“And by the light of the second star, I hope for your own sake that you can make the right decision. The heavens will not suffer further treason lightly.”
The court was an ancient hall, built in the early days of the Age of the Star, for a line that still barely ruled today. It was built for a company of hundreds, of dwer and man alike, and crafted with the metal of a fallen star. Three hundred silken seats formed eight rows in a semi-circle around the throne and pulpit in front of it. For the most part, the room was carved from the mountain by the hands of man, but the complex arches that held up the roof were dwer work, as was the red gemstone star shining down from the roof. It was only with the advanced architectural engineering of the dwarves had the former throne room been constructed without the use of pillars to hold up the roof, and it remained one of the last of such rooms to remain standing in the mountaintop keep.
Endril glared out over the constellation of faces around the hall, hovering longer over the likes of Lord Agos and his supporters. An eighth of the seats lie empty in the face of recent events, a further eighth lay abandoned by those who fled, and still another half had lain empty for countless years. To the first prince, it was a stark reminder of fickle the nobility could be at times, clamouring for war one minute while fleeing a possible conflict the next. Even King Esiland and the second prince Enven had elected not to come in their grief, leaving only Endril and his aides to defend the house.
It was not the aged male aristocracy that made up the majority of the senators in front of Endril, though they were perhaps overrepresented in the major debates of the court. Instead, more of the seats were occupied by the wives, the heirs, and in some rare cases even the trusted servants of nobles who still managed their lands. Most were more needed closer to their own power bases, after all, and only the guardians of the closest or the most stable estates were able to show up personally.
Breale had not been entirely incorrect when she had spoken of kidnapped families, Endril knew. Though it was through agreement and not royal force of arms, the vast majority of the Veroline nobility quartered their family in the capital to serve in the senate in their stead. The only ones able to make due with a non-related servant were the ‘Merit-lords’ whose lands were not hereditary, and those were the minority in most parts of the kingdom.
And now, it was this group that held Endril’s fate in their hands.
“And if you have no love for the line of the Evandals, as treasonous as that sounds, think then to the security of your own estates.” Endril abstained from punctuating that with the disgust he felt at such a pragmatic argument. “In the fell lands of the east, Tresti’s Bane still howls, hurling its vast hordes at the citadels of Irithine and Cinion with reckless abandon as it searches for any weakness in the hearts of Man. Do you now wish to feed it that weakness? To devolve our state into the fractured bloodshed wrought by civil war and insanity? For that is where this discussion leads. Know here that no Evandal would raise a sword against his loyal vassals, especially not while they feast within the sanctuary of his own home. And while my father and brother both grieve, ask yourselves: Why would we slay our own brother? My father’s favourite son? No, believe in your king, believe in the divine right of the Everstar.”
Endril again cast his gaze over the assembled, finding that no few expressions matched his own righteous fury. Doubt and disbelief also stared back, making the usual apathy that flooded the chamber a minority. It wasn’t a surprising result given all the rhetoric that had been thrown around in this ‘trial’, but the prince found that no more comforting.
In truth, all these meetings the last few days were little more than a sham. The senate sought retribution for the brutal slaughter at the gala, and the whispers and rumours casting the whole event as a royal purge had taken fierce hold over those gathered. They had no legal power over the king, of course, but that did not stop them from doing everything but accusing the king of treason while the true murderers of Endril’s brother still sat among them.
Still, Endril knew it could be much worse. The storm currently buffeting the capital had kept all but the most fearful from departing, a valuable fact that allowed Endril to privately speak with each one and curb their passions before they raised their retinues to march in rebellion. That alone had saved the realm from immediate disaster.
In the middle of the fourth row, a man three seats from Lord Agos stood up. He was dressed in resplendent blues and greens, and carried a mundane staff of chrestwood. He was fair of skin, had the short brown hair typical among the Veroline, and he had a thick beard.
“If I may, Prince Endril.” Lord Nolan faln Banhaven waved his staff around the room, making sure to gather everyone’s attention before turning to the prince.
Endril gave the man a curt nod, signalling him to continue.
