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runicloreMidnight Never Come
Author: Amber Michelle
Day/Theme: January 28 - casually smashed to pieces
Series: Fire Emblem 10
Character/Pairing: Sanaki, Sephiran, Soren, others
Rating: T
Words: 8562
Warnings: n/a
Notes: AU, part thirteen of the Summer Chronicle. This is a first and ongoing draft; a list of known issues is being compiled here.
I'm making up more stuff about spirit charming that has absolutely no basis in canon, but is probably influenced by other stories I've read... somewhere. It's for later, something I may change - but the same applies to the whole story, I guess.
.............................................
At the end of their enforced vacation Sanaki was tempted to extend the work holiday to the end of the week, but when morning dawned the second day after the party she left the paper and her writing box in their drawer and decided she would stay in until the daily audience required her to leave her rooms. Sephiran's document waited to be copied, Valtome was a hair's-breadth away from the execution he so deserved - if she delayed, her minister's frown would be the first waking expression to greet her. His sleepy smiles were by far her preference.
"I would have given you more than a frown," he said when they left her room for breakfast. A plate of fruit waited at the center of the table, cubes of melon and nectarine cut to resemble flowers. A loaf of white bread swirled with cinnamon was sliced on a tray. "You can't rearrange the work week to fit your whims."
"That's why I didn't do it," Sanaki said. The tea was plain, black, and she held it to her chin to breath the aroma in, watching his lips thin through the steam. "Stop looking so cranky. Your proposal went to the scribes first thing this morning. I left orders they were to give you priority."
She wanted to make Sephiran stay when he kissed her fingertips and left to attend a meeting. He'd hardly left her side since the dance; getting clean clothes without a fuss being made was inconvenient - who could be trusted to keep quiet, when would it go unnoticed? - but he only parted from her once to explain his absence to Rafiel. Maybe she fidgeted too much when he mentioned it, maybe her nails were too obviously bitten. Sanaki smoothed the thin white lines with a file to hide it, while he arranged her hair and listed his meetings for her reference: one for the transfer of Asmin to her control, one to smile a senator from Salmo into submission, another to quietly arrange an expedition into the mountains bordering Gaddos to check the validity of Astrid's story. She wrote a quick note for him to send out with the rest of his missives and watched up tuck it between two unsealed envelopes as he walked away.
Sanaki pulled her curtains all the way open once the door had closed behind him. It was still only eight thirty. One of his tomes sat on the table beside the bread tray, the cover midnight blue and velvety soft. The title was burned into the fabric and painted with silver in script slightly different than the version of the old tongue she was tutored in to learn magic. The development of the language differed in Serenes from the rest of the world, he told her. If any of the civilizations beyond Tellius had managed to survive the flood, the evolution of the language would be different there as well.
Most of the glyphs were nonsense to her eye. The text was cramped - not his hand, it was too narrow, too messy - and the grammar backwards. She recognized the ones that decorated his arm: Tiamat, Shullat, Anshar.
He explained them to her one night when she tamped down her hesitation and asked if they were what she thought they might be - spirit marks. He confirmed her guess, though he did not offer an explanation for how he obtained more than one. Wasn't that impossible? Nothing is impossible, he said. Dangerous, yes, but clearly not impossible.
The lamplight made the marks look dark, like dried blood painted on his forearm. Tiamat was the name of a sea serpent the goddess destroyed aeons ago. Her body formed a land bridge between Tyre and Tellius. She was laguz, not a god, no greater than Lehran. Her glyph looked like a snake twined around itself. Sanaki had frowned at his claim, and Lehran laughed, pulling his wrist from her grip.
"You're full of stories," Sanaki kicked the sheet back and sat up, letting her hair tickle his ribs and drape over his arm. "I'm not sure I can believe them anymore."
He smiled, flicked his eyes to the lamp and the level of oil left in the glass chamber. "I could be lying. I could be telling the truth." His green gaze slid back to her. "Maybe I was there."
"Maybe you're trying to impress me by claiming you charmed spirits with famous names."
Lehran rose on his elbow, enough to pull his hair from the pillows and drape it over the side of the bed where it would be out of the way. "It's true I couldn't fly all the way to her grave by myself."
Sanaki watched the yellow light shine on the spread of his hair, as on silk. "What is it really?"
"A nameless elemental." Lehran leaned back again, reaching to pull her down with him. "It was grateful for a name, and never questioned its source."
Sanaki turned his arm to stare at the marks while he slept, tracing the glyphs with her eyes and wondering why they were dangerous - in what ways. She hadn't read much of the prince's book; it instructed on the use of spirits to cast spells not in spellbooks, for physical protection, and the circles and sacrifices needed to control a being one did not have a pact with. The way Soren spoke, even he didn't know the true limitations of the magic, only how to use it. It was worth the risk, he said. The potential returns outweighed the potential drawbacks in certain situations.
Eight hundred years should be enough to pry into the secrets of the art, she thought. Centuries stretched behind Lehran, history that he didn't talk about, but he spoke of seeking solace in books behind the fortress walls in Goldoa, and later in his isolated villa among the cypress and pines, high in the mountains. Goldoa's library never disappointed, though the books were often a hundred years out of date.
Sanaki wanted to see it someday. She wanted to read the lost tragedies, handle the original manuscripts, breathe the scent of stale papyrus made brittle by the centuries. She wanted the magic. Aisles and aisles of it, he said - so much of it lost to the modern world, and probably completely unintelligible should she open a volume. Still, she wanted to try.
Someday. Altina's children, Lehran told her, were always welcome in Goldoa.
The day was almost too quiet once she left her rooms to attend the audience, and then settled in her office. The senate wouldn't convene until the next morning. She entertained the thought of calling on Oliver just to see what would happen when Sephiran came to find her after work, but to be seen consorting with him now would inspire talk. Her neutrality would be questioned - if it wasn't already. Did anyone in Sienne doubt she wanted to be rid of these men and their families? Rather than questioning Sanaki's feelings on the matter, the nobles in residence were probably placing wagers on whether or not the senators' heads would roll.
Whoever wagered against that deserved to lose their gold.
The clock in her office read three-thirty when Tanith knocked and leaned in to announce Amelia. Sanaki beckoned for her guest to come inside and marked her place in the paper-bound record of Asmin's last year in exports. Hetzel had the decency to leave the residents with most of their money, at least - to refrain from interfering with farming or trade. He'd sold a quartz mine on the mainland and almost fifty acres of his ancestral land to pay Kilvas, besides what he took from the imperial treasury. His estate was almost worthless.
Her knight closed the door. Amelia knelt at the center of the rug, head bowed, until she was bade to rise again. Her hair was up in its customary figure-eight bun, and her dress and coat were simple, white, the skirt light enough to gather on the floor in crinkled pleats and drift around her ankles when she walked. "Your note said I should come at my leisure. Is there something I can do for you, empress?"
Sanaki flicked the edges of the paper with her fingers. The volume was half a finger tall, at least. "I want you to tell me who Lekain has bribed, and with how much. Where he's getting the capital would also be nice to know."
The other woman smiled somewhat crookedly and lowered her head. Beneath her lashes the sun made her dark eyes look golden brown. "This is a job for King Kilvas, wouldn't you say? Though I'm flattered you thought of me."
"No jobs for Kilvas. Not right now." She fanned the pages with her nail and let her hand rest on the desk. The windows were closed; it wasn't as hot as the last week, but the skin at her hairline felt moist, and her dress felt too heavy, almost as if she were wrapped in the indigo velvet and its layers of petticoats. "You must have some kind of network here in the cathedral. I'll be disappointed if you don't."
This time Amelia laughed, though the sound was low. She folded an arm over her waist. Her shadow was cast all the way to the far wall, blue and gray. "He isn't bribing anyone, your majesty. In fact, he has been so quiet it's unnatural. I suppose he's found a way to think his plans at the appropriate people."
Sanaki chewed the inside of her cheek. That news should inspire relief. "You're sure?"
"Yes. Lord Sephiran asked my husband to arrange to have them watched during all shifts."
The edge of her desk bit into the underside of her wrist. "Convenient."
"Now, your majesty." Amelia left the rug, her heels sounding on the hardwood floor beneath, and spread her hands on the desk. "We've discussed this habit of his before before. Mentioning it must have slipped his mind in the-- aftermath of the party."
"Deniability isn't an--" Sanaki watched the loft of a dark eyebrow, and breathed a heavy sigh through her nose. "He was perfectly rational the majority of the time, I assure you."
Amelia's lips threatened to curve until she flattened them to solemnity. "You should do something about that."
Sanaki covered her face with her hands, leaned on her knees, and heat spread from her throat to her cheeks to her forehead. If not for the necessity of work she would be doing something about it at that very moment, or at least thinking about it, or he might make the decision for her because he was surprisingly assertive now he had her permission--
"I have a few volumes on--"
"No thank you."
"The Archive has a copy of The Perfumed Garden--"
"No!"
"Has he agreed to marry you yet?"
Sanaki lifted her head and narrowed her eyes at Amelia. Though the woman was smiling, her voice didn't betray any intention of laughing, didn't have that telltale tremor that seemed peculiar to her accent. There were no lines creasing her skin to betray the importance of the question as there sometimes were when she tested Sanaki's analysis of text or law. "I don't want to get married."
Amelia shrugged, glanced at the window. "As long as it's your choice."
Of course it was her choice. She told Amelia as much. A marriage would only be beneficial to a single family or individual, whose ethics may not match her own. While that wasn't a problem with Sephiran, handing the rank of consort to him in addition to his other titles - Duke, Prime Minister, Secretary, Bishop - would tip some invisible balance. The senior senators were almost gone, but what of the men and women hoping to take their place? Sanaki dismissed the gossip before. Five months ago she was not, in fact, trying to seduce her Prime Minister, and such tales sounded as ridiculous as myths about human-eating laguz.
