QUEEN OF RUIN
"Your Imperial Majesty?"
"Yes, come in Marie." Renia carefully finished burning the tail of the letter into the wooden sword hilt. A wisp of smoke wafted off the rosewood as she pulled the white hot tip of the silver needle away. She blinked the dryness from her eyes and glanced out the tall windows already knowing what she would find. She had lost track of time. Unfortunate. Nothing for it, she would have to continue after breakfast. Etching a geas capable of holding a demon was not a task she wanted to complete while distracted. She set the roseguard blade on the table in front of her, watching the morning light catch on the polished steel as she sheathed it within its scabbard. It was a pretty thing, almost as pretty as the blade. Dark leather with scrawling green thorny vines and a few falling rose petals.
Weak? Her anchor asked as it vanished the silver needle into the gap between.
No. Worried. She glanced at her mirror and its flawless glass surface as Marie nudged the door closed with her foot.
What? The demon pressed. Danger?
If she were to ever allow herself to forget that they shared mortality, its concern would almost be sweet.
Progenitor. Renia dryly responded and she felt it recede from the edges of her mind, assuaged. Руин could not kill her. "And how are you this morning?"
"Wonderful!" Marie exclaimed breathlessly as she set the breakfast tray onto the table. Renia laced her fingers underneath her chin as the girl loaded her usual mix of spring fruit, soft bread and cheese onto the wooden platter. "I finally got that letter from Aymard and - oh!" The maid adopted a rueful smile. "Almost forgot, the quartermaster for the guards said your request should be ready this evening?"
She heard the implied question in the girl's voice, wondering what could she possibly need from a simple blacksmith.
"Good," Renia murmured, ignoring the question as she absently selected a strawberry. She carefully bit into it and nearly sighed with simple appreciation. A month ago, it would have been soaked in vodka, glazed with honey and dusted with gold flakes. There were some things she did not miss. "I hope your brother was able to hire that help he needs?"
"Yes!" Marie's smile was radiant as she finished cutting the still warm bread into slices. "And a bit extra for the apothecary. His hand hasn't been bothering him too much, he says, but knowing him it hurts just as bad. He just doesn't want me to worry!" Marie had yet to tell her the story, not in so many words, but she could infer. A bitter, old rage towards the nobility, parents never mentioned, money tight.
You don't understand. You people never understand. We can't say no.
Her brother's dominant hand was maimed. He worked a farm for his family - a wife and two sons, she remembered - through the pain. She could heal him, she considered half-heartedly. Provided Marie wasn't adopted, a bit of blood could track down her brother wherever Guéret was. He would go to sleep one night and wake up none the wiser.
It would cost her, of course. If she was unlucky, and she usually was, it would be a flesh price. She could force the issue. The one she had in mind was just within that threshold where she could conceivably just enslave it.
And risk it turning on her the moment she let her guard down.
"Thank you," Marie said sincerely as she took her seat.
"Whatever for?" Renia asked with a slight smile as she buttered her bread. It was some kind of dense, multigrain loaf she could admit to being a little fond of. Nostalgia, perhaps. It tasted nothing like the white processed wheat breads she had gotten used to. It reminded her of a simpler time. "I haven't done anything."
"Right," Marie said with a conspiratorial smile. "I'm sure I received my month's wages in advance for no reason."
"Advance?" She said with false surprise. "I was under the impression a royal attendant gets paid far more than a simple maid. I would not be surprised if the Headmaster agreed."
Funded by yours truly. A nest egg for the girl had already been prepared along with instructions for dispensation. It was not truly necessary, but sometimes that little extra was what separated an appreciative asset from a loyal one.
It was only money.
Marie's smile grew as she picked out an apricot from the tray and murmured, "I'm sure that is all it was." She poured some tea from the kettle into the two cups and broke her strawberry scone in half.
It was about that time.
"Unfortunately, that does remind me." Renia ventured. "Have you heard anything regarding our mutual friend's estate?" At Marie's blank look, she rolled her own eyes. "Count Mott."
