![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runicloreWithout Wings
Author: Amber Michelle
Gauntlet Theme: 26 - I would stop running, if knew there was a chance
Series: Fire Emblem 10
Character/Pairing: Sanaki, Sigrun, Rafiel, Sephiran, various OCs
Rating: T
Words: 9273
Warnings: violence, which will be a consistent problem from now on.
Notes: AU, part nineteen of the Summer Chronicle. This is a first and ongoing draft; a list of known issues is being compiled here.
Lately I've felt I took the Chronicle in the wrong direction - and by 'lately,' I mean 'for the last six months,' and some time before that, which is why chapters have been so slow. So... I'm going to ditch most of my plans and write as I go along, again. The major plot points will remain the same so I have something to cling to and aim the story toward, but this project won't ever be finished if I try to hold on to a few failing ideas.
.............................................
The doors didn't fully close behind Sanaki when she left the plaza behind, and she missed the finality of their hollow, echoing boom, and the silence that sound would precede. Outside, the space was filled beyond capacity; when the yard was packed with bodies, people had overtaken the university and thrown its upper-story windows open to lean out and add to the din; half the city was out there, Sigrun told her. Down with Daein coalesced as a chant, then faded, then came to hear ears again, a pound of voices like the slam of a spear to the ground. Her body pulsed with it, her heart beat in tandem with it.
White figures gravitated toward the door beyond her double ring of knights - priests, acolytes, those forbidden from attending such events. The silver plates flanking the central staircase reflected a commotion among them, and then a blur she recognized as Amelia pushed through them, distorted by the etchings of Ashera's word: let peace be the object of every negotiation.
"Lady Sanaki!" The sound of quick footsteps tapped across the antechamber floor, echoing, and she slowed to let Amelia catch up. "I thought we agreed--"
"It's the same thing with a different label," Sanaki said without turning her head, marking Amelia's movement past the circle of her guard in her peripheral vision. The cathedral guard held the crowd at the gates - barely, from the noise - but their shouts and cheers and cries snuck past the doors, rang in her ears. Her heart hadn't slowed even a little. She would be less winded after running a lap around the palace; her chest strained and the muscles in her back burned with the effort of maintaining outward composure while she walked. They crossed the shape of the stained glass window on the tiles. "To call it self-defense when we fight our own people is ridiculous. If we must pursue the rebels into Daein afterward as Shirin suspects, we will move well beyond a simple defensive response."
"And if we don't?" The trail of Amelia's formal robes fluttered behind her like white gossamer wings. "You've committed yourself to a military maneuver that will put us in considerable danger if Ashnard withdraws to the border. Can you be sure Seliora and Gaddos are the only provinces primed to rebel?"
Who could be sure? Five months ago, Sanaki hadn't believed Lekain would go as far as rebelling. "Assuming Persis, Asmin, and Tanas are secure--"
"We can't assume anything, not even the loyalty of the Central Army--!"
"If we take such a pessimistic view, we'll lose the will to fight before we've begun." Sanaki's heavy braid thumped against her back. Tanith slowed, whispered your majesty, and Sanaki held her hand up. "A war with Daein is what they've been waiting for--"
Tanith's shouted your majesty! preceded a flash of silver from the far side of the chamber, in the shadow of the staircase, and a heavy weight threw Sanaki down. Her head struck the floor, right at the temple, and the impact knocked the air from her lungs. Blood spattered her outstretched hand. Eirene crumbled, her knees bending, her shoulder striking the floor with a crack. An arrow lodged in her brow bone; her eye became a pool of red and white; the other stared at Sanaki, half-veiled by stained blonde hair.
She couldn't tell if it was her voice screaming, or Amelia's, or one of the acolytes behind them. Arrows flew, and Tanith struck them down with her sword, just like she did the night they visited the vault; bodies crowded around Sanaki. Someone pulled her up, hands beneath her armpits. Sigrun's voice shouted in her ear to calm down, breathe, calm down, calm down, each time punctuated by a shake, and Sanaki thought it must be her screaming after all. When she paused to take a deep breath that burned in her throat, her knights pressed in a tight circle around her, a living shield, and pushed her forward.
Amelia. Where was Amelia? Fine, they assured her. Alive, guarded, running, and she would meet them when it was safe. Sanaki sucked in another breath of air and her voice came out a croak. Eirene, she had to be saved--
But there was no saving her.
Metal clashed and echoed. Her guardians were all taller than she was - too tall to see over when they piled around her like living scales and hustled her across the floor, out of the colored shafts of light. The antechamber had become louder than the plaza, full of shouts, screams, prayers. We beseech you, goddess of light, heal your servant that she may protect your handmaiden. They didn't realize that Ashera didn't care about Sanaki or her knights, or even Lehran. She was asleep. Dreaming. Couldn't Sanaki be dreaming? She should wake up any moment now and find Eirene shaking her shoulder, the sunlight illuminating her pale hair, promising sweets for breakfast if she was a good girl and got out of bed before eight.
They took her to a small passage that circled the perimeter of the audience chamber and locked her in the tiny prep room behind her throne, with Sigrun and Melissa inside, and four others outside, two for each door. Sigrun pressed Sanaki down on the bench, kneaded her shoulders hard with both hands, telling her not to cry - not yet. Her chest hurt; an invisible string had tangled between her ribs and pulled tightly so her lungs couldn't expand. Her cheeks were wet and cold, and she didn't know if it was blood or tears, or maybe both. Melissa dabbed at her cheeks with a handkerchief, wiped her hands, stroked her hair once before backing away.
"She died satisfied, your majesty."
Sanaki tried to breathe. Her throat closed up, choked her.
"If it were me, there would be no greater happiness than knowing I saved your--"
"I yelled at her," Sanaki said, her throat catching. She almost wretched. "I yelled at her yesterday--"
Sigrun pressed Sanaki's face to her stomach and squeezed until she stopped trying to talk. I did too, her knight said, nails digging into her scalp. Sigrun smelled like leather and metal, which reminded her of blood, and arrows, and an ancestor who drowned in her own blood when she took a silver arrow just like that. Sanaki shuddered, and closed her fists around Sigrun's belt. They wouldn't stop shaking.
*
If even one good thing came out of the assassination attempt, Sanaki hoped it would be the clearing of Sephiran's name, as he couldn't have engineered such a thing while under constant surveillance. She waited in the tiny antechamber beneath her throne for three hours while the palace was secured and the wounded moved; there were no prisoners, Tanith reported, but two trainees had been lost, and another was badly injured; a fourth thought she would be withdrawn as soon as her family heard about the incident. Eirene was the only casualty among the veterans. Tanith had another bloody gash on her arm she insisted was only a scratch.
Once again, the halls were empty. The curtains were all drawn tight, and light seeped around the edges, yellow, hot, and making the shadows in the corridors deeper and uglier. This time Sanaki was left alone in her rooms so Sigrun could take care of business, and the remaining knights, those not busy fending off over-eager politicians or protecting her assets - Amelia, Rafiel, Sephiran - were stationed in the garden beneath her window, on the roof, on her balcony, and along the hallway leading to her door. Once she knew the others were safe there was nothing to do. Reading made her head hurt. She spilled water all over her hand when trying to pour a glass. Melissa came in with her own rations and an apology - food could not be brought from the kitchens until all of the servants were cleared and an inventory taken, and would she please forgive them?
Sanaki nibbled the edge of a sheet of hard tack the size of her hand, wet her mouth with a swallow of water, and resolved to tell Sigrun she'd had lunch. Her stomach prickled and rolled; the water went down cold, and settled colder, like ice at the center of her body.
Eirene had two sisters. One was in training, one married and living in a northern province. She'd studied the bow at home, but gave it up when she decided to join the holy guard, because shooting from the back of a pegasus proved beyond her ability. Sanaki remembered the way she defended Astrid while they vacationed on the coast, watching the silver arrows fly with a smile that parted her lips slightly - and she remembered when the other girl joined the guard, a full-fledged knight, while she herself was only ten. Eirene's hair was long then, and flowed to her hips, where the ends curled inward and tangled on her belt. I want hair like that, Sanaki told Sephiran, fingering the blunt ends brushing her chin. Can I? I promise I'll take care of it this time.
The sun set before Sigrun returned. Sanaki was toweling herself off after a bath when she heard the knock, first on the outer door, then on the door to her sleeping chamber. Sigrun's tread stopped where the bathroom door was left open, just a crack; a silk screen separated them, painted with purple irises and feathery fern fronds. "We have no prisoners, your majesty, but the grounds are secure. Lady Amelia was escorted home."
Sanaki folded the towel in half and tossed it onto the dressing bench. "Who?"
"We have not yet found a lead."
Of course not. She pulled her robe from its hook and pushed her arms into the sleeves, ignoring the counter with her vials of oil, lotion, her nail file, the comb. Her hair fell scraggly and wet down her back to wet the seat of her robe and the back of her thighs. "Is it another internal problem?"
Her own breathing was louder than the echo of her voice. Sigrun's pause made the skin over her spine itch. "I don't know." The next pause was shorter, only a second. "Taking our security measures into consideration, however, I believe it might have been. Who and why are beyond my powers of reasoning at the moment."
Sanaki sighed and walked around the screen to join her knight in the bedroom. They could blame the usual suspects - but they were in prison, which complicated the potential investigation and put the greater burden of proof on her own forces. Did Lekain have such a long reach that isolation behind prison walls and a constant guard were simply not enough to stop his machinations? Perhaps. Most likely, they were giving him too much credit. Dukes Tanas and Asmin were still free, and Sephiran was not under strict confinement, so far as matters went in prison; he received visitors on occasion, and often requested favors. Prince Soren could have planned such a thing ahead of time, if such and such circumstances occurred. His father had all of Daein's resources at his disposal - and those of Gaddos and Seliora. "Speculation?"
Sigrun remained by the bathroom door, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She'd changed, shed her armor, but her sword was still belted at her waist. "I'm inclined to suspect the Lady Gaddos, but the others do not believe she had opportunity. I admit it seems unlikely she has the will to use her husband's resources, even if he demanded that she try."
"Helen and Pellatiere have not been involved in recent meetings," Sanaki said, going to her wardrobe. She chose a dark blue dress with tiny silver buttons shaped like lilies and went behind the dressing screen to untie her robe and pull on a chemise and the rest of her underclothes. "So we have Shirin's suspicions about Amelia, which would appear to be useless. Then, Oliver and Hetzel..."
"Unlikely. I suppose we would need Lord Sephiran's contacts to be sure, but the only activity we've seen from their people has been in some way related to your orders."
