RE: Monarch

My father listened unflinchingly throughout my retelling of the events since my first death. His cold blue eyes pierced me, evaluating every word and gesture.

The two of us sat in his carriage, undisturbed as a mute scribe recorded our every word.

Despite the severity of the matter at hand, I couldn’t shake the idea that this was all some sort of elaborate ruse. A cruel joke that could end the moment he decided the novelty of taking me seriously had faded. Only, despite my trepidation, it had been hours. He asked me questions and clarifications that indicated he was not only paying attention to my words, but contrasted them with versions of events he must have gleaned from Maya’s account.

I tried to suppress the voice deep within me. The one that whispered that this was the best outcome I could have hoped for. Recent events had taught me that the voice of optimism almost always predicated sorrow.

After I had finished my recounting, he’d roughly accosted the scribe’s notes, and began reading them. Eventually, somewhere around three quarters of the way through, he pointed to a single line.

“You handled the proceedings in the Sepulcher exceptionally well.”

“Where?” I asked, totally unsure of how to handle the praise.

“Here. You cut a deal with the arch-mage, and when your demonic allies undercut your efforts, immediately improvised and salvaged a no-win situation.”

Shame washed over me as I remembered Thoth’s expression of surprise and pain as I attacked her relentlessly, shortly after the brokered deal fell through. “I’m not following. It was a disaster. I failed to stay her hand, and ultimately, failed to kill her when I had an opportunity to strike.”

King Gil looked up from the notes with a scoff of derision, and I braced myself for the turn. “Please. You gained something much more valuable than a parlay. Up to this point, the arch-mage was entirely in control. This was reflected in her attitude, her manner. She was sure of herself. You capitalized on her weakness and cut her open.” He grinned. “Her confidence was shattered. She feared you, boy. For the first time, she lost control. And in her fear, she acted rashly and gave you the opening you needed to survive.”

My head spun. “That’s one way to look at it, I suppose.”

“Regardless of strength, no one survives something so harrowing without the scars to show for it. Marks on the body and mind.” Father leaned back against the plush carriage seat and spread out, as if he’d just gorged himself on a feast and was fully sated. “I’m proud of you, son.”

I swallowed.

He studied me carefully before continuing. “I’m considering putting pressure on the Order of the Crimson Brand to exchange talented disciples with the infernals. In your experience, would they be amenable?”

It took considerable effort to bite back the immediate yes. The Crimson Brand was the primary order of human mages with close ties to the monarchy, though they maintained their independence in name only. It would be a first step to sharing magical knowledge, eventually making the mages on both sides far stronger. This was likely what my father intended eventually. But if it was something he wanted, it represented leverage.

“It’s within the realm of possibility.” I said carefully. “Though I suspect our reliance on demi-human slavery may give them pause.”

King Gil laughed. The scribe looked up at him, then at me, lips pursed in a puzzled expression.

“Even if infernals constitute a small percentage of slaves in the human territories, it will present an obstacle.” I argued.

My father made a dismissive gesture. “You misunderstand. I am not making light of your idea. Only that we came to the same conclusion independently.”

That couldn’t be right. He had to be screwing with me. “Then, you intend to abolish the slave-trade?

“Intend?” King Gil snorted. “Boy, I abolished slavery a year after you went into hiding.”

The ramifications of that were staggering. “But wouldn’t enacting such a change so quickly lead to civil war?”

“It did. A rather unexciting one, to be frank.” King Gil mused, “The holdouts eventually fell in line. As it happens, watching the most outspoken leaders of your faction paraded around in collars and stomped to death in the street by the previous bearers of said collars does wonders for one’s social sensibilities. Why do you look disappointed?”

“No, not at all. I’m pleased. Delighted, even. It’s just… unexpected.”

“There is no better time to consolidate power than in the face of a powerful enemy.” King Gil stared out the carriage window. “You know that as well as I. And if we aim to bring both the dwarves and elves into the fold, we cannot drag our feet with incrementalism while rural dullards disguised as nobles wring their hands over the loss of free labor.”

“Even so. The demi-humans will not forget.” I said, struggling to even imagine what Whitefall looked like right now. “All the indignities they have suffered.”

“That is true. They will always regard me with suspicion,” King Gil stuck a finger at me. “But you will be exempt from that. As regent, they will embrace you with open arms. The Valen legacy will live on.”

***

The caravan stopped, as the spoked wheels of several carriages near the front had splintered spokes from the rough terrain. We were circumventing the Everwood, taking the long way back to Whitefall. When I’d pressed my father for the reason, he’d been oddly cryptic on the reasoning, chalking it up to an abnormal number of monsters accumulating in the Everwood.

I’d requested the king’s leave for the time being, and he’d dismissed me easily. I needed time to consider what he’d told me. His goals and desires were still mired purely in power—a philosophy that led to ruin, in most cases, but he’d taken it farther than I’d expected in a direction that was borderline impossible to predict.

Assuming this was not all part of a greater game I had yet to piece together.

I walked among the humans, trying to pick out familiar faces. Maya stood out. For the most part, she was avoided, a few yards away from the cluster of women and children that formed a half-circle. I was tempted to approach, but noticed two noble ladies from lesser houses chatting quietly with her. My presence would likely only make things more difficult, or draw the wrong sort of attention.

Still, we needed to talk. Sooner rather than later.

Curious eyes slid off me as I noticed them, as if my gaze was enough to frighten onlookers away. Everyone had questions, but none of them wanted to be the first to ask.

I bumped into someone with an audible clang, as his armor resonated. A honey-skinned man in high metal armor lowered a spyglass from his eye and gave me a cordial bow. “My liege.” His dark hair was half-way to his shoulders, and a well-trimmed beard gave him a vaguely merchant-like appearance, though the sword and shield on his back implied otherwise.

