ZEPHYR RAVENSWOOD

“You should be with sleep, Zeph,” Dante made mention as he walked into the solar, glancing at both the king and his advisor seated already while the light of the candelabra limned a dim gold on their faces. “Was the tourney not tiring enough for you?”

“Tiring…” Zephyr smiled, “but fun.”

Dante pulled out an empty seat on Zephyr’s left before the table and fell languidly on it, his demeanour every bit as sour as it had been during the day. “Fun or not, you should be sleeping. The tourney’s finale and your name day is on the morrow, it will not do good to have you bedridden like the last time.” If only his concern felt even a little bit more authentic like it used to be. He could not even look at his brother with a smile, the one he used to always have.

Zephyr was not oblivious to what had caused Dante to become such a way, and he was every bit as sour as he had made his brother, but what would he have had him do? He had to make a choice, he had to. “They unhorsed a lot today… those peasants,” Zephyr began, trying his best for an uplifting talk with Dante. Flynn just sat watching, lips shut and hands clutched. “What do you think of them brother? Do you think any one of them would make a good Kingsknight?”

Dante handed Flynn his eyes, gimlet and narrow. Zephyr noticed the stiffening glares they fed each other, but his mouth would not let loose to touch on the matter. “They unhorsed men knighted, they would no doubt make good Kingsknights, but we will have to find out on the ‘morrow if they are as good with a sword as a lance.” Dante was speaking to Zephyr, but he was still looking at another… Flynn.

There was a short sigh followed immediately by a deep sigh, both from Zephyr, the former for the solar’s ambience and the latter for the Lockeheart man he now remembered. “And what of your mother’s nephew? What do you think of him?”

“My mother hates you, not her nephew, if he wins the finale and becomes your Kingsknight, he will not betray you for my mother, if that is what you fear.”

“And how are you so sure? What gives you such confidence in him?” Zephyr was not convinced, his eyes of silver shaded from the candelabra’s light by his long blue eyelashes, pinching Dante for a better explanation. If only he could have convinced him in a better way when he had asked him to wed the Blackwood lady, then maybe he would not be so embittered. Quite kingly he was… quite kingly.

Dante leaned back on his chair with an exhale, his head tilting to the left tiredly as his watch of the ever-so-silent Flynn continued. “He would never betray the throne,” Dante told Zephyr.

Your surety worries me… Zephyr’s mind was not still cajoled to be at rest, that was not an answer to his question, and it sure as hell was not doing him any good. He was not able to find the prince’s murderer, that one still roamed the castle somewhere, but his precautions had proved fruitful in keeping him safe, he was not about to ruin that by bringing someone he could not trust so close to him, he could not, but what would he do if the Lockeheart knight won the tourney, he had to make him the Kingsknight no matter what. That was the custom.

A voice hijacked his mind then… Custom be damned… the custom was to wed the Blackwood girl and you did not… you are the king, even if he wins the tourney you can choose not to make him your Kingsknight, you hold the power, you sit the throne, you can do whatever you please… yes, the voice was right, he was the king, that was true, he could do whatever he pleased.

“If he wins the tourney, he must be made your Kingsknight, you have the power to say no and choose another, but I tell you: for every action there is a repercussion, and for a king it is tenfold the one of us lessers.” Dante gave his head a slow turn to look at him, and for the first time Zephyr felt a dark icy chill cloud those brown eyes of his brother.

Do you speak of your mother’s nephew or do you speak of yourself…? Zephyr wondered which.

Dante turned away then. “Father told me House Lockeheart wears their loyalty like a sleeve, one undetachable. They have been in service to the throne for centuries, they would never betray it as long as a Ravenswood sits on it.”

That there. That is the problem… am I in truth a Ravenswood…? Was the past Zephyr actually a Ravenswood…? What would happen if he was not one…? What would happen if your brother and mother are right about the dead Zephyr being a bastard, would all the houses in the realm turn against me then, would they…?

“And what if I am a bastard? What would happen then?” Zephyr let his thoughts spill out, and it left behind in its wake a choking silence.

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Dante’s eyes drifted to a shut, slowly but quickly, with a sharp inhale as his nose turned up revoltingly, and as soon as it came open again, he shot it at Zephyr, his eyes wide and irated, while his fists slammed hard on the table. “Don’t you dare consider yourself a bastard.” His voice was hard and strong, and tensed and frazzled, and Zephyr’s mouth wasted no time to turn grim as his eyebrows furrowed in shock. He had seen the first of Dante’s anger and he no doubt knew it was something he did not want to see any longer… but why was he so angry, why? It was queer to him.