"Oh." The girl's face fell. She nibbled at her scone before finally shaking her head. "Not much. Charlotte - one of the girls - her man's a guard and there was some talk about investigating a noble's murder, but I…" Marie's shoulders slumped a little before she helplessly shrugged them. "That's all I was able to overhear. It could have been anyone..."
It seemed little Marie was feeling rather isolated, wasn't she? Her posture spoke of marginalizing, perhaps even ostracized completely from her old companions. Yes, jealousy would do that. She remembered being around women their age. She never treated any of the other girls poorly, that would have been counterproductive. She wanted them to covet her attention. Instead, she indulged only one of them. Made the girl dresses and even went so far as to gift her with a necklace. She relied on Marie for everything.
Marie was special, you see?
Idly, she wondered if even Siesta talked to her anymore.
Renia hummed and tapped a finger on the table. "Do you know where this guard is stationed?"
"Here," Marie said and then her eyes widened. "Here," she breathed. "The Capital has its own barracks, there would be no need to involve the Academy unless the murder was close...or the murderer."
"Is that what you think it was?" Renia mildly challenged. "Murder?"
"I - " The girl hesitated and looked down. The strawberry scone crumbled between her fingers. Silence drifted between them as a tangible, palpable feeling. She knew Marie. However, there was always the risk of that human element she had yet to isolate. That random nature of the tiny flaws in the gem, of the small cracks in the metal that meant one broke instead of bending.
"It wasn't justice," Marie said eventually, quietly.
"It was not." Renia agreed.
Marie tried to smile. It was a sickly, half-formed thing that shriveled and died mere seconds later. "I didn't tell Aymard," she whispered, unshed tears beginning to glimmer in her eyes. "I used to tell him everything."
Renia leaned forward so as to seem earnest even as she frowned sympathetically. "It was not something he needed to know."
"I know," Marie replied. She dropped the remains of her scone onto her platter with the air of someone that had just lost their appetite. "He never would have - he would have figured something out."
Would he, really?
In another time, another place, perhaps she would be able to break her of that fallacious belief in a better person. There was no such thing. Only a person with different weaknesses, different vices, different breaking points.
"Does that matter?" Renia asked instead. "You are not your brother."
"No," Marie said miserably. "He wanted justice."
Marie wanted vengeance.
"You did nothing wrong," Renia asserted. "You did not have control over the magic, you merely gave it a voice." A fig leaf. It was true, after a fashion. A request was fulfilled, down to the letter. The intent never mattered. "And that voice chose to rescue your friend. The world is short one Count Mott. Can you truly say we are poorer for it?"
The girl shook her head roughly. "It's not about him! It's -"
"About the guards that served his whims? The servants who looked the other way? Those that would have gladly served another master like him just as well?" Renia pursed her lips. "Fine. What lesser punishment did they deserve?"
"I don't - I don't know," Marie nearly pleaded, her face scrunching up with the effort of avoiding tears.
"Jail, perhaps?" Renia mused out loud. "Under what charges, I couldn't even begin to guess. Perhaps you could have taken their dominant hands, or maimed them." The girl flinched. "No? Then perhaps blacklist them somehow, so that they could never find employment again? How you would manage that I don't - Ah, a curse perhaps, so that they felt every horror the victims of their inaction felt for the rest of their miserable lives." Marie watched her with wide, watery blue eyes. Renia softened her voice to a near whisper. "Is that what they deserved?"
"No," Marie answered, just as softly.
"What else is left?" Renia trailed the fingers of her left hand along the edge of the table, disguising the subtle movements of her right. She could feel the necklace.
Influence.
"That guilt will poison you, if you let it," she said as if it was an irrefutable fact. As far as she was concerned, it was. She'd seen it many times before. "Do you think vengeance is wrong?"
"Isn't it?" The girl asked helplessly. "I didn't want to make it right! I just wanted to hurt them!"
"Remember why you wanted to hurt them," Renia said sharply and Marie reeled back under the command. "Remember why you wanted to hurt them. Remember why you wanted them to hurt."
