"Where is Laurent?" King Elias asked to Ferdinand, who insisted on having afternoon tea with him. To spend time with him, he had said, and to make sure he took his tea per the doctor's orders.
I might find myself in parts of the palace and not know how I got there, but I still see through you. All of his sons were this way, and Elias had been on guard around his spawn for years, even keeping a knife under the table in case one made his treachery known.
"Loyal, but ruthless mercenary" was probably the kindest thing he could say about any of his children, and kind words about Ferdinand came rarely. He was ambitious, brutal, all the things Elias himself was when he was younger.
No matter how much the fits of delusion came, he could remember treachery. It was second nature, ever since that accident when Elias was a lad. Accident, truly, the Crown Prince insisted on real blades when he was fencing: Practice blades wouldn't be used in real combat so he'd be practicing with the wrong things. And in a fight with his little brother, his partner in crime, the sword just...slipped.
Definitely an accident, but accidents were useful. All Elias had to do was whisper a few doubts into the right ears, and bam. The secondboy of the family accused of murdering the firstboy, leaving little Elias the throne all to himself. Sixty years had passed since then, and he still remembered that feeling. He could feel that presence cloy over Ferdinand.
"He is out for his afternoon horse ride, Father." His face betrayed nothing. "And I'm glad to see you out in the sun. Were it not for the Firedancing Festival, the people might have started thinking you were a ghost."
"Wouldn't it be fun to be a ghost?" Elias clapped his hands together. "I wouldn't have to drink this disgusting tea." He threw the cup off the balcony.
"Father." Ferdinand poured him another cup and placed it beside him.
"You could give me a glass of wine, you know. Or whiskey."
"Father, you're not supposed to have whiskey, and the last time we caught you sneaking some, you ended up stuck in the airing cupboard."
"Where is Laurent?"
"You asked me that already, Father. He's on that horse of this."
"But he's always back before afternoon tea." Laurent adhered to the strict schedule the doctor set. It was always pleasant when Laurent missed the schedule, but he did stick to it religiously, so it was noticeable when he wasn't there.
"Yes...of course. But he's not right now."
"I know that sound, Ferdinand, what has happened." Memories were hard to find on some days, but other days, by the grace of the gods, he could remember. And when Ferdinand talked like that, there was bad news.
"Father...I'm afraid something awful happened to Laurent." Ferdinand looked out over the balcony. Elias followed the man's gaze and saw a tremendous amount of smoke billowing up over the countryside. A forest fire? How could that be? The past few days had been clear, but for the most part, this had been a wet summer.
He could only see smoke, no actual fire, so any blaze must have already been extinguished by now.
"Is that a signal, Ferdinand?" It was a very small flame.
"Of sorts. Laurent died in that blaze."
"A flame that small and that quick would not kill a man unless he was trapped there." Elias knew a scheme when he saw it.
"No, not trapped. Ambushed. And with a little supernatural help, you could start a fire easily."
"Super...natural. You can't mean..." Elias stepped away from Ferdinand.
"Not exactly. I didn't forget what happened when the Witch of Dark Flames attacked the city so many years ago, and I remember how that ended. But this one did the job quite well. But that's only one step of my plan."
"Indeed." Elias reached under the table, where he stored the knife. He might have been old, but Ferdinand wasn't wearing any armor, and age hadn't crippled him so that he couldn't defend himself.
Wasting no time, he immediately slipped his hand under the table, grabbed the weapon, and thrust it straight at Ferdinand.
"Ooh, that tickles, Father." The weapon didn't penetrate his skin, or even his doublet. Elias looked down at the weapon, and realized how light it was in his hand. A stage weapon, no blade, not even strong enough to beat someone to death with it.
"You are a cautious old coot. Of course I knew you'd have a way to defend yourself. Stealing it would have only made you find another one, but a replacement was easy enough to do." With that, Ferdinand reached into his doublet, and pulled out a knife of his own. This one looked very real.
He didn't get the chance to look at it long, before Ferdinand thrust it in Elias's chest. It burned. Did his brothers feel the same burning?
"With you and Laurent dead, there will be chaos. With the right scapegoat, there will be war. And the Steel Throne will be mine at last." Elias felt Ferdinand pick him up, and hold him over his head. He tried to spit a curse at his son, but all he could feel was blood in his throat. He could see down into his private gardens, where the lone figure of a man waited. It was hard to struggle, but Elias tried to make some kind of sound.