Sanaki's breath caught at his name, and she pulled the dress over her head to cover it, calling Sigrun back to button it up while she held her hair over her shoulder. "We'll see to that."
Sigrun's fingers paused. "Will you be sending one of us to obtain that information? If so, I would recommend only Tanith, Marcia, and myself."
"I don't know yet." She knew the meaning of that pause. You won't be going down yourself, will you, your majesty? is what she wanted to say. Sanaki picked at a tangle. "I need to speak with Prince Rafiel. If he agrees to help me, I'll know where to go from there."
Sigrun's silence was louder than words. Sanaki shrugged her shoulders, tried to ignore it. If they wanted her to leave the capitol and abandon Sephiran, she would see him before they left - to warn him at the very least, because the senators would find a way to release his enemies if she left them without supervision. Amelia couldn't be trusted; Shirin and Leveque couldn't be trusted. All that was left to Sanaki was to expect the worst.
It was what he wanted, too-- to get her out, perhaps to push her away. But she wouldn't run obediently on his orders any more.
She sat at her dressing table to let Sigrun comb her hair out and stared at the copper light cast on the silvered background of her mirror by the bedside lamp. The snick snick of the comb made her shoulders tense little by little until she thought her reflection should be hunching over the edge of the table rather than sitting, hands folded, like an obedient girl. She couldn't see Rafiel and Amelia at the same time. Everyone would protest her plan to go down to the prison block. At the moment, she couldn't imagine consequences more dire than what she'd already suffered - her carelessness had left the records in enemy hands, and they painted her a fool at best, a heresy at worst. Shirin was right; nobody would care about the absence of a mark on her hand.
Sanaki thought that was rather ironic. She would have liked to see it appear. If fate insisted she confront the stigma of carrying laguz blood, it was only fair she get the benefits of it too - the galdrar, the healings, Ashera's voice. No wonder Lehran was so reluctant to show his true self; as a beorc he was beautiful and extraordinary, yet as laguz, he was reviled and deprived of his natural talents. Would the bird tribes treat him as badly as her own people would? Perhaps the herons wouldn't. Rafiel didn't care - he showed only concern. But the hawks, the ravens? What of the beast tribes? Laguz and beorc mates were stoned to death in many places in Gallia - hung in Daein, feathered in the northern provinces of Begnion, jailed in Crimea's outlying territories. She didn't know what happened to the children, but it was small mercy if they were allowed to live.
She would have liked to put a stop to that. It was the one hope a marriage with Daein would have allowed her: firm ground on which to build the foundation of greater tolerance in two countries.
In theory.
A messenger was sent to inform Rafiel of her impending visit, and then Sanaki was made to wait after she'd finished her own preparations while Sigrun arranged for guards to be placed in the halls around his room and the grassy alcove outside his window. Six knights accompanied her across the palace and down to the second floor, where the wall moldings were gilded, the panels painted white, and the rugs woven of crimson and copper, snowy white and indigo, as richly detailed as human hands were capable. It was a place made to impress foreign dignitaries and provincial officials; the doorknobs were plated in gold, and the lamp fixtures, and the ring of the golden knocker on the heron prince's door chimed loud and pleasant, like a major chord.
Rafiel answered with a smile he maintained only a few seconds, and backed away to let Sigrun inside for a security check. Sanaki exchanged greetings with him, assured him she and Amelia were fine, though she couldn't make the same claim in regard to her knights. His downcast gaze told her she didn't need to elaborate.
His room was decorated as richly as the corridor, in shades of green that were dark, forest-like, his velvet curtains etched with stylized leaves, his coverlet and the matching rugs woven in cream, white, and pale, minty green. He led her to the small table by his window, where the curtains were drawn and a small crystal lamp lit to throw rainbow patterns on the white tablecloth. A chair was pulled back for her, and he took his seat on a green and white ottoman with a golden fringe. Sigrun took a stance behind Sanaki's chair. The others filed outside and closed the door.
"You didn't say very much in your message," Rafiel said when she let the silence stretch. His hands folded atop the table to show his tapered fingers. "Is there a problem? Does this attack have something to do with me?"
"No." Sanaki watched his wings tilt and droop slightly. "I've agreed to travel north to join the Central Army, and it would be best for you to accompany me. If you refuse to go home--" she said quickly when his mouth opened, probably to protest, "--you may stay with us as long as you agree not to involve yourself in the fighting."
"Of course I wouldn't." Rafiel's hands fluttered, his wings following, lifting, settling again. "I'd rather not be shot at again."
She smiled, and tried to hold it. "Unfortunately, we will not be able to take Sephiran with us, so I have a request."
His cheeks paled, and his hands stilled. "You can't?"
Sanaki leaned back in her chair and avoided his gaze. The ceiling was carved too, each square panel resembling a bed of four-petaled flowers. "They say..."
"You trust them?"
She wove her fingers tightly over her middle. "Rafiel, if I let him go, am I doing it because he's innocent, or because he deserves to confront these charges head-on? Or will I do it because I cannot separate my personal life from my politics?"
He didn't say anything at first, and she listened to the birdsong outside his window, wondering if Sephiran could hear something like that from the window of his cell - if it had a window. Without air and freedom, he told her ages ago - two months, perhaps three? - a heron will wilt and die like a flower. It would be no different than starving him. Had it only been a week? No, it had to have been at least two since he'd been imprisoned, and it felt like a month.
Only a week, Rafiel murmured, and she jumped. "There is no evidence against him," he said, finally. "Not like there was for the others. It is circumstantial at best, and this newest incident casts doubt even on that. Do you not agree?"
Sanaki fixed her gaze on one flower, and its mane of leaves. She said nothing.
"If you must abandon him as your prime minister, I will take his cause up as a prince of Serenes. He is our eldest and most respected sage. We won't stand to have him confined. The other tribes will rally to our cause."
She swallowed a sigh and felt her dry throat stretch. "That will not be necessary."
"Your majesty--"
"For one," she said, lifting her hand to bend a finger back, "I do not intend to abandon my prime minister. I think a laguz in visible public office is a change Begnion should bear with more grace. Secondly--" She bent another finger back. "He's mine. I can't run off to Serenes whenever I want a back massage, now, can I?" A quick glance down told her his lips were working, pulled by his teeth, but she couldn't tell if the knitting of his brows was an attempt not to smile - which she hoped - or disapproval, which she'd like to avoid. "Do you have any clothing that will fit him?"
Rafiel stared at her. She lifted an eyebrow, and he stuttered. "We are close in height and build, I suppose. Why--?"
"If you can spare a set of robes, there's something I'd like you to do for me before we leave. It will benefit him in the end."
He pulled his hands into his lap, where they curled inward. "If it's possible-- what is it you need?"
*
There was another attempt on Sanaki's life two days later, in the form of a servant with a stiletto knife, who did not survive, and her knights were unapologetic when they transmitted that news afterward. It looks like he wanted to imitate a pincushion, Tanith said, reporting with her arm bent behind her back at rest. He didn't even try to dodge our swords. No, of course not. It must be nearly impossible to dodge five silver blades, never mind the spears thrown by the guard in the hallway. Sanaki had waved the news away and asked if the kitchen would produce something edible that night, or if she was doomed to dine on rations the rest of the week.
A plate of corn and thyme cakes made it to her table that night, garnished with wilted greens of three different kinds, and paper-thin slices of golden potato and white cheese. Someone managed to procure a pitcher of fruit juice - peach, plum, raspberry - and Sanaki went to bed looking forward to a decent breakfast. It came - a baked pancake filled with summer berries and sweet whipped cream - along with the news she was confined to the palace for her own safety. No, even the cathedral is suspect, Sigrun told her. There are twenty public entrances alone, and the building must remain open to the public for the city to function. The same is not true of the palace. The guard had already blocked the exits, locked the unnecessary doors, and culled the staff to what was absolutely necessary. Sanaki had to send special messengers to Amelia and the others, and arrange to meet them in a parlor on the second floor.
Despite running through these rooms on occasion when she was a child, Sanaki hadn't often had the opportunity to enter them, and never to use them for personal purposes - not until she was forced to invite Prince Daein. Rafiel, she had always met in Sephiran's chambers, or the safe rooms beneath the cathedral. Her guard chose a small one that looked like it was meant for dining; a large, round pine table occupied the center of the room, crowned with a brass chandelier, and chairs upholstered in white made a circle of twelve. Someone had arranged a vase of lilies at the center, along with two tea trays and enough cups to serve the entire table, all silver and plain, with big, round handles. The west wall was all windows, covered by gauzy silk, and on the long stretch of the window seat Sanaki found Leveque already waiting for her, and a guard just inside the door to watch him, make sure he didn't poison anything. The others had not yet arrived.
"Has the novelty worn off yet?" Sanaki had refused her formal robes that morning, opting for a lighter white dress and a red coat, but the high collar still left her feeling hotter than was merited from the thin cotton fabric.
Leveque looked over, lethargic, then leapt to his feet and bowed. "I apologize, your majesty. I do not follow," he said, his head still bent.
Sanaki waited for him to straighten and met his dark eyes. "To my memory, you're the type that prefers to remain in the background. Hetzel said you're a tyrant in the office - snapping at employees, et cetera - and yet uncomfortable in public. What I have observed is the opposite."
His hands, clasped at his waist, stretched, and his fingers wove together. "I will do as duty demands, your majesty. Right now, I must stand in the spotlight. When this is over, I will return to my post and continue my work."
With the window glaring behind him, it was hard to see his expression. She chose a chair at random and sat down at the table with her ankles crossed under and her own reflection staring back at her from the convex curve of the nearest teapot. "And if duty demands taking an arrow meant for me?"
"Ah." He left the window, joined her at the table; his shoulders jutted unevenly against the chair back, and his short hair, oiled and swept back, shined. "I am a poor shield, your majesty. My talents are best represented in paperwork and budget reports, but I would be happy to appraise the value of any arrow sent your way for how likely it was to kill you."
Sanaki pursed her lips to hide the slight upturn of the corners, watching the glint of his eyes move slightly in the shadow of his face. She motioned for Amla to approach, asked her to set some tea to steep - green, she decided, because it reminded her of grassy lawns and high, waving branches of five-pronged leaves. The others arrived in the midst of that silence, Amelia and Shirin arguing about whether or not Begnion was technically at war with Daein before the announcement, Sigrun with a note in Rafiel's thin, elegant hand, and two younger guard members whose names she could not remember entered with silver trays to serve crisp discs of parmesan-thyme crackers, a sweeter variety made of yam, and bowls of thin peach slices. Sanaki ignored their obeisances and waited for everyone to sit down.
