“She’d be happy to, Your Imperial Majesty,” Suhail cut in sharply. “It would be an honour for Linza to demonstrate what she knows.”
“Wonderful!” Sebellius let go of her arm to clap his hands together-- only once, but the hollow noise made everyone in the room flinch. “So tell me, little Linza-- what is it that you know? What highly advanced spell, as your papa tells it, ought you dazzle me with, hm?”
“I… um…” Inexplicably, her mind lurched back to Ishvi in the dining room, wine-soaked on the floor. “I can stun,” she murmured.
“Stun?” Sebellius only laughed. “Oh, my dear, that shall hardly draw applause in this court. What else do you know?”
“I could… disarm. Or… um…” She flicked another desperate gaze at Suhail.
“She’s been learning to ribbon,” Suhail finished for her. “Only with inanimate objects so far, but she’s been exerting a great deal of control for her age. I know at her age if I’d tried to ribbon an apple, I would have ended up slicing the whole table beneath it, too.” Suhail smiled wanly.
But all the laughter was gone from the emperor’s face, replaced by an expression of suspicion bordering on disbelief. “Ribboning?” he asked. “That would be highly advanced, indeed.”
“As I told you, Your Imperial Majesty, my Linza is very accomplished.”
“Well, I suppose we shall see about that, eh, cousin?”
And with that, the emperor whirled toward one of his guardsmen and barked for the man to bring him an assortment of fruit and bread from the kitchens. As they waited for the guard to return, Linza stood stiff and quiet, sick to her stomach and even sicker to her heart. Still she couldn’t get out of her mind what the margrave had said about Ishvi: an accident. Woo, what did he mean by that? Was it merely an excuse to account for Vi’s absence, or had he done something to the dark-haired boy? Was Cilla’s comment at the supper table of only having wanted a son more than the metaphor Linza had first made it out to be... and the margrave’s leaden response to it a promise, rather than a sarcastic retort?
“You’re looking positively green, little one,” the emperor said as the guard finally hustled back in with a basket of assorted food. “Worried that you won’t be up to task?”
She shook her head, chasing away the thoughts of Ishvi, and-- as her tutors had taught her-- forced her mind only on the task at hand as she went about demolishing the foodstuffs. Peeling the skin from a glossy apple but leaving alone the flesh-- deliberately flaying the crust off a heel of overbaked bread while leaving the tender center unmarred-- channeling every ounce of her unease and fear into the spells as she cast them. Until she became nothing more than an extension of her wand, of her words, of the incantations she’d spent so many hours practicing at the Weeping Castle…
“Advanced,” the emperor muttered in something near awe, as Linza handily mutilated the final object in the basket. “I do say, cousin, you weren’t exaggerating after all. If she’s got that level of control age at nine...”
Suhail couldn’t help but crack a boastful smile. “I would not exaggerate to you, Your Imperial Majesty. She is living proof that the gods’ campaigns are worth it. That through them we can bring talented young mages to their rightful place in our holy kingdom, where their gifts will be cultivated and nurtured.”
“And to think,” the emperor said, marveling, “that if not for the campaigns, she’d have grown up to fight in the Valzick forces.”
“An unsettling thought, indeed,” Suhail agreed. “But now, fortunately, it shan’t ever happen.”
“Power,” Sebellius said again. “So much more potent than kinship.” Eyes traveling her small form-- her arms now crossed tightly at her stomach as the post-spelling fatigue hit her, the inside of her cheek bit tight-- he added ruefully to Suhail, “Although, cousin, as I said before, you can always make someone kin to future generations. If, of course, such talents continue developing as they have been.”
“Such a very wise observation, Your Imperial Majesty,” the margrave said, and Linza got the very distinct feeling that there was a conversation going on well above her head. Just like the conversation about Ishvi and his accident earlier. Or the one earlier than that, between Cilla and Suhail back in Inbar.
“Rest now, cousin,” Sebellius finished smoothly. “I’m sure you’re very weary from the road, and after that display, Linza must be spent. But you are invited as my honoured guests to supper tonight in the grand hall. I do hope you-- and little Linza-- will be there. Perhaps I could introduce her to my sweet Macaius.”
“Of course we’ll be there, Your Imperial Majesty,” Suhail said. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
**
Through the rest of Suhail and Linza’s month-long stay at the court-- during which she turned from nine to ten-- Sebellius treated her as if she were an interesting toy that had been dragged into his palace for the mere purpose of his amusement, showing her off at every chance that he could get. He worked her frequently to post-spelling fatigue, and seemed to think nothing of it; and if Suhail at all objected to the way she was being used, the margrave of Inbar made no comment of it, clearly more frightened of the emperor than he was protective over the girl he called his daughter.
On the day of their departure, Sebellius saw them to their awaiting carriage, and with a firm hand clapped Suhail on the shoulder and said, “This was a most fortuitous visit, cousin. I have enjoyed it immensely.”
Suhai dipped his head. “Linza and I have enjoyed it as well, Your Imperial Majesty. We are most gracious for your hospitality.”
Sebellius let go of Suhail and turned his attention toward Linza. “Keep up your studies, little one,” he said to her, using a leading finger to draw her chin up, so that her eyes met his. “I expect such very great things out of you.”
“I will, Your Imperial Majesty,” she murmured. “Thank you.”
“And who knows?” the emperor crooned on. “Perhaps I shall see you here again someday in the future.” And with that, Sebellius let go of her chin and winked.
In the carriage, neither Linza nor Suhail spoke to each other for the longest time. Then, gently, the margrave reached out an arm and draped it around the small girl’s shoulders, drawing her in close to him. She didn’t resist his hold, on the contrary leaning into it, sighing deeply as she rested her cheek against the sleeve of his tunic.
“Are you okay, my pet?” he murmured to her, his voice so tender that, had Linza not known so much better, she might have mistaken it for her true father’s.
“I’m tired,” she said simply.
“I know,” he whispered. Then: “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” She looked up at him, hardly comprehending the word as it spilled from his lips. The margrave never apologized. Ever.
But then he went and said it again: “Yes, I’m sorry.”
“Why?” she asked.
“That for all the troops I have garrisoned at the Weeping Castle-- that for all the magic I have coursing through my veins-- that for every wretched soul I could have killed for so much as looking at you wrong…” The margrave cut himself off, and forced a deep breath before finishing, “That for all those things… I am powerless to stop him.”
“He was very keen on me talking with Prince Macaius,” she replied only, unable to think of anything else to say.
And Linza had never quite heard anyone sound so sad-- so defeated-- as he ran a finger through her long, curly hair and said to her, “Yes, my pet, he was. Yes, he certainly was.”
**
In the month they’d spent at court, the seasons had started to change, a balmy autumn seguing into the start of what seemed like it would be an unforgiving winter. On the way west they’d taken an arcing northerly route, but that road had since been snowed over, and so instead they were forced to utilize a narrow southern trail that hugged the northern flank of the Galfras Mountains. This, of course, had the margrave well on edge; the Galfras were practically an active conflict zone, particularly in the west, and every time their party came across another, Suhail clung to her like she might otherwise float away until his men had managed to ascertain that the passersby were friendlies.
All the passersby were. But then-- on the fifth night--
They’d been slowed on the road by a broken carriage wheel, and so were still hours out from the nearest town when night fell. Having recently abandoned the idea of making it to an inn, the margrave’s men had just started to pitch a camp along the side of the road when, out of nowhere, a flash of light cut across the air not far to the south, almost blindingly bright against the moonless black sky.
“What,” the margrave demanded, as everyone stilled in place to stare at it, “was that?”
The two guards nearest to him exchanged a hesitant look, as if holding a silent argument over which of them had drawn the short straw and had to answer, before one of them reluctantly volunteered, “That was a flare, m’lord.”
“A flare?” Frowning, the margrave reached out a hand and clasped his fingers over Linza’s wrist, pulling her in close to him. “What kind of flare?”
“Um. Well.” The guard wavered. “One of our military flares. That you cast up if you’ve run into trouble.”
“A sort of… last ditch effort to get help, m’lord,” the other guard supplied. “If you’ve run out of other options.”
“And how close,” the margrave said, “do you think the caster is?”
“Not far,” said a third guard, his hand hovering over his holstered wand. “A half hour’s walk, maybe? If that. And less by horseback.”
“Gods,” the margrave swore, his grip on Linza suddenly crushing. “You think they’re moving?”
“I couldn’t say, m’lord,” said the first guard. “We’d only know if they send up another flare.”
“What do you think it is?” Suhail said next. “That’s got them into trouble?”
“This close to the southern border? It’s got to be Valzicks.”
The margrave swore again, this time snarling words he would have slapped Linza for using if she’d tried them. “What do you think our best choice is?” he asked, adding sharply before the men could answer, “Keeping in mind that I’ve no interest in skirmishing with the Special Forces tonight. Not with a child in tow.”
“Ignore the flare, then,” the first guard said, although he sounded uneasy about it. “Hopefully there won’t be another, and the combatants won’t list this way. And if they do, well-- they’ll hardly be expecting us, and they’ll be battle-weary already. We should be able to fight back.”
Suhail considered. “Ought we not move elsewhere? Travel through the night just in case?”
“The horses are exhausted, m’lord. And for all we know, we’ll move in the same way they do. If you want my advice, then we ought to stay put. Burn no fire, of course, but nevertheless stay put.”
From the broad frown on his face, Suhail didn’t seemed pleased about it, but the margrave nevertheless nodded and told his men to finish pitching camp. Then, without a single word of explanation to her, he pulled Linza toward the carriage the two of them had been riding in since Taika and hefted open the door.
“Up,” he said to her, pointing at the step.
“Why?” she asked, loath to return to its stuffy interior after spending so long within its confines today already.
“It’s safest for you in there.”
“Are you going back in?”
“No. I need to keep watch with my men.”
She knew she ought oblige-- that she mustn’t argue with him any-- but she was exhausted and miserable, her impulse control harried, and Linza couldn’t help the words as they tumbled from her lips: “That’s not fair.”
Without skipping a beat, the margrave slapped her. “In,” he snapped, shoving her through the door. “And don’t you dare come out until I give you permission, Linza. Unless you want to be switched in front of a dozen guards and servants.”
And with that, Suhail slammed shut the door, leaving Linza alone on the other side. Her cheek smarted, but more than that her pride hurt, and when tears pricked at her eyes she sharply blinked them back. Her mind danced back to the last time she’d seen the margrave hit someone: Ishvi in the dining room. Ishvi. Woo, to think that still she had no idea what had happened to Ishvi.
Hefting herself up onto the padded carriage seat, Linza pulled her wand out from where it was holstered and set it at her side. The light wood caught in the moonlight that was snaking its way through the narrow carriage window, illuminating it like a diamond gleaming amidst a sea of plain stones. She thought of Ishvi’s wand, picturing it where she’d left it back at the Weeping Castle, buried in her bureau after she’d snatched it up from the wine-bled floor. What, she thought for the umpteenth time, did Suhail mean by accident?
A sudden burst of light flashed against the carriage window, and Linza flinched even before she heard Suhail swear again outside. “That was closer, wasn’t it?” he demanded.
“Yes, m’lord.”
“How close?”
“Perhaps,” the guard said hesitantly, “you ought go wait in the carriage with your daughter?”
“That close?” Suhail’s voice cracked, but he caught himself quickly to snarl, “Are you insinuating I’m a coward? That the margrave of Inbar ought best spend a battle hiding behind carriage doors like a child?”
“No-- of-- of course not.” With an eye pressed against the carriage window, Linza could vaguely make out the guard throwing out his hands in supplication. “I just… merely thought if things got… heated… it might be best for the girl if you were there to… comfort her or--”
“Linza’s a strong girl. She needs no comfort.”
Another flare lit up the sky.
This time Suhail was not the only one amongst his men to swear.
Linza stayed glued to the window as a din of voices broke out to the south-- a dizzying vortex of shouting and screaming, cursing and crying. She watched with her heart hammering in her ears as, the task of pitching camp wholly abandoned, the margrave’s men scrambled amongst themselves to form a defensive plan, wands unholstered from their hips. She flitted her focus between them all like a pollen-drunk honeybee moving from flower to flower, but most commonly she found her stare falling back to Suhail. She’d never seen him like this, addled and terrified, his nostrils flaring as he stalked about the half-pitched camp with the voices drawing nearer and nearer still.
“How many do you think there are?” he demanded.
“I can’t say, m’lord,” a guard responded. “Hopefully there are more of us than there are of them. And in any case, we’ll be far less fatigued than they are.” He forced a leaden smile. “We’ve nothing to worry about, I think.”
Suhail nodded sharply, a death-grip on his wand as he deliberated for one final moment before turning and stalking toward the carriage. Linza scampered back from the window as her so-called papa hefted open the door, not bothering to greet her before he snapped, “Lay down. Cover your head. No matter what you hear, do not move until I come back to get you. Do you understand?”
“What’s happening?” she murmured.
“Tell me you understand.” His voice was steel.
“I… I understand.”
“Good. Then lay down, and I’ll be back to get you when it’s over.”
Suhail waited for her to oblige before slamming the door back shut and hurrying away. Laying flat on her stomach on the plush bench seat, Linza swallowed hard, fighting back the urge to cast aside the margrave’s command and peek back out the window. Soon, the faraway meld of voices were no longer quite so far away, and the previously indecipherable cacophony of shrieking and shouting segued into words. People.
Spells.
Something slammed into the carriage, causing it to shake. Linza winced and drew further back from the door, her elbows digging into the padded seat bottom. She tried to pick out Suhail’s voice amidst the clamor, but with little success, the frantic voices bleeding into each other like watercolor paints. As another spell went wide and smacked into the carriage, Linza’s wand, still prone on the seat beside her, jolted, nearly falling to the floor. She reached out toward it with a shaking hand and closed her fingers around it. So advanced for her age, indeed! The emperor’s singsong words echoed in her ears. As if that would do her any good now.
The carriage rocked yet again, and tears pricked in Linza’s eyes, but she blinked them defiantly away.
She wasn’t sure, in the end, how long it went on. How many times the carriage juddered, or how many screams rang against the night. What she did know was that at some point the din simmered, like a fire burned down its final embers, and then… in another span… it was gone. The cold night quiet yet again, the hushed voices that spoke outside no longer shrieking spells at each other, but carrying on what seemed like a normal, if solemn and quiet, conversation.
Stay put until I get you. The margrave’s missive was clear in her head. And so when finally-- finally-- she heard footsteps crunching toward the carriage, and someone wrenched open the door, she looked up expecting it to be Suhail.
But it wasn’t.
Instead Linza found herself staring at a strange middle-aged man, whose dark skin was flecked with blood and whose left eye was halfway swollen shut. He seemed about as surprised to see her as she was to see him, but while Linza’s reaction to the shock was to merely gape, his was decidedly more… active: in an instant he had his wand leveled in her direction, the barrel of it pointed directly at her chest.
“Do not move,” he hissed to her, using his other hand to beckon over reinforcements. He spoke in Meltaiman, but from the way he talked it was clear he wasn’t a native speaker, his accent so strong that it bordered on obtrusive.
Holding her at wandpoint until his comrades arrived to flank him, once they were there he reached out toward her with his free hand, his palm facing upward. “Hand it to me,” he said, nudging his chin at the wand still clutched in her fist. “Slowly.”
She thought of Ishvi in the dining room, trying to cast a spell against Suhail even with the odds stacked so high against him, and for the first time then Linza understood the urge. Could grasp what it was, exactly, that had compelled him to do such a thing, even though he must have known all along that it likely wouldn’t end well for him.
And it didn’t end well for him, she reminded herself, before with a quaking hand she gave the dark-skinned man her wand. He accepted it gingerly, as if it might burn him, and held it only for a moment before passing it back to the one of the others who flanked him. Linza couldn’t keep from audibly crying out as she watched the second man study it for a brief, curious moment-- before, with a fluid movement, he snapped it clear in two.
“This is why we must always sweep the area after a conflict,” the first man said, and it took Linza a moment to realize that he wasn’t talking to her… and a second, longer moment after that to notice that he was no longer speaking Meltaiman, but Valzick. Valzick! Woo, how long had it been since she’d heard her mother tongue anyplace else but the deepest fathoms of her own, private thoughts?
“She’s a child,” the second man replied, also in Valzick. “Hardly an archmage biding her time to finish us off.”
“Children can be dangerous, Tielo.”
“Aye. I suppose.” Tielo didn’t sound convinced. “So, what do we do with her, lieutenant? Kill her or--”
“No.” Linza didn’t even realize she’d spoken aloud until she felt all the soldiers’ eyes settle back on her. “P-please,” she went on, “I-- I-- where’s Suhail?”
“The Meltaimans have all been… dealt with,” the lieutenant said. And then, just as it had dawned on Linza moments ago, the same thing dawned on the Valzick soldier then: “You were not just speaking Meltaiman, were you?”
“No,” she murmured; she’d matched their tongue by pure reflex. Woo, would Suhail be furious if he knew. “I wasn’t.”
“You speak Valzick?”
“Yes,” Linza whispered.
The lieutenant, Tielo, and the others exchanged a flurry of looks that Linza could not decipher, holding a silent conversation with gestures and expressions alone. Then, Tielo said to her, “Do you merely speak Valzick… or are you Valzick?”
“I… I…” Why was it so hard to give an answer to this? Because of course she ought be screaming yes. Of course she was Valzick! She’d always been Valzick! No matter the efforts to which Suhail had gone to stamp it out of her… no matter that she’d grown so used to here, so used to him... that hardly erased who she was at her core, did it?
“Answer him,” the lieutenant said, an edge to his voice. “And if remember, if you lie, we will find out.”
“I… used to be,” Linza said. The closest thing to what they wanted to hear that, after all this time in Meltaim, didn’t feel somehow ingenuine. “But then… I came here.”
“Came here,” Tielo said, “or were you brought here?”
“Brought.” Linza’s throat was dry.
“When?”
“A few years ago.”
“And where did you live in Valzaim?” Tielo asked-- perhaps expecting that, if she were lying here, she’d come up with the most well-known and populous city, Valla, even though the Meltaiman raiders never made it anywhere near that far south.
Instead, Linza murmured, “Malte. It’s by the sea.”
The lieutenant swore, and at first Linza thought this meant he didn’t believe her-- especially given the look of disgust now wholly covering his face. But then, as he reached out a gentle hand and laced his fingers through hers, Linza realized his disgust was directed for her, not at her.
“Malte,” he repeated, drawing her toward the carriage door. “A lovely village, aye. I had an aunt who lived there when I was a boy. I’m sure you’ve parents there who have been missing you horribly, ah--?”
“Linza,” she said. A trigger response. But then, upon deeper consideration, she bit her lip and amended, “Or… that’s what they call me here. But I had a different name back at home. Before.”
“And what was that?” the lieutenant asked softly.
“Chelsey,” she said. “Chelsey Barrow.”
“Well, pleased to meet you, Chelsey Barrow. My name is Lieutenant Hanan, and I’m overjoyed to be the one to help take you home. Now…” As Chelsey reached the open carriage door, Hanan hesitated. “I think,” he said slowly, “it might be best if I carried you, Miss Barrow. And if you closed your eyes until I told you otherwise.”
“Why?” Chelsey murmured, craning her neck to try to look around the flank of soldiers standing before the carriage, but unable to see beyond the human wall they formed.
“I… merely think certain sights are best left unseen by little ones, Chelsey.”
She nodded her head, but peeked anyway when he carried her by-- gazing at the bodies of the fallen, laid upon the blood-soaked earth in a too-tidy line, their dead eyes gazing vacantly up at the moonless sky above. Some of them were Valzicks, their uniforms ribboned and torn, but most of them wore gleaming armour painted in Suhail’s silver-and-yellow. Even in the darkness, she could tell which among them was the margrave, and seeing him there… still and bloodied, just another corpse amongst so many corpses…
“There’s another child,” she whispered into Hanan’s sleeve, as she squeezed her eyes back shut again. “At the castle where I lived.”
“Another Valzick?” Hanan asked.
“No,” Chelsey said. “I don’t know what he is. Or… even if he’s still alive, really. But… they took him, too. Like they did me. And if he is alive”-- please, let the accident Suhail had claimed to the emperor be but an excuse, Cilla’s comment at the dining table nothing more than an ill-crafted metaphor--“he needs help. Badly.”
“I’m sure he does, Chelsey,” Hanan said, his voice strained but soothing.
But it was what he didn’t say that made her squirm. “You won’t help him?” she murmured.
“You… should try to get some rest, Miss Barrow,” Hanan said simply. “It’ll be a long walk back to our camp, and I don’t mind carrying you if it means you can get some sleep. It’s very, very late, after all.”
“He’s the one who thought he was going to get to go home one day,” Chelsey said. “I gave up, but Ishvi…”
“Shh, it’s okay,” Hanan said. “Get some sleep, Miss Barrow, and I promise you-- you’ll soon be home, and it’ll all be okay.” This brief little two-part fic was spawned by some questions that occurred to Shinko and me when we were writing the second arc of Only Magic. So, think of it as a side fic of sorts. =D Featuring dear Izydor, in March of 1325 (so three years after the events of arc two). Collab with Shinko. Going Home: Part One Sprawled beneath a tartan quilt atop an imposing four-poster bed, the two boys were as pale and still as porcelain dolls. Their backs to each other, their chests rose and fell only lightly, their lips frozen open and their eyes firmly shut. Shafts of sunlight from the window on the far wall cast broken highlights across their bodies, illuminating scattered snatches of them: the littler one’s cowlicked hair, so blond it was nearly white; the older one’s long dark lashes, glossy as spider’s silk; the way each boy had his jaw clenched, as though even from within the depths of unconsciousness, he was tense about something. Pained. Miserable. Standing beneath the doorway across the room, Izydor Gorski, the long-reigning margrave of Daire province, felt his heart twist. He walked further into the room, watching as the children labored for breath, seeming to hover somewhere between life and death. His jaw clenched, and he turned towards the uniformed man who was standing near the wall on the side of the room. “Macarinth, wasn’t it?” Izydor asked. “Where our men rescued them from?” The man nodded, smiling thinly-- pityingly-- down at the children. “We think the older boy’s around… nine, perhaps ten. The littler no more than six.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, the soul binding process was already heavily underway.” Gingerly, he reached toward the older boy, who was closest to him, and lifted his limp arm up from where it was tucked beneath the blanket. Gesturing to a sliver of skin on the child’s wrist, which was noticeably whiter than the rest of his flesh, the soldier added, “They had their conduit bracelets already, my lord. So that they could share their magic. We had to cut them off.” “Disgusting,” Izydor growled. “Perverting the souls of children in such a way, when they’re too small to resist or understand.” He sighed. “How long, have the healers said? I presume you have already undertaken the proper rituals to begin the process of undoing the merge? Simply removing the conduit bracelets only negates their ability to share power.” “It’s actually complete,” the man replied, dropping the boy’s wrist and gently folding it back beneath the covers. “That’s, ah-- why they’re heavily sedated, my lord… because unfortunately, the aftereffects are rather painful. We’ve drugged them for their own welfare, you could say. The healers plan on beginning to slowly bring them to within the next few days. Easing them out of it.” A beat. “Of course, they’ll be… physically separated before then, as well. It’s been agreed upon that since they’ll be going to separate homes anyway, it would be merely be harmful for them to… wake up to each other’s company. Particularly with the severing of the soul binding still raw.” “No doubt,” Izydor agreed. “And if they were kept together they might have a harder time adjusting in any case. Poor things- they’re only children...” The margrave of Daire paced around the side of the bed, looking over both of the little boys. He could still scarcely believe that Sebellius had chosen him above all other margraves in Meltaim to take on a child of the Gods’ Campaigns. While it had been some three years since the shame of his adopted daughter Zuzanna’s betrayal and Izydor’s shaming in the aftermath, he still hadn’t expected to be forgiven already. But this could be nothing else- a subtle, implicit gesture from the emperor to let Izydor know that his good behavior had won him back into Sebellius’ good graces. “Well,” he went on briskly. “If anyone can help them to recover from this unfortunate but necessary trauma, it will be myself and Margrave Piatek. My triplets are eager to welcome a new little sibling to spoil, and Suhail has long lamented that his Linza might be less broody if she had a playmate.” “I understand that because this is your first campaign child but Margrave Piatek’s second, Emperor Sebellius has allowed you first choice between the boys?” the soldier asked pleasantly, as though he were discussing who between Suhail and Izydor had been given selection preference over-- oh, what dish each man was going to cook for a potluck. “You arrived very quickly from Pastora,” he added; they were presently in a military fort in northeastern Erlea province, not far from the borders with Macarinth and Lange both. “We were not expecting you for another few days, my lord.” Izydor chuckled softly. “You have never dealt with the emperor then- one does not keep his imperial majesty waiting.” Wistfully the margrave added, “Besides- my own children are nearing their twelfth year. I miss having younglings around.” His eyes flicked between both boys. “The older will be stronger, and closer of an age with my current children… but the younger has a sweet look to him.” A smile ticking at his mouth Izydor added, “And one does not see hair so like sunlight on snow often in Meltaim.” “There were a few older blank children with the little one when we rescued these two,” the soldier said. “Hair just as fair. He was being raised with them, we think. As they so often do in Macarinth.” The man shuddered. “They were sent for auction in Coemgein.” The margrave shook his head, his lip curling downwards. “Blanks; they never change. Well the child is where he belongs now, and will be given a family far more suited to his talents.” But the question remained. Izydor’s family, or Suhail’s? Which of these children would Izydor bring home with him to Pastora, to be his own son? According to the dogma, taking on a mage child from unsuited parents was simply correcting a misdelivered soul- the child should have belonged to you to begin with, they were just born somewhere else. An accident of the cosmos. So perhaps the gods would help Izydor to know which of these boys was finally coming to his home. Sending up a silent prayer, Izydor reached out a hand to each of the boys, gently stroking their sweat-matted hair away from their eyes. The older one let out a small noise of distress, and with his eyes still shut he recoiled from Izydor’s touch like a hand from a hot stove. He flopped away, sharply, his limbs getting tangled in the quilt as he did, and even when the soldier immediately moved to readjust the covers, the child did not stir further. The younger boy, meanwhile, did not react at all at first, remaining stock still as Izydor’s hand brushed across his forehead. Then, very, very slowly, his eyes fluttered open. Crusted from sleep, they were a cool, dark brown, nearly a night and day contrast with his platinum locks and ash-pale skin. “Papa?” he murmured, his voice little more than a breathy haze as his filmy pupils settled on Izydor. The margrave felt his heart skip a beat, and for a few seconds he forgot to breathe. Then, a warm smile flooded over his face, and he gave the younger boy’s head another soft, gentle stroke. “Shhhh,” he shushed the child, kneeling at the bedside and planting a gentle kiss on his forehead. The boy whimpered in turn, gaze lingering on Izydor for only a moment longer before, as though they were weighted with iron, his eyelids fell shut again. The margrave gave the boy one last gentle brush across his cheek, then stood and faced the soldier. “It is as the doctrine says- the soul knows what even the conscious mind does not. I daresay the gods could not have sent a clearer sign.” The soldier bowed his head. “The littler one, then, my lord? If so, I’ll have the paperwork drafted by the morrow. And once the healers have given their all clear, you’ll be free to leave with him back for Pastora.” “It is fitting,” Izydor said. “Suhail wanted a companion for Linza, and the elder is around her same age. While I was hoping for a small child that I could nurture. Yes- the younger boy will be my son.” “Excellent, Margrave Gorski.” The man smiled. “And so-- have you thought of a name yet? For his custody writ. Since it is the emperor’s wish that all campaign children not be saddled with the names imparted on them by their heathen kingdoms of birth.” “Hmm.” Izydor’s eyes drifted to the little Macarinthian boy again, speculative. “I think… he looks like a Czes. Czeslaw Gorski. Welcome home, at long last.” *** The newly decreed Czeslaw Gorski had been weaned off the potent sedatives by the time the healers released him from the fort a few days later, though they warned that the young boy would still be exceptionally drowsy and disjointed in the days to come as the drugs worked their way out of his system. Indeed, Czes was out like a spent flame as, custody writ signed, Izydor loaded him into the carriage that would take both father and so-called son back west to Daire province. The little boy gave no other reaction than to sigh from somewhere deep within the throes of slumber as Izydor settled him on the padded bench seat, the boy’s pale cheek lolled against the margrave’s side. Izydor gazed down at the child fondly, one arm around his shoulder to hold the child steady and comfort him. It was hours before the boy stirred further, emerging from this drug-induced slumber like a baby bird from an egg: in tiny pecks and increments, little twitches of movement that slowly segued into small, restless noises, until eventually his eyes flickered open. Unlike before, back at the fort, he managed to keep awake for more than a few moments, letting out a heavy yawn as he shakily, lethargically moved a hand toward his eyes, rubbing at them in obvious disorientation. Izydor, who knew well that the boy wouldn’t know a lick of Meltaiman, had been studying some relevant words and phrases of the child’s mother-tongue in preparation for just this moment, and smiled. The proud new father rubbed Czeslaw’s arm gently and murmured in choppy Macarinthian, “ Good morning, little one. How you feeling?” Slowly, as his jaw began to chatter even though the carriage was not at all chilly, the child’s eyes lifted up toward Izydor. As it seemed to register with him that he was cuddled in the arms of a stranger, he attempted to pull away, but in his wavery state only managed to nearly go tumbling off the seat, only saved from the floor below when Izydor hooked his hands under the child’s armpits. The margrave gently pulled him back into a steady position again, making soft, soothing noises. “ No need for scared,” he crooned. “ You are safe. I take you home.” “ W-where’s Traherne?” The boy’s voice shook with each syllable, though it was unclear if this was from fear or merely his torpid bewilderment. More than likely, it was both. “ I… I want Traherne.” The margrave didn’t recognize this word. Tilting his head, his hand still stroking the child’s arm to soothe him, Izydor asked, “ What is Traherne? I don’t understand you.” “ Traherne,” the boy insisted, his dark eyes growing glossy. “ My partner.” His breath hitched. “ Where’d he go? W-where…” “Ah,” Izydor gave the boy a look full of sympathy. “ Sent to new Papa. He are safe. You are safe. I take you home.” “ New papa?” The so-called Czeslaw attempted to back away from Izydor again, more slowly this time, as tears began to dribble down his cheeks. “ Where’s my papa? And Mama? And… and… Ceely and Jess--” Izydor put a hand to his chest. “Papa,” he said simply. “ I take you home. You are safe. Safe. Safe.” He repeated the word in Meltaiman, figuring it was never too early to start teaching the boy simple words in the language he would need to achieve fluency in soon enough. The child looked somewhere between confused and despondent. “ W-we’re goin’ home? To Papa?” It was no longer just his jaw quivering, but his entire body, as though he were fighting a fever that was about to break. “ W-who are you?” “ I your papa,” the margrave clarified. The poor child, he must have been so confused. As far as he was concerned he’d been abducted in the night, drugged, and now was waking up in the arms of a stranger. But he’d settle, given time and patience, Izydor was confident of that. Smiling he added, “ My name Izydor Gorski. I your papa.” “ N-no.” The boy hiccupped. “ My papa... he… he’s a s-soldier… he…” As he crossed his arms at his waist, something seemed to occur to him. “ W-where’s my wand?” Izydor understood “where” and “my” but the final word didn’t click. “I don’t understand you,” he said simply, and repeated the phrase in Meltaiman. The child patted his hip-- then, as he noticed the wand holster Izydor wore, lurched a hand out toward it, his fingers skimming the supple leather. “ My wand. Papa s-spent a month’s wages on it, he’s goin’ to be so mad, he--” The margrave had jumped a little when the child lurched for the wand, but a split-second later realized he was just indicating it to explain what he was babbling about. “Ah. Wand,” he said, pointing to the instrument and giving the word for it in Meltaiman. Looking at the boy keenly, he repeated the word, twice more, and made a beseeching gesture at him. “... W-wand,” the child repeated, the unfamiliar word leaden on his tongue. “ Where’s mine?” “Where is mine,” Izydor corrected in Meltaiman. He repeated the phrase in Macarinthian, then parroted it in Meltaiman. The boy, despite his vast-- and still growing-- confusion, at least caught on quickly as to what Izydor was attempting to do, and tremulously repeated back (a heavily butchered version of) the Meltaiman transliteration. He was steadily hiccupping now, the tears tracking down his cheeks in a salty stream, and his near-ebony eyes rimmed red. Izydor took pity on the boy, immediately aborting the impromptu language lessons and making shushing noises, holding out both hands palm-up placatingly. “ No need for scared. You are