Imperial Capital of Pendragon, August, a.t.b. 2010
William, the eldest of his brothers, was dead.
James and Father had told the rest of them during their weekly call back to the estate, and it had been Andrew who went out of his way to make sure Mycroft knew. Andrew, the one who had selected for him the gun that even now scalded his skin with the mortal chill of cold metal.
William's body hadn't been recovered, Andrew said, nor was it likely to be. His funeral was to be a closed casket affair at the end of the campaign, where he and all the other legions of hapless soldiers who had breathed their last on foreign shores would be granted one grand state funeral, where His Majesty would take to the pulpit. Truth be told, Mycroft had almost entirely tuned out by that point, shaken by his grief. He had long since known that his brothers going off to war meant that no small number of them would only come home in body bags, if at all—they all did; Father didn't believe in sugar-coating lessons of such import. Until now, he believed he had made his peace with that reality. But nothing could have prepared him for how this felt, this disarming viscerality coupled with an even more unsettling feeling of vacancy.
He had expected it to feel much more profound than it did, and it was disquieting.
The news of William's death had come as a shock, like being struck across the face, but when the shock began to wear away, he felt no compulsion to weep, nor indeed to shed a tear at all; instead, he felt solemn. He craved silence, stillness, and serenity in those moments, and in search of this, he found himself wandering the halls of Belial Palace without aim, beyond taking in the quiet the way a flower might the sunlight.
When he realised where he was, he was more than a little surprised, not having expected to arrive at the patio before the carefully-cultivated gardens cultivated on the estate grounds. And more than that, he found his own surprise mirrored in the face of his…'charge' felt entirely too impersonal, but 'friend' was most assuredly quite improper. What impertinence, for a baron like him to consider a princess of the realm something so familiar, so vulgar, as a friend!
"You're doing it again…"
Mycroft turned his attention back to Princess Euphemia. "Beg pardon?"
"That thing you do, when you think something less than perfectly professional," said the princess, her tone complaining with a hint of a whine. "Your eyes widen like a skittish horse, and your posture goes all rigid, your jaw clenches… It's painfully obvious even to me. And you can be sure that if I can notice it, then Juliette's only chosen to refrain from flaying your ego with it out of the kindness of her heart."
"Such as it is…" he found himself scoffing. Princess Juliette had certainly left something of an impression on him, and while he could claim no enmity and only respect for her, it was not a gentle impression she left nonetheless.
Princess Euphemia pinned him with a look of uncharacteristic severity. "Now that, Baron Darlton, is a grave impertinence."
He swallowed his reflex to apologise for overstepping, knowing it would do nothing that would endear him to the Seventh Princess, and instead forced himself to fire back. "Her Highness is certain to be a terror, and I say that with only the utmost respect, but she doesn't seem to have much in the way of kindness to go around."
The princess's lavender eyes swept down his uniform-clad silhouette appraisingly. "Well. When we got here, you would have immediately shut down. This is what progress looks like, I suppose. Though, I can't say I particularly mislike it…"
Mycroft allowed himself a small smile, and took in the state of his charge. She reclined in an outdoors lounge chair on the patio, having foregone her aggressively pink gown in favour of half of what looked to be an equestrian outfit, garbed as she was in tan breeches, black boots, and a white poet's blouse. Her pink hair was tied back loosely at the nape of her neck as she relaxed, though there was a slim, open volume sitting open in her lap, bound in forest green with gold leaf lettering on the front and spine. "May I ask what it is you're reading, Princess Euphemia?"
The princess's entire demeanour changed, and she snorted in frustration. "An assignment Juliette handed down, as it happens. Apparently, my 'political acumen is wanting'—or somesuch nonsense—so Juliette's put together a reading list of some sort, for the sake of 'supplying me with much-needed remedial attentions.' Though why she thought Justine's favourite would be a decent introductory primer is beyond me."
"Perhaps it's an inside joke?" Mycroft guessed. His brothers had had those sometimes, he recalled, and this seemed from what information he possessed, limited though it admittedly was, to be of a similar character.
"Maybe," she replied, noncommittal. "Il Principe, it's by a man by the name of 'Niccolò Machiavelli.'"
"A Florentine, as I recall. Active during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century," he noted, thinking back to his lessons. "Managed to antagonise the Medici more than once—not that that's a particularly noteworthy feat; they're remembered as somewhat legendary on how quick they were to take umbrage. May I sit?"
"By all means," sighed the princess. "I wasn't making much headway anyways."
"Perhaps I might be of assistance?"
The princess snorted. "Be my guest. It's just…so dry…"
"What is dry to one is thorough and unpretentious to another," Mycroft remarked. "When Father gets reports from his subordinates in the field, he tends to read the ones written by those born common before the ones born peers. The peers tend to obscure their meanings with verbal flourishes, you see, decorative phrases that mean nothing and must be parsed in order for him to interpret them clearly. The ones written by the commons, however, begin and end with clarity."
"Maybe that's why Juliette thought this'd be a good primer," mused Princess Euphemia. "It certainly does go to great lengths to define its terms with as much certainty as possible, after all…"
"Where did you leave off, Princess Euphemia?" Mycroft asked.
She sighed anew. "The third chapter. 'Mixed Principalities.' As far as I can tell, it talks about conquered provinces—the Areas, for example—laying out ways to hold them after they've been annexed. I've read through the whole thing a few times, longer than its preceding chapters as it is, but I've yet to understand exactly how this one line fits in with all the others…"
"Which line?"
"'If you must do a man harm, you must be sure to do him such harm that his reprisal need not be feared,'" replied the princess.
Mycroft cocked an eyebrow—an impertinence he would not have risked in the ordinary course given the situation, but the princess seemed resolved to continue demanding a level of informality that was highly improper (positively vulgar, in fact) given their difference in station, and despite himself, he found his willingness to defy her on that score waning. Especially with William now nothing more than one more corpse at the bottom of the Pacific… His desire for companionship at a time like this would likely be his undoing. But so be it. "I'm afraid I don't quite see what's so complicated about that line, Princess Euphemia."
"I mean, at first glance, neither did I," replied the princess, worrying her lip in a show of half-mastered irritation. She sighed. "But…Juliette said that this was Justine's favourite, so there must be more at play here than I'm seeing—it's just, for the life of me I can't find it…"
"If you read out the passage surrounding it to me, maybe we can discover what you're missing together," Mycroft offered, keeping his own counsel on the slowly-mounting mound of nonspecific misgivings coiling in his grief-hollowed chest.
"I'd appreciate that, Mycroft," sighed Princess Euphemia, her lavender eyes falling upon him in open relief. "Thanks."
"I live to serve, y…Princess Euphemia," Mycroft replied, catching the almost-there slip at that last possible moment.