“You are Father’s child. I do not care if any other calls you a bastard, but when you call yourself that what do you leave me with to think of father? Don’t you dare do that. Don’t.”

Another, Zephyr thought, another he had done. He was tugging with his brother’s emotions, tugging hard at it, and even though it was not something he wanted to do, he had to, he had to ask, he had to know, he… “I—”

“Will you wed Lady Valora?” Flynn cut in. He had not spoken since, watching silently as though he had not been present in the solar with Zephyr and Dante, he had transferred his silence to them now as they both glanced at him with the sudden switch in colloquy he presented. “Will you?”

Dante’s eyes snapped a twitch. “What?” He said, sounding aghast as though he did not understand what Flynn had put forward in words to him.

“Will you wed Lady Valora of House Blackwood as the king asked of you?” Flynn repeated, this time with more words than before so Dante would not still lack the understanding of what he spoke of.

Dante knitted his brows in a frown, the sourness that had never left his face given wings to soar into greater heights. “It was you, was it not? The one who put such an idea into Zephyr’s head?” He never lacked the understanding of what Flynn had said, he was just embittered that he would have such a thought.

Flynn looked at Dante with less worry, if he even had any at all, his face guileless while his brown eyes peered at the prince. “Yes. I am his advisor after all. I am the one that put such an idea into his head as I am meant to do. What else would you have had I done? It was either this or we lose the Blackwoods. Would you have preferred we lose the power of the Blackwoods?”

“Father would not—” Dante was about to speak, but Flynn had little patience to let him go through with whatever words he had to say.

“The late king is dead, hence the late. Whatever he would have done we will never know, he never faced such a hitch.” He pointed at Zephyr. “He is the king now, and he’s the one facing that which the late king did not. What would you have had me tell him? That he should act like the late king even if that would cost us?”

A loud bang came with Dante’s palm crashing down on the table. “Don’t you dare—”

“I dare say I already did, my prince,” Flynn sliced through his words for the second time in the dim of the solar and the dark of the night, it was as though he had taken it upon himself to make sure the prince never said anything again in this solar.

Zephyr sat, grown dumbstruck at what was ensuing. They bickered like kids, something he never thought he would see from both of them. Something he had never imagined. “Stop it, both of you,” he said, his voice low and mellow, and it seemed like they did not hear him.

“All I do is in service to the throne,” Flynn continued. “What of you? Will you act a child and put the throne at risk all because of what you believe the late king would have and would have not done?”

Dante could not take it any longer and he rose to his feet in a crackling spit of rage, the chair which had been graced with his weight screeching as he did. His eyes were a darker brown than it normally was, his anger had taken him ahold, and it tightly gripped him. “Speak of my father one more time and I’ll have your tongue fed to the dogs,” his voice was hard and cruel, and Flynn knew it was not a jape. At this moment they were not the friends Dante and Flynn, at this moment one was the prince and the king’s brother, and the other the king’s advisor.

Zephyr had enough as well, he could hear no more. “You stop it now, both of you!” He flared up, as much as he could, he had never been one for anger and shouts, but he would try his best to have such a demeanour now, maybe it would keep them silent. He tried to recall the way he had felt the first time he had snapped—which was no doubt unwillingly—the uncanny crash of emotions he had felt at his brother Thaddeus on his first day in this world. “You will have no one’s tongue,” he said to Dante, then turned to Flynn. “I sit before you and you dare cause a scene? What in hell is wrong with both of you.” He glanced at both of them each, and all he could see was Dante’s rage, Flynn was weirdly composed. Why would Dante be so angry? He was not sure it was the marriage he had proposed to him any longer, he was not flared up when he had brought it up, he was not. At least he had been able to keep them both silent.

The wind knocked softly on the shut windows of the solar, and then the silence was broken, by Dante. “As I told His Grace, I will wed the lady Valora. I as well do all I do in service to the throne…” he turned from Flynn to Zephyr, his voice had grown to become calm now, but his face still sour… “and to my brother. I will take leave to my bedchamber now.” He sighed and let himself out of the solar.

Zephyr wasted no time turning to Flynn as soon as Dante was gone. “What is wrong with you? Why would you choose to anger him?”

Flynn rose from his seat. “He knows that this is the only way to keep a hold of the Blackwoods, that much was obvious to him, I could see it in his eyes. He’s one of the smartest persons I’ve ever met, but he loses it whenever it comes to your father.” Flynn turned his eyes to his king. “He’s a man in brains, but a child at heart. I have to help him realise that much, as his friend.”

But as his friend did you though, or did you just make him unnecessarily angry…?