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runicloreThe Argument
Author: Amber Michelle
Day/Theme: February 25 - Tinder ablaze
Series: Fire Emblem 10
Character/Pairing: Sanaki, Sephiran, Tanith, Rafiel, others
Rating: T
Words: 8286
Warnings: exposition? I tried not to, I really did...
Notes: AU, part fourteen of the Summer Chronicle. This is a first and ongoing draft; a list of known issues is being compiled here.
There are changes I'm going to make to the first four chapters - eventually - that are referred to in this chapter as having already happened: the arrangement with Soren, for example. I'm sorry if it causes confusion, but since the beginning will eventually be changed anyway, there's no reason to leave myself with major editing decisions to make for this chapter when I already know what I want to do.
.............................................
Sanaki called for an end to the session as soon as she thought her voice would remain steady - to speak with the prince further, to interrogate Sephiran. She wasn't quite sure what she'd said after they entered the haven of the back chamber, only that when they left the hall of audience she had no choice but to instruct him to retrieve the medallion and carry it. They couldn't chance having someone else touch it, only to see them go mad and wreak havoc on her officials. She didn't want to lose Tanith or Marcia, or Amelia in the high gallery with other peers not in the senate, or even Kilvas and his traitorous hide. Not that way. She remembered penning a quick letter to demand Daein halt, applying her seal, and sending a knight away with orders to press Nasir into service again.
The walk back to her office was uncommonly quiet. Rainclouds clotted in the sky. The garden was still, the birds silent. The air was humid and hard to breathe, so hot it seemed the sun should be shining directly onto their heads. She'd felt cold in the audience chamber, as if plunged into ice water, and wished for nothing but to get out and bask in the sunlight; the medallion's blue fire had made ice out of her silks, snow from her velvet, and now it was melting away with every step.
While Marcia and a few others checked the rooms and opened the windows to air her office out, Sanaki sent Tanith to fetch Rafiel and considered summoning the prince as well, though she wasn't positive she could face him with a semblance of civility just yet, and Sephiran-- he'd recovered his poise during the walk, and waited with his face turned to the stained glass window at the end of the hallway. His face was starkly pale in its frame of dark hair, lips and cheeks tinted blue and red. He followed her inside as soon as Marcia declared the office clear and closed the door.
Sanaki went to her desk and sat on the edge, facing him, thinking she should have made him talk - she should have extracted every fragment of his history he recalled. Instead, she let him wait. Why not? They were his secrets, it was his life. She didn't have the right to demand he reveal everything, to dig her nails in and pry out every minute detail. He said he'd met Ashnard; fine. He told her Daein agents were involved in the Serenes Incident; fine.
She curled her fingers around the edge of the tabletop, knocked her heel against the hardwood facing. It made a hollow thump, and something in the drawers rattled. "Is it real?"
Sephiran looked down at the blue disk in his hand. His fingers curved around the edges like talons, and it was indeed a perfect fit for the palm of his hand, as she'd speculated when the prince brought it out. "Yes."
"How?"
"I don't know."
"You must have an idea." Sanaki looked away from him. The windows were open, but there was no breeze to drift in and lift the curtains from the floor. Was Kilvas out there, or one of his agents? Did Marcia send one of her guard out to watch the window? "What haven't you told me?"
He sighed, and she heard the bronze clink against the gold decorations of rank on his chest. "Perhaps you should begin with more specific questions."
Sanaki rolled her eyes up. Her fingers ached from gripping the desk so tightly. "Why are they after you?"
"For different reasons, I imagine. The prince has no love of his father's causes." Sephiran went silent, and when she looked at him again his face was turned away and lit by the window, gray in the colorless light. Rain pattered on the stone sill outside. "I--" He turned back to her. "I told you everything I thought mattered. I didn't expect this to happen. I had an arrangement with the prince, but I put an end to it when Kilvas brought Rafiel--"
"An arrangement?"
He flinched away from the inquiry. His fingers tightened around the medallion, knuckles bleeding white.
She and Amelia had discussed this habit of his at length, true; he wants to keep you untainted, the woman said, out of the struggle for dominance. It was only right Sanaki be above the conflict when her duty was to remain impassive and dispense justice, make decrees, all free from bias. Apostles were always voices of reason and mercy, and whether their subordinates listened or not was largely a matter of individual loyalties and, sometimes, the dispensation of favors or gold. Such was government in Begnion. It didn't govern, but made decisions that happened to affect matters such as taxes and laguz freedom.
Consider, her old instructor had told her one day, how little power you have in the provinces. Most of your citizens will never lay eyes on you. They might slaughter innocents and hunt laguz in her name, but her decree was worth pennies, and easily outbid.
You do not have your grandmother's popularity. You are no longer the adorable child empress of Begnion. You are an obstacle.
"I meant to leave years ago. You can easily match the senate with the alliances you've already established with the Leandros and Delos families, and I was trying to arrange more - support from Persis, and some of Hetzel's supporters. But their accusations as to your birthright were my fault, so I stayed."
Sanaki pried her fingers loose and leaned back, crossing her ankles. "You told me--"
"The time has come for me to leave."
That sent a tingle down her spine, a chill to the pit of her stomach. Her arms trembled under her own weight. "No."
"Do I look like a man of fifty years? Sixty?" Sephiran breathed a mirthless laugh, or a sigh, his lips stretched in something that looked like a smile, but his brows were knitted and he wouldn't look at her. "If the senate looks, really looks, while I am unable to instruct my agents to respond correctly, they will find the peerage of Salinos ceased to exist when its last scion died sixty five years ago, and conveniently, no one survives who can say for sure I am a member of their extended family. They'll find gold in Persis has been directed into a charity enterprise to buy and distribute rice and staples to the poor--"
She wanted to walk over there and press her hand to his mouth. The windows were open. What if someone happened to hear? What if his voice drifted down to the garden or through another open window close by, despite the presence of his wards? The senior senators had their offices located in this part of the building. They were in prison, but what of their agents?
"--and if they follow the trail farther, they will discover half of those supplies are redirected to serve organizations scattered across the province which house something very like a militia. They'll see I've done the unthinkable, and cultivated a force consisting mostly of former slaves, who until now will have existed beneath the notice of everyone in the capitol who matters."
Sanaki pressed her fingertips to her temples, rubbed them in a circle, and wished-- there were so many things she wished he hadn't said or done. He continued - the force was meant to protect her when she lived with him in the province, which made sense, and he probably secured special authorization to do so, as the senior senators were smart enough to make it look as if they were concerned for her safety, at the least. She supposed they were obliged to keep her alive until she provided them with an heir who could hear the goddess and rendered herself useless. And Sephiran, always sympathetic to the most inconvenient causes, must have arranged to keep these laguz to staff the public works projects he mentioned before. His laguz had medical care, homes, owned property. Nobody cared what he did with his province as long as he paid his yearly dues. No one checked. It had never occurred to her such would be necessary.
This transgression was not punishable by death, but he would most certainly lose his place on the council and be forced to give Persis over to someone else. She wanted to ask how he could take such a risk when so many people depended on him - the laguz in his care, and especially her, his empress, the person he promised his loyalty to. What power would he use to help Lady Gaddos if he lost his peerage?
No. Sanaki didn't care about her. But she did care about Ashnard and his blood pact, and the roundabout way Sephiran said he aided the man in breaking it. She cared the Mad King knew who and what he was, because his wife was a weakling - Soren's stories about her lonely dances and passive entertainments came back to her - and when it came to the medallion--
"I don't know."
Sanaki sighed sharply. "You said he stole it."
"Who else could it be?"
"Please tell me that isn't the sum of your reasoning."
It wasn't, but his explanation was inconclusive. That was the problem, he said - the evidence was circumstantial, mere hearsay, regarding Ashnard and himself. Sephiran never left the front line while protecting Serenes, preferring to spend his effort calming the locals. Daein sent troops led by Ashnard, at the time still a minor prince, as part of an agreement between the senate and his father. They were stationed in Northern Serenes, away from the area the herons normally occupied. All witnesses claimed Ashnard remained in command for the duration of his stay after his official presentation to Sephiran.
And the forest, said to repel human intruders with powerful enchantments woven by the goddess herself, was supposed to have allowed one of them through the barriers to the altar, where the medallion rested under the care of a member of the royal family at all times to be calmed by songs.
"Your identity is the basis of his accusation," Sanaki said, waited for his thin-lipped nod, and then: "I've never heard of such a claim, however."
"No one will believe him--" The medallion was still in Sephiran's hand, and the edges gleamed silver one moment, sapphire the next. Its fire remained quiet, but when he turned toward the window it seemed to radiate heat and make the air before him waver, and his skin luminous. Perhaps the essence of chaos was interfering with his illusion. "--that is, at the time, nobody would have listened to such a claim."
She turned her gaze to her knees and smoothed her skirt over with her fingers. Rain drummed onto the sill outside, struck the windows, slapped onto the leaves of the maples directly outside. A steady drip sounded from the overhang, and from the window frame to the polished wood inside. The moisture only made the heat worse. She'd long since shed her formal coat, but left her hair up so it wouldn't stick to her neck. Sanaki rubbed her forehead. "And this-- this revelation was part of the prince's supposed plan to help you leave Begnion?"
"I don't know what he planned," Sephiran said. "And I don't see how this works to his advantage, which means there's a game piece I've missed somewhere."
Sanaki didn't ask what he thought it might be. She didn't ask why he helped Ashnard - though she wondered, and could see no reason for such a stupid idea - nor how he arranged such a convoluted plan to begin with. She could guess who enabled such a ridiculous enterprise. He had black feathers, a foul mouth, and a healthy disrespect for her imperial person, and she wondered if he would continue to make a nuisance of himself if she sliced his feathers off with a wind spell, or burned them to a crisp.