"We can push Daein out with half the central army," Amelia was saying as they seated themselves, chairs thumping on the carpet. The table shook slightly. "I predict at least half of the Gaddos militia will desert when they learn of her majesty's presence at the front. To stay would mean facing charges of treason, and perhaps endangering their families."
The note said simply, it's finished. Sanaki handed it back to Sigrun with a quiet order to have the parcel ready after the meeting, and her knight bowed and strode out behind the trainees. Marcia, Tanith, and two others joined Amla in the room, one against each wall, two flanking the door.
"And if their families are already held hostage against their good behavior?" Shirin lifted the teapot, looked over; at Sanaki's nod, she poured one cup, passed it over, and served herself.
Leveque chuckled and helped himself to a cracker. "I wouldn't put it past him."
"Do we have any reports from Gaddos, your majesty?"
"Nothing reliable." She held the cup by its lip, which curved slightly outward, and watched bits of tea settle at the bottom. "Sephiran's agents were removed, and it has taken time to replace them."
"I wish I understood," Amelia murmured. "He is usually so careful. To see his network broken so completely..."
Leveque looked at his half-eaten cracker, pressing a fingertip to the delicate edge. "One wonders which of his mice squealed."
Shirin cast her a sidelong glance beneath her thin fringe of lashes. Sanaki leaned back, tilted her head slightly. Yes, she remembered their conversation - how could she forget? "We'll send Parsian troops to enforce martial law there until we've pushed the invaders out. They will also watch Culbert for signs of rebellion, and we must hope the other provinces stay quiet."
"But your majesty," Amelia said, a line creasing her brow, "Persis doesn't have a militia. You know--"
Leveque narrowed his eyes, first at Sanaki, then at Shirin - who sipped her tea and smiled at him, so widely the line of her mouth seemed to split her face. He grunted and muttered something that didn't quite reach Sanaki across the table. Don't look so satisfied, it sounded like. Amelia looked over, asked what he meant, and Sanaki let him grumble. Sigrun would be in to suggest she eat soon, though her weekly sickness had passed and her appetite had returned enough that she ate all of her breakfast that morning. Could one be blamed for turning down rations? The snacks her knights brought in were a vast improvement, all things she usually liked, but today they were unappetizing. Her tea was still too hot. Summer had given them a reprieve today, bathing the city with cool breezes and a sun that seemed far away for once, its heat blunted, but sweat still gathered behind her knees and made her skirts wrinkle when she sat down long enough.
"I would like to know," Leveque said once the Persis situation was explained, "what you intend to do about your prisoners during your absence, your majesty. If the opposition decides to launch an uprising, it is very likely they will be released-- or killed."
Sanaki tried her tea, and found the cup was warmer than the liquid. That was the question she'd asked herself since their suggestion she leave, and they wouldn't like her answer. She took a long sip of her tea; Amelia almost said something, but backed down when Sanaki looked at her. "I've decided on a date for my departure, which will not be discussed here for security reasons," she said, placing her cup on the table. "Before that, I will take care of Sephiran's case and have Numida and Culbert executed."
"Wha--" Amelia's mouth hung half-open. "You can't--"
"Not Gaddos?" Leveque said at the same time, his voice sharp.
"When I can charge him with treason after this situation is dealt with? Not yet," Sanaki said, loudly. "His supporters cannot oppose his sentence any longer. However-- I will have the testimonies first." Leveque's frown was visible even with the light glaring behind his shape, and she sighed. Did he think she wanted to let Lekain live? He should have been dead already. She'd waited her entire life to see him brought down. But her opinion was not the only one that mattered, for better or worse; the opposition, as he called it, must be silenced - with facts, with guilt, not just her order. And there was poetic justice to consider too, if circumstances allowed. "Three days," she said, echoing what she'd stated a week ago. Or was it longer? "Security will be tightened, and they will be moved to solitary confinement."
The army would be a breath of fresh air, after this. Sanaki wanted to leave the table and go to the windows, but her knights had already warned her not to; arrows would pierce glass easily enough, and windows never stopped an assassin. They didn't stop the heat, nor did they dim the harshness of the summer sun. Amelia looked dissatisfied, and beside her, Shirin presented a blank expression to her tea, hands wrapped around the cup.
"What about Lord Sephiran?" Leveque said, his tone still sour.
"I have something special in mind for him," Sanaki said, and refused to elaborate.
The meeting ended on a dissatisfied note. They approved her decision after an hour of fruitless discussion, and she walked slowly back to her rooms with a stiff back and her stomach in knots. Lunch was a bowl of creamy sweet pea soup, followed by melon-flavored ice and more fruit, which she made herself eat while staring at the bundle sitting on the table across from her, where Sephiran should be sitting to share her meal. It was wrapped in plain linen, big enough she would need to carry it with both arms. A new pair of sandals sat on top.
She shook her head and ate the last of her grapes. The clock on the mantle said it was only two in the afternoon. Sigrun had insisted they delay her visit until he had time to bathe; hauling water in and out would take time, she said, and if you absolutely must do this, he will be presentable - for your sake and his.
They'd said Sephiran and the prince were imprisoned in an area reserved for high-ranking individuals. Sanaki wanted to ask why he wouldn't be presentable, what would stop him, but-- she didn't know a thing about the prison. Of course commoners wouldn't be allowed luxuries like bath tubs or running water, but a high official? Surely--
But a high official, she remembered hearing when discussing the sentences for the senior senate, had more to lose, and better reasons to contemplate suicide. It made her frown.
When the time finally came to go down, the holy guard cleared the corridors and took Sanaki to the bowels of the cathedral via corridors she recalled from the first assassination attempt, when Rafiel was at her side. Word would get out about this once the guard shifts changed and people had a chance to break their vows of silence, Sigrun said, but they would take every precaution just in case. Sanaki carried the bundle with his sandals hanging from her fingers, surrounded by her most trusted knights: Tanith, Marcia, Ellen, and of course Sigrun - all senior knights, all commanders, all loyal beyond question. With them at her side, the stairway downward did not seem so dark, though it was cramped, steep, and smelled like wet stone.
Better lighting welcomed them when they reached the topmost of the basement levels. The checkpoint was tiled with clean white stone, and the plain glass lamps blazed brightly like miniature suns. The commandant rose from his desk and knelt, promised his silence, and then led them down a short corridor to a steel door. Sigrun passed into the prison hallway with her; the others remained behind to guard the door, keep it open. Sanaki took the key and walked three doors down, so many paces away she thought the cells must be as large as her suite. Each door was bound with steel, with a window at eye-level and narrow sliding doors at the bottom.
The walls, it turned out when Sigrun took the key, opened the door, and strode in to make sure he was ready, were over three arm-lengths in thickness, and sounded like solid stone when she rapped her knuckle on a brick. Beyond the shine of her knight's armor the room looked much smaller than she imagined, but still larger than the tiny cells she saw on her tour of the prison when she was younger, back when Sephiran was fighting for improvements to the accommodations. When Sigrun motioned for her to come inside and hand the bundle over, Sanaki took the small corridor in three long steps. Sigrun left the clothing on the table and went to stand beneath the door frame, her back turned.
Dark thumbprints of fatigue marked the skin beneath Sephiran's eyes. "You're safe." It came out like a sigh drawn deep from his lungs, and slightly unsteady. He lowered his head, sank to one knee by his cot, his hair still damp and sliding over his shoulder in black ropes. "They told me you were, but all I ever hear is the bad news--"
Sanaki looked at the yellow halo on the crown of his head - at the oil lamp and its dim, brassy circle of illumination, the unpolished table and its rickety chair, the plain, rough linens. There was no window, no cistern. The entire room couldn't be more than five or six paces across, lengthwise, and less the other direction. She crossed the intervening space and rested her hand against his hair, and he flinched. There had been a lot of bad news lately; she hoped he hadn't heard of the attacks. He'd find the nerve to resist her orders if he knew. "I'm sorry. We're a little late."
He let his forehead rest against her stomach and embraced her around the hips, his hold tight and his breath heating her dress and all of the layers underneath. "Why are you apologizing?" Sephiran pressed his face to the silk. He didn't look very thin, but the acolyte's robe they'd given him was loose and voluminous, and it felt, through the cotton, as if he'd lost some weight. When he spoke again, the words were muffled. "You know you shouldn't be here."
"But you're not going to turn me away, are you?" She heard him snort, and let him get away with it, letting her fingers play with his hair while she looked at the neatly-tucked lines of his bed, or what served as one - the mattress looked thin, and she smelled straw. Straw, and the tangy lemon of the olive oil soap her knights used, and moist stone. He felt thinner against her legs. "I've allowed myself to be led by the nose - by you, Amelia, the others, all this time. I wonder how they can say I'm being manipulated by Serenes when my own advisers are determined to run the country as they see fit."
Sephiran's arms tightened enough she thought her bones scraped. He didn't say anything, though she heard in his silence the logical question: has something happened? After a deep breath, he lifted his head and tilted it back to look at her. "You're so bitter, for one so young."
Sanaki tried to smile. "I'll play their game - for now. Stand up." She tugged at his sleeves, and he squeezed her again, hard, before he let go and grabbed her hand to rise. "Even I can see nothing good is going to happen if I don't take control of this situation. To assure you I'm not doing this just to take care of my own needs, instead of Begnion, I've arranged for something I don't think you'll like very much."
He was looking down at her, but Sanaki couldn't make herself look higher than his chin. He was still warm, even if he looked thinner; standing beside him helped her remember what it was like to have someone at her right hand - to hold it, to watch her back. When she was younger he'd towered over her like the citadel at the back of the cathedral grounds, and she'd forced him to kneel many times during arguments just so she could meet his eyes. She curled a rope of damp hair around her fingers and watched it slide loose. Over there, she said, then, gesturing at the linen parcel. His chin turned, and Sephiran walked over, picked at the knots. She heard the hemp rope slither and fall off, and the linen unfolding, and after that the slide of smooth silk and the tinkle of its golden trim.
Then - nothing. He didn't say anything, and his shadow, cast by his tiny lamp, was a blotch on the wall above his bed that jumped and shuddered with the flame, and otherwise told her nothing.
"You are going to be present for the execution of Culbert and Numida," she said softly. His breathing was uneven; she felt him like she would the sun, a source of heat just behind her, against her shoulder. "Since we lose more by denying your heritage, we will call their bluff and use it to our benefit instead."
"Your majesty--" Sephiran's voice was too breathy. "This won't improve your lot at all."