As he did, though, he realized it was pointless. The guards were not permitted in his private garden, it was a sanctuary he left untouched, in memory of his late Queen Nina. Someone there could only have been placed there. And placed by Ferdinand. A second conspirator, to make his death look different than it was. Elias sighed as Ferdinand tossed him over the balcony, and wondered if his brother, led to the gallows for a murder he didn't commit so many years ago, knew that Elias had betrayed him? Well, if the afterlife was real, he'd soon find out.
Elias silently credited his son for his careful planning. It wouldn't be enough to take and hold the throne, though. If ghosts were real, Elias hoped he'd become one. There was nothing left in his life now but death, but Ferdinand made that interesting.
Elsa had been going over a few trade arrangements in her room, when she heard a massive bustle going on outside of her room.
She stepped outside to see many servants and guards running around. She called to one, but they completely ignored her.
Something's wrong. That they would ignore a royal guest could only mean one thing. Elsa hurried down the hallway to find Anna, and saw she was not in her room.
The castle was too large to look for her from room to room for her, but she didn't have any other solutions, and she knew Anna well enough to know where she might go. Her first choice was to the kitchens, but that was a bust. There was a garden in the place, and Anna certainly loved that. It was supposedly private, but that never seemed to stop Anna. Elsa walked towards it, but she saw a massive crowd of people standing around it, blocking any view.
Worry crept into her, causing the cobblestones underneath the ground to freeze, even through her shoes. She nearly slipped, but it caused the others to take notice.
"Queen Elsa!" The people stepped away from her fearfully. She had hoped to be beyond that, but they were people of the Southern Isles, not her beloved subjects. The only thing they knew of her was the outrageous stories.
"What is going on here?" The people were still scattering at her approach, and she stepped forward, keeping her breathing steady to make sure she didn't cause anyone else to slip and fall. Eventually, servants made way to guards, and they didn't flinch at her.
"Your Highness." The guards were firm, but polite. "Please, return to your room."
"What has happened." Elsa didn't try to force her way past the guards, that would cause any number of problems.
"A black day, Your Highness. A terrible tragedy." The guard seemed terribly upset, but refused to indulge Elsa any further. But, as the guards were moving around, Elsa managed to catch glimpses of the garden beyond.
She could see blood, dread built inside her even worse.
No! Stay calm! Remember what happened the last time. Elsa breathed slowly and shut her eyes. In, and out. Don't be afraid, it can't be Anna or anyone she knew, because she would have been found immediately if it was.
It didn't work very well, and Elsa could see the iron bars she gripped for balance freezing over, but the change was slower. Elsa continued her slow breathing, and tried to pick out the words from people inside the garden.
"Highness!" There were many people in the garden talking all at once, so it was hard to get words, but this one came up a lot. From all of the chatter Elsa heard among the castle staff, the many princes of this nation were never referred to as such. The only person who was the King, Elias.
Did he have an accident? Elsa saw a balcony a few stories up, and supposedly, it was where the King's private chambers were.
Or not an accident. Considering the "initiative" Hans showed back in Arendelle, she wouldn't have ignored that possibility. Hans had to learn treachery somewhere.
She went back to the palace. She didn't want to jump to any conclusions, but she'd have enough of this place. She wanted to find Anna and go home immediately.
Alexander couldn't remember the last time almost all of his brothers were in the same room together. Alexander's earliest memories were of Laurent and Rickard, the second son, eagerly awaiting the chance to go out on hunts and adventures, even though they could barely had fuzz on their chins, let alone men.
Now, ten other steely faces sat around a round table in a mostly unused room. This was the Prince's Council, around the Table of the South. A simple name, but a powerful symbol, gifted to them by their mother while she was pregnant with Hans. It was supposed to be a place for the princes alone, where they should feel free to discuss anything they wanted, without fear of reprisal. Not even the King had authority in that room.
Alexander wasn't sure how effective his mother's symbol had been, and she had died giving birth to Hans, so she never knew either, but this was the only place that seemed appropriate to discuss the tragedies of today.
"Father is dead." Rickard started the meeting, speaking solemnly as he stroked his full beard. There was no need for formality and pretense here.