I returned a shallow bow, buying a moment to glance up at the banner that crested his carriage. The silhouette of a panther, encased in violet. “Lord Erebus.”

Erasing the question from my voice was a difficult thing. I remembered Bernard Erebus as vaguely hunched, nearly a head shorter than the lord standing before me. We’d never spoken, but I’d always admired the air of tranquility he held about him, even as his heirs were squabbling for higher position and standing.

“You have the look of a salmon that’s found itself inexplicably stranded on the shore.” Erebus said, his Emerald Isles accent soothing to the ears.

“And you have the look of a captain without a ship.” I glanced at his spyglass. “Keeping watch?”

“Not exactly. The answer would bore you, I fear. Mired in the history of my house.”

“My mind could do with a little boredom, your lordship.”

Erebus nodded sympathetically. “I’ve seen many men return from war with the same look in their eye. Their minds can only withstand so much before it turns against them. You’ve endured much, I suspect.”

When I answered with a silent nod, Erebus returned the spyglass to his eye. “Before the human houses were united, my people were not unlike the woodland elves. Nature was our pantheon, animals our tools and means of defense. Are you familiar with our figurehead?”

I glanced at the banner again. “It’s a shadow panther, if memory serves.”

The sides of Erebus’s mouth quirked. “A common misconception, your grace. It is the Avssaléo Pánthirai. Abyssal panther, in the common tongue.

I absorbed that quietly. “Strange. Of the many tutors I’ve had over the years, none made that distinction.”

“We have allowed the error to go uncorrected.” He panned the spyglass slowly from side to side. “Many believe bearing a bygone animal as sigil is a bad omen. Even amongst my house.”

“They died out?”

“They were hunted.” Erebus grimaced in distaste. “Though not without reason. With a steady hand, they were excellent companions. When we brought them to the mainland, however, some escaped out into the wild, and their tenuous domestication became a distant memory. Within a few generations, they were routinely terrorizing travelers and villages alike, frequently with harrowingly bloody results. They took to the Everwood, where they were eventually hunted to extinction. Or so we thought. The Everwood has been especially fearsome as of late. And for the first time in decades, there have been sightings of a full-grown abyssal panther, golden eyes gleaming in the dark.”

“Hence, the reason for your search.”

Erebus nodded. “It’s most likely a misidentification. A shadow panther, or direwolf. Still, if there’s even a small chance an abyssal panther survived the purge, I would like to see it for myself.”

“How would one differentiate an abyssal panther from a shadow panther?”

“Hm.” He took me in, paying full attention for the first time. “Your interest is genuine. That’s surprising, your grace. Your father would not give me the time of day when I requested leave to head an expedition into the Everwood.”

I snorted. “I’m guessing he stopped caring after he realized you weren’t proposing a hunt.”

Erebus choked, then guffawed. “Such irreverence. Refreshing, amongst the lapping of sycophants. The two species are similar in body, but identifying abyss panther from its diminutive cousin is a simple matter. A shadow panther bears eyes of silver and generally keeps to the trees, dropping onto its prey once they draw close. An abyssal panther, being significantly more ferocious, rarely leaves the ground. And its eyes gleam like purest gold.

Several realizations began to slide into place in my mind, one after another. I swallowed. “What of their intelligence, Lord Erebus?

He was watching me carefully now. “Have you encountered such a beast, my prince? Perhaps when you disappeared into the Everwood?”

“Perhaps.”

“Many were said to understand the spoken tongue, though that is likely more legend than fact. I’m curious to hear the details of how you survived your encounter.”

Not wanting to string the man along, I recited the original details of that encounter. How the abyssal panther had attacked me in the Everwood just after I escaped from Thoth, and the following encounter, when it brought a hare to me at the fire.

Erebus leaned forward, to the point I could smell the vurseng on his breath. “And your response?”

“I had no idea what I was doing, save for the fact that it seemed intelligent.” I ran a hand through my hair. “So I treated it the same way I’d treat any traveler looking to share a fire with strangers on the road. Cooked the meat, and offered the panther a fair portion.”

“Did anything about its behavior stand out?” Erebus asked quickly.

I was silent for a moment as I recalled the encounter. “It refused to touch its portion until I ate mine.”

Erebus sucked in a breath and said nothing more. When it was clear he wasn’t going to explain why, I continued. “It stayed with us for some time after that, and given that I was headed into potentially hostile territory, I released it into the Everwood. And I promised that, if it was alive and found me when I came back through, I’d give it a name. I think there might be truth to the myth, that the creatures can understand human speech.”

“Damn.” Lord Erebus gazed out into the Everwood, searching between the endless thick tree trunks and overgrown foliage in the dark. “That makes this turn of events all the more unfortunate.”

“You really think it remembers after so long?” It was hard to fathom. I hadn’t forgotten the panther. But it had been unreasonable to think it remembered me, especially after such a long length of time.

“I’m quite certain.” Lord Erebus scrunched his face up in frustration. “They are dangerous predators, but loyal. The interaction you described is not unlike how the creatures chose a human partner amongst my ancestors as a hunting companion on the Isles. Such a commitment was lifelong. How you managed to navigate that process by chance is beyond me.”

“Chance is often superseded by fate, I’ve found.” I answered absentmindedly.

Lord Erebus chuckled. “Wise words. I’m half-inclined to advise you to walk past the forest’s edge and begin yelling in hopes it would recognize your voice, though that would be an exercise in futility. The wood is thick, and voices seldom carry.”

I thought back to the way, mind catching over how Barion had tracked my use of the demon-flame. “I might have a better idea.”

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