Disclaimer: I. Still. Own. Nothing.
A/N: Well, it took me long enough to write it (blame the exams I spent the last week not studying for), but this is the end of the Crown Duel part. I think maybe I'll continue it into "Beauty."
I hope the first bit's not too…un-Flauvic.
I couldn't sleep that night. I didn't even try, and when I walked back through the gates of Athanarel, crossed the gardens to Merindar—for I'd come without a carriage—I could barely even sit still to read in my sunroom. I crossed the floor to where moonlight cast its silver ribbons through the glass doors and stepped out into the night.
The sky was full of moon-stained silver clouds, and the horizon was already fading from blue to grey as the sun rose. I stepped to the edge of the pool and sat down in the wet grass, not caring about the likely effect on my clothes.
The horizon brightened to gold, and I lay back in the grass and shut my eyes, feeling sunlight on my face.
I did not, originally, mean to sleep. But I did. And woke up, wet and cold, with a stone digging holes into my spine and my feet trailing in the pond.
My first thought was to wonder what time it was. My second was to hope that no one had seen me sleeping beside the pool.
I slipped back into the house and dripped my way up to my room, cursing silently.
Ezrin Halefeld was waiting for me by the time I had dried off. I saw him in my sun room.
"The Marquis of Shevraeth has left to meet your mother's troups, my lord."
I smiled. "Wonderful. You may go."
He bowed, turning away.
"Ezrin?"
"Yes, my lord?"
"I'd advise you to leave the palace. You won't want to be here shortly."
He bowed again, face pale.
Sun shone through the high windows of the throne room, drawing the glow of a rising sun from the peach-colored tiles that patterned the floor. I crossed the room, mounted the dais to stand before the throne. My throne.
If the rebellion had never happened, I would have stood here as king at my uncle's death. I would have been his heir. I would have had the throne though right of blood, through the right of having survived him. Never mind that Fialma was my elder, that my mother wanted the throne for her own. It would have been mine, in the end.
Now it would be mine by conquest. I reached out to lay my hands on the throne's armrests, stood before the empty chair and shut my eyes and imagined spitting in Galdran's face.
I will win this on my own. I will sit here, as king, without any right of blood, with no more right than Shevraeth, with no more right than the Count of Tlanth. And this throne will be just as much mine as if I had been the worthy son of a good king who ruled long and well and died in his sleep one night in his own age.
I am glad I am not that worthy prince.
Behind me the door opened. I turned around.
"What—Flauvic!"
It was the Duke of Grumareth, panting and white-faced.
"Your mother's troups…they're fighting the King's men south of Orbanith. He—Shevraeth—he knew we were coming…"
"I should think that he did," I replied. "You can't have thought Vidanric would ignore such an obvious plot…" I let my words trail off. The Duke wrung his hands in terror.
"Came to warn you—it's too much to hope your family won't be taken—but we could escape—wait and show them we won't be beaten—" He smiled, looked slyly at me.
"You could be king with my help, boy."
Of course. Trying to salvage what he could. I smiled and raised my hand, the words of the spell on my lips.
"I am king now."
I spoke it them, and in that instant, when the magic roared through the palace, touching noble and servant, courtier and stable boy and chambermaid and spy, the Duke of Grumareth fell to his knees before the throne of Remalna.
Pale, cold faces, hands the chill of death. Pleasant faces frozen in smiles, laughter, in a moment of doubt that stretched forever now. Athanarel was a palace of statues.
I was the only living thing within these walls. I was tired. I slept, and when I woke at sunset, I wandered to the kitchens myself to find food. No runners, no servants to fetch and carry or cooks to prepare meals.
Pomp and finery, manners, schemes, desires, all come to nothing. Stone. A master sculptor's work. Cold as stone.
He came on the second day. My cousin Vidanric, former heir to the throne. I saw him in a mirror, a spell I had cast to show who came and went through Athanarel's front gate. No army rode behind him, but one little countess stood beside him as he entered.
I was sitting in the throne room. The sun was sinking red behind the palace's western wall.
The two stepped through the door, looked around in confusion. I waited until I knew that they both saw me.
"What took you so long, my dear cousin Vidanric?"
His face was blank, but I knew he was afraid. "Administrative details."
"For which I thank you," I said, half-bowing to him from the dais. "Tiresome details." I looked to Meliara, feigned surprise.
"Meliara. This is a surprise; I took you for a servant."
I'd expected a scowl; instead she grinned. "You have an objection to honest work?"
I smiled. Perhaps she'd recovered from her hatred of Shevraeth, but she hadn't changed. It was too much to hope that she'd still despise my cousin. I hadn't even known that she'd ridden with the army.
"This," I said to her, with a gesture to Vidanric, "I hadn't foreseen. And it's a shame. I'd intended to wake you for some diversion, when things were settled."
She paled. Good.
"You included sorcery among your studies in Nente?" asked Vidanric lazily.
"I did," I told him, spreading my hands to indicate the statues by the doors—and, of course, Grumareth's groveling figure. "So much easier than troubling oneself with tiresome allies and brainless lackeys." Not to mention power-mongering relatives.