"Mark my words, I'll break you of that yet," the princess ruefully swore. "From the top of the paragraph, at the indent, then: 'The other good solution is to dispatch colonists to a few key places and allow them to become part of the nascent vassal-state: otherwise, the use of soldiers becomes unavoidable. Colonists are an inherently thrifty course of action, posing no real cost to settle or remain settled. The displaced element is, of course, aggrieved, but provided one has taken care to maintain their minority amongst the conquered, they are of limited burden. Rendered as they have been unto destitution, they lack the means to meaningfully challenge the coalescing order. The preponderance of the populace is therefore becalmed, for they are not aggrieved, and they shall cultivate their apathy towards the misfortunes of their fellows either sincerely, or out of an aversion towards the consequences of the opposite, that that very same misfortune might thus befall them. Ergo, colonies are an efficient solution, as they remain loyal and are thus unlikely to be the source of unrest: the newly-destitute are thus left devoid of means and of recourse. Note, however, that in this case, moderation is indecision, and that it is crucial to resolve to be wholly soft, or wholly harsh: for if you give slight, you provoke offence, and thus undoing, while if one is unerringly firm, you deprive them of the privilege of such troublesome concerns. If you must do a man harm, you must be sure to do him such harm that his reprisal need not be feared.' End quote."
Mycroft mulled it over for a few moments, but ultimately elected to be truthful. "Princess Euphemia, there seems to be a noticeable lack of ambiguity in that message…"
"I know…!" the princess whined in protest, dropping the open book face-down onto her own face in the process.
"Why do you believe there to be a hidden meaning, Princess Euphemia?" asked Mycroft.
Princess Euphemia lifted the book from her face by its spine just enough to give the boy a singularly petulant pout, blowing a ringlet of vivid pink hair out of her eyes with a huff. "Like I said, because it's supposed to be Justine's favourite…"
"Princess, I have no knowledge of the elder of the vi Britannia sisters, save perhaps for some vague hearsay," Mycroft reminded her gently. He was willing to be as patient with her as she obviously needed him to be—it certainly beat confronting the nightmares he was certain to suffer should he elect to retire. "The implication that you consider inherent to that observation is one of which I am unfortunately too ignorant of the woman in question to parse."
"'Woman.' How very diplomatic," she scoffed incredulously. "Justine is barely older than I am."
"All the same," he insisted.
The princess stared at him for a few moments, worrying her lip in consideration. Then she sighed, reached for a rectangular piece of plain white laminate on the tiled floor of the patio, beside the lounge chair, and slipped it into the crease of the page she was on, snapping the cover shut around it. "This passage…you heard the tone of it just now. It's… What it describes isn't even especially cruel, per se—perhaps it would be more palatable were it so simple. But it's not that: it's impersonal, dispassionate, detached… How am I to reconcile such an idea, soulless as it is, with Justine, the girl whom I once had thought as a foregone conclusion that I would one day wed? She's always been so kind to me, and even at her worst, she was just so very full…"
Mycroft waited for the princess to find her words once again, and when she failed to do so in a timely fashion, he held up a finger. "Princess Euphemia, you've described Her Highness's behaviour as it concerns you, but I can't help but notice you've explained very little concerning the woman herself. What drives Princess Justine vi Britannia? What is her ultimate goal, that one thing upon which she will brook no compromise? What are her ambitions? What are her dreams, her wants, her aspirations? What makes the Fourth Princess herself?"
Princess Euphemia's lavender eyes went abruptly wide; her jaw flexed as she opened and closed her mouth several times through a number of aborted false starts. Mycroft waited with an abundance of patience—a necessary skill if one intended to accomplish anything in or around the Darlton household, and one he had taken great care to learn well—as the moments passed, and she began to look progressively more lost. When she finally spoke, her voice lingered in the murky space that lay between harrowed and heartbroken: "I… I don't know…"
This time, it was Mycroft's turn to sigh.
"Princess Euphemia, I swear that it was at no point my intention to inflict undue distress upon you," he assured her. "All the same, however, when I consider that this is the selfsame girl who pledged her troth to Carmilla Ashford and calls the Princess Juliette not only sister, but partner-in-crime, as I've gathered, I cannot say I share your difficulty in reconciling such an idea as the one you read in Il Principe with the admittedly somewhat vague portrait those facts paint—especially if one pauses to consider the character of those I have personally had the honour of meeting. On some level, I sincerely doubt that the aforementioned Duchess Ashford would speak so highly of one who was wont to flinch at such a doctrine of ruthlessness."
The princess mulled that over for a while, her trepidation seeming to almost diminish her in some subtle, barely-articulable manner—though it was not long before she visibly elected to shove that mess off to the side. Her gaze sharpened. "What brings you out to the gardens at this hour, then, Mycroft? I've already spoken of my business here."
Mycroft nodded, content to allow her to defer that internal confrontation. Once opened, it was not so much folly as it was an exercise in futility and impossibility to wrangle all the world's evils back into Pandora's Box. There would be no running from this, not for her. "Distraction, I would say, though that would not be telling the whole of it, I'm afraid."
"Distraction from what, pray tell?" asked Princess Euphemia, doing her best to turn his gently prompting patience back upon him—though her 'bedside manner,' as it were, was in some ways something of a departure from his own.
"We got news from the Midway Task Force recently," Mycroft began, and found it was in some way less of an ordeal to articulate what he was about to say than he had expected. "Among that news was something of an informal casualty report. And among them was William…eldest of my brothers."
Princess Euphemia jerked back wide-eyed, as if stricken, and she raised a hand to cover her mouth. "Oh, Mycroft… I'm so very sorry… And here I am, lamenting over such…childish strife, such a juvenile issue…"
"Your loss was no less deeply felt than my own, Princess Euphemia," said Mycroft. This was certainly not how he'd intended for this to go, and while it was entirely too late to turn back the clock, perhaps the situation could still be salvaged to some appreciable extent. "I'd imagine it's not quite so different from losing a loved one outright, to discover that perhaps you never truly knew them in the first place."
The princess still seemed disturbed, but gave a reluctant nod all the same, patting the cushion beside her in invitation before reaching out to grab Mycroft's hands and place them into her own lap, guiding him to sit down alongside her. It was a strange sight, truth be told: he hadn't realised that his knuckles were white, and as she unfurled his fingers from their fists with an air of gentle insistence, he learned to his moderate consternation that his well-trimmed nails had come very close to breaking the skin of his palm. There was a dull ache in the afflicted regions of his hand of which he was only just now gaining awareness, but it was muted, distant.
…Oh, he thought to himself, suddenly extremely cautious of his own numbness. I must be dissociating a bit… That's not very good, is it…?
"Mycroft."
He nodded faintly.
"Mycroft."
He snapped his head up, locking his gaze with the lavender concern in the princess's own eyes for a few pregnant moments that seemed to stretch for far longer than they probably did. "Yes, Princess Euphemia?"
"How do my hands feel?" she asked, her tone very severe.
