RE: Monarch

I was missing something. The thought and accompanying feeling persisted as I walked through the castle halls in a daze, and took my seat on a reclined cushion in the nobles’s section. My father’s plan and the subsequent reveal of his intended abdication nailed that reality to the ground. On the surface, it seemed like a good thing. He clearly didn’t favor the nonhumans and saw their integration into society as a necessary irritation, but as far as I could tell, he wasn’t actively working to erode their future endpoint or undercut them. Which was all better than I could have hoped for.

So, the obvious possibility. King Gil was lying, or at the very least, holding something back. He held the title of Oathbreaker for a reason. I’d watched him lie on grander stages with far higher stakes. He was a master of his craft, but he wasn’t perfect. There were certain tells, some small indicators that he was twisting the truth. And I was familiar enough with all of them I was sure I would at least suspect it.

And I didn’t. His admission that he wished to grow old with Mother had felt entirely authentic. He even seemed ashamed of it, which was both ridiculous and entirely the sort of thing he’d feel embarrassed to admit.

This entire ordeal was a struggle from the start. As Wi’rell would say, nothing worthwhile is achieved without strife. So where was the strife? Where was the looming enemy in the distance? The untold tragedy lurking right around the corner.

“Mmm. Shall we begin, my prince?” my attendant asked. Lady Maeve was supposedly a high-society artist who had experience with simple artistic inscriptions, though her appearance alone seemed to push against that notion. With the long cloak and hood, wrists and fingers burdened by the entire stock of an upscale jeweler, she looked far more like a soothsayer or charlatan than any artist I’d met.

I was tempted to wait for Annette, but as I’d made her wait this morning, I had a feeling she’d likely be taking her time. It wasn’t pettiness or passive aggression. Just my sister’s way of conveying that she was an equal, and would not be available at her brother’s beck and call.

“Sure.” I said, leafing through several pages of diagrams, ensuring the most useful remained at the top and the less pressing near the bottom. I’d intended to do this for a while—and many of the diagrams were scrawled on flattened and dried plant matter I’d used instead of paper when inspiration struck during my stint in the sanctum. Others were newer concepts and ideas that occurred to me on the ride home after the encounter with the drephin.

One I’d scrawled down before I left my rooms and placed at the top. I’d checked in on Eckor before I’d left, and as he was still awake, had a moment to ask him about the dual-cast I’d witnessed while we were waylaid. Unfortunately, there was no secret or ancient technique—or at least, not one he shared with me. It seemed to be an innate ability, something he’d always had and couldn’t fully explain. But when I pressed, the manner with which he managed it was fascinating. He drew in mana, filtering it all into his void element, wrapped the electricity mana around it as if the void element was a swaddled infant, then simply released it.

When I tried to do something similar, all I managed was a miscast that nearly burnt poor Eckor’s room down and mine along with it.

But it gave me an idea. If I could cast one element through an inscription, while casting the second through normal means, it was possible I could achieve the same effect. The timing would be tricky, as would achieving similar levels of mana concentration—wind was naturally weaker than standard fire, let alone dantalion flame, so it’d likely require some trial and error to achieve.

Plus, there was plenty of canvas to work with. The underside of my right arm was more or less bare, save for a few of the large chest inscriptions that spilled over my shoulder slightly.

I held the sheaf of papers out to her and she took them wordlessly and turned aside. I braced myself for her reaction. There wasn’t a small amount of work to be done, and the inscription method itself was devilishly tricky. More problematic was the waiting period. A talented inscriber in the enclave could likely do this sort of work in a matter of hours, but the inscriber would have to be a mix of confident and profoundly irresponsible to do so. There were laws in the enclave that restricted how many inscriptions one could receive in a day, as they needed to not only be near perfect in their individual designs, but perfectly in tune with the others. If they weren’t… well, I’d heard plenty of horror stories.

It would all come down to how competent she was.

Which—what in Elphion’s name was she doing?

Lady Maeve had arranged the various diagrams across the floor in the shape of a vast rectangle. It painted something of a manic picture, but what drew the eye was the candle-size flame emitting from her thumb as she crouched down, brandishing open flame directly above my diagrams. Before I could say anything, she withdrew a tiny pipe from the pouch at her waist, lit it with her flame and puffed out a series of large rings. I recognized the scent of vurseng and something else.