safe,” he repeated. After a moment’s hesitation, then margrave reached for the boy- still pressed against the wall of the carriage in fear- and pulled him into his lap. The child only flinched once at the sudden touch before slumping his shoulders, either too exhausted to fight back or merely aware of the fact that his tiny, bird-like form was no match against the imposing Meltaiman. “ I w-want Mama,” he whimpered, pressing his teary eyes against Izydor’s tunic. “ Please.” Izydor’s heart wrenched. This was one thing he couldn’t give the child. His wife had died over eleven years ago, giving life to the margrave’s triplets. Not knowing how to respond, Izydor instead rubbed the little boy’s back, making soothing noises. “I’m so sorry, Czeslaw,” he murmured to the boy. “I’m so, so sorry.” For several moments, the child did not reply. Only nestled tighter against the near-stranger, as if merely out of a desperation to have somebody to cling to at all. His fingers hooking over Izydor’s shoulders, he buried his face into the nape of the margrave’s neck, so that the ends of his tousled white-blond locks brushed against the man’s chin. Izydor said nothing, but continued to stroke the child’s back, his opposite arm gently holding the boy close. “ A-are you really takin’ me home?” he sniffled. “ To Papa?” “ I your papa, Czeslaw,” Izydor repeated softly. “ I take you home.” “ Ches… ches… law?” The boy yet again tripped over the unfamiliar sounds. “ What’s that?” The margrave chuckled softly. Pointing to himself, he said, “My name is Izydor. Izydor.” Pointing to the child, he said. “Your name is Czeslaw. Czeslaw.” The child pulled back from Izydor’s neck, narrowing his reddened eyes as he turned them toward the margrave’s smiling face. “ I-I’m Nathan,” he mewled. “ Not… not… Ches-law.” Having expected this, Izydor only gave the boy a consoling pat on the head, ruffling his platinum-blonde locks. “No. Czeslaw,” he corrected. Czeslaw-nee-Nathan opened his lips again, as if to retort, before with another wracking whimper he seemed to think better of it. Instead the little boy only snuffled again, wilting like a flower beneath heavy rain as he crumpled back against Izydor, pressing his cheek against the margrave’s chest, his small fingers clinging to the finely tailored fabric like a drowning man might to the only piece of solid debris amid a thrashing sea. As if he knew there was little comfort to be found in it-- in Izydor-- but in his hysterical confusion could think of nothing else to do. The margrave felt his heart twist at the little boy’s clear distress, and hugged Czeslaw as tightly as he could without frightening him further. “ No need for scared. You are safe,” the margrave repeated again, kissing the boy lightly on the top of the head. Gently stroking his back, Izydor added, “ Sleep, maybe? You… feel better. Sleep.” *** The rest of the trip to Pastora passed in a blur of confusion for the child formerly known as Nathan. Izydor did his best to console the little one, reassuring him over and over that he was safe, a mantra he gradually switched from Macarinthian to Meltaiman. He gently encouraged the boy to repeat it- “No need for fear, I am safe”- and after initial tearful resistance, the child eventually folded, whispering the words back as Izydor beamed and rubbed boy’s head- no doubt aching from the crying he was doing. By the time the arrived back to the capital of Daire, Izydor had drilled Czeslaw in the phrase so much he probably recited it in his dreams, encouraging him to whisper it whenever he became overly distressed. As the gates to the Iron Castle swung open, and Izydor emerged into the bright sunlight with his new son, he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Smiling gently at the boy, he said “ Home. Home.” Czes, looking so very slight as he stood beside Izydor, his fingers threaded lightly through the margrave’s, gaped in wide-eyed shock at the massive stone castle that towered ahead. Against the backdrop of a pale spring sky, it looked stark. Almost imposing. The boy’s chin snapped up, his heels digging into the spongy earth below. “ Y-you live here?” he rasped, adding a moment later, “ Papa’ll come pick me up from here?” “ I your papa,” Izydor corrected, not for the first time. He wasn’t sure if the boy was confused or simply in denial, but either way he was determined to remain patient with him. “ This Iron Castle. Home.” In spite of the boy’s continued bewilderment, Izydor quickly settled him in- not in the nursery, where his triplets-- and Zuzanna-- had lived when they were small, but into a spare sitting room in his own suite, hastily converted during his trip to pick up the child into a makeshift bedroom. Though perhaps not as luxurious and expertly decorated as the rest of the family dwellings in the Iron Castle, with a bed covered in heavy fur and velvet sheets, shelves loaded with toys and games, and an ancient, plush armchair stuffed with goose down, it was far and above anything that Czes had ever known before. And being attached to Izydor’s suite, it was close enough that the margrave could be there in seconds if the boy became distressed. “ Is it made of bears?” the boy asked, pausing as he trailed about the room like a lost duckling to run his fingers through the plush fur blanket atop the bed. It was the perhaps the first conversational thing he’d said to Izydor in all this time, the child’s voice still riddled with confusion but at least a dollop less misery as he added, “ Papa says skins and furs are too ‘spensive. So we just got wool.” Izydor had understood perhaps a quarter of this, but he couldn’t help smiling at the boy’s wonder as he stroked the fur. “ Bed yours,” he said cheerfully. “ Is soft, yes? Be good? You like?” Czes nodded timidly. “ Are Ceely and Jess and Traherne goin’ to come?” Izydor shook his head reluctantly. “ Just yours. They… other homes.” Determined to divert the topic of his bonded partner and blank siblings, Izydor proceeded to show Czes his new toys and games. Though he longed to introduce the boy to his new siblings as well, the margrave felt it was probably better to wait until he had settled and adapted more fully. Overloading him with too much too fast would only make the child backslide. The next several weeks were confusing ones for Czeslaw, to say the least. He was seldom allowed out of his room- the door kept firmly magelocked- and when he was it was only into Izydor’s larger suite, under the margrave’s supervision. Though he was assigned a nurse to keep him company and see to his needs and safety while Izydor was working, the margrave made it a point to personally bring the child all of his meals, as well as any new toys or treats, and personally tucked him into bed every night. Aside from trying to bond with his newfound son, Izydor also did his best to teach the boy Meltaiman, and encouraged the nurse to do the same. He taught him a number of simple words and phrases he might commonly need- “I’m hungry, I’m bored, I’m tired, hold me, please, thank you,” and so on. As he picked up and memorized these phrases, Izydor and the nurse conditioned him to get into the habit of actually using them. When he tried to say something in Macarinthian that he knew the Meltaiman words for, he was roundly ignored- but when he used Meltaiman, the request was seen to promptly with a tremendous amount of positive reinforcement and fanfare. The triplets, when they were introduced to the boy at the end of his first month in Pastora, continued this pattern, lavishing him with praise whenever he used Meltaiman as if he were the best child in the world-- and smiling thinly at him without response (theirs borne of genuine confusion since they knew not a word of the boy’s mother tongue) whenever he attempted to slip into Macarinthian. Although it was clear through this time that the newly minted Czeslaw remained vastly confused by the situation at large, he was also sharp enough to fairly quickly catch on to what was expected of him in day-to-day matters. Though the boy still at times asked after his mama and papa, as well as his siblings and Traherne, slowly these requests began to wane. He no longer gave voice to the notion that his father would be by to fetch him shortly, or at least not nearly as often; when he woke up screaming in the middle of the night, sweat-drenched from a nightmare, he began to let Izydor hold and soothe him rather than sob for Mama or Ceely. He stopped resisting and correcting when Izydor called him Czeslaw; if he still thought his name was Nathan, he didn’t show it anymore. By the time the crisp spring season started to give way to an unusually warm summer, Czes had managed to go an entire week without asking for his birth family or Traherne, and two weeks without any mention of the name Nathan. The furs on his bed had been replaced with a light cotton quilt, and one night as a wicked storm raged outside, the muggy midnight air howling with wind and shaking with deafening claps of thunder, the child lay wide awake, trembling. He flinched as another boom of thunder sounded, then sat bolt upright as a flash of lightning illuminated the room. Tears pricked at his eyes, and he blinked them back. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he shucked the thin blanket and stood from the bed, his bare feet light as they padded against the parquet floor. His hand shook as he wrapped his fingers around the brass doorknob, turning it; but of course it was locked, and it did not give. Fighting back a whimper, Czes rattled it again, harder this time. Another crash of thunder sounded, so close it felt like it rattled his bones, and the little boy gave up his battle against the threatening tears. Panic rising in him, he gave the doorknob a third twist, but just as he did, heavy footsteps sounded from beyond, and within seconds, there was a slight flash of pale blue light from the keyhole. Then, the door swung inwards with the force of Czes’ yanking on the knob, and Izydor stepped into the room, dressed only in a nightshirt. He’d felt the ward he set on the door sound off when the child tried to tamper with it, and fully expected to find the child attempting an escape. Czes, however, seemed to be harbouring no such intentions, the boy only choking out a sob of relief as his eyes snapped up toward the margrave’s now-familiar face. “T-the sky’s mad,” he stammered in Meltaiman that was fractured not only on account of the language’s newness to him. “W-why’s it so mad?” Izydor was briefly startled, but then realization hit him- Czes wasn’t attempting to escape his room. He had just become frightened by the storm. Blue eyes full of sympathy, Izydor immediately scooped the terrified child into his arms and hugged him close. “It’s only a storm, Czes,” he soothed. “The storms are stronger in the mountains, but it won’t hurt you. Remember your chant? No need for fear, I am safe. Say it with Papa, okay? No need for fear, I am safe.” The child repeated the words softly beneath his breath, wrapping his arms around Izydor’s neck as he did so that he clung to the margrave like a tick. “I-I don’t like it,” he choked out. “The w-window keeps… keeps…” Izydor glanced at the window, the glass vibrating loudly with the force of the wind from the gale outside. “Rattling,” he offered to Czes. “The window keeps rattling.” He nuzzled the boy’s tow colored head. “I’m sorry, Czes. It is very loud isn’t it?” He hesitated a beat, then said, “Would… you like it if Papa stayed in here? With you? Or you can come and sleep with me in my bed.” “I-I don’t wanna stay in here.” Czes sniffled, his fingers digging into Izydor as yet another snarl of thunder sounded outside. “ Please,” the boy whimpered. The margrave shushed Czeslaw, carrying him out of the bedroom and into the larger suite. Though Izydor briefly considered taking Czes into his room, it occurred to him that it too had a window to the outside. This central space, however, which served as a connecting room of sorts between the other areas of the suite, was interior to the castle and had no outside walls. The sounds from the wind, rain, and thunder were much less in here. The only furniture in this room consisted of a trio of couches, but it was the work of a few flicks of his wand to move two of the couches together into a makeshift bed and summon the pillows and blankets from his room. “You want to stay here with me for tonight?” he asked gently. “Look- I made us a little bed. We can camp. It’ll be fun.” “You won’t leave me?” Czeslaw whispered, his face buried against Izydor’s shoulder. “Of course not,” Izydor soothed, his eyes and voice soft and a gentle smile on his face. His son wanted his comfort and company- didn’t want him to leave. The margrave hugged the boy tight to his chest, and then gently eased them both onto the makeshift bed. “I’ll be right here with you all night.” Izydor lay Czes down beside him, and drew up the blankets, which Czeslaw burrowed into like a dog into its den. Then, stroking the boy’s head, Izydor murmured. “Papa loves you, and he’ll protect you always. Now let’s say your chant alright? ‘No need for fear. I am safe.’” “No need for fear,” Czes repeated softly, an arm wrapped around Izydor’s chest. “I… I am safe.” He bit his lip. “P-promise you won’t leave?” he repeated, as if just to hear it again. “N-not even once I fall back asleep?” Izydor kissed the child’s forehead. “I promise. Sleep, Czes. Papa loves you, and he’ll be right here next to you when you wake up.” “O-okay,” Czes whispered. “T-thank you.” “Of course, honey.” It took some time for the boy to fall back asleep, Czes nested tight against Izydor. But finally his breathing leveled off, his body relaxing as sleep claimed him again. As the boy nestled into his chest, sound asleep and secure, Izydor found himself lingering awake, gently stroking Czeslaw’s head in something akin to wonder. Since that one instance back at the camp, when Czes had called him “Papa” from the depths of his drug-addled mind, the boy had shown no sign of deliberately seeking comfort from his adoptive father. He’d accepted when Izydor offered it first, but tonight marked the first big milestone- the first time Czes looked to Izydor as a parent instead of a confusing but benevolent captor. “I think,” he murmured softly, “that it’s time for you to start earning your proper privileges as a son of the Gorski family. And I know just the place to start, tomorrow morning.” Going Home: Part Two “Gabi,” Izydor called, peeking into the bedroom of his daughter and heir. “Gabrijela? Are you dressed, love?”
“One second!” The high female voice, accompanied by the sounds of rapid fumbling, floated toward Izydor. … Something clattered against the floor. “Godsdamnit.”
“Gabi!” Izydor called sternly, striding into the room.“Is that any way for a lady of rank to talk?”
“Um.” Eleven-year-old Gabrijela, crouched down on the floor as she reached beneath a dark wood desk to fetch a fallen iron inkpot (presumably the source of the racket), turned her head to grin sheepishly at her father. Her jet black hair, wiry as a boar’s bristles, was frizzed in a haphazard braid over her shoulder, while she had one foot bare and the other jammed into a leather boot. “Sorry,” she said. “I just-- um... “ She paused, as if she were considering lying, before her eye fell briefly to the piece of parchment on the desk, its ink still wet. Deflating, she finished, “… Definitely wasn’t trying to finish a scroll my runework tutor wanted by yesterday?”
The margrave scowled, hands on his hips. “Gabrijela Gorski, you mean to tell me you’ve been shirking your runework assignments? By all the gods, you’re supposed to be the responsible one! When you take my place as margrave you can’t be forever putting off work because you think it’s boring or unpleasant.”
“I wasn’t putting it off,” the girl insisted, rising to her feet with the overturned inkpot in hand. At least its cap had stayed on, and it hadn’t spilled. “I just… forgot? I meant to do it two nights ago, but Tobiasz got me all caught up in a game of chess, and--” She cut herself off, seeming to read the look of irritation on her father’s face. “I’m sorry. I like runework. I just… forgot. It won’t happen again.”
Izydor rubbed his face. “I hope so, young lady.” Quirking an eyebrow he added, “Or perhaps I had better ask Felicks to come with me into town today instead.”
Gabi straightened at once. “Town?” she echoed. Then: “No, I-- I promise. I can come into town. Please?”
The margrave was silent, as if hesitating, then quirked a smile. “Finish up that scroll,” he said. “By ten o’clock. Then perhaps you can still come with me. We’re going on a very special trip today- Czes is finally ready for his first proper wand.”
“Oooh.” Gabi grinned. “I’ll have it done by then, I promise.”
Sure enough, Gabrijela had the scroll in question completed by ten, and Izydor led his daughter upstairs and into Czeslaw’s bedroom, where the boy was having his pale locks combed into something resembling tidiness by his nurse.
“Czes,” Izydor said cheerfully. “Your big sister and I have a special surprise for you today.”
“A surprise?” Czes turned to study Izydor and Gabi, his brow creased.
“Yes,” the margrave confirmed. “You’ve been such a good boy lately, and I’m very proud of you. We’re going to take you to the market today, so you can finally have a wand made just for you- as any proper young mage should have.”
“A wand?” Czeslaw was on his feet in an instant, the nurse’s hands falling away from his hair. The boy seemed to be fighting back a grin-- a battle that he quickly lost. “Just like my old one?”
“Better,” Gabi said brightly. The girl patted her own wand, which was holstered at her hip with just its gleaming silver cap visible. “Papa’s going to get it all trimmed up. Just like mine and his and the boys’.”
“That’s right,” Izydor said with a smile. “Though of course your wood and core have to be made for you, you can get any metal, carvings, or gemstones you like. A wand is a mage’s most important tool, after all, so money doesn’t matter- it should be exactly as you like it.”
Here, the boy faltered. “A-are you sure?” he asked. “‘Cos that’s… that’s…” He gulped. “It took P-Papa a long time to get money. For my old wand.”
“I’m your papa now,” Izydor corrected gently. “And I am a margrave. A noble. I can afford whatever you want, my son.”
“‘Kay.” Czes gnawed on his lip, his eyes flitting between Gabi and the margrave. “Is… the market in the castle?”
At this the margrave laughed outright. “No, Czes. It’s in the city. We’re going out of the castle, and into the city.” He held up a hand. “But we need to put down some rules before we go, okay?”
“‘Kay,” the boy said again, scowling as his nurse stood to run the comb through his gnarled locks one last time. “What kinda rules?”
“First rule,” the margrave said, holding up one finger. “You hold Papa’s hand when we’re out on the streets. All the time. It’s very crowded out there and I don’t want you accidentally parting from me. Second-” the margrave now held up two fingers. “You mind me, and the knights that will come with us. If we tell you to do something, you do it right away. Immediately. Don’t ask why or wait. Third, you don’t talk to any strangers without permission. Fourth…”
Here, Izydor gave Czeslaw’s nose a tweak and grinned. “Smile, little man. This is a big day for any young mage, and you should be proud.”
Czeslaw drew his cheeks in, poker-faced. “Do we hafta ride in the carriage?” he asked.
“Please no,” Gabi put in before Izydor could reply. “It’s nice out, Papa. All the stormclouds are gone and it smells like rain and--”
“Alright, alright,” Izydor said, flapping a hand dismissively. “We’ll walk. Just stay close to me and the knights, alright? That includes you, Gabi, or you’ll be holding my hand too.”
Gabrijela recoiled as if Izydor had just suggested she bathe in acid, the girl dutifully staying only a few paces ahead of her father and Czes once they began out into the city so as to avoid this terrible fate. Though true Gabi’s assessment the thunderheads had cleared, the streets of Pastora were still damp, glistening with puddles that caught beneath the bright sun’s rays. Even at the early hour, it was perhaps a notch hotter than would be strictly comfortable, but the humidity at least had lifted some, and a pleasant breeze caressed the air. The central marketplace, with the wide boulevard called High Street bisecting its western and eastern halves, was crowded as always, vendors’ cries tangling in the wind like a shrill symphony. Gabi and Izydor, well used to the noise, barely batted an eye at the cacophony, but as they plunged deeper into the market’s depths, Czes-- his hand clutched obediently to Izydor’s-- began to fidget, his shoulders drawn as he chewed on his lip as though it were taffy.
Noticing this, Izydor looked down at his son and smiled, stroking the boy’s head with his free hand. “It’s fine, Czes. I promise, it’s loud, but you’re safe with me and our knights.”
“There’s lots of people,” Czes murmured in return.
“It’s okay,” Gabi put in, glancing over her shoulder to spare the boy a reassuring smile. “It’s crowded, and it’s loud, but that’s all. Nothing to worry about, Czes.”
“‘Kay,” he whispered. The boy flicked his eyes up toward Izydor. “Almost there?”
“Almost,” Izydor agreed. “There are wandmakers all over town, but the best one is close to the High Street.”
Sure enough, in another five minutes they arrived at the immaculate brick storefront of a ritzy looking wand shop. Various gleamingly polished wands were visible in the window, as well as an open cushioned box of winking jewels, and an array of feathers, claws, and bound bundles of animal hair. A sign above the door advertised it as “Eligia’s Wand Emporium.”
Izydor pushed open the door of the establishment, setting the bell above the frame jangling. Inside, there were shelves loaded with boxes, jars, and bowls of various wand core materials; displays of half-finished, empty wands in a plethora of woods; sheets of copper, silver, platinum and gold; and a glass counter which contained hundreds of multicolored gemstones on cushioned displays. The sound of the bell summoned a silver haired woman, her face as wrinkled as a raisin, from the counter across the room.
“Margrave Gorski,” she murmured respectfully, curtseying. “I received the message you sent for me this morning, and I have made ready as you asked.” Her eyes flicked to Czeslaw curiously. “This little one the lucky boy?”
“He is. This is my son, Czeslaw,” Izydor replied, gently guiding the boy forwards. “Czes, this is Madam Eligia Cichy. She’s going to help you make your new wand.”
“H-hello,” the boy said softly, watching through the corner of his eye as Gabrijela immediately drifted toward the gem counter, the older girl gazing wistfully down at the rainbow of gleaming jewels. Noticing this too, Izydor coughed to catch her attention.
“Hands to ourselves, Gabi,” he reminded her. “Remember, we’re here for Czes, not for you.”
“Yes, Papa.” She sighed, turning back toward her father, Czes, and Madam Cichy.
“So,” Madam Cichy said, gesturing towards a cushioned bench in the middle of the shop, which Izydor guided Czes to and sat on it with him. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself, Lord Czeslaw? What sorts of games are your favorites?”
“Games?” The boy pursed his lips, shooting a hesitant look toward Izydor. “I… dunno.”
“He’s good at cards,” Gabi offered; they’d played together often over the past few months. “Better than even Tobiasz. And Tobi’s my age.”
“Oooh, a smart one, hm?” Madam Cichy asked with a smile. Izydor chuckled, stroking Czes’ back fondly.
“He’s only been here a few months, and he’s already near to perfectly fluent in his Meltaiman.” He glanced towards Gabi, a knowing glint in his eye. “When Czes starts in his lessons properly, you and the boys will have to watch out that he doesn’t make you all look bad.”
Gabi rolled her eyes as she settled on the bench beside her father. “Maybe Tobiasz and Felicks should be worried. But I’m not.”
Izydor laughed, tweaking his daughter’s nose. Madam Cichy smiled, covering her mouth as she did so. “Well, if he’s smart and quick to adapt… that could be owl. Or fox or raven. We’ll try with those cores. And for the wood… there’s ash for sensitivity and high awareness. Or…”
She offered the child several combinations of wand and wood, inviting him to try simple spells with them to see which matched the most readily. He was reluctant at first-- shy-- but after gentle coaxing from both Gabi and Izydor, he finally obliged, the wands looking very large in his pale, small hands. Eventually, as the child tried wand after wand mutely except for muttered incantations, Izydor said softly, “Well? Do you like any of them, Czes? Do any feel easier to cast with?”
The boy swept his gaze between the array of wands, shrugging slightly. “I dunno,” he whispered, hesitating a beat before he added, “M-maybe that one?” He pointed toward a long, thin wand that must have been nearly the length of his arm, crafted of a knobby, rustic pine wood. “It… felt the best, I guess.”
“Hmm,” Madam Cichy smiled and nodded. “Black pine and raven knucklebones. You are a clever one, aren’t you Lord Czeslaw?” She cleared off the materials, save for the knobbly wand. “I’ll need a better crafted one, for one such as yourself,” she noted. “But that should be easily retrieved.” She turned around, calling, “Attis! Attis, come here!”
There was a faint scuffling from a door behind the counter, and a moment later a man, his skin as dark as the wand wood on the table, poked his head out of the door. He had a bright, white circle with a slash through it on his forehead; under his left cheek was a mark that resembled the shop sign above Madam Cichy’s door; under his right cheek he had a blue triangle, as well as a few other brightly colored marks. Bowing immediately as he caught sight of the guests, he said, “Mistress?
“Fetch me a wand of black pine from the back,” she instructed. “Best quality we’ve got. And be quick about it.”
“Of course, Mistress,” he said instantly, his voice carrying traces of an unusual accent as he spoke. The man vanished into the back room again, Czeslaw’s eyes hooked on him as he disappeared, and a frown curling at the corners of the little boy’s lips.
“W-why’s his face got so much colours?” he asked. Thinking about it, he’d seen several similarly marked people on the streets as they’d walked from the castle to this shop, a realization that made the child’s frown deepen. “Is… is it paint?”
Izydor gave a wan smile. “No, Czes- those were brands. He’s a blank- a being with no magic. We have blanks at the castle too, you just haven’t seen them because you haven’t left your room much. Blanks work for mages, and they have the marks so that we know what they are.”
The boy furrowed his brow. “... Oh. H-he works here?”
“For Madam Cichy, yes,” Izydor replied. “He’s her blank. That’s what the mark on his left cheek means. Ours have different ones because they belong to us.” Sensing that this was probably a conversation better had in detail another time, he shrugged. “Blanks aren’t important, Czes, you can just ignore them.”
Before the child could offer any reply, Attis returned with a rectangular box in hand. He offered the box to Madam Cichy, who waved a hand to dismiss him back to the bowels of the shop. Removing the lid, she revealed a wand of the same wood as the knobbly one, but this model was completely smooth, straight, and polished until it gleamed under the store’s magelights. “Here we go, much better,” she said cheerfully, taking a handful of the raven bones and gently slipping them one at a time into an opening at the base of the instrument. Once this was done, she took a small cork of wood of the same type as the rest of the wand and used it to plug the hole- an incantation was sufficient to bind the cork permanently.
“Now comes the fun part, Czes,” Izydor said, ruffling his hair. “Gabi, would you like to help your brother make his wand truly fitting for a young nobleman?”
Gabi grinned. “So on a scale of one to ten, one being… a spare crown you find in the gutter, and ten being, um… the whole Iron Castle-- how amazing can I help him make it?”
Izydor quirked an eyebrow, smiling. “Remember dear that there is a fine line between ‘amazing’ and ‘tawdry.’ By all means go as glitzy as you like, but try to keep it within the realms of good taste.”
An excitable eleven, Gabrijela seemed to have no such good taste, utilizing the fact that Czes was clearly shy-- and uncomfortable with the situation-- to pick out a nearly obnoxious amount of adornments for his wand… which Izydor helped pare down to a more reasonable level, much to his daughter’s lamenting disappointment. When all was said and done, Madam Cichy disappeared into the back to affix the selections, returning several minutes later with a smile on her face as she held the finished product out toward Czeslaw. After an initial glimpse toward Izydor, as though he were seeking permission, Czes gingerly accepted the proffered wand, simply gazing at it for a few moments before he dared trail a finger along its beveled surface. Small amethyst gems were inlaid across its barrel in a swirling pattern, offset here and there by clear, sparkling diamonds. The tip, meanwhile, had been finished with a glinting silver cap, so smooth it might have been glass.
“I… I really can have this?” Czes murmured finally, looking back up at Izydor.
He smiled, bending down and kissing the top of the boy’s head. “You really can. A true Gorski should have a proper wand, after all.”
At long last, the boy cracked a smile of his own. “T-thank you,” he breathed. Izydor felt a glow of warmth in his chest, and gave the boy a look full of fondness.
“You’re welcome,” he replied. Quirking an eyebrow, he added, “But- how about ‘Thank you, Papa,’?”
Czes hesitated, his eyes darting back and forth between the margrave and the wand, his thumb rubbing back and forth over the rod’s barrel as if he still couldn’t believe how nice it was. For an almost uncomfortably long time, the child said nothing, his lips opening and then closing again but no sounds coming out. It were as if he was fighting a battle with himself. An intricate waltz taking place in his head, as he seemed to realize what it meant: to accept this wand. To say the words that Izydor wanted him to say. To give in, finally and fully, and yield that last scrap of submission-- concession-- that he hadn’t yet dared.
Izydor, as Gabi shifted anxiously on the balls of her feet beside him, watched mutely as the boy seemed to waffle. The margrave knew that the child had been deliberately avoiding addressing his surrogate father by any name or title. That he hadn’t wanted to give up the distinction in his head between his birth father and this new caretaker. But Izydor was confident- he’d already seen the child’s soul recognize him for what he was. It was just a matter of bringing head and heart in synch with one another.
The margrave knelt, holding out a hand invitingly to the child, and giving him a tender, affectionate smile. Czes quailed for a moment more, eyes plunging down toward the wand one final time… before, with a shaky breath, he reached his free hand out toward the margrave. Delicately hooking his fingers through Izydor’s, the man’s palm warm against his.
“T-thank you, Papa,” the little boy whispered. And there was something strangled to his voice. Something sad. “I r-really like it,” he added. “A lot.”
Though Izydor could easily hear the bitter despair in the child’s voice at giving this final concession, he did not take it personally. As with the snapping of the pair bond, this severing too would come with pain. It was the only world the child had ever known, after all. Izydor had been through this same scenario, once before, with his adopted daughter Zuzanna. So he knew exactly what to do.
Gripping the hand the child had placed in his, he immediately drew Czeslaw into a hug, lifting the boy off the ground and cuddling him tightly. “I’m glad, Czes,” he said, letting all the warmth he felt for this boy flood into his voice. “You are a good, good boy, a fine young man, and you deserve such a pretty wand. I love you Czeslaw- Papa loves you very, very much.”
Back at the Iron Castle that night, Izydor tucked Czes into bed as the boy’s new wand sat on the nightstand beside them, the small gems catching in the pallid moonlight that crept in through the window. Unlike the night previous, this was a calm eve, windless with a clear sky; if Czes craned his neck right, he could see out to a vast canvas of stars, spattered about like flecks of silver paint. He watched them twinkle as Izydor pulled the thin cotton blanket up to his chin, then leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.
“Sleep well, my dear,” the margrave said. “If you’re a good boy, maybe tomorrow you can play with the triplets in their rooms.”
“‘Kay.” The boy sighed, bringing his gaze from the window to Izydor. He hesitated a beat. “I’m… I’m n-not going home, am I?”
Izydor was startled by this, and couldn’t help feeling a lurch in his gut. But for the child, he only gave a smile, murmuring, “You are home, Czes. You are home.”
There was no response to this, and the margrave turned away, stifling a sigh. He loved Czeslaw- of that much he was certain. But the boy continued to be depressed and despondent. Izydor just wanted his son to be happy, and to accept his new home… but how? Feeling as frustrated and broody as Czeslaw was acting, the margrave opened the door to the boy’s bedroom and moved to walk out.
“Good night,” Izydor called over his shoulder, pulling the door to close it behind him.
But before it could catch, the boy’s voice called out, cracking: “Wait.”
Startled, Izydor paused, pushing the door open again and peering around it into the room. “What is it, Czes?”
“Could… could…” The child’s jaw shook. “C-could you stay with me? Like l-last night?” He swallowed hard. “I-I don’t wanna be alone.”
The man blinked, caught off guard by this request after Czeslaw’s earlier question. But then he smiled, and walked over to the young boy’s bed.
“Of course I can,” he said soothingly, nestling next to the boy under the covers and smoothing back his platinum blonde hair. Izydor gave Czes a hug, saying softly, “I love you, little one.”
Moving his head from the pillow to Izydor’s chest, Czes slowly shut his eyes. “I really like my w-wand,” he whispered. “All t-the gems are pretty.”
“I’m glad,” Izydor replied with a smile. “Maybe sometime soon I can arrange for you to have lessons. Would you like that?”
“Uh-huh,” the child said. “T-that’d be fun.”
“I’ll look into it then,” the margrave promised. “I’ll need someone who teaches more basic things than what the triplets are learning, but I’m sure I can find someone.” With some humor in his voice Izydor added, “But if Felicks and Tobiasz try teaching you the sparking spell, tell them no. They like to use it for all kinds of mischief.”
“Kay,” Czes agreed, yawning widely. “I won’t let ‘em.”
“Good boy,” Izydor said, though he noticed with amusement that Czes’ energy appeared to be flagging. He wrapped his arms around his son, saying, “Papa’s right here Czes. And he loves you very, very much. Now get some sleep, okay?”
“‘Kay,” Czeslaw said again, briefly opening his eyes as he gazed up toward Izydor. “T-thanks again for the wand.” And then, his voice so small one might have mistaken it for a gentle ripple of the wind, the child added, “... I-I love you, too, Papa.”
Izydor smiled a wide, beaming smile, nuzzling the child’s face with his own. Feeling a warm glow of elation in his chest, he whispered, “Sleep well, my son. You are home.”
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Post by Avery on Mar 15, 2015 22:25:41 GMT -5
The King of Valzaim Takes place back in Valzaim, a few months after the events of Linza. Featuring Joram, Chelsey, and the king of Valzaim in his very first appearance! \o/ This is all Celestial's fault. “You don’t need to be afraid, honey,” the man said, a gentle arm draped around the shoulders of the small, blonde-haired girl who sat beside him on the plush couch.
“I’m not, Papa,” the girl replied, although the tremble of her wispy voice said otherwise. Her arms crossed at her chest, she shifted in place anxiously, her eyes cast only on the closed door across the room, as though she was considering making a run for it.
Sensing this, her father sighed. “There are holy knights outside. If you tried to run, they would stop you.”
“I don’t want to meet the king,” the girl said simply.
“I know,” her father said. “But he’s not your enemy, Chelsey. And I’m here with you, aren’t I? I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise.”
If his reassuring words worked at all to soothe the fidgeting child, Chelsey didn’t show it. Her throat was outright quavering by the time footsteps sounded outside the receiving chamber some five minutes later, and as the doorknob clicked and turned, she let out an audible, miserable squeak. In turn, her father smoothed her pale, frizzy hair and shot her a gentle though firm smile-- as if at once attempting to calm her and warning her not to act foolishly. Improperly.
The king of Valzaim strode into the room.
As he did, Chelsey’s father edged himself-- and Chelsey-- toward the edge of the couch, as though to slide off it and into a bow, but Nereus waved him back. “No need-- you may stay seated, Arch-Major Barrow,” the king said, addressing him by Toby Barrow’s final military rank from his tenure in Valzaim’s magician-fielded Special Forces. Dropping into an ornate chair opposite his subjects as several of his holy knights settled at his flank, Nereus continued, “I was pleased to hear you made it to the capital without impediment. Travel from the north can be difficult this time of year.”