But now? How many people knew? Sephiran said he didn't know when she asked later, that he'd heard nothing out of the ordinary. No snide or covert comments, no whispers, no sideways looks. I told you assumptions had already been made, he said, but Sanaki only nodded and chewed her lip while she waited for dinner to be served and he went to his rooms to change.
The last time she spent a night in his room she was seven. He had not intruded upon her private space since, except to arrange her hair. He certainly had not stayed for any length of time.
"Stop thinking about it," Sephiran said when he returned to her rooms, and she still sat in the same spot on the divan, legs pulled up to her chest for a place to rest her chin. He circled the table. "You'll draw attention to yourself if you act as if you're worried." His hand combed into her her hair, pulling it up from behind her back, and she felt it twist in his hands. "As soon as the trials are over you can overturn the council's ruling and send the prince home. They would not object now, I suppose, but there's enough pressure on the senate already."
"He hasn't tried to contact me once. The prince, I mean." Sanaki tilted her head onto the arm of the divan to look at him. "How is Rafiel? I haven't had a chance to speak to him in a week."
"It's just as well." Sephiran's eyes were downcast, examining her hair. He fanned the purple over his hand with a thumb. "He isn't feeling well. The negative energy of the trial is affecting him," he added when her shoulders tensed. "The tension has spread to the palace, the servants, and to you and I. Even Kilvas, I suspect."
Sanaki stretched her legs out, pointed her toes. The joints cracked loudly and her skirt slithered over the edge, pulling to her knees. "Maybe we should move him. If his witness isn't needed any longer, he can even go home--"
"Not yet."
She tried to imagine the heron prince paler than he already was. He'd look like a corpse. Even in constant shade he should have gotten some color from the filtered sunlight; did he hide himself inside, underground? Did he really keep his silence for twenty years and refuse to see anyone - even his family? She wished someone had told her Rafiel would be affected this way.
"I'll let him explain it." Sephiran draped the rope of Sanaki's hair over her arm and straightened her shoulders, probing the skin until he found a knot and pressed. "His dreams have been disturbed of late, and I don't think he feels comfortable leaving yet."
Sanaki rolled her neck and tried not to hunch. Wasn't it a little unreasonable her body decided to wind up like this on such an easy day? "I'd want to see them to their graves, too."
The evening meal was brought in while her teeth were clenched and her legs pulled up halfway to push the cushions with her feet, as if the pressure on her shoulders would ease if she dug her heels in far enough. Onion, dill, and mint tickled her nose when the servants entered, and the scent of fragrant rice. He eased her back against the arm of the divan and rubbed her shoulders with a lighter touch, tightening the knot of her dress strap, almost apologetic. The servants appeared to pay them no mind after the initial formalities, but Sanaki watched them in her peripheral vision, reaching back to clasp Sephiran's hand as soon as she felt him pull away.
Nothing. No sliding glances. Maybe he was right.
The servants spread their skirts to curtsy and left, and Sanaki let go of his hand, but only to stand up and face him with her hands propped on her hips and her head tilted. He took in her posture with a rise of his eyebrows. She tapped the seam over her hip, the ribbons woven into the fabric to look like lacing. It was easy to take off, which was why she chose it - the season just happened to be appropriate for sleeveless dresses and cool cotton sheets, and though the food smelled savory and pleasant, it was hot. The air was warm. When she'd opened the balcony door earlier, the night was still and smelled strongly of drying pine needles, grass, and dust.
Sanaki considered opening it to let in some air, but she would have to bring a guard in. She looked at the curtains and sighed. "Can I send Prince Daein home tomorrow?"
"Unless he wants to stay for the executions."
She wondered if the prince would revel in blood as his father was said to. It seemed Daein was a land whose rivers ran red rather than clear and blue, and Soren brought the viscous consistency of blood to every meeting in his red eyes and fur-lined cloak. Tiger, he'd said when she asked where he obtained such an odd shade. By then Sanaki was better at hiding the turn of her stomach, the surge of bile that stung her throat when their conversations turned to laguz in Daein and the slavery institutions once practiced in Begnion.
She would not have artifacts of torture decorate her halls, her wardrobe. Even the dungeons were clean. Sephiran didn't have to insist; Sanaki knew what pain looked like, and never wanted to see it again. "If you think that is best."
Sephiran pulled her arms straight and clasped her hands. "I think you should break the engagement and let him decide." He tried to turn her toward the table and Sanaki shook her head, pressing her face into the soft-woven cotton of his shirt, pulling her hands free to clutch the sleeves. He stroked one of them, twisting her signet ring, a hand to the back of her head. "What's bothering you?"
"Nothing." She could almost taste the sweet, resinous scent he wore, the one she gave him. The chain could be felt through his shirt, and the mesh of the scent locket, caught behind a button. "I'm not hungry right now. Can we just rest?" She stared at the weave, listened to him breathe. "We can eat later."
*
Knocking woke Sanaki from a warm dream of treetops she thought might be Serenes, and the fingers of light reaching past the high branches pulsed with the wind in time to the sound of a rock falling from an outcrop, splashing in a creek - and then crystallizing into a fist on the door. Sephiran shook her sharply by the arm and the daze of the dream snapped into focus, turned into light through a crack in the curtains cast over her eyes. Just a minute, she she said, and then repeated herself loudly when the knocking didn't stop.
It must be six thirty, perhaps seven, judging by the brightness of the sun. Late, but she didn't have any appointments this early - she remembered scheduling the first for ten, and Sephiran telling her he'd cleared his morning of all but a meeting with Zelgius so they could go over his proposals for the empty council seats before the senate convened. She sat up and rubbed the gumminess from her eyes. This had better be an emergency, she mumbled, pulling the robe Sephiran draped over her shoulders, pushing her arms into the sleeves. The edge of the bedisde rug almost tripped her, and when Sanaki opened the door, robe cinched tightly at the waist, she met Sigrun's raised gauntlet with narrowed eyes. "Well?"
"Daein has invaded," Kilvas said from behind her knight. She leaned against the door frame and opened her mouth, and his wings folded tightly to his back. "Crossed the border two nights ago, it looks like."
Sanaki's teeth clicked together. She looked at Sigrun and watched the blood drain from the knight's compressed lips. "You--" Again she looked at Kilvas, back to her knight, back and forth. Her face felt cold, pinched. Sigrun wouldn't humor him in a joke like this. "Why wasn't I--"
"They marched at night, kept to the trees. I saw them by accident." The raven's voice was hatefully neutral, and he didn't meet her gaze.
Sigrun sighed, turning her head slightly as if to look back. "Gaddos troops are marching with them, he says."
Sanaki sucked in a deep breath, heard a whispered curse behind her and the flare of a sheet thrown aside and feet hitting the floor. Her fingers tightened on the doorknob until the brass creased her skin and the sculpted leaves left their mark. "Have the prince taken to my office." Her throat was dry. She swallowed. "Disarm his retainers and have Zelgius and Leandros notified immediately."
Sigrun spun on her heel without so much as a nod, and Sanaki motioned for Kilvas to follow the knight. She closed the door as soon as she saw his back.
I wouldn't mind letting him sharpen his teeth on one of our northern provinces. She took another deep breath, another, another, laid a hand to the fold of silk over her heart and felt it beat too fast. "I was wrong," she said, staring at the grain of the door and the dull shine of the brass lock. Sephiran's footsteps approached. She let her hand slip from the knob. "He really is insane."
His hands closed on her shoulders and turned her toward the door to the bath. "Go. Get ready." He pushed her onward, walked with her, and gave the small of her back a shove when he let go. "I'll find something for you to wear while you bathe."
Her efforts to breathe slowly only left her feeling light-headed. "But if we don't take care of this now--"
"We won't give him the satisfaction of seeing you panic," Sephiran said, loud and sharp. He walked past her to the wardrobe, pulling the tie to his robe closed. "Go."
Sanaki stared at his back. He didn't sound concerned. He'd survived the revolts after her grandmother's death, the senate's scramble for control, the attack on Serenes. She'd only occupied the throne thirteen years, a small percentage of the time her senior senators had to consolidate their power and forge alliances, and Ashnard had ruled for how many years now - and distinguished himself with a long list of military victories. He wouldn't attack unless he had the advantage.
What was the advantage? Information the prince came across in the capitol? Something revealed by the senior senators? They knew as much as she did of Begnion's policies and secrets - no, if she were honest, they knew more.
"The prince had two months to study the road to the capitol," Sanaki said.
Sephiran didn't turn around. "His father has had many more years than that to plan a march into our territory." He turned the brass latch and pulled the armoire open, let the handle clap against the wood when he let go. Her formal dresses and skirts were hung inside, folded and creased to fit neatly inside, red, white, purple. "Go wash. You can't speak to the prince like that."
She went, more because he seemed determined to ignore her. The tiles were cool, the air of the bath moist and thickened with a pale mist. The turquoise pool had been filled with fresh water, but Sanaki had to ignore the implied comfort and go to the porcelain wash basin against the wall, fill it with bath water, and carry it back to the tiled stand. A row of small round windows near the arching ceiling let yellow sunlight in to diffuse in the steam.
When she was a child someone would have done this for her. A maid would have combed her hair, another would have fetched the honeycomb sponge and picked an appropriately calming soap. When she was very young, they hadn't even allowed her to do her own scrubbing. She might have ended up a simpleton incapable of dressing herself or arranging her own hair, doomed to rely on women whose loyalties were questionable to appear well-groomed in front of the gallery of judgmental nobles.
She could have become a puppet for Sephiran to use in ruling Begnion. He would have taken care of this fantastic incident and told her it was a bad dream, nothing to be concerned about.