"If I were worried just about myself, I would let you rot." Sanaki turned her face in the other direction. From where she stood, she couldn't quite see the door, but Sigrun's armor threw a faint reflection of the torch light in the corridor, and that lit the shadow of the tiny hall to the outside. "You don't have to. I can't leave you here if you refuse - everything that makes you important to us also makes you a target for their assassins. And I would not, of course, ask you to bear public criticism for your race or your association with me, if you were not prepared to do so."
Sephiran neglected to respond yet again, and she wished he would just say what was on his mind. Was he angry? Did he think her a fool for even suggesting this? But, of course he did - if the others knew, they would have restrained her bodily, blocked the door, had him moved before she could get downstairs. She could imagine Amelia digging through the archives for a loophole in the law which would allow them to tie her to a chair for her own good. She'd always emphasized the importance of one's advisers; Sanaki took it to heart and tried to gather as many trustworthy people as she could muster; she listened to Sephiran, even when he pulled strings behind her back, and listened to Amelia when they discussed civilian proposals and measures relating to the university.
But if Sanaki listened to them now, nothing would happen. Sephiran was undeserving of this fate. His continued imprisonment would cause problems with the laguz nations, and it wasn't as if confining him would stop the rebellion or make Ashnard disappear.
If releasing Sephiran was a mistake, at least it would be her own mistake.
"Three days," she said. Sigrun turned around when she heard Sanaki move closer to the door. "Sigrun will be back to check on you then."
She wanted to turn around, grab his hand, hug him, but what if his face revealed an answer she didn't want to see? She hurried from the cell, and the air in the hallway was cool and fresh, through it smelled like iron and oil, burning pitch. Behind her came the heavy gong of the door closing, the slam of the bolt, and in her ears was the loud rasp of her own breathing; her own hands clenched, and held all the way up the stairs and through the secret corridors. Her nails dug into her palms, and the heavy footsteps of her knights sounded like drums.
Part of her wanted to go outside and listen to the wind in the branches of Sephiran's maples. She wanted to take him to the cherry grove and look for the little green globes of unripe fruit hidden between the leaves, or twist apricots from their twisted branches and watch the shadowplay on the grass while they ate. She wanted him to do as he was told, and forget how much it might hurt him.
Maybe he was already hurt. Maybe he was afraid to say no, yet unwilling to say yes - she was asking him to sacrifice so much, though she knew he didn't love her enough to bear the weight of public regard as both a traitor and a heretic. He'd never said he loved her. Why should she assume? He didn't even say good-bye when she left his cell; at the beginning of their short meeting he was reluctant to let go of her, and by the end--
Tea was set when Sanaki returned to her rooms, a single cup, a single spoon. She walked over to lift the top of the pot and inhale the berry scent, turned her cup over to pretend she was interested. "Sigrun. Make sure someone on guard will be able to knock him out and throw him over a pegasus if he says no."
Sigrun's Yes, your majesty was followed almost immediately by the sound of the door opening and closing. Outside the branches swayed in a strong wind, the sound they made a whisper through the glass she could only hear because of the silence.
*
The next day only Amelia was free to see her, as she lacked a government office and had no reason to contribute to the preparation for the executions, aside from reminders - constant, at tea, at lunch, at dinner - that security should be checked and re-checked, and the rotation of the guard changed at the last minute. Only the inner council had been notified of Sanaki's intention to move to the war front; supplies were filtered to her knights through Amelia's house, using her storehouses, merchants, even spies. Sephiran made use of them all the time, she said; this wasn't so different. They were accustomed to handling sensitive information.
Under her supervision, Sigrun packed a formal costume for Sanaki, riding clothes, coats and boots and belts she hadn't had reason to use in years. We'll bring your rapier her knight said, and the way her eyes glittered, like hard jewels, Sanaki didn't want to tell her not to-- Sigrun's eyes narrowed just as she thought it. And we will resume your lessons. This will be a battlefield, not a practice ground - you must be able to defend yourself if all else fails. Ashnard had quite a reputation. Rumor said he was strong enough to take an full compliment of pegasus knights alone. Sanaki wasn't sure she believed it, but she wouldn't tempt fate.
The idea, in any case, was to avoid Ashnard at all costs. Let Sephiran deal with him. This was his fault. She tossed and turned all night, imagining what his expression would be like if she told him that. Pathetic, she thought. Or alarmed. It had always amused her to watch his pretty eyes widen when he gasped Empress, that's-- that's-- appalling, or terrible, or not suitable language for public...
Reports from Kilvas and the Central Army arrived on the second day, but they didn't say much - only that the armies had not yet clashed, that Daein was veering eastward and the general thought they meant to entrench their forces in Gaddos, where the rebel stronghold would support them, but it could also be the weather; Sanaki crumbled that note and threw it into her empty fireplace. Weather. So it was still storming in the far northern reaches. Daein must have known the weather patterns of the area, being accustomed to a more severe climate. Would a little rain stop them? Was the Mad King afraid of lightning?
She still couldn't sleep. The journey to the fork of the Ribahn would take over two weeks airborne, under good weather conditions, which sounded less likely the more she heard about the region. Pegusi could fly above the clouds, but they had to land and camp eventually, and getting back up was a dangerous prospect in the middle of a storm, and uncomfortable at best, should it only be raining. Tanith advised following the spine of mountains from Tanas, around Serenes, and to the border with Crimea; Rafiel said they should stop in the forest when they asked him.
Sanaki wanted to see Serenes. She wanted very little, when one made a verbal list, and yet, however innocent, she couldn't allow herself even a glimpse of the place. What if she didn't want to leave again? Who would, when war loomed outside, and mountains of rain clouds, and a rain of spears and arrows?
Besides, taking Oliver into the heart of the heron clan's stronghold would be folly. She knew that, Tanith and Sigrun knew that; it was clear Rafiel had never experienced the Tanas obsession himself. The younger knights were already taking wagers on how long Oliver would wait before he tried to grab Rafiel's hand, or stroke his wings - two days into the trip, or five? But five was too generous; Lord Oliver was shameless, just look at how he treated Lord Sephiran, whom he perceived as his equal! Three days? had been the last thing Sanaki heard before leaving them at the door to go to bed. It's like you're giving me that money for free, Marcia. Are you sure?
The execution was to be staged at eight in the morning. Sanaki gave up on sleep at four, wrapped herself in a thin silk robe, and met Sigrun at the table when she brought in a loaf of bread, butter, and strawberry preserves. I suggest you only eat a little, your majesty, she said, setting the plate at the center of the table. She carried two more, and a napkin-wrapped bundle of utensils that made Sanaki's heart skip and beat harder. We don't know how you'll react to the process. It would be embarrassing to bring your entire breakfast up on the dais, so be careful. Marcia, at the end of her shift, came in with a put of ginger tea and told Sanaki it would help keep her stomach settled.
She ate half a slice of bread before she gave up on breakfast and glanced at the clock: six fifteen, it said, and the sunlight limning the bottom of her curtains was already golden yellow. Ginger scent tickled her nose, made her want to wrinkle it. She drank a cup because Sigrun's warning echoed in her ears: it would be an embarrassment to lose her breakfast before the entire assemblage, and they would delight in such a loss of composure. Poor little empress, they would say - she can't stomach the consequences of her actions, titter, giggle, smirk. Sanaki stared at her tea, tracing her plain reflection on the surface with her eyes, watching the way it trembled, and knew she would have to dig her nails into the arms of her throne and grit her teeth to watch the axe separate Culbert's head from his body - it wouldn't be satisfying at all. It would be disgusting, messy, and by all accounts it would also smell bad if she got too close. Maybe they were just telling stories because it was Culbert.
Sigrun came in again, and Sanaki was already gripping the arms of her dining chair, hard enough that her knuckles ached and sharp pain lanced upward along the top of her arm. She stared at her tea and waited, wondered what there was to discuss, until the silence had stretched for what seemed like an eternity and she looked up to find the white blur in her peripheral vision wasn't a knight at all, but Sephiran-- a wingless Sephiran, dressed in Rafiel's robes, which looked too thin and ethereal on his frame, and at the same time exactly right. Perhaps her eyes tightened, or some other change in expression alerted him to the sudden hollowness in her stomach, that made her want to grab it and look away, because he said, "When they're dead, I'll show myself, but-- not until then. They don't deserve the courtesy."
But what about Sanaki? She ripped her gaze away from his face, his neatly combed hair. "I suppose I can't blame you. I don't want them to see it either." She levered herself up by the arms of her chair, pushed it back, turned to go to her room. Her hair swung behind her, still loose like his. "Your clothing is stored in that guest room," she said, pointing to the door beyond the fireplace, which had been locked as long as she could remember. "Change into something more appropriate."
His sigh sounded strained. "Why, Sanaki?"
She paused by the sofa, rubbing her fingers on the smooth wooden back when she turned, just enough to see him. "There's no reason to hide it anymore," Sanaki said. She turned around again. "That is a courtesy they do not deserve."
Rafiel's costumes were trimmed with gold ornaments, so she knew Sephiran moved, but she started when his arms came around her waist and pulled her back. "They know my secret," he said in her ear, soft, warm, his lips brushing her skin. "What do they need with my wings?"
She let him turn her around by the shoulders. Maybe he was thinner; his face looked sharper, and his hands, wrapped around her arms, felt like bare bone. "What about me?" Sanaki felt her expression break and bit her lip hard, then shook her head and made her face go smooth again, forced the muscles to relax and cooperate. What did she need with his wings-- really, truly? Nothing.
"For you--" Sephiran leaned on the back of the sofa, arms stretched to either side; she was caught between his body and the hard wood frame, breathing in the lavender and rose and grassy scent his borrowed robe had been packed with, feeling the tickle of his hair across the back of her fingers when she grabbed handfuls of his robe and looked up. The air around them thickened and snapped, static electricity tingled across her cheeks when he pressed his forehead to hers. His eyes slid closed. "I'll do it for you - but only you."
Sanaki opened her mouth to reply and felt wind stir the hem of her robe, saw it lift his hair from his back in a long black arc, and the electric charge in the air swept away, sparking and setting the air behind him afire with white light. She felt him change slightly, as if his bones became air, and from the light sprang wings of midnight black, long and slender like he was, and soft when they curved over and around her to block the little bit of morning light seeping through her curtains. His hair swayed and settled over her hands, feathers tickled her fingertips, smelling like pine and snow, and his lips found hers, warm and soft, and tasting of her own tears.
.......................................................................................................................
You know the drill. Will edit later. Usually I get the urge when I read over it a second time, so it shouldn't be... well, maybe it will be a while. Whatever. It seriously does help to see it "in print" though, so up it goes.
.