"As is Laurent." Sebastian stood with ramrod perfect posture. Alexander had heard the story, that Laurent had been immolated in a fire on his afternoon ride, hours before Father died. Kirse, Laurent's horse, had come back riderless and spooked out of her wits, so Rickard and Ferdinand had set off to find the missing prince. The story of what they saw when they found him brought chills down Alexander's spine. Any talk of burned bodies and large fires invariably brought back memories of the attack on Varisen years ago, when the Witch of Dark Flames lay much of the city to ruin.
Stop. What are you, a child again? You know that couldn't be the reason why. There was no way it could be the same person, but Alexander couldn't think of any other reason. Little burning of the surrounding grass, but near complete immolation of the person, it certainly seemed like her handiwork of magic.
"So, who's in charge?" Harold gave a shrug, and Alexander's eyes immediately darted to Sebastian, who looked two steps away from pulling out his sword and lopping the lout's head off.
"Watch your tongue. We may speak freely here, but our father has been assassinated!" Sebastian settled for angry glares.
"Bold words, Sebastian." Conrad didn't seemed convinced. "Have you any proof? Father would dance around to himself in the halls and crash into the walls. Who can say he simply did it without walls."
"I do have evidence, Conrad. I got to our Father's side first, although he was already dead by the time I got there. This was stabbed in his chest." Sebastian put a dagger, sticky with blood, on the table. Conrad reached out to touch it, but Sebastian stopped him.
"I recognize this." Alexander spoke. Daggers may have look all the same to an untrained eye, but this was not a common blade. This was an artisan's creation, gifted to a nobleman who could wear it almost as a badge of state. They were custom made, and usually came with a crest somewhere. Not a profitable sale, but Alexander had done enough trade deals with nobles to know their fashions.
"I know what you are thinking, Alexander." Sebastian spoke up. The man did know his weapons, he would know it just as well. "Go ahead, take a closer look."
Alexander pulled the weapon closer to him. He didn't want to touch it, it had Father's blood all over it. But on the pommel, just below the ornamental sapphire, was a small crest of a pair of rampart lions, and a snowflake.
The lions he didn't know, but a snowflake was only a crest on families from one nation.
"It definitely is one of those knives, and more importantly, this is from Arendelle."
"Arendelle!" Rickard slammed his hands on the table. "Queen Elsa and her sister are here! Could they..."
"Patience, Rickard." Tobias, who was just behind Alexander in rank, and the most patient of all the brothers, held up his hand. "I doubt the Queen had anything to do with either of them."
"That Queen is a witch! Surely she came here on the pretext of Hans's trial in order to..."
"Enough, Rickard!" Ferdinand silenced everyone. "I side with Tobias, Queen Elsa is a timid soul and possesses magic over ice, not fire. And the Princess Anna had been underfoot all day."
"Maybe they just gave the order. The Queen came with her own retinue, it would have been easy to prepare if she tried." Harold suggested. Not a possibility Alexander could discount, but he doubted Anna did it. She was way too naïve to do such a thing.
"This means war!" Natan, Tobias's twin who inherited all of the wrath and anger his counterpart never had, pounded his fist on the table. Alexander didn't like the idea, trade would be suspended, and without flowing trade, a war would be difficult. But she saw the faces of the other princes, and knew his view would be in the minority.
"We will enter into the mourning period for our King, and brother, as is custom." Rickard, who was eldest now, spoke up. "We'll shut down the palace and see if we can discover the involvement of those Arendelle nobles, and if Queen Elsa is involved."
"I concur." Ferdinand agreed. For his part, Alexander said nothing, his mind was busy thinking about new trade routes, if and when the Southern Isles went to war with Arendelle.
"We are dismissed then. Thank you, my brothers. It is good we never met today." The standard ending for a meeting at the table.
"Alexander." He could Sebastian behind him as he was about to exit. "War might be on the horizon, and I'll need to ask about trade if that's the case. You and Harold should drop by later so we can make sure we have the provisions we will need." Sebastian was stoic as he spoke, and walked out of the door without waiting for an affirmation. Sebastian suspected a plot, then? He cared nothing for trade. Something he couldn't discuss at the table, even with it's laws of freedom.
Which brother, or brothers, did he suspect.