Sanaki dropped her soap into the wash basin twice, the ylang scent too strong a perfume, the lather too slick and unwilling to rinse off. The ends of her hair got wet because she forgot to put it up. She lost a glass vial of coconut oil when it slipped from her hands and shattered on the terra cotta tiles to jaundice the white spaces between. Sanaki bit her lip and stared at the shards. They glittered different colors.
It was to his credit more than hers that Sanaki left her rooms looking presentable a mere thirty minutes after she was awakened with the news of invasion. Everything seemed to slip out of her hands - hair pins, ties, her chemise, the sandals. She didn't dare try to eat the frosted bread left on the table, or pour herself tea. The halls were quiet, the corridor between the palace and cathedral empty. The walls echoed the sound of her knights' boots back to them. Birds chirped in the landscaped courtyards, bees hummed, and she walked as quickly as she could without appearing to hurry, long steps with her hands curled into fists and hidden against her thighs by the flare of her sleeves. She'd left her velvet in her rooms, and wished some moments she'd worn it - for something to dig her fingers into, at least, to hide the way she picked at her nails.
"Don't let the prince leave the capitol," Sephiran said under his breath when they took the steps into the cathedral. "You'll have to send someone with a message - use Nasir."
"I suppose anyone else will end up dead." Sanaki tried to stretch her fingers open, and tried to relax her jaw when she realized her teeth were clenched. That would lead to a headache. The hunch of her shoulders would too. She'd learned a thousand ways to make herself miserable since the trials started. "I'd chain the prince to a wall if I could."
Figures in white robes gathered in small groups in front of meeting rooms and offices - senators, priests, their aides. They all paused when she passed, but Sanaki kept her eyes forward and ignored their bows and attempts to get her attention. They must have heard; everyone heard before she did, and even leagues away Ashnard managed to halt the workings of her government simply by existing. The marble sculpture of Ashera in its alcove across from her office door mocked her with its hands, spread to show their smooth palms. Peace.
How hard had she worked to maintain peace? She sent Sephiran to mediate disputes between Daein and Crimea, made a concession when Crimea wanted to take its land back and move the border fifty leagues south. That land wasn't used, it wasn't valuable. When the northern provinces tried to expand into the mountains for inkstone and marble, she allowed them to waste their resources within reason. There were more important issues to discuss in session than whether Gaddos had the right to expend its extra manpower mining tunnels that appeared to have little value.
Now she knew he hid slaves there. And Daein was terrorizing her people, and likely hunting free laguz like game.
Tanith opened the door, and Sanaki walked in without pausing to allow Zelgius or the guards make their greetings. Amelia's husband wasn't present yet, and she didn't feel like waiting for him. Marcia and two of her own guard came in behind Sephiran, closed the door, and she rounded her desk. "Explain yourself." She let her tone come out sharp. The prince lifted his eyebrows, gaze downcast, and Ike stood behind him with arms crossed. Zelgius curled his fingers around the hilt of his sword. "And where is Leandros?"
"Arranging for the army to move," Zelgius said, and loosened his grip on his weapon when she looked at him again. "If you should order us to defend, of course."
"Of course." Sanaki tapped her fingers on the desk. If. But she couldn't allow them to attack yet - not until she knew what state the commoners were in, how they'd fared when Daein passed through. "Well?" She curled her fingers to keep them still. Sephiran shifted on his feet. His hair brushed her arm. "Would you care to explain why a Daein army is marching on our soil, Soren?"
He lifted his chin. His eyes were dark like wells of ink. "Your scouts mistook a routine border action in Crimea as war."
Someday Sanaki would throw something heavy at him. A chair, perhaps. Lekain. "Why did your father enter Begnion?"
"He didn't think to notify me." Soren clasped his hands behind his back. "If you'll allow me to send Ike--"
"You'll send Nasir."
A faint line appeared on his forehead. "My father doesn't know him very well--"
"We can't have you defenseless here in the capitol, prince," Sephiran said. "He'll reach your father faster than Lord Ike. I'm sure you understand our interest in resolving this as quickly as possible."
"Yes." The crease in Soren's forehead deepened, and his eyes slid back to Sanaki. "If you can spare paper and a messenger, he will leave as soon as he's told."
She beckoned to Marcia and reached into a drawer for paper and an inkwell. It was harder to find an extra pen, and she felt his sanguine eyes on her when she opened drawers and boxes, and finally found one wedged beneath rolls of red sealing wax and ivory candles in their paper wrappings. Soren bent over the desk to write.
Pay attention to signatures and script, Sephiran told her. A senator's handwriting revealed his character. Sanaki hadn't seen the correlation immediately, but she learned to match Oliver's beautiful calligraphy to his pretentious lectures on the nature of beauty, and Hetzel's small, antiquated hand with the way he cowered at the mere mention of reform. Sephiran's hand looked like carefully calculated brush strokes - like script in the old tongue, somehow warped to imitate the meaning of their simpler modern letters.
Soren's hand slanted slightly forward, letters all the same size and width, and probably hiding something. He slid the paper across the desk, wiping the pen and closing the inkwell while she skimmed his message.
"I'll take it," Sephiran said. She looked up. He motioned her guard back to the door. "I'll compose a message for Ashnard. You should wait here for news from the army."
Sanaki slid a blank paper to the corner of the desk and held his gaze long enough to be sure he understood her meaning, that he would do it here, and turned back to the prince. "Guards will accompany you at all times - for your safety." She paused for the murmured of course. "Do not attempt to leave the palace. We'll speak again when you receive word from your father."
Soren's dark eyes lidded. "And if the answer is unfavorable?"
"You'll live." She folded his note into thirds and heard the scratch of the pen when Sephiran started to write. "Now--" she waved her hand. "Leave."
The guards saluted, three gauntleted fists to red breastplates, and the prince turned without a word to follow them out - then Ike, then Zelgius. Marcia held the door open for them and pushed it closed a little harder than necessary once the general's cape cleared the frame, earning a whispered rebuke from the knight opposite her. Sanaki told them to open the window and bent her head back against the chair.
"So much for getting rid of him." She pushed her fingers into her hair to nudge a pin back into place. Marcia pulled the center window open.
Sephiran finished his sentence and laid the pen on her desk. "It's possible he didn't know."
Sanaki skimmed the letter and waved it away when she reached the end. Sephiran's signature would be enough. It might even be more demanding of Ashnard's attention. "But we don't really believe that, do we? He kept close watch on the trial. I wonder if Culbert and Seliora will try to join Gaddos in rebellion."
"They will match us at best, even in such a circumstance." He folded his letter and creased the edges with his nails. "Put your mind at ease."
She stared at the parchment. "How can you say that? An army to equal our strength, under the command of a mad king and an acclaimed strategist--"
"Zelgius is more than a match for Ashnard, and the prince's talents are untried. A rebellion in Marado is hardly indicative of the ability necessary to remove you from power. Your allies outside of Begnion are formidable as well." Sephiran took the other note and tapped them on the desk to even the edges. "Don't let a few numbers destroy your confidence."
Sanaki shook her head. Maybe he was right. He'd lived the fifteen years of unrest in Begnion before her coronation, but she didn't know anything about war, or diplomacy at sword-point, or Daein's king. Maybe this was a bluff.
Maybe it wasn't.
*
Sanaki met with Zelgius and Amelia's husband later that day to discuss a defensive response, and she sent them away with orders to take a portion of the central army to Seliora, where the Ribahn forked and flowed toward the wall on the Daein border. She ordered Duke Tanas out of seclusion to ship supplies to the army from his holdings in the province. It would have been easier to send him along to handle the matter personally, but Sephiran didn't trust him and Sanaki thought letting him leave the city would make the lower senate nervous. Oliver was still a criminal by his own written admission, and though she'd decided not to deprive him of his peerage, his seat on the council was forfeit.
By signing the papers to incriminate the others he'd passed the point of no return, had he not? Lekain would not forgive such a betrayal. Defecting to his favor would do Oliver no good. He'd never pushed issues against her interests, either, so much as simply neglecting to oppose his colleagues. Tanas had always been disturbing, more than utter evil as she'd often termed the others.
He has his own interests, Sephiran said. Don't trust him. Don't give him an inch.
Daein's army appeared to be following the path taken by the prince on his journey to Sienne, and she wondered how much she told them, how much information he'd smuggled out in the guise of cleaning up his father's connections in the capitol. How could he not know about such a major military action? This invasion put his life in considerable danger; if she were the sort of ruler to hold hostages or kill messengers, he would be sacrificed - and for what? Surely his father didn't think to take Begnion.
She sent a letter to Crimea requesting shelter should the worst happen, and asked Sephiran to have Rafiel write a message to his father and consider returning to Serenes. The heron prince refused her second request, but he wrote a long letter and requested Sigrun take it. He trusted her. She was the first pegasus knight he met, the one he sought out for everything - meetings with Sanaki, security. Sometimes just to talk.
"He really does like her," Sanaki said when the envelope was brought to her later. "I wonder why."
Sephiran rested the letter on her nightstand, anchored with her book. "Why would he like the 'jewel of Begnion'?"
"Hmmm." She pulled a deep breath through her nose. "I don't think I like hearing you refer to other women that way. Take it back," she said, and he laughed.
Sigrun went, and Tanith muttered under her breath about how hard it was to get the woman out the door, that she checked and double-checked their plans five times - then it was seven times when she told the story, and then ten, and she even laughed about it after the other knight had departed. She slept less, took more shifts, insisted she wasn't tired. Sanaki commanded her to take a night off and leave Marcia to handle the night shift before the pronouncement of Valtome's sentence, promising she wouldn't leave the windows open while she slept. It wouldn't help; even if she were alone, the nights were warm and humid without company.
She woke that morning covered in sweat, the sheets kicked off, and her hand reached for the other side of the bed before she remembered that he had to rise early to prepare for the final session of Culbert's trial and the beginning of Lekain's. Whatever her dreams had been, she could not remember them.