“We don’t have to rush this, if you need time to rest and look over the additions,” I said, glancing at the smoking pipe.

Maeve scowled, her attention suddenly spotlight-focused on me. “Why would I be tired?”

“Uh.”

“Is it perhaps, because I was asked to apply my craft in an exotic manner—an application in which the slightest mistake can cause catastrophic consequences? On the crown prince, no less?” The words came out with the explosion of an outburst, and she appeared as surprised that she’d said it as I was to hear it.

I stood from the cushion and offered a shallow bow. “I apologize for the position I’ve put you in. The work I’ve commissioned is of vital importance, for the safety and continuation of the kingdom.”

When I rose, her features softened. Instead of commenting on her lapse, she seemed to move on, entirely fixated on the diagrams on the floor. “At least you are taking this seriously. These all serve very specific purposes. There’s nothing overly ambitious that would overstrain your aura-center, considering the rest of your inscriptions, and you’ve taken the aspect of balance into account.”

“Of course.” I said wryly, glancing over the diagrams. “I’m fully invested in avoiding a pointless death. Are you a magician?”

I wasn’t sure how else she would have been able to understand them.

Maeve blew out a cloud of smoke and stared at the diagrams through it as it cleared, then nodded. “As many of these are modifications to what you already have, and the designs aren’t terribly complicated, this is doable. Assuming you have little else to do today.”

Today?

My confidence waned. “Uh. It may not appear complicated at first glance, but the application process and ensuring the proper saturation of ink is a little more involved than it appears, to say nothing of testing the connections. Especially if you’ve never done this with the mana-infused ink before.”

Maeve stared at me, dead serious as she removed her glove, revealing a long black spiral of demonic text so complex looking it made my head spin. “I awoke to my element young. A bit too young. My mother forbade me from talking about it, let alone putting it into practice.”

“The gift atrophied.” I realized. It was a tragic story, and far too common. It also explained why she was the only artist in Whitefall who had any experience in the area.

Maeve nodded. “When I started trying again, mostly for my amusement, I found I couldn’t manifest a single spark.” Her eyes flicked to me. “And looked into other avenues.”

That she was effectively self-taught evinced commitment. And perhaps, a touch of madness. Suddenly, the vurseng use and the dark bags under her eyes made a great deal of sense.

Inscription was a complex art. But the infernals in the enclave had done the heavy lifting, establishing the initial balanced network. I’d been prepared to do it myself and had taken no minor effort studying the art. Considering the confidence she’d displayed, and her personal success, I decided to let her try. My fear of burning a single reset was far outpaced by my fear of walking into Wi’rell’s “strife” unprepared. If it went catastrophically wrong, I’d give my apologies to the black beast, and carry out the work on my inscriptions personally.

An acceptable risk.

“Okay.”

“This will be unpleasant,” Maeve warned. “And by unpleasant, I mean extraordinarily painful. Please refrain from screaming in my ear, your grace.”

Maeve went to work, her shawl swirling as she moved back and forth from the table. The speed at which she worked spoke to a lifetime of experience. She was completely focused on each jab of the needle, and didn’t bother pausing and dabbing away the blood from what was effectively a small open wound, as the infernals had done. Slowly, drop after drop, a small pool of blood formed on the ground beneath my arm.

It was painful.

Nothing compared to being eaten, or torn apart, or tortured, but I could see why the infernals didn’t do it this way. Enduring so much of it in one sitting was harsh. Brutal. To the point that I began to wonder if scheduling my meeting with Annette here had been a good idea, and considered sending a runner after her to delay.

Which of course, was exactly when she arrived.

My little sister froze at the doorway, her impassive eyes taking in my reddening skin and trailing to the blood on the floor. The tray of pastries and fruit in her hands trembled and threatened to drop.

I waved and managed a small smile. “Not very appetizing, is it?”

Lady Maeve paused long enough to give the expected curtsy, then returned to her work.

Annette seemed to take my observation as a challenge and strode in with her head high, unfazed, or at least doing a convincing rendition of it. A nearby servant pulled up a chair for her and arranged a small table between us. She smoothed the frilly back of her gray dress and sat, plucking a grape from the tray. “Breakfast and a show. A macabre one, at that.”

I chuckled. “Nothing shocks you, aye, little sister?”

“We can both thank father for that.” Smoothly, Annette slipped me a folded up note. I struggled to open it one-handed.