All of the raven king's hints about her minister's background - were those hints as to Sephiran's intention to leave instead? Idiot. Idiot. Did he really think she would let him go? Did he think it mattered to her that he wasn't beorc? "Is this why you refused to marry me?"
She heard his hair slither back over his shoulder when his head turned. "No," he said. She kept her gaze on her hands. The blurry impression of Sephiran's hand pushed the medallion away finally, into a pocket inside his coat. "No, you... surprised me. I thought your tastes would lie elsewhere by now."
Her nails were worn to the quick. There was nothing to fit between her teeth. "No need to insult my choice. I still can't fathom a better one."
"Sanaki--"
"Considering the nature of your transgressions, I don't think your popularity will be impacted much."
"Trying to marry you off to a Branded prince was bad enough." Sephiran's voice wavered. "If I were to pursue you now-- no one will stand for your defilement by a laguz--"
"There's nothing sinful about it!"
"You're the only one who feels that way."
She shook her head hard enough her hair pulled and stung. His hands stilled the motion and she pushed them away, wiped at the moisture beading on her lashes, and told him what a fool he was. He should have consulted her. Why must he always keep things from her? Was she that sensitive? No-- no, he was afraid she would call him an idiot, rightfully, for trying to leave her when she needed him, and trick her into thinking it would be for the best. It wouldn't. Nothing would be right if he left. She'd been ignorant of his actions until today, yet he was right beside her; how many secrets waited for her outside of his circle of influence, hidden beneath layers of deception left by the senior senators? How would she bring them to the surface without his help?
Sephiran pulled her from the desk and held her tightly. I'm sorry he said, a hoarse whisper, above her ear, into her hair, and Sanaki let her forehead rest on his shoulder, though her arms remained at her sides. He had better apologize. This was his fault. And since he was the door through which Prince Soren entered to dig his claws into Begnion, it would be Sephiran's efforts that would repel him. If he left Begnion, it would be on her order - never on the word of a mad king or his traitor of a son. Never.
*
The next morning Sephiran was publicly released from his official duties and suspended from office; Sanaki watched his aide remove his decorations of rank and confiscate the staff, while her minister knelt on the crimson carpet at the bottom of the stairs to the dais. His removal meant Lekain's trial must be postponed for an undetermined number of days while the lower senate discussed a replacement, though the exercise was pointless when the man's guilt was already proven. She could have handled the questioning herself, but her remaining advisers, those ranked next after the senior council's authority, would not hear of it. To see the empress fumbling with papers and stumbling over the accusations-- Sanaki nearly ordered the woman fired for implying she was that unfamiliar with the senator's crimes, but Amelia, called in to replace Sephiran until someone trustworthy could be assigned, jumped in before Sanaki could voice her intentions.
"The interrogation is a formality, ladies and gentlemen." Sephiran would have stood at her side, but Amelia sat in the chair immediately to Sanaki's left, hair rolled and pinned high on her head with two long combs. Amber and gold decorated the curved handles, warm spots of light tucked into dark wings. "We don't need a qualified candidate to read the summation of Lekain's crimes - any senator can do it, provided he or she is capable of speaking clearly and resisting his attempts at intimidation."
"You won't find those qualifications within the senate." The woman who spoke was from Tanas, blond, with green eyes, plain. Sanaki tried to remember her name. She was a shadow against the meeting room window, sculpted with dark gray highlights. "You must mean to nominate yourself."
"I thought you would make an excellent choice," Amelia said. "Thank you for speaking up."
"You overstep your--"
Sanaki slapped her palm on the table, made the woman jump. Six pairs of eyes turned to her, and in her peripheral vision she saw that Amelia continued to watch them. The room was small, hot, the windows locked down. Sun shined outside for the first time in two days, and the cherry trees frothed with pale pink blooms in clumps of spun sugar, the petals fluttering and drifting to the ground with every breeze and plastered to the walks by rain. She saw hints of pink between the gauzy curtains.
She should have been outside today, enjoying the sun and her minister's company. Last year she would have looked forward to a night reading one of her favorite plays while rosy petals rained onto the pages, lit by brass lanterns. They would have had a sweet plum tea over icy slush and buttery pastries shaped like shells.
"Leveque," Sanaki said when the silence had stretched to her liking, and a dark man at the end of the table bowed over the surface with a murmured your majesty. He was Hetzel's aide, his accent heavier than Amelia's, and if trying to understand him aggravated Lekain or anyone else present for his trial, she thought that might make up for this inconvenience - at the very least, it would amuse her. "You will take Sephiran's place. Speak to Tanith for copies of the investigation transcripts."
"But your majesty--"
It was always but your majesty with these people, even when she made perfectly reasonable decrees-- even when she shrugged her indifference and let them make their own decisions. They were all traitors. It was only a matter of degrees. Even Amelia, she suspected, had dealings Sanaki didn't want to know about.
The conversation moved on when she refused to respond, and she stared at the polished red sheen of the tabletop when the topic of Duke Persis came up. They needed to put together an investigation team that did not include any of his agents, but when the time came to suggest officials qualified for the job, their suggestions to replace Sephiran's people reflected their territorial bias; Lekain's substitute named Gaddos men and a few from Culbert, and Leveque's experience encompassed Asmin and almost nothing else, though he knew several individuals in the clerical branches of the cathedral. Perhaps it wasn't their fault. Though men and women appointed to the senate were required to serve in a province not their own for at least a few months, they were only effective as senators if they knew their own territory back to front.
Sanaki knew a few names from conversations with Kilvas, Sephiran, and others; she made sure they were included, demanded certain officials in Persis be involved - searching provincial records, otherwise, would take months. They couldn't argue with her logic, but they protested every suggestion. This one was too close to the duke, that one was too friendly with him at the spring pageant, and she couldn't dare send his aide-- they're thick as thieves, that would be playing right into his hands.
Culbert's stand-in, earl of Pellatiere, finally gave voice to what she knew was coming. "Sending a half-breed sympathizer would be detrimental to our cause."
The conversation between Gaddos and Asmin quieted. Sanaki lifted her eyes from the tabletop, but he was very careful not to look in her direction. His pointed nose was aimed at Sephiran's aide, Shirin, a woman so thin she appeared half as tall as she actually was, so pale she was likened to a ghost on many occasions, or a wisp of fog. Her colorless hair was pinned in a chignon, her eyes so dark - the only color on her person, a vivid blue - they looked unreal, like glass, like doll's eyes.
Amelia sighed. "Prejudice serves us no better. Until the laguz are directly involved--"
"Correct me if I'm wrong," the Tanas stand-in spoke up, "but I was under the impression Lord Sephiran represented the sub-human threat, unless you have an explanation for the miracle in the audience chamber."
"There is no 'sub-human threat,'" Shirin said. Her colorless lips were turned down, her frown as sharp as her chin. "Nor do I believe we've decided on our collective 'cause,' Pellatiere, unless you mean to refer to justice-- in which case, I see no reason for race to be a deciding factor in our proceedings."
The earl snorted, had the nerve to chuckle, though it sounded hollow. "He has clearly broken the law. He concealed his identity, entered government service--"
"There is no law forbidding laguz from taking part in government," Amelia murmured.
"There most certainly was when he took office," Pellatiere said. His fingers tapped the surface of the table, his nails clicking. "He engineered the Emancipation Act, deceived the Apostle--"
"The Apostle," Shirin said, "cannot be deceived. Do you forget so quickly?"
Pellatiere's eyes slid toward Sanaki, though he tried to hide it by turning his face down to a report and lowering his lashes. "Apparently that is not the case." He jerked his gaze away when she narrowed her eyes. "Misaha was before my time and yours, Shirin-- unless you are also older than you look. How is it you are an authority on the matter?"
Two hours passed that way until Sanaki finally sent them away with promises to consider their proposals that she didn't intend to keep. If she could have thrown something after them on their way out - perhaps a teapot, or the lamp - she would have. Nothing was in reach. How could they dare accuse her of bias? Sanaki had never allowed Sephiran's opinions to sway her decisions unreasonably before; taking him to her bed changed nothing.
You should avoid confirming that rumor at all costs, your majesty, Amelia said, and Tanith told her the same thing. In fact, it would be best to present as much proof to the contrary as possible.
After openly inviting him to remain in her room at all hours? If her claims of innocence meant nothing before - when they were true - she saw no reason for them to carry any weight now.
She declared Sephiran confined to his quarters and resisted the impulse to visit, though she had reason: the heron prince. He was unwell when she tried to summon him last, and she wondered if the weight of this turn for the worse weighed as heavily on him as it did her. She'd spent most of the last night curled on her side with the lamp turned low, staring at the curtains and trying to pierce the depth of the shadows between their folds. She'd smoothed powder over her skin to hide the shadows her sleepless night left under her eyes, but her posture must have been wrong during the meeting - she must have walked too slowly, bent too far into her chair, something to alert the senators she spoke with to her fatigue.
It was her order to have Rafiel moved to different quarters that prompted him to brave the cathedral corridors and seek her audience while she read letters demanding clarification of Daein's motives, and investigations into the alleged 'indiscretions' Duke Persis stood accused of. She made herself read through four condemnations of his laguz lineage - more guilt unproven, though she could not deny it - and Tanith delivered more, another sheaf of fifty. The clock hadn't yet reached two o'clock.
"Prince Rafiel is here to see you," her knight said, offering the folder with both hands, head bowed. "He says it's important."
Sanaki took the letters and wished she could burn them. The day felt warm enough, though clouds still blanketed the sky and blocked the sun, trapped its heat between earth and sky until she drew in air hot as the breath of an oven. "Send him in." The poor prince - Serenes must be cooler, even during the summer. The breeze between the cathedral and the palace that morning smelled of wet earth and grass, but lacked any hint of rain. There would be no relief.