Her hands trembled when she dressed, though she had a firmer grasp on her cosmetics than the morning she heard about the Daein army. Sephiran appeared at eight, exactly when he said he would, to roll her hair back and pin the hated crown to her head. Sanaki smoothed silky powder over her face with a soft brush, painted her lips with a bronzed red gloss that reminded her of blood and smelled faintly metallic, and lined her eyes with kohl.
It would be such a relief to put it all away - the cosmetics, the thrice-damned headdress, and the wide, stiff choker with its scratchy lace and the annoying jewel at the center with its metal back that always manage to feel cold, even after hours clasped to her neck. Sephiran refrained from touching her face when she wore make-up, seemed to keep his distance altogether. She wouldn't have noticed before, and wished she didn't now. He didn't want to mar her work, and yet she guessed he disliked cosmetic modification of any kind; he'd argued long against piercing her ears, and for years handled the make-up himself when she attended formal functions, as if he didn't want to teach her how to defy him.
Yes, she could see why they wondered how far his control extended - everybody. Even her knights, at times.
The cathedral halls were deserted when they walked to the audience chamber, but Sanaki heard the murmur of voices and the scrape of hundreds of chairs through the door between the anteroom and the audience chamber. Tanith went out to wait for the senators to ready themselves for her entrance, and Sephiran stood behind her to fuss with her hair. It's fine, she told him, and he came back with you're the one complaining about the pins biting into your scalp, and gave her hair a yank. The headdress didn't slip, and she wonder if he'd finally found a way to fix that problem; it would be nice to sit through Lekain's trial without worrying it would fall into her lap.
A low murmur still lingered in the chamber when Sanaki went out, but the senate fell silent as she took her seat. Prince Daein sat in the gallery reserved for royal guests, Kilvas standing beside him, and for once Ike made use of a chair. Valtome was on his knees at the bottom of the shallow stair, hands secured at his back, in the same plain white robe with its cleanly pressed folds and starched collar. She wondered who donated their time and money to making him presentable; he didn't have a wife or children, and his sister was estranged, his nephew apparently a stranger. Did someone have the bad judgment to accept an invitation into his bed? She had to press her lips together so they wouldn't pucker at the sudden bad taste that thought left in her mouth.
"Duke Culbert," she said, drawing his gaze away from Sephiran. "You have been found guilty of all charges brought against you in this court. Have you anything to say before your sentence is passed?"
He appeared to think about it, lowered his eyes, and Sanaki waited-- and waited. The prescribed allowance was ninety seconds. A man or woman on the brink of death, she thought, should be able to blurt out their foremost concerns in an intelligible manner with less than a minute to think about it.
Her finger tapped the first ten seconds on the arm of her throne, silent, but she cramped her hand to stillness. She felt the eyes of the lower senate, though perhaps they were focused on her subject rather than the throne, and it seemed Valtome had given up on trying to intimidate her with his stares. Sanaki tried not to breathe too loudly. His behavior shouldn't surprise her; without the rank and voice necessary to oppose her with wit and words, of course he chose to defy her with a show of obstinacy.
When her count of ninety seconds finished Sanaki leaned forward, and his gaze was drawn by the shift of silk as she crossed her legs. "You will be executed with your colleagues three hours after dawn on the first morning after the conclusion of these trials. Your estate, foreign holdings, and council seat will be passed to your nearest maternal relative, should he or she prove qualified." The echo of her voice was twice as loud. Was that silver in Culbert's hair, glinting in the sunlight as he tilted his head downward and neglected to lower his eyes? He'd always seemed immortal. "Your rights as a member of the peerage in Begnion are hereby revoked. You will be returned to your cell to await punishment."
Two of the household guard came forward to draw Culbert to his feet and lead him away. Sanaki pressed her nails into the arm of her throne until they left shallow indentations in the varnish and wished she could tell them to walk faster. His wrists looked thin in iron shackles. The straw sandals he was allowed offered him no height and clapped on the marble floor, the sound and its echoed accompaniment forcing her teeth to clench and grind. She never wanted to see him again, but she'd be obligated to watch his execution and remember the way his blood gleamed on the chopping block.
Perhaps death by hanging was not so gruesome after all. She'd heard unlucky victims might kick and struggle for quite a while, however, and was that any better than watching a few heads roll? This would be her first time watching an execution. She didn't know these things. Would she be sick? Have nightmares? Sephiran said he couldn't stay with her every night, but if she started seeing Culbert's face in her dreams, drastic measures would be called for to make sure a better image replaced it post haste.
The double doors opposite the throne thundered closed. Sephiran moved forward a step, and the whispered sigh gathered in the air as the senators began to move was silenced.
"Our last order of business," he said, and his voice betrayed no strain at all, not even a smile, "is former senator Lekain of Gaddos. Before we begin, is there any individual here who wishes to speak on his behalf?"
"Yes."
Sanaki's eyebrows shot up. She forced her expression to smoothness and uncurled her fingers. Soren left his seat at Sephiran's motion, and she didn't want him to mock her with his flat eyes for her lack of control. He took long strides to reach her dais, shoulders squared, and the pleats of his white coat swayed and gathered when he came to a halt at the foot of the stairs.
"With all due respect, Duke Persis, I am rather uncomfortable with your involvement in this trial, and my father agrees. As Daein's representative--" a senator on the first tier muttered, and Soren's eyes slid aside, though his face did not turn, "--I can't let this pass unchecked."
Sephiran stood very still, silent a full three seconds. "And this discomfort did not inspire you to speak when appropriate changes could have been made?"
"It wasn't my concern."
"With all due respect, your highness, I do not believe it has become your concern. The time for objections--"
"It isn't your conviction of Duke Gaddos I object to," Soren said, raising his voice. "Rather, after acquainting myself with the details of the dissolution of the senior council I was surprised to find your indiscretions swept under the rug, if you will. This blatant show of favoritism is an obstruction of justice." His gaze snapped to Sanaki. "Daein has waited twenty-five years for your government to investigate Lord Sephiran's involvement in the Serenes incident. Now that the men protecting him have been removed, you have opportunity and an obligation to complete the process. If you want their conviction to have any international validity at all, you will replace Duke Persis with a more reliable official."
Sanaki pressed her lips together, felt the bottom crack and sting. Of all the plans he could have devised to delay Lekain's trial - and that must be what he meant to do - the Serenes fiasco was most ridiculous. Soren didn't care, he said. He'd lied then, or he was lying now, and though she didn't like him, she wanted to think he wouldn't launch an attack of this sort purely for the senator's sake. Surely he was better than that.
"I've yet to hear specifics from you, Prince Soren," she said. She heard Sephiran let out a breath in a sigh, but it was soft, and she wondered if he'd been close to speaking. "If you wish to renew charges, this is not the time or place to do so. If you have no convincing evidence of his unreliability, I will have to ask you to wait."
The prince reached into his coat, and Tanith tensed beside her, gauntlets creaking around her spear and the decorations on her surcoat jangling against her greaves. Yet all he withdrew was a small, silk-wrapped item he held between fingers and thumb. "I have my father's response to your inquiry, if you will indulge me with your patience a few more moments. The two are related."
"If you must," Sanaki said, flicking a glance at her minister. "Quickly."
"Then it's very simple." Soren smiled a bloodless smile. "We are here to respond to long-standing allegations as to our theft of Lehran's Medallion. Our targets are Serenes and your Prime Minister, who has been helping them damage relations between our countries for some time. As evidence," he said when she opened her mouth to respond, "this was sent, to be returned to its rightful owners."
The sour, bitter taste of sickness crept into her throat before he even peeled the silk away to reveal the rounded edge of the medallion. Though she'd never seen the artifact herself, the descriptions were clear enough: round, worked in patterns common to the civilizations dated before the Flood, the bronze blue and eroded from age. It didn't burn, but it looked to be the right size, larger than her own palm and perhaps a perfect fit for his.
"Ridiculous." Sephiran stepped backward to his place at her arm, signaling his dismissal. "The fact that you hold it in your hand--"
"To touch the medallion means madness," Soren snapped. "How do you suppose we stole it? Would the herons of Serenes allow a filthy human to approach their altar and put his hands on an object that would drive him to destroy their forest? No! The bearer was someone they trusted - someone unaffected by the artifact's power."
"If such a person exists outside of the royal--"
"I doubt it."
"Then what do you hope to prove by--"
Soren's arm whipped out. The medallion flew from his grasp and struck the golden decoration on Sephiran's coat. He caught it with his free hand, narrowed eyes still on the prince--
The blue light flared, like fire or will'o wisp light, and he dropped it with wide eyes, threw it down to clink and roll and knock against the white silk and red velvet pool of Sanaki's train. The loud metallic clatter grated in her ears and inside her bones, vibrating. She tried to breathe.
"Are you... mad, Duke Persis?" Sephiran's head snapped up, his hand clenched, but Soren tilted his head away, the silk wrapping going back into his pocket. "Or-- simply not human?"
Sanaki's hand itched to pick up the medallion. The fire died away. It could have been an object from the museum, or a noble's private collection. Was it really as dangerous as they said? Was it a cheap enchantment cast upon an inferior object, designed to come to life when it touched someone's hand? Sephiran didn't move to pick it up again, and when she risked a glance at his face through her eyelashes his face was bone white, and his lips set in a line.
She wanted to pick it up, and show it for the fake it surely was. It couldn't be real.
Soren bowed at the waist, bending his neck. "Thank you, your majesty. My apologies for the interruption."
.......................................................................
Eh, screw it. If I were a good author I'd wait, but this time it would be nice to get the next chapter out soonish, and author bias is making editing... difficult? Yeah.
