"—thousand gold pieces. Not a single coin more." The Queen's voice was hard, and cold as a Mistpeak morning in the dead of winter. Logan felt his own spine tighten at the sound of it, but her glacial displeasure blessedly wasn't directed at him. Both of the nobles standing before the throne visibly wilted, even the baron whose claim of injury and desire for financial restitution she had supported. It seemed bleeding a small fortune from one's rival lost a bit of satisfaction when faced with an unfriendly monarch.
Shifting his feet ever so slightly in his attentive pose beside her throne, Logan allowed his gaze to wander around the room. The Queen had been seeing petitioners for hours, some legitimate concerns and others useless squabbling, but the day was beginning to wear on. He prayed silently that his mother might send the rest away to be seen tomorrow, not just for a relief from the tedium, but because he was nearly positive he'd seen a familiar, loathsome figure lurking about at the back of the queue. Reaver would make a scene, very likely, and trading barbs with the scoundrel always ended poorly.
It wasn't that the Queen couldn't hold her own against him, for she most certainly gave as good as she got, but she did suffer under a disadvantage. His mother had decorum and a sense of propriety, which was something Reaver was more than willing to exploit.
Logan stood stoically through two more rulings, barely listening— Reaver was clearly next in line, as it were. He'd persuaded his way to the front of the room in some cleverly despicable way, drawing little attention but leaving those now skittering out of the room behind him pale and frightened.
Dressed in an impeccable blood-red suit, the man somehow managed to exude a sense of utter boredom while still keeping his dark, penetrating gaze fastened firmly on the Queen. It made Logan's knuckles ache, trying with all his might not to reach for the sword at his hip.
His mother, to her great credit, barely batted an eyelash. As the final petitioners bowed and retreated, the Queen very casually drummed her fingers across the arm of her throne and regarded her fellow Hero with the blandest of looks.
"Reaver," she drawled, then dipped her chin briefly. "You may speak."
With a predatory smirk curling the corners of his mouth, Reaver cocked his hip and dropped into an insincere, shallow bow of his own. "Thank you, my dearest Queen, but I feel I must beg your indulgence for a private audience." Pretty words, of course, but dripping in innuendo. The few citizens who remained in the chamber began to whisper amongst themselves, and Logan made no effort to hide his glare.
It was clear his mother was about to dismiss the cad before the situation could begin in earnest, but then Reaver raised one mildly mollifying hand and continued. "I've received some terribly interesting news from the Northern reaches that you simply must hear, my dove. Shall we abscond, or will you be waiting on the dubious reliability of your own couriers? And before all the ineffectual commanding and arguing begins in earnest— though how I adore the repartee, darling— do know that I'll not speak of it here. That I promise."
His mother snarled, actually snarled, with bright blue light suddenly pulsing under her skin, and every other living person in the room including Logan himself shrank back just slightly. Reaver, on the other hand, chuckled.
"Ah, still such a spitfire. And here I was, worried you'd begun to tame, Sparrow—"
Quickly enough to draw gasps from the lingering spectators, the Queen was out of her throne and looming at her full height on the dais. Her posture screamed danger and pain, and Logan couldn't have stopped himself from stepping towards her even if he'd wanted to.
"Mother," he murmured very quietly, but not quietly enough to keep Reaver's attention from shifting in his direction.
"Such a serious little fledgling as well. My word, how disappointing." Without being given any sort of permission, the man took two long strides up to the dais, pointedly ignoring the sudden shuffling of the guards and the dozen rifles levelled in his direction. Logan didn't miss the way Reaver's hand rested casually on the butt of his pistol, however, and years of his mother's stories meant he understood the true odds despite the difference in firepower.
"All of you stand down, damn it," the Queen snapped, just as Reaver extended his unoccupied hand, palm up and audaciously expectant. It was all Logan could do to resist gnashing his teeth at the arrogance, the utter gall of the bastard, but then the Hero Queen was sweeping her ornate robes away from her feet and striding down the dais stairs unaided. The Will lines trailing up her neck flared brighter when Reaver did not immediately step back, and Logan had no trouble imagining the wildfire of rumours that would soon be blazing through the castle.
