"Kill your kings. March into their white sacred palaces—

And burn them."


Smoke and salt filled the air. Salt tossed in by the sea, roiling and endless blue. Not the salt of tears. Not even Aesira, not even their Queen Mother, laden in billowing skirts of black. Not so much as a sniffle.

August's gut churned like the waves beyond the pyre. The breeze blew the smell right back into their faces, the dour line of attendees. He swiped a lock of dark hair from his eyes, tempted to take a leather glove and cover his nose. But no one else seemed bothered by it, and he would not be the only one. Tears pricked his eyes.

He would not be the only one.

He inhaled deeply and looked past the blazing light that consumed his father. He stared into another in the horizon. The sun rose slowly, shyly, as if it might not.

Had the Saints received him with open arms, with as much warmth as he burnt with?

August snorted at the thought. Adamina's downcast head jerked slightly at the sound, as if she might chastise him for it. But she didn't. She didn't dare. He was to be treated with respect now that her husband was no more. The coin was up in the air, spinning fast. One side bore his likeness, the other... the other-

Boots pounded on cobblestone and metal clanked. Harsh, unforgiving notes against the wind and the waves and the pop of flame. They all turned to look. But not August. He would not give him the satisfaction. He stared into the golden haze of the sun, its furor reflected in his hazel eyes.

The coin was up in the air, spinning fast, and it had to land. But where? Where and when.


His smile was lazy and indolent, half-concealed behind a silver goblet filled with deep, rich red. It was close to noon now, that shy sun having risen high where it now hung, uncaring that the king, his father, would never again feel its caress on his face. August could only hope to emulate its shining nonchalance with as much bravado in the company of the nobles and the officers and the priests who filled the great hall around him like a swarm of bees, but he especially hoped to emulate it before the stone-etched countenance of his brother.

"Asra," he remarked with a remarkable level of warmth, "where in the name of the Saints were you? I admit I feel vexed that I was forced to climb out of bed so early for the soiree when you could not be bothered to be on time. What would father think."

Asra's cheek bone bore a bruise, a magnificent purple, the color of the robes of high priests and kings. He blinked, once, slowly, but otherwise nothing moved in his face at all. He was as dead as their father in all the ways that truly counted, and it made August's grip go white-knuckled around his goblet.

"Business," he answered at the exact moment it seemed he would not, offering nothing more. His gaze was the green of forests, common pine needles, not any glacial blue, but when it was leveled upon you, you were certain it was the precise shade of icicles.

"Business? What kind of business?"

"A small insurrection near the border. Military matters—you needn't concern yourself, little brother."

Ah, there it was. That easy and cheap dismissal. He smiled against the indignation that turned the wine bitter on his tongue. Asra underestimated him. Assumed he had no interest in affairs of the state, assumed he'd be no good at it. He supposed that served his interests, even if it rankled.

He'd a witty retort. He always had one. But Asra's attention drifted elsewhere. Over to the side where Aesira suddenly stood, a phantom lurking in her delicate silence and onyx colored silk.

"You were late, my lord." Her voice was silken, too, and clearly directed at Asra.

"He'd business to attend to," he interjected with twisted lips, "but don't ask, he finds it simply too laborious to speak of."

"Yes." Asra's jaw twitched, an almost frown. But not quite. He gazed pointedly at their sister and not at him. "I am here now. Is there something you required?"

"Our Queen Mother wishes to see you." Her eyes were red-rimmed, he noted, as if she'd been crying at some point not long ago. "Both of you, if it pleases." If it pleases.

It pleased him she'd cried. The women at court of whom his sister was queen, with their too rouged cheeks and unflappable serenity, demure, doll-like—he'd little use for the whole lot of them. Well, there were a few uses.

August tipped back his head, downing the rest of the honeyed wine in a single gulp. He'd need it swimming through his veins, heady and thicker than his blood, if he were to make it through a family meeting. They were cruel creatures, the lot of them, with their dreadful, sharpened silences—he was used to it, though. Most moments he even enjoyed it, all the games. But today… today his armor bore a chink.

Asra gave him a look fit to wither crops before shifting it away somewhere less offensive. "It pleases."

Aesira led them from the Great Hall with startling finesse, dodging courtiers armed with condolences and—the worst—the archbishop of Angeles, who they nearly had to stop and pray with. By the time they reached the filigreed ironwork of what comprised the door to the former King's study, August was rather cross with giving out gracious platitudes. Asra, true to form, hadn't uttered a word. He did not care for the contrite.

One of the sentries posted at the door hailed them before showing them inside, his heart picking up an irregular beat. The last time he'd been within these tapestried walls had not been at all pleasant. He pulled at the lace on his sleeve as they crossed the threshold.