“The escort you provided was most helpful in assuring smooth travels, Your Hallowed Majesty,” Toby replied smoothly. His eye falling to the ornate Woocifix dangling from the king’s neck, he thought to add, “And I’m sure the Lord Woo was watching over us.”
“As is he always,” Nereus agreed, before he let his gaze fall on Chelsey. The girl was no longer merely draped in her father’s hold but practically burrowed into it, her face pressed against Toby’s chest and her green eyes pointed anywhere but at the king.
Noticing the king notice her, Toby dipped his head into a bow. “I apologize, Your Hallowed Majesty,” he said. “As you’ve probably well heard, my daughter’s had rather… unfortunate... experiences with nobility and royalty whilst in Meltaim. I’ve assured her she has nothing to be frightened of, but--”
“It’s quite alright,” Nereus interrupted. Then, to Chelsey: “I promise you, Ms. Barrow, I am nothing like the Meltaimans who hurt you. You are Valzick, are you not?”
“Y-yes, Your Hallowed Majesty,” Chelsey whispered, still tangled in her father’s hold.
“She was born in Malte,” Toby added.
“So I’ve heard,” Nereus said. “And that means, then, Ms. Barrow, that you are my subject, I am your king, and it is my duty to ensure that things like what happened to you in Meltaim stop happening-- to you or any other subject beneath my rule. And since you are the first magician child they’ve stolen whom we’ve managed to rescue, I think you’re in a unique position to be able to help me achieve this.”
“How?” Chelsey murmured. “I… I c-can hardly fight them, I…”
“I’m not going to send you to fight them-- don’t worry about that.” Nereus’s voice toward her now quite matched Toby’s: patient, soothing, gentle. “I just want you to talk to me, that’s all. I have some questions, and the answers you give me will really help me as I sort out what to do about the whole… issue.”
That, Toby thought, was a very diplomatic way of putting it. Public drunkenness was an issue. A thief cutting purses in the marketplace was an issue. What Meltaim was doing to its neighbours’ magician children…
Nevertheless, Toby forced a deep breath. “Chelsey will be glad to answer your questions, Your Hallowed Majesty,” he said.
“Splendid.” The king straightened. “So,” he began, “I know the general story, Ms. Barrow, as relayed to me by my soldiers who interviewed you immediately after your rescue. What I’m more interested in are the… little things. The quirks, so to speak. Does that make sense?”
She nodded reluctantly. “Like what?”
“You said there was another boy at the castle where you lived. Who wasn’t Valzick,” Nereus said, and when Chelsey shook her head in confirmation, he continued, “Did you meet any others, though? Valzicks?”
“No,” she said. “Never. Only Ishvi, and he was-- is”-- Woo, she still didn’t know how to speak of him, her makeshift brother existing in her mind in a nebulous state of alive and not-alive, gone but there-- “from someplace else.”
“Do you know where?”
“No.”
“What’d he look like?”
“Black hair,” Chelsey said. “Pale. I… I don’t know, he was… just a boy, he-- I think he had… his eyes were...” Woo, could she not even remember the colour of his eyes? “I don’t know,” she finished miserably. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Ms. Barrow,” the king soothed. “You’re doing fine; he was probably from Macarinth or Lange. I just wanted to know what he looked like because certain features are common in one land but not the other.” He leaned forward in his chair. “And you met the emperor, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What was he like?”
At this, Chelsey froze, her blonde brow furrowed. “What… what do you mean?” she asked.
“I know a great host of things about the Meltaiman imperial family, at least in theory,” Nereus said. “Its holdings, its philosophies, its pedigree. But that’s sort of like knowing a silhouette, Ms. Barrow. It’s hard to truly draw conclusions about your enemy when he’s scarcely more solid to you than the monster beneath your bed. I want to know what he’s like. How he carries himself. How he treats his court. The man who is Sebellius, rather than the tenuous figure I know only through stilted letters and apocryphal rumors.”
“Everyone is afraid of him,” Chelsey said. It was the only thing she could truly think to say, even now the very thought of her time in the emperor’s court drawing a bitter tang of fear to her tongue. After a hesitant pause, she tacked on, “Even Suhail was.”
“Suhail Piatek?” Nereus asked. “The margrave of Inbar?”
She nodded. “Yes, Your Hallowed Majesty.”
“What makes you think Suhail was afraid?”
“He just… was,” Chelsey said. “I could tell just by looking at him. His… body language, the way he clung to me whenever Emperor Sebellius paid attention to me-- all of it.” She bit her lip. “I think everyone was always afraid that if they said the wrong thing, they’d be the next head on a post.”
“Head on a post?” Nereus was now the one to crinkle his brow. “What do you mean by that?”
“He… kept heads.” Chelsey’s throat quavered. “The palace is in the mountains, and the path leading up to it is narrow and studded with spiked posts. With heads on them. T-the emperor always made sure to keep them… stocked, I guess. Because empty posts don’t inspire compliance.” Hesitantly, she added, “At least, that’s what Suhail told me.”
“Fear is not the same thing as respect.” Nereus frowned. “So, he rules by terror. Not unexpected, unfortunately. Did he speak to you at all about, well-- what he’s been doing? His men taking children like yourself and spiriting them away?”
“Sort of,” Chelsey said. “They call it the gods’ campaign.”
At this, Nereus let out a noise of disgust. “Heathens,” he spat. Then: “Did they make you convert?”
“Yes.” And Suhail had switched her when she’d resisted. “But… I was only pretending. I-- I didn’t mean it, Your Hallowed Majesty, I--”
“I’m not blaming you, Ms. Barrow,” he assured her. “I’m sure you remained inwardly devout to the true god. But… if that’s what they call it there, then does that imply that they think it’s ordained, what they’re doing? That it’s holy?”
“They do,” she said. “They… think all of it’s ordained. Stealing children, and keeping people without magic as… as…” Suhail had always called them servants, but somehow this term felt wrong now. Like calling a snake a worm.
“Slaves,” her father finished for her. “That’s what they are, Chelsey.”
“And such acts are the opposite of holy.” Nereus sneered. “Unfortunately, however, it makes it much harder to persuade them to stop. If they think filching magical children is what their heathen gods want…” He let out another grunt of disgust before recomposing himself with a neutral: “We’re having a nice conversation here, Ms. Barrow, wouldn’t you agree? Rational and reasonable?”
“Yes,” she said. “I suppose we are.”
“Sebellius,” the king went on. “Does he seem like the sort of person with whom one would be able to have such a conversation?”
“He… doesn’t talk with people,” Chelsey replied. “Just at them. And everyone agrees because they’re terrified.”
“How long did you spend with him again, exactly?”
“A month,” she said. “About a month.”
“And why did he want you there?”
“He… Suhail said the emperor wanted to see successes of the campaigns. W-what they could do.”
“What magic, you mean?” Nereus asked.
“He made me do a lot of spells. Until I’d get sick. Suhail didn’t like it, but, well…” She shrugged limply.
“And what spells did they teach you?” Nereus prompted. “While you were in Meltaim?”
“I… I…” At this, Chelsey’s voice drooped, and she turned to look at her father, almost desperately. As if she couldn’t stomach to talk about it, the things they’d made her do. The sort of person they’d been cultivating her into, when she was hardly old enough to mount a horse on her own, let alone cast spells that would make grown men shudder.
“They start the children early,” Toby said for her, giving his daughter’s arm a comforting squeeze. “Not in the academies like we do, learning potent magic for strictly military defensive use, but under private tutors from the time they get their first wand. And Chelsey… she’s powerful. Very powerful. The Meltaimans capitalized on that.”
“What does she know?” Nereus asked, shifting his focus from the quivering child to her father.
“Far too much,” Toby said grimly. “The rote, of course, like stunners. But not just that. She knows lancing spells. She can make blackstones”-- at this the king outwardly winced”-- “and well… she can ribbon.” He gestured with a sigh to his own face, still corded with leathery scars from his ill-fated encounter with the Meltaiman military nearly a decade ago. “That’s what he did, Your Hallowed Majesty,” Toby continued. “Made her perform dark magic for him. As far as Chelsey’s told me, she was nothing more than a showpiece to him. A horse he ran ragged simply because it delighted him to watch her run at all.”
“And what did he do, Ms. Barrow?” Nereus asked, now barely able to keep up his pleasant, diplomatic face as anger built beneath his skin. “After he made you perform these shows, forcing you to carry on until you were sick-- what was his response?”
“He would… smile,” Chelsey murmured. “And tell Suhail how pleased he was that he’d started the campaigns. How happy it made him that I was his, not Valzaim’s. How it was people like me who’d help the restore the rest of the world to its proper place one day.”
For a long moment, the king of Valaim said nothing. Then, tersely, he nodded. Glancing over his shoulder to the holy knights who still framed his back, Nereus sighed. “You’ve given me a lot to think about, Ms. Barrow,” the king said. “Thank you for being so cooperative.”
“You’re welcome, Your Hallowed Majesty,” she replied, her throat dry.
“And thank you, Arch-Major Barrow,” Nereus went on, “for bringing her to Valla to speak with me.”
“Of course, Your Hallowed Majesty,” said Toby. As though he’d had a choice to refuse.
The king straightened then, as though to rise, but before he could he stopped himself, pausing as his eye fell back on Toby and Chelsey. “Your accent, Arch-Major Barrow,” he said. “Where’s that from?”
“Kyth, Your Hallowed Majesty,” Toby responded, firmly squeezing Chelsey’s arm as if warning her not to contradict him; his daughter knew well that he hailed from elsewhere in the east continent. “But I’m a loyal Valzick now, of course. As is Chelsey.”
“Your service record would certainly indicate as much. You have been a loyal subject.” The king gave a short nod. “Your home kingdom bordered Lange, then, did it not?”
“Indeed,” Toby said.
“They are heathens, no?”
“They… are, yes.” He didn’t think it would be fruitful to bring up right now that quite technically, since he’d never formally converted from Carriconism, so was he.
“The people in Kyth-- do they like the Langeans?”
“Not particularly, Your Hallowed Majesty. The sentiment is generally… negative. Lange is generally quite negative, at least to foreigners.”
“Worse than Meltaim?”
“No,” said Toby. “I don’t think there could be anyplace truly worse than Meltaim. And I suppose if Lange is also Meltaim’s enemy, then an enemy of our enemy is-- if not our friend-- then at least a sympathetic associate.”
Finally electing to rise, Nereus spared Toby something near to a smirk. “Perhaps you should have retired into politics, Arch-Major Barrow,” he said. “You certainly speak like an advisor of the court, not a freelance magician from the frozen north. What was your profession in Kyth, anyhow?”
“I was a minister,” Toby said.
“Of the church?” Turning to leave the room, Nereus quirked a brow.
“Something like that, Your Hallowed Majesty,” the man called Toby Barrow replied. “I suppose you could say it was something like that.”
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Post by Avery on Mar 17, 2015 13:41:33 GMT -5
Collab with Elcie. =D Takes place a few years into the slave revolution - in Medieville. Safe Haven She sat in the chapel with a prayer book in her lap, fingers tracing rhythmically over the dark, inked words even though she never moved to turn the page. It was a Tuesday morning not long after dawn, and aside from her, the church was nearly empty, with just the priests and a few lone congregants scattered about, most of them lingering near the front of the drafty space while the girl sat by herself toward the back. She came here almost every day-- sometimes several times a day-- and yet the priests had largely learned to ignore her… not out of malice, but merely efficiency, their long-ago attempts to ask her if she needed anything always met with a firm but polite “No, thank you”.
It had been well over a year since Ciro had set foot in this chapel, but it felt more like a lifetime. He walked in hesitantly, like a stranger, wondering if any of the priests would even recognize him. He felt he probably looked like a different person. He felt like a different person.
He hadn’t been back in Medieville long, only a few days. Aunt Ilsa had been thrilled to see him, squeezing him in a hug so tight he could barely breathe. She’d barely changed at all. And his sister… well, Ivy was healing. That was why he’d told himself he was going to the chapel today, to pray to Lord Woo for his sister’s healing. But maybe, secretly, it was more for the memories.
His eye was caught by a blonde girl sitting near the back of the chapel, holding a prayer book. She was uncommonly pretty, but what had really caught his attention was that she looked very familiar, though he couldn’t place her and didn’t know why. He’d once known many of the visitors to this chapel by name, and he couldn’t seem to recall hers.
All the same, wanting some familiarity, he found himself drawn closer to her, and hesitantly sat down a few feet away from her. After a couple of minutes, he looked over at her and coughed politely. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice low, “but do I know you? I used to come to this chapel, before… before I moved… b-but I can’t quite remember your name.” His cheeks flushed slightly pink.
She hardly noticed when the man sat in the pew across from her, her eyes trained only down on the thin sheet of the prayer book. Only when he spoke to her did she draw her gaze up from it and turn toward him, studying him as he stammered. Familiar. She couldn’t deny that his face did ring a bell. But then, that hardly made sense-- particularly given the rest of what he’d said. She’d only lived in Medieville for a little over a year, after all. And so if he’d moved away and then come back only much later…
“I… don’t think I know you,” she said, hesitating, struggling to keep her eyes locked on his as she spoke; even after all this time, it was still hard for her to look at people when talking to them. To remember that she could look at them, without it drawing ire. “But I come here every day. So if you’ve been back for a while, maybe you’ve seen me here before?”
“No,” Ciro said hesitantly, shaking his head. “No, I’ve only been back for a few days…” Her timidity seemed familiar as well, and when he realized where he’d seen the behavior before it put a lump in his throat. Ivy.
He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “It- it doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s nice to come here again, though. I always liked how peaceful it felt here, like it’s just me and Lord Woo.” Ciro gave her a friendly smile. “By the way, I’m Ciro.”
Ciro. Another bell of familiarity clanged in her head, but still she couldn’t puzzle it together. Where could she know him from? Especially if he’d only been in Medieville a few days. Thinly returning his smile, she shifted the prayer book in her lap.
“It is peaceful,” she agreed. “And quiet. That’s… why I like it so much. Where I live can be kind of crazy so…” Her voice trailed off, and she took a deep breath before continuing, “I’m Sarah. It’s… nice to meet you, Ciro.”
He smiled back with a warmth that lit his eyes, and nodded to the book she was holding. “What were you reading in the prayer book?”
“Oh. Um.” Her cheeks flushed, as Sarah almost abruptly shut the book. Woo, how to explain this without looking-- as he would have said, like a worthless fool? Running her fingers over the veiny leather cover, she murmured, “I… wasn’t reading it. I… can’t read. I just-- I don’t know. I like the letterwork. How it looks. And sometimes when I’m praying I guess I just… like to pretend that I can follow along or…” Sarah’s voice trailed off, and she shook her head. “You probably think I’m stupid, don’t you?” she asked, biting down on her lip. “I mean, what kind of girl pretends to read a prayer-book?”
“Oh-” Ciro’s cheeks flushed. “N-no, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed… a-and I don’t think the Lord Woo cares, I know he hears your prayers too, so…” He looked away, feeling a fool himself for having embarrassed her. Nice going, Ciro. “But if you want to know what it says… I could read it to you, maybe? If you want me to.”
She wasn’t sure why Ciro kind response surprised her so much. Not everybody in the world is him, Sarah, she reminded herself, even as his taunting voice still rang out in her ears, a ghost that would never leave her, no matter how many times she tried to force it away.
Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Sarah forced a wavering smile at Ciro and held the prayer book out to him. “I… you don’t have to,” she said. “If you don’t want to. I just… I don’t know. I guess I’ve always wanted to find the lord’s prayer. I say it every day, and yet I’ve no idea what it looks like, written down.” How ridiculous that sounds, girl, whispered the voice in her head, and Sarah gritted her teeth. She continued, “If you… wanted me to show, I wouldn’t mind. Just so I’m actually looking down at the right page when I’m saying it, even if I can’t wholly follow along with the words.”
Ciro nodded. “Of course I could. Let me see…” He reached for the prayer book, leafing through its familiar pages until he found the lord’s prayer, the pages well-worn by all the hands that had turned to it in the chapel. “Here it is.” He traced the first line with one finger, reading softly aloud. “‘’Woo watch me and keep me...’”
Sarah’s smile grew stronger as she followed along with Ciro’s reading, whispering the words under her breath as he did. She must have flipped by this page dozens-- hundreds-- of times, and to think that all along it had been right here… written out so plainly…
“Thank you,” she murmured once he’d finished, fiddling with the Woocifix that hung from a thin chain around her neck. A gift from the family that was hosting her. “Where… where’d you learn to read? You’re very good at it. Quick.”
“My father taught me.” His smile turned wistful, staring down at the pages, remembering those afternoons sitting on his father’s lap with a book, sounding out the words together. “He wasn’t taught to read growing up, but he wanted me and my siblings to know how. I always loved it. Even before I really knew what they meant, I thought the letters were pretty.” He grinned a little, giving Sarah a sidelong glance. “My older sister, not so much. She’d have rather been outside climbing trees and getting into fights, I think.”
“That’s nice,” Sarah said, blushing again at his rueful grin. “I… never had siblings growing up. I always thought it would be nice, but--” She cut herself off as she realized was verging much too close to dangerous ground. That you hardly made nice conversation with sweet boys in churches by telling them about your mum’s early death and your abduction into slavery shortly thereafter. “Do… you have many siblings?” she asked, steering the topic back toward him.
“Just two,” he said. “Both sisters, one younger and one older. My younger sister, she lives here in Medieville with me right now, and she’s…” He’d been about to describe her character to Sarah, but he found himself picturing how she was now, still so deeply changed by what had happened to her in Courdon, everything they’d done to her that he didn’t think he’d ever really understand… He sighed. “She’s the reason I came here today, actually,” he said, more quietly. “She’s sort of, um… She’s not well. So I wanted to say a prayer of healing for her.”
“That’s very thoughtful.” Sarah smiled. “I’m sure she appreciates it.” She glanced over her shoulder then, toward the rear doors of the chapel. “I… should probably go, though. As much as I wish I could spend all day here, I’ve got chores to do at…” She hesitated here, her voice cracking as she finished, “... at the house where I stay.” Not home. To call it home, even still, seemed wrong, somehow-- too familiar, too casual, a steep step above her internal sense of belonging.
“...Oh.” For a moment Ciro was silent, but then in a rush he added, “Will you be coming here again? I’d like to see you, I could… um, I could show you more of the prayers, if you wanted.” He reddened slightly, willing himself not to look away. Had he been too forward? Maybe that was too forward, even if he’d asked to see her for something as innocent and pious as prayers.
“I come here most days,” Sarah said softly, smoothing her skirt as she stood. “Mostly in the mornings.” She paused. “Maybe next time you could teach me some of the letters? Just so that maybe I could start to read the prayers myself, someday.” Another beat, before she added, “... Only if you want to, of course. I… I don’t mean to impose.”
“N-no, I’d like that.” He smiled at her, his face brightening. “I used to come here a lot before, when I lived here… it’ll be nice to do that again.” He hesitated. “So I’ll… see you tomorrow?”
Sarah nodded. “Tomorrow,” she agreed. “It was nice to meet you, Ciro.”
“Yeah.” Ciro’s smile widened. “Nice to meet you, Sarah.”
It became almost a routine, and one that seemed to ground Ciro as he readjusted to being home. He began showing Sarah her letters, as he’d promised, and teaching her was a welcome distraction from the near-constant worry. Worrying about Ivy, worrying about his parents, still in Courdon… the peaceful chapel became a refuge.
And for a while, he couldn’t quite work up the courage to ask Sarah if he could see her outside the chapel. It seemed too risky to change what they already had. Sometimes, with Sarah, he couldn’t help but feel that one wrong move might cause her to fly away from him entirely. As if one of the wild sparrows outside the church had chanced to land on his finger, and the merest breath would frighten it away.
But it was as if she could read the unposed question on his tongue; one morning about three weeks after they’d first met, she paused before they parted at the church steps and said to him, “So, Ciro. We’ve been meeting nearly every day, haven’t we?”
Ciro blinked. “Yes,” he agreed. “Is… that all right?”
“Of… of course,” she stammered, fighting back a blush. “I just… I don’t know. You don’t live in this neighbourhood, do you?” She gestured to the bustling commercial district around them. “And… I don’t, either, and so I was thinking that we both probably walk here, all on our own and--” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m being too forward, I...”
Ciro shook his head quickly. “No, no, it’s fine! You’re right, I don’t, I… if you don’t mind me asking, where do you live? I could meet you closer to there, so you wouldn’t have to come alone.”
“On the main road in the neighbourhood to the southwest of the marketplace,” Sarah said. “Right off Lake Plume. It’s a yellow house, with a rose garden out front. It… might be on your way here, depending on where you live...”
Ciro listened to this, considering. “I don’t think that’s too far,” he said. “I could come get you, if you want. T-tomorrow morning, maybe?” He stumbled nervously over his words, but smiled hopefully at her all the same.
She nodded. “I’ll be waiting.”
The next morning, as Ciro followed Sarah’s directions, the streets were even more familiar than he’d anticipated. Soon he found himself standing in front of a house that was very familiar indeed, stirring memories from his childhood. Briar and Arthur! Mum’s friend Briar lives here… For a moment he couldn’t understand it. Surely he’d made a mistake - Sarah lived here? Ciro had grown up playing with Briar and Arthur’s children, and if that was who Sarah was he’d have certainly remembered her.
“Ciro? Is that you?”
A middle aged woman, her pale blonde hair tied up in a haphazard bun, stepped out from behind a trellis of roses, narrowing her eyes as she apprised the boy. Hands set on her hip, she pursed her lips, studying him as though to figure out the motive behind his presence.
“Long time since you’ve come around,” she went on when he didn’t offer a response. “None of the kids are in, though, if you’re looking for them.”
“No, Missus Finnegan, I’m…” Ciro paused, trying to collect his thoughts. “I… might be lost, actually? I’m looking for a friend of mine, Sarah… she told me she lives near here. You don’t happen to know her, do you?”
“Sarah?” Briar Finnegan echoed. Frowning now, she asked with an almost accusing slant to her words, “What do you want with Sarah?”
Startled by Briar’s defensive tone, Ciro held up his hands placatingly. “We met at the chapel, I’ve been helping her read the prayers… I was going to meet her at her house so she didn’t have to walk all that way alone. Do you know where…?” He trailed off, confused; Briar’s sharp response seemed more personal than how one would speak of a neighbor.
“She’s inside,” Briar said shortly. “Getting ready for the day, but…” She cocked her head. “Why do you look so confused to see me, Ciro? Surely you knew Sarah came to live with Arthur and me after she arrived from Courdon?”
“Sarah’s Courdonian?” Ciro blurted out, stupidly, before his mind could catch up. No, he remembered, she was talking about the other girl, the one who’d been rescued from Jisam along with his sister. He barely remembered her; she’d not been too keen on seeing strangers, and he’d been too wrapped up in caring for Ivy along with Muriel and his parents…
Her name had been Sarah. He’d forgotten that part. And now, with Briar here… He was certain he’d remembered Sarah’s directions correctly. This couldn’t be a coincidence or a mistake.
“I… didn’t realize it was her,” he muttered, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. “I thought-- we didn’t talk much about… other things, I didn’t want to pry…”
“You didn’t realize?” Briar asked incredulously.
“Didn’t realize what?”
Both heads turned toward Sarah as, with a furrowed brow, the young girl pulled open the front door to the house and stepped out into the cool morning. She was, as usual, dressed plainly, her long-sleeved dress the colour of oatmeal and her pale hair tied back in a simple plait.
“You’re…” Ciro stopped, not even sure how to say it. He’d sensed Sarah’s reluctance to speak about herself in too much detail, had tried not to pry, and admitting that he now knew she was a freed slave seemed like an unforgivable violation of her privacy. “I know the Finnegans,” he said, slowly. “My- my parents, they’re good friends of theirs. And my… aunt…” He faltered. He knew now that it was his aunt, Lydia, who had arranged for Sarah to live here, but he didn’t know how to explain that either.
“This is Ciro Lynn, Sarah,” Briar finished for him, skipping straight to the point. “Xavier and Elin’s son.”
Sarah went so white that Briar might as well have smacked her. “Ciro Lynn?” the girl squeaked, frozen beneath the open doorway like a deer in the line of a crossbow. “But I… you…” Her jaw quavered. “Oh Woo. That’s… that’s why I looked familiar to you, and you to me, and…” She let out a sound that was halfway a laugh, halfway a sob. “I can’t believe this. I can’t.”
“I didn’t know,” Ciro blurted out. “I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… intrude, or…” He hated seeing her rendered so pale and shaky by the news. Of course she was; it didn’t matter that his parents had rescued her, because the very name Lynn had to be a reminder of all manner of things she was trying to forget. “M-maybe I should go,” he stammered. “It’s… okay if you’d rather not…”
“No,” she said quickly, finally taking a step out from underneath the doorway. “I’m sorry, I… it’s not a bad thing, Ciro, I just… wasn’t expecting it.” Another step. “I’d still like to s-spend time with you, still. If you’d like. I mean, I understand if you don’t, since I’m… so… so… broken, but--”
“Of course I do,” Ciro said, and then looked away, flushing. “I mean… it’s terrible what happened to you, it really is, but it doesn’t change how I think about you. You’re still… Sarah. And if you still want to… I do want to keep seeing you.” His face turned a deeper red. “At… the church, and everything,” he added awkwardly.
Watching the exchange with a quirked brow, Briar firmly beckoned Ciro forward. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” she said, a nearly devilish smile turning at the corners of her lips, “why don’t you be a proper gentleman and escort Sarah down the walk? Show off those Jade manners, Ciro.”
“Of- of course,” Ciro managed, and then glanced back up at Sarah with a faint smile. He held out his hand, almost tentatively. “Shall we?”
Brushing by Briar, Sarah tentatively took a hold of his hand, curling her fingers over his. “Sure,” she murmured. “T-thank you.”
Ciro paused to nod to Briar with a polite “Goodbye, missus Finnegan,” and then walked down toward the street with Sarah’s hand in his. The pressure of her fingers against his was still light, still fragile - but all the same, something about it felt a little sturdier than anything they’d had before.