Author: Amber Michelle
Day/Theme: January 28 - casually smashed to pieces
Series: Fire Emblem 10
Character/Pairing: Sanaki, Sephiran, Soren, others
Rating: T
Words: 8562
Warnings: n/a
Notes: AU, part thirteen of the Summer Chronicle. This is a first and ongoing draft; a list of known issues is being compiled here.
I'm making up more stuff about spirit charming that has absolutely no basis in canon, but is probably influenced by other stories I've read... somewhere. It's for later, something I may change - but the same applies to the whole story, I guess.
.............................................
At the end of their enforced vacation Sanaki was tempted to extend the work holiday to the end of the week, but when morning dawned the second day after the party she left the paper and her writing box in their drawer and decided she would stay in until the daily audience required her to leave her rooms. Sephiran's document waited to be copied, Valtome was a hair's-breadth away from the execution he so deserved - if she delayed, her minister's frown would be the first waking expression to greet her. His sleepy smiles were by far her preference.
"I would have given you more than a frown," he said when they left her room for breakfast. A plate of fruit waited at the center of the table, cubes of melon and nectarine cut to resemble flowers. A loaf of white bread swirled with cinnamon was sliced on a tray. "You can't rearrange the work week to fit your whims."
"That's why I didn't do it," Sanaki said. The tea was plain, black, and she held it to her chin to breath the aroma in, watching his lips thin through the steam. "Stop looking so cranky. Your proposal went to the scribes first thing this morning. I left orders they were to give you priority."
She wanted to make Sephiran stay when he kissed her fingertips and left to attend a meeting. He'd hardly left her side since the dance; getting clean clothes without a fuss being made was inconvenient - who could be trusted to keep quiet, when would it go unnoticed? - but he only parted from her once to explain his absence to Rafiel. Maybe she fidgeted too much when he mentioned it, maybe her nails were too obviously bitten. Sanaki smoothed the thin white lines with a file to hide it, while he arranged her hair and listed his meetings for her reference: one for the transfer of Asmin to her control, one to smile a senator from Salmo into submission, another to quietly arrange an expedition into the mountains bordering Gaddos to check the validity of Astrid's story. She wrote a quick note for him to send out with the rest of his missives and watched up tuck it between two unsealed envelopes as he walked away.
Sanaki pulled her curtains all the way open once the door had closed behind him. It was still only eight thirty. One of his tomes sat on the table beside the bread tray, the cover midnight blue and velvety soft. The title was burned into the fabric and painted with silver in script slightly different than the version of the old tongue she was tutored in to learn magic. The development of the language differed in Serenes from the rest of the world, he told her. If any of the civilizations beyond Tellius had managed to survive the flood, the evolution of the language would be different there as well.
Most of the glyphs were nonsense to her eye. The text was cramped - not his hand, it was too narrow, too messy - and the grammar backwards. She recognized the ones that decorated his arm: Tiamat, Shullat, Anshar.
He explained them to her one night when she tamped down her hesitation and asked if they were what she thought they might be - spirit marks. He confirmed her guess, though he did not offer an explanation for how he obtained more than one. Wasn't that impossible? Nothing is impossible, he said. Dangerous, yes, but clearly not impossible.
The lamplight made the marks look dark, like dried blood painted on his forearm. Tiamat was the name of a sea serpent the goddess destroyed aeons ago. Her body formed a land bridge between Tyre and Tellius. She was laguz, not a god, no greater than Lehran. Her glyph looked like a snake twined around itself. Sanaki had frowned at his claim, and Lehran laughed, pulling his wrist from her grip.
"You're full of stories," Sanaki kicked the sheet back and sat up, letting her hair tickle his ribs and drape over his arm. "I'm not sure I can believe them anymore."
He smiled, flicked his eyes to the lamp and the level of oil left in the glass chamber. "I could be lying. I could be telling the truth." His green gaze slid back to her. "Maybe I was there."
"Maybe you're trying to impress me by claiming you charmed spirits with famous names."
Lehran rose on his elbow, enough to pull his hair from the pillows and drape it over the side of the bed where it would be out of the way. "It's true I couldn't fly all the way to her grave by myself."
Sanaki watched the yellow light shine on the spread of his hair, as on silk. "What is it really?"
"A nameless elemental." Lehran leaned back again, reaching to pull her down with him. "It was grateful for a name, and never questioned its source."
Sanaki turned his arm to stare at the marks while he slept, tracing the glyphs with her eyes and wondering why they were dangerous - in what ways. She hadn't read much of the prince's book; it instructed on the use of spirits to cast spells not in spellbooks, for physical protection, and the circles and sacrifices needed to control a being one did not have a pact with. The way Soren spoke, even he didn't know the true limitations of the magic, only how to use it. It was worth the risk, he said. The potential returns outweighed the potential drawbacks in certain situations.
Eight hundred years should be enough to pry into the secrets of the art, she thought. Centuries stretched behind Lehran, history that he didn't talk about, but he spoke of seeking solace in books behind the fortress walls in Goldoa, and later in his isolated villa among the cypress and pines, high in the mountains. Goldoa's library never disappointed, though the books were often a hundred years out of date.
Sanaki wanted to see it someday. She wanted to read the lost tragedies, handle the original manuscripts, breathe the scent of stale papyrus made brittle by the centuries. She wanted the magic. Aisles and aisles of it, he said - so much of it lost to the modern world, and probably completely unintelligible should she open a volume. Still, she wanted to try.
Someday. Altina's children, Lehran told her, were always welcome in Goldoa.
The day was almost too quiet once she left her rooms to attend the audience, and then settled in her office. The senate wouldn't convene until the next morning. She entertained the thought of calling on Oliver just to see what would happen when Sephiran came to find her after work, but to be seen consorting with him now would inspire talk. Her neutrality would be questioned - if it wasn't already. Did anyone in Sienne doubt she wanted to be rid of these men and their families? Rather than questioning Sanaki's feelings on the matter, the nobles in residence were probably placing wagers on whether or not the senators' heads would roll.
Whoever wagered against that deserved to lose their gold.
The clock in her office read three-thirty when Tanith knocked and leaned in to announce Amelia. Sanaki beckoned for her guest to come inside and marked her place in the paper-bound record of Asmin's last year in exports. Hetzel had the decency to leave the residents with most of their money, at least - to refrain from interfering with farming or trade. He'd sold a quartz mine on the mainland and almost fifty acres of his ancestral land to pay Kilvas, besides what he took from the imperial treasury. His estate was almost worthless.
Her knight closed the door. Amelia knelt at the center of the rug, head bowed, until she was bade to rise again. Her hair was up in its customary figure-eight bun, and her dress and coat were simple, white, the skirt light enough to gather on the floor in crinkled pleats and drift around her ankles when she walked. "Your note said I should come at my leisure. Is there something I can do for you, empress?"
Sanaki flicked the edges of the paper with her fingers. The volume was half a finger tall, at least. "I want you to tell me who Lekain has bribed, and with how much. Where he's getting the capital would also be nice to know."
The other woman smiled somewhat crookedly and lowered her head. Beneath her lashes the sun made her dark eyes look golden brown. "This is a job for King Kilvas, wouldn't you say? Though I'm flattered you thought of me."
"No jobs for Kilvas. Not right now." She fanned the pages with her nail and let her hand rest on the desk. The windows were closed; it wasn't as hot as the last week, but the skin at her hairline felt moist, and her dress felt too heavy, almost as if she were wrapped in the indigo velvet and its layers of petticoats. "You must have some kind of network here in the cathedral. I'll be disappointed if you don't."
This time Amelia laughed, though the sound was low. She folded an arm over her waist. Her shadow was cast all the way to the far wall, blue and gray. "He isn't bribing anyone, your majesty. In fact, he has been so quiet it's unnatural. I suppose he's found a way to think his plans at the appropriate people."
Sanaki chewed the inside of her cheek. That news should inspire relief. "You're sure?"
"Yes. Lord Sephiran asked my husband to arrange to have them watched during all shifts."
The edge of her desk bit into the underside of her wrist. "Convenient."
"Now, your majesty." Amelia left the rug, her heels sounding on the hardwood floor beneath, and spread her hands on the desk. "We've discussed this habit of his before before. Mentioning it must have slipped his mind in the-- aftermath of the party."
"Deniability isn't an--" Sanaki watched the loft of a dark eyebrow, and breathed a heavy sigh through her nose. "He was perfectly rational the majority of the time, I assure you."
Amelia's lips threatened to curve until she flattened them to solemnity. "You should do something about that."
Sanaki covered her face with her hands, leaned on her knees, and heat spread from her throat to her cheeks to her forehead. If not for the necessity of work she would be doing something about it at that very moment, or at least thinking about it, or he might make the decision for her because he was surprisingly assertive now he had her permission--
"I have a few volumes on--"
"No thank you."
"The Archive has a copy of The Perfumed Garden--"
"No!"
"Has he agreed to marry you yet?"
Sanaki lifted her head and narrowed her eyes at Amelia. Though the woman was smiling, her voice didn't betray any intention of laughing, didn't have that telltale tremor that seemed peculiar to her accent. There were no lines creasing her skin to betray the importance of the question as there sometimes were when she tested Sanaki's analysis of text or law. "I don't want to get married."
Amelia shrugged, glanced at the window. "As long as it's your choice."
Of course it was her choice. She told Amelia as much. A marriage would only be beneficial to a single family or individual, whose ethics may not match her own. While that wasn't a problem with Sephiran, handing the rank of consort to him in addition to his other titles - Duke, Prime Minister, Secretary, Bishop - would tip some invisible balance. The senior senators were almost gone, but what of the men and women hoping to take their place? Sanaki dismissed the gossip before. Five months ago she was not, in fact, trying to seduce her Prime Minister, and such tales sounded as ridiculous as myths about human-eating laguz.