“We have heard much of our duties to the king. Much of our responsibilities, of our weakness, of our faith and our bonds to Verol. Of these things you, or the defenders of your faction, have spoken.” Lord Nolan tapped his stave a few times on the ground, the crisp sound echoing through the hall. “But that does not address our grievance.”
“Only because you lay them against the wrong foemen.” Endril said.
Which you should know, because you’re a part of the perpetrators. Endril thought bitterly. You are one of those who killed my brother.
Not that any significant proof could be found for that, however, other than the suspicions Endril harboured. Lord Agos had carefully scrubbed any connection from the massacre to his party, leaving only a few unlucky scapegoats he’d obviously chosen.
“The stewards and their families have been slaughtered, Prince. In your home. The writs of sanctuary have been severed, and all security in the city has fallen away to corruption and decadence.” Lord Nolan slammed his staff against the ground in anger, and the mutterings around the room fell silent. “How have the perpetrators not been caught? Why do murderer’s still roam Verol?”
“We have arrested over a dozen suspected in the crime.” Endril said quickly. “It is only my father’s mercy that they still keep their-”
“It is your father’s bias that they still keep their head, Prince, not mercy. I speak for many when I say that we do not care for whatever pawns your father sacrifices, not when we know the true fiend.”
Endril’s eyes narrowed at the man.
“You should reconsider what you’re about to say, Lord Nolan.” Endril growled. “That is a heavy charge to lay.”
“And I lay it gladly.” He replied immediately. “The Star demands honesty among her children. Truth! And I give it! You are a traitor, Endril Evandal, slaughterer of those you were sworn to defend! I name you Kinslayer! Bloodblade! Snaketongue! How can you stand before the families of those you’ve killed? How can you lie so freely when you brandy your faith so wildly? I can only be satisfied with your death as my weregild.”
The room exploded into jeers and shouts as the senators processed his words. Cries of ‘hear hear!’, ‘liar!’, and ‘traitor!’ mixed with more measured calls and the few shotus of opposition.
“SILENCE!” Endril’s call cut through the chaos with the help of enchantment. He levelled his gaze at the old man who accused him. “You have now spoken treason against the Kingdom of Verol, you know this, right? And why would I kill my own brother? What detestable nonesense.”
“Indeed! Prince Endril is a stalwart man of faith.” One of Endril’s allies in the church, Father Halhert, stood up on his behalf on the right side of the hall. “I, and many others can vouch for his integrity.”
To speak against the royal family so openly was more than enough evidence for Endril to clap him and his friends in irons, but still he waited. Even in his fury the prince was afraid of the backlash if he ordered such an arrest immediately. In a more stable time he would’ve ordered him taken away as a message, but then again he probably wouldn't've spoken out if that had been the case.
“He is now the heir to the throne of Verol, with every obstacle killed or removed.” Lord Nolan continued, unimpressed by the priest. “Every noble who died was one of your enemies! Your political opponents and roadblocks!”
Unfortunately, he wasn’t wrong. A suspiciously high amount of the Temoif had fallen in relation to the conservative factions, and all of the prince’s harshest critics had happened to die in the fighting. Clearly, it was a coordinated attack to politically assassinate him, of that Endril had no doubt.
“And you controlled the guards!” As Lord Nolan ranted, Endril could see nods of agreement from around the room. “Assassins with the training, equipment, and crests of the royal guards just so happened to get past all of the keep’s defences? You must think us Burgunds! You’ve purged the court and cleared your path to the throne in one fell swoop, but the Star knows your sins young Prince. You are an agent of the Gryphon! A child of the devil, not fit for the Evandal name!”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Endril stared in shock and fury as Lord Nolan finished his accusation, not daring to believe that the man had been so bold as to accuse him of being a demonspawn in the middle of a senate meeting. His father was lucky that he didn’t have to witness such degeneration of his work.
“Lies!”
Father Halhert stood up, only to be pulled back into his seat by a nearby member of Lord Agos’s faction. That seemed to be too much for the tensions in the room, and the room erupted into jeers and chaos.