The Heroes were nearly touching, squared off chest to chest. It was tense and deeply uncomfortable, and Logan desperately tried to convince himself that the faint pinkness blooming on his mother's fair cheeks was born of anger and nothing else.
Then they were gone from the room, the Queen storming off towards her private chambers with Reaver barely a pace behind, and Logan choked back the sour bile crawling up his throat.
His mother had always been warm and loving to her children, but it still took nearly seventeen years for Logan to realise he'd only ever seen her cry on one occasion. Only once before, and he couldn't remember ever feeling more like a naughty child than at that moment, peering into his mother's chambers to find her sitting alone beside the hearth, weeping quietly.
Regardless, she was a battle-hardened Hero, and it shouldn't have been so surprising that before he could quietly retreat, he was pinned by her reddened, teary gaze.
Excuses and apologies for the intrusion began to stammer out of him, but trailed off as she motioned him to come closer. He obeyed, of course, moving to kneel beside her chair and taking her hand in both of his when she offered it.
She made no attempt to hide the streaks of tears glittering on her cheeks, and when she bent to press a kiss against his forehead he felt his own eyes grow gritty. Despite the heat of the fire, which was already quite warm against his back, his mother's fingers were icy to the touch.
She looked older than he had ever imagined— there were faint spidery lines visible just at the corners of her darkened eyes that he had never noticed before, and her impressive stature seemed to wither into the cushions of her chair. She was, for the very first time in his living memory, so very small.
It terrified and enraged him in nearly equal measure.
She didn't speak, silently stroking the hair at his temple and tucking it behind his ear, and it would be two days before Logan discovered the reason for this great misery. In two days, when his mother threw on her travelling cloak and pistol and stood with a small contingent of soldiers in the front courtyard of the castle. It was early enough that the grass still laid heavy with dew, and it was in that pale pink morning light that the Queen gripped Logan's forearm firmly in a warrior's grasp.
"I've left some instructions for you on the desk in my study, along with the key to my private files. I will be back in a few weeks." Her voice was quiet but unwavering, and it was also the most he had heard her utter since the fiasco in the throne room. The wicked whispers of torrid affairs had begun almost immediately, of course— Reaver brought poison wherever he trod. "Take care of your sister, listen to your advisors, and try not to start any wars."
It was laced with threads of humour, but there was a kind of gravity to this farewell that Logan could not ignore. He was being left with the responsibilities of regency, and perhaps it wasn't meant as a test, but it certainly felt like one.
"I'll make you proud, Mum," he replied with all earnestness, squeezing the thick leather of her bracer and feeling rather good about the surprised yet pleased quirk of her mouth. Suddenly, there was a commotion just inside the foyer, unusual for the time of day, and then a small white blur was flying down the stone steps and ploughing into the Queen's legs.
Rosalyn was still in her nightdress and barefoot, but the Queen scooped her up into a tight embrace regardless of propriety. A quick glance upwards revealed a red-faced Jasper panting and leaning on the balustrade, but Logan was more interested in the half-dozen men accompanying the Queen on her journey to the depths of the Northern Mountains.
With his mother preoccupied, arms full of a nearly squalling daughter, Logan took the opportunity to slip away and approach Sir Walter. Walter, for his part, did not seem at all surprised by this.
"My prince," he rumbled quietly, folding his arms loosely before his chest. "I know it seems impossible, but try not to worry about your mother. I'll keep an eye on her, much as she'll allow."
"I do not doubt that, Sir Walter." Squaring his shoulders in a way he secretly feared might look ridiculous, but prayed it might appear at least a little regal as well, Logan nodded gravely at his fellow man. The soldiers did not snicker at all, which was extraordinarily reassuring, and Walter even dipped his head in a shallow bow.
If he were still merely a boy, the Queen would have appointed someone else to oversee the realm in her absence, but she had not. That was nearly enough to distract Logan from his deeper concerns, but not quite.
Still, he wasn't about to pry into Walter's opinions in the middle of the courtyard. There was only one thing in the North of any great significance to the Hero Queen, and Logan spared a brief wish for the well-being of the giant, kindly woman he recalled meeting years before.
The grief still haunting his mother's eyes said otherwise, but Logan found himself inclined to cling to hope.