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Post by Avery on Sept 4, 2015 20:15:05 GMT -5
Collab with Shinko. Fairly lengthy arc spanning from autumn of 1344 into early 1346, in the besieged city of Urvane in the Courdonian province of Ruom, during the Courdonian slave revolution. Basically all revolution fics up to this point have been from the rebels' perspective; this one is from the other side of the coin. Safira Erling nee Alaric (eldest daughter of King Oliver and Queen Zaria - who was married to the enki of Ruom, Sutter Erling, after his intended bride, Safira's cousin Julia, scampered off to join the rebellion), her daughter, and assorted rebels written by me; House Cantour nobility written by Shinko. Somebody's Monster: Part One
Unlike a lot of the rest of the country of Courdon, which consisted of arid savanna verging towards the Anvil in the southwest, the region known as Ruom was not an easy place to navigate. It encompassed part of a long mountain range that stretched through Lyell, Synedon, and even as far as Valzaim. Nestled deep in the heart of the Courdonian end of the range was the city of Urvane. Urvane was situated in the middle of the Oribel Pass, the main route that led from Lyell into southern Courdon. As such it was an important city, and home to one of Ruom’s minor noble families; House Cantour. Baldemar Cantour, the current patriarch of the house, was pacing in the private sitting room of his family manor. His blue-grey eyes flashed with worry under the pale brown of his bangs. The dull pink and maroon tunic he wore, a perfect match to the shades of the shield atop the mantle, made no noise as he moved. The same, however, could not be said for the copious jewelry that decked his person. It jangled merrily, in the exact opposite from the mood of its owner. Sitting on futon off to the side of the room, looking far more calm than Baldemar, was his wife Romilde. The blonde woman fiddled with a small, ten inch long rod of wood in a holster at her hip- a wand. “Bahl,” she said finally, her voice gentle but firm. “You’re going to wear yourself out. Pacing won’t get them here any faster.” “If they get here at all,” he retorted. “We’ve had no word, none, not so much as a pigeon from the capital since hearing that the siege was going badly and we needed to make ready.” “Of course not,” Romilde replied. “The rebels would’ve been suspicious if they saw a pigeon leave Cesthen castle and fly off into the mountains.” “It’s been five days,” Baldemar shot back. Anything else he might’ve said was cut off by the sound of a sharp knock on the door. “Come in,” the lord of Cantour called, and the door opened to reveal an extremely haggard looking knight. The man wasn’t wearing the usual Cantour livery, but instead leather armor and a gambeson in muted earth tones. He was filthy, ragged, and had the look of a man who’d not slept in days. “My lord,” he said, immediately going to one knee. “I rode ahead of the rest, but they shouldn’t be more than an hour off. Your guest is coming.” “Oh thank the gods,” he said, relief making him sag. “Go get yourself cleaned up, and if you see my overseer on the way tell him to come to me straightaway.” The knight nodded, and turned away. As he shut the door behind him, Romilde frowned. “What do you need the overseer for?” “Isn’t it obvious?” Baldemar asked. “If she is on her way here, that means the siege is over and Cesthen has fallen. Ruom will be overrun by rebels. And if they come here, and our slaves report that we suddenly acquired a refugee not long after they knew Cesthen to have fallen…” The man was interrupted by another knock on the door, and this time when it opened the person to enter the room was the overseer of House Cantour’s slaves. “You called for me, my liege?” the man asked. “I did,” he replied curtly. “Gather up all the slaves working in the manor- they are to be turned out, unless they chose to remain as paid employees.” His lip curling with distaste at the very idea, he hissed, “Tell them that from now on... they are free men.” ** Saddle-sore and sunburnt, the dark-haired woman wore a look of unadulterated exhaustion as, beneath the overcast midday sky, she dismounted from atop her horse in the gated courtyard of House Cantour’s manor. One of the three knights who’d ridden alongside her as an accompaniment reached out a steadying hand to aid her, but the woman shrunk back from his touch with a curt shake of the head. “No,” she said, her voice raspy and weak. “I’m fine, but thanks.” “Of course, my lady.” The knight spared a bow before glancing to the small, fair-haired toddler clutched in his charge’s arms, the girl’s blonde curls windswept and her blue eyes half-drooped as though she was attempting to fight back sleep-- and failing. “Would you like me to take her, my lady?” the knight asked gently. “No.” There was more ardency now to the woman’s words; if anything, her clutch on the girl tightened. “I have her. It’s alright.” The sound of a door opening across the courtyard caught the attention of the assembled. The knights immediately went to their knees as Baldemar and Romilde emerged from the manor. The enki was clearly in his forties at least, if not older, but he moved with a briskness that belied the advance of his age. As soon as he and his wife had drawn close enough, both of them inclined their heads deeply. “Princess Safira,” Baldemar said respectfully, his voice low. “I apologize deeply for what you have endured for the past several days, but I assure you that your harrowing journey is at its end; you are safe here.” Straightening, he put a hand to his chest. “I am Lord Baldemar Cantour. This is my wife, Romilde. Your husband Sutter was our nephew.” “Was?” The woman, Safira, latched only onto this word. “He’s… dead, then? For sure?” Smoothing her daughter’s tangled curls as though simply for want of something to do, she bit down hard on her wind-chapped lip. “I’m afraid there is no way he wouldn’t be,” Baldemar said gravely. “That you are here at all means Cesthen must have fallen before the rebel siege. It is known all too well that the rebels execute enkis who fight back.” “I told him not to,” Safira said starkly. “That it wasn’t worth it.” She swallowed hard, shifting the toddler in her arms-- and wincing as she did. “ Gods,” she muttered, before adding to the Cantours, “Sorry. I just… I know I’m not being very diplomatic, and I apologize, I just…” “It’s perfectly understandable,” remarked Romilde kindly, her blue-grey eyes gentle. “After everything you’ve been through, you must be very tired and confused. We will explain everything to you to the best of our abilities, I promise.” “But for now,” Baldemar put in, “Perhaps you should like a bath? I’ve ordered the… servants to draw one for you.” Noting the death grip that the young woman had on her child, he added, “You may keep the young lady with you, if you prefer, though in her present state the water may not be wise.” Exhausted or not, Safira was not dense. “Servants?” she asked. “You’ve let them go, then-- the slaves?” She didn’t seem upset by this, not exactly, only very worn and jaded. She continued thinly, “The knights drugged her, my daughter. I didn’t want them to, but she kept crying and…” Safira sighed in frustration. “I’d like her to see a healer, if you don’t mind. Before anything else. Everything’s been so frantic, and there’s been so much jostling, and I… I just want to make sure she’s okay. That she’s only sleepy because of the potions and not anything worse.” “We let the slaves go yes- if we’re to keep you safe here, we need to give the appearance of full cooperation when the rebels come knocking,” Baldemar said, his lip curling. “Unfortunately our staff healer was confiscated by the crown to serve the army. But my wife and son are both mages, and they know some of the basic techniques.” Romilde nodded, making a beckoning motion and drawing her wand. Safira hesitated for a moment before taking a few steps forward, turning the drowsy child in her arms out toward Romilde; the toddler, however, merely let out a small whimper and clung harder to her mother, nestling her cheek against the rumpled folds of Safira’s dress. “It’s okay, honey,” Safira soothed. “She just wants to take a quick look at you. It won’t hurt, I promise.” “It’s alright,” Romilde said. “So long as she’s unhurt you can hang on to her. I just need to check. What’s her name?” As the blonde woman spoke, she pointed her wand at the toddler. A small orb of red light drifted from the tip of the wand, ballooning out as it neared the child to encompass her body before vanishing. “Her name’s Cydney,” Safira replied. “But Sutter and I have always just called her Cyd. I… she shouldn’t be hurt. Or at least, not anything more than a few bumps and bruises. I got a bit… scuffed… when we were in some dense bramble outside Cesthen, but I made sure to shield her.” “You’re right, she seems fine,” Romilde replied. “A few bruises, and I imagine it’s been awhile since her last proper meal, but nothing concerning. Probably the hardest on her will be when the drug wears off.” The woman sighed, shaking her head. “I know it was necessary for your escape, but after several days on it she’ll likely have withdrawals for a while until her system balances itself out again.” The woman hesitated, then reached out a hand to stroke Cydney’s blonde curls. “You’re going to be sick, little one, but we’ll take care of you, I promise.” Cydney hardly reacted to Romilde’s hold, only burrowing in even tighter against her mother. Safira, on the other hand, let the briefest ghost of a smile flicker at her lips at the tender movement, it perhaps finally hitting her that she and her daughter were safe. Sutter might be dead, and Cesthen likely in ruin, but still there remained nooks of solace in the world. Kindness. “Let me have a look at you as well, dear,” Romilde said, turning her gaze to Safira’s face. “You said you got a little scuffed- I’ll check that.” The woman flicked her wand, casting the same spell she’d just done on Cydney. Romilde’s eyes unfocused for a moment, and when she came back to herself she sighed. “Mostly bruises, but you’ve scraped your arms and I think you pulled a muscle in your shoulder. May I?” “If you’d like,” Safira said. “Thank you.” Romilde walked around Safira’s side, gently pulling up the girl’s sleeves. Pointing to the scrapes and cuts, she muttered a spell that would clean them of any dirt or other foreign matter, then said, “ Episky!” There was a brief sensation of cold along Safira’s skin, and the wounds closed. Then, Romilde turned to the girl’s shoulder. This was more along the lines of something a trained healer would be able to fix- well outside of Romilde’s expertise. However, she did cast a spell that would alleviate the pain from the injury. “That’s the best I can do- once you’ve bathed I can wrap the injury for you to keep it supported, and you’ll have to try not to strain it too much.” “I’ll try my best,” Safira replied, a bit of color returning to her sallow cheeks as the spell nipped off the worst edge of the pain. “Thank you, Lady Cantour.” Her eye fell against toward Baldemar. “And you as well, Lord Cantour. I… I appreciate your helping me. Helping us. I know it can’t be the safest choice for either of you. Not… given who I am.” She clearly did not mean her role as the fallen Lady of Cesthen. “There will be many concessions both of us will have to make to ensure your continued security, particularly once the rebels march on our city,” Baldemar cautioned. “But you are the widow of my nephew; I would be remiss to turn you away, regardless of the value that the rebels might find in an Alaric princess as their hostage.” He bowed his head. “I hope that, as best you can given the circumstances, you will find your stay in Urvane agreeable.” ** Once Safira had cleaned herself up, and changed both herself and Cydney into borrowed but blessedly clean clothes, she was led to one of the inner chambers of the manor’s private wing. Inside Baldemar and Romilde waited, and with them was someone new. “Ah, glad to have you with us, Princess,” Baldemar said when she entered the room. “Allow me to introduce my heir- this is Lord Dirk Cantour.” Dirk nodded politely, his shoulder-length auburn hair falling like a curtain around his face as he did so. He regarded Safira with pale grey eyes. Though he was a handsome young man, his face was marred by a ropey scar on the left side that ran from just above his eyebrow in an arc down the edge of his cheek and stopped on level with the bottom of his nose. His bare arms had more such scars, likely tokens of his time spent in the compulsory military service all noblemen had to participate in at twenty. “A pleasure to meet you, my princess,” he said politely. She curtsied at him in turn, her hip feeling barren without Cydney plastered to it for the first time in days; with a measure of reluctance, she’d left the still-drowsy child to slumber in one of the Cantour’s bedchambers. “Lord Dirk,” she replied. “And just ‘Safira’ is alright. Please, I’m a grateful visitor in your home-- you hardly need to feel obligated on the formalities.” “As it happens, I fear we won’t be able to address you even with that,” Baldemar remarked gravely. “But one thing at a time- I imagine you are likely very confused, so I will try to explain as much of the situation as I can for you, then answer any questions you might have. Please, sit down wherever you like.” With a short nod, Safira obliged, smoothing her skirts as she took a seat on one of the stiff upholstered couches. Once seated, she clasped her hands in her lap, the smooth look on her face a stark contrast to the way her stomach still fluttered, and her palms sweated like glasses of ice water on a humid summer’s day. This felt… strange. Gods, how it felt strange. In her life, Safira Erling nee Alaric had put on diplomatic airs for no shortage of unfamiliar ladies and lords, but this… now… She swallowed hard and forced herself to meet Baldemar Cantour’s apprising gaze. Steepling his fingers, Baldemar sighed. “My wife Romilde used to be a member of House Erling, the house you ruled with Sutter. Sutter’s father, Alric, is her older brother. About a month and a half ago, Sutter sent us a letter about the ongoing siege of Cesthen. He worried that if he could not break it soon, the rebels would overtake the city. He’d heard about what happened to the Pike girls when Echar fell, and of course, his wife being the daughter of the king…” Baldemar shook his head. “We agreed that if the rebels succeeded in breaching the castle, he would send you and his daughter in secret to a rendezvous point in the mountains where our knights would be waiting to escort you here. Then, once the rebels arrive in our city, we shall surrender quietly and submit to whatever demands they levy in order to keep you safe. However, to better facilitate that, a few things will have to happen.” Here, Romilde spoke up. “First, you and Cydney will have to adopt false identities. We’ll say that you are relatives of ours who fled from Emryn when it was overrun. My mother was Kythian, so it is not a stretch for me to pretend that I have relatives in Emryn- frankly I’d be surprised if I didn’t.” She shrugged. “We’ll give you false names, and if you’re alright with it, we’ll dye Cydney’s hair black so that she’s less distinctive. When the rebels arrive you’ll both be kept cloistered within the private areas of the manor, along with myself and the other women of the House.” “You… mean to keep us here, then?” Safira asked, sitting ramrod straight as she’d been so diligently trained but her hands suddenly trembling in her lap. Quickly, she backtracked, “I mean, of course, not to sound unappreciative, I just… I suppose I presumed once the dust settled, Cyd and I would be sent to my father. In the capital. The news of Cesthen’s fall has to have left him quite…” Not upset. The king never grew upset. Only furious and vengeful. “He’ll be concerned,” she finished finally. “About my daughter and me.” “I wish we could,” Dirk said softly, tracing a hand absently over one of the scars on his arm. “But the fact of the matter is that it’s far more risk than can be justified. The rebels heavily occupy all of the regions between here and Rakine, and where they don’t occupy they have spies. You’d be intercepted by the rebel army before we got you halfway to Durach.” Safira sat silently for a moment, considering, before she gave a hesitant nod. “A letter, then?” she asked. “Just… to let my family know that Cydney and I are alive. Once they hear about Sutter, I’m afraid they’ll assume the worst about us.” “It’s just not feasible, dear,” Romilde said, her voice heavy with reluctance. “The same problem applies to sending you personally. If the rebels intercept that letter, they’ll know you’re hiding out in the home of one of the captured enkis. They’ll ransack the manor of every noble in Courdon to find you.” “But… they’ll think we’re dead.” Then, as though they’d not heard her the first time, she repeated more starkly, “They’ll think we’re dead. My mother… she’ll…” Her voice cracking, Safira slumped over and continued, “You don’t understand. I’m practically the only one she has left. My sister is down in Roth with the Talfryns holding a proverbial sword to her neck, and the rebellion’s got my brother Mattie, and Cassian… I mean, she’s got Cassian, but he’s... “ She shook her head. “It’ll break her. To think that I’m dead. That Cydney’s dead.” “I’m so, so sorry, Princess,” Baldemar said, his voice sad but firm. “But if we take that risk, you very well might end up dead. Or something worse that dead, if what the rebel scum did to Anson Pike’s daughters is any indication.” “But I could… I could code it-- so that it’s not clear it is from me, but my mother would know, and…” As she noted the sympathetic but unwavering look on Lord Cantour’s face, Safira’s voice fell away, dying like the last ember in what was once a thriving blaze. “Thierry,” she whispered then. “You should say I’m from House Thierry. I think they’re the biggest void, in Emryn. With Signy”-- this was the Thierry estate’s seat--“burned as it was. Sutter told me no one even knows what happened to most of them. They vanished. Just vanished.” Baldemar nodded. “I seem to recall Thierry is directly on the border with Kyth, so it fits with the story that you’re related to Romilde through her Kythian ties. Do you have any preference for a pseudonym we might call you? We had considered ‘Cynthia’ for Cydney- so we can call her ‘Cindy’ as a nickname that sounds close enough to ‘Cydney’ for her to adjust without too much effort, but that’s different enough not to draw attention. But for you, it might be better if it’s something that sounds nothing like your real name, but that still has meaning to you so you’ll be able to answer to it.” “I… suppose ‘Cindy’ works for Cyd, yes.” She bit her lip, mulling. “And for me, I guess… Nadi? If it wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. It’s Mzian for ‘blackbird’; my grandmother used to call me that when I was small.” Safira gestured to her dark, wavy locks, still damp from washing. “Because of my hair.” “A Mzian name would be strange on the Kythian border…” Baldemar started dubiously, but Dirk interjected. “We can say it’s short for something else- Nathalie maybe. Then it’s something that the princess is used to responding to, and we can use it without turning too many heads.” “...I suppose that would work,” Baldemar said after a moment, nodding. “Very well- until the storm passes, you two will go by Nathalie and Cynthia Thierry, Nadi and Cindy for short. We should probably practice using those names before the rebels get this far, just to make sure we’re good and in the habit.” Looking towards Safira again, he added, “And… I truly am sorry about this, m’lady. All of it.” “It’s hardly your fault, Lord Cantour,” the newly minted Nathalie Thierry replied with a heavy sigh. “But I appreciate the concern all the same. Thank you again for… everything. And I promise I’ll do my best to make sure that my daughter and I are unobtrusive houseguests. Anything you might require of me-- of us-- just… let me know. Your rules are mine to follow.” ** It was four days after Safira and Cydney, now going by Nadi and Cindy, had arrived in Urvane. Though it was still fairly early in the day, Romilde strode directly to the room that mother and daughter had been sharing and knocked. “Is it alright if I come in?” “Of course,” came Safira’s soft voice from inside. The sound of bare feet padding against the floor echoed from within the chamber, followed by the click of a deadbolt disengaging. “I apologize for our states, Lady Romilde,” Safira added as she swung open the door, gesturing to her pale linen nightdress-- also borrowed from the Cantours upon her arrival; she’d hardly had time to grab a cloak on her way out of Cesthen, let alone a full wardrobe of clothing. “Cydney-- um, Cindy-- was up all night with a horrible headache. Neither of us got much sleep.” Romilde gave a sympathetic wince. “I’m sorry to hear that. Fortunately the apothecary in town has finally procured something that I’m hoping can be of help to the poor dear.” The older woman walked into the room, looking towards the bed. Cydney sat at its edge wearing a cape of blankets, her sand-colored skin gone preternaturally pale and her curls-- dyed black the day before-- plastered to her forehead from sweat. Like Safira, she wore a borrowed nightdress, but it was much too big and swallowed her delicate, bird-like frame, the sleeves reaching down nearly to her knuckles. “Say ‘hello’ to Lady Romilde, sweetheart,” Safira prompted gently, pacing back over to her daughter’s side. “Hi,” Cydney murmured, reaching for her mother’s hand, her clear blue eyes latched on to the near-stranger like a grappling hook in quicksand. “Hello sweety,” Romilde replied, kneeling down on the floor next to the bed so that she was on eye level with the child. “I’ve been in to see you a few times, but you might not remember since you were sick.” She held out a hand, palm up, to the child. “I’m Lady Romilde, but you can call me Aunt Millie if you like.” Cydney pursed her lips but did not accept Romilde’s proffered hand, remaining silent even as her mother let out a heavy sigh. “Sorry, my lady,” the woman said. “She’s rather shy even at the best of times.” Sitting on the bed beside her daughter, Safira swept the small girl into her lap and went on, “Lady Romilde’s got something for your head, honey. So that it stops hurting quite so much.” “That’s right,” Romilde said brightly. She reached into a small carry bag she’d had slung over one shoulder, pulling out a bottle and a small jar. The bottle she held up, explaining, “This is a medicine that you can take which will make your headache go away, though it make take a while to start working. But for right now,” she set the bottle down and lifted the jar. “This cream is made with lavender and peppermint- if we rub some of it on your chest, the nice smell should help your head.” Stilling Cydney as the girl took one look at the thick, fragrant cream and promptly started to squirm in her mother’s lap, Safira gave Romilde a thin smile. “Shhh,” she soothed her daughter. “It’s just ointment, sweetheart. Nothing to be upset about.” “ No,” Cydney whined, twisting against her mother’s firmer hold. “But it’ll make you feel better,” Safira said. When still this didn’t win her daughter’s cooperation, the woman added, “I know you don’t want to, but you have to listen to Mama, okay? It won’t hurt, I promise.” Romilde twisted the cap off of the jar, setting it down and dabbing a finger in just a little of the precious balm. “It’s not bad at all. It smells really good, actually. See?” In demonstration, the older woman rubbed the scant bit she’d taken onto her own neckline, and held it out to Safira. “And look, Mama’s not afraid to have some too, are you?” “Nope,” Safira agreed, taking a small blob onto her finger. As Cydney stared on warily, Safira slowly drew the dab beneath her daughter’s nose, letting the girl take a brief sniff before she moved it down toward Cydney’s chest. “It feels nice and cool, doesn’t it?” she asked, grateful for the too-big, sweeping collar of the nightdress, which bared several inches of the girl’s skin beneath her collarbone. “Nothing to worry about at all, hon.” As Safira did this, Romilde took a small earthenware bowl out of the satchel, one with several lines etched to the inside. She carefully measured out some of the medicine- it had a vaguely nutty smell- before pouring this into a cup and setting it on the table beside the bed. “That should take hold after about an hour, and last for another six, or so the apothecary promised,” she explained. “The balm won’t make her headache go away entirely but it will ease it until the potion takes effect. Breathe good and deep, Cindy, doesn’t it smell nice?” Cydney only shrugged, her gaze shifting toward the potion on the nightstand. A deeper frown tugged at the corners of her lips as she studied it, the girl perhaps remembering the sedating tonic the knights had none too gently forced down her throat back in Cesthen, and then several times more throughout the journey west. “It’s not the same, sweetheart,” Safira said, sensing this. “It’ll make you feel better, not sleepy.” Shifting her grip on the toddler, she reached out toward the cup and drew it toward them both. “If you’re a good girl and take it without fighting, then perhaps Mama can find you something sweet to eat for breakfast. Fruit, maybe. Would you like that?” “Cake,” Cydney said solemnly, staring at the potion as though it were a beast come hither. At this, Safira couldn’t help but softly laugh. “Not cake. But something nicer than just bread, alright?” Romilde gave a sly smile. “I happen to know that our cook is very good at making cryspes. With strawberry sauce on top. Would you like some of that?” Cydney cocked her head before glancing up at Safira. “Papa not be mad?” she asked uncertainly. At this, Safira faltered, skipping several beats before she managed to stammer in reply, “No, honey. Papa won’t be mad. After all, good girls like you deserve sweets for breakfast sometimes, don’t they?” Steeling herself, she brought the cup up to her daughter’s lips. “Open wide. And you have to swallow it all, even if it doesn’t taste nice, okay?” Reluctantly, Cydney obliged, letting out a cough as the slightly bitter potion slid down her throat. Safira was half-afraid the girl would sputter it right back up, but she didn’t, simply using her sleeve to wipe any tacky remnants off her lips before she slumped down sullenly in Safira’s lap. Romilde gave her an encouraging smile. “Good girl, Cindy. I’ll let the cooks know to fix up some nice cryspes just for you. You’re a fine, brave young lady, aren’t you?” She turned to Safira with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get any actual potions, just herbal possets, but with all of the magical healers in the realm requisitioned by the crown…” “Please, don’t apologize,” Safira said. “You’re doing your best-- and far more than you’re obligated to do. And it’s hardly your fault that my father’s stolen all of your trained mages.” Stroking Cydney’s dark curls-- now similar in shade to her own, and such a far cry from its usual sandy blonde-- Safira added, “Say ‘thank you’, sweetheart. Lady Romilde’s gone through a lot of trouble to help you feel better.” “Thank you,” Cydney whispered. “You’re welcome, sweety,” Romilde replied with a smile. “I’m glad I could help make you feel better. I’m know you’re scared, but I promise nothing’s going to hurt you here. Aunt Millie and your Mama will make sure of that.” Somebody's Monster: Part Two It was a little more than two weeks after Safira had arrived in Urvane. Dirk, Baldemar and Romilde’s heir, was standing in front of a window that looked out over the city, in the direction of the eastern pass. His bronze skin was ashen, every muscle in his body drawn taut. Every few minutes he caught himself running a hand distractedly through his reddish-brown hair, and had to slap his hand to his side again. Safira, reclined in one of the sitting room’s wingback chairs with Cydney on her lap, couldn’t help but frown as she watched the Cantour heir shift and fidget. The mood in the manor had been decidedly bleak over the past few days, ever since Lord Baldemar had taken off with a small group of his most trusted knights in order to parlay with the rebels who, after marching on from Cesthen, were making it closer and closer to Urvane each day. As far as it had been explained to her, such a move had been deemed the most prudent: The Cantours hardly wanted the rebels to arrive to Urvane thinking the city was going to fight back as had so many others. It was much safer, then, to rendezvous with them in advance and lay out the House’s surrender. But that it was safe r hardly made it safe. The Cantours-- and Safira in turn-- were a humming ball of anxious energy and nerves as they awaited news from their patriarch. And although the waylaid princess knew it was hardly her place to meddle, watching Dirk fret was almost contagious. Eventually, she couldn’t swallow back her voice. “Are you alright, Lord Dirk?” she called to him, keeping one eye on Cydney as the girl played with a sturdy but threadbare doll the Cantours had, like so many other things, let her borrow. Dirk started, glancing around and giving her a wan smile. “You don’t have to call me ‘lord’ if you don’t want to.” He turned towards her, forcing himself to walk away from the window and sit on a futon across from her. “Besides, until nine months ago I’d gotten very much used to being addressed as Captain Cantour, not ‘Lord.’” “Forgive me, but I would have thought you older,” Safira said, obliging Cydney when the girl asked if she could climb down to the floor. “But stay in front of me, honey. No further than that rug.” She pointed to a faded pink-and red runner a few feet away, before looking back to Dirk. “Where were you stationed?” she asked him. “I know Cass-- er, Prince Cassian-- was mostly in Teral during his service.” “I just turned twenty-two this past May,” He explained. “I finished my service back in January. As to where I was serving…” His lips curled into something that might’ve been a smile, though any humor in his eyes was of the dark sort. “Ivonette, in Talvace.” Safira let out a hiss of sympathy. “That cannot have been fun,” she said. “Not with the Talfryns pulling out of Talvace as they did. Ivonette is House Kyros, isn’t it? I know Sutter was corresponding with them an awful lot. Advising them that Jisam wasn’t worth making a grab for, not anymore.” “That’s the place,” He agreed. “I never really went to Jisam- my work was mostly trying to keep what little order there was left intact. ‘Trying’ being the operative word. It was akin to bailing a ship that was constantly springing new leaks. I only narrowly avoided being taken prisoner at one point- there was a mage with the rebels, never saw her up close, but she hit me with some sort of lightning spell. My men had to carry me back to the city on a litter.” “I’m glad you seem to have recovered well, Lord Cantour,” Safira said, before quickly amending: “I mean, Dirk. Cass got hurt, too. His sword arm nearly hacked off, or at least that’s the way he tells it. The rebels are merciless without magic, let alone with.” She shuddered. “Then again, what else can you expect of an army comprised of rebellious slaves?” Dirk gave a soft snort. “No discipline. No regard whatsoever for the basic rules that govern war. Frankly I’m shocked that their precious ‘Branded Lord’ turned over Arianne and Noa Pike, but I’m not surprised to hear what they did. Disgusted, but after what I saw in Talvace, not surprised.” “They’re coming here, though, aren’t they?” Safira asked. “That’s why your father left. So that he could negotiate with them.” “Yes,” Dirk replied softly, though not without venom. “We’d not last a day against the army that took out Cesthen, and if they took you and, ah... Cindy prisoner and found out who you both where…” He shook his head. “They’ll likely have us under house-arrest in the manor while they occupy parts of it. That’s their usual pattern with nobles who surrender quietly. So to keep you and Cindy safe, we’ll need to set a few ground rules.” Calling back Cydney as the girl edged beyond the bounds of the rug, Safira bit her lip. “Of course,” she said, although her stomach pitched at the thought of sharing a home with the same rebel army that’d slaughtered her husband. It felt very perverse, macabre almost, and if it hadn’t been for her daughter only feet away, Safira might have whimpered. Instead, she continued levelly, “What kind of rules?” “First, and foremost, you both stay in the private areas,” he said firmly. “We’ll do our best to make those places off-limits to the rebels, or at least limited access. The less you’re seen, the better. Second, you do not speak to anyone outside the family. If someone you don’t recognize tries to talk to you, just tell them my father has forbidden his women to talk to the rebels. Mother will be doing likewise, and my sisters.” He looked to the window again, his expression grim. “Also, don’t speak of the war at all or your real identities if there is anyone in the room except for myself or my parents. Not extended family, not servants. The less it’s discussed, the better for everyone.” “What if the rebels ask?” Safira replied. “About why none of the women are allowed to talk to them at all?” Dirk sneered, “We’ll tell them the truth, just not all of it. Because we heard about what happened to the Pike girls and we absolutely don’t trust them. We’re cooperating; asking them to leave our women alone is not asking for too much.” “With the rebels, though, who knows?” Safira sighed. “I’ll do my best, Lord Cantour. With keeping Cyd-- forgive me, Cindy-- from growing restless, too.” Watching as the girl played with the worn doll’s yarn-strand hair, the woman murmured, “I don’t think she’s old enough to understand. Not really. I worry for her.” “Dirk,” the young nobleman corrected again gently. “And… no, I suppose not.” He looked down at the little girl. “But we’ll help you, as best we can. Mother in particular is very good with children. And… I don’t have any kids, but I’d be happy to help as much as I’m able.” His grey eyes were sympathetic as he added, “I’m not Sutter, and I have no wish to be nor to pretend I can replace him, but… kids need a father figure, and if I can help I’d like to.” “That’s very kind, Dirk.” Safira did not quite smile, but at least her expression softened somewhat, her hard frown dissipating. “Thank you. I appreciate it. All of it. Everything your family’s done for my daughter and me. And I promise we’ll do our best in turn. You have my word: I’ll stay to private quarters, I won’t speak to the rebels. You have so much to worry about already, and I don’t want to be an extra burden. Not anymore than I have to be.” ** A courier arrived to Urvane three days later informing the Cantours that the rebels had agreed to Lord Baldemar’s terms of surrender, and that the lord would be arriving home in the days to follow, with the rebel army following no more than one day behind at his heel. This news at least brought solace to the manor inasmuch as its inhabitants letting out a collective sigh of relief that Baldemar would make it back to Urvane in one piece, but this was hardly a time for celebration-- not when, true to Dirk’s assessment, part of the deal worked out between House Cantour and the Branded Lord’s army was that in addition to allowing troops to be quartered throughout the city as a whole, the noble family would be playing host to a fair number of rebel officers in their own manor. Back in the wilds Baldemar had been negotiating with a higher officer, Major General Adam Carrow, but the man in charge of the Urvane occupation itself was a swaggering colonel called Lyon Barrett, the faded brand glinting from his tan bicep announcing him as the former property of House Argall in Kajas. He wasn’t all that old-- maybe twenty-five, at most, with a spray of ebony hair and eyes the colour of dull slate-- but was scarred enough for any age, his hard-sculpted face criss-crossed with protruding, corded slashes, and his hands not just marked but burned, as though once upon a time someone had dunked them in simmering oil. “You can guess how I got them all, if you want, lordlings,” he said brightly to the awaiting Cantours as he sashayed into the courtyard of their manor the morning after Baldemar’s own return. At least a half dozen other rebels trailed closely behind him, flanking him like watch dogs. “But,” Barrett continued briskly, “do you really want to know what happens if you guess wrong?” Baldemar’s expression was one of marked irritation. Though part of him felt that he should placate the rebel colonel, every instinct in him as an enki balked at the idea. He’d warned his family ahead of time not to be overly cheeky, but not to kowtow either. They were cooperating, but they were not keeling over like whipped dogs. To that end, he had not brought any knights with him to this meeting, but he had brought along Dirk, as well as Baldemar’s younger brother and Dirk’s uncle, Kyland Cantour. “I’ll pass thanks,” he said curtly. “Tempting as it is to trade war stories, I’d as soon not waste either of our times.” “Aw, but we’re on the same side now, aren’t we, enki?” Spoken in the low tongue, Barrett’s last word was spoken not as an honorific, but so cuttingly it could have been construed as nothing else but an insult. Glancing among the assorted Cantours, the rebel gestured broadly at the manor. “It’s cold out, no?” he went on smoothly. “Let’s head inside. I understand that my men and I are to be housed in the guest wing, but I’d like a full tour first, just to know the lay of things. And to meet the others who’ll be cohabitating with us. I can’t imagine a fine enki such as yourself has anything less than a burgeoning family, after all.” Barrett grinned. “Fine,” Baldemar replied, abstaining from dignifying the uppity slave’s bantering. “Should you like to start with an inspection of the grounds and the stables or go directly inside out of the bitter cold?” “Tasch, Premek, and Charron can take a look at the grounds.” Either missing or simply not caring about the enki’s cool, sarcastic tone, Barrett nodded at three of the heretofore silent soldiers at his heel. “Me, on the other hand-- I shall like to start the grand tour inside.” He took a step forward. “After you, enkis.” Turning on his heel, Baldemar made a beckoning motion and led Barrett and his leftover lackies into the manor. The first room was a long hallway, with high vaulted ceilings. Banners in the Cantour dull pink and maroon hunt from the beams of the ceiling, and tapestries decked the walls. On the far end of the room was a grand staircase, and on either side of that staircase on the ground floor were unobtrusive doors. The hall at the top of the stairs was ringed on three sides by a banistered balcony that presumably had doors to the rooms upstairs. Gesturing around himself, he said, “The entrance hall. Aside from this one room, the first floor is mostly where the… staff work. Kitchens, supply closets, things of that nature. Upstairs is where we conduct our business, and where the living spaces are.” “Not as grand as Cesthen,” Barrett observed far too brightly, running a thoughtless finger over a painting of a long-dead Cantour lord that hung on the paneled wall. Behind him, one of the other rebels winced as though in embarrassment but said nothing, clearly outranked. “And the guest quarters?” Barrett prompted on. Baldemar resisted the urge to scowl at the haughty rebel colonel. Dirk, who’d kept his face carefully blank up to this point, allowed the tiniest of frowns to flit across his face before resetting his neutral mask. This reminded him far too much of his time in service, when the arrogant rebels had positively flouted any semblance of rules of engagement. They had no sense of humility, no regard for even the most basic diplomacy, and yet they had the gall to act as if they were somehow owed their freedom? They continued the tour of the manor, showing Barrett and his companions the guest quarters where they would be staying, the offices and meeting rooms where business was conducted, the formal dining area, and the downstairs areas that had formerly been workspaces of the slaves, and were now manned by a skeleton crew of paid servants. Barrett took in the tour with a certain disaffected haughtiness that seemed to addle even his own men, both of whom tailed him with barely restrained-- and mortified-- scowls. Finally, once the public areas had been thoroughly introduced, the rebel colonel crossed his arms and smiled at the Cantours again, his yellow teeth glinting against the sunlight streaming in through the large, plate glass window in one of the manor’s hallways. “And the private area?” he asked. “For the family? Since I imagine that’s where the lot of them is hiding, given that I’ve not seen a single beating-heart being yet save for your staff.” “Up this way,” Baldemar replied, taking them back up the stairs. “But I have a promise from Major General Carrow that my family is not to be touched, Colonel Barrett. I fully expect that promise to be upheld.” Barrett placed a hand over his heart, as though he were affronted. “On my honour,” he said lightly. “No harm will come to your family, Lord Cantour. I should hardly want Major General Carrow on my back, no? He’s a nasty blighter when his orders are being defied.” Dirk didn’t comment on this, but he could believe it considering the last rebel high commander he’d had to deal with. He had to resist the urge to rub at one particular scar on his back as he followed his father and uncle upstairs to the private wing. “Once you’ve finished your inspection of this part of the manor,” Baldemar said coolly as he unlocked the door to the private wing. “I have been