Author: Amber Michelle
Gauntlet Theme: 26 - I would stop running, if knew there was a chance
Series: Fire Emblem 10
Character/Pairing: Sanaki, Sigrun, Rafiel, Sephiran, various OCs
Rating: T
Words: 9273
Warnings: violence, which will be a consistent problem from now on.
Notes: AU, part nineteen of the Summer Chronicle. This is a first and ongoing draft; a list of known issues is being compiled here.
Lately I've felt I took the Chronicle in the wrong direction - and by 'lately,' I mean 'for the last six months,' and some time before that, which is why chapters have been so slow. So... I'm going to ditch most of my plans and write as I go along, again. The major plot points will remain the same so I have something to cling to and aim the story toward, but this project won't ever be finished if I try to hold on to a few failing ideas.
.............................................
The doors didn't fully close behind Sanaki when she left the plaza behind, and she missed the finality of their hollow, echoing boom, and the silence that sound would precede. Outside, the space was filled beyond capacity; when the yard was packed with bodies, people had overtaken the university and thrown its upper-story windows open to lean out and add to the din; half the city was out there, Sigrun told her. Down with Daein coalesced as a chant, then faded, then came to hear ears again, a pound of voices like the slam of a spear to the ground. Her body pulsed with it, her heart beat in tandem with it.
White figures gravitated toward the door beyond her double ring of knights - priests, acolytes, those forbidden from attending such events. The silver plates flanking the central staircase reflected a commotion among them, and then a blur she recognized as Amelia pushed through them, distorted by the etchings of Ashera's word: let peace be the object of every negotiation.
"Lady Sanaki!" The sound of quick footsteps tapped across the antechamber floor, echoing, and she slowed to let Amelia catch up. "I thought we agreed--"
"It's the same thing with a different label," Sanaki said without turning her head, marking Amelia's movement past the circle of her guard in her peripheral vision. The cathedral guard held the crowd at the gates - barely, from the noise - but their shouts and cheers and cries snuck past the doors, rang in her ears. Her heart hadn't slowed even a little. She would be less winded after running a lap around the palace; her chest strained and the muscles in her back burned with the effort of maintaining outward composure while she walked. They crossed the shape of the stained glass window on the tiles. "To call it self-defense when we fight our own people is ridiculous. If we must pursue the rebels into Daein afterward as Shirin suspects, we will move well beyond a simple defensive response."
"And if we don't?" The trail of Amelia's formal robes fluttered behind her like white gossamer wings. "You've committed yourself to a military maneuver that will put us in considerable danger if Ashnard withdraws to the border. Can you be sure Seliora and Gaddos are the only provinces primed to rebel?"
Who could be sure? Five months ago, Sanaki hadn't believed Lekain would go as far as rebelling. "Assuming Persis, Asmin, and Tanas are secure--"
"We can't assume anything, not even the loyalty of the Central Army--!"
"If we take such a pessimistic view, we'll lose the will to fight before we've begun." Sanaki's heavy braid thumped against her back. Tanith slowed, whispered your majesty, and Sanaki held her hand up. "A war with Daein is what they've been waiting for--"
Tanith's shouted your majesty! preceded a flash of silver from the far side of the chamber, in the shadow of the staircase, and a heavy weight threw Sanaki down. Her head struck the floor, right at the temple, and the impact knocked the air from her lungs. Blood spattered her outstretched hand. Eirene crumbled, her knees bending, her shoulder striking the floor with a crack. An arrow lodged in her brow bone; her eye became a pool of red and white; the other stared at Sanaki, half-veiled by stained blonde hair.
She couldn't tell if it was her voice screaming, or Amelia's, or one of the acolytes behind them. Arrows flew, and Tanith struck them down with her sword, just like she did the night they visited the vault; bodies crowded around Sanaki. Someone pulled her up, hands beneath her armpits. Sigrun's voice shouted in her ear to calm down, breathe, calm down, calm down, each time punctuated by a shake, and Sanaki thought it must be her screaming after all. When she paused to take a deep breath that burned in her throat, her knights pressed in a tight circle around her, a living shield, and pushed her forward.
Amelia. Where was Amelia? Fine, they assured her. Alive, guarded, running, and she would meet them when it was safe. Sanaki sucked in another breath of air and her voice came out a croak. Eirene, she had to be saved--
But there was no saving her.
Metal clashed and echoed. Her guardians were all taller than she was - too tall to see over when they piled around her like living scales and hustled her across the floor, out of the colored shafts of light. The antechamber had become louder than the plaza, full of shouts, screams, prayers. We beseech you, goddess of light, heal your servant that she may protect your handmaiden. They didn't realize that Ashera didn't care about Sanaki or her knights, or even Lehran. She was asleep. Dreaming. Couldn't Sanaki be dreaming? She should wake up any moment now and find Eirene shaking her shoulder, the sunlight illuminating her pale hair, promising sweets for breakfast if she was a good girl and got out of bed before eight.
They took her to a small passage that circled the perimeter of the audience chamber and locked her in the tiny prep room behind her throne, with Sigrun and Melissa inside, and four others outside, two for each door. Sigrun pressed Sanaki down on the bench, kneaded her shoulders hard with both hands, telling her not to cry - not yet. Her chest hurt; an invisible string had tangled between her ribs and pulled tightly so her lungs couldn't expand. Her cheeks were wet and cold, and she didn't know if it was blood or tears, or maybe both. Melissa dabbed at her cheeks with a handkerchief, wiped her hands, stroked her hair once before backing away.
"She died satisfied, your majesty."
Sanaki tried to breathe. Her throat closed up, choked her.
"If it were me, there would be no greater happiness than knowing I saved your--"
"I yelled at her," Sanaki said, her throat catching. She almost wretched. "I yelled at her yesterday--"
Sigrun pressed Sanaki's face to her stomach and squeezed until she stopped trying to talk. I did too, her knight said, nails digging into her scalp. Sigrun smelled like leather and metal, which reminded her of blood, and arrows, and an ancestor who drowned in her own blood when she took a silver arrow just like that. Sanaki shuddered, and closed her fists around Sigrun's belt. They wouldn't stop shaking.
*
If even one good thing came out of the assassination attempt, Sanaki hoped it would be the clearing of Sephiran's name, as he couldn't have engineered such a thing while under constant surveillance. She waited in the tiny antechamber beneath her throne for three hours while the palace was secured and the wounded moved; there were no prisoners, Tanith reported, but two trainees had been lost, and another was badly injured; a fourth thought she would be withdrawn as soon as her family heard about the incident. Eirene was the only casualty among the veterans. Tanith had another bloody gash on her arm she insisted was only a scratch.
Once again, the halls were empty. The curtains were all drawn tight, and light seeped around the edges, yellow, hot, and making the shadows in the corridors deeper and uglier. This time Sanaki was left alone in her rooms so Sigrun could take care of business, and the remaining knights, those not busy fending off over-eager politicians or protecting her assets - Amelia, Rafiel, Sephiran - were stationed in the garden beneath her window, on the roof, on her balcony, and along the hallway leading to her door. Once she knew the others were safe there was nothing to do. Reading made her head hurt. She spilled water all over her hand when trying to pour a glass. Melissa came in with her own rations and an apology - food could not be brought from the kitchens until all of the servants were cleared and an inventory taken, and would she please forgive them?
Sanaki nibbled the edge of a sheet of hard tack the size of her hand, wet her mouth with a swallow of water, and resolved to tell Sigrun she'd had lunch. Her stomach prickled and rolled; the water went down cold, and settled colder, like ice at the center of her body.
Eirene had two sisters. One was in training, one married and living in a northern province. She'd studied the bow at home, but gave it up when she decided to join the holy guard, because shooting from the back of a pegasus proved beyond her ability. Sanaki remembered the way she defended Astrid while they vacationed on the coast, watching the silver arrows fly with a smile that parted her lips slightly - and she remembered when the other girl joined the guard, a full-fledged knight, while she herself was only ten. Eirene's hair was long then, and flowed to her hips, where the ends curled inward and tangled on her belt. I want hair like that, Sanaki told Sephiran, fingering the blunt ends brushing her chin. Can I? I promise I'll take care of it this time.
The sun set before Sigrun returned. Sanaki was toweling herself off after a bath when she heard the knock, first on the outer door, then on the door to her sleeping chamber. Sigrun's tread stopped where the bathroom door was left open, just a crack; a silk screen separated them, painted with purple irises and feathery fern fronds. "We have no prisoners, your majesty, but the grounds are secure. Lady Amelia was escorted home."
Sanaki folded the towel in half and tossed it onto the dressing bench. "Who?"
"We have not yet found a lead."
Of course not. She pulled her robe from its hook and pushed her arms into the sleeves, ignoring the counter with her vials of oil, lotion, her nail file, the comb. Her hair fell scraggly and wet down her back to wet the seat of her robe and the back of her thighs. "Is it another internal problem?"
Her own breathing was louder than the echo of her voice. Sigrun's pause made the skin over her spine itch. "I don't know." The next pause was shorter, only a second. "Taking our security measures into consideration, however, I believe it might have been. Who and why are beyond my powers of reasoning at the moment."
Sanaki sighed and walked around the screen to join her knight in the bedroom. They could blame the usual suspects - but they were in prison, which complicated the potential investigation and put the greater burden of proof on her own forces. Did Lekain have such a long reach that isolation behind prison walls and a constant guard were simply not enough to stop his machinations? Perhaps. Most likely, they were giving him too much credit. Dukes Tanas and Asmin were still free, and Sephiran was not under strict confinement, so far as matters went in prison; he received visitors on occasion, and often requested favors. Prince Soren could have planned such a thing ahead of time, if such and such circumstances occurred. His father had all of Daein's resources at his disposal - and those of Gaddos and Seliora. "Speculation?"
Sigrun remained by the bathroom door, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She'd changed, shed her armor, but her sword was still belted at her waist. "I'm inclined to suspect the Lady Gaddos, but the others do not believe she had opportunity. I admit it seems unlikely she has the will to use her husband's resources, even if he demanded that she try."
"Helen and Pellatiere have not been involved in recent meetings," Sanaki said, going to her wardrobe. She chose a dark blue dress with tiny silver buttons shaped like lilies and went behind the dressing screen to untie her robe and pull on a chemise and the rest of her underclothes. "So we have Shirin's suspicions about Amelia, which would appear to be useless. Then, Oliver and Hetzel..."
"Unlikely. I suppose we would need Lord Sephiran's contacts to be sure, but the only activity we've seen from their people has been in some way related to your orders."
Sanaki's breath caught at his name, and she pulled the dress over her head to cover it, calling Sigrun back to button it up while she held her hair over her shoulder. "We'll see to that."
Sigrun's fingers paused. "Will you be sending one of us to obtain that information? If so, I would recommend only Tanith, Marcia, and myself."