He looked down at them again, and shook his head with a tight, rueful smile. "I'm afraid I can't rightly say."
"What do you feel?" she pressed.
He shrugged. "You're gripping my hands in your own. I can tell that without looking, at the very least. But whether that grip is gentle or harsh, I cannot say…"
"What about here, out on the patio? What's the climate like right now?"
He shook his head again. Then, a thought occurred to him, and in that same moment, a rough laugh began to skitter and claw its way up his throat. "And here I was, worried that Will's death had managed to affect me none. I suppose this puts paid to that notion…"
The princess echoed his grim mirth, but it was a hollow thing, and where the core of it ought to have been instead rested discomfort and sympathy, intertwined in the manner of twin vines of ivy. Then she pursed her lips in a moment of hesitation, before speaking her piece. "Will you call me 'Euphemia', Mycroft?"
"Princess…"
"Even if it's only the once," she pleaded. Her mouth twisted into an attempt at a rueful smile that came out halfway to a grimace. "As you can plainly see, I'm in a spot of bother where I'm very much in need of friends."
"…It's not proper…"
"The difference in station is vast, but not irreconcilable," the princess stated flatly. "I remain even now a princess of the realm, for all that I might be among the least of them. Should I wish it, I could have your station elevated to the point where it was not so improper—though it might take a bit of doing. And besides, something tells me that Justine wouldn't let something like that stop her."
"Even after tonight, you speak so highly of her…" Mycroft muttered.
"Of course," said the princess, her eyes wide in some slight expression of surprise. "It's just as our sister Friederike used to tell us, I suppose. 'Admiration is the emotion that is furthest from comprehension.' Ever since I can remember, Mycroft, I've looked up to Justine in one fashion or another; it is only now that we've reached this point, and I my realisation—thanks to this book, oddly enough—that it's begun to sink in…that Friederike was, as per usual, correct."
To that, Mycroft could only offer his silence, and his contemplative vigil.
"So? How about it?" prompted the princess, leaning forward towards him as her distress faded in the face of a small yet stubborn spark of joy. "Give it a try. It won't kill you. I promise."
"As you wish…" he sighed heavily, shoulders slumping and all. "…Euphemia."
The smile she gave him was blinding in its brilliance.
Thud. Thud. Thud thud. Thud thud thud.
The muted percussive clamour echoed throughout the basement of Belial Palace (the second of five such subterranean levels), accompanied both by the sharp protesting shriek of chain link squealing against chain link, jolted into sudden motion by an explosion of force, and by wailing, lilting sequences of nimble notes skillfully drawn from the pliant, supple wooden body of a violin. If anyone wished to infiltrate this area of the estate on a quest to end the life of the lady of the house, upon descending the small stairwell to reach this level of gymnasia and assorted exercise equipment, they could be assured beyond a shadow of a doubt that the girl they considered their quarry could be found here.
Unlike them, however, Juliette was not under the misapprehension that either the din or the music could mask her approach from Carmilla's sharp senses.
The gymnasium unit in which her good-sister and future sister-in-law was beating something to within an inch of its proverbial life was one devoted to the fine art and sweet science of pugilism: dummies shaped like the torso and head of a man perched atop poles and grounded in water-filled bases stood along the far wall, a taut red bag shaped like a teardrop hung from the ceiling on a single link of chain in one corner of the room, and a pouch possessing a similar shape and hue hung in the adjacent corner, dangling from the crane-like arm of another contraption, scaffolded in hydraulic piping about a yellow-and-black column. The screen on said column was dark, but she could see the faint imprint of the "888" on the dormant, dark red surface. In the third corner of the square room, a modern-looking record player sat fully assembled, a broad vinyl disk turning securely upon it, and Juliette knew that there were speakers skillfully hidden from an eye that did not know where to look about this room as it was in all rooms on this level, and she assumed this was the source of the violin music. She found the lady of the house at the last of these corners, which housed a huge bag about as tall as the Knight of One, and approximately as broad—Ser Bismarck Waldstein being a giant of a man who was well-known for regularly having to duck under and manoeuvre through door frames sized for normal humans—hanging from a length of steel chain from the ceiling in the process of swinging and lurching back and forth with the impact of each cluster of hits. Knowing that her good-sister would speak with her once she had finished her set, and loath as Juliette was to interrupt her until then, the princess allowed herself a few moments to level an appreciative stare at the young woman Justine would one day marry.
Juliette had to admit that her elder sister had impeccable taste. The scion of the Houses of Ashford and Tremaine, heiress to the Grand Duchy of Ashfordshire, was in some circles considered to be the up and coming flower of Britannian beauty, a vision of the empire's modernity as Justine was a spectre of its distant, dangerous past—but it was clear as day that she was only just beginning to grow into her stature. In the throes of a rather sudden growth spurt as she was, her shoulders were broadening, her limbs becoming lankier, and the height gap between her and Justine was expanding by the day. Her blue eyes were carved diamonds with the precision of her focus, and though they were a touch too big for her face at the moment, it was but a passing flaw, only barely worthy of note. Her hair was a voluminous, curling mass of vibrant and vivid gold, and even with it tied back as it was at the moment, it was in many ways like a stolen shard of sunlight, spun out into thick yet smooth threads—Juliette did not envy her good-sister the tremendous undertaking that keeping her hair looking as it did was sure to be.
In contrast to the combination of tight compression pants, loose blouse, and dancing slippers that Justine counted as appropriate exercise attire (which, in fairness, considering her training regimen featured no shortage of ballet and gymnastics, was far more apt than it might have been otherwise), the young duchess even now revelled in her newfound freedom to adopt commoner fashions. Navy blue compression shorts peeked out from under otherwise scandalous gunmetal grey running shorts; a sturdy black sports bra and cropped tank top presenting a very striking scarlet hue held her upper torso together; white sneakers made for dashing and sprinting supported her weight; and her hands were wrapped in gauze up to roughly the middle of her forearm. Fingerless black leather gloves took the brunt of each hit, as her lean arm struck out with a viper's speed to land a solid blow on the textured red material of the large, swinging bag, and judging by the dull glint on the knuckles, they were reinforced with metal to ensure that she wouldn't risk splitting the skin of her hand by striking with too much force.
The bag suffered five strikes in quick succession, swinging backwards with a protesting squeal; one more round of eight hits, then, and that concluded the set for now. As the copper wire stylus of the record player finally ran out of groove, Milly took a few measured steps back from the swinging bag, the chain sounding like it was buckling as it snapped to and fro (though it was not in any danger of such, really) and settled unsteadily, bleeding off motion as it swung to a stop, and was at last still. The speakers having gone silent, the blonde limbered up with a few shoulder rolls and head-stretches, and then she started on the task of stretching her arms—a cue that she was ready to talk, for Juliette's benefit.