Tanith turned and strode away from her desk, but she stopped halfway across the rug, poised on the ball of one foot. Her shoulders were held stiffly back. Sanaki paid her no mind, shoved the letters she'd read to the side of her desk, and only looked up again when it became clear the knight did not intend to move. She rested the folder on her desk and leaned back. The chair creaked, and the smooth soles of her sandals scraped against the legs.
Tanith's hand clenched at the sound, her head turning a hair. "Is-- is it true?"
Sanaki tapped her fingers on the folder, muffled thumps. "Is what true?"
Her knight turned, feet relaxing from their aborted journey slowly, and lowered her eyes. "Lord Sephiran. Is he-- is Daein's accusation--"
Sanaki let her falter, her fingers going still, and pulled her hand back to her lap. Opinions on laguz were as diverse as the fabled snowflake, even among the imperial guard. Persis and Asmin, where Amelia hailed from, were tolerant of the other races. Seliora was home to the smuggling rings unearthed during the trial, and yet its citizens maintained favorable relations with Serenes Forest. Sigrun came from Tanas, and though Sanaki didn't think Oliver was of pro-laguz sentiment, he did not allow the herons, at least, to be disparaged. He had an unhealthy fascination with anything feathered.
She didn't know where Tanith was from. Her guards gave up provincial loyalties upon entering her service, and even Sanaki did not ask for the information unless their conduct was called into question. She knew Sigrun's history only because Kilvas mentioned it long ago, when Rafiel first arrived.
So long ago. Or was it? Had only weeks passed, after all? Three, four, perhaps six?
"Your majesty." She watched Tanith stretch her hands out and place them at her sides. "I bear no ill will toward laguz, and I do not believe they're inferior to us. However, if what the Prince said is true, you--" She paused a moment to swallow. "You've been-- it's blasphemy--"
"No. It isn't."
"But the scriptures--"
"Say nothing." Sanaki leaned over, tilted her head, caught Tanith's gaze and held it. "I looked when I first learned of his heritage. Ashera said nothing--"
"You knew?"
"Of course I knew!" Her expression melted into a narrow-eyed glare before she thought better of it, and Tanith jerked back a step at the volume of her voice, looked away. Sanaki clenched a handful of her skirt and took a deep breath. She hadn't meant to yell. "If this knowledge is too trying to your--"
"No, your majesty, I didn't mean--"
"Then move that stool over here." Sanaki pointed to the brocade cushion between the chairs by the window, and her knight's hands trembled before they pressed to the sides of her legs. The leather creaked. She waited for Tanith to look, turn back, and said, "Rafiel must be tired. He shouldn't wait any longer."
Her knight remained standing a moment longer, heels digging into a wide, scrolling vine on the carpet as if she'd rocked back, and then she went to pick the stool up to place it where she stood a moment ago, as ordered. "My lady..."
She wondered how the rest of the pegasus knights felt. Sigrun said she didn't care. She didn't even appear surprised, though Sanaki thought she must have been - at least at first, perhaps down deep in the place she hid all of her emotions when duty required her to appear composed. She was so good at that. But Tanith, if Tanith expressed such doubts, what of the others, whose loyalties were not as sure, no matter the oaths they took upon joining the guard?
All her life Sanaki had tried to fight the pressure of her court's racial ideals - first at Sephiran's prompting, and later by her own will. She'd yet to meet a laguz to embody the urban tales. Were Parsian laguz so different from citizens in other provinces?
"Are you well, Tanith?" There was a pause before she nodded, two seconds in which her gaze was cast aside to the floor and her shoulders hunched. Sanaki relaxed against the back of her chair. "Do you need to take time to accustom yourself to this information?" She waited for the knight to respond, and took a deep, slow breath when the woman shook her head, afraid her voice would shake. "Good. Let the heron prince in and get back to your shift."
She watched Tanith's back as the knight walked away and disappeared behind the door. A glimpse of white and the shine of golden hair teased her before it closed.
The pause was brief. Her door opened less than a minute later to admit Prince Rafiel, alone, his wings pulled to his back but drooping, relaxed at the ends, as if too heavy to remain folded. Sanaki rose to meet him, took his hand. His fingers were cold. "I'm sorry this trial has affected you so negatively. No one told me."
Despite the colorless quality to his lips and the gray beneath his eyes, Rafiel's soft beauty still made her want to touch his face when he smiled. His hair still glinted in the light, almost metallic, gathered between his wings in thick gold curls still lively, the ends drifting when she led him to the stool. He protested when she tried to help him sit. She frowned, and he huffed a sigh very like Sephiran's when he was exasperated. "Don't blame yourself. This is my first journey away from the forest in quite a few years. I should have known better."
Sanaki backed against her desk, leaned on the edge. "Kilvas said you would say that."
Rafiel's wings flapped. The wind tickled the back of her neck. "Naesala talks too much."
She covered her mouth to muffle a laugh. Who would debate the truth to that claim? "You must be here to refuse my invitation to return home."
The prince folded his wings again, his hands curled together in his lap. His eyes were the same green, like the shallows of the sea, and she couldn't continue to look at them. "Leaving now would only cause more damage," he said. "I won't give in to cowardice anymore."
"This isn't like the last time." Sanaki spoke to the window and its frozen covering. "The senate is divided; I'm sure the nobility has its own factions. Because you are laguz, the danger to your safety is much greater. Please reconsider."
She heard his hair move, his earrings jingle. "What of your safety? The same story you used to take advantage of their support will now turn against you. The last Apostle was killed for similar reasons, or so I am led to believe."
"Hm." Sanaki sighed through her nose, folded her arms over her stomach, and risked a glance back. His gaze had not wavered. "Kilvas does talk too much," she said.
Rafiel smiled, faint. "We have true dreams, your majesty - sometimes. Mine tell me to stay by your side, and I will not chance ignoring them and allowing something terrible to happen. Lehran would never forgive me." Her head snapped front, and he said, "I was told you knew."
Of course she knew. Sanaki hadn't yet used his real name, though she considered it. Forming such a habit would allow for mistakes, and she made enough of those without tempting fate. "You herons." He chuckled, and that too reminded her of Sephiran. She had to look away again, and curled her hands into fists, propped on the top of her desk. "So instead of leaving them with one target, we present them with two. Three, if Sephiran counts while he's locked in his room. I suppose we'll delay our enemies an hour or two so they can decide who to hit first."
"I would feel such ill intent in an instant. It's one of the few ways we have to defend ourselves."
That ability hadn't saved her grandmother. Sanaki watched a shadow fly over her curtains, just for an instant; a dove, or a sparrow, or one of the seagulls Sephiran hated so much. "Can Kilvas be trusted?"
"With my safety, yes."
She wondered if Kilvas would risk breaking the pact for Rafiel - one heron for a hundred ravens, or a thousand. How many lived on that island? How many herons lived in Serenes Forest? No one really knew. Outsiders weren't allowed to do census research within the forest bounds, if they were allowed inside at all. Was there some dynamic between Kilvas and Prince Rafiel, or with King Lorazieh, which allowed the prince such confidence? Was it his talent to read hearts? Was it friendship, blind faith?
Sanaki wouldn't risk the whole of Begnion for one person, no matter her feelings for the individual. Not even-- She swallowed, felt her throat click, dry. The water was all the way at the other side of the room. "Even if you say so," she said, clearing her throat, "I will command him to--"
"No. Don't do that."
She turned back to him, frowned when she saw his brows draw together. "It's the only way he can be tr--"
"No." Rafiel sprang up and grabbed her hands, wings flaring back to balance. "That pact is beneath you. He would betray those senators in an instant if he could, but he still respects you. If you compel him--"
"He would betray his own mother given a wide enough profit margin--"
"No!" Rafiel yanked her hands. She leaned back, the desk edge biting into her thighs, and his thin fingers tightened until their hands trembled. "No. Naesala will do the right thing in the end if you give him the time to figure out how. Don't let their dishonest dealings with him taint your judgment."
'In the end,' he said - and meanwhile, what would the raven king be doing? Aiding and abetting treason, using his agents to facilitate assassination attempts. He said he would help her in return for the pact, but if that piece of paper slipped through her fingers-- then what? "I don't know what to tell you, Rafiel." His hands felt so thin, like she could break them in two, the skin so soft she was reminded of pressing her fingers into a nectarine and feeling it bruise. "You ask the impossible."
He raised their hands, prying his fingers loose to hold hers clasped beneath his chin, against his chest. His wings moved, curled, the long feathers brushing her skirt. "If you promise not to reveal this to Naesala, I will tell you a secret." Heat rose in her cheeks, her ears, and she locked her knees to avoid fidgeting. She could feel his breath on her hands when he talked. It took her a moment to nod. "My father had four children," he said, "of which I am the oldest. Reyson is next, and Leanne is the baby. Lillia, my other sister, was born the same day I was."
The blush spread to her ears and Sanaki pulled her eyes away since she couldn't move, caught against the desk and the small distance between herself and the heron prince, walled in by the curve of his wings. She wondered if spreading them to confine her was conscious, or some instinctual gesture to keep her still. "Twins?"
He nodded. "Before your time, before Naesala became king and inherited the pact, we would leave the forest with him follow caravans traveling with slaves. He was quite unruly when he was young. We thought it best to distract him when he visited." His hands were warm now, and Sanaki stared at them instead of the shimmer of his wings. The light cast through them left violet afterimages burned into her sight. "Lillia or I would sing the guards to sleep, and he would steal the keys to release the other laguz. This was very dangerous, as slave caravans are heavily guarded, so we only managed a few times-- and Naesala protected us well enough it seemed leaving the forest was safe to try alone. That is how I was captured."
