Queen of Ruin
отверженный: outcast, forsaken (from society and God)
"I was a failure, with an affinity for nothing at all."
Those words were perfect, Osmund thought. They were effortlessly self-deprecating, lowering the woman from her lofty social standing to a comfortable something just beyond and just within the caste borders. They told everything about the woman's personal prowess with magic by casting the picture of a long, arduous journey to become what she was today without putting a measurement to what today's mage looked like. It spoke of an affinity, in more than one way, with young Louise. An understanding. True empathy in a simply stated, mildly toned sentence.
The effect is made on Louise was immediate and obvious. The girl sat up in her chair, regained her easy noble posture even as she leaned forward, captivated.
Another like her.
The Dowager Empress of Rutenia was rather dangerous, wasn't she?
Behind his teacup, the Headmaster of Tristain's Magical Academy examined the royal woman. She was beautiful in a rare way with long curling black hair, blood red eyes and ivory skin with very delicate, fine features. High cheekbones, thin nose and small mouth with a supple predatory cast to her jawline hollowing her cheeks and narrowing her eye shape. A beauty that could have so easily been cold and barren were it not for the gentle light in her eyes and easy smile.
She had the presence of a sleeping dragon.
Awe inspiring, powerful. A way of getting one to let their guard down and assume they were safe with her.
As if she would never wake.
The little tremors were subtle, but the more one looked, the more one could see. There was a lot she did not know about them, just as they did not know about her. She responded appropriately; with surprise, disgust or the relief of finding something familiar. Yet, there were times when she simply paused. Her head would tilt just the slightest to the right, as if listening to a whisper. And with terrifying subtlety;
The camouflage shifts.
Even now he was half-convinced he was conjuring ghosts. Even now he was prepared to tell himself that he was seeing shadows where none existed.
Her ears were round.
See?
Preposterous.
He lit his pipe and sipped some of the tea prepared for him. If he didn't know any better, he'd say he prepared it himself for his own tastes. Just a hint of extra spice around a dash of sugar, no milk. He glanced up and caught the Dowager Empress looking away with an amused smile.
Better than you, the message said, letting him know that he had guessed wrongly as to her tastes and that she took no offense. Well, it took the rare personality to appreciate bitter tart brews, but he knew he had been close. Perhaps a bit more sugar?
He leaned back in his chair.
Hm.
Hmm.
Pure white lace. It was something to expect on a younger woman, the white for purity and integrity, or failing that on a much older woman suggesting a conservative mindset.
Of course.
The woman coughed under the guise of swallowing her tea wrong, and gently nudged Chuchu out from under her chair with a brush of air. Caught, Osmund just puffed smoke with what he knew was an openly amused twinkle in his eyes.
"You must be very careful with your words," he opted to speak. "Some notes could seem too close to heresy."
"Doubtless," the Dowager Empress replied dryly, defusing the panic in Louise before it could even register. The flashing look she gave him told him he was not quite forgiven his little stunt. Live and learn, he always said. "That is the way of things. Our chapter of the Church calls us отверженный." It was a curious word, with faint Germanic influences, he thought. Colbert's theory of a country north of Germania, across the mountains and cold desert was looking more and more likely. "It means 'bearer of the burden.' It is not an easy, glamorous life, but vitally important."
"The Firstborn," Osmund stated and the woman nodded.
"Between becoming a force multiplier on the field and being worth zero - " Louise flinched and the woman sighed. "Forgive my careless words."
Some part of him doubted they were careless. The rest of him saw the contrition on the woman's face.
"That's - that's what I am called," Louise mustered up the courage to proclaim. "The Zero."
"And my Second Name means 'born again.'" The woman smiled a quirked, saddened smile. "Because I wasn't born right the first time."
She was older than she looked, Osmund realized. Much older. Her words spoke of a very old wound, long since healed over into a faint scar. Most would have hesitated, if they ever succeeded in admitting such a detail about themselves.
"That's cruel!" Louise cried out, stricken. "How could anyone - ?"
"It is what it is," she leaned over, placing a soft hand on the girl's shoulder. "It means to us what we choose it to mean. No one could have known that the failure would marry the Emperor, could they?" Her smile turned soft and fond. "My son is Emperor after his father, and I am not the little girl I once was. In that light, my second birth was rather kind to me, was it not?"
She must have spent years, perhaps decades as Empress only for her husband to die ahead of her in a sad mirror of Tristain's own Crown. The heir had already risen to the occasion, he hoped, or the situation could be even more delicate than assumed. He imagined a young prince or princess Henrietta's age, or worse, younger, dealing with the aftermath of Cardinal Mazarin being abducted right from under their nose by a strange country with unfamiliar magic.
Destabilizing.
It would be absolute chaos.
The charitable interpretation of such an event was an act of war.
He sipped at his tea, thinking deeply. A late marriage would make more sense. An older monarch with a question of legitimate heirs marrying a younger queen. It might put her at the age she seemed, an early to mid thirties. She was uncommonly comfortable with the lower class, but her aristocratic manners were impeccable. Startlingly knowledgeable, and yet strangely naive. Masterfully experienced in the subtle manipulations of mood and impressions, and yet not at all malevolent, but patient and helpful.