Sera is incensed at your return. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t expect her to act on it. But I’ve never seen her in such a state, hence, I cannot say for certain. Be careful. She doesn’t have many resources to draw from nor friends, but she has had ample time to plan.

After reading it a second time, I crumpled up the note and called the spark. The violet flame incinerated the parchment. It floated for a moment before I extinguished it, then fell to the floor.

“Thanks,” I said, lost in thought.

“Always,” Annette replied.

It made me feel better to have a problem I could solve. As Sera was raised within the human school of casting, she had a lot of power, but less experience, and a considerable lack of nuanced control. If she came at me out of anger—it would be head on, in a gale of fire and lightning. So long as I survived the initial onslaught, I’d win. And I’d had plenty of practice, withstanding an overwhelming assault.

Of course, I didn’t want it to come to that. The question was how to build bridges when she seemed fully intent on dodging me. She’d followed me from the banquet, observed the sideshow in the pits, but otherwise steered clear. Other than telegraphing her hostility at the return ceremony—which was classic Sera—she’d otherwise been suspiciously absent.

“Advice?” I asked. When Annette didn’t answer, I looked at her and waited.

“Me?” Annette said. She seemed surprised.

“Naturally.” I rested my chin on my free hand. “You’re the smart one. If you were in my place, what would you do?”

“Are you ill?” Annette reached over and pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. “Anemic from blood loss?”

“Hm?”

“Or an imposter, wearing my brother’s skin? You’ve never cared what I think,” Annette said bluntly, and I sensed an incoming rant. “Nor have you asked for advice. I’ve had to repeat myself multiple times for you to listen once, and more often than not you disregard it.”

I felt Maeve pause, then continue her work.

At first, Annette’s accusation felt unfair. Inaccurate. With the amount of stress my father had placed us under, it was a miracle we had a functional relationship at all. Annette was bossy. Particular. Both of which I’d found grating coming from a younger sibling in my previous life. But the longer I thought on it, the more I realized she was right. I couldn’t remember the earliest examples, but she’d studied incessantly in preparation to advise my rule, while I’d done little other than bide my time and prepare to leave. And in my darkest moment, right before Thoth put her to the flame, Annette had seen it coming.

Discendente.

I banished the dark cloud of regret that threatened to sweep over me. I couldn’t undo what was already done. Instead, I needed to make the right steps here, in the present. Rebuild.

In the past, I would have engaged with her directly, argued. I tried another approach. I waved over a trailing servant and asked him to remove something from my satchel. He reached within the bag and withdrew a koss board, setting it up between us.

Annette glanced between me and the board as I distributed the pieces with one hand, setting up the red and white sides accordingly.

“Let me guess.” I smirked, then rotated the board so the red pieces were in front of her. “Red first?”

In a match between perfect, competent equals, red always wins. It was one of the first elements of koss Annette had taught me. And the reason koss was played in a set.

“Lately, I prefer white,” Annette said, after a moment.

That surprised me, and I must have moved, because Lady Maeve seized my shoulder and shoved me back into the seat and muttered something about staying still in a threatening tone.

“Why?” I asked, careful not to make any unnecessary movements.

Annette huffed, painstakingly recentering her pieces, so each circular base was perfectly in the center of each square. “Koss is a finite game. There are a limited number of lines and moves, and every one of them has been played before. If I cede the advantage early and actively strategize, rather than falling back on rote memorization, it’s truer to life.”

If there were any criticisms I had for Annette as I’d known her, it was that her knowledge was too theoretical. Too abstract. She had an expansive repository of knowledge, and could probably recite human history down to each king and their significant achievements, but little experience in putting those bits of trivia to practice. Which made this unfamiliar.

I pushed my red bannerman forward, falling back on a standard opening move I’d made dozens of times. “It almost sounds like you don’t like koss anymore.”

Annette picked up a cavalry unit from the back, skipping over her frontline. She paused studying the piece. “It holds a special place in my heart. But father has pushed me to be more practical with my studies. And I’ve found the wisdom in his guidance.”

We continued on, one move after another, falling into a particular rhythm. Early game was all about positioning, laying traps, and attacking supply lines while avoiding direct conflict. Nothing particularly tense about it, but Annette seemed to grow more irritated with each passing move.

“So, what, strategy? Tactics?” I prodded her, positioning a piece so it threatened her agrarian center and aggressively advancing calvary.

