Summary: When the Great One asked, Lady Celi von Spitzberg gave up her dreams for Shin Makoku. She couldn't stop the war, but her last choices as Maoh will determine the success of the new Maoh's rule and the happiness of her youngest son.
Rating: T
AN: Thanks to everyone who's reading and especially to those who have made this story a favorite and posted reviews. Your encouragement keeps me writing. In the anime it's revealed that Stoffel's failure as regent led to his estrangement from his nephews. In this chapter I sow the seeds of that failure.
I do not own Kyo Kara Maoh or its characters. This is written for fun, not for profit. Enjoy and please review. Thanks!
The Maoh's Last Command
Chapter 3: A Brother's Betrayal
Climbing down from the carriage made every muscle and joint in her body ache. She had never in her life felt so tired. Celi envied Wolfram who'd slept the whole way home from the last stop on their months long journey. A progress through the Demon Kingdom had been her brother Stoffel's idea, but even the Great One supported it.
Shin Makoku stood on the edge of war with the humans. All their efforts – negotiations, increased patrols, treaties – fell apart because forces on both sides actually wanted war. As Maoh, she had the power to enforce a non-aggressive position on Shin Makoku, but that left them easy victims when the humans attacked.
So now she prepared her country for war, going to each territory to speak to its Lord or Lady to ascertain their support and resources to better plan their defense and offense, and to raise her people's spirits. Stoffel insisted that just letting them see her and young Wolfram, their smiles and positive attitude, was the best thing she could do.
She had to remember to congratulate Gunter on the success of his lessons. Her little boy had done so well, impressing and charming everyone he met. Only at the end did he falter, becoming restless and refusing even to look at Lord von Hanreid. After they left, the fever manifested, explaining his irritableness. Illness always affected her baby that way.
The footman stepped down to the ground with the still sleeping Wolfram in his arms. Smiling tiredly, Celi reached out to brush his bangs out of his eyes and rested her fingers against his brow. It was still warm but much cooler than he'd been when they left von Hanreid's lands that morning.
Celi accepted her son into her arms and mouthed a silent thanks to the older man who gave her a weary grin before going to seek his bed. She turned, carrying her child to his room before seeking her own.
She eased him into the bed and was folding the covers back when he stirred. Wolfram complained sleepily, "I'm too old to be tucked in."
Celi just smiled as she did just that. "I know, sweetie. Just this once will you indulge me?"
It was their nightly ritual. Celi enjoyed it more than she had words to say and dreaded the day when he really meant it.
"Oh, alright. But this is the last time." He reached up to throw his arms around her neck and kiss her cheek. "G'night, mama."
"Do you want to take care of the candles or shall I?"
"Me! Let me!"
Wolfram's forehead wrinkled adorably in concentration and he tapped his index finger against his thumb. With each tap a candle extinguished. One by one the flames died out until only the moonlight through the windows illuminated the room.
"Very good! It won't be long before you'll be able to put them all out with a single gesture. I am so proud of you!"
With a happy smile Wolfram settled in to sleep, curling on his side and tucking his hand under the pillow to cradle his head. He closed his eyes and was instantly asleep again, a gift only children and very few and lucky adults enjoyed. Celi fingered a curl of sun bright hair out of the way to kiss his temple.
"Sleep tight, Wolvie."
Celi left him to his dreams.
Stoffel waited outside for her. As soon as she shut the door, he said, "You're spoiling him, sister."
He kept his voice quiet, not wanting Wolfram to overhear. Stoffel had failed to bond with Gwendal and Conrart. Wolfram was his last chance, and he was trying hard – too hard in her opinion – to win her youngest son over.
"I'm loving him, Brother," Celi told him. "Where's the harm in that? Wolfram is still young; he's not even 50 yet."
"But he is growing up. Soon than you think, he'll be of age and we must think of his future. As son of the Maoh, his future can't be left to chance."