But now? How many people knew? Sephiran said he didn't know when she asked later, that he'd heard nothing out of the ordinary. No snide or covert comments, no whispers, no sideways looks. I told you assumptions had already been made, he said, but Sanaki only nodded and chewed her lip while she waited for dinner to be served and he went to his rooms to change.
The last time she spent a night in his room she was seven. He had not intruded upon her private space since, except to arrange her hair. He certainly had not stayed for any length of time.
"Stop thinking about it," Sephiran said when he returned to her rooms, and she still sat in the same spot on the divan, legs pulled up to her chest for a place to rest her chin. He circled the table. "You'll draw attention to yourself if you act as if you're worried." His hand combed into her her hair, pulling it up from behind her back, and she felt it twist in his hands. "As soon as the trials are over you can overturn the council's ruling and send the prince home. They would not object now, I suppose, but there's enough pressure on the senate already."
"He hasn't tried to contact me once. The prince, I mean." Sanaki tilted her head onto the arm of the divan to look at him. "How is Rafiel? I haven't had a chance to speak to him in a week."
"It's just as well." Sephiran's eyes were downcast, examining her hair. He fanned the purple over his hand with a thumb. "He isn't feeling well. The negative energy of the trial is affecting him," he added when her shoulders tensed. "The tension has spread to the palace, the servants, and to you and I. Even Kilvas, I suspect."
Sanaki stretched her legs out, pointed her toes. The joints cracked loudly and her skirt slithered over the edge, pulling to her knees. "Maybe we should move him. If his witness isn't needed any longer, he can even go home--"
"Not yet."
She tried to imagine the heron prince paler than he already was. He'd look like a corpse. Even in constant shade he should have gotten some color from the filtered sunlight; did he hide himself inside, underground? Did he really keep his silence for twenty years and refuse to see anyone - even his family? She wished someone had told her Rafiel would be affected this way.
"I'll let him explain it." Sephiran draped the rope of Sanaki's hair over her arm and straightened her shoulders, probing the skin until he found a knot and pressed. "His dreams have been disturbed of late, and I don't think he feels comfortable leaving yet."
Sanaki rolled her neck and tried not to hunch. Wasn't it a little unreasonable her body decided to wind up like this on such an easy day? "I'd want to see them to their graves, too."
The evening meal was brought in while her teeth were clenched and her legs pulled up halfway to push the cushions with her feet, as if the pressure on her shoulders would ease if she dug her heels in far enough. Onion, dill, and mint tickled her nose when the servants entered, and the scent of fragrant rice. He eased her back against the arm of the divan and rubbed her shoulders with a lighter touch, tightening the knot of her dress strap, almost apologetic. The servants appeared to pay them no mind after the initial formalities, but Sanaki watched them in her peripheral vision, reaching back to clasp Sephiran's hand as soon as she felt him pull away.
Nothing. No sliding glances. Maybe he was right.
The servants spread their skirts to curtsy and left, and Sanaki let go of his hand, but only to stand up and face him with her hands propped on her hips and her head tilted. He took in her posture with a rise of his eyebrows. She tapped the seam over her hip, the ribbons woven into the fabric to look like lacing. It was easy to take off, which was why she chose it - the season just happened to be appropriate for sleeveless dresses and cool cotton sheets, and though the food smelled savory and pleasant, it was hot. The air was warm. When she'd opened the balcony door earlier, the night was still and smelled strongly of drying pine needles, grass, and dust.
Sanaki considered opening it to let in some air, but she would have to bring a guard in. She looked at the curtains and sighed. "Can I send Prince Daein home tomorrow?"
"Unless he wants to stay for the executions."
She wondered if the prince would revel in blood as his father was said to. It seemed Daein was a land whose rivers ran red rather than clear and blue, and Soren brought the viscous consistency of blood to every meeting in his red eyes and fur-lined cloak. Tiger, he'd said when she asked where he obtained such an odd shade. By then Sanaki was better at hiding the turn of her stomach, the surge of bile that stung her throat when their conversations turned to laguz in Daein and the slavery institutions once practiced in Begnion.
She would not have artifacts of torture decorate her halls, her wardrobe. Even the dungeons were clean. Sephiran didn't have to insist; Sanaki knew what pain looked like, and never wanted to see it again. "If you think that is best."
Sephiran pulled her arms straight and clasped her hands. "I think you should break the engagement and let him decide." He tried to turn her toward the table and Sanaki shook her head, pressing her face into the soft-woven cotton of his shirt, pulling her hands free to clutch the sleeves. He stroked one of them, twisting her signet ring, a hand to the back of her head. "What's bothering you?"
"Nothing." She could almost taste the sweet, resinous scent he wore, the one she gave him. The chain could be felt through his shirt, and the mesh of the scent locket, caught behind a button. "I'm not hungry right now. Can we just rest?" She stared at the weave, listened to him breathe. "We can eat later."
*
Knocking woke Sanaki from a warm dream of treetops she thought might be Serenes, and the fingers of light reaching past the high branches pulsed with the wind in time to the sound of a rock falling from an outcrop, splashing in a creek - and then crystallizing into a fist on the door. Sephiran shook her sharply by the arm and the daze of the dream snapped into focus, turned into light through a crack in the curtains cast over her eyes. Just a minute, she she said, and then repeated herself loudly when the knocking didn't stop.
It must be six thirty, perhaps seven, judging by the brightness of the sun. Late, but she didn't have any appointments this early - she remembered scheduling the first for ten, and Sephiran telling her he'd cleared his morning of all but a meeting with Zelgius so they could go over his proposals for the empty council seats before the senate convened. She sat up and rubbed the gumminess from her eyes. This had better be an emergency, she mumbled, pulling the robe Sephiran draped over her shoulders, pushing her arms into the sleeves. The edge of the bedisde rug almost tripped her, and when Sanaki opened the door, robe cinched tightly at the waist, she met Sigrun's raised gauntlet with narrowed eyes. "Well?"
"Daein has invaded," Kilvas said from behind her knight. She leaned against the door frame and opened her mouth, and his wings folded tightly to his back. "Crossed the border two nights ago, it looks like."
Sanaki's teeth clicked together. She looked at Sigrun and watched the blood drain from the knight's compressed lips. "You--" Again she looked at Kilvas, back to her knight, back and forth. Her face felt cold, pinched. Sigrun wouldn't humor him in a joke like this. "Why wasn't I--"
"They marched at night, kept to the trees. I saw them by accident." The raven's voice was hatefully neutral, and he didn't meet her gaze.
Sigrun sighed, turning her head slightly as if to look back. "Gaddos troops are marching with them, he says."
Sanaki sucked in a deep breath, heard a whispered curse behind her and the flare of a sheet thrown aside and feet hitting the floor. Her fingers tightened on the doorknob until the brass creased her skin and the sculpted leaves left their mark. "Have the prince taken to my office." Her throat was dry. She swallowed. "Disarm his retainers and have Zelgius and Leandros notified immediately."
Sigrun spun on her heel without so much as a nod, and Sanaki motioned for Kilvas to follow the knight. She closed the door as soon as she saw his back.
I wouldn't mind letting him sharpen his teeth on one of our northern provinces. She took another deep breath, another, another, laid a hand to the fold of silk over her heart and felt it beat too fast. "I was wrong," she said, staring at the grain of the door and the dull shine of the brass lock. Sephiran's footsteps approached. She let her hand slip from the knob. "He really is insane."
His hands closed on her shoulders and turned her toward the door to the bath. "Go. Get ready." He pushed her onward, walked with her, and gave the small of her back a shove when he let go. "I'll find something for you to wear while you bathe."
Her efforts to breathe slowly only left her feeling light-headed. "But if we don't take care of this now--"
"We won't give him the satisfaction of seeing you panic," Sephiran said, loud and sharp. He walked past her to the wardrobe, pulling the tie to his robe closed. "Go."
Sanaki stared at his back. He didn't sound concerned. He'd survived the revolts after her grandmother's death, the senate's scramble for control, the attack on Serenes. She'd only occupied the throne thirteen years, a small percentage of the time her senior senators had to consolidate their power and forge alliances, and Ashnard had ruled for how many years now - and distinguished himself with a long list of military victories. He wouldn't attack unless he had the advantage.
What was the advantage? Information the prince came across in the capitol? Something revealed by the senior senators? They knew as much as she did of Begnion's policies and secrets - no, if she were honest, they knew more.
"The prince had two months to study the road to the capitol," Sanaki said.
Sephiran didn't turn around. "His father has had many more years than that to plan a march into our territory." He turned the brass latch and pulled the armoire open, let the handle clap against the wood when he let go. Her formal dresses and skirts were hung inside, folded and creased to fit neatly inside, red, white, purple. "Go wash. You can't speak to the prince like that."
She went, more because he seemed determined to ignore her. The tiles were cool, the air of the bath moist and thickened with a pale mist. The turquoise pool had been filled with fresh water, but Sanaki had to ignore the implied comfort and go to the porcelain wash basin against the wall, fill it with bath water, and carry it back to the tiled stand. A row of small round windows near the arching ceiling let yellow sunlight in to diffuse in the steam.
When she was a child someone would have done this for her. A maid would have combed her hair, another would have fetched the honeycomb sponge and picked an appropriately calming soap. When she was very young, they hadn't even allowed her to do her own scrubbing. She might have ended up a simpleton incapable of dressing herself or arranging her own hair, doomed to rely on women whose loyalties were questionable to appear well-groomed in front of the gallery of judgmental nobles.
She could have become a puppet for Sephiran to use in ruling Begnion. He would have taken care of this fantastic incident and told her it was a bad dream, nothing to be concerned about.
Sanaki dropped her soap into the wash basin twice, the ylang scent too strong a perfume, the lather too slick and unwilling to rinse off. The ends of her hair got wet because she forgot to put it up. She lost a glass vial of coconut oil when it slipped from her hands and shattered on the terra cotta tiles to jaundice the white spaces between. Sanaki bit her lip and stared at the shards. They glittered different colors.
