DAMON RAVENSWOOD

The candelabra of flames hanging from the centre of the solar, strewed the room in a dark golden glow, and washed its warmth on the permed, brown-haired prince of nineteen, fiddling with a bronze goblet while slumped on the high seat of dark oak. His jaded eyes, which were a pair of brown, watched the swaying wine, while his mind danced about his thoughts chaotically. If Dante saw, he would believe his brother had fallen drowsy from too much wine drunk; but that was hardly the case for the prince; he was drunk, but not on wine, he was drunk on something else, something far more intoxicating than wine.

The door of the solar opened wide, and Prince Damon smiled wanly, as he watched Lord Varyn stride in with his currently, most expected guest: Savant Arryn. A man who looked to be in his early forties, dressed in a silk robe of white, and around his neck, a small silver chain with the sigil of a raven, hanging vividly.

“Savant,” Damon hooted listlessly, his voice an arched bridge between two vivid castles of praise and jest. “You finally waltzed out of your hole. Took you long enough.” He drank a full gulp from the goblet of sweet wine in his right hand, while he used the finger of his other to gesture the savant and Lord Varyn to take their seats.

After he was done drinking, he picked up the ewer on the round table, and began to refill his cup. “I might have to get a cupbearer; pouring this myself makes my hand ache. Don’t you think so too, Savant?”

Lord Varyn jumped to his feet, hoping to rush to the side of his prince, and bear the responsibility of pouring the wine for him, but Damon gestured to him to return to his seat, leaving him with no choice but to comply.

“A cupbearer would serve you well,” Savant Arryn answered. He was a sallow, dimple-faced man, with little to no hair on his head for his age; he seemed to have traded it for the neat beard plastered over his cheeks and chin. “You look tired, my lord,” he added.

“Right…?” Damon chuckled. “Well, what would you like to have? A drink of sweet wine perhaps?”

“Your kind gesture I appreciate, my lord, but sweet wine I shall not have.”

“Then what would you like, I’ll have them bring it.” Damon laid back on the high seat, and resumed his fiddles with the cup he had filled, as he raised his legs, which were covered in brown boots of leather, onto the round table, inciting a concerned gaze anchored on his crossed legs from both the savant and Lord Varyn. “Well speak. You lost your cock not your tongue. What shall you have?” Damon added, impatiently awaiting his reply while he took a drink from his goblet.

The savant cleared his throat and took his gaze away from Damon’s legs. “If I must, water would be most preferred, my lord,” he replied.

Damon’s brows furrowed as he glanced quickly at Lord Varyn, with a glint of surprise in his eyes. Lord Varyn answered with a slight, meek smile, then Damon let free a rough and weak laughter. “Water? Drink that when you get to your chambers. Who in the realm offers fucking water for a drink? Not me.” He let fly a scoff and shook his head, before putting his lips to his goblet once again.

Savant Arryn shared not the prince’s humour, and his demeanour did little to hide that. “May His Lord grace me with the reason why I have been summoned to the king’s solar, by the hour of the moon?” He was no fool, he already knew the answer to that question, even before Lord Varyn had told him, when he came to deliver the prince’s summon in his chambers, while he was reading himself to sleep. Words that sailed by that hour were grim; they were either words laced with the sounds of death, or something worse, and he had now found himself in the midst of one assuming the latter.

“The king’s solar…” Damon’s wine tasted bitter with his last gulp, his jesting mien vanishing like an early morning mist escaping from the sun, and it was no doubt because of Savant Arryn’s words. I am the king… Damon spat deep within, pushing the base of his goblet to let forth a cry, as it came in contact with the table. “You savants are said to be the wisest in the realm,” he said, then turned a tired, seething glare to Savant Arryn, as his grip tightened around the goblet. “You’re not proving those claims right.”