“Butcher!”
“Kinslayer!”
“Kill the traitor!”
“Calm down!”
“You lying warmongers!”
Calls came from each side of the room, each accusation worse than the last as each faction began to air the years of grievances they’d built up. Shouts turned to yells, and words to threats.
Endril ignored the cries, good and bad, as he lit his sword, Roctrin, aflame. Nobles, including Lord Nolan, scrambled away as the massive heat washed over them, the red and orange glow of his sword overpowering the glyphs and lanterns of the hall. The only ones who stayed still were Lord Agos and the Knights of Esilmor who stood behind the prince.
“I will not have my father’s court dissolve into the petty disputes of a lesser kingdom.” Endril said as the voices began to quiet. “We are children of the Lmeri, of the Star, and above such things.”
He levelled his sword at Lord Nolan, who glared hatefully at the prince from his seat.
“I understand you are grieving your wife and children.” Endril said, the barest twitch in his eye revealing his disgust for the man. “But such accusations require proof, and you bring nothing to the table but bile. You are a good general, Lord Nolan, and the county of Lotres is a good land, but I cannot overlook such words against myself, not when I already suspect your deeper crimes. So I’ll ask you one time. Can you explain why I shouldn’t char you to the bone?”
It was one thing to insult an Evandal, but to accuse them of treason and heresy in the same breath in public? He would be lucky to be punished with exile in Verol. And Endril was no longer feeling merciful.
The hall was silent as Lord Nolan picked himself off the ground and to his feet. He looked defiantly towards the prince, resisting the flames of Endril’s fury.
“I have a witness, dear prince.” He spat. “A confident who was privy to all your sins.”
“And who might this confident be? Have them show themselves! Know that the King’s Court does not run on hearsay and hidden testimony!”
“That would be me.”
Endril’s sword arm drooped as a familiar man stepped up to the pulpit, the sigil of the Everstar upon his garb.
“Captain Taneri?” Roctrin’s fires petered out as Endril’s guard captain gave him a sad smile.
“I’m sorry, my highness.” The captain bowed. “But everything I do is for the future of Verol.”
…
It probably wasn’t worth mentioning again, but properly learning magic was really boring.
It hadn’t been on Earth, of course. Back then I’d just picked over the grimoire for cool or useful effects, jumping classifications to tailor my education towards what would help me the most in crime fighting. I had bothered with learning the precise theories, nor had I learned anything about how spells really worked. All I’d needed to know was how to summon a snowflake, and then how to summon a really destructive snowflake. Everything aside from that was bloated trivia to me.
A monumental sigh broke through my defences as I summoned up the glowing lines again, watching as they formed and shaped themselves only to fall apart a second later. Honestly, I couldn’t even be irritated at the failure, not after watching it repeat the same pattern for two days straight. The only emotion that crept through my rapidly rotting brain was a profound boredom so thick I was almost convinced I could bake a cake with it.
After seeing the bare minimum foundations I’d developed back on Earth, Caldor had tasked me with mastering a dozen or so small exercises. Supposedly they were to teach me something integral to the flow of magic, though all I could puzzle out was that light emitting mana could bend if you really thought about it.
“Does it really matter, though?” I let my head fall onto the desk with a small thunk. “Magic will not be the key to my escape. Though I wouldn’t mind if this was easier.”
‘You think of mana too precisely!’ Archmage Caldor had said. ‘It’s magic, not science! Look to the past, to the times of the real Lmenli mages!”
It really did make more sense if you thought of it like a programming language, though. How could quantifying and measuring something possibly be a bad thing? No, it was Caldor who was crazy.
Even still, his lessons weren’t entirely worthless. Perhaps less useful than just raiding the library for spells and incantations, but enlightening. My knowledge over the basics, of how mana shaped and formed itself in the presence of spell casting was lacking, and these past few days had been focused on fixing just that. If I kept at this under the master for a few more months I was sure I’d be a master at the craft.