It was to his credit more than hers that Sanaki left her rooms looking presentable a mere thirty minutes after she was awakened with the news of invasion. Everything seemed to slip out of her hands - hair pins, ties, her chemise, the sandals. She didn't dare try to eat the frosted bread left on the table, or pour herself tea. The halls were quiet, the corridor between the palace and cathedral empty. The walls echoed the sound of her knights' boots back to them. Birds chirped in the landscaped courtyards, bees hummed, and she walked as quickly as she could without appearing to hurry, long steps with her hands curled into fists and hidden against her thighs by the flare of her sleeves. She'd left her velvet in her rooms, and wished some moments she'd worn it - for something to dig her fingers into, at least, to hide the way she picked at her nails.
"Don't let the prince leave the capitol," Sephiran said under his breath when they took the steps into the cathedral. "You'll have to send someone with a message - use Nasir."
"I suppose anyone else will end up dead." Sanaki tried to stretch her fingers open, and tried to relax her jaw when she realized her teeth were clenched. That would lead to a headache. The hunch of her shoulders would too. She'd learned a thousand ways to make herself miserable since the trials started. "I'd chain the prince to a wall if I could."
Figures in white robes gathered in small groups in front of meeting rooms and offices - senators, priests, their aides. They all paused when she passed, but Sanaki kept her eyes forward and ignored their bows and attempts to get her attention. They must have heard; everyone heard before she did, and even leagues away Ashnard managed to halt the workings of her government simply by existing. The marble sculpture of Ashera in its alcove across from her office door mocked her with its hands, spread to show their smooth palms. Peace.
How hard had she worked to maintain peace? She sent Sephiran to mediate disputes between Daein and Crimea, made a concession when Crimea wanted to take its land back and move the border fifty leagues south. That land wasn't used, it wasn't valuable. When the northern provinces tried to expand into the mountains for inkstone and marble, she allowed them to waste their resources within reason. There were more important issues to discuss in session than whether Gaddos had the right to expend its extra manpower mining tunnels that appeared to have little value.
Now she knew he hid slaves there. And Daein was terrorizing her people, and likely hunting free laguz like game.
Tanith opened the door, and Sanaki walked in without pausing to allow Zelgius or the guards make their greetings. Amelia's husband wasn't present yet, and she didn't feel like waiting for him. Marcia and two of her own guard came in behind Sephiran, closed the door, and she rounded her desk. "Explain yourself." She let her tone come out sharp. The prince lifted his eyebrows, gaze downcast, and Ike stood behind him with arms crossed. Zelgius curled his fingers around the hilt of his sword. "And where is Leandros?"
"Arranging for the army to move," Zelgius said, and loosened his grip on his weapon when she looked at him again. "If you should order us to defend, of course."
"Of course." Sanaki tapped her fingers on the desk. If. But she couldn't allow them to attack yet - not until she knew what state the commoners were in, how they'd fared when Daein passed through. "Well?" She curled her fingers to keep them still. Sephiran shifted on his feet. His hair brushed her arm. "Would you care to explain why a Daein army is marching on our soil, Soren?"
He lifted his chin. His eyes were dark like wells of ink. "Your scouts mistook a routine border action in Crimea as war."
Someday Sanaki would throw something heavy at him. A chair, perhaps. Lekain. "Why did your father enter Begnion?"
"He didn't think to notify me." Soren clasped his hands behind his back. "If you'll allow me to send Ike--"
"You'll send Nasir."
A faint line appeared on his forehead. "My father doesn't know him very well--"
"We can't have you defenseless here in the capitol, prince," Sephiran said. "He'll reach your father faster than Lord Ike. I'm sure you understand our interest in resolving this as quickly as possible."
"Yes." The crease in Soren's forehead deepened, and his eyes slid back to Sanaki. "If you can spare paper and a messenger, he will leave as soon as he's told."
She beckoned to Marcia and reached into a drawer for paper and an inkwell. It was harder to find an extra pen, and she felt his sanguine eyes on her when she opened drawers and boxes, and finally found one wedged beneath rolls of red sealing wax and ivory candles in their paper wrappings. Soren bent over the desk to write.
Pay attention to signatures and script, Sephiran told her. A senator's handwriting revealed his character. Sanaki hadn't seen the correlation immediately, but she learned to match Oliver's beautiful calligraphy to his pretentious lectures on the nature of beauty, and Hetzel's small, antiquated hand with the way he cowered at the mere mention of reform. Sephiran's hand looked like carefully calculated brush strokes - like script in the old tongue, somehow warped to imitate the meaning of their simpler modern letters.
Soren's hand slanted slightly forward, letters all the same size and width, and probably hiding something. He slid the paper across the desk, wiping the pen and closing the inkwell while she skimmed his message.
"I'll take it," Sephiran said. She looked up. He motioned her guard back to the door. "I'll compose a message for Ashnard. You should wait here for news from the army."
Sanaki slid a blank paper to the corner of the desk and held his gaze long enough to be sure he understood her meaning, that he would do it here, and turned back to the prince. "Guards will accompany you at all times - for your safety." She paused for the murmured of course. "Do not attempt to leave the palace. We'll speak again when you receive word from your father."
Soren's dark eyes lidded. "And if the answer is unfavorable?"
"You'll live." She folded his note into thirds and heard the scratch of the pen when Sephiran started to write. "Now--" she waved her hand. "Leave."
The guards saluted, three gauntleted fists to red breastplates, and the prince turned without a word to follow them out - then Ike, then Zelgius. Marcia held the door open for them and pushed it closed a little harder than necessary once the general's cape cleared the frame, earning a whispered rebuke from the knight opposite her. Sanaki told them to open the window and bent her head back against the chair.
"So much for getting rid of him." She pushed her fingers into her hair to nudge a pin back into place. Marcia pulled the center window open.
Sephiran finished his sentence and laid the pen on her desk. "It's possible he didn't know."
Sanaki skimmed the letter and waved it away when she reached the end. Sephiran's signature would be enough. It might even be more demanding of Ashnard's attention. "But we don't really believe that, do we? He kept close watch on the trial. I wonder if Culbert and Seliora will try to join Gaddos in rebellion."
"They will match us at best, even in such a circumstance." He folded his letter and creased the edges with his nails. "Put your mind at ease."
She stared at the parchment. "How can you say that? An army to equal our strength, under the command of a mad king and an acclaimed strategist--"
"Zelgius is more than a match for Ashnard, and the prince's talents are untried. A rebellion in Marado is hardly indicative of the ability necessary to remove you from power. Your allies outside of Begnion are formidable as well." Sephiran took the other note and tapped them on the desk to even the edges. "Don't let a few numbers destroy your confidence."
Sanaki shook her head. Maybe he was right. He'd lived the fifteen years of unrest in Begnion before her coronation, but she didn't know anything about war, or diplomacy at sword-point, or Daein's king. Maybe this was a bluff.
Maybe it wasn't.
*
Sanaki met with Zelgius and Amelia's husband later that day to discuss a defensive response, and she sent them away with orders to take a portion of the central army to Seliora, where the Ribahn forked and flowed toward the wall on the Daein border. She ordered Duke Tanas out of seclusion to ship supplies to the army from his holdings in the province. It would have been easier to send him along to handle the matter personally, but Sephiran didn't trust him and Sanaki thought letting him leave the city would make the lower senate nervous. Oliver was still a criminal by his own written admission, and though she'd decided not to deprive him of his peerage, his seat on the council was forfeit.
By signing the papers to incriminate the others he'd passed the point of no return, had he not? Lekain would not forgive such a betrayal. Defecting to his favor would do Oliver no good. He'd never pushed issues against her interests, either, so much as simply neglecting to oppose his colleagues. Tanas had always been disturbing, more than utter evil as she'd often termed the others.
He has his own interests, Sephiran said. Don't trust him. Don't give him an inch.
Daein's army appeared to be following the path taken by the prince on his journey to Sienne, and she wondered how much she told them, how much information he'd smuggled out in the guise of cleaning up his father's connections in the capitol. How could he not know about such a major military action? This invasion put his life in considerable danger; if she were the sort of ruler to hold hostages or kill messengers, he would be sacrificed - and for what? Surely his father didn't think to take Begnion.
She sent a letter to Crimea requesting shelter should the worst happen, and asked Sephiran to have Rafiel write a message to his father and consider returning to Serenes. The heron prince refused her second request, but he wrote a long letter and requested Sigrun take it. He trusted her. She was the first pegasus knight he met, the one he sought out for everything - meetings with Sanaki, security. Sometimes just to talk.
"He really does like her," Sanaki said when the envelope was brought to her later. "I wonder why."
Sephiran rested the letter on her nightstand, anchored with her book. "Why would he like the 'jewel of Begnion'?"
"Hmmm." She pulled a deep breath through her nose. "I don't think I like hearing you refer to other women that way. Take it back," she said, and he laughed.
Sigrun went, and Tanith muttered under her breath about how hard it was to get the woman out the door, that she checked and double-checked their plans five times - then it was seven times when she told the story, and then ten, and she even laughed about it after the other knight had departed. She slept less, took more shifts, insisted she wasn't tired. Sanaki commanded her to take a night off and leave Marcia to handle the night shift before the pronouncement of Valtome's sentence, promising she wouldn't leave the windows open while she slept. It wouldn't help; even if she were alone, the nights were warm and humid without company.
She woke that morning covered in sweat, the sheets kicked off, and her hand reached for the other side of the bed before she remembered that he had to rise early to prepare for the final session of Culbert's trial and the beginning of Lekain's. Whatever her dreams had been, she could not remember them.