Nothing inside had changed. There was still the colossal desk, gleaming dark cherry. There were still the dusty, leather-bound books upon it. The yellowed maps marked with red X's, places coveted, places where his family watered the ground with blood. Nothing was different—except for the absence of the King. He belonged in this chamber as much as the things he'd cared about, things that'd managed to carry his hard-won interest. Things that'd managed to outlive him, now meaningless artifacts of a lost life, of eras bygone. All of it.

Including their mother.

She stood with her back to them, warming her weary bones at the fire that roared in the hearth, not unlike the pyre from the early hours. Outlined in red, mourning silk aglow, she turned to face them, no longer shrouded in her veil of black. Nor her veil of sadness, it appeared.

"My sweet children," she smiled, opening her arms wide to receive them, "come here, won't you?"


Asra hung back, as he so often did, as Aesira and August moved to embrace their mother. Instead he rounded the desk, propping himself on its corner, and made to wait it all out. Like a rogue wave, a storm, or something equally unpleasant.

"Mother," August was crooning, "how do you fare? I know this all must be absolutely shattering."

"I am alright, August, truly." She took his hand and one of Aesira's. "With all of us together—" she tried to catch his gaze, but he looked past her, at a battlefield marked on a map on the wall. He remembered that one well. The Battle of Bavincourt. He nearly died. A sword in his guts. He had to hold them together. He was fifteen, then. "—with all of us together, what can't we weather? Your father, may the Saints watch over him, would wish it so. But we cannot forget the dangers we face as a family, as a nation. We are Blathye." She released her hold on them, her smile dropping away in increments. "There are whispers."

August laughed, brushing back a lock of dark hair that had taken a liking to his eyes. "There are always whispers. Do be more specific."

"There are whispers," she enunciated carefully, "that one of you, my precious sons, murdered your father. There are whispers our enemies in Bovaria have allied with the Francophone and move against us. There are whispers the provinces themselves seek independence from the dreadful, devilish hand of the crown, and, not least among them, there are whispers you and your brother are too impotent, too preoccupied measuring sword sizes, to do much about it." She straightened her skirts, stalking around Asra, around the desk, to rip open a top drawer.

Asra's voice was cool water over stone when he spoke. "And there is something you'd have us do about it." It was not a question. He knew already.

"Yes, my love." Adamina tossed a thick stack of bound parchment to the center of the desk where it landed with a thwack. "That is a list of names. For the Selection. A list of names of the girls who may prove to be your salvation."

August snorted. "Yes, a race to the marriage bed to distract the plebeian masses. Love conquers all—let it be a tourniquet to staunch Blathye's bleeding wounds."

He felt no desire to parry such a comment so instead he reached behind him, taking the parchment up and thumbing through them.

Aesira, softly, from the back the room. "Will a Selection truly absolve our plights, Queen Mother?"

"Absolve? Heavens no. This isn't church. There is no neat little answer to make any sin go away, in spite of what the Paragon preaches. But a Selection will feel like progress, an opportunity for the people to achieve what they've always coveted—a chance to touch the throne, to matter, to make a true difference."

"They're all noble." He handed the parchment to August for his perusal, not that it seemed as if his brother cared a wit for the Selection. Neither did he, really. Whatever got him closer to his birthright. He would play the cards dealt.

"Yes," Adamina returned his unflinching gaze, "they are all noble. Though some, like that Whites girl, to the most minimal degree. We cannot put a crown on complete rabble. Our blood spans lifetimes much greater than our own. We cannot allow it to be tainted in one fell swoop. No matter how dire our situations become, we still have our pride. That is something no one—no marching army, no over glorified priest, no incensed mob—can ever take from you."

"Riveting, mother, thank you." August glanced over it only a moment before throwing the parchment back to the desk. "When will they arrive?"

"The coming days. Time is of the essence, as the roads are unsafe. Your father's advisors have warned me the ladies' mere association with us may paint a target on their delicate backs."

"Marvelous. Dead brides."

"August," Aesira said with a light gasp, sea-green eyes widened. "Don't create ill-will."

He found his brother's quip neither amusing nor scandalizing, though it did raise a grave concern. "Surely escorts have been provided?"

The Queen regent shrugged bony, shawled shoulders. "Their families are responsible for mustering the men to protect them until they reach Angeles. They are not our problem until then. How perilous could a cushioned carriage ride possibly prove?"

"You underestimate the distance. The lengths between stops are considerable, and unrest mounts at our borders." Unrest mounted within the capital, as well. His gaze sought August, and he flexed his fingers, now clean. Only hours earlier they were red with the blood of traitors. "The numbers and capabilities of the lords' troops vary. No doubt most men assigned to the task of protecting their liege's daughters would stake their honor on doing so, but honor does dead men little good—and the brigands roaming our rural regions currently would be nothing short of pleased to discover a clutch of young noble women traveling with next to no protection." He knew what desperate, vicious men were capable of. Combat on the battlefield was not the only instrument of war—it wasn't even the worst.