Juliette, for her part, studied the other girl's face evenly, noted how her lips were slightly thinner than Justine's, how the shape of her mouth with its almost feline curve gave the impression that at all times the duchess was perhaps a moment from smirking, how her slender, sloping nose would in all likelihood grow into the unsung hero of the Ashford's future beauty, her blonde brow strong but hardly one of the more striking features on her face the way Justine's brow was… At last, she spoke. "Tonight will likely be the turning point that will decide whether Euphy's fit to become our ally, or only our pawn. I handed her the book—what she makes of it is up to her. And so I have to ask, once again: what possessed you, exactly, to invite Euphy of all people here?"
Milly shrugged, insouciant. "Justine's fond of her, so I figured she'd like to see the girl flourish and come into her own."
Juliette folded her arms across her chest in a rare show of open exasperation. Milly had given her this same answer the past three times she'd posed this question—which, Juliette supposed, counted as a significant improvement compared to her good-sister's previous method of either ignoring the question, or deflecting from the question; and yet it helped her understanding of the circumstances exactly as much as Milly's silence did, which is, to say, not at all. "Is that the only reason?"
She shrugged again, brushing past Juliette as she crossed the room to retrieve her water bottle, from which she nursed at a careful, measured pace. When she finished with a soft gasp, her skin slick with the sweat of exertion that made her complexion seem like it glowed just that little bit extra, she turned back to Juliette, and pondered while staring her dead in the face; the princess could only assume that Milly was making the attempt to choose her words carefully and precisely. At last, however, she spoke, shaking her head in clear negation. "No, that's not the only reason… The main reason is because she didn't flinch."
"Didn't flinch?" Juliette parroted, ever so slightly incredulous.
"At the townhouse, the night that my Justine managed to successfully break into the OSI," Milly explained, and Juliette did not fail to notice the flash of sharp disapproval that darted across her gaze. "The night Cassiopeia died. She had come to visit me, to demand an explanation—for something she considered important, I'm sure. She was with me when we came upon Cassiopeia's dead body, and she barely let slip so much as a blink, evenas Sayoko cast the blade that pithed the man. Euphemia has potential, Juliette. I suppose I was equal parts curious as to the shape of that potential, and resolved to keep whatever potential she had from proving to be an obstacle to our work."
"Very well, then," Juliette replied, inclining her head in a brief, courteous bow. Leaning her weight back on her heel, she began to turn on it, preparing to take her leave. "I hope that the remainder of your exercise session is sufficiently fruitful. Dearest Euphy and I have a session of court to attend in the early hours of the afternoon, so it would be best that I retire at present."
Milly released a surprised chuckle as Juliette turned away from her. "What, that's it? You came all the way down here to ask me that insignificant question? I thought you would at the very least stay and chat for a while."
Despite herself, Juliette felt her frame stiffen, her back going ramrod straight. Without so much as a moment of hesitation, she ruthlessly suppressed the nauseating sensation writhing in her gut, and mastered her voice as best she could. To ignore Carmilla after she had spoken directly to Juliette, after all, would be a monumental error, a mistake of such gravity that even she could not truly conceive the whole of it, for all that she learned it better with each passing day. Composing her face as strictly as she could manage, she looked over her shoulder at the blonde as she responded, "You do me a disservice, Milly. Unlike most, I am not so foolish as to think that I may afford to risk speaking recklessly with you."
Any hint of conviviality or congeniality slid from Carmilla's features like an ill-fitting mask. In its place, her lips curled upwards in the manner of an entirely different sort of feline. "Oh?"
She cannot truly hear your heart hammering, Juliette, the princess recited to herself, a mantra only half-believed, and she exerted a valiant effort to keep such thoughts from her face. This was Carmilla Ashford, devoid of all masks and affectations, many of which she had doffed in the wake of her grand act of assisted matricide (her own involvement in which Juliette had no doubt had bought her a great degree of the other girl's indulgence), but not all.
In other situations, even mere moments prior, she made sure to appear passably human, after all.
And yet, for all that, it is more of an act than even Justine's performance of humanity…
She cannot truly hear your heart hammering, Juliette. She cannot truly smell your fear.
For all that, however, Juliette could not help but turn away from the vacant stare, animated only by a single-minded obsession that would gleefully engulf the world, and all but one upon it, a burning desire that would never, could never be satisfied, until the object of it was hers and hers alone. For all that she was given to grand declarations of devotion, they were but pale imitations of the truth.
Her and Justine together, gazing up at falling stars above an otherwise lifeless, barren husk of a planet—a world for the two of them, containing only the two of them, where only they may exist, Juliette reflected. That is Carmilla Ashford's sweetest dream, her greatest desire.
A world choked pale by the charnel ashes of all others.
"How many words would it take, do you think?" Juliette found herself asking—she would have cursed her own foolishness in speaking that particular wonder if she was capable of deluding herself into thinking it would do her any good.
Carmilla tilted her head back—both of them knew exactly what she was asking. "At present? Six."
Juliette nodded stiffly, and crossed the threshold, taking great care not to make it appear as though she was fleeing. The sharp cry of the violin began anew even as she ascended the stairs, and it chased her even as she continued to ascend. She didn't dare drop her composure until at last her feet set upon the tile of the ground floor, and she all but dashed to a nearby column, pressing her back against it and sliding to the ground all but bonelessly, her chest heaving with deep, shuddering, unsteady breaths. Her brow was slick and her eyes wide with Carmilla's prediction:
That all it would take Carmilla to turn her elder sister irrevocably against her was the utterance of no more than six words.
"Presenting Her Royal Highness, Sixth Princess Juliette vi Britannia! And Her Royal Highness, Seventh Princess Euphemia li Britannia!"
The herald's gusty bellow echoed throughout the hall, drawing all the eyes of the peers of the realm to the debut of two of the most reclusive princesses of the Imperial Family, and Euphemia suddenly found herself very nearly overwhelmed by the opulence, the sheer grandiose spectacle of it all. Despite Cornelia's more spartan sensibilities, Empress Desiderata had thoroughly made sure that her youngest daughter was well-acquainted with, and to a point accustomed to, the sort of lavish finery she should expect from her seething mass of siblings and half-siblings, should she wish to comport herself amongst them; yet, none of it prepared her for the extravagance on display at court. The hall vaulted decently far over their heads, and painted scenes of war and victory, triumph and tragedy adorned the firmament, the great pivotal event that had been Napoleon's victory at Trafalgar and the subsequent Humiliation of Edinburgh represented as the sacking of Troy and the fall of Ilium, as Aeneas and his exiles embarked upon the journey that, legend had it, led directly to the founding of Rome and begat the ages-old enmity between that kingdom which became a republic before it settled into an empire, and the great and wealthy ancient polity of Carthage.