By then they had reached her rooms. Stoffel followed her inside, telling her security guards to ensure their privacy before closing the door. She dearly wanted to order him to bed and have this discussion in the morning, but needed to review the meetings with Gregor von Hanreid while the details were fresh for both of them.
She and her brother settled into the wing hairs before the fireplace, in which the servants had thoughtfully started a warm fire and set up mulled wine for them. Celi poured two glasses and held one out to Stoffel. "How did things go with von Hanreid after I left? I hope he didn't take offense."
Stoffel shrugged, "You had a sick child to deal with. We have his full support, including permission to run supply lines through his lands."
With a relieved sigh, Celi slumped back in her chair and took a long drink of the spicy-lemony drink, luxuriating in the warm sensation traveling down her throat into her stomach. "What did he want in return?"
Every lord and lady they'd dealt with had conditions on their "unqualified and total" support. Most were reasonable, but some were just outrageous. They had haggled them down to something Shin Makoku's treasury could sustain and she could live with.
"A royal husband."
Celi froze as her heart raced. She set her glass aside on the floor and began to unlace her riding boots, and excuse to compose her face before facing her brother again. "And what did he settle for?"
Stoffel's voice was very soft when he replied, "He didn't settle, Celi."
Celi finished with the first boot, kicked it off and started on the right. "Then you refused him."
"No, Celi, I didn't."
She sat there, half way to removing the other boot, and stared at him as if he'd finally gone mad. "For Shinou's sake, why not?"
Her brother reached out to grip her wrist hard enough to hurt. She watched him fight to keep his expression just as hard.
"We are going to war, Sister. In a year or in fifty, it's inevitable. And if we must take Shin Makoku to war against the humans, we owe it to our people, to our soldiers, to win, to make the reward worth the price they will pay. For that to happen, we need Lord von Hanreid's cooperation. The humans have superior numbers with houseki stones and archers to take out our magic wielders in the field. We'll be depending heavily on our unpowered ground troops, and they can only fight when they are fed. Without the supply lines he's allowing to cross his lands, we might as well surrender."
Celi snatched her wrist back and yanked off her other boot. She really wanted to throw it at his head but told herself that was beneath a Maoh's dignity.
"Even if I agreed to this, neither Gwendal nor Conrart will."
Stoffel had enough sensitivity to look embarrassed as he told her, "He didn't ask for either of them."
Celi felt her face go icy as the blood drained from it and her boot dropped to the floor from suddenly nerveless fingers.
"You are both crazed. He's still a child!"
"I know that! Gregor…"
"Oh, it's Gregor now!"
"…intends to wait until Wolfram is of legal age, but in the meantime provide what we need for the war effort when that inevitability comes to pass. I insisted on that, "Stoffel added proudly, "before we wrote and signed the contract."
"You WHAT?"
The next thing Celi knew he was on the floor trying to catch the blood flowing out of his nose and she was shaking her aching hand.
"You had no right!"
"Actually, I did," her brother snuffled as he crammed a silk handkerchief against his nostrils. "I am your regent with the powers to speak for and act as the Maoh in military matters. The Ten Aristocrats insisted on this, and you were quite happy to agree."
It has made perfect sense then, she had no military experience or training, but, "Panderer! You sold my child!" she all but hissed at him.
"I am not a panderer and I did not sell Wolfram!" Stoffel closed his eyes, visibly counting down his temper. "Be reasonable, Celi. As the ruling Maoh, you know that arranged marriages face any children you have. Only the fact that Conrart is half-blood takes him out of the running." Stoffel reached out to her with the hand unsullied by his blood. Celi stepped back out of reach, and he dropped it to the floor, using it to push himself to his feet.
"At least Wolfram has years to get used to the idea, which is more than you ever had for any of your marriages. You will have plenty of time to prepare him."
"I have time? You throw Wolfram to the dogs and I get to shatter his life. What then, brother? Will you offer comfort and take my son's love when he starts to hate me?"
