"The revolts have been suffocated as quickly as they were growing, but the losses in the last month are still higher than usual. And in some bigger cities, it is impossible to completely-"

The words barely pierce his ears, and the small group around the table always glances by nervously, first to him on the cool, cold new build seat of silent stone, then back to the red-eyed figure willfully ignorant of any discussion in the council room.

No one dares to say anything to anyone's face, as per usual, but the whispers are loud enough.

"The walk of shame through the city was a good start, but now that we have Mare Barrow, your Highness, shouldn't we-"

The name makes him snap up. Jon in his corner blinks a moment before he returns to his book.

"I told it Samson, I told it everyone, the answer is still no."

He barely moves on his seat and then decides it isn't worth it. Twenty four days and a whole set of more demands have passed by like leaves trailing of a dying naked tree.

He shoos them off. They are unwillfully subjects and bristle before they step off.

"If I look at the reports," Maven asks. "Will I see more sightings of the fogland soldier?"

"Probably," Jon answers, and even though he looks into Maven's general direction, he doesn't look at his face at all. So many possiblities, a greedy man would exploit them all. If there was a straight answer to ever leave Jon's mouth. He only gives away information that is valid and valuable so far, at least.

"Tell me where I find him, it would be the easiest."

The demand is met by deaf ears. "When you sit on one of those chairs, it's hard to follow and gauge how much of a decision may change the image. It's the same with people that never stay dead and act recklessly because of it. I have seen him die around ten times the last hour, only for him to stand up and blur my picture again. He invites complications. But I saw him on the road. He is on another killing spree. I'll tell you more about tomorrow."

With a low sound, the silent block of stone roughs up the floor, screeching over it.

He invites complications. That is not anything new.

And it sounds like something that his dead mother would say. People were always complications for her.

But she is dead.

In the evening when he retreats to his bedroom, everything is still lit up in high lights arching over the clean ground and the boots of stationed guards.

The envelope is so plain and small, if the rest of the floor, the bed, or the room was not as clean and existed in a vacuum, it would disappear. Nothing but a few books stacked over each other insinuate the room is the home or sleepstead of someone.

His black sole steps on it on the moment the door is closed.

No names, except one excruciatingly small, lost memory of a name, a shaking writ of deceptive familiarity.

Mave

No one calls him that. Not that he would allow it anyway. But there is no one even remotely able to be close that would give him any name.

He stares at the paper as if it will turn into another bomb, another powdered trap, another lie, another attempt of hurt and a badly introduced play. But right now, there is one person that descends into his mind and into this world back from a cold grave that would most probably remember the nickname.

Hello Maven,

If you read this, and I'm sure you will, I guess the nickname gave me away. This is just between the two of us.

It used to be a secret between them.

A string of hidden words, whispers and thoughts shared.

Looks that can't be deciphered in some careful attempt to find out what exactly is happening. Something from inside, some silly joke, some meaningful glare hidden half away and still too clear from the other side.

One clumsy first kiss. Another following. Because practice makes perfect, right?

It is still a secret. But unspoken not because of a hidden joke or a secret meaning.
It is another moment of weakness whenever he catches himself thinking about it, another stumbling step in a direction most people wouldn't follow anyhow.

It used to be some comfort. The memories are still there, but they seem pale now. Restricted to one secret corner of indulging in them, of one little moment of allowance, in the dead of night when there is only grey and black, thoughts and breath.

Even if I know that I'm not very important to you now or ever. You gave me up a long time ago. And you're not my Mave anymore. Probably because you never were mine to begin with.

They tried to convince me to show my face on a big screen and tell the world you are a liar and a murderer.

They're not wrong.

Whatever fluctuation on blood runs through his veins freezes and then ignites with a spark. He stares at the letters that are just bolted into the paper by a hand he tries to remember. Now not soft or friendly anymore but a paradigm of the loss of control and scars lost from flames. His hand tries to shake, it only clenches around the paper so tightly he could rip it apart. Into snippets of words that lose meaning as they turn into shreds of paper raining over the ground like a victory shower in a celebration. This isn't a celebration. There's the glow in his bones and the heat that grows exponentially for a second because igniting the paper would be easy too. Burn it to crisps, melting it, molding the fire into walls and his fingers into irons that burn himself into the ground and the world as well as easy as skin and flesh.

I've refused for now. Not that I didn't give them enough that would make for a great show.

I'm just not a talker. I'm a fighter. You've probably noticed it. The last month was a wildfire of fights. Rebellion is spreading. Someday soon, they'll come to you safely tucked into the capital.

Are you scared?

The last line swims by in an almost flying swirl. The writer of this letter has put effort in making it look blank, but that swirl is stamped into it by the pen with slightly more force. For a moment, he stares at it. The silence is so loud it brims in his ears as it expands to an angry hum that fills his ribcage and spreads further.

I used to carry a picture of you with me, so I could remind me of your face, and what we have become.

The next time I am in Archeon, I will pull the trigger. It's what you deserve. It's all that I have left to do.

Enough is enough, King of Norta.

T.

The symmetry in all the deeds done and the ultimatums made in the past is laughable and ironic. When Mare was in hiding, he wrote her letters and left them tucked in with corpses. Now the corpse of a boy leaves him a letter right at his doorstep.

Enough is enough.

No. It isn't. The question is what will be enough. He has dislocated his brain in the question of what enough means and what it is.

For a moment he loses himself in the feeling, all alone in the bleak, dark space of his bedroom. With a fast swoop, his hand flings the next possible thing off to the ground, a stack of books is send flying. It tumbles over the ground like cut off heads and some lie closed while others in sheer randomness open and fold crestfallen.

His hand cranes over his head, and for a second the fingers feel the metal and cool spikes, then the weight settles again. He forgot he still wears the crown.

Before he can decide to burn everything in an incandescent glowing heat and combustion, he takes a few long breaths.

Something crumbles, another note in the crescendo of misery, violence, and pride that wells up all around him.

Something breaks. Something reforms and reorders itself hardens and twists. Something lonely and unsatiable howls dissatisfied for being reminded of being left behind again.

And then, somehow, the world moves on with another breath and a tug at the crimson color of the swaying fabric he drags behind himself.

It moves and turns and spins and he moves along. The world moves on and the cracks and crumbling holes in his being are still there.

And there is just another splinter left in his side. Just another hollow thread of what he calls love, weaving together with sorrow and hatred.

Someone must have delivered this, snuck it inside, and it is brazen and bold, almost too much so. Too thoughtless.

I used to carry a picture of you with me, so I could remind me of your face, and what we have become.

"What we have become," Maven Calore whispers to himself in the black empty void of the bedroom for one last second before moving back on into whatever mask of indifference there is to carry and wear. "What did they call you after you started your killing spree, Tommy? A ghost."

Oddly fitting now.

"My ghost," he whispers. Disgust and some strange wonder are layered into the words like icing on a smooth velvet cake.