Great tiles of black and white marble were arranged in the manner of a chessboard, with what looked to be pure gold used as decoration for the mortar beneath their feet, and a long crimson carpet bisected the room in a livid slash. Windows stretched from the floor halfway up the wall towards the ceiling, which even then made them twice the height of an average man, draped in what could only be cloth-of-gold, and the summer sunlight flooded into the grand chamber from both that side of the room and its exact mirror upon the opposite wall, covering east and west. Thusly oriented, they gave a clear view of the artificial oasis that was Pendragon as it sprawled away into the distance that bordered the southern reaches of the Mojave Desert; and upon the walls adjacent to the entryway they had come from, walls that were spared the glare of the sun by virtue of some quirk of geometry, bore on one side the vivid standard of the Holy Britannian Empire, and on the other, a banner adorned with the sigil of the House of Britannia, the Imperial Family under their current patriarch (the design of the sigil was unique to each absolute monarch, and it was something of a tradition of succession for a new emperor ascendant to present their own), the Ninety-Eighth Holy Britannian Emperor, Great Sovereign and Protector of the Realm.
And as if that in itself weren't intimidating enough, there were so many people…!
Rule Number One: Never let them see if they hurt you.
Juliette's lecturing tone came to mind immediately, sobering her before she could make the mistake of gawking. Such was the provenance of ingenues, after all, and Juliette had made it abundantly clear that courtiers considered ingenues to be synonymous with hors d'oeuvres. Euphemia stole a moment so that she could take a deep, calming breath, and corrected her bearing, as Juliette had laboriously demonstrated until Euphemia could replicate it perfectly. For all that the clothes she wore now that her violently pink dress had been firmly eschewed did not make her a fundamentally different person than the one she had been, it was nonetheless a distinct image, one she now possessed the opportunity to define the substance of beyond the shadow of her accomplished commander of an elder sister and her similarly-illustrious entourage: in black trousers that fit well enough that they nearly clung to her legs, fit to see her astride a horse, and with leather boots of polished, shining black, with only enough heel to settle easily in a stirrup—unlike Justine at times, she did not believe herself to be lacking for height.
A sturdy, solid mantelet of hard-boiled black leather edged with gold conformed to her shoulders, at once both making them seem broader and also giving the richly blue silk blouse she wore beneath it a greater sense of august formality than such a garment would generally have warranted, should it be, as it was in this case, unaccompanied by a jacket or coat. The eggshell-white jabot she wore around her neck was further secured by a deceptively simple elegant brooch of a smooth ruby set into a mounting of silver latticework, complementing the long sash that was a slash of brilliant red across her waist, secured with a knot at her side that allowed the ends of it to trail down to rest against the side of her upper calves. Black vambraces were secured to her forearms to finish it, then, to take away from the rather lackadaisical connotation of the blouse and to further accentuate the ruffled cuffs that fell from the rim of them, making it easier for Euphemia to have hidden away other means of self-defence, some better-suited to her lacking martial discipline than the subtle tools Juliette seemed to have a way with. Her long pink hair was drawn back and secured into a tail at the nape of her neck, much like Juliette's, but unlike Juliette, she had opted to let it hang instead of braiding it, instead securing it with a length of black silken ribbon tied in an elegant bow—and while altogether her attire was quite far from the most outlandish or eccentric collection of fashion choices on display in that very moment, the sheer extent of the departure from her pre-established image of innocent, chaste purity that her outfit constituted in contrast to her now very much disposed-of pastel dress was remarkable enough in itself to draw an undue degree of attention.
Juliette, for her part, stood poised right beside her, the brunette's affect radiating a palpable sense of calm as motes of sparkling laughter danced quite merrily in her amethyst eyes, which seemed as soft and warm and welcoming as always. As was coming to be standard, she stood with her light brown hair bound in a thick braid that started at the nape of her neck and hung forth over her shoulder to fall gently down her front, her face done up with subtle touches of cosmetics to make her look radiant no matter the light. Her own choice of attire was a fine dress of plum and carmine silken brocade, its bodice pinned in place with a brooch of rose-gold figured into the shape of a true lily, heralding an intricate arrangement of decorative golden thread that ensured the eye was drawn into patterns that projected a much fuller, more mature frame than the slender shape which Juliette possessed in truth. Full sleeves ended at her wrists, and the layer underneath continued in full, frilled cuffs that concealed the back of Juliette's hands as surely as any of her other dresses, and its light, flowing volume lent a flourish to all of her already-elegant motions. In one of her hands, she held a whale-bone folding fan with rich, lavish crimson stock providing the stiff floral-patterned lace-weave panelling, and her other hand, which was currently out of view to all who were in attendance save for Euphemia herself, twitched oddly to reveal the glinting blade of a stiletto.
Euphemia took this as reassurance—for she assumed that this was, indeed, Juliette's intent—and in a blink, the metal slipped away as if it had never been there to begin with. Making a mental note to inquire as to the necessity of her similarly learning the rudiments of legerdemain, Euphemia stepped forth into the breach, shoulder-to-shoulder with her teacher and would-be ally.
No sooner had this threshold been crossed, however, than did the shocked stillness that had gripped the Imperial Court for a moment fall immediately to pandemonious pieces.
"Euphemia! Darling!"
Wincing at the unexpected sound, Euphemia found her attention drawn to one such eclectic display of lavish opulence as she made her way towards them, her full chest on display to an extent that seemed only just shy of obscenity, complete with the tell-tale pink rose tattoo on the pale canvas of the heavy swell of her left breast. Long pale brown hair with an odd purple tint pinned together in an arrangement entirely too complicated for what was otherwise a simple bun, forest-green eyes, and a face whose still-famous beauty was beginning to become pinched and wash away in the wake of sneers and frowns carving lines of bitterness across its painstakingly maintained surface constituted the approach of none other than the woman who held the dubious honour of being known as the empire's own Marie Antoinette, Guinevere de Britannia, First Princess of the Realm, and the eldest of the girls' half-sisters.
Her voice, an otherwise-alluring bouquet of notes smooth and melodious and sultry, practically dripped with a deeply-entrenched sense of innate and intrinsic high-handedness, a rather blatant show of performative geniality: Euphemia found it eerily easy to imagine that she would have that same faux-friendliness even as she gave the order for Euphemia's neck to meet a garrote wire in her sleep. To say that the manner in which she was dressed seemed to invite scandal was to egregiously overwork the word 'invite,' the rich, lavish dress of violet and lilac she wore cut in such a way as to strongly suggest what it did not outright reveal, and Euphemia was once more abruptly made to recall with a bit of nausea what made Guinevere so infamous: that she thought nothing of exercising her power as a member of the Imperial Family to sate whatever whim, lust, or appetite took her fancy, sparing no thought to the consequences she would not need to bear, that would be swept away in her wake. It was, in short, detestable.