“Hm?” Annette said.

“Your studies,” I clarified.

“In part. The rest I’ve spent studying father’s battles, and delving into various aspects of demi-human culture.” Annette shielded her agrarian center, but left a cavalry unit wide open, then winced as I took it. Finally, her irritation bubbled over. “Are you using these questions and this game to distract me from my previous question, or stalling to formulate a response?

“The latter,” I replied simply and left it there. Regardless of Ephira’s flaws, observing her methods had taught me much in the school of negotiation, the use of silence chief among them. The best way to get someone to talk to you more is to speak less, let them fill the void. Make observations that lead them to respond. “Surprising, that father would allow that. The nonhuman studies, I mean.”

“He didn’t,” Annette muttered, consumed in the game. “At first, anyway. He started sounding the war drum not long after you left, but suddenly seemed much more receptive to the idea of widening my curriculum after the first year.”

When many of my initial predictions held true.

“It was your idea then? To get more familiar with nonhuman history and details?”

Annette squinted, parsing some mental calculation I wasn’t privy to, before she nodded. “You put great emphasis on them in your letter. Which surprised me, because I’m not sure you’d ever thought twice about them before you left the capital.

I winced. “Altitude.”

“Am I supposed to know what that means?” Annette asked.

“We… haven’t had the easiest lives. With father. But putting aside paternal love and affection, our lives inside the tower are insular. We want for little and enjoy much. And when you spend too much time in an ivory tower that shields you from the outside—”

“It’s easy to miss everything that’s happening on the ground.” Annette frowned. “That goes for knowledge as well. Until the last few years, I still thought infernals bargained for firstborns and fed them to demons.”

“You and half of Whitefall,” I sighed. But we were getting dangerously close to seditious talk, and Lady Maeve was still an unknown quantity. I’d learned my lesson about not assuming every unassuming person present might be a spy.

I hissed, and Maeve pulled the needle away, annoyed but not surprised. “Time for a break?”

“A short one,” I confirmed.

Maeve straightened up and stretched. She glared at me openly. “Don’t touch it. The ink will smear if it’s rubbed, rendering the inscription inert.”

“On Elphion,” I assured her.

“Then I’m going to freshen up,” she announced, then gathered her belongings and strode to the exit.

Annette watched her leaving, only speaking when she was out of earshot. “What an odd woman.”

I nodded. “Odd, but talented. She learned to inscribe on herself first.”

“Pointless disfigurement if you don’t have an element.”

“She does.”

Annette processed that, then seemed to hesitate. “You yourself have two elements. Wind and demon flame.”

“Correct.”

“Before your awakening…” She tapped her fingers on the table. “Did they talk to you?”

I struggled to understand what she was asking. “Like, a mental voice?”

“Yes.”

It was a strange question, and not at all one I’d expected from Annette. I thought back to the voice I’d heard before fixing the dimension gate, then later, when I was searching for a way through the barrier. That had been a voice—one I still didn’t understand the meaning of—but both incidents that occurred long after my initial awakening, amid a host of complicating factors.

“They didn’t,” I said.

“You took a long time to answer.”

“Because it’s not always clear cut,” I replied. “Magic isn’t straightforward, or objective. It can be chaotic and unpredictable, and sometimes things happen you can’t explain. Both of my awakenings involved violence. Events that disturbed me or threatened my life. And while I found no examples of this in any text, infernal or otherwise, both of my elements were tied to key emotions, and forcing myself to experience those emotions again was the only way I got a handle on them.”

“That sounds awful,” Annette murmured.

“Don’t get me wrong”—I corrected myself, considering everything that had happened—“I’m grateful for the power I hold. It’s helped me keep my friends alive, saved my life on more than one occasion, but in the moment? Yeah. It was kind of awful.”

“It’s your move,” Annette said, gaze firmly fixed on the koss board.

I couldn’t escape the feeling that she’d asked for a reason. “Why do you ask?”

“Ask what?”

“Are you hearing voices, Annette?”

My sister started. For just a second she looked scared, and small, and vulnerable, and all I wanted to do was fix whatever was troubling her. Then the cold blue pools of her eyes froze over. “No. Certain accounts in the library detail magicians conferring with the elements before they receive the gift, and as we’ve established, the library is a dubious source. I was curious if there was any truth to it.”

Bullshit.

“Of course.”