promised that it will be our personal space. You may occupy the rest as you see fit, but these rooms will be where my family may have privacy.” He opened the door, revealing a long hallway with numerous adjoining doorways. There was a bounce to Barrett’s step as he followed Baldemar, Dirk, and Kyland down the corridor, the rebel pausing to take a brief peek into all the rooms they passed before finally the group arrived to the warm, sunny sitting room Safira and Dirk had spoken in just a few days before. Now, it was considerably more crowded: In addition to the dark-haired princess and her daughter, the latter of whom sat snugly on her mother’s lap, Romilde was sitting in a chair in the corner with a half-finished needlework project, Kyland’s oldest son- only a little younger than Dirk- was standing stiffly behind the futon with his mother, and about a dozen youngsters ranging in age from four to fifteen, presumably Baldemar and Kyland’s other children, were sitting on chairs or the rugs. “What an assortment you have here, enkis,” Barrett remarked, studying the assemblage in front of him as a dog might apprise the juicy steak its master had forbidden it from consuming. Then, to the room at large, he announced, “Hello. Glad to see you’ve formed a welcoming committee on mine and my brethren's behalf. My name is Colonel Lyon Barrett, and I’m the one in charge of the army now occupying your quaint town. If you’ve any questions or concerns, from now on you’ll be able to find me just down the hall.” He gestured vaguely behind him, before his eye fell on one of either Baldemar or Kyland’s young daughters, no more than nine- or ten-years-old, who was suddenly fidgeting from her seat on the rug, her light eyes wide and her jaw tremulous. Even a blind man would have been able to glean her fear, potent as any. “Aw, sweetheart,” Barrett said to her, his voice verging the line of cloying, “no need to be frightened on my account. What’s your name?” Kyland, speaking up for the first time, snapped, “They have been ordered not to talk to you, Colonel. I’ll thank you not to interfere with my children.” “Simmer down there, enki,” Barrett returned coolly, although he didn’t press the child further. Instead, he looked back toward Baldemar, his voice taking on a defensive air as he said, “May I see the rest of the residence, Lord Cantour? I don’t believe you’ve yet shown me the bedchambers, after all. And I’d hate to impose any further on your women and children and tempt them into breaking your orders, after all. We all know what happens when people break enkis’ orders, hm?” “Of course,” Baldemar said curtly, turning away from the sitting room and guiding the rebels deeper into the private quarters. Finally, when the cheeky rebel leader had thoroughly exhausted the manor for spaces to explore and bored himself of antagonizing his hosts, the Cantours left the rebels in their rooms. Returning to the private quarters, they let their family know it was safe to disperse from the sitting room. As Kyland led his family away, and Romilde did the same for her younger children, Dirk and Baldemar sat down with Safira. “Are you alright, Nadi?” Dirk asked, using the pseudonym even though they were alone out of what was now habit, and caution. “I swear, it was everything in me not to have a lash across that cheeky jaw.” Safira shrugged, a protective arm draped over Cydney, who had nodded off in her lap. “I can’t lie and say I feel good about it,” she replied. “Knowing that there are rebels sleeping under the same roof as I am. But at least he didn’t seem suspicious at all. Only very surly and disrespectful.” Smiling grimly, she added, “It was Argall, wasn’t it? His brand? If you think you want to whip him until he doesn’t dare say such things, imagine how Lord Argall would feel, knowing that’s what’s become of his property.” “Oh I’m sure he’d be properly horrified,” Baldemar said grimly. “I can tell you that the man I spoke to in the mountains was at least marginally decorus. But to think we’re going to have to cohabitate with that smug snake until either Ruom is reclaimed by the crown or the war ends…” Dirk shook his head. “At least it’s not Lieutenant Colonel Marti- he was in charge of some of the forces I fought in Talvace, and…” The young nobleman’s eyes went dark. “The few men we did get back from them came back flayed. Their own mothers wouldn’t have recognized them.” Safira frowned, gripping harder to Cydney as though by reflex. “I’ll be praying an awful lot, that’s for sure,” she said softly. “That the king’s army prevails sooner than later, and all these rebels end up exactly where they deserve.” “As will we all, Nadi,” Baldemar said softly. “As will we all.” ** Over the next several months, as autumn turned into winter, the city of Urvane settled into a steady cohabitation with its new rebel occupiers. After a tense first few weeks that saw the city descend into occasional unrest, particularly amidst the wealthier residents who’d been forced to set their slaves free by the terms of the occupation, day-to-day life in Urvane returned not quite to business as usual, but at least peaceable enough for some feign at regularity. It was hard to ignore the rebel army encamped within city walls, or to pretend there wasn’t a bloody war raging out in the province beyond, but in some ways things were almost less nerve-wracking for the laymen of the city than they had been prior to the rebellion’s arrival: The rebel army was no longer an unknown monster just-- as the crown had spun it-- waiting to burn the city and all who resided in it to the ground, but on the contrary, an entity that had turned out to have little inclination toward causing harm to the average residents of Urvane. Did they take up space? Yes. Did their rainbow of brands and accents from all reaches of the kingdom sometimes disquiet the peasantry? Most certainly. But they were hardly evil. Hardly bloodthirsty beasts just waiting to loot, pillage, and murder. If most of the residents of Urvane soon grew to blandly accept the rebellion’s presence, however, the same sentiment clearly did not apply to the city’s noble family itself. Only the adult men- Baldemar, Dirk, Kyland, and Kyland’s oldest son- regularly ventured out of the private wing of the manor. They still had to conduct their business, after all, trying to keep some semblance of control over their estate. The rest of the family, however, remained as cloistered as if the manor had been converted into a nunnery. Colonel Barrett’s cheeky attitude had done nothing to endear the rebels to their hosts, and the men of the house wanted him in particular and his men in general nowhere near their families. There were practical considerations as well. It was very difficult to keep the manor running with most of the slaves gone and only a pithy staff of paid employees. Furthermore, the primary source of income to Ruom, the seams of gold that stuffed its mountain caves, no longer had anyone to mine them. Coffers were still holding, but it wouldn’t be long at all before the region began to suffer and suffer mightily for, as Baldemar put it, “ignorant, barbarian ‘moral’ sentiment from idiots who have not even the most basic concept of how economics works.” By mid-February, they’d become confident at least that their scheme to keep the women and children safe from the rebels was working effectively. The door that led to the private quarters was kept locked at all times, and only the four men had keys- even the servants had to knock to be let in. So when Dirk slogged out of bed late one night during an unexpected heat wave to get a drink of water, he was startled to find the door hanging ajar. What- A jolt of alarm shot down Dirk’s spine at the sight of the open door. Had the rebels picked the lock somehow? Were they even now somewhere in the private quarters, doing Carricon knew what? A quick sweep of the private areas found no one in the sitting or drawing rooms and most of the bedroom doors properly locked. However, one was hanging ajar- the one to Safira and Cydney’s rooms… Dirk leaned closer to the door, and though he could hear the noise of one person’s breathing- an adult by the sound of it- there were not two as there should have been. Panicked now, in spite of the fact that the heat had driven him to sleeping with nothing on but a light pair of trousers, he made a beeline for the open door at the end of the hall. Gods, please, please, please let him be wrong- Most of the rest of the manor was dark, only creeping slivers of moonlight casting silver shadows here and there, but the small sitting room at the landing of the house’s grand staircase glowed with the telltale flicker of candlelight. Its weathered pocket door was slid halfway closed, but it wasn’t shut tightly enough to veil the low murmur of a voice from within: a man’s voice, speaking softly in the low tongue, weighted by the cutting accent of Courdon’s southern provinces. Clenching his jaw, Dirk walked towards the source of the noise and the light. He clenched a fist tight around the door handle and yanked it open, his face like thunder. There were two people inside the room, both of their eyes snapping toward Dirk as the door rumbled open. The first was young Cydney Erling, clad only in a rumpled nightdress, the young girl sitting cross-legged on the bear hide rug in the center of the room. The second, crouching at her side on one knee, was no other than Lyon Barrett, the rebel colonel’s face etched with a small, almost saccharine smile. “Lord Cantour,” Barrett said to Dirk, losing none of the syrupy cheer. “You seem to have misplaced one of your little ones.” He paused. “Along with your shirt.” Dirk gave the rebel a poisonous look. “If you’ve touched a hair on her head…” He looked at the little girl, his expression softening. “Cindy, sweety, it’s late. You should be in bed.” Cydney flicked her gaze between Barrett and Dirk and then back again, her lips pursed but her throat staying silent. Almost smirking now, Barrett rose slowly from his crouch, his hands held out in some mockery of placation as he replied, “What kind of man do you think I am, enki? I found her in here, you see; I think best at night, and so I was pacing about the manor when she surprised me. She was scared, the poor little mite.” Gesturing to the candle that flickered from atop a wall-mounted holder, he added, “Put some light on for her, even.” “How very kind of you,” Dirk drawled. “Forgive my harsh judgements. I’m sure that your army would never do something as base as hurting defenseless young girlchildren.” “You confuse our traitors for our soldiers,” Barrett said thickly. “She’s just a babe, isn’t she? Not a single honourable man or woman in my army would think to hurt her, enki. Especially not with her family having been so cooperative.” His toothy smile growing, he reached down and gave Cydney’s dyed-black curls an almost affectionate pat. Dirk bristled, striding the rest of the way into the room and scooping up the child. “Perhaps if I actually believed that your army had honor that would be a reassurance,” he hissed. “But I saw what was left of the men that were handed over to Arnaud Marti’s pet mage. What few we got back.” He turned, so that his bare back was visible- and with it the ugly, tree-like scar he’d gotten from a lightning spell. “They weren’t even recognizable as human anymore.” “Lieutenant Colonel Marti is not one of our men anymore,” Barrett said vaguely. Watching as Cydney settled in Dirk’s arms, the small girl resting her cheek against the Cantour lord’s chest, the colonel went on, “It is interesting, to see an enki scarred. It’s not a very fun experience to undergo, is it, Lord Cantour? I am sure you have lashed many a slave. How do you think they felt?” “Oh, yes, I made it a point to eviscerate my slaves and skin them alive,” he replied waspishly. “I didn’t come out here to play cat and mouse, Colonel. I came to fetch my cousin. Did you open the door to our quarters and draw her out?” “The only reason I know they’re open at all is because otherwise, I doubt the little one would have made it into this chamber,” Barrett returned. “Although I did see your… brother, is it?... skulking down that way some hours ago. If the wee one wandered out, perhaps he forgot to lock the entry door behind him? Gods know, it must take a lot of careful effort to keep those quarters locked down like a city jail at all times.” He spared another smile at Cydney, still nested in Dirk’s protective grip. “It seems like the inmates are getting restless.” His brother? Dirk’s oldest brother was thirteen, not nearly old enough to be venturing out… Then it hit him- Kyland’s son. Strictly speaking the boy was Dirk’s cousin, not his brother, but Barrett would have no way of knowing that. Godsdamned fool! Dirk thought irritably, making a mental note to have some serious words with his cousin later. “Well I thank you for your generous efforts to keep her entertained,” Dirk said with a very fixed smile. “However, seeing as it is very late, I’ll be taking her back before her mother wakes to find the child gone and justifiably panics. Good night to you.” “Ah, but no need to panic at all,” Barrett called after him as he strode out of the room. “This manor holds only friends of House Cantour, after all. Good night to you, as well, lordling.” Once Dirk had safely gotten Cyndey back to the private wing and firmly locked the door, he took her to the sitting room that had become a regular place to convene for the family over the past few months. Setting her down on the couch and kneeling in front of her, he said, “Are you alright, Cindy, sweety? Why were you outside the family wing?” “I was hot,” Cydney replied vaguely. “And the chain wasn’t did.” Dirk had to suppress a sigh. So she had wandered off on her own. “You scared me when I went to your room and you weren’t there, Cindy. I though someone came in the open door and took you away. ...That man wasn’t mean to you, was he?” Reading the solemn look on Dirk’s face, and the concern in his voice, Cydney bit her lip. Looking not at the Cantour lord but rather at her own lap below, she murmured, “I’unno. He talked funny.” “Talked funny?” Dirk repeated, trying not to frown lest he frighten the child. “What do you mean? What did he talk about?” “How he sounds.” Cydney fidgeted. “And I’unno. He askeded me my name.” Dirk realized the girl must’ve been talking about the man’s Low Courdonian dialect- that made sense, he supposed, since it would’ve been seldom that she heard anyone speaking Low Courdonian. And she would likely have never heard someone speaking with an accent from Kajas. “What did you say when he asked you that?” Dirk asked, swallowing thickly. They’d taken careful care to call the girl nothing except “Cindy” in the hopes that it would stick in her young, impressionable mind, but it had only been a scant few months since the switch… “I dunno,” she whined, increasingly addled, before she added hesitantly, “I’m in trouble?” Taking pity on the child, he sighed and gave a wan smile. “No, you’re not in trouble,” he said, putting a hand on her head and stroking her hair. “But listen to me because this is important, alright? Those aren’t nice men. Your Uncle Baldemar and Uncle Kyland and me can keep you safe from them, but only if you’re a good girl and stay in this part of the manor. They’re not allowed in here. So please, don’t wander off like that again.” Cydney nodded, considering for a moment. Then, she whispered, “What’s pris’ner?” Dirk started. Prisoner? Barrett had referred to Cydney as an “inmate” during their conversation, but… “Someone that’s being kept somewhere they don’t want to be,” Dirk replied hesitantly. “Usually because they did something bad or broke the law. Why, where did you hear that?” “He askeded me if Mama and me and ev’rybody was pris’ner,” Cydney said. “If I wanted to go outside but couldn’t. ‘Cos of the locks.” Her voice taking a troubled pitch, she added, “He tolded me he could help. If I wanted. I didn’t know he was bad.” Dirk felt as if his blood had turned to ice. The images of the men he’d seen mutilated, skinned alive by the rebel mages, flashed in his mind’s eye. The rumors of what had befallen Anson Pike’s daughters when the rebels got hold of them… What if the rebels here had gotten bored of cooperation? What if they had decided to try and lure the women and children out of hiding, and wreak their bloody, disproportionate revenge on them as they’d proven themselves willing to do so many times in the past? “Cindy sweety, when he asked if you were a prisoner, what did you say?” Dirk asked. “I said I wanted t’ go outside.” Tears pooled in Cydney’s light blue eyes, the girl taking in a jagged hiccup of air. “I’m sorry,” she practically bleated, writhing on the couch now like a bewildered puppy. “He tolded me he was my friend.” In spite of the terror that was making Dirk’s heart hammer wildly in his chest, the man forced himself to focus on the matter at hand. Cydney was scared, confused, and probably tired given the hour. No doubt the heated exchange between the Cantour lord and the rebel had done nothing to help this. Forcing a smile onto his face, Dirk shifted so that he was sitting next to Cydney on the couch, and drew her up into his lap. “Shhh, don’t cry Cindy. It’ll be alright, I promise. Your uncles and me will keep you safe from the bad men. You’ll be okay. Just promise me that you’ll stay here from now on, and you won’t talk to strangers unless your Mama or one of us says it’s okay.” “I promise,” Cydney sniffled. “I’m sorry.” The Courdonian lord stroked the little girl’s hair until her sobs quieted, and eventually exhaustion overtook her and the child dozed off with her head nestled in the crook of his arm. At least the three-year-old was relatively easy to soothe. His own fears were nowhere near as easily abated. The rebels were fishing, and fishing mightily, for any excuse to violate the terms of the Cantour’s surrender. Dirk really couldn’t count himself surprised after everything he’d seen of them during his service, but that didn’t make the realization any more palatable a one. He had a sinking feeling this was not the last that the family was going to hear of the issue. With a sigh, he stood, holding the toddler close to his chest. She stirred, but only to snuggle herself closer to Dirk as he carried her to the bedchamber that she shared with her mother. For now, he had to put her to bed, and try- try- to get some sleep of his own. In the morning, the family would need to have a talk. Somebody's Monster: Part Three Dirk was right to worry: Three weeks later, with only as much warning as Lyon Barrett glibly announcing just after dawn that “today is a very special day, lordlings; come with me to the courtyard at once”, a pair of gryphons landed just beyond the gates of House Cantour’s manor. From their showy plumages and sturdy builds, it was clear they’d once been prized beasts of the king’s army, but since then they had-- much like Urvane itself-- fallen sharply from grace. They were now ridden by men and women in rebel’s garb, four of them in all, and from the way Barrett readily saluted his comrades as they dismounted, it was immediately obvious that the head of the Urvane occupation was, at last, outranked.
As before, Baldemar was present for this meeting, with his son and brother. He wasn’t sure what to make of all this, but he knew for certain that he didn’t like it. Trying to to reveal the threading of confusion and terror that was gnawing at him, he inclined his head politely, Kyland and Dirk following his lead. “Welcome to Urvane, Sirs, Madam. I am Lord Baldemar Cantour, and these are my brother Kyland and son Dirk. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
The middle-aged woman at the head of the group smiled thinly at the enkis. Beneath the early morning sun, her hair-- a dark red crept halfway to gray-- glinted, and heavy black bags were prominent beneath her hard green eyes, as though it had been a very long time since she’d gotten a good night’s sleep. The trio of other rebels shifted wordlessly at her heel, flanking her like shadows.
“My name,” she began, “is General Lydia Kidde. And I’ve come here to follow up on some… concerns… my men have couriered to me. About the status of certain persons at this home. I would have given you advance warning, but I was afraid that might lead toward… things being slanted a certain way. Like a stage set for a show.”
Baldemar frowned initially when the woman was the first to speak- this was one of their generals? But her words quickly evaporated almost all concern the nobleman had for her gender. Beside him, Dirk’s jaw tightened.
“And what concerns might that be, General?” Baldemar asked blandly. It took a tremendous amount of effort not to load the word “general” down with heavy sarcasm.
“My men have been in your city since October,” Lydia replied, electing not to beat around the bush. “I’m taken to understand that since then, all the women and children in your custody have been kept under lock and key, quite literally. We’ve concerns this cloistering might not be voluntary.” Almost lightly, she added, “You must understand, Lord Cantour, you would hardly be the first enki in this kingdom to attempt to exert undue control over his legally vulnerable relatives. Such tactics might be acceptable beneath the king’s law, but under ours, not so much.”
“How thoughtful,” Dirk remarked with false cheer. “Did your officer elect to inform you that his summation of our women and children as ‘prisoners’ was gleaned by questioning a three year old who’d wandered well past midnight, and didn’t even know what the word ‘prisoner’ actually meant until she asked me afterwards?”
“It is hardly my responsibility to break down for you the source or breadth of our information, enki,” Lydia returned, although one couldn’t miss her eye listing sharply in Bartett’s direction. The colonel was no longer standing quite so straight, his own gaze planted suddenly on the dirt below.
“And we are here now, besides, so we’d be remiss not to follow through,” added one of the shadows at her heel: a tall, muscled man with raven-black hair and eyes almost to match, his hand rested lazily on his hip just above the handle of his holstered sword. Though he spoke in the low tongue, as had General Kidde, he rather sounded as if he were a nobleman doing a farcical parody of the dialect. “We want to speak them,” he went on, taking a step forward. “Sort to the bottom of this ourselves. It won’t take over-long, Lords Cantour. Particularly if, as you seem to imply, there is truly nothing amiss.”
The implied threat of the hand on the sword was not missed on the Cantours, who collectively tensed. Baldemar’s eyes flashed with anger, though internally he was grasping desperately for an out. If these were rebel generals they might well be able to work out who Safira was if they saw her. And if that happened…
She would be their hostage. And the heads of all who’d sheltered her would roll.
“We keep the door locked to protect them,” Kyland said. “Because my nephew has scars on both his body and his memory from the atrocities visited by one of the mage interrogators stationed in Talvace in 1343, and because of what we’ve heard became of those left behind when Lord Pike fled like a coward from his keep. I have no desire to see my wife nor my children marked in such a way.”
At the mention of Arianne and Noa Pike, the dark-skinned man took a sharp, almost furious step forward, but Lydia held just as sharp of a hand back out toward him, demanding him still. “I stood but five feet away as the men who hurt Lord Pike’s daughters had their heads cleaved from their shoulders,” she said. “What they did to those children was not a condoned act, and it was punished with every bit of severity it deserved. And while I don’t know the circumstances of your nephew’s injuries, I can attest that if they are as gruesome as you’re insinuating, they, too, ought not have happened. So for both of these things, I offer my army’s full apologies. But huffing at me will not cause me to turn around and leave without speaking to your women and children, Lord Cantour.”
“And locks,” the black-haired man added, “are as often used to keep things in as they’re used to keep monsters out. I dearly hope this is all but a grand misunderstanding, but you would hardly be the first enkis to harm women and children in the allegation of protection, Lords Cantour.”
Baldemar wanted to grind his teeth with frustration. But he was getting nowhere with this. Eyeing the assemblage, he couldn’t help but notice that the dark skinned man, unlike literally every single rebel Baldemar had seen so far, was entirely lacking any sort of brand on his shoulder. That, taken with the odd tamber of his accent, sent a chill of foreboding up the enki’s spine. Just who was the talkative one?
Fixing his gaze back on Lydia, he said gruffly, “May I at least have the pleasure of knowing who all I’m bringing into my home, General? You’ve introduced yourself, but not your companions.”
“Captains Lindsay and Irving.” Lydia gestured to two of them before sweeping her hand toward her brooding shadow, who’d now slowly drifted so that he stood within inches of the general. “And him-- well, don’t worry about him. He won’t be bothering you any.”
Not be bothering them any? He was talking almost as much as the general was! Grinding his teeth in frustration, but seeing no other alternative, Baldemar turned on his heel. “Follow me then. You may have your interviews- but part of our surrender terms were that no one in our family was to be harmed, and I hope that once you have your confirmation of our good intentions that those terms will remain in place.” He glanced poisonously at Barrett.
Inside the manor, the rebels waited wordlessly in the sitting room as the Cantour lords assembled the women and children in the question. Barrett stood conspicuously apart from the others, his face inscrutable but for his eyes, which he only dared list in General Kidde’s direction when he was very sure she wasn’t first looking at him. Dirk was the first to return, with his younger siblings in tow. He noticed that Barrett was looking distinctly discomfitted, and felt a certain bitter satisfaction. Clearly he had not expected his superior to be informed of exactly where his suspicious had come from- nor did he expect her to be forgiving. For once that rebel ruthlessness was working in their favor.
Kyland arrived soon after, with his wife and children. Then, last, Baldemar walked into the room, and trailing close behind him were Romilde, Safira, and in Safira’s arms little Cydney.
“Here are our women and children,” Baldemar said icely. “What happens now, General?”
“We want to speak to them in smaller groups,” Lydia said. Her focus leveled on Baldemar, she failed to notice as, only steps beyond the door, Safira suddenly quailed, the woman’s tan skin going white as smoke as she froze abruptly in place, her grip on Cydney gone white-knuckle. “In pairs, preferably. I imagine you’ve an office we can use for this purpose?”
Safira was not the only one frozen: As the general waited for Baldemar’s response, the dark-haired rebel at her flank had, too, gone very, very still. He looked at neither the general nor the Cantours, but rather straight at Safira, their eyes locked on one another like magnets. It was not altogether clear who between them was the more frightened.
Baldemar kept his eyes locked on the rebel general, trying to still his hammering heartbeat. “There is, but I want either myself or my son in presence for these… Conversations. To see to it that they do not take on the tone of some of the interrogations my son saw the aftermath of.”
“No--” Lydia started.
But before she could utter another syllable, her shadow cut in over her. “It’s fine,” he said. “If we see any signs of intimidation, we can end it, but otherwise--”
“Colonel.” Lydia’s voice was a warning. “Thank you for your opinion, but I did not ask for it.”
“You brought me with you because you thought I’d be able to better assess the situation than you could, due to my… experiences.” The firm, almost demanding, tenor of his words did not match the fear still present in his eyes. “Let one of them sit in. There’s no harm in it.”
Lydia gritted her teeth. “Very well,” she said. “Which one of them, Colonel?”
Her soldier considered, his gaze flicking between Baldemar and Dirk. “The younger,” he said finally. “And I should warn you, lordling, if I get any sense that you’re intimidating your relatives, this courtesy will be ended.”
Still standing near the door, Safira looked like she might faint. Dirk nodded curtly, and turned to lead the rebels into one of his father’s offices. Romilde and Safira, standing closest to the door, were chosen to speak first for the sake of expedience. Baldemar took Cydney from her mother, and as the two women turned to follow Dirk and the rebels, Romilde leaned ever so slightly closer to her niece-in-law.
“What’s wrong, you’ve gone white as a sheet?” she hissed. “What about that dark man spooked you so?”
“He’s my brother,” Safira breathed in response, her eyes not leaving his back as he strode several paces in front of her. Then, miserably: “I’m dead.”
Romilde tensed, her face going as pale as Safira’s. Then, she reached out to the younger girl, and gave her hand a squeeze. “He’s not said anything to reveal you, yet. Just stick to the story. It’s all we can do at this point.”
Captains Lindsay and Irving had stayed behind to babysit the rest of the family-- as though to ensure the Cantour lords didn’t threaten them in the meantime-- and in the office, Lydia took a seat at one side of the desk before gesturing for Safira and Romilde to sit in the two chairs opposite her.
“I hope you don’t mind standing, Lord Cantour,” the general said lightly to Dirk, before she gestured to her shadow. Safira’s brother. “Shut the door, please,” she instructed him. “I don’t want our conversation to carry.”
He’d forced a bit of colour back to his cheeks, but his complexion remained decidedly pale as he nodded and obliged. Seated before the desk, Safira crossed her arms at her chest and planted her gaze on her lap, trying her damndest not to tremble-- and failing. She could not recall ever being so scared before in her life. Not even during Cesthen’s fall; at least she’d had adrenaline to carry her then. Now, she had only a sickly churning gut and an endless list of ways she was about to die crashing through her head. Dirk, for his part, kept his face entirely unreadable. It was clear he didn’t trust the rebels one iota, but he kept his mouth shut and body tense as a spring lest they tried anything he didn’t like.
“So,” Lydia said, clasping her hands together atop the desk. “Let’s start with the basics. What are your names?”
“My name is Romilde Cantour,” the older woman replied, her voice kept carefully even. “I am Lord Baldemar’s wife.”
“I see.” Lydia’s eyes trailed toward Safira, and as she noticed the way the woman was shaking, the general frowned. Her voice softening, she asked, “And you?”
“Nathalie,” Safira murmured.
Lydia gestured toward Romilde. “Is she your mother?”
“No.” Safira swallowed one of the many knots twisting in her throat. “I’m not of House Cantour. I… I-- I just… they just… they took me in. After my own House fell.”
In her chair, Lydia straightened, her frown deepening. “And what was that House?”
“Thierry. House Thierry. In Emryn.”
“Born or married in?” Lydia asked.
“Married,” whispered Safira. Gods, how many times had they been over this story? Once upon a time, she’d have thought it branded upon her brain. But now, put on the spot, it was hard to utter the words with any conviction. And harder still to convince herself that this rebel leader trusted a word that she said, even forgetting the fact that her own godsdamned brother stood at her heel like a dangerous, watching dog. No matter what she said, he certainly knew she wasn’t any member of House Thierry, married in or otherwise.
“She was born in Durach originally,” Romilde explained. “Her husband was my cousin. We have mutual relatives over the border in Kyth, though my mother’s line. He managed to escape with her and their daughter after their city was razed, and they were hiding somewhere in the mountains. But he died a few months back and told her to find us here because he knew we would look after her and her baby.”
“Durach? What House?” Lydia didn’t quite seem incredulous-- only very curious-- but this did little to ease Safira’s nerves, and it seemed to be doing equally as little for her brother, whose hands now hung at his sides in rigid fists and whose brow was dappled with sweat. Safira knew him well enough to know that he was deep in thought. That he was considering. Deciding.
But deciding what?
“Paige,” she made herself say. “House Paige. Our seat is… is… Martine. South of Durach and… Alaric lands.”
At this, Lydia’s attention flicked toward her shadow. “You know her?” she said.
In the chair, Safira was close to tears, but she desperately blinked them back. She could hardly breathe as her brother carefully weighted over his reply; it felt like the wait for the executioner’s blade. Romilde put a comforting arm around the young girl’s shoulder, giving her a motherly smile. Behind them, Dirk had crossed his arms, his grey eyes flashing like thunderheads as he watched the rebels like a hawk.
“I do,” her brother said finally; Safira very nearly fainted. But then, much to her astonishment, he went on, “At least, I think I do? If I’m not mistaken, she’s one of Cornett Paige’s many daughters. They all have the same eyes.”
If she hadn’t known he was lying, Safira would have believed his words herself. He betrayed no hitch. No tell. Nothing.
“And do you know to whom she was married?” Lydia asked next.
He shrugged. “I hardly kept track of every marriage in the kingdom, General.”
Lydia sighed. “Very well.” The general’s attention fell back to the women. “So, wife and cousin to the family. And are you finding your accommodations acceptable, Nathalie and Romilde?”
The older woman raised an eyebrow. “I’m not even sure what you mean by the question. This is my home, not an inn. Of course I find it acceptable. I’ve lived here for some twenty-five years and had plenty of time to acquire various comforts. The only thing I have to complain of is your colonel antagonizing our children when they venture out of our wing or he has reason to come in.”
As though she’d not even heard the last part of Romilde’s reply, Lydia said, “Were you given orders by the men of the House not to speak to any members of the rebellion?”
She shrugged. “Yes. Not that I had any intention of doing so in any case.”
“And what would happen, Romilde?” Lydia said. “If you were to defy this order?”
The old woman looked legitimately taken off guard by the question. “I don’t know? I have never conceived to question so simple and obvious a directive that I considered what might happen if I didn’t. Certainly there have been no threats. All that happened when little Cynthia spoke to your colonel was Dirk putting her back to bed.”
“And what about you, Nathalie?” Lydia asked. “What do you think would happen?”
“Nothing,” Safira said, her mind still reeling over the fact that her brother had lied for her. To his own general! Gods, after all he’d done to his family-- how he’d betrayed them all-- how he’d gone against everything House Alaric had ever stood for--
Forcing a deep breath, she strangled back her dizzying thoughts. “We’re not scared of our men,” she said. “We’re only scared of yours. Yes, we’ve been ordered to stay away from them. But I imagine you give orders all the time, don’t you, General? That hardly makes your soldiers prisoners, does it, that they should think to obey?”
“No,” Lydia conceded. “I suppose it doesn’t. But I can assure you both”-- she spared a glance toward Dirk--“or rather, you all, that my men are nothing to fear. You needn’t feel as if you have to stay cloistered or you’ll be in danger. I admit that Colonel Barrett can be a bit of a strong personality. But after Teral, I hardly would have installed any men in a manor full of women and children whom I did not have complete faith in to act honourably where it matters most.” She sighed, for the first time her hard general’s veneer relaxing. “The little one Barrett spoke to,” Lydia said. “Who claimed to be a prisoner. You said she was three, Lord Cantour?”
“Yes,” Dirk replied. “Though for the record, she didn’t say she was a prisoner- she didn’t know what the word meant. She just said she wanted to go outside.”
“I have a sense,” Lydia said, a borderline irritated expression creeping across her face, “that this entire visit has all come to be over… I’ll be generous and call it a misunderstanding. I’ll thus try to keep the rest of this process brief.” She gestured to the door. “Thank you for answering my questions, Nathalie and Romilde. Colonel, Lord Cantour, if I might wait here while you fetch me the next pair?”
“Of course,” Dirk said, making a beckoning motion towards Safira and his mother. “I’ll bring in my aunt and her second-eldest.”
As he led the two women back out the door, Romilde cast Safira an encouraging smile. Striding back to the sitting room, Safira’s brother fell in step behind her and the others, finally letting the mask of fear and agonized deliberation on his face meld into something far different: relief, as potent as any, like a wave thrashing a formerly-drowning man loose from the choking sea.
“Wait,” he murmured to her, as the group reached the halfway point between the sitting room and the office-- thus out of earshot of both. “Slow down for a second. I want to talk to you.”
“Your general talked enough already, didn’t she?” Safira hissed, nevertheless drawing to a halt. Rounding to face him, she glared up at his aquiline face, looking as if she couldn’t decide whether to hug him, hit him, or both.
Dirk turned, tensing. “What do you want with us? Who are you? You speak in the Low tongue but you’re clearly not a native in it, you’ve been staring at my cousin like she’s a viper about to bite you, and now you’re trailing us like a forlorn puppy!”
“Dirk!” Romilde said, a warning in her tone. She turned to the man, folding her arms. Though her expression remained wary, she gave him a slow nod. “Thank you for your help. But is this really a safe place for a chitty chat?”
“It’s as good as we have,” he returned softly. “And I’ll keep it quick.” He looked to Dirk. “My general didn’t identify me in the courtyard because my name tends to… bother people, on both sides of this war. It’s Gerard. Gerard Alaric. Yes, that Gerard Alaric. I’m sure my reputation precedes me.”
“Stop rambling,” Safira demanded, careful to keep her voice low. “Why did you lie for me, Gerry?”
He seemed truly perplexed at this. Wounded, even. “Because I want to keep you safe?” he said. “Because you’re my sister, and I love you, and that’s my duty?”
“You’re a rebel,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t make the rest of what I’ve said untrue, Saf.”
Dirk had gone dead white when the rebel revealed his name. Gerard Alaric. Prince Gerard Alaric. King Oliver’s traitor son, who had fled the Gilded Palace to join the rebels nearly five years ago. By all the gods, if he’d chosen to he could’ve seen all their heads rolling…
“So,” he said softly. “If you’re worried about your superiors finding out about her, then what we heard in there is just pretty words after all.” Dirk accused, instinctively putting an arm over where the edge of the tree-like scar on his back rippled over his shoulder. “About us being safe, about us not needing to worry about things like Lieutenant Colonel Marti’s mage or-”
“No,” Gerard cut in. “There’s nothing to worry about. The rebellion would have to kill me before they hurt Saf, and they know that, and at this point they’re not going to do that to me. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t try to… use her, in some way or another. Against our father. And that’s not what you want, is it, Saf?”
“Of course not,” she said through clenched teeth. “But then again, I’m sure neither did Mattie.”
“Mattie’s exactly where he wants to be,” Gerard countered. “And I think deep down, you know that, Safira. No matter what Father’s story is.” He reached out a hand, as though to set it on his sister’s shoulder, but dropped it just as quickly, perhaps knowing it was a poor-- and unwelcomed-- idea. “I thought you were dead,” he said simply. “Cydney, too. I don’t think I’ve felt this much relief in a very long time.”
“You can eat your relief,” Safira snapped. “I want no part in it.” Taking a step toward Dirk, she said firmly, “Thank you for not ratting me out, Gerry, but I think I’m done with this family reunion.”
“Saf--” he started.
“Stop.” Her voice cracked. “Please.”
“We’ve tarried too long already,” Romilde pointed out sharply. “Your general will wonder what’s taking so long for you to return.”
“Of course.” Gerard, his lips pursed, glanced down the hall that stretched before them. “You’re allowed to hate me, Safira,” he murmured before the group started walking again. “That’s your right. But please-- just know that I love you, okay? And my being in this army… it’s not contrary to that at all.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Gerry,” Safira whispered flatly.
Dirk stepped aside to allow the two women to pass him, and then continued down the hall, keeping himself between them and Gerard as they went the walked the rest of the way down the hall to the sitting room. Once Dirk and Gerard had left with the next batch to go, Romilde wordlessly reached towards Safira and gave her a one-armed hug. Safira returned it, her bottom lip trembling, wishing that she could talk about what had just happened but knowing that such a thing was far too risky, given the rebels who lazily paced the room like caged lions.
He could have ruined her. And he hadn’t. Safira knew she should feel the relief-- the same sort of relief he’d apparently felt at finding out she and Cydney were alive-- but inside, she was simply numb. Numb and disbelieving.