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Damon glared for a second, before breathing out a calming exhale, as he loosened his grip on the cup of bronze, and let his legs drop from the table, while he picked up the ewer to refill his cup once again. “That was quite a question you asked, Savant. If you are here, then you should be fully aware of why I have summoned you. Lord Varyn should have told you that much, if anything.”

“All Lord Varyn told me were talks of nonsense, my lord,” the savant answered.

“Nonsense?” Damon paused his refill, his hand which held the ewer, hanging just above the goblet, as he let a cold gaze fly towards Savant Arryn, who sat seemingly unfazed, before cocking his head as he shifted his eyes towards Lord Varyn, and preyed on him with the same gaze. “What nonsense did my good Lord Varyn say?”

Lord Varyn felt a swift shiver prick his skin, forcing a quick, frightened, and confused glance from him to the nearly-bald man sitting beside him, who paid him no attention. “M-My Prince,” he stuttered as his eyes slowly wandered away from the savant’s blank face, and back to Damon’s cocked probing gaze. “I—”

“Shut up,” Damon interjected, “the question was for the savant.” Damon dropped the ewer, and picked up his half-filled goblet as he took to his feet, the floor screeching faintly in protest to the high seat’s scraping. “If all Lord Varyn told you were talks of nonsense…” He sauntered to where Savant Arryn was, and sat halfway before him on the table. “Doesn’t that mean my words are nonsense? You tell me, Savant.” He glowered at the seated man robed in white.

“Every word that came from Lord Varyn’s mouth spoke of treason, my lord,” Savant Arryn said, his unabating gaze anchored forward. “Zephyr is the king.”

“I am the king!” Damon roared, coercing a sharp inhale from Lord Varyn, who sat in place with his mouth shut tightly. “I am the raven. I.”

“The truth stings, my lord, but it is true that you were not the one chosen by the late king. If words of your plans of treason reaches King Zephyr, little doubt you will not lose your head.” Savant Arryn dragged his gaze sheepishly towards Lord Varyn. “You, and everyone involved. I want no part in that, as I do not yet see myself of age to lose mine.”

Damon’s body scorched with heat, his head, hands, feets, every part of him. It felt like he had been inundated in a burning flame; as though he had been tied to a gibbet, surrounded by a moat of flames, eating him up from below. He was angry, he was filled with rage, but at the same time, he was too tired. His lack of sleep had gotten to him finally, and it did him the good of keeping his rage at bay.

“If you will then pardon my leave, my lord,” Savant Arryn spoke in an attempt to return to his chambers, but Damon would not have that, not yet.

Damon exhaled, a calming one followed by a quick taste of his wine. “I heard,” he began after his sip, ensuring the eunuch of a savant remained seated, “your brother did not take the white like you did. Lord Varyn told me he has… what, two, three children?”

Savant Arryn’s eyes widened significantly, as his chest rode the wind. His heartbeat becoming a ferocious gallop, thumping faster than the hoofbeats of a destrier riding into battle. Savants were men of knowledge and wisdom, and he was one, he understood what the prince was getting at—it was painfully glaring.

“My lord,” he began to speak, but he was kept shut by the stream of wine pouring down his head of little hair, and staining his white robe with drops of red. Lord Varyn blinked and brinked at the edge of letting a gasp escape his lips, but he fought it in, keeping it imprisoned as his eyes drifted shut.

After the wine had been fully splurged on Savant Arryn’s head, the goblet was let free from Damon’s hand, and it fell to the floor with a clanging cry in return. “You’re a man who sacrificed his cock for wisdom,” Damon whispered to the savant, “use that wisdom, or the wine shall trade places with the blood of your brother, his wife, and his children.” He took hold of the savant’s silver chain and toyed with it. “I trust you won’t have to make me prove myself.”

Savant Arryn sat silent and shamed, his mind a chaotic city of thoughts, and gathering anger with nowhere to be directed to. He had been left with no choice, nothing at all, nothing.

He opened his eyes, which had gone shut during his spill of shame, and anchored it forward again as he said, “What would you have me do, my prince?”