Thankfully, however, it seemed she had actually managed to keep the animosity from her face, and she allowed herself an internal celebratory sigh of relief as Guinevere swept up right before her, the sweet scent of roses just that much stronger than what would ordinarily be considered the appropriate amount of perfume to wear to a function like this. At the very least, however, Euphemia could not help but envy the way Guinevere moved, the way she kept the rolling of her hips straddling that thin line between subtle and unmistakable, working with the lavish fabric of her dress to make the motion seem flowing and sensual. For all her many, many faults, the poster child of Britannian excess before Euphemia certainly knew how to use her endowments.
The eldest of her half-sisters paused for a moment, making a show of looking her up and down, her fan folded and still in her grasp (fans being a frequent feature of summer fashions among the upper crust of the Imperial Capital) as she scrutinised her outfit. A bemused lilt twisted the corner of her mouth up, and when she spoke, it was equal parts indulgent amusement and condescending barb: "You've certainly made a few bold choices in terms of fashion, haven't you?"
"Oh, dearest Guinevere, you're quite welcome," Juliette cut in smoothly, her tone practically saintly in its warmth. Euphemia knew it to be an affect, but only because she knew Juliette better now: if she had not been living with her sister and her good-sister, seeking to enter their allegiance, she would not have known at all; and even given all of that to be true, Euphemia even now could not successfully detect a bare hint of falsehood from her tone alone. "After all, is not imitation the sincerest form of flattery?"
Guinevere's face flashed in ugly, sneering irritation for a moment before she mastered herself. Even then, she seemed ever so slightly as if she had had the misfortune of smelling something quite thoroughly foul. "Hmph. I suppose so. Of course, the boldness of dearest Euphemia's attire pales in comparison to the boldness of your presence, especially after your elder sister's…display some months past."
Euphemia spoke almost before she could think. "To be certain, our dear sister Justine has cast a bit of a shadow with her admirable performance, but I have every confidence that Juliette may conduct herself with at least as much grace.
"As for displays…well," she continued, punctuating her statement with a rather pointed look at the swaths of exposed pale skin. "One should remember to take care. After all, a rose becomes quite unsightly as it withers. Don't you agree, dearest Guinevere?"
Guinevere's shock at harmless, kind Euphemia, the Eternal Peacemaker, responding in such a way coupled with her sudden anger at the insult to show something truly foul flashing clearly across her face. "Why you little…!"
"Euphy! Juliette! You've made it," came Friederike's voice, her full-figured frame sweeping in with a rush of elegant motion to punctuate the timely intervention. Her double-layered dress was in many ways just as daring as Guinevere's, the inner layer an indulgent and more than slightly suggestive royal purple garment that would have been a particularly revealing strapless cocktail dress on its own, containing her more modest yet still formidable bust rather coquettishly, while the outer layer was a more voluminous ankle-length gown of an immaculate white hue. It similarly exposed her shoulders, down which her long, wavy flaxen hair cascaded, unbound and flowing free, but an elaborate choker, intricate golden latticework holding a vivid and perfectly smooth ruby in place at the hollow of her throat, was the point of anchor that secured the straps at her bust as well as the long loose white sleeves that allowed her to bare or shroud her arms as she wished. A girdle of figured gold hosting an array of rubies of differing shapes in an arrangement that could have been the petals flower as easily as it could have been the rays of the sun cinched the outer layer together at her slender waist, and with a pair of court shoes elevating the tall, willowy woman's ankles her perhaps another five centimetres off of the ground, Friederike's attire was indeed flaunting her natural beauty just as unapologetically as Guinevere—and yet the effect was in all other ways entirely distinct. With her slim neck and long, slender limbs, the manner in which she wore and moved with it, high and regal, serene and august, the qualities of her clothes used to accentuate her movements just that much more than her features, made what ought to have been salacious and overt instead teasing and playful—albeit with an edge of danger that was razor-sharp and perfectly primed to draw blood from the unwary. Friederike favoured the two of them with a kind, sweet smile—which was rather more transparently false than Juliette's own—and quickly began to not so subtly loom over her older half-sister's shoulder. "How lovely it is to see you here. I do so hope you've both been well."
There was something almost humorous to witnessing how quickly the spine fled from Guinevere's posture, Euphemia mused, to watch how swiftly the blood drained from her face, leaving already-pale skin ghastly and ashen. "Ah, F-Friederike…"
"I believe our dear brother Odysseus was asking after you, Guinevere," Friederike interjected, her tone firm and with a note of warning that was more felt than heard. "I did not see fit to ask after the matter, but it seemed rather urgent."
"Of course," Guinevere conceded. "I'll be with him presently."
"He was quite distressed," said Friederike, and it was clear to all three of them that she would not deign to warn Guinevere for a third time. "You'd best not tarry."
Guinevere nodded, and without further protest, she fled the three who remained with as swift a step as she could manage while maintaining her royal decorum. It was only as the assembled courtiers and peers rather pointedly looked away from their little gathering that Euphemia realised at last that their exchange, the little bit of repartée between Juliette, Guinevere, and herself, had been watched with great interest.
Friederike then turned to regard the two of them, opening her mouth to speak, but before she could manage to get so much as the suggestion of a word out, a chorus of trumpets rang out across the hall, and the herald stepped forth, taking a deep breath before declaring, in a gusty bellow: "My lords and ladies of the court! Presenting His Imperial Majesty Charles zi Britannia, Ninety-Eighth Emperor of the Realm!"
The somewhat lackadaisical, libertine mood that suffused the hall evaporated immediately, and a heady sense of gravity seemed to begin to suffocate the light and mirth from the room. In a sudden but coordinated scramble, the various highborn supplicants formed themselves in orderly rows, leaving from the door to the titanic, vacant throne that stood on a raised dais at the far side of the grand room a long strip of the floor, broad enough for three well-built men to walk comfortably abreast.
Heavy footfalls gave away his presence before Euphemia managed to see him. Her sire walked with a stony, lumbering gait, bearing his tall, broad, brawny frame forward in a manner that seemed to suggest that a mountain had learned to walk under its own power, and was now exercising it. His double-breasted dark purple greatcoat carried grand designs drawn in gold thread, the red-lined black cloak worn over it billowing with the result of his motion. A golden aiguillette looped from the Imperial Seal at the end of his thick white cravat to the grandiose epaulettes that seemed to accentuate the fact that he seemed to have been carved from one massive hunk of granite. His thick bullish neck was made to look even more so, what with the cravat and the oversized stiff collar that hemmed it in, and his iron-grey hair was styled in broad, exaggerated curls to complement the well-groomed beard, oiled into forked points that were evocative of a serpent's tongue. His hands gloved in white were curled into decisive fists that swung like pendula as he crossed the room, hard amethyst eyes staring straight ahead; the weight of his step was augmented by the calf-long tall black boots he wore; and a billowing pair of white breeches seemed to complete an image of a man that could be summed up with a single word: imposing.