The feeling didn’t abate as the morning ticked slowly on, Gerard and Dirk pulling pairs of women and children from the sitting room and returning them shortly thereafter with increasingly aggravated expressions on both of their faces. Clearly the interviews were leading to nothing other than what Safira and Romilde had already claimed: The women and children were not prisoners. They were frightened of the rebels, not the Cantour men. The only bogeyman in the house was not Baldemar or Dirk or Kyland but Barrett-- the smirking colonel who was, for the first time in months, no longer wearing an expression quite so glib.
Finally, as noon approached, Gerard and Dirk, accompanied this time by Lydia, returned the final duo to the sitting room.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” the general announced then. “It was nice speaking with all of you. And while I’m sure conversing with me wasn’t how you wanted to spend your mornings, I’m glad that we could get this situation all cleared up in a swift and simple manner.” She nodded to Baldemar and Kyland. “You have lovely families,” she said. “And I know I’ve promised you this multiple times already, but I think it bears repeating: You have nothing to fear from my men. Every army will have its monsters, but I assure you this manor is free of them.”
Baldemar gave a polite, neutral smile, stroking the head of one of his younger sons who was clinging to his leg as he stared up at the rebel leader. “Thank you, General Kidde. I hope that there will be no further misunderstandings between your men and our families.”
“I hope so as well, Lord Cantour,” Lydia agreed. Sharply beckoning toward Barrett, the general started toward the door. “Come, Colonel,” she ordered him. “I suspect we have much to talk about, no?”
Barrett, his proverbial tail tucked, shuffled after Lydia, followed in turn by Lindsay, Irving, and Gerard Alaric. Once the rebels had departed, the tension evaporated from the room like mist on a hot day, as if it were a tangible weight now removed from everyone’s chests. Sitting on a loveseat in the corner of the room, with Cydney drawn into her lap, Safira let out an audible sigh of immense relief. Dirk leaned back against the wall of the room with a soft moan, running a hand through his russet hair.
“Well the gods certainly sent us a trial with that one,” Kyland remarked in an undertone. Looking around at the assemblage, he asked, “Is everyone alright? No one bullied or intimidated by those ruffians?”
There was a general, haggard reply in the negative. Dirk looked towards his uncle with a weary but satisfied expression. “At least they weren’t tyrants to the children. I still don’t trust them, but the leader at least seems to realize that Barrett was just fishing for an excuse to get us in trouble.”
“Well he didn’t find it,” Romilde put in. She turned to her children, nieces, and nephews, eyes taking in the assemblage with a benevolent gaze. Her eyes came to a rest on Cydney, tucked in her mother’s arms. “I think after this rather harrowing morning we’ve had, we’re all deserving of a treat. What do you all say to sending a runner out to the bakery once the rebels have left and having a cake made for us all for after dinner tonight?”
At the mention of cake, Cydney perked up considerably, as did several of the other children. Safira, still reeling inside, nevertheless couldn’t help but softly smile as her daughter clapped her hands together in delight. She shushed the girl, but only half-heartedly, as it hit her for what had to be the fiftieth time just how badly Gerard could have ruined things for her-- for everyone-- today, had he wanted to.
The contingent of high-ranking rebels was gone a few hours later, flown off atop the gryphons’ backs to gods-knew-where. Conspicuously-- almost shockingly-- Barrett was gone alongside them. “General Kidde’s limit for being pointlessly summoned to peaceably occupied cities is not very high,” said a lieutenant colonel called Tasch when Kyland’s son asked him about Barrett’s departure; with the colonel gone, Tasch was now the highest-ranked officer left in the city, and thus ostensibly in charge of its occupation. “Needless to say, I think that limit was well reached-- and exceeded-- today.”
The young man had nodded, relaying this to his relatives and sharing in a collective sigh of relief. Things would no doubt be much quieter without the swaggering colonel snarking at them every time they dared poke their noses outside their quarters.
But that sigh of relief was heard loudest from those in the family who were conspirators in the sheltering of Safira and Cydney- for they knew they had just made it over a major hurdle. Now, there was only the waiting game- and the hope that there were no further visitations to their manor by rebel high command.
Somebody's Monster: Part Four For the next several months, things in Urvane almost could have been called peaceful, if one ignored the war still waging elsewhere in Courdon. The new rebel leader in charge of the occupation, Tasch, was infinitely more agreeable and mild-mannered than his predecessor. The Cantour men no longer had to worry about being antagonized if they set foot out of the private wing of the manor. Though they still kept the women and children locked away, things settled into a steady rhythm that was at least tolerable, if not especially enjoyable.
Around the midsummer solstice, a rash of colds went around Urvane. Baldemar managed to catch it, to his exasperation, leaving him with a stopped up, dripping nose and a cough that seemed to rattle his ribs every time it wracked him. Unfortunately, the close quarters the family was living together in made it inevitable that the cold would spread, and before two weeks were out half the manor was sniffling and watering at the eyes.
But as with any cold, the symptoms began to clear up after not too long. Baldemar go better, as did the adults and older children. When the illness lingered somewhat in the younger tykes, at first no one thought much of it- of course the littlest would be hit hardest by the disease. They’d recover in due time.
Except they didn’t. They got worse.
For the youngest of the Cantours- an eight year old daughter of Kylands, a six year old and four year old of Baldemar’s, and little Cydney- it started when the coughs changed timbre. From what started with standard fits of two or three coughs at a time, they suddenly fell victim to long, nearly incessant bouts of terrible wheezing that left them blue in the face, and exhausted. When finally they were able to catch their breath after one of these fits, they would each upon inhale make an identical, horrific sounding noise, like a mixture between a bark and some sort of out-of-tune flute. Occasionally they would cough so hard they even lost the contents of their stomach. Baldemar’s youngest son, the four year old, was struck by a fit so bad that he was left sobbing in pain, and Dirk magically diagnosed the problem as him having coughed so hard he’d cracked a rib.
When by the middle of July things still hadn’t improved, the worst ill were eventually sequestered into a room away from the other children, with only Safira, Baldemar, the house’s two mages Romilde and Dirk, and on scant occasions Kyland allowed in to see them. The princess was beside herself with worry; she fretted over Cydney’s bedside at all hours of the night, posting vigil as though it might somehow aid in the child’s recovery. Heavy black bags limned her own eyes, and each time the girl went into a fit, Safira flinched as though she herself were in pain.
“She’s going to get better, right?” the woman asked one morning nearly three weeks into the children’s illnesses, her voice hardly more than a tremulous whisper. Sitting next to Cydney’s lightly slumbering form, Safira looked back over her shoulder toward Dirk, who stood across the room from her as he tried to coax his six-year-old sister into taking sips from cup of fragrant herbal tea, which was as close to a medicine as they could get their hands on these days. “It’s just been so long,” Safira added after a moment. “And she’s so weak…”
Dirk, whose auburn hair was in disarray and his hands shaking with fatigue, turned around to look at her. There was a mixture of dull exhaustion and leaden despair in his eyes. “I… I hope so. I really, really hope so.” He clenched his teeth. “No offense or anything, and I know he’s our king, but… I could throttle his majesty right now for denuding the kingdom of all it’s able healer-mages. A few potions could clear this up in a week or two, I’m sure…”
Safira jutted her chin. “If you want to throttle him, be my guest. As long as I get to have a go at him afterward.” She ran a tender hand through Cydney’s dark curls. “I’ll just keep praying, I suppose. The gods will hear eventually. They have to.”
Dirk only sighed, turning his attention back to his sister. “C’mon Arcadia, just drink it. I promise it’ll make you feel better.”
“No!” the girl moaned breathlessly. “Nothing’s working! And it tastes awful!”
“Cadi, please-”
“No!” Arcadia said, rolling over and stuffing her face into her pillow. Before Dirk could say anything else, the girl immediately rolled back over on her side as a violent coughing fit seized her. Dirk’s hand tightened around the container of medicine, and he had to fight not to wince every time she made that awful barking noise.
“Cadi,” he said, when the fit subsided, “Would you like some grapes? I heard there are fresh grapes at the market today. I can send a servant out to buy some for you, if you take your medicine like a good girl.”
The girl hesitated at this, looking conflicted. Finally, when a beleaguered groan, she forced herself into a sitting position, and allowed Dirk to pour the medicine down her throat. Once she’d slumped back down, Dirk turned to Safira.
“Should I send Mother or Father in to keep you and the children company?” he asked the princess. “I need to keep my promise and send a servant for those grapes, but I don’t want to leave you alone in here…”
“I’m alright,” Safira murmured, sighing as Cydney, roused by Arcadia’s coughing spell, let out a pitiful moan of pain. “Maybe if you get enough, I can persuade Cindy into eating some, too. She’s been refusing food for days.”
“I don’t blame her when none of them seem able to keep much down,” Dirk noted sadly, “But I’ll be sure to let the servant I send out know. Just shout if you need anything and I’m sure Mother or Father will come.”
Not bothering to stop and put himself in order- his hair was still a mess, there were deep bags under his eyes, and he was wearing nothing but a crumpled undershirt- the young nobleman walked out of the private wing, locking it behind him. He didn’t spot any servants in the immediate vicinity, so with a sigh he started hunting.
But before Dirk found any of the House’s servants, another person crossed his path: Tasch. Previously hurrying down one of the manor’s many curving halls with such purpose to his stride that he clearly had a destination in mind, the rebel officer paused at the sight of the haggard lord; a frown curled sharply at his lips. “You alright there, Lord Cantour?” he asked.
Dirk tensed; though Tasch had been nothing so cheeky as Barrett, but he wasn’t convinced that the man wouldn’t somehow find pleasure in knowing the suffering of the enkis.
“I’m fine,” he said stiffly. “Just some… issues with my younger sibling and cousins. But nothing you need worry about.”
“They’re not getting any better?” Tasch asked, before quickly clarifying, “We can hear them, sometimes. Through the walls.” The rebel’s dark eyes glinted with sympathy. “We had outbreaks of it in the slave quarters sometimes. Back in Tion. We called it the barking cough. It always hit the smallest ones hardest.”
Dirk winced, but there was no point denying it. “Yes. Or, no, they’re not getting any better. The youngest two, the four year old Barrett spoke to before and my four year old brother… I think they’re dying.”
He glanced sideways at the rebel, daring him silently to make some sort of gloating comment. But Tasch had no such response; if anything, his expression darkened, as the man clenched his jaw and dourly shook his head.
“You’ve no healers, Lord Cantour?” the rebel asked. “At a manor like this? Lord Owain’s young son caught the sickness once, from some slave or another. He had him healed and back to normal in a matter of days.”
“My mother and I are both mages, but neither of us is trained in healing,” Dirk admitted stiffly. “There was a healer on staff, and two more in the city… but they were confiscated by the crown to serve in the army at the start of the war.”
He didn’t meet the rebel’s eyes. He had a hunch this would little nugget of information would turn whatever sympathy the man had against the Cantours. After all, healers serving the crown’s army were healers working against the rebels. Not that the Cantours had given up their healer willingly, but…
Instead, the rebel merely sighed. “We have one,” Tasch said. “In the city. If I’d known you didn’t, I would have called for him some time ago already. I merely presumed…” He raked a frustrated hand through his coal-black hair. “I can get him for you, Lord Cantour. If you’d like. He’s a former Ruomian lord who defected to our side several years ago, so don’t be surprised if he’s a familiar face. But he’s competent. Very competent.”
Dirk stared at the rebel in total bafflement. Was… was he really offering help? To an enki? The man felt a chill of foreboding at the idea of a former lord being among the rebels, however- what if he recognized Safira?
The Cantour was torn. Cydney and his brother Amicus were dying. But if this healer was a noble who’d met Princess Safira and recognized her, they would all be killed…
I’ll just tell Safira to go into another room until he leaves, he decided finally. It’s for Cydney’s sake- she won’t like it but if it’s between leaving the room for an hour and her child dying I don’t think she’ll argue.
Rubbing a hand on the back of his neck, he sighed. “I… I would appreciate that. Very much. Whatever your colonel thought, my family means the world to me and I’d do anything if it meant their safety.” He tilted his head. “Would your healer be willing to work on an enki’s children?”
“We all have families,” Tasch replied. “And he was once an enki’s child, too. You might think our army monsters, Lord Cantour, but we’re all human, are we not? I don’t want any child to suffer, and I doubt he does, either.” He shrugged. “Shall I send for him, then? I can have him here within a few hours.”
“Yes, thank you,” Dirk said, torn between relief, unease, and an odd feeling he couldn’t quite pin down bubbling in his gut. Swallowing hard, he nodded to Tasch. “If… if your healer can save our children, we will owe you our gratitude.”
“Treating other humans with the humanity they deserve requires no gratitude, enki,” Tasch said simply. “And this is all my side’s been asking for on our behalves all along.” He turned. “I’ll call for him now and let one of your men know once he’s arrived. Have a good day, Lord Cantour.”
And with that, Tasch strode briskly past Dirk, soon disappearing around a bend in the hall. Dirk was left feeling a strange combination of annoyance, relief, and that same odd feeling he couldn’t really name. After finally managing to flag down a servant to fetch the grapes for Arcadia and Cydney, he went back to the private wing to let the others know what had happened.
Soon afterwards, Baldemar had joined his son in the main hall of the manor, waiting for the arrival of the unknown healer. When he showed up a little under two hours later, strolling in at Tasch’s heel, the look on his tan face bordered on inscrutable, his clear blue eyes as hard as steel. He was older than many of the rest of the rebels-- in his forties, perhaps, or even beyond-- with his skin freckled from years of sun damage and his silver-black hair worn over his shoulder in a long, almost feminine braid.
“Lord Cantour,” he greeted dully, nodding toward Baldemar. “It has been some time, no?”
Baldemar frowned, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the newcomer. “I think… You would be one of Valens Moulin’s brothers, am I wrong? From up in Palleson to the north? You have the look. Forgive me, I can’t quite place your name.”
“Whitney,” the man replied. “And yes, Valens is my older brother. Although I can’t imagine he’d like to claim the association these days. Hell, he’d probably pay you for my head.” He shrugged as if this didn’t bother him, but from the sudden bite of his tone, it clearly did. “Anyway,” he went on, “I like catching up as much as anybody, but I’m a busy man, Lord Cantour. And I understand you have some very sick children. So if we may…?”
Baldemar’s shoulders hitched slightly and his teeth clenched, but he said nothing. Instead he jerked his head, and turned to lead them into the manor. As they went, Dirk explained.
“There are four- my sister Arcadia, she’s six, my four year old brother Amicus, and my cousins Cynthia and Carmella- four and eight. I believe that your lieutenant colonel called it ‘barking cough’ though I admit I’ve never personally seen its like before.”
“It’s common in the east,” Whitney Moulin replied. “Seguier and the Northlands most frequently. In adults and older children, it normally manifests as nothing worse than a particularly nasty cold. But in the little ones…” Moulin shook his head grimly. “How long have they been sick?”
“Almost a month,” Dirk replied. “That’s the other thing we can’t believe, how long it’s lingered. It started cropping up around midsummer and in a week it’ll be August.”
“It’s persistent,” Moulin said, pausing as the party reached the Cantours’ private quarters and Baldemar went to fiddle with his keys. “And it’s harder to treat once the child’s already weakened. I can ease the coughing, but at this stage, a lot of it will come down to sheer will. You need to make them eat. And take fluids every few hours, at minimum. I doubt it’ll be fun, but it’s necessary. Otherwise…” He left the rest of this statement unsaid, but its implications spoke loud enough for any words.
“They cough so hard they throw food right back up as often as not,” Baldemar remarked grimly as he finally got the door open and guided them into the private quarters. “But we’ve been doing our best to keep them eating anyway. Amicus broke one of his ribs last week because of how hard he’s been coughing- we’ve been keeping him still and giving him spells and possets for the pain, but…”
“I’ll do my best,” Moulin said. “I’m only one man, and so I don’t want to promise you miracles. But I can make them all more comfortable, at very least. So they’re not in so much pain.”
Baldemar opened the door to the room where the children were. Safira had been shooed out earlier, to her obvious displeasure, so Romilde had taken over keeping vigil with them. She looked up from where she was trying to coax Cydney to eat a little bit of broth without much success, and gave a polite nod to the newcomers. “Hello my lord, lieutenant colonel. You are most welcome.”
Tasch spared the woman a brief smile, but Moulin seemed too somber for such a thing, giving a heavy sigh as his eye at once fell to the four sick children. The littlest two were both tucked into the rumpled bed in the center of the room, the elder two curled up on cushioned pallets on the floor. None of them so much as glanced in the newcomers’ directions, and as Cydney let out a sudden, wracking gasp of a cough-- nearly upending the bowl of broth in the process-- Moulin outright flinched.
“Which is the sickest?” he asked after a moment. “I’d like to start from there.”
“This little one,” Romilde replied, setting down the bowl on a table beside the bed and stroking Cydney’s sweat streaked, black dyed locks. “Cindy- Cynthia is her name but we call her Cindy. She’s only four. She and Amicus are the worst off.”
“Cindy hasn’t eaten more than a mouthful or two of soup in days,” Dirk put in. “She’s just… refusing to eat, flat out.”
Moulin nodded, unholstering his wand as he slowly approached the bedside. “Hello, Cindy,” he said to the girl, his voice gentle as he lowered himself beside her; too weak to shrink away from him, she merely stared, her eyes almost glassy. “My name’s Whitney, and I’m going to help you feel better, okay?”
“‘Kay,” she murmured hoarsely.
Moulin worked quietly then, his wand steady in his hand, focusing on Cydney for nearly ten minutes before he turned to Amicus beside her. The longer that passed, the more frustrated and solemn the expression on his face grew; he was muttering spells so rapidly beneath his breath that they almost seemed to blend into each other, one after another after another.
After five or ten minutes more, his hand started to tremble, and he gave his fingers a sharp flex. Romilde frowned, clearing her throat softly. “My lord? Are you alright?”
“Yes,” he said quickly. Too quickly. Abruptly, he stood and glanced down toward Arcadia and Carmella. “I’ve fixed his rib,” the rebel healer continued. “And hopefully done enough to ease the worst of their coughing, as well as the pain in general. Normally I’d give potions, but I haven’t access to any that would work right now, and--” He cut himself off, as if he knew that ranting would fix nothing. “The girl in particular is weak. Very weak. I’m surprised she’s still lucid at all. She needs fluids. Constantly. Whether or not she wants them. Or else…” Shaking his head, he took a step toward the older two children. “Which of them is worse?” he asked.
“Carmella,” Baldemar replied. “She’s the older one- but she’s been fighting this the longest of all four of them. She was the first of the children to catch it.”
“Lord Moulin,” Dirk put in, “If you need, I can bring you a fig cake from the kitchens… we don’t have very much that’s particularly sugary without going out to the bakery, but if that’d help?”
“Sergeant Moulin,” the man corrected automatically. “I’m lord of nothing anymore.” He sighed. “I should be okay for now, Lord Cantour, but thank you. I’ll let you know if that changes.”
By the time he was done with Carmella and then Arcadia after her, the lord turned rebel had gone nearly as pale as the children he was treating. Sweat beaded at his brow, and as he finally reholstered his wand, he shakily wiped at it with his other hand. Moving to stand again, he lurched, and Tasch only barely managed to shoot out a hand to catch him before Moulin fell.
“Easy there,” Tasch said, steadying his subordinate. “You look green.”
“I want to look at the littlest girl again,” Moulin said in turn. “I’m not quite satisfied with--”
“No,” Tasch cut in over him. “You’ve already made yourself sick.”
“Lord Cantour offered to get me sugar,” Moulin countered. “It should help.”
“I said no.” Tasch’s tone left no room for argument. “By all means have some fig cake, but you’re done with healing for the day, Sergeant.”
“We cannot thank you enough for your effort on the behalf of our children,” Romilde said softly. “But it hardly helps if you work yourself to the point that your chest is flying open.” She stood, gently pushing her chair towards the healer. “Here, sit for a moment. Dirk?”
“I’m going,” the man said, turning instantly and leaving the room. Baldemar cleared his throat, giving both Tasch and Moulin a slight bow of his head.
“Thank you- as my wife said, we tremendously appreciate your help. Whatever we can do to stabilize them, to help them… improve, with hope, just name it.”
“Just keep them fed and hydrated,” Moulin said, a hand pressed over his chest. “That’s key. I know luxuries are scarce these days, but if you can get them honey, that should soothe their throats at least. And I’ve hopefully done enough for their coughing where they ought at least be able to keep food in their stomachs.” Staring at Cydney and Amicus, who still looked so very small and frail, he added, “The eldest two weren’t so far… depleted, and they should start to bounce back in short order now. But those two… every hour with them until they start to improve: broth, water, tea, just something to keep them hydrated. And start giving them small meals, too. Several times a day. If they have nothing in their bodies to help restore their energy, they won’t get better, no matter how many spells I cast.”
Romilde nodded. “We’ll do our best.” Picking up the bowl she’d had before Moulin started working, she gently nudged Cydney’s shoulder. “Come on sweety- just a little soup, okay? It’ll help you feel better if you eat.”
Cydney pursed her lips, sullen. “Not hungry,” she rasped.
Across the room, Moulin grimaced. “Listen to your auntie, little one,” he said gently. “I’ve cast lots of nice spells to help make you feel better, but you have to help yourself, too, okay?”
Cydney slumped down miserably. “I’m tired.”
“I know you are Cindy,” Romilde said gently. “You can sleep as soon as you eat something, I promise. But you need to eat.” She spooned up some of the broth, and moved the utensil towards Cydney. “Please?”
The child balked for another moment before reluctantly parting her lips, swallowing the spoonful of broth with a dour shudder. “Sleep,” she moaned then, placing a small, clammy hand on Romilde’s arm. “You hold me?”
“I will, once you have a little more soup,” Romilde promised gently, leaning towards the girl and kissing her on the forehead. She offered the girl another spoonful, which the child grudgingly accepted. She managed to get half the bowl into the girl before deciding they’d pushed her hard enough and setting aside the rest for later. Dirk finally returned as Romilde shifted, leaning against Cydney’s pillow and pulling the child up into her lap.
Dirk passed the fig cake to Moulin as Romilde began to sing softly to the child- but not in Courdonian. As Cydney nestled in against the woman’s chest, and Moulin made quick work of the cake, Tasch quirked a crooked smile.
“Kythian, is it?” he asked, taking a step toward the door. “General Kidde’s prone to grumbling in it when she doesn’t want anyone to know what she’s saying.”
“Romilde’s mother was from Kyth,” Baldemar explained softly. “One of the border houses in Corvus- Escalens was it?”
“Escalus,” Dirk corrected. He sighed. “I’ll try to get Amicus to eat something now- Father, would you?”
“Of course,” the lord of Urvane replied. Gesturing to Moulin and Tasch he said, “Gentlemen, if you’re done here for now, I’ll guide you back. And if… Sergeant? Moulin needs anything else for his pull, just let me know.”
“And let me know,” Moulin said firmly, “if they don’t start to improve. I can try again. Different spells, or combinations, or…” He swallowed hard. “And if anyone in this manor ever gets deathly sick again, please, tell us sooner than later, Lords Cantour. I know you might think me the worst kind of traitor, but… I don’t see myself that way. I wish no one in this House harm, not given the way you’ve cooperated. And especially not children.”
Baldemar sighed, and gave a short nod. “Thank you. I am not one to put my pride over the safety of my family, and regardless of allegiances the only one among you to intentionally bring trouble upon us has already been removed.” He gave the briefest flicker of a smile and added with sincerity, “Thank you.”
That night, for the first times in weeks, the noble family’s private quarters didn’t echo at all hours with the sound of gasping, coughing children. By the next morning, Arcadia and Carmella both accepted complete bowls of broth without resistance, and a few days after that, Cydney and Amicus, too, finally seemed to be on the upswing. They still had a dearth of energy, and occasional coughing jags wracked their bodies, but they were lucid most of the time, at least. Recovering, if not recovered.
Dirk wasn’t quite sure how to feel about what had happened. That odd emotion he didn’t have a name for was still eating away at his stomach as he walked into the quarantine room with a tray of food for the invalids. Arcadia and Carmella both got some bread slices and a bit of egg- light foods easy on a stomach still recovering from not eating much. But for Amicus and Cydney, there were only bowls of ginger broth, though it had some noodles in it to help readjust their stomachs to proper digestion.
“Who’s hungry?” He asked the children as he entered. The older two gave a tired and raspy but eager chorus of assent, and Amicus brightened as well.
Yawning from atop the bed, Cydney straightened. “Bread?” she asked eagerly, her gaze falling to the heels meant for Arcadia and Carmella.
“Not yet, sweetheart,” Safira said from beside her. “Your tummy won’t like it.” But she couldn’t help but crack a smile at the fact that her daughter was asking for food at all, rather than snubbing it as if it were poison.
Dirk smiled as well, passing the plates to the older children and offering a bowl of broth to Safira before settling on the other side with Amicus. As he started to help his younger brother eat the Cantour remarked, “It’s good to see them recovering. The little ones aren’t completely out of the woods yet, but it’s the most optimistic it’s looked in weeks.”
“They’re actually sleeping through the night,” Safira said, stirring the noodles and broth as Cydney watched on expectantly. “Arcadia hasn’t coughed all day that I’ve heard.” Looking toward the young girl with a smile, she added, “Been begging to go back to your own room and all, huh?”
“My bed is better than the floor!” the girl muttered by way of reply. Dirk smirked.
“Maybe it is, but you share that room with two sisters who I’m sure are not eager to get sick. You can stay right here until we’re positive you’re completely better.”
The girl muttered irritably but didn’t argue, instead applying herself to her bread. Dirk turned his attention back to feeding Amicus. After a moment he said, “I’m still not really sure how to feel about him. You know- Moulin.”
Spooning a bite into Cydney’s mouth, Safira bit her lip. “He’s a traitor,” she said. “You can bet the crown has a price on his head. And I’m bloody glad they do.” The woman hesitated. “But he saved them. Just like…” She almost said her brother’s name before remembering the children had no idea who she really was. Who he really was, for that matter; to them, he was just another soldier. “They’ve always been the enemy. Ever since the start of this. But now? Now the king’s army has stolen all your healers, and turncoat lords are the ones saving our children’s lives.”
Dirk sighed. “Good, so I’m not the only one who isn’t sure how I should be reacting to this situation.” He gave Amicus another spoonful of soup, his grey eyes clouded. “Barrett was an arrogant, lying manipulator. He was easy to hate. But these ones here now, who act like an actual, disciplined army and not petty hypocrites or outright monsters…” He clenched his teeth. “Tasch is a rebellious slave. Moulin is a traitor. I should hate them- but I owe them the lives of my kin.”
“She’s all I have,” Safira said softly, feeding Cydney another bite of the soup. “She’s all I have, Dirk, and the only reason I think I still have her right now is because of a runaway slave and a man who’s committed treason.” Her throat trembling, she brought her gaze up to meet the Cantour lord’s straight on. “What would we even do?” she murmured. “If… if we won? If the king’s army burst through the city gates tomorrow and had them all in chains? I suppose the natural answer is to celebrate. Rejoice. But… gods, is there something wrong with me that part of my stomach curdles now at that thought?”
“I don’t know,” Dirk admitted, his voice equally low. “I really don’t know.”
Guilt- that’s what it was. The feeling in his stomach, the unpleasant twisting sensation. Just a week ago he’d have gladly trussed up Tasch and all the men beholden to him, had them lashed within an inch of their lives and shipped back to their masters. He still hated the rebels for the atrocities he’d seen from them during the course of the war.
But now, his conscience was eating him alive at the thought of allowing harm to come to the men who’d saved his siblings and cousins.
“I should hate them,” Dirk said softly. “Until last week I did hate them. We play their games to keep ourselves alive until the end of the war, not because we agree or sympathize. They are slaves; servitude is their place. But… what says it of my honor if I would let harm come to someone who saved the life of my kin?”
For a long while, Safira said nothing, merely frowning as she continued to feed Cydney small bites of the ginger soup. Then, finally, she started, “If the slaves hadn’t rebelled in the first place, the sickness wouldn’t have come this far west to begin with. And even if it had, your House would have had its healers. And Cindy and I… we… we wouldn’t have been here at all. So people like Tasch… they fixed it, but they also started it, didn’t they? So we don’t owe them any sympathy. Or… or mercy. Tasch is just a rebellious slave. That’s all he is.” Then, more starkly, as if it were herself she was trying to convince more than anything: “R-right, Dirk?”
Dirk clenched his teeth. He wanted to agree. He wanted badly to agree. But as if on cue, Amicus was seized by a shallow fit of coughing. Dirk immediately put a hand behind the boy’s back to steady him. He remembered how much worse the coughing had been before Moulin had come in- how badly the mage had pulled himself to work his cures on the children. Dirk had worked himself into the pull three times during his military stint- he knew how awful it was.
One could argue the rebels were causing these problems. But one could also argue these problems were unintentional side-effects, and that the rebels were also working to fix their mistakes.
Dirk realized the silence had stretched for a long time when Amicus gave him an impatient nudge on the arm. He sighed, feeding his brother again. “I wish I had an easy answer. But I don’t. I guess… I guess the fortunate thing for us is that the decision isn’t on our heads. We can hardly defy the king if his army marches on Urvane. ...I’m not sure what I’d do if it was up to me.”
“I liked it better when there were easy monsters,” Safira said simply. Miserably.
“So did I,” Dirk replied softly. And he knew that some of them were monsters- the men who’d hurt the Pike girls, or Marti and his mage. Even Barrett was easy to hate, for his arrogance and the way he acted like a petty six year old bully and not a warleader.
But then there were those like Prince Gerard, who’d lie to their general to protect a sister. Those like Tasch who were decent, polite, and gave every bit of the respect and courtesy they claimed to want. Those like Whitney Moulin, who worked themselves into a painful pull to save the lives of the enemy’s children.
If they weren’t monsters… what did that make them?
