resemblance
-the quality or state of resembling
-a point of likeness
-archaic : characteristic appearance
When treason, murder, and lies have brought you where you are, it holds a certain irony when the very same stop you from celebrating that accomplishment properly.
At midday, I have at least slept three more hours and had another long shower. And I have had the pleasure of making this whole business official. My father isn't fully reassured with the paperwork and the confirmations, because plainly put, everyone is crazy out there.
And for their own.
Their own family, their blood, their belongings. They clutch them with claws, desperate like a fat woman clutches her pearls in indignation.
I sink my feelings and senses into Runt, walking beside me over the square getting cleaned up in front of Whitefire. Her wet nose inhales rapidly. It catches the scents of sweat, the fear, and anger that people drown in. She lets the scents ring through me and I soak myself into them, taking the opportunity to feel better than them all.
I have just won a fight that has been going on even longer than the last few months since I returned to the family.
Runt and One Ear help to categorize more running, ushering figures, I don't even need to see their colors or their faces. They are silent and attentive, a silver flash on clicking paws and her brother in tow, ear flat on his head.
"You are lucky they are so well behaved no one would suspect they could cause trouble," Provos says at lunch over his dish while I silently and very carefully hold the fork in my hand. Just in case my father decides he wants me to do the dirty, the same as my husband and he did the rest of the family dirty. No knife, and no poison. But wouldn't it hurt that freckled, withered hand with the golden ring to have fork tinses stretched through it. I lose myself in the intricacy of that violent thought a moment, it has some nice ring to it. Always had. Stabbing someone with cutlery when they least expect it indulging over their meal. And you expect a Viper to poison you. Not simply stab you, after all. Surprise, surprise.
"What else would they be? You're just trying to vex me now." His hand gives Runt at his feet a soft flick over her grey ears. "It isn't as if Viper's aren't known for their animals."
"Not just that anymore," is the slow answer, and the eyes wander over to me, and I don't need to be a mind reader to know that he means my public freakout and the dead people involved. "Congratulations. What a quick recovery from all the bad-mouthed words. We knew, of course, you are your father's daughter. "
My father's daughter. What does that even mean? Well, except for the fact even old Provos has it in himself to insult my mother. And here my father said it was overlooked.
My layers of black skirt and tightly laced blouse rustle low when I fold my hands together. The scorpion dangles a little on my shoulder.
When I study him inside the lavish room with too much gold, filled with scents that make the dogs a little slobbery at my feet, I let my eyes sink a little.
But not too much. I'm neither young enough nor coy nor would anyone ever believe that I mean it. I gave up on that as soon as I gave up on any flashy hairdressing. The knot on the back of my head can attest to that.
"I know it isn't the time to celebrate my succession when we have such a big loss to mourn. But it is so nice my father has friends like you, Lord Provos, that at least make sure to congratulation him."
Playing humble rubs me the wrong way. All I want is...well. Now that I am undisputed and acknowledged in our house policy, all I want is control, I suppose? You need to train animals even if you control them. They need rules and leashes. They need discipline. It would be the same as the Vipers. They all act like entitled children and badly conditioned animals. Too stubborn, too afraid, too proud, too entwined.
And then, if they have all settled, who knows? We do have a new king. And we do have some ugly dealings. The fact that I am not as dead or vanished as others seems like I either can hide behind my positions and cousins now or that the worst is yet to come.
I haven't seen Samson since he killed that man hours ago. He hasn't sent any message or even some migraine-inducing thought. That sends a warning shiver down my spine. But I keep my sullen face straight.
My father is quiet as always, but he isn' comfortable the slightest. The meal goes over rather quickly and the old men retreat for some harder sort of talk, and Runt smells the fear.
I catch the fewest words, they are very low and very fast. The dogs tilt the heads and ears for me.
"-without a head."
"That was to be expected," My father answers, and his voice sounds tired more than anything. "But it isn't like you would be in danger. Hold a step back. That is what I told my daughter. And I told it to you."
I wonder if I will visit Provos in the next night. If he will be gone like Ara. Or simply dead and denunciated like secretary Macanthos, that nervous, fearful creature.
"What was that about?" I ask him. "Another execution?"
My father coughs low and swipes his palms over the hem of his jacket. "Something about self-preservation. Don't worry. No one will bother you anymore. You are set in the position. And you will succeed me, no matter what happens next."
"I don't like the way that sounds," I murmur at his arm, squeezing it a moment. The scorpion shakes the stinger between us.
He turns his eyes to the empty streets before us.
As if the walls will keep you safe if someone wants you gone.
"As I said, don't worry. It is all a formality. And now that the Viper's have accepted the vote and Loren doesn't want anything to do with it..."
I scoff softly but refrain from another comment.
When I reach home I feel a little sick and bloated. Because even the smallest amount of too heavy food in my stomach is too much. I should eat more regularly. The last months didn't exactly make me fat. The next small note for my better health.
Loren's eyes take us both in as we enter our safe mansion, the fenced island of guards and animals.
My father sighs. Looks around the entrance. Nothing seems out of the ordinary or out of place, still, the same dark dusted rooms and silent doors. But we all know that doesn't have to say anything.
"What is it this time?" I ask and arch my back. "Did Calpurnia decide to embark on her own coup? Did she poison everyone in our absence?"
"No." He swallows, creeping over to my side. I want to laugh because he hides behind me from my father now. "They're in the salon."
"They?" My father asks with arched eyebrows.