"...They hurt people."
"Remember who you wanted vengeance for. Are those you hurt worth more than them?"
"No! No, of course not - "
Renia smiled thinly. "You do not feel guilty about hurting them, do you? You feel guilty for not feeling guilty."
Marie froze.
Silence fell upon them again, but this time it thrummed with tension. Renia took a sip of her cooling tea and broke the quiet with the tiny clinking of porcelain as she set the cup down. She ate her portion of bacon and picked out another strawberry.
"Is that it?" Marie murmured, her eyes shuttering closed. "I feel guilty that I…"
"You would destroy yourself over the shadow of a feeling?" Renia asked quietly, searching for it. "Marie, you are guilty of nothing more than being human. The magic was not yours. You need to let it go."
"I can't," the girl said in a small voice.
And even softer, so soft it was barely more than air through her lips, Renia whispered, "Why?"
The girl didn't answer.
Renia sighed, disappointed. She let the heat of the necklace slip through her fingers. Too soon. "I am rather fond of you, you know."
That drew out a small, weak smile, but it was there.
"It changes nothing. What's done is done." With a twirl of her finger, Marie's tea was set to steaming once more. "Eat. And tell me about that book you finished. How was it?"
It took no small amount of effort on her part, but she managed to direct the girl onto other topics and open up once more. The kind of literature the girl read was atrocious and pretending to care about it was annoying, but thankfully it was the type of insipid drivel that was simple to summarize. They talked about her brother's farm and her nephews. The man's wife came up infrequently, it seemed Marie was cool in her regard of the woman. She had yet to see Longueville. They wandered through whatever thought came to mind.
"The sword is for you, isn't it?" Marie said, a bit awed. "You were trained? Did you join the army?"
Renia smiled reflexively even as something inside her writhed. She bit into another strawberry, savoring the tart sweetness on her tongue. Her gaze wandered, drifting to the tall windows and the morning sun. She imagined stained glass depicting the Visions of Mercy and Justice, surrounded by the saints with their halos and winged horses. She was sure that if she tried, she could still feel the weight of the Oculum. Still hear the Dedications, the tolling of the bells, the clanging of metal in the yard. She was sure that if she tried, she could remember that foolish, naive innocence.
And so, she would not try.
Her mind skittered around the edges of those episodic memories just as she trained herself to. It flinched away from it, aborting trains of thought that came too close to what still bled.
It was safer to bury what hurt around Руин.
Deep.
Weakness was death.
She was tempted to spout a pithy lie. Something fantastical, maybe. Perhaps in her role as Empress she negotiated with a warrior queen of another nation, and was gifted lessons and a blade to commemorate the occasion. Or perhaps she had been kidnapped, stranded behind enemy lines before being rescued in a tale of daring do and so resolved to never be that helpless again. Maybe pirates had been her kidnappers, no, an ancient order of assassins! Marie would eat it up, she knew. Rutenia was a land of wonders in her eyes. The lie would come easy and it would be easily believed.
Oh, but had she not learned that the best lies were made from the truth?
"I was squire to a - ah," she paused when the word from her stolen memories did not come. "You do not have a word for it. A sworn knight of the Church? Dedicated to God? Crusader is close but not quite." She waved a dismissive hand before taking a sip of tea. "Whatever. Father Kolsav of St. Vodker's Monastery, he was my teacher and - " She paused to draw attention to the past tense and worried at her lip for a moment. "A dear friend."
Her prison warden.
She supposed it said something that the first thing she remembered when she thought of him was his broken body on the cathedral's stone steps. The second thing she recalled was the sound of his voice. It had been made of iron and dusty, as if he gargled sand with his breakfast. She remembered how he often spoke ponderously, with well considered words aimed to cut.
Is your mother who you want to be?
Her tea cup shattered in her hands, dumping hot water directly into her lap. They both jumped up at the same time, Marie with a loud "Oh!"
Renia raised her hands. "It's fine, it's fine! I have it."