Surely, that must not be too much of a woman in her thirties to be?
Pure white lace.
That mystery would haunt him for the rest of the day, he knew it would.
How could one be so utterly incongruous?
"You may be a zero now, Louise, but God willing, you'll be able to make a difference one day." The Dowager Empress sounded hopeful, but Osmund suspected the hope wasn't necessarily on Louise's behalf.
She was trying to convince the girl that she didn't need a Familiar.
Because that was the elf in the room. At any time, at any moment, even long after the Dowager Empress returned to her lands and peace prevailed, Louise could simply snatch her away again with a few pithy words the moment she felt like it. Louise would never be able to call something, or someone, else to summon. From all they did know about the Familiar Summoning Ritual, it simply did not work that way. Not unless the original summon died.
No, the two were bound together, for life now. For good or ill. Almost as surely as if Familiar runes had been etched onto the woman already. At least that way a summoning would no longer work. They would just have to deal with all the implications of making a monarch's mother a Familiar of another country's mage.
"H- how would I start? I don't know the first thing…" Louise kicked her legs into a cross as she dropped her chin into her hand. A thoughtful frown furrowed her brow. "I could ask Montmorency for permission to visit the lake, perhaps. If it was willing once for her family then - oh, but that might be seen as Vallière encroaching on their ancestral territory…"
Her Imperial Majesty gave an encouraging nod. "It is always important to consider the consequences of one's actions, in all respects. This is a skill you must nurture, a single stray word can turn a solid binding into a leaking sieve."
"So I must consider my words carefully," Louise murmured. "It is much like my word as a noble, is it not? I must always consider how it will affect the standing of Vallière, to never make promises I cannot keep and to uphold my bargain to the best of my ability."
"Not...quite," the woman glanced down at her tea cup. "It is similar, yes, but - oh, how shall I put this…" She winced then, as if remembering a painful memory. "If you were to make an agreement with another noble to safeguard his belongings, is your word not considered fulfilled even if a great storm ruined some of his valuable paintings?"
Louise nodded. "Provided you did your utmost to protect them as the storm hit rather than leaving them within reach of flood waters."
"Correct, let us say you not only moved them but covered them with oiled tarp to protect against the water and when things become too precarious, you ordered the valuables to be removed to a safer location ahead of your own family." She took a sip. "Alas, wind tore some of the tarps off in transit, and the water damage, while minimal, was permanent."
"Well," Louise frowned. "Only someone truly belligerent and - and stubborn would fault you your efforts then."
"The spirit would take the damage as license to kill you," the queen said blandly. Louise went white-faced with shock. "And it would be right to."
"I wouldn't go that far," Osmund sputtered out, somewhat in shock himself. The Montmorency's lived with the spirit of Lagdorian Lake for generations, surely, it need not nearly be that severe.
"I would," the woman said calmly. "You over promised and spirits do not value things such as we do. Items precious to them are as their life. Promises made are as their blood. Alliances bargained for make you kin. Betrayal makes you a kinslayer. To break your word, even such as described, you would have torn their heart out and thrown it away. It matters not how or why."
"The elves go centuries without breaking a single pact, don't they?" Osmund asked, a glimmer of understanding shuddering through him.
"Yes, without breaking a single pact, with hundreds of spirits."
He understood now.
He understood why her kingdom would go as far into heretical arts as they might have. Alone, on the other side of a cold desert against the Firstborn. Bereft of the Romalia's guidance and desperate. They must have done all they could.
"No one could remember all that," Louise said, despairing. "There is no possible - I would fail!"
"Peace, child," the Dowager Empress murmured. "The spirits themselves can be rather simplistic creatures, with simple needs. They have hierarchies among themselves, and rules they also adhere to. It is difficult, yes, I will not lie, but not impossible. Never that."
"How - how do you do it?"
Something flickered over the woman's face. "I sought the top of one such hierarchy."
"Like a king of spirits?" The girl asked.
"Yes," Renia Ruten de Rutenia said with an odd tone of voice. "Like a king." She cleared her throat and changed the subject. "If I recall correctly, Cardinal Mazarin will be coming to visit me?"
Osmund nodded, filing everything the short conversation had revealed away. " As well as our guest of honor for the Familiar Exhibition, Princess Henrietta de Tristain."
Louise's eyes grew round. "The princess…"
"If he were to be convinced of the merits of such a venture, might not he intercede on Louise's behalf with the family? A clean, simple demonstration that it is simply an expansion of sanctioned contracts, surely he would have no cause to object." A shadow briefly passed over the woman's face. "There is no reason to believe the honor and loyalty of Vallière to be compromised, is there?"
Louise gasped. "Never!" All she got was a quiet, patient look from the woman and Louise cringed, but rallied. "Never," she said again, firmly.
"Then that is a point in your favor." The woman searched the girl's face, but she must have found what she was looking for as she smiled. "To leave you alone in your first steps in this would be heartless. As my mother taught me, so shall I - "
The door to his office swung open loudly, drowning out her last words. Jules de Mott strode in with all the pomp and swagger of a man with ten times the pedigree of the Count of Burgundy. He dressed it as well with a blue and red top split open in the middle for white ruffles that was trimmed in gold and silver. A red cape with a white ruffle collar nearly drowned the man, leaving only his head with neatly, audaciously trimmed black hair poking out the top like a mushroom.