The only problem with that, of course, is that I didn’t have a few months to devote to that. Even as I thought, Gideon was somewhere up there worrying up a storm, probably sick to his stomach. And as much as Caldor stressed my importance in ‘saving Summark’, he still hadn’t told me exactly what I could do towards that goal. Saving Summark wasn’t my duty either.
No, I couldn’t stay here, no matter how alluring the thaumaturgical knowledge was. Even if they did have a good point about everything, even if Verol was better with a dead Andril and even if that ‘thought demon’ had a grand purpose and Gideon didn’t care, I wouldn’t stay. Because of all the slights Lord Agos’s party had done, the loss of my personal freedom was something I couldn’t forgive.
I was American, after all.
Outside my door, the guard finally started walking down the hall towards the stairs. Creaking echos of stiff floorboards screeched under his every step as he left the house for the changing of the guard.
Judging from Caldor’s visits and statements, it had been a week or so since I had arrived there bundled and packaged, and the guards had noticeably laxed. After seeing me and hearing Caldor’s description of my level of magic, they had begun joking and taking longer to start shifts, and Caldor apparently didn’t care to correct them. After all, I was just a small girl! Compared to soldiers already trained in basic thaumaturgy, there was no way I had a chance in a fight against even a single one, let alone the three or four awake in the manor at any given time.
Well, I wasn’t ‘small’ persay, but you get the picture. ‘An average height girl’ doesn’t really pack the same punch.
Quickly, I reached into my socks and withdrew the slender lockpick and lever I’d kept there, fitting them into the lock they’d installed onto the door. Because of either incompetence or old-fashioned values, they didn’t search me very thoroughly when they brought me in, taking only my knife. Perhaps they didn’t expect anything worthwhile to be small enough to hide in my socks? I would never know.
The door lock clicked open easily enough, offering no more resistance than if I had used a key. Outside, the manor lay open. If the same pattern was kept up, nobody would be replacing the last guard for a few more minutes.
I slipped out into the hallway and locked the door behind me. Then, I turned right, which led to the other rooms on the top floor. Downstairs would be too treacherous even for me, as even now I could hear a couple talking down there, so I had prepared a different route. Floorboards lightly creaked under my step, but less so than they had for the guards. Saphry was light of foot, even more so than I had been back on Earth, which had helped quite a bit so far, but my inner paranoia still churned within me as I crept. Eventually, however, I made it to the eastern bedroom and stepped inside.
This bedroom, much like my own, was obviously a room made with royalty in mind. While the linens had rotted to nothing already, the corewood of the bed frame still stood in the centre, while cabinets, dressers, and armoires fashioned of stone sat along the walls, their runes still unchanged from the day they were carved.
I wasn’t sure when this underground city was made, not to mention when it was abandoned, but it was clear to me that the previous inhabitants had left in somewhat of a hurry. Caldor certainly hadn’t mentioned anything about the history of this place, but that much didn’t seem too far-fetched to me. Why else would so much furniture be left in the city?
Regardless, my aim wasn’t to gawk at antiques, but the window on the eastern side of the room, one that I had noticed on one of the few occasions Caldor had decided to take me outside. Carefully, I pulled aside the curtains covering it, the light of the hanging lanterns flooding into the old bedroom.
Peeking outside, I found the dull red colour of a tiled roof hanging just a metre past it, just close enough to jump to from the window. To my left, the avenue of the hanging bridge was visible, along with the one guard who patrolled down it. On the other end, buildings as tall as my own obscured the view of the ravine, though I could see a few walkways connecting the two sides every once and a while.
The basic plan wasn’t really complicated. Caldor had left this morning for a ‘special circumstance’, which he had blatantly refused to give me any other information about. He had said it peculiarly, in my opinion, almost as if he found it important that I understand. At the same time, he had told me that the guards would be on their best behaviour, a state which hadn’t lasted the day. Even if they had stayed alert however, this was still my best opportunity for an escape attempt. Running along the roofs, I might even be able to get past the soldiers even if they detected me.
Now that he was out of the picture, I only had to wait for the perfect opportunity. And if there was anything I had ample amounts of, it was patience.