I had to let it slide. If Annette clammed up, I’d get nothing out of her by pushing. But there was no way I was letting it go. Part of me wondered if this was the origin of her phobia, the sudden shift that occurred a few years from now when going outside the castle seemed to physically pain her, and she was more often than not holed up in her rooms.

At the very least, it was going to the top of the list of things I needed Vogrin to investigate. He was ancient, and his magical senses were infinitely more attuned than mine. If something malevolent was haunting Annette, he was the best resource I had.

We continued to play in silence, the gentle clink of pieces the only noise in the sterile room. She’d been playing koss less, and it showed. I was even winning for a while, before I lost traction and it ended in a stalemate.

I sat back. “Thought I had you for a minute.”

“You’re better than I expected.”

I sighed. “You’ve heard some variation of the things I’ve done. Probably presented as heroic tales, or deeds of valor. Truth is, little sister, I’ve spent most of it scared shitless. For good reason. I’ve almost died…” I started counting, then gave up. Annette watched curiously, giving me her full attention as she listened. “A lot. Brushes with death—they have a way of showing you how small you truly are. Most of the time I’ve barely made it through. I’ve made mistakes and other people have paid the price. Ego is a luxury I can no longer afford. So if you have advice for me, I’ll listen.”

Annette blinked several times, oddly sheepish at the compliment. “Oh. You’re answering my question.”

I thought back to Cephur’s recommendation. “An advisor in my camp thinks the best way to deal with Sera would be to knock her down a peg in a martial contest. Play nice, then definitively shut her down when she tries to escalate beyond a friendly spar.”

“Are you… even capable of that?” Annette asked. She’d been watching Sera spar since she was small. And even though our sister lacked experience, she was a force to be reckoned with.

“Probably,” I hedged, not wanting to sound too full of myself. “But I think it’s the wrong approach.”

“Disastrously wrong,” Annette agreed, leaning forward, no longer paying attention to me as she rambled out loud. “For starters, Sera’s vindictive. If she’s embarrassed the way you’re describing—especially publicly—she won’t forget. She’ll stew on it and bide her time. I know she seems impulsive, but she can be patient as a stone. You’d be better off paying the taster to poison her supper and pinning it on a servant.”

I’d been following her until the last part. “Annette.”

“Does it look like I’m joking?” Annette asked, stone-faced.

“You never look like you’re joking.”

Annette gripped the table. “Listen to me. From the time she was born, Father was grooming Sera as an heir. Not a military leader, not a princess,” she spat the word like an epithet. “An heir. She had all his attention, his guiding hand. His favor. Only to have it all ripped away.”

When he started taking me seriously.

I rubbed my face. “Yeah. Makes sense she’s angry.”

“It’s not your fault. Sera’s smart enough to know that, she just doesn’t care. We have fought wars over less. The children of kings have killed each other over less.” Annette said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “But his favor has shifted. If his problem daughter were to suddenly die of mysterious circumstances, he would look the other way.”

“You really believe that?” I asked, more than a little troubled. It was hard to tell how objective Annette was being, and how much of her opinion stemmed from personal bias. It hadn’t felt like King Gil was giving me preferential treatment, more that I’d earned his respect.

“Yes,” Annette said simply. But there was a darkness in her expression I didn’t like. On some level, this felt personal. They were never on grand terms, but this was different. Had their relationship really degenerated so much in my absence?

I’m not killing my sister.

As much as I wanted to say that, I stopped myself. To do so would be a complete rejection of Annette’s advice, something I’d just promised not to do.

Even if I didn’t like it.

“Let’s… put fratricide down as the solution for the worst possible scenario.” I said finally. “If that’s off the table, what else do I have?”

Annette picked up a koss piece and began reversing through the game move by move. “You’d need to earn her trust. Her respect. Make her feel part of things, all at the same time. Sera’s always been an outsider and she wears that isolation like a badge of honor, so it would be tricky.”

She slid my red bannerman back to its starting position. “And you’d need to do it all without the slightest hint of agenda or manipulation.”

Not a small order. I wanted to ask Annette more about King Gil specifically. Whether she thought his sudden about face was genuine, or if there was more to it, but before I could, the door swung open and Lady Maeve returned. She returned to her work immediately, the scent of vurseng following her like a cloud as the first needle plunged into my arm.

“Like I said”—Annette had already rotated the board and moved her red cavalry unit up first—“Supper would be easier.”

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