If one were to say that Emperor Charles had carved himself into the very paragon of his own vision of Britannia, Euphemia mused anew, she had to concede that they would not be at all wrong.
With a flaring sweep of that voluminous cloak, he took his seat, and immediately seemed to dwarf it, overwhelming its ability to contain the essence of him. His white-gloved hands gripped the arms of the seat, then, where so many others would be made small, and he gripped it firmly enough that for a moment, it appeared as though the arm might give way under the weight of his grasp.
In so many ways, Charles zi Britannia was a living idol, both great and terrible. By his wrath alone did the empire knit itself once more into unity, forged as a blade to be turned upon the world, wielded by his unyielding will. Exemplar and adversary, fiend and saviour, benevolent tyrant and cruel despot—as the absolute monarch of the Holy Britannian Empire, Euphemia's sire was all these things and more.
"We stand now upon the dawn of a new age," he began, his voice every bit as stony as his features and his stature, "and also upon the eve of our triumph. Brave, bold sons and daughters of our nation have brought ruin, death, and destruction to that island empire of backwards savages who believed themselves in a position to make demands of our beloved Britannia, and they have learned well the weight of their folly. Yet do not grow complacent! Think not of turning the sword to the ploughshare! For all the world even now watches with rapt attention the terrible splendour of our truth, our greatness. In Luoyang, the half-men and their child empress put their foolish ambitions to rest, deafened by the resounding chorus of our boots. In Paris, bureaucrats and craven dullards tremble in their Hemicycle, begging at the feet of their subjects for indulgence! Yet not Britannia! Oh no, not Britannia. Mark me! For we are the star shackled to earth, blinding, blazing, brilliant above all others!
He stood explosively, his fist shaking, and the intensity of his expression was infectious, for good or ill. He cast his arm out wide, then, a broad sweeping gesture of dominion unchallenged, unassailable. "And so I bid you all, I command you, gaze up at the silent, trembling heavens, and as one shall we declare this truth to Fate itself! This is our home! This is our Britannia! This is our destiny, our divine right, that we have wrenched free from the Throne of Heaven! ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!"
The court answered in one swell, a deafening roar: "All hail Britannia!"
In the clamour that followed the cacophonous end of His Majesty's address, Friederike leaned down over her shoulder (and for how long had she been there, looming over Euphemia's frame?), and she began to softly speak for Euphemia's ears only:
"Few are those who may hope to draw His Majesty's attention unprepared and emerge unscathed," cautioned the Second Princess of the Realm, the Prime Minister of Britannia. "Even then, I daresay it is a truly foolish risk to take. Tread carefully, Euphy."
Euphemia froze for a moment. What could she possibly mean by that?
Yet, when she turned to express her wonders and worries, she found that Friederike had moved on, and even now visibly addressed Juliette. She thought to listen, but after a few moments she had to concede that their true conversation was buried under so many layers of double-talk and implied meaning that she was halfway convinced they were doing so purely because they enjoyed the act of it, and fully convinced that it was not something she particularly desired to put in the effort to parse.
Instead, she found her attention turning to the front of the room, where the sycophants and the opportunists gathered about him like a swarm of locusts in only the approximate shapes of men. She stared for a long moment, but when his attention turned to her direction, head swinging like an avalanche, some sudden and overpowering instinct screamed at her not to meet his eyes.
And so she did not.
His graven brow furrowed, his mouth twisting into a scowl, and Euphemia had to wonder, in that fraction of a moment, if she had just made a grave error.
Euphemia was now quite thoroughly certain that she had made a great error.
Two hours had passed since the end of her and Juliette's debut outing in the Imperial Court, and in a fashion typical of summer, the sun had set to the point where it was no longer visible for all that the dark of night had yet to descend, a protracted August twilight. Mycroft stood rather stiffly at her shoulder behind her armchair, but his presence was nonetheless reassuring.
What was significantly less reassuring was the presence of the other two, similarly seated, and each featuring a different reaction to the events that had just transpired.
They were seated in one of the many parlours nestled away within the lavish walls of Belial Palace, this one in particular part of the suite of apartments containing, among other accommodations, the master bedchambers, which would serve as Justine and Milly's marriage bed when the nuptials eventually came to pass; and part of her was quite conflicted on the subject of how she ought to respond to the décor. There seemed to have been a concerted effort to make up for Justine's absence by adorning it with furnishings and features that she would have picked for herself, after all, with the shelves, tables, and drawers made of a rich dark wood with a robust, sun-darkened varnish—cherry, if her eyes did not deceive her—and on the walls that did not host shelves, covered in pale burnt orange wallpaper with designs and meaningless little patterns that functioned only to divert the eye from the disruptive boldness of a solid colour, there were racks meant to display a vast array of weapons.
Far from merely swords, though there were some, the racks held spears and glaives, bayonets and long-outmoded firearms of both matchlock and flintlock construction, fine daggers and basilards sharing space with buckler shields, estocs, ancient weapons like scuta, gladii, and pila, and even much more exotic weapons like war fans and bladed disks Cornelia had once told her were called 'Chakram.' And flanking the central piece—a crossed kriegsmesser and hafted battle-axe mounted upon a decorative kite shield that conspicuously lacked a coat of arms—on either side were large shelves made by an artisanal carpenter that held, in lieu of the books held on the other shelves, a vast array of vinyl records. A modern record-player sat nestled upon a waist-high table in the adjacent corner, and Euphemia had no doubt that the speakers were concealed in the design of the parlour.
The large windows were treated with dark velvet drapes with brocade running like veins throughout the heavy fabric, bronze light fixtures designed with an aesthetic direction similar in its character to torch sconces illuminated the room ably, and beneath their feet was a thick, soft, sturdy rug, rich but not opulent, devoid of the gold and silver thread that were the fashion of the rugs that were favoured by other royals, and around a moderately low finely-crafted centre table, the three of them sat in formidable yet surprisingly comfortable hardwood armchairs upholstered with dark leather: Euphemia, Juliette, and Carmilla, with a tea set laid out between them.
A part of Euphemia was duly impressed that Milly (and it was most assuredly Milly, as Juliette had somewhat privately confessed that she possessed absolutely zero aptitude for interior design) had managed so well to capture the essence of her fiancée, her sensibilities in particular—and yet the realisation of how little she knew her sister, who had always been so unerringly kind to her, was a fresh wound that the overwhelming air of Justine that suffused the chamber that Milly had so cavalierly commandeered only thoroughly continued to rub salt into.
"How very thankful am I that you have managed to find this entire situation worthy of mirth," said Juliette, her tone uncharacteristically open with its waspish acerbity as one hand braced against her brow, rubbing subtle soothing circles into her temples. She was all but slumped into the plush chair, and in spite of the current situation, Euphemia supposed she would not be at all wrong to consider it a good sign that she was allowed to be privy to this distinctly unabridged facet of the whole that was her half-sister. "We are in debt to Friederike el Britannia, of a favour of an unspecified nature to be decided in the future—which is quite possibly the worst thing one could possibly owe a woman like her—and you're laughing."