"Speak up, Loren, or get lost," I add, and while I keep the deal and shield him, I do not feel inclined to friendly coaxing the words out of his mouth.
"Your mother." The words are coming unwillingly slow as he wrestles with his own throat. I don't blame him. "And the whisper."
The salon is my least frequent visited chamber in this mansion next to my mother's music room. It's a bright, wrong room. And it has an implication of social events and interactions. I prefer the truth of rattlesnakes and scorpions behind glass plates.
My mother laughs at the end of the hallway now that we make our way there.
I freeze a moment, limbs in the air, and the dogs ponder if they should stay or press on with my father.
My mother laughing means nothing good. It never does.
"He was a terrible stiff man," she explains, and the judgment in her voice weighs heavy against the lightness of her tone. She is like her violin, a bow swaying back and forth very charming, but it is easy to scratch over the strings and hear a mispronounced sound. "He always saluted and stood to attention, and he didn't have an ounce of interest for anything but training and war. She adopted bits of it to impress Colonel Macanthos. They made her less graceful. A lady shouldn't stay soldier too long, I told her when I visited her once. And her husband...ah, the casket was empty. The grenade didn't flatter him."
She talks about me, I realize. She talks about me and my dead husband.
Of course she'd chat about intimate things and he'd soak it up. He doesn't need to read her mind or force her to it.
"Terrible how Colonel Macanthos died, by the way. Shot in the face," She sounds genuinely disturbed below the chattering. "Terrible and atrocious. I hope you took care of Daliah, she can be fragile when it comes to this family she used to be part of."
"I promise I'll always take care of your daughter, she is my spouse, and so precious after all," I hear the cool voice say before I see the bright-eyed face of Samson. Walking in and out of the house as if he owns it. It seems a theme for men in my and my father's life.
"Yes, a precious little bug, her cousin used to call her," My mother agrees. While she wears black now, she doesn't look very doleful or inconsolable about the loss of our king. Someone even brought her a drink to accompany that small pillows she has draped herself over. "You're back. Look who decided to keep me company."
My father does this thing again, as soon as her eyes brush over him. Like she just handed him the key to a treasury, and he can't believe the sight in front of him. It dissipates faster this time between my souring face and the blue eyes that watch carefully. It also helps the dogs stand stiff and narrow. My father needs to whistle and make them turn. Fur stands off their bodies.
"Lovely," I note with a gravel undertone. I gift the black-dressed snake a weak gnashing of my teeth. His answer is an arm loosely lying over the back of the chair, fingertips touching my shoulder and arm. "I can't believe my luck."
She ignores the slight and smiles insubstantially. The flittering way she moves reminds me of the green bird in my fathers' study.
"We just had an interesting conversation about your previous husband."
"I heard that," my voice comments and my head tries to reason with my body lashing out and ruining the salon and everyone in it. The dogs growl low.
Not like you wouldn't know all about it, I think sharply. His finger twitches on my shoulder.
"I think we need to have a conversation," My father says. He gives my mother about a second before standing up. They abandon me. At least the dogs lurk in the back.
"A precious bug," he repeats, tastes that on his tongue in some badly veiled mockery. His arm lowers but doesn't disappear, strumming on my waist instead. "You're now the heir of House Viper. Your parents are so mighty proud. And your father also tells your mother she should never be alone in a room with me right now. While leaving you."
"It isn't like I am not used to that." I ignore the fact I could simply slap him and sit up more straight and tense again, grabbing my skirt and tug my nails into the fabric.
"Where were you?"
He looks away, and his eyes stare into the bright light from the window midday unblinking. "Decapitating someone can be messy," he sounds as casual as if I had asked him about his favorite color. "And I needed a change of clothes anyway."
I look at his face a moment. No regret. No emotion. Just some other loose end. Some other dead. Cutthroat Samson walks just over life if he pleases.
He slowly looks back, waiting for me to say anything about that revelation. His eyes eat my face and his long index finger taps at my waist once.
I huff out a soft breath too close to his sharp cheek and curve of his nose.
Then I laugh again, the second time today he makes me laugh genuinely. A hacked, sharp sound that could sewer a head probably as good as whatever weaponry was used.
"I'm not surprised the least, butcher."
His hand tightens a second, then it disappears almost softly. I'm unsure if that means he is flattered or angered.
There'll be another Bowl of Bones in the morning. A swarming moment that hangs over everyone after the announcement. But it also means the rest of us is safe and sound, and we get the places of honor and seats of choice to watch the blood flow and the execution served.
The following dinner this evening is perhaps the strangest and most unpleasant meal I ever had. And that says something. I had a lot of meals in a cell made of cold stone, chained and tightly bound together.
Half the Vipers refuse to sit on the same table as my mother or Samson, so they stay away. Calpurnia isn't to be seen either. I am flanked by two black-clad man, one is trembling under the table like he will be executed in the morning, the other sips at his glass between his thin fingers contently.
My father sits at the end of the table. My mother sits alone with Arven and who barely I remember is Hector's son on my opposite. And every time I chew and swallow I want to puke.
Occasionally there is some silent exchange between my father and my husband, eyes avoiding contact for too long.
I clean the rest of my table and slug down the harsh liquor in my glass before I excuse myself.
It burns in my throat.
A folded and sealed letter waits for me below my door. It crumbles a little together when I open it.
A very elegant and very familiar handwriting greets me. For a second, I simply hold the paper, as if the smell of ink and the faint trickle of words can hold me in return.