"I don't know yet." She knew the meaning of that pause. You won't be going down yourself, will you, your majesty? is what she wanted to say. Sanaki picked at a tangle. "I need to speak with Prince Rafiel. If he agrees to help me, I'll know where to go from there."
Sigrun's silence was louder than words. Sanaki shrugged her shoulders, tried to ignore it. If they wanted her to leave the capitol and abandon Sephiran, she would see him before they left - to warn him at the very least, because the senators would find a way to release his enemies if she left them without supervision. Amelia couldn't be trusted; Shirin and Leveque couldn't be trusted. All that was left to Sanaki was to expect the worst.
It was what he wanted, too-- to get her out, perhaps to push her away. But she wouldn't run obediently on his orders any more.
She sat at her dressing table to let Sigrun comb her hair out and stared at the copper light cast on the silvered background of her mirror by the bedside lamp. The snick snick of the comb made her shoulders tense little by little until she thought her reflection should be hunching over the edge of the table rather than sitting, hands folded, like an obedient girl. She couldn't see Rafiel and Amelia at the same time. Everyone would protest her plan to go down to the prison block. At the moment, she couldn't imagine consequences more dire than what she'd already suffered - her carelessness had left the records in enemy hands, and they painted her a fool at best, a heresy at worst. Shirin was right; nobody would care about the absence of a mark on her hand.
Sanaki thought that was rather ironic. She would have liked to see it appear. If fate insisted she confront the stigma of carrying laguz blood, it was only fair she get the benefits of it too - the galdrar, the healings, Ashera's voice. No wonder Lehran was so reluctant to show his true self; as a beorc he was beautiful and extraordinary, yet as laguz, he was reviled and deprived of his natural talents. Would the bird tribes treat him as badly as her own people would? Perhaps the herons wouldn't. Rafiel didn't care - he showed only concern. But the hawks, the ravens? What of the beast tribes? Laguz and beorc mates were stoned to death in many places in Gallia - hung in Daein, feathered in the northern provinces of Begnion, jailed in Crimea's outlying territories. She didn't know what happened to the children, but it was small mercy if they were allowed to live.
She would have liked to put a stop to that. It was the one hope a marriage with Daein would have allowed her: firm ground on which to build the foundation of greater tolerance in two countries.
In theory.
A messenger was sent to inform Rafiel of her impending visit, and then Sanaki was made to wait after she'd finished her own preparations while Sigrun arranged for guards to be placed in the halls around his room and the grassy alcove outside his window. Six knights accompanied her across the palace and down to the second floor, where the wall moldings were gilded, the panels painted white, and the rugs woven of crimson and copper, snowy white and indigo, as richly detailed as human hands were capable. It was a place made to impress foreign dignitaries and provincial officials; the doorknobs were plated in gold, and the lamp fixtures, and the ring of the golden knocker on the heron prince's door chimed loud and pleasant, like a major chord.
Rafiel answered with a smile he maintained only a few seconds, and backed away to let Sigrun inside for a security check. Sanaki exchanged greetings with him, assured him she and Amelia were fine, though she couldn't make the same claim in regard to her knights. His downcast gaze told her she didn't need to elaborate.
His room was decorated as richly as the corridor, in shades of green that were dark, forest-like, his velvet curtains etched with stylized leaves, his coverlet and the matching rugs woven in cream, white, and pale, minty green. He led her to the small table by his window, where the curtains were drawn and a small crystal lamp lit to throw rainbow patterns on the white tablecloth. A chair was pulled back for her, and he took his seat on a green and white ottoman with a golden fringe. Sigrun took a stance behind Sanaki's chair. The others filed outside and closed the door.
"You didn't say very much in your message," Rafiel said when she let the silence stretch. His hands folded atop the table to show his tapered fingers. "Is there a problem? Does this attack have something to do with me?"
"No." Sanaki watched his wings tilt and droop slightly. "I've agreed to travel north to join the Central Army, and it would be best for you to accompany me. If you refuse to go home--" she said quickly when his mouth opened, probably to protest, "--you may stay with us as long as you agree not to involve yourself in the fighting."
"Of course I wouldn't." Rafiel's hands fluttered, his wings following, lifting, settling again. "I'd rather not be shot at again."
She smiled, and tried to hold it. "Unfortunately, we will not be able to take Sephiran with us, so I have a request."
His cheeks paled, and his hands stilled. "You can't?"
Sanaki leaned back in her chair and avoided his gaze. The ceiling was carved too, each square panel resembling a bed of four-petaled flowers. "They say..."
"You trust them?"
She wove her fingers tightly over her middle. "Rafiel, if I let him go, am I doing it because he's innocent, or because he deserves to confront these charges head-on? Or will I do it because I cannot separate my personal life from my politics?"
He didn't say anything at first, and she listened to the birdsong outside his window, wondering if Sephiran could hear something like that from the window of his cell - if it had a window. Without air and freedom, he told her ages ago - two months, perhaps three? - a heron will wilt and die like a flower. It would be no different than starving him. Had it only been a week? No, it had to have been at least two since he'd been imprisoned, and it felt like a month.
Only a week, Rafiel murmured, and she jumped. "There is no evidence against him," he said, finally. "Not like there was for the others. It is circumstantial at best, and this newest incident casts doubt even on that. Do you not agree?"
Sanaki fixed her gaze on one flower, and its mane of leaves. She said nothing.
"If you must abandon him as your prime minister, I will take his cause up as a prince of Serenes. He is our eldest and most respected sage. We won't stand to have him confined. The other tribes will rally to our cause."
She swallowed a sigh and felt her dry throat stretch. "That will not be necessary."
"Your majesty--"
"For one," she said, lifting her hand to bend a finger back, "I do not intend to abandon my prime minister. I think a laguz in visible public office is a change Begnion should bear with more grace. Secondly--" She bent another finger back. "He's mine. I can't run off to Serenes whenever I want a back massage, now, can I?" A quick glance down told her his lips were working, pulled by his teeth, but she couldn't tell if the knitting of his brows was an attempt not to smile - which she hoped - or disapproval, which she'd like to avoid. "Do you have any clothing that will fit him?"
Rafiel stared at her. She lifted an eyebrow, and he stuttered. "We are close in height and build, I suppose. Why--?"
"If you can spare a set of robes, there's something I'd like you to do for me before we leave. It will benefit him in the end."
He pulled his hands into his lap, where they curled inward. "If it's possible-- what is it you need?"
*
There was another attempt on Sanaki's life two days later, in the form of a servant with a stiletto knife, who did not survive, and her knights were unapologetic when they transmitted that news afterward. It looks like he wanted to imitate a pincushion, Tanith said, reporting with her arm bent behind her back at rest. He didn't even try to dodge our swords. No, of course not. It must be nearly impossible to dodge five silver blades, never mind the spears thrown by the guard in the hallway. Sanaki had waved the news away and asked if the kitchen would produce something edible that night, or if she was doomed to dine on rations the rest of the week.
A plate of corn and thyme cakes made it to her table that night, garnished with wilted greens of three different kinds, and paper-thin slices of golden potato and white cheese. Someone managed to procure a pitcher of fruit juice - peach, plum, raspberry - and Sanaki went to bed looking forward to a decent breakfast. It came - a baked pancake filled with summer berries and sweet whipped cream - along with the news she was confined to the palace for her own safety. No, even the cathedral is suspect, Sigrun told her. There are twenty public entrances alone, and the building must remain open to the public for the city to function. The same is not true of the palace. The guard had already blocked the exits, locked the unnecessary doors, and culled the staff to what was absolutely necessary. Sanaki had to send special messengers to Amelia and the others, and arrange to meet them in a parlor on the second floor.
Despite running through these rooms on occasion when she was a child, Sanaki hadn't often had the opportunity to enter them, and never to use them for personal purposes - not until she was forced to invite Prince Daein. Rafiel, she had always met in Sephiran's chambers, or the safe rooms beneath the cathedral. Her guard chose a small one that looked like it was meant for dining; a large, round pine table occupied the center of the room, crowned with a brass chandelier, and chairs upholstered in white made a circle of twelve. Someone had arranged a vase of lilies at the center, along with two tea trays and enough cups to serve the entire table, all silver and plain, with big, round handles. The west wall was all windows, covered by gauzy silk, and on the long stretch of the window seat Sanaki found Leveque already waiting for her, and a guard just inside the door to watch him, make sure he didn't poison anything. The others had not yet arrived.
"Has the novelty worn off yet?" Sanaki had refused her formal robes that morning, opting for a lighter white dress and a red coat, but the high collar still left her feeling hotter than was merited from the thin cotton fabric.
Leveque looked over, lethargic, then leapt to his feet and bowed. "I apologize, your majesty. I do not follow," he said, his head still bent.
Sanaki waited for him to straighten and met his dark eyes. "To my memory, you're the type that prefers to remain in the background. Hetzel said you're a tyrant in the office - snapping at employees, et cetera - and yet uncomfortable in public. What I have observed is the opposite."
His hands, clasped at his waist, stretched, and his fingers wove together. "I will do as duty demands, your majesty. Right now, I must stand in the spotlight. When this is over, I will return to my post and continue my work."
With the window glaring behind him, it was hard to see his expression. She chose a chair at random and sat down at the table with her ankles crossed under and her own reflection staring back at her from the convex curve of the nearest teapot. "And if duty demands taking an arrow meant for me?"
"Ah." He left the window, joined her at the table; his shoulders jutted unevenly against the chair back, and his short hair, oiled and swept back, shined. "I am a poor shield, your majesty. My talents are best represented in paperwork and budget reports, but I would be happy to appraise the value of any arrow sent your way for how likely it was to kill you."
Sanaki pursed her lips to hide the slight upturn of the corners, watching the glint of his eyes move slightly in the shadow of his face. She motioned for Amla to approach, asked her to set some tea to steep - green, she decided, because it reminded her of grassy lawns and high, waving branches of five-pronged leaves. The others arrived in the midst of that silence, Amelia and Shirin arguing about whether or not Begnion was technically at war with Daein before the announcement, Sigrun with a note in Rafiel's thin, elegant hand, and two younger guard members whose names she could not remember entered with silver trays to serve crisp discs of parmesan-thyme crackers, a sweeter variety made of yam, and bowls of thin peach slices. Sanaki ignored their obeisances and waited for everyone to sit down.
"We can push Daein out with half the central army," Amelia was saying as they seated themselves, chairs thumping on the carpet. The table shook slightly. "I predict at least half of the Gaddos militia will desert when they learn of her majesty's presence at the front. To stay would mean facing charges of treason, and perhaps endangering their families."