He let Sanaki pull her hands away, but when she looked up at him, she wanted to stroke his hair back and curl the waves around her fingers. She clenched her teeth and kept still. "He didn't-- Kilvas, he wasn't--"
"No. It wasn't his fault. But I was told later that Lillia left with him soon after, perhaps to look for me, and didn't return for a long time. When he brought her back she was ill, and died soon after. Naesala confessed the existence of the pact to my father then, but he did not reveal the cause of Lillia's illness, so I cannot tell you how he betrayed us, or why - only that he tried to right his mistake by bringing her back."
Sanaki saw her expression mirrored in his green eyes: a deep, shadowed line between her eyebrows, a frown, the tension in her jaw from clenching her teeth. "You expect me to trust him after that story? I don't see how you can place your well-being in his hands." His face was smooth, but he closed his eyes and tilted his head, and she pressed on. "You're telling me he sold your sister, who trusted him--"
"We don't know." Rafiel's wings snapped back, and his voice raised slightly. "But that betrayal weighs heavily on him, your majesty. It blackened his name within the bird tribes, Gallia hunts him when they can, and because of this my father will not allow him to marry Leanne, though I think his love for her is sincere. If the pact were to be broken, however, perhaps penance would be possible - and I am here to help him. Some measure of trust is necessary."
No, no. Sanaki shook her head. "Prince Rafiel, you may be willing--"
"If he senses your mistrust now, what will stop him from reasoning you'll keep the pact once Lekain is gone, rather than releasing him as you promised?" She opened her mouth to protest; she would never do that, what did he take her for--? Rafiel spoke over her attempt. "He is only trustworthy when bound by a curse, according to you."
She snapped her mouth closed.
"Perhaps I should rephrase my request." Rafiel held her hand between his palms, soft now, gentle, warm, and he leaned over her, bowed his head. "He will almost certainly betray us during whatever course these events take, but I ask that you trust his intentions - his will to be free, and the love he bears for his country. Surely you can understand that sentiment, Empress. Your goals and the risks you take aren't very different from Naesala's."
You'll catch more flies with honey. Sanaki held still, tried not to breathe, waited for the heat to fade from her cheeks before she lifted her eyebrow. The corners of his mouth twitched up, and she said, "You claim Kilvas is lying when he accuses you of 'getting around,' but what would you call this?"
Rafiel laughed, a flash of white teeth. "I'm not suggesting anything inappropriate, your majesty. I'm a married man." He released her hand and moved away from her while folding his wings again, long feathers crossing behind his ankles. "Sephiran would pluck my wings to stuff his mattress if I thought about overstepping my bounds." The prince tilted his face away, raising his eyebrows and smiling. "But he can't blame me. Few have a will like yours, even among the laguz."
If you flex your muscles enough, she remembered Kilvas saying one evening, you'll have the entire heron clan after your tail. She'd laughed, wary of asking him for elaboration - it was no stretch of the intellect to imagine what he would say if she asked which muscles he flexed to get the attention of the heron princess - and then he told her, but if strength were everything, you and I would have split Tellius between us already and put the rest of the peons in their place. Then she told him Tellius would be hers, that he might have an island or two, and the conversation moved elsewhere, but it came back to her now and then, made her wonder all over again what Altina was like and whether she, Sanaki, so far removed, possessed any of the strength her ancestor was said to have. Altina never heard the voice of the sleeping goddess, yet she lived on in legend, while three dozen of her daughters fell into obscurity.
Perhaps that was the standard Sanaki should strive for. She couldn't wield a sword, she couldn't hear the goddess, but she could still be strong. She could make the sacrifices demanded of her, place herself between danger - in the form of corrupt senators, or Kilvas, or Ashnard - and the subjects she was born to protect. She could.
She could, but sometimes Sanaki didn't want to. "I'll consider your request, Prince Rafiel. I won't promise."
"Thank you." His shoulders slumped a little. "It's hard to argue with you, empress. You're terribly stubborn."
Sanaki crossed her arms and looked away. "If you leave now, I might forget you said that."
She saw him smile from the corner of her eye, saw him bow and right his wings, and watched the pale light flash on his waves of gold hair, the golden braiding and ornaments on his robe, and the earrings dangling from his lobes. A ring decorated his finger, an elaborate puzzle of a twist. She'd heard of rings made in Serenes that could fall apart into a chain and became a game until the owner could put it back together in the right order. Was his like that? Was the filigree Sephiran wore on his right hand a puzzle? How fitting, if that were so.
After Rafiel left, Sanaki read a petition from House Damiell on behalf of Duke Gaddos, and took the rest of the reports and letters Tanith brought back to her rooms. There was nothing else to do; she'd assigned an investigative team to Persis, placed as many of his people on the staff as she could without full knowledge of which barrister or bureaucrat was a loyal servant, instead of merely paid help. Names she knew and remembered from childhood went on the list, people she thought trustworthy, and Amelia, as her adviser, had approved of most of them.
The senate was under the impression her prime minister was the driving force behind the trial, and it seemed the Houses believed similar lies. Perhaps it was time to show them their mistake. It didn't matter who she assigned to interrogate Lekain as long as it was done. And it would be done - she wouldn't allow Prince Daein to delay the inevitable.
Sanaki took the remaining letters with her to the bath and scented the water with oils of lavender and rose before she shed her clothing and slipped into the turquoise pool. She managed to drop three of them into the water without trying. She pushed them out with her feet, let the ink run onto the tiles, smeared into unreadable black and blue blots. Wasn't that a shame - she hadn't gotten to read them. But they all asked the same questions - was it true he touched the medallion and lived? what did she intend to do about his deception? who stood in line for the duchy when he had no human relatives? - and offered the same condolences. How terrible your majesty must feel to be so betrayed. What a horrid revelation, to discover one conducted an affair with a sub-human. She imagined dramatic shivers accompanying the bold handwriting.
Years ago, someone told her honesty was a burden. It might have been Sephiran, or Amelia, or even Sigrun - she'd never caught her senior knight in a lie, and probably never would. Sigrun did not tell falsehoods, even when she was punished for it. And more often than not, this person said to Sanaki, one endured hardship for clinging to this principle, never praise.
There were choices laid out before her: allow the truth to come out, try to hide it and fabricate a lie the majority was willing to believe, or simply ignore the problem and use her power to silence her enemies. It would be difficult, but not impossible. If she couldn't trust Kilvas to be loyal, she thought he would enjoy sowing chaos in the capitol by selling secrets to her, and if anybody knew how to hire a good assassin - or several - it would be the raven king. He'd mentioned them by their epithets before - the fireman, the poet, the chirgeon. He used to scare her with stories of their work at night, after Sephiran put her to bed.
She had no doubt they were familiar with the political climate of Begnion. Could she call on them? She had money. She had power, she had cause.
Her mother was killed by an assassin. She remembered red stains and the taste of iron, and Kilvas scared her so thoroughly with his tales because, Sanaki thought, she had some memory locked away that only came out when she dreamed. As a child she woke screaming and covered in sweat, trying to scramble out of bed and away from things that weren't there. She couldn't sleep without someone beside her until she was seven.
Someone knocked; she recognized the sound of gauntlets on the wooden doorframe and came out of her contemplation with a deep, sharp breath. "Tanith?"
"Marcia," came the voice behind the screen, and then her bright hair appeared around the side. "Will you be staying in?" Sanaki nodded, and Marcia came around to lean on the screen, looking at the ink-smeared papers and lifting her eyebrows. "Will you accept guests, or should we turn everyone away?"
Sanaki tossed the rest of the letters over the edge and listened to them scatter on the brown tiles. "No visitors. I'll be seeing Sephiran after I've eaten."
"Uh--" Marcia bit her lip. "Are you sure that's--"
"If you are unable to handle--"
"No! No, your majesty, I don't--" Marcia's face flushed and she looked over her shoulder, around the screen. "I don't care if he has wings, or whatever it is, it's just-- the commander said it'll look bad."
"Probably." Sanaki sank into the water until the surface lapped at her shoulders and looked up at the round windows lined up near the ceiling. "That's why I'll be using a warp staff. Just make sure you and Tanith are the only ones who come in until I get back."
"Alright, but..."
She looked over, lifted her eyebrow, and Marcia shook her head and excused herself. Sanaki leaned back against the rounded edge of the pool and sighed. Going to see him wouldn't help. It might make her feel better for a while, and perhaps give her another chance to yell at him for dropping this mess in her lap, but Sephiran didn't know what to do about the situation either, or he would have made a suggestion.
Idiot. When this was all over, he would have a lot to make up for.
.........................................................................
OMG RAFIEL WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING WITH SANAKI?
... so, I'm revising and stretching my outline a little bit, because pushing everything into one chapter would be bad. Sigh. The big, dramatic push out of Sienne may be in chapter seventeen instead. Or sixteen. Please?
It's horrible, but I'm so tempted to write Sanaki some comfort almost!porn with Rafiel somewhere down the line. I won't, but-- but--but he would totally do it, because she's hot and royalty, and HE'S A SKANK. Rafiel and Naesala are totally sleeping together in that guest room, and Sephiran just tries not to hear it at night.
I didn't actually mean it that way, but. Um. I kind of got carried away.
There was supposed to be an argument with Soren, but I guess he decided to do that next chapter.
Author: Amber Michelle
Day/Theme: February 25 - Tinder ablaze
Series: Fire Emblem 10
Character/Pairing: Sanaki, Sephiran, Tanith, Rafiel, others
Rating: T
Words: 8286
Warnings: exposition? I tried not to, I really did...
Notes: AU, part fourteen of the Summer Chronicle. This is a first and ongoing draft; a list of known issues is being compiled here.
There are changes I'm going to make to the first four chapters - eventually - that are referred to in this chapter as having already happened: the arrangement with Soren, for example. I'm sorry if it causes confusion, but since the beginning will eventually be changed anyway, there's no reason to leave myself with major editing decisions to make for this chapter when I already know what I want to do.
.............................................