August scoffed. "Such a perpetual naysayer. I'm sure their men are more than capable of what is, essentially, delivering a package."

"You know nothing of what they're capable of. You've not fought with them. I have."

"As such you can so easily diminish their efforts, sweep them under the rug?" He laughed mirthlessly, picking at the lace affixed to the sleeve of his navy frock. A nervous gesture, or, much more likely, an indicator of restrained indignation. "Oh, I see what it is, brother. You must be the hero. No one can do what you do. No one is as skilled as you. You are the only one, is that it? You are a narcissist of the highest order."

"Perhaps you are projecting, little brother."

His smile twisted. "You would like to think so. But I see you for what you are. Father could too, and that is why you murdered him."

Asra stood from his perch on the desk. "So that will be your claim to legitimacy. That I am a kin-slayer? How transparent of you, August. Haven't had the time to devise an original scheme?"

"It need not be original when it is the truth. You are a murderer. More traitorous than the men you execute daily for the same crime. You are something worse—a traitor and a hypocrite, high on your throne of honor. It is a throne of lies."

It was as if he'd left his body. Half of him stayed with his boots planted to the hardwood—the rational half, the general—but the other, the soldier with the blood-stained fingers, already crossed the short space between he and his brother. Those fingers found the back of his neck, his mop of dark, silky hair. August made a noise of protest, swung at him wildly, but his instincts were all wrong. He had never fought to survive. He never had to surrender to the animal that waited at the heart of man, the animal that knew no moral, no sin, no God. It knew only death and the fear of it.

It flashed in his emerald eyes now, latent and gleaming, as Asra held his face a hair's breadth from the fire in the grate.

"Asra, stop!" Aesira grasped at his arm, pulling at useless threads, "Stop this madness. Please."

August's chest heaved, nostrils wide, pupils threatening to turn his irises pitch black. His face bloomed red, his cheek blistered from being so near to the heat. It had to burn. It had to hurt, but he made no sound.

He exhaled, one and two. His hands shook with the strength of his grasp. Three and four. His fingers uncurled themselves. Five and six. He yanked August away from the lick of the flames. Seven. Eight. He shoved him away, letting him go stumbling, saved only by the edge of their father's desk.

Aesira went to him, looking over her shoulder in horror.

Asra turned his back on them, squashing the voice that roared finish it. To grant an enemy mercy is to damn oneself. Isn't that what he was taught? He stared into the fire. So like the pyre—Atlas and August, they could have both burnt today. His hands shook badly, violently, so he carded them through his hair.

Behind him they mumbled. Are you alright? Your face—

He's mad, I told you. Kill me like he killed him—

That is enough. Both of you.

Minutes ticked by. The door to the study opened, noise from the hall became apparent, it clicked shut. He thought he was alone, left to simmer while they made a hasty retreat. Left him to his madness.

"You've stopped taking it." It was not a question. She knew already.

He turned, slightly, his chin angled over his shoulder. "It is a form of death. I feel nothing. All I crave is sleep. I cannot continue to take it, if I am to be any sort of King."

Adamina's skirts rustled as she came to stand beside him. "And if you are not King?"

"You support him then?" His voice was hoarse from his previous exertions. The anger, like the fire, left only cold ash in its wake, used up all the rest.

"Not yet. He's not proven himself worthy."

He'd nothing to say to that. He knew his mother was mercurial. He knew she'd side with whoever appeared to prevail the victor, and, even then, the only true side was her own. It was how she managed to coexist with that man. It was how she managed to outlive him.

The sudden press of her gloved fingertips against his cheek—there was a bruise there, he remembered—caused him to flinch.

"My first son, my first joy." She hummed, hand dropping away. "You walked through hell for him. If—" she stopped short. When she next spoke, it was with something sickeningly close to sympathy. "If you did it, I forgive you. God forgives you. It would be understood."

He'd nothing to say to that. If he confessed, if he denied—words meant nothing. Words were ash.


A/N: so, we've officially started. aaaah, I'm so excited!

no actual appearances from our selected yet (I've a fun way to pop them in next chapter...) but our royals have been introduced. Tell me, what do you think of August? of Asra? Who do you think your character will get along with - or instantly clash with - more?

If at any point you want to send me something extra about your character, please do! I adore it. There is still the matter of the opinion section of the form. And as for update speed, I'm aiming for a chapter a week, or bi-weekly at latest.

I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who submitted! I really enjoyed reading through the forms. The girls we've got, though small in number, are simply the crème de la crème.

Until next time!

- Love