Her hands trembled when she dressed, though she had a firmer grasp on her cosmetics than the morning she heard about the Daein army. Sephiran appeared at eight, exactly when he said he would, to roll her hair back and pin the hated crown to her head. Sanaki smoothed silky powder over her face with a soft brush, painted her lips with a bronzed red gloss that reminded her of blood and smelled faintly metallic, and lined her eyes with kohl.
It would be such a relief to put it all away - the cosmetics, the thrice-damned headdress, and the wide, stiff choker with its scratchy lace and the annoying jewel at the center with its metal back that always manage to feel cold, even after hours clasped to her neck. Sephiran refrained from touching her face when she wore make-up, seemed to keep his distance altogether. She wouldn't have noticed before, and wished she didn't now. He didn't want to mar her work, and yet she guessed he disliked cosmetic modification of any kind; he'd argued long against piercing her ears, and for years handled the make-up himself when she attended formal functions, as if he didn't want to teach her how to defy him.
Yes, she could see why they wondered how far his control extended - everybody. Even her knights, at times.
The cathedral halls were deserted when they walked to the audience chamber, but Sanaki heard the murmur of voices and the scrape of hundreds of chairs through the door between the anteroom and the audience chamber. Tanith went out to wait for the senators to ready themselves for her entrance, and Sephiran stood behind her to fuss with her hair. It's fine, she told him, and he came back with you're the one complaining about the pins biting into your scalp, and gave her hair a yank. The headdress didn't slip, and she wonder if he'd finally found a way to fix that problem; it would be nice to sit through Lekain's trial without worrying it would fall into her lap.
A low murmur still lingered in the chamber when Sanaki went out, but the senate fell silent as she took her seat. Prince Daein sat in the gallery reserved for royal guests, Kilvas standing beside him, and for once Ike made use of a chair. Valtome was on his knees at the bottom of the shallow stair, hands secured at his back, in the same plain white robe with its cleanly pressed folds and starched collar. She wondered who donated their time and money to making him presentable; he didn't have a wife or children, and his sister was estranged, his nephew apparently a stranger. Did someone have the bad judgment to accept an invitation into his bed? She had to press her lips together so they wouldn't pucker at the sudden bad taste that thought left in her mouth.
"Duke Culbert," she said, drawing his gaze away from Sephiran. "You have been found guilty of all charges brought against you in this court. Have you anything to say before your sentence is passed?"
He appeared to think about it, lowered his eyes, and Sanaki waited-- and waited. The prescribed allowance was ninety seconds. A man or woman on the brink of death, she thought, should be able to blurt out their foremost concerns in an intelligible manner with less than a minute to think about it.
Her finger tapped the first ten seconds on the arm of her throne, silent, but she cramped her hand to stillness. She felt the eyes of the lower senate, though perhaps they were focused on her subject rather than the throne, and it seemed Valtome had given up on trying to intimidate her with his stares. Sanaki tried not to breathe too loudly. His behavior shouldn't surprise her; without the rank and voice necessary to oppose her with wit and words, of course he chose to defy her with a show of obstinacy.
When her count of ninety seconds finished Sanaki leaned forward, and his gaze was drawn by the shift of silk as she crossed her legs. "You will be executed with your colleagues three hours after dawn on the first morning after the conclusion of these trials. Your estate, foreign holdings, and council seat will be passed to your nearest maternal relative, should he or she prove qualified." The echo of her voice was twice as loud. Was that silver in Culbert's hair, glinting in the sunlight as he tilted his head downward and neglected to lower his eyes? He'd always seemed immortal. "Your rights as a member of the peerage in Begnion are hereby revoked. You will be returned to your cell to await punishment."
Two of the household guard came forward to draw Culbert to his feet and lead him away. Sanaki pressed her nails into the arm of her throne until they left shallow indentations in the varnish and wished she could tell them to walk faster. His wrists looked thin in iron shackles. The straw sandals he was allowed offered him no height and clapped on the marble floor, the sound and its echoed accompaniment forcing her teeth to clench and grind. She never wanted to see him again, but she'd be obligated to watch his execution and remember the way his blood gleamed on the chopping block.
Perhaps death by hanging was not so gruesome after all. She'd heard unlucky victims might kick and struggle for quite a while, however, and was that any better than watching a few heads roll? This would be her first time watching an execution. She didn't know these things. Would she be sick? Have nightmares? Sephiran said he couldn't stay with her every night, but if she started seeing Culbert's face in her dreams, drastic measures would be called for to make sure a better image replaced it post haste.
The double doors opposite the throne thundered closed. Sephiran moved forward a step, and the whispered sigh gathered in the air as the senators began to move was silenced.
"Our last order of business," he said, and his voice betrayed no strain at all, not even a smile, "is former senator Lekain of Gaddos. Before we begin, is there any individual here who wishes to speak on his behalf?"
"Yes."
Sanaki's eyebrows shot up. She forced her expression to smoothness and uncurled her fingers. Soren left his seat at Sephiran's motion, and she didn't want him to mock her with his flat eyes for her lack of control. He took long strides to reach her dais, shoulders squared, and the pleats of his white coat swayed and gathered when he came to a halt at the foot of the stairs.
"With all due respect, Duke Persis, I am rather uncomfortable with your involvement in this trial, and my father agrees. As Daein's representative--" a senator on the first tier muttered, and Soren's eyes slid aside, though his face did not turn, "--I can't let this pass unchecked."
Sephiran stood very still, silent a full three seconds. "And this discomfort did not inspire you to speak when appropriate changes could have been made?"
"It wasn't my concern."
"With all due respect, your highness, I do not believe it has become your concern. The time for objections--"
"It isn't your conviction of Duke Gaddos I object to," Soren said, raising his voice. "Rather, after acquainting myself with the details of the dissolution of the senior council I was surprised to find your indiscretions swept under the rug, if you will. This blatant show of favoritism is an obstruction of justice." His gaze snapped to Sanaki. "Daein has waited twenty-five years for your government to investigate Lord Sephiran's involvement in the Serenes incident. Now that the men protecting him have been removed, you have opportunity and an obligation to complete the process. If you want their conviction to have any international validity at all, you will replace Duke Persis with a more reliable official."
Sanaki pressed her lips together, felt the bottom crack and sting. Of all the plans he could have devised to delay Lekain's trial - and that must be what he meant to do - the Serenes fiasco was most ridiculous. Soren didn't care, he said. He'd lied then, or he was lying now, and though she didn't like him, she wanted to think he wouldn't launch an attack of this sort purely for the senator's sake. Surely he was better than that.
"I've yet to hear specifics from you, Prince Soren," she said. She heard Sephiran let out a breath in a sigh, but it was soft, and she wondered if he'd been close to speaking. "If you wish to renew charges, this is not the time or place to do so. If you have no convincing evidence of his unreliability, I will have to ask you to wait."
The prince reached into his coat, and Tanith tensed beside her, gauntlets creaking around her spear and the decorations on her surcoat jangling against her greaves. Yet all he withdrew was a small, silk-wrapped item he held between fingers and thumb. "I have my father's response to your inquiry, if you will indulge me with your patience a few more moments. The two are related."
"If you must," Sanaki said, flicking a glance at her minister. "Quickly."
"Then it's very simple." Soren smiled a bloodless smile. "We are here to respond to long-standing allegations as to our theft of Lehran's Medallion. Our targets are Serenes and your Prime Minister, who has been helping them damage relations between our countries for some time. As evidence," he said when she opened her mouth to respond, "this was sent, to be returned to its rightful owners."
The sour, bitter taste of sickness crept into her throat before he even peeled the silk away to reveal the rounded edge of the medallion. Though she'd never seen the artifact herself, the descriptions were clear enough: round, worked in patterns common to the civilizations dated before the Flood, the bronze blue and eroded from age. It didn't burn, but it looked to be the right size, larger than her own palm and perhaps a perfect fit for his.
"Ridiculous." Sephiran stepped backward to his place at her arm, signaling his dismissal. "The fact that you hold it in your hand--"
"To touch the medallion means madness," Soren snapped. "How do you suppose we stole it? Would the herons of Serenes allow a filthy human to approach their altar and put his hands on an object that would drive him to destroy their forest? No! The bearer was someone they trusted - someone unaffected by the artifact's power."
"If such a person exists outside of the royal--"
"I doubt it."
"Then what do you hope to prove by--"
Soren's arm whipped out. The medallion flew from his grasp and struck the golden decoration on Sephiran's coat. He caught it with his free hand, narrowed eyes still on the prince--
The blue light flared, like fire or will'o wisp light, and he dropped it with wide eyes, threw it down to clink and roll and knock against the white silk and red velvet pool of Sanaki's train. The loud metallic clatter grated in her ears and inside her bones, vibrating. She tried to breathe.
"Are you... mad, Duke Persis?" Sephiran's head snapped up, his hand clenched, but Soren tilted his head away, the silk wrapping going back into his pocket. "Or-- simply not human?"
Sanaki's hand itched to pick up the medallion. The fire died away. It could have been an object from the museum, or a noble's private collection. Was it really as dangerous as they said? Was it a cheap enchantment cast upon an inferior object, designed to come to life when it touched someone's hand? Sephiran didn't move to pick it up again, and when she risked a glance at his face through her eyelashes his face was bone white, and his lips set in a line.
She wanted to pick it up, and show it for the fake it surely was. It couldn't be real.
Soren bowed at the waist, bending his neck. "Thank you, your majesty. My apologies for the interruption."
.......................................................................
Eh, screw it. If I were a good author I'd wait, but this time it would be nice to get the next chapter out soonish, and author bias is making editing... difficult? Yeah.
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Date: 2009-02-05 04:31 am (UTC)Thank you. I'm glad it had the intended effect. :D; I'm going to try to get the next chapter out a little faster, since I ended this one somewhat... abruptly.