Sanaki called for an end to the session as soon as she thought her voice would remain steady - to speak with the prince further, to interrogate Sephiran. She wasn't quite sure what she'd said after they entered the haven of the back chamber, only that when they left the hall of audience she had no choice but to instruct him to retrieve the medallion and carry it. They couldn't chance having someone else touch it, only to see them go mad and wreak havoc on her officials. She didn't want to lose Tanith or Marcia, or Amelia in the high gallery with other peers not in the senate, or even Kilvas and his traitorous hide. Not that way. She remembered penning a quick letter to demand Daein halt, applying her seal, and sending a knight away with orders to press Nasir into service again.
The walk back to her office was uncommonly quiet. Rainclouds clotted in the sky. The garden was still, the birds silent. The air was humid and hard to breathe, so hot it seemed the sun should be shining directly onto their heads. She'd felt cold in the audience chamber, as if plunged into ice water, and wished for nothing but to get out and bask in the sunlight; the medallion's blue fire had made ice out of her silks, snow from her velvet, and now it was melting away with every step.
While Marcia and a few others checked the rooms and opened the windows to air her office out, Sanaki sent Tanith to fetch Rafiel and considered summoning the prince as well, though she wasn't positive she could face him with a semblance of civility just yet, and Sephiran-- he'd recovered his poise during the walk, and waited with his face turned to the stained glass window at the end of the hallway. His face was starkly pale in its frame of dark hair, lips and cheeks tinted blue and red. He followed her inside as soon as Marcia declared the office clear and closed the door.
Sanaki went to her desk and sat on the edge, facing him, thinking she should have made him talk - she should have extracted every fragment of his history he recalled. Instead, she let him wait. Why not? They were his secrets, it was his life. She didn't have the right to demand he reveal everything, to dig her nails in and pry out every minute detail. He said he'd met Ashnard; fine. He told her Daein agents were involved in the Serenes Incident; fine.
She curled her fingers around the edge of the tabletop, knocked her heel against the hardwood facing. It made a hollow thump, and something in the drawers rattled. "Is it real?"
Sephiran looked down at the blue disk in his hand. His fingers curved around the edges like talons, and it was indeed a perfect fit for the palm of his hand, as she'd speculated when the prince brought it out. "Yes."
"How?"
"I don't know."
"You must have an idea." Sanaki looked away from him. The windows were open, but there was no breeze to drift in and lift the curtains from the floor. Was Kilvas out there, or one of his agents? Did Marcia send one of her guard out to watch the window? "What haven't you told me?"
He sighed, and she heard the bronze clink against the gold decorations of rank on his chest. "Perhaps you should begin with more specific questions."
Sanaki rolled her eyes up. Her fingers ached from gripping the desk so tightly. "Why are they after you?"
"For different reasons, I imagine. The prince has no love of his father's causes." Sephiran went silent, and when she looked at him again his face was turned away and lit by the window, gray in the colorless light. Rain pattered on the stone sill outside. "I--" He turned back to her. "I told you everything I thought mattered. I didn't expect this to happen. I had an arrangement with the prince, but I put an end to it when Kilvas brought Rafiel--"
"An arrangement?"
He flinched away from the inquiry. His fingers tightened around the medallion, knuckles bleeding white.
She and Amelia had discussed this habit of his at length, true; he wants to keep you untainted, the woman said, out of the struggle for dominance. It was only right Sanaki be above the conflict when her duty was to remain impassive and dispense justice, make decrees, all free from bias. Apostles were always voices of reason and mercy, and whether their subordinates listened or not was largely a matter of individual loyalties and, sometimes, the dispensation of favors or gold. Such was government in Begnion. It didn't govern, but made decisions that happened to affect matters such as taxes and laguz freedom.
Consider, her old instructor had told her one day, how little power you have in the provinces. Most of your citizens will never lay eyes on you. They might slaughter innocents and hunt laguz in her name, but her decree was worth pennies, and easily outbid.
You do not have your grandmother's popularity. You are no longer the adorable child empress of Begnion. You are an obstacle.
"I meant to leave years ago. You can easily match the senate with the alliances you've already established with the Leandros and Delos families, and I was trying to arrange more - support from Persis, and some of Hetzel's supporters. But their accusations as to your birthright were my fault, so I stayed."
Sanaki pried her fingers loose and leaned back, crossing her ankles. "You told me--"
"The time has come for me to leave."
That sent a tingle down her spine, a chill to the pit of her stomach. Her arms trembled under her own weight. "No."
"Do I look like a man of fifty years? Sixty?" Sephiran breathed a mirthless laugh, or a sigh, his lips stretched in something that looked like a smile, but his brows were knitted and he wouldn't look at her. "If the senate looks, really looks, while I am unable to instruct my agents to respond correctly, they will find the peerage of Salinos ceased to exist when its last scion died sixty five years ago, and conveniently, no one survives who can say for sure I am a member of their extended family. They'll find gold in Persis has been directed into a charity enterprise to buy and distribute rice and staples to the poor--"
She wanted to walk over there and press her hand to his mouth. The windows were open. What if someone happened to hear? What if his voice drifted down to the garden or through another open window close by, despite the presence of his wards? The senior senators had their offices located in this part of the building. They were in prison, but what of their agents?
"--and if they follow the trail farther, they will discover half of those supplies are redirected to serve organizations scattered across the province which house something very like a militia. They'll see I've done the unthinkable, and cultivated a force consisting mostly of former slaves, who until now will have existed beneath the notice of everyone in the capitol who matters."
Sanaki pressed her fingertips to her temples, rubbed them in a circle, and wished-- there were so many things she wished he hadn't said or done. He continued - the force was meant to protect her when she lived with him in the province, which made sense, and he probably secured special authorization to do so, as the senior senators were smart enough to make it look as if they were concerned for her safety, at the least. She supposed they were obliged to keep her alive until she provided them with an heir who could hear the goddess and rendered herself useless. And Sephiran, always sympathetic to the most inconvenient causes, must have arranged to keep these laguz to staff the public works projects he mentioned before. His laguz had medical care, homes, owned property. Nobody cared what he did with his province as long as he paid his yearly dues. No one checked. It had never occurred to her such would be necessary.
This transgression was not punishable by death, but he would most certainly lose his place on the council and be forced to give Persis over to someone else. She wanted to ask how he could take such a risk when so many people depended on him - the laguz in his care, and especially her, his empress, the person he promised his loyalty to. What power would he use to help Lady Gaddos if he lost his peerage?
No. Sanaki didn't care about her. But she did care about Ashnard and his blood pact, and the roundabout way Sephiran said he aided the man in breaking it. She cared the Mad King knew who and what he was, because his wife was a weakling - Soren's stories about her lonely dances and passive entertainments came back to her - and when it came to the medallion--
"I don't know."
Sanaki sighed sharply. "You said he stole it."
"Who else could it be?"
"Please tell me that isn't the sum of your reasoning."
It wasn't, but his explanation was inconclusive. That was the problem, he said - the evidence was circumstantial, mere hearsay, regarding Ashnard and himself. Sephiran never left the front line while protecting Serenes, preferring to spend his effort calming the locals. Daein sent troops led by Ashnard, at the time still a minor prince, as part of an agreement between the senate and his father. They were stationed in Northern Serenes, away from the area the herons normally occupied. All witnesses claimed Ashnard remained in command for the duration of his stay after his official presentation to Sephiran.
And the forest, said to repel human intruders with powerful enchantments woven by the goddess herself, was supposed to have allowed one of them through the barriers to the altar, where the medallion rested under the care of a member of the royal family at all times to be calmed by songs.
"Your identity is the basis of his accusation," Sanaki said, waited for his thin-lipped nod, and then: "I've never heard of such a claim, however."
"No one will believe him--" The medallion was still in Sephiran's hand, and the edges gleamed silver one moment, sapphire the next. Its fire remained quiet, but when he turned toward the window it seemed to radiate heat and make the air before him waver, and his skin luminous. Perhaps the essence of chaos was interfering with his illusion. "--that is, at the time, nobody would have listened to such a claim."
She turned her gaze to her knees and smoothed her skirt over with her fingers. Rain drummed onto the sill outside, struck the windows, slapped onto the leaves of the maples directly outside. A steady drip sounded from the overhang, and from the window frame to the polished wood inside. The moisture only made the heat worse. She'd long since shed her formal coat, but left her hair up so it wouldn't stick to her neck. Sanaki rubbed her forehead. "And this-- this revelation was part of the prince's supposed plan to help you leave Begnion?"
"I don't know what he planned," Sephiran said. "And I don't see how this works to his advantage, which means there's a game piece I've missed somewhere."
Sanaki didn't ask what he thought it might be. She didn't ask why he helped Ashnard - though she wondered, and could see no reason for such a stupid idea - nor how he arranged such a convoluted plan to begin with. She could guess who enabled such a ridiculous enterprise. He had black feathers, a foul mouth, and a healthy disrespect for her imperial person, and she wondered if he would continue to make a nuisance of himself if she sliced his feathers off with a wind spell, or burned them to a crisp.
All of the raven king's hints about her minister's background - were those hints as to Sephiran's intention to leave instead? Idiot. Idiot. Did he really think she would let him go? Did he think it mattered to her that he wasn't beorc? "Is this why you refused to marry me?"
She heard his hair slither back over his shoulder when his head turned. "No," he said. She kept her gaze on her hands. The blurry impression of Sephiran's hand pushed the medallion away finally, into a pocket inside his coat. "No, you... surprised me. I thought your tastes would lie elsewhere by now."
Her nails were worn to the quick. There was nothing to fit between her teeth. "No need to insult my choice. I still can't fathom a better one."
"Sanaki--"
"Considering the nature of your transgressions, I don't think your popularity will be impacted much."