The note said simply, it's finished. Sanaki handed it back to Sigrun with a quiet order to have the parcel ready after the meeting, and her knight bowed and strode out behind the trainees. Marcia, Tanith, and two others joined Amla in the room, one against each wall, two flanking the door.
"And if their families are already held hostage against their good behavior?" Shirin lifted the teapot, looked over; at Sanaki's nod, she poured one cup, passed it over, and served herself.
Leveque chuckled and helped himself to a cracker. "I wouldn't put it past him."
"Do we have any reports from Gaddos, your majesty?"
"Nothing reliable." She held the cup by its lip, which curved slightly outward, and watched bits of tea settle at the bottom. "Sephiran's agents were removed, and it has taken time to replace them."
"I wish I understood," Amelia murmured. "He is usually so careful. To see his network broken so completely..."
Leveque looked at his half-eaten cracker, pressing a fingertip to the delicate edge. "One wonders which of his mice squealed."
Shirin cast her a sidelong glance beneath her thin fringe of lashes. Sanaki leaned back, tilted her head slightly. Yes, she remembered their conversation - how could she forget? "We'll send Parsian troops to enforce martial law there until we've pushed the invaders out. They will also watch Culbert for signs of rebellion, and we must hope the other provinces stay quiet."
"But your majesty," Amelia said, a line creasing her brow, "Persis doesn't have a militia. You know--"
Leveque narrowed his eyes, first at Sanaki, then at Shirin - who sipped her tea and smiled at him, so widely the line of her mouth seemed to split her face. He grunted and muttered something that didn't quite reach Sanaki across the table. Don't look so satisfied, it sounded like. Amelia looked over, asked what he meant, and Sanaki let him grumble. Sigrun would be in to suggest she eat soon, though her weekly sickness had passed and her appetite had returned enough that she ate all of her breakfast that morning. Could one be blamed for turning down rations? The snacks her knights brought in were a vast improvement, all things she usually liked, but today they were unappetizing. Her tea was still too hot. Summer had given them a reprieve today, bathing the city with cool breezes and a sun that seemed far away for once, its heat blunted, but sweat still gathered behind her knees and made her skirts wrinkle when she sat down long enough.
"I would like to know," Leveque said once the Persis situation was explained, "what you intend to do about your prisoners during your absence, your majesty. If the opposition decides to launch an uprising, it is very likely they will be released-- or killed."
Sanaki tried her tea, and found the cup was warmer than the liquid. That was the question she'd asked herself since their suggestion she leave, and they wouldn't like her answer. She took a long sip of her tea; Amelia almost said something, but backed down when Sanaki looked at her. "I've decided on a date for my departure, which will not be discussed here for security reasons," she said, placing her cup on the table. "Before that, I will take care of Sephiran's case and have Numida and Culbert executed."
"Wha--" Amelia's mouth hung half-open. "You can't--"
"Not Gaddos?" Leveque said at the same time, his voice sharp.
"When I can charge him with treason after this situation is dealt with? Not yet," Sanaki said, loudly. "His supporters cannot oppose his sentence any longer. However-- I will have the testimonies first." Leveque's frown was visible even with the light glaring behind his shape, and she sighed. Did he think she wanted to let Lekain live? He should have been dead already. She'd waited her entire life to see him brought down. But her opinion was not the only one that mattered, for better or worse; the opposition, as he called it, must be silenced - with facts, with guilt, not just her order. And there was poetic justice to consider too, if circumstances allowed. "Three days," she said, echoing what she'd stated a week ago. Or was it longer? "Security will be tightened, and they will be moved to solitary confinement."
The army would be a breath of fresh air, after this. Sanaki wanted to leave the table and go to the windows, but her knights had already warned her not to; arrows would pierce glass easily enough, and windows never stopped an assassin. They didn't stop the heat, nor did they dim the harshness of the summer sun. Amelia looked dissatisfied, and beside her, Shirin presented a blank expression to her tea, hands wrapped around the cup.
"What about Lord Sephiran?" Leveque said, his tone still sour.
"I have something special in mind for him," Sanaki said, and refused to elaborate.
The meeting ended on a dissatisfied note. They approved her decision after an hour of fruitless discussion, and she walked slowly back to her rooms with a stiff back and her stomach in knots. Lunch was a bowl of creamy sweet pea soup, followed by melon-flavored ice and more fruit, which she made herself eat while staring at the bundle sitting on the table across from her, where Sephiran should be sitting to share her meal. It was wrapped in plain linen, big enough she would need to carry it with both arms. A new pair of sandals sat on top.
She shook her head and ate the last of her grapes. The clock on the mantle said it was only two in the afternoon. Sigrun had insisted they delay her visit until he had time to bathe; hauling water in and out would take time, she said, and if you absolutely must do this, he will be presentable - for your sake and his.
They'd said Sephiran and the prince were imprisoned in an area reserved for high-ranking individuals. Sanaki wanted to ask why he wouldn't be presentable, what would stop him, but-- she didn't know a thing about the prison. Of course commoners wouldn't be allowed luxuries like bath tubs or running water, but a high official? Surely--
But a high official, she remembered hearing when discussing the sentences for the senior senate, had more to lose, and better reasons to contemplate suicide. It made her frown.
When the time finally came to go down, the holy guard cleared the corridors and took Sanaki to the bowels of the cathedral via corridors she recalled from the first assassination attempt, when Rafiel was at her side. Word would get out about this once the guard shifts changed and people had a chance to break their vows of silence, Sigrun said, but they would take every precaution just in case. Sanaki carried the bundle with his sandals hanging from her fingers, surrounded by her most trusted knights: Tanith, Marcia, Ellen, and of course Sigrun - all senior knights, all commanders, all loyal beyond question. With them at her side, the stairway downward did not seem so dark, though it was cramped, steep, and smelled like wet stone.
Better lighting welcomed them when they reached the topmost of the basement levels. The checkpoint was tiled with clean white stone, and the plain glass lamps blazed brightly like miniature suns. The commandant rose from his desk and knelt, promised his silence, and then led them down a short corridor to a steel door. Sigrun passed into the prison hallway with her; the others remained behind to guard the door, keep it open. Sanaki took the key and walked three doors down, so many paces away she thought the cells must be as large as her suite. Each door was bound with steel, with a window at eye-level and narrow sliding doors at the bottom.
The walls, it turned out when Sigrun took the key, opened the door, and strode in to make sure he was ready, were over three arm-lengths in thickness, and sounded like solid stone when she rapped her knuckle on a brick. Beyond the shine of her knight's armor the room looked much smaller than she imagined, but still larger than the tiny cells she saw on her tour of the prison when she was younger, back when Sephiran was fighting for improvements to the accommodations. When Sigrun motioned for her to come inside and hand the bundle over, Sanaki took the small corridor in three long steps. Sigrun left the clothing on the table and went to stand beneath the door frame, her back turned.
Dark thumbprints of fatigue marked the skin beneath Sephiran's eyes. "You're safe." It came out like a sigh drawn deep from his lungs, and slightly unsteady. He lowered his head, sank to one knee by his cot, his hair still damp and sliding over his shoulder in black ropes. "They told me you were, but all I ever hear is the bad news--"
Sanaki looked at the yellow halo on the crown of his head - at the oil lamp and its dim, brassy circle of illumination, the unpolished table and its rickety chair, the plain, rough linens. There was no window, no cistern. The entire room couldn't be more than five or six paces across, lengthwise, and less the other direction. She crossed the intervening space and rested her hand against his hair, and he flinched. There had been a lot of bad news lately; she hoped he hadn't heard of the attacks. He'd find the nerve to resist her orders if he knew. "I'm sorry. We're a little late."
He let his forehead rest against her stomach and embraced her around the hips, his hold tight and his breath heating her dress and all of the layers underneath. "Why are you apologizing?" Sephiran pressed his face to the silk. He didn't look very thin, but the acolyte's robe they'd given him was loose and voluminous, and it felt, through the cotton, as if he'd lost some weight. When he spoke again, the words were muffled. "You know you shouldn't be here."
"But you're not going to turn me away, are you?" She heard him snort, and let him get away with it, letting her fingers play with his hair while she looked at the neatly-tucked lines of his bed, or what served as one - the mattress looked thin, and she smelled straw. Straw, and the tangy lemon of the olive oil soap her knights used, and moist stone. He felt thinner against her legs. "I've allowed myself to be led by the nose - by you, Amelia, the others, all this time. I wonder how they can say I'm being manipulated by Serenes when my own advisers are determined to run the country as they see fit."
Sephiran's arms tightened enough she thought her bones scraped. He didn't say anything, though she heard in his silence the logical question: has something happened? After a deep breath, he lifted his head and tilted it back to look at her. "You're so bitter, for one so young."
Sanaki tried to smile. "I'll play their game - for now. Stand up." She tugged at his sleeves, and he squeezed her again, hard, before he let go and grabbed her hand to rise. "Even I can see nothing good is going to happen if I don't take control of this situation. To assure you I'm not doing this just to take care of my own needs, instead of Begnion, I've arranged for something I don't think you'll like very much."
He was looking down at her, but Sanaki couldn't make herself look higher than his chin. He was still warm, even if he looked thinner; standing beside him helped her remember what it was like to have someone at her right hand - to hold it, to watch her back. When she was younger he'd towered over her like the citadel at the back of the cathedral grounds, and she'd forced him to kneel many times during arguments just so she could meet his eyes. She curled a rope of damp hair around her fingers and watched it slide loose. Over there, she said, then, gesturing at the linen parcel. His chin turned, and Sephiran walked over, picked at the knots. She heard the hemp rope slither and fall off, and the linen unfolding, and after that the slide of smooth silk and the tinkle of its golden trim.
Then - nothing. He didn't say anything, and his shadow, cast by his tiny lamp, was a blotch on the wall above his bed that jumped and shuddered with the flame, and otherwise told her nothing.
"You are going to be present for the execution of Culbert and Numida," she said softly. His breathing was uneven; she felt him like she would the sun, a source of heat just behind her, against her shoulder. "Since we lose more by denying your heritage, we will call their bluff and use it to our benefit instead."
"Your majesty--" Sephiran's voice was too breathy. "This won't improve your lot at all."
"If I were worried just about myself, I would let you rot." Sanaki turned her face in the other direction. From where she stood, she couldn't quite see the door, but Sigrun's armor threw a faint reflection of the torch light in the corridor, and that lit the shadow of the tiny hall to the outside. "You don't have to. I can't leave you here if you refuse - everything that makes you important to us also makes you a target for their assassins. And I would not, of course, ask you to bear public criticism for your race or your association with me, if you were not prepared to do so."