Somebody's Monster: Part Five There was a war still raging in the kingdom beyond Urvane, but inside the city, one hardly would have known it. Things were quiet-- almost mundane-- with the rebels now merely a benign feature of the environment. Summer passed, then autumn at its heel, until soon the city had settled into a sleepy winter-- perhaps the calmest one it had seen since the rebellion’s start over eight years ago. The stories from elsewhere, however, told a grimmer picture: the capital of Kajas falling in a bloody siege; the king’s army giving up on any and all attempts to reclaim the seceded Roth; more cities occupied, wrested, conquered. If King Oliver didn’t step to the negotiating table soon, then it was becoming abundantly clear that there’d be no table left for him to stagger to at all. The kingdom of Courdon would not just crumble, but burn. Ashes to ashes. Gutted not just to the sinew, but the bone. It was February when the whispers started. When the rebels who occupied Urvane-- including those housed within its noble family’s manor-- began to walk with their heads a little higher, and the ghosts of smiles ticking between their lips. Eventually Baldemar tired of feeling like he was about to burst from uneasy anticipation of whatever had put them in such a good mood, and asked about it. The rebels revealed that King Oliver had finally, after almost ten years of war, agreed to negotiate terms of peace with the rebel leaders. Baldemar relayed this to his family, who were hardly as happy to hear it as the rebels. Moral conflicts aside, all through the war they’d hoped that the situation might turn around. That the crown would squash the rebels and restore order to Courdon. Now however, it seemed that for all intents and purposes, the fractious slaves had won. If the treaty talks proceeded agreeably, there was no doubt that the old order of Courdon would be no more. But for a time, in spite of the apparent peace talks, nothing changed in Urvane. The rebels remained in place, the manor was still more or less under siege, and news trickled in only in small bits and pieces. It was easy for the Cantours to eventually forget that anything unusual was happening, for complacency to let them continue their abnormally normal lives as always. Towards the beginning of March, Baldemar was in his office doing some of his usual work trying to run his estate when he heard the sound of sharp footfalls outside his door. Tasch, still in charge of the Urvane occupation, usually made some effort at courtesy, which meant that if he wanted to speak with one of the Cantours, he went through the requisite formalities first: knocking; small talk; a thin, polite smile upon a diplomat’s face. Today, however, he made no such attempts. His movements were nearly violent as he flung open the door to Baldemar’s office and stalked inside, his jaw squared and his finger thrust accusingly in the enki’s direction. “ Safira Erling,” he snarled. “Bring her to me. Now.” Baldemar froze, quill poised above the paper he’d been writing. His heartbeat instantly accelerated, thundering hard in his chest even as he schooled his face into the most impassive mask he could manage. “What are you babbling about?” he demanded. “Lord Erling’s wife died with him during the siege of Cesthen, did she not?” “Do not lie to me, Lord Cantour!” Tasch growled, looming over the enki’s desk. He wasn’t an intimidating man by stature, but at the moment he more than made up for it in furious energy alone, his entire body nearly trembling with it. “She didn’t die. Neither did the child. You have them. You’ve had them this whole bloody time! And you will bring me to them, now!” “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Baldemar insisted angrily, shoving himself up into a standing position so that Tasch was no longer looming over him. Tasch looked like he might burst, and he had to force a deep breath before continuing, “Nathalie Thierry. There’s no such person. That has never been such a person. Lord Thierry’s wife was called Elisabeth. He had no married brothers. There’s no such person, Lord Cantour.” Clenching his hands into fists at his sides, Tasch hissed, “Safira Erling is the wretched king’s daughter. He’s thought her dead. He thinks my army did it. Do you think he would sign a peace treaty under such terms, Lord Cantour? Do you?” Baldemar blanched. It was over- he knew that at once. But how… Gerard Alaric. Of course- he’d know the terms of the treaty talks, and he knows we have Safira.The Cantour lord clenched his teeth, hunching his shoulders defensively. “We’ve kept her secret this long to protect her from exactly that, Lieutenant Colonel. What do you propose? I hand her over to you as a prisoner? I doubt very much the king would appreciate that either.” “He’ll appreciate that she’s alive,” Tasch rasped. “And face it, Lord Cantour, I’m going about this the nice way. If you don’t want to cooperate with me now, then I’ll have my men break down the godsdamned door to your private residence that we’ve oh-so-nicely let you keep locked up this past year and a half, as you’ve all the while hidden an Alaric princess beneath our noses. I will not hurt her; that would hardly serve anybody’s purpose. But I need to speak with her. Now.” Baldemar closed his eyes, covering his face with a hand momentarily. If Tasch was telling the truth, the rebel was absolutely right. Refusing them access to Safira would only make things harder. But handing her over now, after they’d spent the last year and a half risking their lives for her and Cydney… “Fine,” he said coldly, stalking around the desk. “But I am not leaving her side during your conversation. I’ve protected her at tremendous risk to myself and my family for all this time, I’m not just going to leave her stranded now. I wasn’t lying when I said she was a relative- Romilde was Sutter’s aunt. So I am bound by my honor to look after her and her child as my kin.” “Bring her here,” Tasch said simply. “I’ll wait. And if you’re not back in ten minutes, I’m having my men break down that door, and I highly doubt you’ll like what comes afterward, Lord Cantour.” Baldemar did not deign to respond to that threat. Instead he stalked off down the hall, moving as quickly as he could into the private quarters of the manor. Eventually he found Safira in her own room with Cydney and Romilde. As soon as she caught sight of the impassive mask on her husband’s face Romilde frowned. “Bal, what’s happened?” she asked. He jerked his head sharply in a negative, looking to Safira. “I need you to come with me,” he said bluntly. “Now. We are pressed for time.” Safira, sitting on the bed with Cydney in her lap as she wove the girl’s curly hair back into a plait, froze. “Why?” she murmured, her voice sticking. “W-what’s wrong?” “Not in front of the child,” Baldemar temporized. “I’ll explain as we go, but we have to go now.” He turned back out into the hall, making it clear he’d hear no arguments. Romilde looked troubled, but she held out her arms to Safira in an offer to take Cydney. Pale as milk, Safira hesitantly passed her daughter over to Romilde before standing from the bed, her stride uneven as she followed after Baldemar. It was clear that something was very wrong, and the woman had to fight away the dozens of worst-case scenarios that were suddenly screaming helter-skelter through her head. “What’s wrong?” she said again to Baldemar as they started briskly down the hall. “W-what’s happened?” “Your father has put the entire peace talks on hold because he thinks the rebels killed you and Cydney,” Baldemar replied bluntly, using the child’s real name for the first time in months. “So our jig is up- Prince Gerard must’ve told them exactly where you were so the treaty wouldn’t fall apart. They want evidence for the king you’re alive.” “Y-you’re taking me to talk to the rebels?” Safira squeaked, halting suddenly in place as her entire body turned to ice. “But… they’ll… they’ll--” “They’ll massacre every man, woman, and child in this house to get to you if it means saving their darn liberation agreement,” Baldemar cut in bluntly. “I’m not just handing you over to them, Safira- they’ll have to kill me before I let them so much as touch you- but we have to cooperate with them. Let them see you’re alive and arrange whatever they need to arrange with King Oliver.” “This is all Gerard’s fault,” she said miserably. “Gods darn, I could kill him myself.” But the outed princess began walking once again, her arms crossed tightly at her chest as she and Baldemar grimly threaded from the family’s private residence back to the office where Tasch waited. At the sight of the dark-haired woman, the rebel officer had to struggle back an outright grin. As if in Safira alone he could see hope returning to the negotiating table, and the prospect of an ending to the long and bloody war. “The princess has lived as a member of my house for over a year,” Baldemar said gruffly, keeping himself between Safira and Tasch. “She is still under my protection. We’ll cooperate and help you settle things with his majesty, but don’t lay a finger on her.” Tasch huffed. “Trust me when I say I have no interest in harming a hair on her head, Lord Cantour,” the rebel replied. Then, his eye falling back to Safira, he demanded, “Your name. Your full name. State it for me.” Safira swallowed hard, trembling behind the human barrier that was Baldemar’s bristling form. “S-Safira Katharine Erling,” she managed starkly. “Formerly Alaric.” “And you’re here with your daughter?” “Y-yes. Cydney.” Tasch nodded, unable now to tamp back the gloating smile. “The day you were told you were being married to Sutter Erling,” he said then, plainly. “Back at the Gilded Palace. What were you doing when you learned? And who told you?” At this, the woman quailed. “ What?” she asked. Then: “Why?” “Verification,” Tasch said. “Your dear papa’s asked for the answers to those questions before he’ll even start to consider the idea that you’ve been safe all along. So, answer them. Now.” Baldemar put a hand on Safira’s shoulder, giving Tasch a hard glare. “If you want to be angry about all this, be angry at me. Or have you changed your tune about not abusing and terrorizing young women?” “I mean not to terrorize her,” Tasch said. “But I’ve no patience right now for any of you darned people. Answer me, Princess. Please. Who told you that you were marrying Lord Erling, and what were you doing at the time?” Safira hesitated for a moment more, her lip bit, before she whispered, “Cassian told me. My father was there, but it was Cass who announced it. I was drinking tea with my mother.” A spark of bravery flaring in her, she dragged her eyes from the floor and met Tasch’s own gaze. “Black tea. From Mzia. Do you need that, too, sir?” Tasch merely gritted his teeth, looking from Safira back to Baldemar. “No more cowering behind lock and key, Lord Cantour,” he said. “The door to your private residence will remain open. No one in your family-- and I mean no one-- leaves the manor without my express permission. And if the king wants further proof of Safira and Cydney’s safety yet, you will cooperate with whatever means my army finds necessary to accomplish this. Understood?” “Fine,” Baldemar said. “But if you talk to Safira, I want myself or Dirk to be present. You don’t remove her on the sly, and you don’t slip in and try to bully her into something you know we wouldn’t agree to. And however mad you are at me, however little patience you have for the adults in the situation, keep your gods cursed temper with Cydney. She’s a child, she had nothing to do with the decision making in this and doesn’t deserve to be snarled at.” “You are in no position to be setting terms, Lord Cantour,” Tasch said sharply. “You should simply count yourself lucky that my generals haven’t ordered an axe brought upon your--” “I’ll tell my father you hurt me,” Safira said suddenly. Tasch’s glare danced to her. “Excuse me?” “You heard me,” the woman replied. “He’ll want further confirmation, won’t he? Just so there are no doubts. I imagine that’ll involve an in-person meeting with somebody or another. From his court. Somebody I know. And if you or your men snarl a single foul word at my daughter-- or try to drag me off into the night all on my own-- or… or… anything like that, I will tell that person you’ve hurt me. That the night your army took Cesthen, you did to me exactly what was done to my cousins Arianne and Noa Pike in Teral. And then what will happen, sir? To your treaty? To your happy ending?” “You spoiled, wretched brat--” “You want our cooperation, lieutenant colonel?” Baldemar cut in. “I think asking you not wreak revenge on a child for my decisions and that you not drag Safira kicking and screaming in the middle of the night is not asking for too much. Unless you should like to reduce yourselves to being the same sort of petty tyrants you accuse us of being. You might’ve known about this a lot sooner, but certain factions within your own high command elected not to tell you- don’t make their fears justified.” “I think you ought know by now that I’d never wish ill on a child,” Tasch snapped. Then, almost disaffectedly, he shrugged. “You follow my rules, enki, and perhaps I’ll be kind and indulge yours. You may both go.” If he saw anything ironic about dismissing the enki from his own office, Tasch didn’t show it, his voice flat as he finished, “But remember: The door stays unlocked.” Baldemar gave a curt nod before turning out of the room, gesturing for Safira to follow him. Once he was certain they were safely out of earshot he sighed. His voice slightly gruff, he muttered, “Thank you, Princess.” Safira nodded, her throat quavering, as tears pricked in her eyes. Every iota of terror she’d suppressed in the office with Tasch suddenly flooding through, she slumped forward against the Cantour lord, her forehead pressed against his chest. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I… I shouldn’t have gotten cheeky with him like that. I made things worse. I’ve made everything worse.” Baldemar was startled, but he hesitantly put an arm around her shoulder. “It’s alright- you were scared, we both were. You just wanted some measure of control on the situation. I’d have gotten snippy too. On the bright side, I don’t think you’re in danger of being used as a hostage anymore. King Oliver’s made it pretty clear that if the rebels touch you the peace talks are off. I can’t really say the same for my family, but… we’ll manage somehow.” “I won’t let them hurt you, either,” Safira murmured. “Not after what you’ve done for me. I-I’ll tell my father how much you’ve helped. He’ll want you safe, too. He’ll tell them they can’t hurt you. He will. I’ll make sure.” The Cantour lord smiled wanly. “Thank you. Come on then- I think we have… quite a bit of explaining to do.” ** Three and a half weeks later, Safira Erling nee Alaric stood shivering in a rather sorry excuse for a meadow, Cydney clutched to her chest. It was a cold day for March, and blustery as all hell, and as the woman once again whispered a reassurance into her clinging child’s ear, she still couldn’t entirely believe what was about to happen here. True to her initial assessment back in Baldemar’s office, the crown had wanted more than merely a personal anecdote to prove Safira’s safety. They’d instead demanded an in-the-flesh meeting between Safira and a chosen representative of the crown, to take place in a neutral setting away from Urvane and Rakine both. This wind-whipped field in eastern Ruom, not all that far from Cesthen, had eventually been agreed upon as said locale. None of this surprised Safira. But the crown’s other request… Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she looked toward Baldemar, who stood beside her and whom the rebels had allowed to accompany her. Tasch and a flank of his underlings stood beyond, nearby to the gryphons they’d ridden to the meeting point, but Safira didn’t let herself focus on them. Studying them, as they murmured and paced in advance of the crown-sent party’s arrival, would only further increase her nerves. And gods knew, she was frightened enough already. “Mama.” In Safira’s arms, Cydney fidgeted. “I’m cold.” “I know,” Safira replied miserably, the knot already reforming in her throat. “I’m sorry.” To Baldemar, she added, “The crown said high noon, didn’t they? I don’t see why bloody Tasch had to make us get here so early.” “The rebels aren’t taking any chances,” Baldemar replied in a low voice. “They’re twitchy- have you noticed? They’re trying to hide it but they’re nervous. They know everything is riding on this, and if you wanted to you could ruin everything they’ve been fighting for for nearly a decade. Getting here early ensures that the crown won’t get here first and assume some sort of trap.” “I wonder who my father’s even sending,” Safira murmured. “He certainly won’t come himself. Or let Cass or Mother come. But it has to be someone who knows me, doesn’t it?” She chewed her lip, mulling, before almost shrilly she went on, “You don’t think he’s laid a trap, do you? My father? I mean, I don’t think he’d want to risk my safety, but…” The Cantour shook his head. “If he has, it’ll mean the war starting again in full earnest- and likely driving the country into absolute anarchy. No one involved in the Urvane occupation is important enough to lay such an elaborate and risky trap for.” “Yes. But then again, my father never was one for rational choices,” Safira muttered, before straightening as a formation of gryphons came into view at the horizon. At first they were only tiny specks, but rapidly they drew closer, and as they did, the rebels form into a tight circle around Safira, Cydney, and in turn Baldemar. The little girl leaned in even closer against her mother’s chest, and fighting back the urge to tremble, Safira planted a kiss atop her tangled curls. “It’ll be okay, sweetie,” she whispered. Behind her, Tasch shifted on his heel. “No movements from you until I say so,” he instructed his noble charges. “You have my entire family hostage, we’re hardly going to turn on you,” Baldemar pointed out dryly. “Don’t speak, either,” Tasch snapped. Across the field, the crown’s gryphons landed. It was not a large party, evenly matched to the rebels’ contingent of eight. As the riders dismounted, Safira stood on her tip-toes to glance over the shoulders of the soldiers who were blocking her, trying to scan the newcomers’ faces. She knew someone among them had to be familiar, but still, when she saw him-- when she realized who it was, precisely, that her father had sent-- her stomach gave a strange, sharp lurch. How long had it been? She blinked once, twice, then two times again, as though half-convinced she was imagining it. That when she opened her eyes once more, her father’s youngest brother, Prince Elias Alaric, would be gone. Instead, he and his men strode briskly toward the rebel group, the metal mail they wore faintly clattering as they did. From among the rebels, it was Tasch who stepped out to greet the oncoming royal party, his jaw squared and his hand set firmly on his hip, precariously close to the handle of his sword. Baldemar didn’t know any of the newcomers, but being a minor lord from deep in the mountains he seldom left Ruom, and never had anything to do with the Alarics. He knew full well that of all the people present, he probably had the least power here- and that helplessness to protect himself, his family, and the two women he’d taken in over a year ago was frustrating. “Nice of you to join us,” Tasch called out, bowing shallowly. “We were getting worried you’d changed your mind.” “The air current worked against us,” snapped Safira’s uncle, his lilting use of the high tongue a stark contrast to Tasch’s guttural employment of the low dialect. Drawing to a halt perhaps a dozen paces short of the rebel group, he dangled his fingers over his own holstered sword, the threat implicit. “I have no time or use for pleasantries,” Elias said. “Let the princess through so that I can speak with her.” “Not so fast.” Tasch’s voice was iron. “I do believe some introductions are in order, no? I’ll start--” “I don’t bloody care who you are,” Elias growled. “Nor does it matter who I am.” His eye fell to Safira, Cydney, and Baldemar, who were still partially obscured by the throng of rebels. When he noticed that Baldemar’s hand was set upon Safira’s arm, the prince bristled, demanding, “Who’s he?” “I thought you said you wanted no introductions,” Tasch said snidely, before gesturing brusquely for his men to let the three nobles through. “But since clearly that was a lie, he can introduce himself.” Baldemar stepped forward, keeping Safira beside him. He bowed to the prince. “Greetings. I am Lord Baldemar Cantour of Urvane in Ruom. Princess Safira’s husband Sutter Erling was my nephew. Shortly before the fall of Cesthen he asked for me to look after his wife and daughter if anything happened to him. The princess has been living under an assumed identity in my manor for her own safety. I came with her to this meeting so she and Lady Cydney would not be alone with the rebels.” “I see.” Elias relaxed, if only by a grain. Shifting his attention to Safira, he beckoned her forward. “Come here. I want to see you up close.” “You can see her perfectly well from your distance already,” Tasch interjected before the woman could move. “Now, if you’d like to speak with her, then speak with her. But she’ll be coming no closer to you.” “Cydney, then,” Elias said. “Give her to me. If you don’t want Safira close, then Lord Baldemar can hand her over.” At this, Safira’s stomach pitched again, her veins run to ice at the stark reminder of the other part of the deal the rebels had struck with the crown. Cydney. Gods, Cydney. Safira’s father had never even met his eldest daughter’s child. Had never spied so much as a hair on her head. So when Tasch had informed Safira of Oliver’s second condition-- had told her that in addition to this meeting he wanted, as a show of “good faith” from the rebels, for them to turn Cydney over to the crown’s custody… to his custody… Logically, Safira knew she ought be happy. That Cydney was better off in the crown’s clutches than living in a manor with rebels as a veritable hostage, as she herself would be until the treaty’s final signing. And yet the thought of her daughter held in Oliver’s untender arms… the notion of her sweet, quiet, sensitive child, her fifth birthday just around the corner, withering in that wretched household, with those wretched people-- The rebels at Urvane often terrified Safira. But darkly, horrifically, there existed a large part of her that preferred someone like Tasch over someone like Cassian or her father. And that would have preferred Cydney a hostage than living in the Gilded Palace. Silent through this, Baldemar reached out to Safira and gently took Cydney. He held her close to his chest, whispering softly, “You need to be a brave girl, okay? Can you be brave for your Mama and Uncle Bal?” “Who’s those people?” Cydney murmured simply, craning her neck to assess Elias and his men. “They’re friends of your Mama,” Baldemar replied, walking towards them slowly. “They’re going to take you to meet your Grandma and Grandpa for a while. Won’t that be fun?” “Is Mama coming?” Cydney asked, frowning. Although Safira had gently explained to the girl several times already what was to happen, she still didn’t quite seem to understand what it all meant; as Baldemar neared Elias’s group, she shifted restlessly in the Cantour lord’s arms, shooting a desperate look back toward her mother. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” Safira called toward her, not daring to let her voice tremble. “Mama can’t come, but it’s going to be a fun trip for you, remember? Just like we talked about. And I’ll see you again really soon.” Baldemar could very clearly see how distressed the child was, and he couldn’t blame her. No child her age would be comfortable being handed off to a group of strangers, let alone strangers projecting an air of cold confrontation as the Alaric men were doing. But he also knew he had no choice. Hating himself for it, the Cantour lord gently turned Cydney and offered her to Elias. The child’s great-uncle smiled down at her, his hands gentle but firm as he slowly plied her from Baldemar’s grip. Cydney balked, grasping back for the familiar man, but Elias tucked her close, hushing her as he patted at the small of her back in some paltry means of comfort. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he soothed. “You’re okay.” “Come back here, Lord Cantour,” Tasch ordered, his voice mingling with Cydney’s as the child cried out for Baldemar to take her back. Baldemar gave the child a reassuring smile before turning back towards the rebel with a poisonous look and returning to his place beside Safira. None of this trauma to the poor thing would be necessary if they would just leave the manor already. If the uppity slaves would stop acting like they were the masters of Courdon and snapping orders as casually as breathing. In that moment, with Cydney’s sobs in his ears and knowing how he had to betray the poor child, Baldemar hated Tasch and all his kind. Safira, for her part, looked just as stricken. Fidgeting in place as though it was taking everything in her to keep from bolting to her daughter’s side, she clenched her hands into fists at her side and called, “Cyd, sweetie, please don’t cry. You’re okay. You’re going to have fun.” “You’re going to love the palace,” Elias agreed tenderly, stroking a hand through her unkempt hair. “And you’ll see Mama soon.” But his voice took on a more sober note as he then lofted his focus back toward Safira and Baldemar. “Has anyone hurt you, Safira?” he said. “At any point since Cesthen fell?” The princess considered for a good long moment-- during which Tasch looked as if he might faint; the rebel could only barely contain his relief when she finally shook her head and replied, “No. I’ve been fine. Both of us have been fine. The Cantours kept us safe.” Elias nodded shortly, his eyes locking with Baldemar’s. “You’ll be rewarded for your aid, Lord Cantour,” the man said. “Once this war is over.” Baldemar bowed again. He’d done none of this for something as paltry as a reward, but if the crown wanted to give him something he was hardly going to deny them. A momentary quiet settled over the meadow then, only punctuated by the sounds of Cydney’s whimpers. Then, tersely, Tasch crooked his fingers toward Safira and Baldemar, beckoning them back. “Well,” the rebel started, “I think we’ve satisfied the terms of the agreement, no? You have Cydney Erling. Safira has verified that she’s unharmed. And since we’ve both got long rides ahead of us…” “Wait.” Safira’s voice was strangled, her eye still latched squarely on her daughter. “I… I’m not ready yet.” “She’s okay, Safira,” Elias replied, shifting her in his arms as his men started back toward their waiting gryphons. “She’s upset now, but she’ll be fine, alright?” “R-right,” Safira stuttered. “But I just… I…” “We’re leaving, Princess.” This was Tasch. “Come now.” “Come on, Safira,” Baldemar said kindly, putting his hands on the woman’s shoulders and gently turning her away. “The sooner we let them get back to Rakine, the sooner they can progress the peace talks and the sooner Cydney will be returned to you.” “O-okay. Right,” Safira said, but she hadn’t taken more than a single step before she quailed, jerking her glance back over her shoulder. “ Please,” she called after her uncle, who’d started after the rest of his men. “Please, don’t let him hurt her. Please.” Elias paused, turning slowly back around. “I’m sure she’ll be okay, honey.” A raw edge now marking his voice, he couldn’t help but let the endearment through. “ Promise me.” “Safira…” Elias grimaced, looking not toward his niece, but at Baldemar. “See her back to the gryphons, please, Lord Cantour,” the man said. “And I hope the next time we meet it’ll be under more pleasant circumstances.” The Cantour lord was profoundly disturbed by this exchange. Who did they think would hurt Cydney? He swallowed hard, and gave a jerky nod. “I hope so too,” he said, giving Safira a push to get her moving back towards the gryphons. Cydney’s whimpers-- now morphed into outright sobs-- echoed across the meadow as both parties set about remounting their beasts. Sinking hollowly down onto the saddle, Safira blinked back tears of her own. She knew why Elias hadn’t promised. But gods, how it stung all the same. Baldemar joined Safira in the saddle, taking the reins so he could guide the gryphon. As they waited for the rebels to mount their own gryphons, he shot the woman a concerned look. “Safira, what was that about?” he asked softly. “Who was he? And what did you mean when you asked for him not to let someone hurt Cydney? I thought she was going to Rakine for her own protection- didn’t you want to go there with her when we first took you in?” Safira shrugged, her lips pursed and head held low. “He’s my uncle,” she whispered. “Elias. My father’s little brother. And… I did want to go. Once. I was scared and…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, does it? She’s going all the same. No matter what Elias can or can’t promise me.” Baldemar frowned at this, but whatever he was thinking he kept his own council. With a resigned sigh, he shook his head. “At least now the treaty talks can finally proceed. And gods willing, we can kick the freeloaders out of Urvane Manor for good and stop kowtowing to their petty tyranny. And then you’ll get Cydney back.” “And then I’ll get Cydney back,” Safira agreed. She could only hope and pray that Oliver wouldn’t break her sweet girl before then. Two part follow-up resolving the storyline from "Somebody's Monster". Takes place August 1346 - collab with Shinko. ... I apologize in advance for Oliver. <___< A Change of Custody: Part One Lord Baldemar Cantour had a ferocious headache. Not that this was anything especially new. For the past few years he’d been forced to live with the constant presence of enemy soldiers in his manor while secretly harboring the daughter and granddaughter of his king within the walls. Suffice it to say the situation had been immensely stressful, which had led to no few headaches. And certainly the perilous teetering on the edge of bankruptcy that Ruom had been doing during the waning months of the Courdonian Revolution hadn’t helped matters. With all the slaves forcibly liberated, there was no one left to work the gold mines which were the region’s primary source of income. No gold going out for nearly three years meant precious little money coming in. Of course their rebel occupiers hadn’t particularly cared about that, because financial ruin meant that Ruom’s enkis were easier to control, and the rebels were supplied by their own resources elsewhere. And Baldemar had decided several months ago, during the start of the treaty talks, that he was not going to let the thrice-cursed rebel army drive Ruom into completely economic ruin for the sake of their own skewed moral sentiment. There was a knock at the door, and the lord of House Cantour winced as it sent a fresh lance of pain through his head. “Come in,” he called wearily. The door opened to reveal his wife, Lady Romilde Cantour, holding a steaming mug of what by the smell wafting into the room seemed to be coffee. “I thought you could use something to drink,” Romilde remarked, coming into the room and placing the cup before her husband. He looked up at his wife with a grateful smile. “Thank you. My head is killing me.” he took a long pull of the coffee before continuing, “Tallying wages and managing exports are the sort of things the Erlings would’ve hired a professional accountant for, and yet here I sit doing all of it myself. Gods, I didn’t think Dirk would be managing Urvane’s lands more or less on his own before he was even married.” “Well you did sort of take over running all of Ruom’s derelict gold mines entirely on your own,” Romilde pointed out dryly. “That’s a full time job, and so is running an estate. I keep telling you that you need to delegate.” “To whom, exactly?” Baldemar retorted. “We can’t afford to hire an overseer, not now that we have to keep all the miners on payroll.” “Kyland,” Romilde replied simply, naming Baldemar’s younger brother. “I’ve discussed it with him and he would be more than happy to help. I know he was just appointed as the reeve of the next city up the pass two months ago, but that doesn’t keep him nearly as busy as Dirk is.” “Hm.” Baldemar took another sip of the coffee. It was an idea… There was another knock on the door, jarring him out of his thoughts. “Gods, what now?” he muttered. “Romilde, can you...?” She nodded, heading over to the door and opening it to admit the newcomer. Not a family member this time, but a servant. He was holding an envelope sealed with red wax in one hand. “My lord, this just arrived from the couriers- they said it was urgent.” Baldemar frowned, a chill of foreboding threading down his spine. “Let’s have it then.” As he accepted the letter and shooed out the servant, he instantly recognized the seal in the wax; a rearing gryphon wearing a crown. The emblem of House Alaric, the royal family of Courdon. This was the second time this particular seal had passed across his desk, the first having been a scant month ago with the signing of the treaty- and presumably it was to do with the princess that was still living with Baldemar’s family in Urvane. The king had already taken her five year old daughter Cydney under his protection back in early spring, but Safira had remained in the rebel-occupied Cantour manor as leverage for the rebels until the treaty was signed. After said signing, Baldemar and his family had been instructed to keep the king’s daughter, Princess Safira, in their protective custody until further notice while the king sorted out issues of greater import. Presumably this was the further notice. He used a knife to pop off the seal, Romilde waiting in polite silence while he skimmed the contents- until he blanched, his fingers clenching on the paper as his eyes dashed back to the top of the letter to read it again more thoroughly. “What is it?” the aging woman asked. “Bahl, what’s wrong?” “It’s… it’s the king, he…” The lord clenched his jaw. “He wants me to come to the capital.” “With Safira?” Romilde guessed. “As an escort?” “No. The letter explicitly instructs that I leave Safira here. He wants me to come alone.” Now it was the lady of Urvane’s turn to pale. “Wh-what? Why? What have we done?” “I… I don’t know, Millie,” Baldemar admitted, using his wife’s nickname. “The letter says he wants me to pick up Cydney. To bring her back to her mother.” “Bring her back?” Romilde squawked. “Does… does he mean us to keep his daughter indefinitely? What sort of father just dumps his own child and grandchild on strangers like unwanted puppies?” “ Romilde,” Baldemar snapped. “This is your king. Guard your tongue, please.” She winced. “I… I’m sorry. And Safira is a good girl, I don’t mind her being here but I just… I don’t understand.” “I don’t either,” the Cantour lord replied, rubbing his temples against the new resurgence of his headache. “But I have the sinking feeling I’m going to be made to understand when I… go to see the k-king. And much as she’s been fretting after Cydney, I’m fairly certain Safira is not going to like being left behind.” *** To say Safira ‘didn’t like being left behind’ turned out to be a massive understatement, the young woman pitching a right fit when Baldemar delivered the news to her later that evening. That the order had come from far over his head seemed to matter little when it came to her raging, months of bottled fears and anxieties about Cydney’s safety in her father’s custody boiling over like water in a too-filled pot. “I’m coming with,” she insisted, her jaw clenched and blue eyes smoldering. “I am, I have to.” But in the end, Safira did not come with-- even as she fumed, Baldemar was in no position to countermand a royal order. The woman could merely stand in the courtyard of the Cantours’ manor a week later as the flock of gryphons that had been sent by her father to fetch Baldemar departed toward the horizon, fuzzy shapes against a slate gray sky. Once they’d disappeared from sight, she stormed back inside and shut herself in her room. Oliver’s eldest daughter had no earthly idea what her father wanted with Baldemar-- why he would have sent for the Cantour and specifically ordered that she, Safira, remain behind in Ruom-- but whatever it was… Safira would not be resting easy any time soon. Not until she had her answers-- and Cydney back. And by gods, she could only hope she had both of these things very, very soon. *** Standing in the far north courtyard of the Gilded Palace, King Oliver Alaric rather looked like a peacock with its feathers in full fan, his blood red silk tunic catching beneath the midday sun’s rays and his ostentatious jewelry glimmering like a fire in a hearth: a dozen rings on his fingers, bangles trailing up his arms, a ruby-studded gryphon necklace and a jeweled circlet nestled over his silvering blond hair. The buttons on his vest were all ivory; his starched gold trousers were inlaid with metallic threading, sewn neatly and glistening just as acutely as were his pale green eyes. “Lord Cantour, I presume,” he greeted as Baldemar dismounted. A trio of royal knights stood directly behind the king, flanking him, stiff and impassive as shadows. “I do hope your journey east went well?” Baldemar bowed as soon as he had fully hit the ground, his own hair- gone completely ash grey during the last several years of the war- falling in a veil over his eyes. “Your majesty,” he said formally, before rising. “It was well. I bid you thanks for generously dispatching your gryphons to ease in my transport.” “It was no problem at all.” Oliver smiled, his teeth white and glimmering as pearls. He crooked his finger, lightly. “Come. We have much to discuss, Lord Cantour. Walk with me.” With that, the king turned and began out the courtyard, Baldemar hurrying to fall in step beside him. As if he either had no stomach for small talk or merely had nothing to say to the Cantour, Oliver didn’t speak as they started inside, the royal-- still trailed by the three silent knights-- leading Baldemar through a warren of corridors and staircases without comment. Baldemar followed in equal silence, the churning feeling that had settled into his gut when he first received King Oliver’s letter not at all diminished by this prevailing silence. The Gilded Palace was labyrinthine, even its small halls elaborately decorated-- gleaming wooden floors; vivid artwork on the walls-- and when Oliver finally spoke again, it was only to glibly note that as far deep as they were into the palace by now, Baldemar wouldn’t have been able to find his way out again on his own even if he’d tried. It was not altogether clear whether the king meant this as an observation or a threat. At long last, they arrived to a double-doored drawing room that overlooked the rear gardens, french doors on the far side of the room left ajar to let in a rustling breeze. Wooden bookshelves lined three of the four walls, laden with weighty tomes bearing spines so impeccable it looked as if they’d not once been cracked open, and in the center of the room two plush leather couches were arranged perpendicular to one another, both decorated with a complementary array of red-and-gold pillows. It was not the decor, however, that drew Baldemar’s attention, but rather, the small girl who was sitting upon one of the couches. She was dressed just as lavishly as the king, in a maroon dress with golden lace trim, and her dark blond hair was plaited over her shoulder, tied at the bottom with a silk ribbon. The moment she saw Baldemar, her face lit up like a summer sun, her blue eyes going wide-- before the expression died away just as quickly when her gaze swept past the Cantour and landed on who was with him. “Cydney.” Oliver’s voice was at once singsong and cool. “I’ve brought you someone, sweetheart. You know Lord Baldemar, yes?” Cydney nodded meekly. “Yes, Grandfather,” she whispered. “Well.” Oliver smiled a predator’s smile. “Don’t be rude, then. Greet