"Official business," the man snapped out. The white ruffle on his cape bristled with him.
"All of your business is 'official,'" Osmund pointed out dryly. "Mind your manners, Count Mott, before you offend."
The mild rebuke drew the man up short, who seemed to realize they were not alone in the room. "Ah, pardon me my - my ladies, my lady, your highness," he stumbled, dismissing Louise entirely to focus on the older and more interesting woman in the room. His eyes found the crown and became glued to it. "I was too focused on my duties, please accept my most humble apologies."
He bowed low.
"Accepted," she said in a low tone, a flash of distaste on her face. The warmth had fled her red eyes, leaving behind something very alien. A prickle went up Osmund's spine. The dragon was stirring. "Provided you remember the proper address is Imperial Majesty."
Mott bowed again, lower. His head nearly crossing his knees. "I would never dream of forgetting, your imperial majesty."
She was silent as she took a slow, pondering sip of her tea and then put the cup down. "Very good then, you may rise."
The blood had already ran to the man's face, leaving red blotches on otherwise pale cheeks. "You are as magnanimous as you are lovely, your imperial majesty," Mott gushed. "I truly would never have suspected your august presence here at our Academy!"
"As needs must, it seems," she answered non-committedly and Osmund let out a faint sigh of gratitude for her effort in keeping the exact circumstances quiet for a little while longer. "Osmund, we will continue our talk on the morrow."
"As you wish," he acquiesced immediately.
"Louise."
"Y-yes?"
"I expect you to do your own research on the nature of spirits and what is known about them." She did not ask if the workload was acceptable or even what would happen to Louise's normal classes, but in a very real way if she was going to apprentice the girl then it would be her prerogative. Even still, it was inconsiderate. She rose from her seat gracefully, without a hint of the exhaustion and pain from her ordeal he knew she must still be struggling with, and gave the room a nod. "Headmaster. Vallière. Count Mott."
Louise scurried from the room on the woman's heel, "May I ask you about the spirits?"
"Of course, child," he heard faintly before the door closed behind them.
Jules de Mott immediately turned on him, rage reddening his face into an unhealthy puce. "Do you believe yourself clever?"
"Her presence here is a set of circumstances neither of us could control," Osmund mildly responded. "I sent an emergency dispatch to inform the Crown, of course, I couldn't simply entrust this information to the schedule of the Palace messengers. It needed to be done, post haste."
Frowning, Mott allowed himself to be defused. "I suppose I could not fault you for bypassing me with such critical information, this time."
This time? Osmund thought with raised eyebrows. "Indeed. Now, what is it you have come to discuss?"
Mott straightened. "Fouquet."
Because that was a problem he could afford right now, he thought. The Dowager Empress could have stayed and heard all about their little 'problem' stealing priceless heirlooms all across the country. Small mercies. No nation was perfect, but the weaker Tristain seemed to the woman, the worse off their bargaining position was.
"He's coming here, isn't he?" Osmund asked.
"He recently struck the capital, again, which means he's lingering in the area," Mott replied in clipped tones. "It is believed that the Academy is on the short list of targets and he will strike, soon."
And such warning came with all the backing of an official Palace messenger.
Osmund sighed and stuck his pipe into his mouth. He breathed in, then exhaled a large cloud of sweet smelling smoke.
"Point taken. We will prepare as best as we are able."
"Osmund," Mott said, shaking his head. "I believe I know now why I was tasked with this with such urgency. I need not tell you what it would mean if any of our imperial majesty's belongings went missing."
"No," he agreed, determined to ignore the chill down his spine at the thought. If her crown vanished on them... "You need not."
"Well, onto lighter topics." Mott clapped. "You must tell me where you find your talent, good man, you've quite the selection of women here!"
"I do try," Osmund chortled even as his stomach twisted. Someone caught the man's eye, Osmund knew and he could clearly recall the look of distaste on Renia Ruten's face. At any other time, he wouldn't have thought twice about it, but...there were rumors that the Dowager Empress was rather fond of some of the girls and he didn't know which one. Of all the things not to pay attention to. "Making an offer, my good man?"
"Siesta," Mott said immediately. "Of - of - where was it again, ah - Tarbes."
Didn't sound familiar. Still. "I must insist you receive the girl's express permission and acceptance of the position before we move forward with a transferal of service."
"The position pays well," Mott said with a scoff. "It will be no trouble, I assure you."
"Then it is but a short delay."
Jules de Mott frowned, but he could see that Osmund would not budge. Not on this, not now.
"Of course, have the paperwork ready for my return."
"I will do that," Osmund said to an emptying room as Mott swished out with his secretary behind him, already searching for the service contracts. "Or rather, you will do that."
"Yes," Longueville said with a dry tone. "I will, sir."
She kicked Chuchu away.
Too late!
Purple with flower patterns today, very nice.
…
Pure white lace, blast it all!
That mystery was going to haunt him for the rest of his days.