And she did. She pressed one of her remaining weak demons into service, bidding it to sweep up the hot water and shards of porcelain. She reformed the cup into an exact mirror of Marie's unbroken one and dispersed the water into the air as herbal smelling vapor. A second demon plucked the ceramic shards from the stinging wounds on her palms and coaxed the skin to seal.
"There. That should do it," Renia sighed and flexed her fingers. Adequate.
"Yes," Marie said slowly, naked envy on her face as she picked up the repaired cup, turning it over in her hands. Envy and…
Guilt.
And buried underneath, a longing despite it.
It seemed she had made an error. Perhaps it hadn't been too soon after all, she had just failed to find the right lever. That was alright. It could still be rectified. She had two days. The missed opportunity still burned her. It would bother her for months, if she let it. Compared to the usual quality of her agents, Marie was too uneducated, skilled in nothing, had no useful connections and no talents at all. Руин was uninterested in her. She was no one.
She was perfect.
"I'm sorry," Marie said quickly. "I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."
Renia found herself sighing yet again as she retook her seat. "Don't trouble yourself, it's fine."
"It clearly isn't," Marie replied with a borderline insolent tone. "You hurt yourself, that doesn't happen if you're fine." Renia blinked, momentarily taken aback and Marie blanched. For a moment, she seemed on the verge of throwing herself on the ground to apologize, but then she set her jaw mulishly.
"That doesn't happen if you're fine," she repeated. And then tentatively, "You said I could always say no to you."
Renia took a moment to simply breathe.
"I did," she allowed. She did not feel that shifting cold beneath her skin, so she knew that at most, her pupils had changed. She took another deep breath. Then another. She pinched the bridge of her nose.
She was fine.
"They died." She stated flatly behind the shadow of her hand. Her voice barely held through the next word. "Everyone."
Her hand dropped as she let out a shaky exhale. She glanced towards the windows and the sun streaming in from the bright blue sky.
She heard bells.
"A Haunting, I was told," she murmured. "A natural, magical disaster. I was lucky to be alive."
There had been nothing natural about it.
Her mother had given her a ruby. A request had been fulfilled, to the letter. Intent never mattered.
The woman had known very well that there could have only been one outcome.
"Breakfast is done, I think." Renia said, standing, suddenly full of nervous energy. She picked up the roseguard blade and glanced over the half finished geas surrounding the ruby rose pommel. The sunlight caught on the red petals, flinging pink shards of light around the room. It really was lovely, wasn't it?
She waited out the urge to grind it to dust.
"Do clean up, will you Marie?"
"Of course," the maid said. "What does the schedule look like today?"
"Rather empty. I have lunch with La Vallière, but that is all." She doubted Henrietta would pay her a visit. "I think I shall take a walk around the grounds, perhaps. I do not require company, the day is yours."
"If - if you need me for anything - "
Renia's lips quirked.
Anything?
"I will call on you," she promised. She crossed the room to stand before the tall windows that graced her eastern wall. She scanned the landscape before her as Marie cleared the table. A bit of a walk to the treeline, but nothing too strenuous. And a bit further to make absolutely sure she was undisturbed. That copse of trees at the base of the hill looked to be a good spot. She had a few hours before the sun reached its zenith. Perhaps a trip to the library?
"I'm sorry," Marie blurted out from behind her.
"Forgiven already," Renia carelessly tossed over her shoulder. "Think no more of it."
Think no more of it.
As the door closed, she traced a finger around the base of the sword's pommel. The burned etching intertwined with the vine markings scraped against the callus of her fingertip. It called for blood, the geas. Pain. Flesh, yes. That as well. It took no small amount of effort to slave a demon to one's soul. She would know. This would mark one hundred and one.
The flowing Rus script would fade into the wood when completed.
Only the brand would remain.
You chose this! Her mother's voice echoed.
Yes, she thought in reply. The energy had left her, leaving her feeling tired and worn as she idly counted the trees and cradled the roseguard blade to her breast.
She chose this.