"Trying to marry you off to a Branded prince was bad enough." Sephiran's voice wavered. "If I were to pursue you now-- no one will stand for your defilement by a laguz--"
"There's nothing sinful about it!"
"You're the only one who feels that way."
She shook her head hard enough her hair pulled and stung. His hands stilled the motion and she pushed them away, wiped at the moisture beading on her lashes, and told him what a fool he was. He should have consulted her. Why must he always keep things from her? Was she that sensitive? No-- no, he was afraid she would call him an idiot, rightfully, for trying to leave her when she needed him, and trick her into thinking it would be for the best. It wouldn't. Nothing would be right if he left. She'd been ignorant of his actions until today, yet he was right beside her; how many secrets waited for her outside of his circle of influence, hidden beneath layers of deception left by the senior senators? How would she bring them to the surface without his help?
Sephiran pulled her from the desk and held her tightly. I'm sorry he said, a hoarse whisper, above her ear, into her hair, and Sanaki let her forehead rest on his shoulder, though her arms remained at her sides. He had better apologize. This was his fault. And since he was the door through which Prince Soren entered to dig his claws into Begnion, it would be Sephiran's efforts that would repel him. If he left Begnion, it would be on her order - never on the word of a mad king or his traitor of a son. Never.
*
The next morning Sephiran was publicly released from his official duties and suspended from office; Sanaki watched his aide remove his decorations of rank and confiscate the staff, while her minister knelt on the crimson carpet at the bottom of the stairs to the dais. His removal meant Lekain's trial must be postponed for an undetermined number of days while the lower senate discussed a replacement, though the exercise was pointless when the man's guilt was already proven. She could have handled the questioning herself, but her remaining advisers, those ranked next after the senior council's authority, would not hear of it. To see the empress fumbling with papers and stumbling over the accusations-- Sanaki nearly ordered the woman fired for implying she was that unfamiliar with the senator's crimes, but Amelia, called in to replace Sephiran until someone trustworthy could be assigned, jumped in before Sanaki could voice her intentions.
"The interrogation is a formality, ladies and gentlemen." Sephiran would have stood at her side, but Amelia sat in the chair immediately to Sanaki's left, hair rolled and pinned high on her head with two long combs. Amber and gold decorated the curved handles, warm spots of light tucked into dark wings. "We don't need a qualified candidate to read the summation of Lekain's crimes - any senator can do it, provided he or she is capable of speaking clearly and resisting his attempts at intimidation."
"You won't find those qualifications within the senate." The woman who spoke was from Tanas, blond, with green eyes, plain. Sanaki tried to remember her name. She was a shadow against the meeting room window, sculpted with dark gray highlights. "You must mean to nominate yourself."
"I thought you would make an excellent choice," Amelia said. "Thank you for speaking up."
"You overstep your--"
Sanaki slapped her palm on the table, made the woman jump. Six pairs of eyes turned to her, and in her peripheral vision she saw that Amelia continued to watch them. The room was small, hot, the windows locked down. Sun shined outside for the first time in two days, and the cherry trees frothed with pale pink blooms in clumps of spun sugar, the petals fluttering and drifting to the ground with every breeze and plastered to the walks by rain. She saw hints of pink between the gauzy curtains.
She should have been outside today, enjoying the sun and her minister's company. Last year she would have looked forward to a night reading one of her favorite plays while rosy petals rained onto the pages, lit by brass lanterns. They would have had a sweet plum tea over icy slush and buttery pastries shaped like shells.
"Leveque," Sanaki said when the silence had stretched to her liking, and a dark man at the end of the table bowed over the surface with a murmured your majesty. He was Hetzel's aide, his accent heavier than Amelia's, and if trying to understand him aggravated Lekain or anyone else present for his trial, she thought that might make up for this inconvenience - at the very least, it would amuse her. "You will take Sephiran's place. Speak to Tanith for copies of the investigation transcripts."
"But your majesty--"
It was always but your majesty with these people, even when she made perfectly reasonable decrees-- even when she shrugged her indifference and let them make their own decisions. They were all traitors. It was only a matter of degrees. Even Amelia, she suspected, had dealings Sanaki didn't want to know about.
The conversation moved on when she refused to respond, and she stared at the polished red sheen of the tabletop when the topic of Duke Persis came up. They needed to put together an investigation team that did not include any of his agents, but when the time came to suggest officials qualified for the job, their suggestions to replace Sephiran's people reflected their territorial bias; Lekain's substitute named Gaddos men and a few from Culbert, and Leveque's experience encompassed Asmin and almost nothing else, though he knew several individuals in the clerical branches of the cathedral. Perhaps it wasn't their fault. Though men and women appointed to the senate were required to serve in a province not their own for at least a few months, they were only effective as senators if they knew their own territory back to front.
Sanaki knew a few names from conversations with Kilvas, Sephiran, and others; she made sure they were included, demanded certain officials in Persis be involved - searching provincial records, otherwise, would take months. They couldn't argue with her logic, but they protested every suggestion. This one was too close to the duke, that one was too friendly with him at the spring pageant, and she couldn't dare send his aide-- they're thick as thieves, that would be playing right into his hands.
Culbert's stand-in, earl of Pellatiere, finally gave voice to what she knew was coming. "Sending a half-breed sympathizer would be detrimental to our cause."
The conversation between Gaddos and Asmin quieted. Sanaki lifted her eyes from the tabletop, but he was very careful not to look in her direction. His pointed nose was aimed at Sephiran's aide, Shirin, a woman so thin she appeared half as tall as she actually was, so pale she was likened to a ghost on many occasions, or a wisp of fog. Her colorless hair was pinned in a chignon, her eyes so dark - the only color on her person, a vivid blue - they looked unreal, like glass, like doll's eyes.
Amelia sighed. "Prejudice serves us no better. Until the laguz are directly involved--"
"Correct me if I'm wrong," the Tanas stand-in spoke up, "but I was under the impression Lord Sephiran represented the sub-human threat, unless you have an explanation for the miracle in the audience chamber."
"There is no 'sub-human threat,'" Shirin said. Her colorless lips were turned down, her frown as sharp as her chin. "Nor do I believe we've decided on our collective 'cause,' Pellatiere, unless you mean to refer to justice-- in which case, I see no reason for race to be a deciding factor in our proceedings."
The earl snorted, had the nerve to chuckle, though it sounded hollow. "He has clearly broken the law. He concealed his identity, entered government service--"
"There is no law forbidding laguz from taking part in government," Amelia murmured.
"There most certainly was when he took office," Pellatiere said. His fingers tapped the surface of the table, his nails clicking. "He engineered the Emancipation Act, deceived the Apostle--"
"The Apostle," Shirin said, "cannot be deceived. Do you forget so quickly?"
Pellatiere's eyes slid toward Sanaki, though he tried to hide it by turning his face down to a report and lowering his lashes. "Apparently that is not the case." He jerked his gaze away when she narrowed her eyes. "Misaha was before my time and yours, Shirin-- unless you are also older than you look. How is it you are an authority on the matter?"
Two hours passed that way until Sanaki finally sent them away with promises to consider their proposals that she didn't intend to keep. If she could have thrown something after them on their way out - perhaps a teapot, or the lamp - she would have. Nothing was in reach. How could they dare accuse her of bias? Sanaki had never allowed Sephiran's opinions to sway her decisions unreasonably before; taking him to her bed changed nothing.
You should avoid confirming that rumor at all costs, your majesty, Amelia said, and Tanith told her the same thing. In fact, it would be best to present as much proof to the contrary as possible.
After openly inviting him to remain in her room at all hours? If her claims of innocence meant nothing before - when they were true - she saw no reason for them to carry any weight now.
She declared Sephiran confined to his quarters and resisted the impulse to visit, though she had reason: the heron prince. He was unwell when she tried to summon him last, and she wondered if the weight of this turn for the worse weighed as heavily on him as it did her. She'd spent most of the last night curled on her side with the lamp turned low, staring at the curtains and trying to pierce the depth of the shadows between their folds. She'd smoothed powder over her skin to hide the shadows her sleepless night left under her eyes, but her posture must have been wrong during the meeting - she must have walked too slowly, bent too far into her chair, something to alert the senators she spoke with to her fatigue.
It was her order to have Rafiel moved to different quarters that prompted him to brave the cathedral corridors and seek her audience while she read letters demanding clarification of Daein's motives, and investigations into the alleged 'indiscretions' Duke Persis stood accused of. She made herself read through four condemnations of his laguz lineage - more guilt unproven, though she could not deny it - and Tanith delivered more, another sheaf of fifty. The clock hadn't yet reached two o'clock.
"Prince Rafiel is here to see you," her knight said, offering the folder with both hands, head bowed. "He says it's important."
Sanaki took the letters and wished she could burn them. The day felt warm enough, though clouds still blanketed the sky and blocked the sun, trapped its heat between earth and sky until she drew in air hot as the breath of an oven. "Send him in." The poor prince - Serenes must be cooler, even during the summer. The breeze between the cathedral and the palace that morning smelled of wet earth and grass, but lacked any hint of rain. There would be no relief.
Tanith turned and strode away from her desk, but she stopped halfway across the rug, poised on the ball of one foot. Her shoulders were held stiffly back. Sanaki paid her no mind, shoved the letters she'd read to the side of her desk, and only looked up again when it became clear the knight did not intend to move. She rested the folder on her desk and leaned back. The chair creaked, and the smooth soles of her sandals scraped against the legs.
Tanith's hand clenched at the sound, her head turning a hair. "Is-- is it true?"
Sanaki tapped her fingers on the folder, muffled thumps. "Is what true?"