Sephiran neglected to respond yet again, and she wished he would just say what was on his mind. Was he angry? Did he think her a fool for even suggesting this? But, of course he did - if the others knew, they would have restrained her bodily, blocked the door, had him moved before she could get downstairs. She could imagine Amelia digging through the archives for a loophole in the law which would allow them to tie her to a chair for her own good. She'd always emphasized the importance of one's advisers; Sanaki took it to heart and tried to gather as many trustworthy people as she could muster; she listened to Sephiran, even when he pulled strings behind her back, and listened to Amelia when they discussed civilian proposals and measures relating to the university.
But if Sanaki listened to them now, nothing would happen. Sephiran was undeserving of this fate. His continued imprisonment would cause problems with the laguz nations, and it wasn't as if confining him would stop the rebellion or make Ashnard disappear.
If releasing Sephiran was a mistake, at least it would be her own mistake.
"Three days," she said. Sigrun turned around when she heard Sanaki move closer to the door. "Sigrun will be back to check on you then."
She wanted to turn around, grab his hand, hug him, but what if his face revealed an answer she didn't want to see? She hurried from the cell, and the air in the hallway was cool and fresh, through it smelled like iron and oil, burning pitch. Behind her came the heavy gong of the door closing, the slam of the bolt, and in her ears was the loud rasp of her own breathing; her own hands clenched, and held all the way up the stairs and through the secret corridors. Her nails dug into her palms, and the heavy footsteps of her knights sounded like drums.
Part of her wanted to go outside and listen to the wind in the branches of Sephiran's maples. She wanted to take him to the cherry grove and look for the little green globes of unripe fruit hidden between the leaves, or twist apricots from their twisted branches and watch the shadowplay on the grass while they ate. She wanted him to do as he was told, and forget how much it might hurt him.
Maybe he was already hurt. Maybe he was afraid to say no, yet unwilling to say yes - she was asking him to sacrifice so much, though she knew he didn't love her enough to bear the weight of public regard as both a traitor and a heretic. He'd never said he loved her. Why should she assume? He didn't even say good-bye when she left his cell; at the beginning of their short meeting he was reluctant to let go of her, and by the end--
Tea was set when Sanaki returned to her rooms, a single cup, a single spoon. She walked over to lift the top of the pot and inhale the berry scent, turned her cup over to pretend she was interested. "Sigrun. Make sure someone on guard will be able to knock him out and throw him over a pegasus if he says no."
Sigrun's Yes, your majesty was followed almost immediately by the sound of the door opening and closing. Outside the branches swayed in a strong wind, the sound they made a whisper through the glass she could only hear because of the silence.
*
The next day only Amelia was free to see her, as she lacked a government office and had no reason to contribute to the preparation for the executions, aside from reminders - constant, at tea, at lunch, at dinner - that security should be checked and re-checked, and the rotation of the guard changed at the last minute. Only the inner council had been notified of Sanaki's intention to move to the war front; supplies were filtered to her knights through Amelia's house, using her storehouses, merchants, even spies. Sephiran made use of them all the time, she said; this wasn't so different. They were accustomed to handling sensitive information.
Under her supervision, Sigrun packed a formal costume for Sanaki, riding clothes, coats and boots and belts she hadn't had reason to use in years. We'll bring your rapier her knight said, and the way her eyes glittered, like hard jewels, Sanaki didn't want to tell her not to-- Sigrun's eyes narrowed just as she thought it. And we will resume your lessons. This will be a battlefield, not a practice ground - you must be able to defend yourself if all else fails. Ashnard had quite a reputation. Rumor said he was strong enough to take an full compliment of pegasus knights alone. Sanaki wasn't sure she believed it, but she wouldn't tempt fate.
The idea, in any case, was to avoid Ashnard at all costs. Let Sephiran deal with him. This was his fault. She tossed and turned all night, imagining what his expression would be like if she told him that. Pathetic, she thought. Or alarmed. It had always amused her to watch his pretty eyes widen when he gasped Empress, that's-- that's-- appalling, or terrible, or not suitable language for public...
Reports from Kilvas and the Central Army arrived on the second day, but they didn't say much - only that the armies had not yet clashed, that Daein was veering eastward and the general thought they meant to entrench their forces in Gaddos, where the rebel stronghold would support them, but it could also be the weather; Sanaki crumbled that note and threw it into her empty fireplace. Weather. So it was still storming in the far northern reaches. Daein must have known the weather patterns of the area, being accustomed to a more severe climate. Would a little rain stop them? Was the Mad King afraid of lightning?
She still couldn't sleep. The journey to the fork of the Ribahn would take over two weeks airborne, under good weather conditions, which sounded less likely the more she heard about the region. Pegusi could fly above the clouds, but they had to land and camp eventually, and getting back up was a dangerous prospect in the middle of a storm, and uncomfortable at best, should it only be raining. Tanith advised following the spine of mountains from Tanas, around Serenes, and to the border with Crimea; Rafiel said they should stop in the forest when they asked him.
Sanaki wanted to see Serenes. She wanted very little, when one made a verbal list, and yet, however innocent, she couldn't allow herself even a glimpse of the place. What if she didn't want to leave again? Who would, when war loomed outside, and mountains of rain clouds, and a rain of spears and arrows?
Besides, taking Oliver into the heart of the heron clan's stronghold would be folly. She knew that, Tanith and Sigrun knew that; it was clear Rafiel had never experienced the Tanas obsession himself. The younger knights were already taking wagers on how long Oliver would wait before he tried to grab Rafiel's hand, or stroke his wings - two days into the trip, or five? But five was too generous; Lord Oliver was shameless, just look at how he treated Lord Sephiran, whom he perceived as his equal! Three days? had been the last thing Sanaki heard before leaving them at the door to go to bed. It's like you're giving me that money for free, Marcia. Are you sure?
The execution was to be staged at eight in the morning. Sanaki gave up on sleep at four, wrapped herself in a thin silk robe, and met Sigrun at the table when she brought in a loaf of bread, butter, and strawberry preserves. I suggest you only eat a little, your majesty, she said, setting the plate at the center of the table. She carried two more, and a napkin-wrapped bundle of utensils that made Sanaki's heart skip and beat harder. We don't know how you'll react to the process. It would be embarrassing to bring your entire breakfast up on the dais, so be careful. Marcia, at the end of her shift, came in with a put of ginger tea and told Sanaki it would help keep her stomach settled.
She ate half a slice of bread before she gave up on breakfast and glanced at the clock: six fifteen, it said, and the sunlight limning the bottom of her curtains was already golden yellow. Ginger scent tickled her nose, made her want to wrinkle it. She drank a cup because Sigrun's warning echoed in her ears: it would be an embarrassment to lose her breakfast before the entire assemblage, and they would delight in such a loss of composure. Poor little empress, they would say - she can't stomach the consequences of her actions, titter, giggle, smirk. Sanaki stared at her tea, tracing her plain reflection on the surface with her eyes, watching the way it trembled, and knew she would have to dig her nails into the arms of her throne and grit her teeth to watch the axe separate Culbert's head from his body - it wouldn't be satisfying at all. It would be disgusting, messy, and by all accounts it would also smell bad if she got too close. Maybe they were just telling stories because it was Culbert.
Sigrun came in again, and Sanaki was already gripping the arms of her dining chair, hard enough that her knuckles ached and sharp pain lanced upward along the top of her arm. She stared at her tea and waited, wondered what there was to discuss, until the silence had stretched for what seemed like an eternity and she looked up to find the white blur in her peripheral vision wasn't a knight at all, but Sephiran-- a wingless Sephiran, dressed in Rafiel's robes, which looked too thin and ethereal on his frame, and at the same time exactly right. Perhaps her eyes tightened, or some other change in expression alerted him to the sudden hollowness in her stomach, that made her want to grab it and look away, because he said, "When they're dead, I'll show myself, but-- not until then. They don't deserve the courtesy."
But what about Sanaki? She ripped her gaze away from his face, his neatly combed hair. "I suppose I can't blame you. I don't want them to see it either." She levered herself up by the arms of her chair, pushed it back, turned to go to her room. Her hair swung behind her, still loose like his. "Your clothing is stored in that guest room," she said, pointing to the door beyond the fireplace, which had been locked as long as she could remember. "Change into something more appropriate."
His sigh sounded strained. "Why, Sanaki?"
She paused by the sofa, rubbing her fingers on the smooth wooden back when she turned, just enough to see him. "There's no reason to hide it anymore," Sanaki said. She turned around again. "That is a courtesy they do not deserve."
Rafiel's costumes were trimmed with gold ornaments, so she knew Sephiran moved, but she started when his arms came around her waist and pulled her back. "They know my secret," he said in her ear, soft, warm, his lips brushing her skin. "What do they need with my wings?"
She let him turn her around by the shoulders. Maybe he was thinner; his face looked sharper, and his hands, wrapped around her arms, felt like bare bone. "What about me?" Sanaki felt her expression break and bit her lip hard, then shook her head and made her face go smooth again, forced the muscles to relax and cooperate. What did she need with his wings-- really, truly? Nothing.
"For you--" Sephiran leaned on the back of the sofa, arms stretched to either side; she was caught between his body and the hard wood frame, breathing in the lavender and rose and grassy scent his borrowed robe had been packed with, feeling the tickle of his hair across the back of her fingers when she grabbed handfuls of his robe and looked up. The air around them thickened and snapped, static electricity tingled across her cheeks when he pressed his forehead to hers. His eyes slid closed. "I'll do it for you - but only you."
Sanaki opened her mouth to reply and felt wind stir the hem of her robe, saw it lift his hair from his back in a long black arc, and the electric charge in the air swept away, sparking and setting the air behind him afire with white light. She felt him change slightly, as if his bones became air, and from the light sprang wings of midnight black, long and slender like he was, and soft when they curved over and around her to block the little bit of morning light seeping through her curtains. His hair swayed and settled over her hands, feathers tickled her fingertips, smelling like pine and snow, and his lips found hers, warm and soft, and tasting of her own tears.
.......................................................................................................................
You know the drill. Will edit later. Usually I get the urge when I read over it a second time, so it shouldn't be... well, maybe it will be a while. Whatever. It seriously does help to see it "in print" though, so up it goes.
.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-01-14 10:58 pm (UTC)Hope you continue like this
chelle!
Very readeable
no subject
Date: 2010-01-20 07:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 04:01 am (UTC)Sigh.
(I am weak)Your pictures are too powerful.no subject
Date: 2010-02-06 12:27 am (UTC)But-- I'm glad I made you read the pairing again. XD