"Would that I could have been there to see it," Milly said, lounging in the chair like it was a settee instead of an armchair and unabashed as always, even as her reaction of immediate and uproarious guffaws began to subside into a mixture of mirthful chuckling and more polite chortles. "I swear, I can't help but to imagine that the tale has grown only paler for its retelling. You called out Guinevere de Britannia in front of the entire court! Oh, Euphy, my dearest good-sister—I knew there was a reason I liked you.
"Oh, and, by the way," Milly added as an addendum with a conspiratorial wink at Juliette. "Five."
Juliette stiffened in her chair as absolute terror flashed across her eyes, and the smile she adopted in the next moment was uncharacteristically shoddy as far as Juliette's grasp on the act of manufacturing false expressions went, the pleasant curl of her lip oddly waxy and transparently only skin-deep. Euphemia lifted a brow at this in confusion, but assumed that this was some internal dialogue between the two of them that she could not be privy to, and she had the odd sense that it was the sort of thing she should not wish to be in any way aware of.
"My sincerest apologies, for I swear that it was not my intention to cause anyone here any sort of trouble," Euphemia began instead, content to let that entire by-play slip past her unexplained. "But I could not simply allow what she had said to go unchallenged."
A single golden brow raised towards an equally golden hairline, for all that Milly's body still shook with subsiding humour, her lip raised in a distinctly feline curve. "Oh? And what did Her Royal Highness the First Princess of the Realm say that was so very provocative, pray tell?"
"She said that the boldness of my outfit paled in comparison to the boldness of Juliette's presence at court," Euphemia began, staring down into the deep red tea in her fine ceramic cup as she remembered the events of earlier that day, the recollections uncommonly vivid even given their relative recency. "Especially in light of what had happened the last time Justine made an appearance. Her display, she said, and with such derision… I couldn't let it stand."
"She spoke ill of my Justine, then?"
Euphemia's attention snapped up from the tea in her lap at the oddness of Milly's tone, and in the course of meeting her eyes, her very soul cowered to behold how every last speck of humanity had slid free of her good-sister's face—like cheap cosmetics in the rain, or an elaborate mask swiftly doffed. Bared as it was, there was a distinct monstrosity to her countenance, a vacancy to her eyes that was only more awful for the livid ember of single-minded passion that made diamond-hard blue eyes glitter with a fervent oath of unspeakable ruination. There was a focus there, unerring and dangerous and horrible, that set every last one of Euphemia's instincts shrieking in incoherent terror.
And with her own burst of startling clarity, Euphemia realised that she was no longer speaking to Milly, their playmate of old—if ever she had been.
No, this was Carmilla Ashford, who had ordered her own mother slain without batting an eye.
This was the woman Justine loved.
The woman who, Euphemia was coming to understand, would happily consign the world to ash if it meant she could have Justine all to herself.
And perhaps most terrifying of all, Euphemia found that she understood the appeal.
"She did," Juliette replied, and once again, any hint or iota of humanity had melted away from her like a cheap disguise, leaving bare the clicking gears and whirling wheels of cold calculation, a ruthlessness that was all the more awful for how little it resembled the nature of machinery. Machinery was indifferent, after all, neither especially kind nor particularly cruel; and while that would certainly have been off-putting for its own reasons, it had to be said, there was a gleeful malice to the character of that calculation here that could never hope to be so inanimate. Here was a creature who delighted in carefully curating her cruelty, in deceiving and twisting and manipulating, a spider's sadistic patience savouring the subtle craft of atrocity written across her being in that moment. "I had thought to destroy her for that mistake, you know, but as it happened, Euphemia intervened, and as I've said, her intervention complicated things."
"It matters little," said Carmilla, taking a sip of her own tea with a predator's fluid, unmistakably lethal grace before returning the empty cup to its saucer. "And in fact it may be for the best."
"How so?" Juliette asked, and she took an answering sip of her own tea, with the patient precision of an arachnid weaving its own gossamer thread.
"Your form of punishment for her transgression would have been quick, and quite clean," explained Carmilla. "Yet neither fits what must be done. Haste must take a step back in favour of thoroughness."
"You mean to make an example of her," Juliette concluded.
"Her, and every misbegotten waste of flesh who holds her sentiments," Carmilla affirmed easily. "It is an open secret that Guinevere de Britannia has few original thoughts of her own. Her being emblematic of the very worst of the peerage is just as much a constraint inherent to her nature as it is an observation of the kinship they share with her, after all. If a tree has wronged you, it surely would not do to punish merely a single leaf, one of a perhaps innumerable multitude."
"You mean to uproot it, then," said Juliette.
"And salt the earth in which it first took root," Carmilla confirmed, that single ember blazing bright and fierce like the birth of a star. "No one profanes what is mine without most dire consequence."
"In that, dearest good-sister, we are of a mind," agreed Juliette.
For the first time, Euphemia wondered at what manner of inhumanity defined their absent member.
"Oh, and before I forget," added Carmilla, lifting a single finger semi-playfully—though in this one case, for Euphemia, 'playful' still brought to mind the image of a leonine beast batting the decapitated head of its prey back and forth between its massive paws and savage claws. "Just one more thing—and Euphy, this is to be addressed to your escort, Baron Darlton."
Euphemia nodded warily, and Carmilla flashed her a smile that made it clear how much she would enjoy plucking each and every bone from out of her body, regardless of any camaraderie she might have been led to believe they had achieved or would achieve together. And then she turned that monstrous gaze upon Mycroft, who stiffened tangibly, his hands holding the back of Euphemia's chair in a white-knuckled grip as the blood fled from his face. "H-how may I be of service, your grace?"
"You were tasked with seeing after my impressionable good-sister's safety, to guard her body and escort her that nothing untoward might come of her presence at court, and the diligence with which you carry out this duty of yours has not gone unnoticed, I assure you," began Carmilla. And then she gave a smile, not the kind that would be rendered unto prey, but unto one who was currently safe and might yet become prey if they did not take care to step cautiously. "I can only hope that you will continue to demonstrate such diligence moving forward—ensuring her security, caring for her needs both large and small, and perhaps most importantly, guarding her from those who might wish to lead her astray. If you should at any point falter in this duty of yours, well…I daresay the consequences of your failure might end up somewhat more dire than you had previously thought to expect. Do I make myself clear?"
Mycroft swallowed hard, and his head bobbed jerkily. "A-abundantly, your grace…"
Then Carmilla smiled, and suddenly Milly was back, warmth and mischief, teasing and brazen, a change so swift and seamless that Euphemia found herself more than slightly unsettled, for all that the most immediate period of danger had just now passed. "I'm glad to hear it. I sincerely hope we four might work together most productively even as we move forward into this uncertain future of ours."