Her knight turned, feet relaxing from their aborted journey slowly, and lowered her eyes. "Lord Sephiran. Is he-- is Daein's accusation--"
Sanaki let her falter, her fingers going still, and pulled her hand back to her lap. Opinions on laguz were as diverse as the fabled snowflake, even among the imperial guard. Persis and Asmin, where Amelia hailed from, were tolerant of the other races. Seliora was home to the smuggling rings unearthed during the trial, and yet its citizens maintained favorable relations with Serenes Forest. Sigrun came from Tanas, and though Sanaki didn't think Oliver was of pro-laguz sentiment, he did not allow the herons, at least, to be disparaged. He had an unhealthy fascination with anything feathered.
She didn't know where Tanith was from. Her guards gave up provincial loyalties upon entering her service, and even Sanaki did not ask for the information unless their conduct was called into question. She knew Sigrun's history only because Kilvas mentioned it long ago, when Rafiel first arrived.
So long ago. Or was it? Had only weeks passed, after all? Three, four, perhaps six?
"Your majesty." She watched Tanith stretch her hands out and place them at her sides. "I bear no ill will toward laguz, and I do not believe they're inferior to us. However, if what the Prince said is true, you--" She paused a moment to swallow. "You've been-- it's blasphemy--"
"No. It isn't."
"But the scriptures--"
"Say nothing." Sanaki leaned over, tilted her head, caught Tanith's gaze and held it. "I looked when I first learned of his heritage. Ashera said nothing--"
"You knew?"
"Of course I knew!" Her expression melted into a narrow-eyed glare before she thought better of it, and Tanith jerked back a step at the volume of her voice, looked away. Sanaki clenched a handful of her skirt and took a deep breath. She hadn't meant to yell. "If this knowledge is too trying to your--"
"No, your majesty, I didn't mean--"
"Then move that stool over here." Sanaki pointed to the brocade cushion between the chairs by the window, and her knight's hands trembled before they pressed to the sides of her legs. The leather creaked. She waited for Tanith to look, turn back, and said, "Rafiel must be tired. He shouldn't wait any longer."
Her knight remained standing a moment longer, heels digging into a wide, scrolling vine on the carpet as if she'd rocked back, and then she went to pick the stool up to place it where she stood a moment ago, as ordered. "My lady..."
She wondered how the rest of the pegasus knights felt. Sigrun said she didn't care. She didn't even appear surprised, though Sanaki thought she must have been - at least at first, perhaps down deep in the place she hid all of her emotions when duty required her to appear composed. She was so good at that. But Tanith, if Tanith expressed such doubts, what of the others, whose loyalties were not as sure, no matter the oaths they took upon joining the guard?
All her life Sanaki had tried to fight the pressure of her court's racial ideals - first at Sephiran's prompting, and later by her own will. She'd yet to meet a laguz to embody the urban tales. Were Parsian laguz so different from citizens in other provinces?
"Are you well, Tanith?" There was a pause before she nodded, two seconds in which her gaze was cast aside to the floor and her shoulders hunched. Sanaki relaxed against the back of her chair. "Do you need to take time to accustom yourself to this information?" She waited for the knight to respond, and took a deep, slow breath when the woman shook her head, afraid her voice would shake. "Good. Let the heron prince in and get back to your shift."
She watched Tanith's back as the knight walked away and disappeared behind the door. A glimpse of white and the shine of golden hair teased her before it closed.
The pause was brief. Her door opened less than a minute later to admit Prince Rafiel, alone, his wings pulled to his back but drooping, relaxed at the ends, as if too heavy to remain folded. Sanaki rose to meet him, took his hand. His fingers were cold. "I'm sorry this trial has affected you so negatively. No one told me."
Despite the colorless quality to his lips and the gray beneath his eyes, Rafiel's soft beauty still made her want to touch his face when he smiled. His hair still glinted in the light, almost metallic, gathered between his wings in thick gold curls still lively, the ends drifting when she led him to the stool. He protested when she tried to help him sit. She frowned, and he huffed a sigh very like Sephiran's when he was exasperated. "Don't blame yourself. This is my first journey away from the forest in quite a few years. I should have known better."
Sanaki backed against her desk, leaned on the edge. "Kilvas said you would say that."
Rafiel's wings flapped. The wind tickled the back of her neck. "Naesala talks too much."
She covered her mouth to muffle a laugh. Who would debate the truth to that claim? "You must be here to refuse my invitation to return home."
The prince folded his wings again, his hands curled together in his lap. His eyes were the same green, like the shallows of the sea, and she couldn't continue to look at them. "Leaving now would only cause more damage," he said. "I won't give in to cowardice anymore."
"This isn't like the last time." Sanaki spoke to the window and its frozen covering. "The senate is divided; I'm sure the nobility has its own factions. Because you are laguz, the danger to your safety is much greater. Please reconsider."
She heard his hair move, his earrings jingle. "What of your safety? The same story you used to take advantage of their support will now turn against you. The last Apostle was killed for similar reasons, or so I am led to believe."
"Hm." Sanaki sighed through her nose, folded her arms over her stomach, and risked a glance back. His gaze had not wavered. "Kilvas does talk too much," she said.
Rafiel smiled, faint. "We have true dreams, your majesty - sometimes. Mine tell me to stay by your side, and I will not chance ignoring them and allowing something terrible to happen. Lehran would never forgive me." Her head snapped front, and he said, "I was told you knew."
Of course she knew. Sanaki hadn't yet used his real name, though she considered it. Forming such a habit would allow for mistakes, and she made enough of those without tempting fate. "You herons." He chuckled, and that too reminded her of Sephiran. She had to look away again, and curled her hands into fists, propped on the top of her desk. "So instead of leaving them with one target, we present them with two. Three, if Sephiran counts while he's locked in his room. I suppose we'll delay our enemies an hour or two so they can decide who to hit first."
"I would feel such ill intent in an instant. It's one of the few ways we have to defend ourselves."
That ability hadn't saved her grandmother. Sanaki watched a shadow fly over her curtains, just for an instant; a dove, or a sparrow, or one of the seagulls Sephiran hated so much. "Can Kilvas be trusted?"
"With my safety, yes."
She wondered if Kilvas would risk breaking the pact for Rafiel - one heron for a hundred ravens, or a thousand. How many lived on that island? How many herons lived in Serenes Forest? No one really knew. Outsiders weren't allowed to do census research within the forest bounds, if they were allowed inside at all. Was there some dynamic between Kilvas and Prince Rafiel, or with King Lorazieh, which allowed the prince such confidence? Was it his talent to read hearts? Was it friendship, blind faith?
Sanaki wouldn't risk the whole of Begnion for one person, no matter her feelings for the individual. Not even-- She swallowed, felt her throat click, dry. The water was all the way at the other side of the room. "Even if you say so," she said, clearing her throat, "I will command him to--"
"No. Don't do that."
She turned back to him, frowned when she saw his brows draw together. "It's the only way he can be tr--"
"No." Rafiel sprang up and grabbed her hands, wings flaring back to balance. "That pact is beneath you. He would betray those senators in an instant if he could, but he still respects you. If you compel him--"
"He would betray his own mother given a wide enough profit margin--"
"No!" Rafiel yanked her hands. She leaned back, the desk edge biting into her thighs, and his thin fingers tightened until their hands trembled. "No. Naesala will do the right thing in the end if you give him the time to figure out how. Don't let their dishonest dealings with him taint your judgment."
'In the end,' he said - and meanwhile, what would the raven king be doing? Aiding and abetting treason, using his agents to facilitate assassination attempts. He said he would help her in return for the pact, but if that piece of paper slipped through her fingers-- then what? "I don't know what to tell you, Rafiel." His hands felt so thin, like she could break them in two, the skin so soft she was reminded of pressing her fingers into a nectarine and feeling it bruise. "You ask the impossible."
He raised their hands, prying his fingers loose to hold hers clasped beneath his chin, against his chest. His wings moved, curled, the long feathers brushing her skirt. "If you promise not to reveal this to Naesala, I will tell you a secret." Heat rose in her cheeks, her ears, and she locked her knees to avoid fidgeting. She could feel his breath on her hands when he talked. It took her a moment to nod. "My father had four children," he said, "of which I am the oldest. Reyson is next, and Leanne is the baby. Lillia, my other sister, was born the same day I was."
The blush spread to her ears and Sanaki pulled her eyes away since she couldn't move, caught against the desk and the small distance between herself and the heron prince, walled in by the curve of his wings. She wondered if spreading them to confine her was conscious, or some instinctual gesture to keep her still. "Twins?"
He nodded. "Before your time, before Naesala became king and inherited the pact, we would leave the forest with him follow caravans traveling with slaves. He was quite unruly when he was young. We thought it best to distract him when he visited." His hands were warm now, and Sanaki stared at them instead of the shimmer of his wings. The light cast through them left violet afterimages burned into her sight. "Lillia or I would sing the guards to sleep, and he would steal the keys to release the other laguz. This was very dangerous, as slave caravans are heavily guarded, so we only managed a few times-- and Naesala protected us well enough it seemed leaving the forest was safe to try alone. That is how I was captured."
He let Sanaki pull her hands away, but when she looked up at him, she wanted to stroke his hair back and curl the waves around her fingers. She clenched her teeth and kept still. "He didn't-- Kilvas, he wasn't--"
"No. It wasn't his fault. But I was told later that Lillia left with him soon after, perhaps to look for me, and didn't return for a long time. When he brought her back she was ill, and died soon after. Naesala confessed the existence of the pact to my father then, but he did not reveal the cause of Lillia's illness, so I cannot tell you how he betrayed us, or why - only that he tried to right his mistake by bringing her back."
Sanaki saw her expression mirrored in his green eyes: a deep, shadowed line between her eyebrows, a frown, the tension in her jaw from clenching her teeth. "You expect me to trust him after that story? I don't see how you can place your well-being in his hands." His face was smooth, but he closed his eyes and tilted his head, and she pressed on. "You're telling me he sold your sister, who trusted him--"
"We don't know." Rafiel's wings snapped back, and his voice raised slightly. "But that betrayal weighs heavily on him, your majesty. It blackened his name within the bird tribes, Gallia hunts him when they can, and because of this my father will not allow him to marry Leanne, though I think his love for her is sincere. If the pact were to be broken, however, perhaps penance would be possible - and I am here to help him. Some measure of trust is necessary."