Meliara bit her lip. Realizing that she'd known all along. I gave them both a minute to think, then continued.
"I take it you wish to forgo the exchange of niceties and proceed right to business." I paused; no one spoke. Both still looked stunned.
"Very well," I said, taking silence for acquiescence. I stepped down from the dais to the frozen Duke of Grumareth. "Athanarel serves as a convenient boundary. I have everyone in it under this stone-spell. I spent my time at Meliara's charming entertainment the other night ascertaining where everyone of remotest value to you would be the next day, and I have my people with each right now. You have a choice before you. Cooperate with me—obviating the need for tedious efforts that can be better employed elsewhere—or else, one by one, they will suffer the fate as our erstwhile friend here."
I gestured towards the man at my feet and drew a knife from a wrist sheath. The room rang as the blade connected with the statue, and crashed to the floor, splintering into innumerable shards.
"That will be a nasty mess when I do lift the spell," I said quietly. "But then we won't have to see it, will we?"
The room was silence. Meliara bit her lip, swallowed, then started forward. I raised the knife.
"Don't," said Vidanric, eyes not leaving mine. "He knows how to use that knife."
I smiled and saluted him. "Observant of you. I worked so hard to foster the image of the scholarly recluse. When did you realize that my mother's plans served as my diversion?" Whenever it was, it hadn't been soon enough.
He sighed. "As I was walking in here, recent events having precluded the luxury of time for reflection."
I smiled, and, to keep myself from gloating too much, turned to Meliara and bowed.
"I fault no one for ambition," I said, with a glance at Vidanric. "If you wish, you may gracefully exit now and save yourself some regrettably painful experience. I like you. Your ignorance is refreshing, and your passions amusing. For a time we could keep each other company." I knew, saying it, that she would refuse.
She opened her mouth, and I prepared for her insults, smiling.
She took a breath. She shut her mouth. Opened it again, and said, in a perfect imitation of a courtier's drawl, "Unfortunately, I find you boring."
I felt my cheeks redden. I hated underestimating her. She'd thought, and she'd known I would hate that. I turned back to Vidanric, reminding myself that it didn't matter at this point what barbs she came up with.
"Well?" I asked the Marquis. "There is much to be done, and very soon you militia leaders will be clamoring for orders. We'll need to begin as we mean to go on, which means that you must be the one to convince them of the exchange of kings."
He bowed his head. Wind whistled in the silence. Meliara sniffled.
"What'll happen to us?"
"Well, my dear Meliara, that depends," I said. The wind was picking up…
"Will you save Bran and Nee from being smashed if I—" she choked on the words. Sound resonated in the floor, set the wood of the goldenwood throne humming under my fingertips.
I stared at her. "Why the sudden affect of cowardice?"
I already knew. I'd underestimated her. Again.
She smiled, triumphant now.
"For time. Look outside."
I leaped from the dais and ran to the doors, stood under the eaves of Athnarel's throne room and looked out.
The Hill Folk had gathered, like an army of trees, solemn in the rising dusk. Their melodies played on the wind, and their eyes sang a song too bright for human ears to hold. I wrenched myself from their gazes, turned back to Meliara and pulled her to me before she could step away, the knife against her throat.
"This is your work."
I turned to face Vidanric, pulling Meliara back into the throne room with me, away from that army of trees. I could not fight them with magic.
"Tell them to vanish," I told the Marquis, knowing that he couldn't. Meliara kicked at me, tried to break free. "Tell them to vanish, or she dies."
Terror is a taste like copper in your mouth. Terror is the knowledge that you are helpless, that everything you know has been swept from under you like a child's house of cards.
"Don't do it!" Meliara called to him.
Music thundered across the hall. Their magic built in the air. I had no way of reading this spell, no way of blocking it. I had no way to fight this.
"Tell them now!" My voice cracked. I dropped the knife, loosed Meliara, stumbled clumsily up the steps of the dais, intent forming.
I raised my hands for the spell. Stone…If it worked for even a moment…if it broke their casting…
I never found out what might have happened. Their magic, as thick as water in the air, rushed over me, drenched me, and I was drowning.
Sight faded, but light grew more intense. Sound was distant, and I heard their drums in the mountains, dreamed their waking dreams. No body, no hands or face or strength. Light defined me: cool pale dawn above, sunlight drunk like water. And below, darkness, earth, and the slow ebb of water below the earth. Roots sinking deep. Time does not matter. I feel their laughter as they dance in the mountains, and their song sounds out the pulse of water and sun though leaves, through bark, through branches reaching to the sky. This moment lasts forever, with the ebb and flow of light, of darkness, with seasons of laughter in the halls below me, echoes of those quick fragile people who walk on legs and talk in words and laugh and cry and dance…
When the sun turns away, light retreating to winter, I dream that I was once one of them. That I will be one of them again. But here, I know only that I am myself. I have no name.
A/N: Thanks so much to Icelands and Enna Rose for reviewing. Hope everyone liked this chapter, and Flauvic didn't get too out of character.