Celi saw hurt in his eyes and didn't care.
"Celi, that's not fair. I never…"
"Get out. Before I do something you won't live long enough to regret."
Stoffel started to say something more but finally chose wisdom. He gave her a lord's bow to his sovereign, though they both knew that he had never seen himself as anything less than her equal. Today he proved he thought himself better. As he walked toward the door, she stopped him.
"Wait. Don't say a word to Wolfram about this. Or anyone else. I'll find a way to break the contract."
Her brother shook his head, "A lot depended on this contract, Celi. Both Gregor and I wanted it to be totally binding. Don't waste your time. You won't find any loopholes.
"Watch me."
He left her standing there, shaking with a rage with nowhere to go. The second the door latch clicked, Celi reached for the nearest object – a translucent shallow bowl shaped like a water lily half full of shelled nuts – and flung it at the wall. Instead of the satisfying crash of shattering glass, all she got was the muffled rattle of walnuts scattering on the carpet.
The dish itself floated in the air above a hand that became more distinct as the Great One materialized.
"Careful, Celi dear. This bit of frippery is older than I am."
"I don't care!" She advanced on the ghost of the greatest Maoh the Demon Kingdom had ever known as if she had the ability to strangle him. She jabbed an accusing finger at Shinou who was levitating the antique to a safer location in the next room. "You lied to me!"
"Never."
"This is the grand destiny you planned for him? You promised me that Wolfram would find love, that he'd be happy. How can that be if he's married to a total stranger who only wants him for political advancement? A man even now he doesn't want to go near? Why didn't you stop them?"
Shinou pointed to her dressing table. Nesting with her other jewelry was his ruby artifact. He couldn't stop them because she had essentially left him home so he wasn't there to interfere. Her rage faltered as Celi realized that she had no one else to blame but herself.
"Outside my temple, I can only be where my artifact it. Don't blame yourself," Shinou told her with gentle reason. "Von Hanreid knew how protective you are of your children. He planned to treat with your brother without your knowledge from the beginning. If you had the pin with you, I still would not have been part of those meetings anymore than you were. And as I have warned you, the decisions of others can alter the course of the future. Sit down, please."
Her heart in her throat, Celi slumped into her vacated chair by the fireplace. "So this isn't the future you spoke of for Wolfram?"
Shinou snorted. "My favorite playmate? Hardly."
When he'd been a baby, Wolfram was able to see Shinou. At first, Celi had thought it meant that Wolfram was destined to be the next Maoh, but Shinou told her that some infants born to contract with an element had the ability to see him at least for a little while, until they grew out of it. For the first time, she'd heard loneliness in his voice. So from that day forward, she brought Wolfram with her on visits to the temple.
Shinou took to visiting him in his nursery. He loved to upset the nursemaids who came running to her to report that her sweet blonde baby boy played peek-a-boo with no one. Just thinking of the most hysterical of them brought a smile to her face.
"That's better," he smiled in turn. "You were meant for laughter, Celi, not tears."
"Not when there's something to cry about. What am I going to do? If Stoffel says the contract is unbreakable, it likely is. If anything can be said of my brother, he is a consummate businessman."
"And I am a god. Our Wolfram is not meant for von Hanreid. This marriage will not happen, I will see to it."
"How?"
Shinou smiled, and his expression shifted subtly to something Celi couldn't name and that left her feeling very uneasy.
"Leave that to me."
AN: We know that Wolfram had plenty of suitors in the past that he literally had to fight off. What's surprising to me is that an arranged marriage hadn't been made for him before his accidental engagement to Yuuri. Now the brothers have an addition reason to despise Stoffel Please review and let me know what you think.
In the next chapter, the time is coming when Wolfram must be given over to Gregor von Hanreid in fulfillment of the marriage contract. In the intervening years, Celi has learned more about von Hanreid, and that knowledge has left her desperate. Be here for A Scent of Orchids
Thanks for reading, and see you soon!