him, Cydney. Properly.” “Yes, Grandfather,” the little girl repeated, scampering quickly to her feet and dipping into a curtsey. “H-hello, Lord Baldemar.” To say that Baldemar was caught by surprise would have been an understatement. Though Cydney had referred to Baldemar by full name and title when she’d first come to Urvane, in the intervening years she’d shifted to calling him “Uncle Bahl” just as she called his wife “Aunt Millie.” The exceedingly formal address and the way she acted nothing like the child he remembered was… chilling to say the least. “Hello, Cydney, sweetie,” he replied gently. “It’s been a long time; we’ve missed you.” “I’ve missed you, too,” Cydney said softly. As she spoke, the king gestured for Baldemar to sit on the couch opposite Cydney, before Oliver took his own seat beside the girl, without a word drawing her up into his lap as she stiffened. As the king laced his arms around her, in some rigid mockery of a hug, the little girl added, “H-how’s Mama? Is she okay?” “Your mother is fine, Cydney,” Oliver said, his voice almost curt as he brushed a stray curl away from her eyes. “No need to worry.” “Oh.” Cydney bit her lip. “D-does she miss me? I miss her.” “She misses you very much,” Baldemar assured the child. “I think she wants to see you again more than anything else in the world right now.” Baldemar wasn’t sure what to make of this exchange. Oliver wasn’t saying much of anything, just… watching as he talked to Cydney. And occasionally coaching her as if steering the conversation away from topics he either didn’t want discussed or didn’t care about, though it was hard to guess which. And the girl was so clearly uncomfortable in her grandfather’s lap, the five-year-old who’d once begged at the Cantour manor for Romilde to hold her, and had cuddled for hours in her mother’s arms, now looking like she’d rather be sitting almost anyplace else. “She din’ want to come with you?” Cydney asked, sighing. “T-to see me here?” “I needed to speak to Lord Baldemar,” Oliver said before the Cantour could respond. “Not to your mother, Cydney.” “Oh.” The little girl wilted further. “... W-well, I’m glad you gotted to come, Lord Baldemar.” “ Got to come,” Oliver corrected crisply. “... Got to come,” Cydney echoed softly. Baldemar liked this situation less and less. It was as plain as a lump of coal in a snowbank that Cydney was missing her mother, but the casual way that Oliver had dismissed the topic, as if it were of no import whatsoever… did he not care? Not about his grandchild’s peace of mind, nor about his daughter’s? Suddenly Romilde’s comment about dumping unwanted puppies felt a great deal more accurate. Forcing himself to smile for the little girl’s sake, Baldemar said cheerfully, “I’m glad I could come as well. We’ve been holding on to Miss Bunny for you-” this was the worn rag doll the Cantours had given Cydney upon her initial arrival in Urvane, that had remained her favorite toy right up until she’d been sent to Rakine during the treaty talks. “I actually have her in my packs, if you want to have her back later.” Cydney let through a wavering smile. “You bringed her for me? Thank you.” She gulped, daring then to flick her gaze up toward Oliver. “C-can Lord Baldemar eat dinner with us? T-tonight?” “We’re having a banquet,” Oliver said by way of answer. “He’ll be there, of course, as a diplomatic guest of the palace.” He kissed the crown of the girl’s head, seeming not to notice when she flinched at his touch. “And then,” the king went on, “tomorrow morning Lord Baldemar and I are going to have some nice formal talks, Cyddie. While you play with your cousins.” “Talks ‘bout what?” Cydney asked. Oliver squeezed her shoulder, a notch too firmly. “That’s none of your business, Cydney. Don’t pry.” He looked back to Baldemar. “Would you like to be shown your suite, Lord Cantour? We’ve had the finest guest apartment prepared for your use. And I imagine you must wish to rest before the banquet tonight, after traveling such a distance.” The finest guest apartment? Not that Baldemar would’ve known any different if it wasn’t, but somehow he sincerely doubted this was the case. He was a minor lord… Shaking off that thought, he smiled politely and bowed his head. “Ah, thank you, your majesty. That is very kind of you, I appreciate it.” “I shall escort you there myself personally.” Practically beaming, Oliver stood, keeping Cydney in his arms as he did; the girl seemed to know better than to resist. Taking a step toward the door, the king added lightly, “I do hope you brought court regalia, hm, Lord Cantour?” “Of course, your majesty,” he replied, profoundly relieved that he’d taken the precaution to do exactly that. Granted, it was highly unlikely anything in his wardrobe could hold a candle to what the royal court would be wearing, and he hadn’t exactly had enough notice (nor money) to commission something specially, but… hopefully what he’d brought along would be sufficient not to raise eyebrows. “Excellent.” As they began out into the hall, Oliver smiled. “We’re having roasted venison-- an old favourite in the Ruomian mountains, I’m led to understand?” Despite the fact that Oliver phrased it as such, this was clearly not a true question Baldemar could refute, whether or not it was in fact true. “I do hope you’ll enjoy it, Lord Cantour.” “I’m certain I will, your majesty, your consideration is appreciated, ” Baldemar replied, refraining from pointing out that with rebels squatting in their manors few if any of the lords in Ruom had been at liberty to organize deer hunts. Baldemar had not personally tasted any venison since… at least a year before the fall of Cesthen, if then. “And I hope, as well, that you like your accommodations,” Oliver prattled on. “The apartment’s got truly stunning views-- and some lovely balconies, so nice to take your morning cup of tea on, and of course our staff is at your beck and call, Lord Baldemar. Only the best service for visiting lords!” In her grandfather’s arms, Cydney suddenly fidgeted. “Grandfather,” she whispered, as if seeking permission first before she spoke further. “Hmm?” He tilted her chin up, so that she was looking at him. “Could I… could…” She took a deep breath, clearly trying to muster courage. “C-could I s-stay with Lord Baldemar? I-in the guest ‘partment?” For a moment, Oliver bristled as if the child in his arms had slapped him-- but the king recovered just as quickly, his thin smile suddenly listing downright saccharine. The hard glint in his mint green eyes not at all matching the rest of his expression, he looked deliberately toward Baldemar, his voice smooth and frigid as ice as he said, “Well, Cyddie, I don’t know. You’d hardly want to impose on Lord Baldemar’s visit, would you, dear?” “N-no,” she agreed demurely. “ But,” the king went on, as if he hadn’t even heard her, “it’s up to him. If for some reason he would like you as a flatmate, then who am I to object?” Baldemar couldn’t even begin to guess what was going through the king’s head in that moment. He felt like this was a very, very loaded question, but for the life of him he didn’t know why that would be. Cydney’s request was a simple one, or so it seemed to him. “I certainly have no objections, your majesty,” the Cantour lord said. “Not that I have any wish to step on anyone’s toes, but so long as it’s not an imposition I’d be more than happy to accommodate my niece. As I said before we’ve missed her.” “Not an imposition at all,” Oliver assured the visiting lord. “For now, dear Cyddie needs to be prettied up for the banquet, but I shall have some nightclothes sent in while we’re feasting, and you can return with her to the flat afterward, Lord Baldemar.” He paused thickly. “If, of course, that is amenable to you?” “It is perfectly amenable,” Baldemar replied. “I shall prepare myself in the meantime.” He smiled at Cydney in what he hoped was a comforting expression. “I’ll see you again really soon, alright honey?” “‘Kay,” Cydney agreed. They arrived to the guest apartment not long later, the visiting lord separating from the royals after a brief tour of his accommodations. Though Oliver might have exaggerated when he’d called them the palace’s finest, they were still well-appointed beyond most reasonable means, a sunlit sitting room and drawing room, with a small bedchamber to the side, overlooked by an open loft that comprised a second, larger sleeping area. Each storey had its own balcony, and both beds were almost fat with elaborate dressings: lush velvet coverlets atop cotton bedspreads atop glimmering silk sheets. The furniture alone-- forgetting the artwork that studded the walls-- had to be worth a small fortune. Baldemar, being a noble, was hardly unused to opulence, but… this was far, far over even his head. The banquet that commenced several hours later was just as grandiloquent, the advertised venison but one course amid many. Oliver invited Baldemar to the high table, then spent the duration of the feast jawing his ear off about a myriad of topics-- most of which seemed benign at their surfaces (how Urvane was doing post-treaty; if his family was well; if he liked the guest suite) but that in all likelihood were not, based on the deliberate looks Oliver kept leveling the Cantour lord’s way. And if the king was a perplexing, calculating jabberjaw, the rest of the royal family was nearly as disconcerting. The queen, Zaria, hardly looked once in Baldemar’s direction; Oliver’s niece, Julia, touched perhaps two bites of her food throughout the entire night; the crown prince’s children, seated with Cydney toward the end of the high table, did not giggle or chatter as little ones are wont to do. On the contrary, they barely spoke at all-- not even to each other, let alone to Baldemar. Afterward, following a sumptuous dessert course of sugared passionfruit over chilled, sweetened cream, Baldemar was allowed to take Cydney with him back to the guest apartment, the king parting from his granddaughter and the visiting lord with merely a brief kiss atop the little girl’s head-- and an almost menacing smile toward Baldemar. Even once Oliver was gone, however, Cydney didn’t lift the impassive, well-behaved mask she’d worn throughout the banquet, the girl staying silent as the grave as she and Baldemar walked from the corridor outside the banquet hall toward the flat. Only once they’d arrived, and Baldemar had gently shut the door behind them, did the child dare let her expression waver. “T-thanks for lettin’ me stay with you, Uncle Bahl,” she whispered, biting down what looked like uncomfortably hard on her lip. Surprised but relieved to hear her use the nickname again, Baldemar have his niece a gentle hug. “Of course, honey,” he replied, carrying the girl into the sitting room and settling onto the couch with the child in his lap. “Are you okay? You’ve been so quiet…” “I wanna go home,” the girl said by way of response, nestling her face into Baldemar’s stiff and formal court overcoat. “With you. And Mama.” Her voice cracked, and the child heaved a jagged breath. “G-Grandfather din’ let her come, did he?” “I… I’m afraid not,” Baldemar said, tightening his grip on the child to draw her closer in an instinctive response to her distress. “Your mama was very upset. She wants to see you, Cydney, I promise, she wants to see you more than anything else in the world. But part of why your grandfather asked me to come to Rakine was to get you, so I’m sure he’ll let me take you back to her very soon.” Part… because clearly there was far more going on here. The “talk” Oliver wanted to have for one thing. Baldemar couldn’t fathom what that was all about. But just now it wasn’t important. What was important was the child sitting in his lap, on the edge of tears, clearly having experienced something since her departure half a year ago that had changed her drastically from the Cydney he remembered- and not for the better. “But hey-” he gently tilted her chin up and smiled. “I told you that I had something for you, remember?” He reached over to a side table at the end of the couch, where shortly before he left for the feast he’d placed a slightly threadbare but well made doll. Fraying yellow yarn hair, which Romilde had braided before giving it to to Baldemar, hung from the poppet’s head, and there were multiple places on her limbs where first the Cantour children then Cydney herself had ripped the doll and Romilde had stitched her back together. “Miss Bunny.” Cydney let go of Baldemar to gingerly take the toy. “T-thanks for bringing her, Uncle Bahl.” Tucking the doll beneath her chin, the little girl snuggled back up against her grand-uncle’s chest, blinking hard as she did. “W-when do we getta go?” she asked, thinking for a moment before she added, “... G-Grandfather isn’t gonna come with, right?” “I don’t know,” Baldemar admitted. “Your grandfather is the king, and I’m just a minor lord. I have to do what he says and wait for him to tell me what he wants… and right now I have no idea what he wants. But I do know whatever happens, he wouldn’t stay at our manor in Urvane for very long. After the war things are a mess, and he has things to do as the king he can’t do in Urvane.” Very softly, he asked, “You… you haven’t had very much fun here, have you sweetie?” “No,” she confirmed, her voice as barren as a northern garden in wintertime. “I don’ like it.” Cydney shifted in his lap, burying her face deeper against his ribs. “B-but don’t tell Grandfather I said that. Please.” “I won’t,” he promised. He stroked the child’s back in silence for a time, just trying to soothe her. Finally he said, “Would you like to change out of your dress and into something more comfortable? We can play with Miss Bunny in the bedroom if you want? Or you can sit with me some more, if you prefer.” For several moments-- long enough to make it abundantly clear that she carefully mulling over her reply-- Cydney said nothing. Then, at last, she whispered, “I-I’m okay in the dress, Uncle Bahl. I don’ need to c-change.” “If you’re sure,” the Cantour lord replied, unnerved all over again. “But you can’t stay in the dress all night, you know, you’ll muss it up if you sleep in it and I don’t think your grandfather would be very happy with me if that happened.” “I don’ want to change,” Cydney insisted. As she pulled slightly away from Baldemar, the girl’s jaw began to tremble slightly. “I c-can just wear this.” Something was definitely up, and it was setting off alarm bells in Baldemar’s mind. Gently easing his grand-niece into a sitting position, Baldemar very softly asked, “Cydney, what’s wrong? Why don’t you want to put on your nightdress?” She averted her gaze, but it was not enough to conceal the fat tears that had begun to prick in her cloud blue eyes. “‘Cos,” she said vaguely. “Just… just ‘cos.” A beat, before the girl unsteadily tacked on: “The s-summer nightdresses are short. And… and… you could s-see my legs.” “Your legs?” he repeated, bewildered. “Why would that matter, honey? I’ve helped change you for bed hundreds of times.” With an attempt at a reassuring smile he added, “Once when you were really little you squirmed out of your Mama’s arms when you didn’t want a bath and ran through the private quarters of the manor with nothing on but your underclothes, though I bet you don't remember that.” “I don’ care.” Cydney’s voice had gone nearly shrill. “I don’ want you to s-see, ‘cos… ‘cos…” She whimpered, suddenly trying to fidget out of the Cantour lord’s hold. “I was bad. You’ll know I was bad. And t-then you won’t take me home.” “I won’t what?” he asked, his mouth falling open. “C-Cydney, what do you mean? Of… of course I’ll take you home, no matter what. We’re your family honey- your kin. Besides, you know just as well as I do Amicus” -Baldemar’s youngest son, around Cydney’s same age- “does things much more naughty than you ever would, and I don’t stop letting him come home, do I?” Baldemar still had no idea what this had to do with her nightdress, but he was starting to get a sinking feeling in his stomach he didn’t really want to know… “Y-you promise?” she demanded, still squirming. Tears now trailed down her cheeks in a slowly rolling stream. “E-even though I’m b-bad enough t-to get the buckle?” Baldemar felt as if all the blood had been drained from his body. Buckle? As in a belt buckle? That was the only thing he could think of that made sense in the context of the conversation, but what on earth could Cydney have done to warrant being belted? Even having raised six children, Baldemar didn’t think he’d had reason to take a belt to their collective behinds more than half a dozen times, and those incidences had always been when the child did something to directly endanger themselves or someone else. And he would never have struck them with the end of the belt that had the sharp, metal buckle. Swallowing hard, he kissed her forehead and whispered, “I… I promise honey. Whatever you did, I’ll still take you home to your Mama. Now please, let Uncle Bahl see?” With another small whimper, Cydney shakily obliged, rising from Baldemar’s lap and slowly pulling up the hem of her elaborate court dress, ankle-length and spun of a pure, gossamer silk. Once her knees were bared she hesitated for a brief moment before tugging it the rest of the way, turning to show her grand-uncle the backs of her naked thighs. Raised welts were nested atop purplish-yellow bruises, at least several days old from the looks of them, the mottled marks snaking upward until they were cut off from Baldemar’s view by the drape of Cydney’s undergarments. It would have taken no deductive genius to conclude, however, that they continued on her rear, as well. “Oh… gods,” Baldemar breathed. He reached for his niece and gently pulled her into a hug, his arms trembling with rage. “Sweety, what happened? Who did this?” “I… I was bad,” Cydney said again. “W-we had a feast last week and there was lords comin’ from far and… Grandfather gotted me a new dress, and I was s-s’posed to be careful but I got bored waiting before ‘cos it was taking forever for everybody to get ready, and… and… Rhia”-- the crown prince’s eldest daughter-- “said we should play while we waited, s-so we went out on the patio, and we s-sat down on the ground to play with jacks, a-and my d-dress got dirt all over it, and Grandfather comed out and…” The girl’s voice trailed off, strangled. “Shhhh,” Baldemar soothed, stroking Cydney’s dark blonde locks and hugging her closer. “Oh sweetie, I’m so, so sorry…” “I-I still get to c-come home?” she choked out, sobbing now. “With you and Mama? ‘Cos… ‘cos G-Grandfather said if I’m n-not good t-that… t-that Mama won’t… won’t want me b-back, and...” “He said what?” Baldemar asked, horrified and not a little sickened. The Cantour lord suddenly remembered the day that he and Safira had turned Cydney over to the king’s men. At the time, Safira had begged something of the royal who had been leading them; “Don’t let him hurt her.”By “him” could she have meant the king? Her father?But it went against everything, every instinct in Baldemar, all the lessons he’d received from his own father when he was young about how a proper man should conduct himself. No man, no father, should beat a child black and blue for merely acting like a child! “Cydney, honey, I promise,” he said, his voice thick with suppressed anger, “That there is nothing you can do that would make your Mama not want you home. She loves you, and your Aunt Millie loves you, and Dirk loves you, and I love you. And we always will, no matter what.” “I love you, too,” the girl sniffled, collapsing again into Baldemar’s arms. “T-thank you for coming to get me, Uncle Bahl. E-even though I’m bad.” “You’re not bad,” he said firmly. “And I promise that as soon as I’m done talking to the king, we’re both going home.” A Change of Custody: Part Two The meeting room was, as could only be expected, lavish to the point of gaudy, heavy drapery on the walls and the ceiling above covered in gleaming gold tiles. The polished oak table in the center of the space, with a dozen imposing chairs thronged around it, was neatly set with waiting quills, inkpots, and scrolls of parchment, as though to give those in attendance the option of taking notes. No one looked very happy.
Except, that was, for the king.
As he had been the day before, Oliver Alaric was dressed impeccably, in a sleeveless red tunic and matching breeches that were tailored so closely they fit him like a second skin. He sat at the head of the table with a senior advisor to his left and his younger brother, Elias, to his right, and as he indicated for Baldemar to take the last remaining empty seat, directly across from him at the table’s other head, the king was smiling brightly.
“Lord Cantour,” he purred. “I hope you slept well?”
“Very well thank you your majesty,” the Cantour lord replied, his voice absolutely polite in spite of the simmering anger in his gut. He had eventually convinced Cydney to change into her nightdress, by expedience of agreeing to let the distraught child sleep in one of the apartment’s beds with him if she cooperated. Now his niece had been temporarily returned to the care of the nurse that the Alarics had appointed to her, the child only assuaged by the idea of parting again with Baldemar by her nurse’s promise that she and her cousins could play out in the gardens after breakfast.
Baldemar didn’t like leaving her, but he couldn’t very well refuse to meet with the king, nor take her along. He prayed to Carricon that the nurse didn’t have a similarly disproportionate notion of discipline to King Oliver.
He now sat in the meeting room in clothing far nicer than he’d first arrived to Rakine in, but of course nowhere near as elaborate as he’d worn to dinner. He stood out rather starkly amidst the red and gold livery in his Cantour colors of dull rose pink and maroon. As he skimmed the faces of the men present, he was mildly surprised to recognize Elias, the man who had originally taken Cydney from Baldemar’s arms months ago. Very evidently he hadn’t been able to fulfill Safira’s wish that Cydney not be hurt, though given the fact that the assailant was the king it was hard to hold that against Elias.
“I’m glad to hear your accommodations were adequate,” Oliver said. But the king, it seemed, was finished then with small talk, his smile ceding way to a flat, all-business expression as he went on, “So, I wanted to begin, Lord Cantour, by thanking you personally for assisting my sweet Safira in her time of need. Your House’s aid will not soon be forgotten.”
Baldemar had been half expecting a comment along these lines, and bowed his head. “No thanks are needed, my king. I only did what any man would do for his kin.”
“It was a noble act nevertheless,” Oliver replied. His smile returned, albeit a thinner version of his previous grin. “And I understand,” he rattled on, “that you’ve been taking measures to oversee the gold mines, Lord Cantour? Those in Erling territory that have been in dire straits since Cesthen fell?”
“Ah, yes,” Baldemar confirmed, surprised that the king was aware of this. Then again, it did make sense that someone would’ve noticed the gold exports suddenly starting up again after an over two year hiatus. “I felt it necessary to take steps to restore the mines. With them inactive Ruom’s economy was on the edge of collapse in the waning months of the war. Since we do have some mines in Cantour territory I am not unfamiliar with the procedure.”
“You are a low lord,” Oliver pointed out lightly, as though Baldemar could forget. “You care about the structure of Ruom as a whole, and not simply your slice of it, Lord Cantour?”
Baldemar frowned slightly. “The low lords exist to supervise smaller chunks of territory so that the high lords may delegate more menial tasks, no? But all of us work together to keep the region as a whole stable. I am in charge of my family, but if something were to happen to me my son would step up to keep the rest of the family intact, and my younger brother and wife would support him.” Baldemar gave a soft sigh. “With House Erling gone, Ruom as a whole is unstable. If I wear blinders like a horse and focus only on my small slice of it, that instability will hurt me as well in the long run.”
“What a cosmopolitan view of things,” Oliver drawled, as beside his brother, Elias finally cleared his throat.
“And the money from the Erling miners, Lord Cantour?” the prince asked. “Where has it been going? To pad Cantour coffers, or have you thought to reinvest it elsewhere?”
“My house has only been taking money from our own mines, and only the percentage we always take from taxes,” Baldemar answered, trying to conceal his annoyance at the implication. “The money from the Erling mines has been funneled into a variety of places. Some has gone towards reconstruction of areas hard hit by the rebel army, in Erling territory and elsewhere in Ruom, some has gone towards buying supplies of food to supplement the diminished supplies from farms either destroyed or understaffed, and a very great deal has gone right back into the mines themselves, which are understandably in need of refurbishment after being abandoned so long and… costing rather more than they did before with the need now to employ miners.”
“Is that all, Lord Cantour?” one of the king’s advisors asked. “Just reconstruction and food?”
Baldemar met the man’s gaze impassively. “I know there are other things that certainly need addressing- the Ruomian militia is in shambles and the infrastructure of the Erling territory’s government is scattered with most of the reeves and stewards dead or missing. But as was already pointed out, I am a minor lord- I have no wish to overstep my authority.”
“Of course not,” Oliver agreed. Then: “Were you aware that House Lavoie has lodged a petition to take over Ruom, Lord Baldemar? They’re making-- I suppose you could call it a proximity claim. Given that Maren is located closer to Cesthen than any other House’s seat.”
Baldemar frowned. “I was not. I imagine probably neither are most of the other Ruomian houses.” He couldn’t really claim to be surprised though- it was bound to happen eventually, someone swooping in on Cesthen as soon as the rebels were gone like carrion birds circling over a carcass. But why should the king tell Baldemar this? Summon him to the capital to tell him this, no less?
“I do not think Lord Lavoie’s sent about a pamphlet to his fellow lords announcing his intentions,” Oliver accorded. The king’s eyes had settled directly onto Baldemar’s, latching to them like a hook into a fish’s mouth. “Then again,” the king continued crisply, “that doesn’t surprise me. As far as I can tell, Owen Lavoie has done absolutely nothing since the treaty’s signing. Maren is in shambles. Their mines have yet to reopen, not even one. I’m close to ordering martial rule because his half-starved citizens are quite nearly rioting. And meanwhile Lord Lavoie has been kindly batting his eyelashes and asking to be made a highlord. Does this sound like the sort of person who ought be made a highlord, Lord Cantour?”
Baldemar winced openly. He’d heard a bit about the so-called Wheat Riots going on in Lavoie territory, though nothing quite so bad as Oliver was explaining. Among other things that were in dire shape since the end of the war were the communication venues in Ruom, which meant news travelled slowly when it travelled at all.
“That… does sound like he should prioritize sorting out his own problems before he tries taking on Cesthen,” Baldemar replied slowly. “I haven’t been since the fall, but from what I understand the city has gone rather well lawless in the interim. Ruled by competing gangs of criminals and scavengers in the absence of the Erlings.”
“The rebel army-- godsdamn them all-- was keeping things… functional, but after the treaty punted them from Cesthen Castle, things did diverge rather quickly to the side of lawlessness.” Oliver scowled. “The king’s army has spent the past few weeks beating the criminals out.” Gesturing to Elias, he added, “My brother was there quite recently. It’s a work in progress, but at least it has progressed.”
“We’ve a major general installed as an acting head,” Elias put in. “He’s been collaborating with some of the more, ah… reasonable rebels who remain in city limits, and working with them to send daily reports to the crown. The gangs are being shown no mercy.” Almost glibly, the prince finished, “It seems that both the crown and our new rebel compatriots can agree that rule of law is a positive thing.”
“War- and its aftermath- makes for strange bedfellows,” Baldemar remarked grimly. “I suppose if nothing else we can rely on the newly freed slaves not to want the country they’ve strived so long to be counted as citizens of to fall into disarray.” He shook his head. “It is a shame when rebels can be relied upon over enkis.”
“Fortunately,” Oliver said, “I’ve no intentions of leaving Cesthen-- and Ruom province-- without a highlord for very long. I’ve enough of a mess on my hands with Talvace, and Kajas and Teral are scarcely any better. To mention nothing of the gods-cursed, traitorous Talfryns in Roth.” The king paused very, very deliberately. “But then… the question arises: To whom do I trust Ruom?”
...Oh!
Baldemar suddenly had a very clear idea of exactly where this was going, and his stomach flipped. There was only one reason that the king of all Courdon would be putting such an important political question, one that would have a permanent effect on the political landscape of the entire country, to a minor lord he hadn’t known existed until less than a year ago. Suddenly a very great deal of the past few days proceedings made much more sense. The way that Oliver seemed to have been measuring Baldemar’s every action, every response to even the most innocuous of comments, the searching questions about his opinions regarding the responsibilities of a minor noble…
It makes sense. Gods it makes sense. But do I really want this? All of Ruom, dumped into mine and Dirk’s lap? Most nobles would have jumped at the chance. But then again, those that would were those interested in Cesthen’s seat for the sake of power. Baldemar knew just from his work the with the mines the weight of the responsibilities that were entailed in taking Ruom province.
And really, who should be the one to take Ruom? Someone who grabbed at it at the first opportunity in pursuit of political influence, or someone who did what he had to without being asked or expecting to be rewarded?
“My wife,” he said slowly, “was the younger sister of Lord Alric Erling, Lord Sutter’s father. My son and heir, Dirk, has Erling blood.” He looked up, meeting Oliver’s eyes squarely. “I may not precisely have a ‘proximity claim’ in Urvane, but I understand the responsibilities entailed, and I am willing to take them on if your majesty were agreeable.”
“If I were you,” Oliver said dryly, “I might pick up that quill I’ve provided you and begin taking notes, Lord Cantour. I rather presume you’ll want to write down what I have to say next.” As Baldemar hurriedly obliged, Oliver leaned forward in his chair. “I am prepared to offer you all the Erling lands and the official status as the highlord of Ruom province. However...” The king steepled his fingers. “I have certain terms you must agree to and meet. These terms are not negotiable. If you are not amenable to them, then the offer will be rescinded, and any further attempts by House Cantour to stake claim over Cesthen in the future would be viewed as treason. Is this understood, Lord Baldemar?”
“I understand, your majesty,” Baldemar replied, unease making his gut twist while simultaneously he was overcome by a feeling of surreality. Was this really happening? Was the king offering to make him a high lord?
“Excellent,” Oliver said. The king held up one finger. “First, you formally sever ties with House Cantour, and you give up all claim to Cantour lands. You must understand me: this is not an offer for you to keep your estate and acquire a new one, but to replace the Erlings.” Oliver paused for a moment, as if to gauge Baldemar’s reaction, before the king evenly continued, “Accordingly, your immediate nuclear family will legally split itself from House Cantour henceforth in perpetuity. The Cantour lands will be given to your younger brother. Kyland, I believe?” Oliver waved a hand as if this hardly mattered. “Of course, this needn’t be a traumatic fracture. You will be given ample time to prepare first on both sides of the coin. Further, to distinguish between the Urvane branch of the family and your newly severed branch, you will select a new House name for yourselves and your descendants-- again, henceforth in perpetuity.”
Baldemar wrote down these points, nodding to show that he understood. It made sense, from a political standpoint. The other minor houses would likely raise a fuss regardless, but there would be less uproar if the Cantours formally split into two branches with two surnames. Kyland is in for a bit of a surprise, he mused.
“Second…” Oliver held up another finger. “You agree to assume all financial and practical responsibilities for the necessary repairs to Cesthen and the other damaged cities within the former Erling lands. Of course, the crown will provide assistance at certain junctures as it would for any other damaged city, but the Erling lands will be yours, not ours. It is up to you to manage and fix what the rebels wrought-- and to do so in a reasonable timeframe.”
Well. That rather went without saying, but Baldemar nodded regardless, “Of course, your majesty. I… may need to leave my immediate dependants in Urvane with Kyland until the repairs in Cesthen have progressed to the point that the city is more stable, but I will see to it.”
“Of course; I’d hardly wish to place vulnerable women and children in a volatile situation.” Oliver smiled toothily, then lifted a third finger. “Next-- you shall swear fealty to me directly, as would any highlord, since as a highlord you will be an immediate liege of the crown. And finally…” The king’s eyes were as intent as those of a predator that’s just spotted its next juicy meal. “I understand that, beyond your son, you’ve not yet secured a generation of heirs past him. The boy is not even married. Is this correct, Lord Cantour?”
Baldemar blinked, the unease back again in full force. “That is correct, my king. With the war and then the occupation we were… unable to give the matter the priority it perhaps warranted.”
“I understand,” Oliver returned. “But you must understand that it leaves me somewhat uneasy, Lord Baldemar, to hand over Ruom to someone with no more than one generation beyond his own secured. Why-- if I gave it to say… House Moulin, he’s already got… three grandsons, is it? So a little more peace of mind.” Resting an elbow on the table, the king said, “Therefore, if Ruom were to become yours, securing an heir beyond your son would be of utmost priority. As soon as is humanly possible.”
“Of… of course, your majesty,” Baldemar stammered, though he had little earthly idea how he was to juggle trying to assume command of the region, rebuild its shattered government, repair the damaged cities, and hunt out a wife for Dirk all at the same time. “I… I can begin searching for someone suitable at the first opportunity-”
“There shall be no need for a search,” Oliver cut in. “After all, it is rather fortuitous, don’t you think, that as we speak I have an unmarried daughter sitting at your home in Urvane?” Up went the other elbow onto the table. “That is the final term, Lord Cantour. Your son Dirk will marry my daughter Safira. She is a royal, and she was previously married to the highlord of Ruom; having her wedded to your heir will give your claim stronger footing, particularly once she bears him children. Speaking of children… Cydney. Upon the marriage, she is to be legally and formally assimilated into your newly formed House, under the guardianship of her new stepfather. She will take his name and be as much under his custody as will be Safira.” The king cocked his head, studying Baldemar. “Is this term agreeable, Lord Cantour?”
To say that the Cantour lord was caught off guard would have been an understatement. The king wanted his widowed daughter to marry Dirk?
...It made sense though. Gods it made sense. Safira was only a few years younger than Dirk’s twenty-four, so widowed or not she was hardly an old maiden. As Oliver had pointed out she was already in Cantour custody, and had been for some time. Marrying her into the family would simply legalize an arrangement that had existed anyway for several years.
Simply, right. It also means that Dirk has to bear heirs by her, which you know full well is going to be awkward as all hells for both of them.
But from Oliver’s perspective it was an expedient way to deal with two problems at once- what to do with his widowed daughter, who otherwise was unlikely to rewed, and how to ensure that his newly appointed highlords weren’t going to die off the same way the Erlings had.
“It… is agreeable, my king,” Baldemar said slowly. “Would they travel to Rakine for the wedding, as by tradition?”
“This is hardly traditional in any sense of the word,” Oliver replied. “There is no use transporting the pair of them here merely so that we can transport them right back. And as much as I do enjoy balls and banquets, there is a war that’s just ended. We hardly need to be spending copious amounts of coin throwing a gala, no?” He smiled wanly. “It will be purely a civil matter. I will sign the paperwork to assent for Safira. You will sign for Dirk. They can have a brief religious ceremony back in Urvane, as imminently as can be feasibly arranged. And that will be that, and then we can all attend to the matters that really ought be meriting our focus. I imagine you and Dirk shall both be busy men.” The king chuckled.
So he was going to be arriving home to Urvane with the marriage certificate already signed and legalized. Dirk and Safira would be legally wed and not even know it. Baldemar couldn’t help feeling sorry for the both of them, Safira in particular. After everything else the poor woman had been through this was… going to be a nasty shock.
Nonetheless… he’d had to make decisions that were rather unpleasant on a personal level before for the sake of politics a hundred times before. And he wasn’t likely to land much more profitable a marriage for his son than one that would catapult their family into highlord status.
“I understand, my king,” he said, bowing his head. “It will be done.”
“Wonderful.” Abruptly, Oliver stood, sending the rest of the people in the room scrambling to their feet as they rose in respect, bowing their heads as the king strode around the table to Baldemar’s side. He reached out to clasp the Cantour lord’s hand. “We’ll spend the next few days in logistical talks, as well as drafting formal paperwork. During which time I’d like you to also decide on your new House’s name. After everything is signed-- including the marriage contract-- you’ll return to Urvane. You will bring Cydney with you.”
“Of course,” Baldemar replied as he shook Oliver’s hand. He was not at all loath to get Cydney away from man who would beat her black and blue over a simple sullied dress, though he was a little irked that after the king had said he’d give the Cantours ample time to formalize the split he was apparently now rushing it along as quickly as he could. Baldemar had rather hoped he could consult Romilde and Dirk on certain things, particularly the matter of the new house name, since it would be their name too. But he knew better than to argue.
Instead, he went on, “Dirk is quite fond of Cydney, I doubt he will be at all hesitant to step in as a father figure for her. We will strive to make this transition as smooth and swift as feasible, that Courdon may move one step closer to restoration.”
“A truly commendable hope,” Oliver agreed. “And may I be the first to say, Lord Cantour-- now that your son will be married to my daughter-- welcome to the family.” The king beamed, a chilling contrast to the way his eyes were still narrowed in hawk-like calculation. “May it be a long and fortuitous relationship for both of us.”
Feeling distinctly uneasy again, Baldemar forced a smile of his own. “As do I, your majesty. As do I.”
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