No, no. Sanaki shook her head. "Prince Rafiel, you may be willing--"
"If he senses your mistrust now, what will stop him from reasoning you'll keep the pact once Lekain is gone, rather than releasing him as you promised?" She opened her mouth to protest; she would never do that, what did he take her for--? Rafiel spoke over her attempt. "He is only trustworthy when bound by a curse, according to you."
She snapped her mouth closed.
"Perhaps I should rephrase my request." Rafiel held her hand between his palms, soft now, gentle, warm, and he leaned over her, bowed his head. "He will almost certainly betray us during whatever course these events take, but I ask that you trust his intentions - his will to be free, and the love he bears for his country. Surely you can understand that sentiment, Empress. Your goals and the risks you take aren't very different from Naesala's."
You'll catch more flies with honey. Sanaki held still, tried not to breathe, waited for the heat to fade from her cheeks before she lifted her eyebrow. The corners of his mouth twitched up, and she said, "You claim Kilvas is lying when he accuses you of 'getting around,' but what would you call this?"
Rafiel laughed, a flash of white teeth. "I'm not suggesting anything inappropriate, your majesty. I'm a married man." He released her hand and moved away from her while folding his wings again, long feathers crossing behind his ankles. "Sephiran would pluck my wings to stuff his mattress if I thought about overstepping my bounds." The prince tilted his face away, raising his eyebrows and smiling. "But he can't blame me. Few have a will like yours, even among the laguz."
If you flex your muscles enough, she remembered Kilvas saying one evening, you'll have the entire heron clan after your tail. She'd laughed, wary of asking him for elaboration - it was no stretch of the intellect to imagine what he would say if she asked which muscles he flexed to get the attention of the heron princess - and then he told her, but if strength were everything, you and I would have split Tellius between us already and put the rest of the peons in their place. Then she told him Tellius would be hers, that he might have an island or two, and the conversation moved elsewhere, but it came back to her now and then, made her wonder all over again what Altina was like and whether she, Sanaki, so far removed, possessed any of the strength her ancestor was said to have. Altina never heard the voice of the sleeping goddess, yet she lived on in legend, while three dozen of her daughters fell into obscurity.
Perhaps that was the standard Sanaki should strive for. She couldn't wield a sword, she couldn't hear the goddess, but she could still be strong. She could make the sacrifices demanded of her, place herself between danger - in the form of corrupt senators, or Kilvas, or Ashnard - and the subjects she was born to protect. She could.
She could, but sometimes Sanaki didn't want to. "I'll consider your request, Prince Rafiel. I won't promise."
"Thank you." His shoulders slumped a little. "It's hard to argue with you, empress. You're terribly stubborn."
Sanaki crossed her arms and looked away. "If you leave now, I might forget you said that."
She saw him smile from the corner of her eye, saw him bow and right his wings, and watched the pale light flash on his waves of gold hair, the golden braiding and ornaments on his robe, and the earrings dangling from his lobes. A ring decorated his finger, an elaborate puzzle of a twist. She'd heard of rings made in Serenes that could fall apart into a chain and became a game until the owner could put it back together in the right order. Was his like that? Was the filigree Sephiran wore on his right hand a puzzle? How fitting, if that were so.
After Rafiel left, Sanaki read a petition from House Damiell on behalf of Duke Gaddos, and took the rest of the reports and letters Tanith brought back to her rooms. There was nothing else to do; she'd assigned an investigative team to Persis, placed as many of his people on the staff as she could without full knowledge of which barrister or bureaucrat was a loyal servant, instead of merely paid help. Names she knew and remembered from childhood went on the list, people she thought trustworthy, and Amelia, as her adviser, had approved of most of them.
The senate was under the impression her prime minister was the driving force behind the trial, and it seemed the Houses believed similar lies. Perhaps it was time to show them their mistake. It didn't matter who she assigned to interrogate Lekain as long as it was done. And it would be done - she wouldn't allow Prince Daein to delay the inevitable.
Sanaki took the remaining letters with her to the bath and scented the water with oils of lavender and rose before she shed her clothing and slipped into the turquoise pool. She managed to drop three of them into the water without trying. She pushed them out with her feet, let the ink run onto the tiles, smeared into unreadable black and blue blots. Wasn't that a shame - she hadn't gotten to read them. But they all asked the same questions - was it true he touched the medallion and lived? what did she intend to do about his deception? who stood in line for the duchy when he had no human relatives? - and offered the same condolences. How terrible your majesty must feel to be so betrayed. What a horrid revelation, to discover one conducted an affair with a sub-human. She imagined dramatic shivers accompanying the bold handwriting.
Years ago, someone told her honesty was a burden. It might have been Sephiran, or Amelia, or even Sigrun - she'd never caught her senior knight in a lie, and probably never would. Sigrun did not tell falsehoods, even when she was punished for it. And more often than not, this person said to Sanaki, one endured hardship for clinging to this principle, never praise.
There were choices laid out before her: allow the truth to come out, try to hide it and fabricate a lie the majority was willing to believe, or simply ignore the problem and use her power to silence her enemies. It would be difficult, but not impossible. If she couldn't trust Kilvas to be loyal, she thought he would enjoy sowing chaos in the capitol by selling secrets to her, and if anybody knew how to hire a good assassin - or several - it would be the raven king. He'd mentioned them by their epithets before - the fireman, the poet, the chirgeon. He used to scare her with stories of their work at night, after Sephiran put her to bed.
She had no doubt they were familiar with the political climate of Begnion. Could she call on them? She had money. She had power, she had cause.
Her mother was killed by an assassin. She remembered red stains and the taste of iron, and Kilvas scared her so thoroughly with his tales because, Sanaki thought, she had some memory locked away that only came out when she dreamed. As a child she woke screaming and covered in sweat, trying to scramble out of bed and away from things that weren't there. She couldn't sleep without someone beside her until she was seven.
Someone knocked; she recognized the sound of gauntlets on the wooden doorframe and came out of her contemplation with a deep, sharp breath. "Tanith?"
"Marcia," came the voice behind the screen, and then her bright hair appeared around the side. "Will you be staying in?" Sanaki nodded, and Marcia came around to lean on the screen, looking at the ink-smeared papers and lifting her eyebrows. "Will you accept guests, or should we turn everyone away?"
Sanaki tossed the rest of the letters over the edge and listened to them scatter on the brown tiles. "No visitors. I'll be seeing Sephiran after I've eaten."
"Uh--" Marcia bit her lip. "Are you sure that's--"
"If you are unable to handle--"
"No! No, your majesty, I don't--" Marcia's face flushed and she looked over her shoulder, around the screen. "I don't care if he has wings, or whatever it is, it's just-- the commander said it'll look bad."
"Probably." Sanaki sank into the water until the surface lapped at her shoulders and looked up at the round windows lined up near the ceiling. "That's why I'll be using a warp staff. Just make sure you and Tanith are the only ones who come in until I get back."
"Alright, but..."
She looked over, lifted her eyebrow, and Marcia shook her head and excused herself. Sanaki leaned back against the rounded edge of the pool and sighed. Going to see him wouldn't help. It might make her feel better for a while, and perhaps give her another chance to yell at him for dropping this mess in her lap, but Sephiran didn't know what to do about the situation either, or he would have made a suggestion.
Idiot. When this was all over, he would have a lot to make up for.
.........................................................................
OMG RAFIEL WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING WITH SANAKI?
... so, I'm revising and stretching my outline a little bit, because pushing everything into one chapter would be bad. Sigh. The big, dramatic push out of Sienne may be in chapter seventeen instead. Or sixteen. Please?
It's horrible, but I'm so tempted to write Sanaki some comfort almost!porn with Rafiel somewhere down the line. I won't, but-- but--
I didn't actually mean it that way, but. Um. I kind of got carried away.
There was supposed to be an argument with Soren, but I guess he decided to do that next chapter.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 09:10 pm (UTC)but I put and end to it when
Typos there.
Begnion, it would be Sephiran's efforts that would repel
him.
Does that line break need to be there?
Now, things actually related to the chapter:
I like your description of Naesala's motives, and how he might betray people in the short term, but he has his heart in the right place.
And badass!Sanaki is very awesome, and I look forward to her kind of strength.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 10:03 pm (UTC)Glad you liked~ Rafiel is such a sweet, tolerant friend.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 04:24 pm (UTC)She's going through all kinds of shit and there's naught a shoulder to cry on! Sephiran is like "well fuck this shit" and rafael's retelling is like hurrrrrrgh Naesala is so cool. Poor Naesala and how people tend to view him. He has a good heart, the poor boy. Maybe he should stop wearing so much black.
I have a feeling that Herons make a good shoulder to cry on. One of the best shoulders.
I lol'd at the skanky heron bit, by the way. Though the humorous turn was a bit sharp, I think it worked out well. Kind of like Sanaki is taking any opportunity to make her day less shitty.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 02:49 am (UTC)I didn't mean to insert my skanky heron prejudice, I swear! It just-- it's avoidance! (That actually was what I had in mind. Really.)
Naesala's motivations really need some depth. Even though we get the feeling in the game that he's only concerned with keeping his clan alive, we don't get very much internal dialogue or anything. Anyway, I bet he was a hellion. He'd nag Rafiel and Lillia to go out and do something because Serenes is so BORING, and they'd drag him out of the forest just to shut him up. I bet it happened.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 03:21 pm (UTC)I wish you could write a story on him and about his past
he is my favorite chracter after sephiran