ZEPHYR RAVENSWOOD

Whispering was the calm wind in the dark of the crescent moonlit night, chanting a soft chilly tune to him as he took his step to a halt in the midst of flower beds, with a blazing torch in hand.

At an arm’s stretch away from where he stood she sat on the edge of a brick flower bed, Melisandre in her cloak darkened with the colour of burnt wood, unhooded and watching him from below with a gaze he could not see with perfection. She had a smile taping her lips though, that he saw, a furtive smile. If only he could hear the thoughts of people, he would not be stuck in this constant loop of wariness and profound helplessness.

“Greetings, Your Grace,” she said while rising from where she sat, with a bow of deft etiquette following shortly after. “And congratulations. I heard she has the white skin of a dove, and no doubt the beauty befitting a queen. A nice catch if I am allowed the pleasure to say. With your beauty and hers, your unborn children would no doubt be the bane of their opposite sex.” She lifted her head and let her eyes wander to him, his own face which was bathed in the light of the torch he held close to himself, stared plain and unsmiling. “Might I take that burden this time? The last we met, you did not trust me, I hope that is changed.” Her hand went outstretched in hopes of taking the blazing torch from the king.

Zephyr’s night robe swirled with another whisper of the wind, and the golden yellow danced atop his hand bemusedly. “For a being that pries into the minds of others, you have no clue as to what goes on in there. Our relationship remains the same as last time,” he took a step closer and stretched the torch towards her, “giving you the torch has no change to that.”

She took it into her grasp with another smile, another furtive smile but curved at a different edge that told Zephyr it was forced. His mind had been hazy and stressed the last they saw, but now that he saw a jot bit clearer, he was not entirely sure she was the ally he hoped she would be. Oh, how much he wanted her to be one, but now that he watched her face embrace the warmth of the blazing torch’s yellow, she glimmered nothing short of suspicion.

“Granted,” Melisandre began saying, “trust has to be built. Pardon my impudence, Your Grace, I shall work to build such trust.”

Zephyr sauntered past her and took a seat on the brick bed of fennels she stood before, which had been previously home to her weight, while saying, “Build what you want, none of it I have any care for. I have come with a new set of questions, but before I put you to answer them, I shall hand you a warning. I am the king, that everyone should know by now, and that you as well should know, do not wander into my mind whenever you so please and bid my night’s sleep farewell with your calls, as I am sure you have heard, I fell after our last meeting, I do not hope to go through such again; I shall be the one to send for you if I need your presence, not the other way around. I speak in words you understand, yes?” She had turned to face him seated with his boot-covered legs cross-ankled, and his face resting on his palm while he spoke, his narrow gaze anchored forward into the dark-grey of night.

“You speak in such words, Your Grace. I understand,” she answered with no sign of a nod.

“Good,” Zephyr said, then sighed. “Tell me… what are your motives?” It was a question he had forgotten to ask the last time they met, a question that was of large essence, one he should not have let escape his mind, but at least he had remembered now, a little bit late he was but he had arrived, it was better to come later than never come at all.

“My motives?” Melisandre’s smile ran from the yellow emblazoning her heart-shaped face, and with its departure came the arrival of a baffled glint sharpening her copper feline eyes. “Whatever do you mean, Your Grace?” Another question left her lips.

“It is as you heard.” Zephyr’s gaze withdrew from its forward anchor into the darkness, his face going from cheek on palm to chin on palm, as he turned to look up at Melisandre’s dark skin crafted beautifully like a vitrified porcelain distinguishing itself into two halves of grey and yellow, as if it was made by a renowned crafts artist from Firsttown, the town of clay, and they felt the need to tell a tale through their work of the borders between darkness and light, moon and sun, good and bad. “Your motives, what are they? Or do you claim to say all you speak to me you say for the benefit of the kingdom, to serve your king?” He held her hostage with his eyes, straining them as much as he could in the dim light brightening the night, so he could catch even a little sight of every slight twitch of her sharpened eyebrows and feline eyes. There was nothing though, not a twitch, all that was on her face were the rivers of grey and yellow, both run through with sheer composure.

She let a silent suspire free from her lips, after the wind came suddenly and forcibly tried to drag her cloak and the burning fire of the torch in her hand to ride with it, waking the sleeping flowers from their still slumber as it did. The flowers did go back to sleep as soon as the wind’s echoes faded away though, and that was when she answered, breaking her silence as the flowers took theirs. “You have the truth of it, Your Grace. All I do, I do for the kingdom in good faith.”

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Cliché… Zephyr spat as he dragged his eyes away from her. “Was killing my guards in your good faith for the kingdom as well?” He questioned with an alien tone of calmness tinged with a sort of threatening spice. Like a pig onioned and then peppered to create a different taste, his tone’s taste was different from the former now, the one he used to have; his voice’s calmness: the onion, and the threatening spice mingled within: the pepper, all coming together to make him sound more intimidating than he used to be. He was beginning to feel more like a king with each passing day in this world, but he knew that growth was only in voice and speech. With each day passed his manner of speaking flourished, but his mind was still wallowing behind, trodding slowly at a mortifying pace. He was not yet like the kings he had read in books, and the fact that he was having such troubles with a task such as this, was more evidence than enough.

Melisandre had heard from Flynn. She already knew what the blue-haired king knew about the guards’ deaths, he had no idea of who it was, and this was just a mere ruse he intended to use to figure out if she was the one there at the time. A smile crept upon her lips unbeknownst to Zephyr; it was a chance for her to build the trust the king had little of for her, a perfect chance. “Killing your guards? Whatever do you mean, Your Grace?” She began by being oblivious, her voice playing along with her oblivion by agitating itself in a fit of query. The muscles of her left hand began to cramp up then, impelling her to pass the burden of the wooden stave onto her other hand, the bordered creeks of grey and yellow on her face shifting in conformity with the torch’s switch.

Zephyr tutted, his face altering in disapproval of the oblivious demeanour he thought she had. His eyes were not gazing at Melisandre, but he had the truth of it. “You act like you have no idea of what I mean, but I am of mind that you do.” He turned to face her, loosening his ankles from their tangle and rising to his feet. “Why did you kill the guards? I want nothing but the truth to leave your lips.” They probed at each other with a visual caress, both seeking something beneath the eyes of the other.

“And the truth I shall give you, Your Grace.” With a soft yielding huff, Melisandre smiled thinly. “As I said, all I do, I do for the kingdom, killing the guards was of no difference.”

Zephyr’s eyes whetted with an assessing grimace, while his chest tightened and his body tensed. “In what way was killing the guards of any benefit to the kingdom?”

The flame of the torch in Melisandre’s hand flickered. “Because they were not of service to you, Your Grace. They had never been.” The dim yellow flame seemed to brighten as she spoke, flinging about chaotically with a mind to escape from the stave’s grip. “They guarded your door only in words, but their actions were not of the same accord. You were murdered right under their nose; those were not your guards, Your Grace. I believe they were men that had been bought by the queen. Queen Ophelia.”

With the sudden race of his heart came the slight crunch of a headache, it was as though a drummer struck a bellowing beat from his drum, only once and no more. It came and went, but the effects remained. “Then why did you not instead come to me with…” he eyed her… “...this unproven claim, instead of taking matters into your own hands?”

“You do not trust me even now, Your Grace, would you have taken my words for any truth then?” She did not bat an eye, and it gave Zephyr the sullen impression that even if a little, she might be telling him the truth, that maybe all she did were in truth for the benefit of the kingdom, and if so, then maybe it would be okay to…

He glanced up at the moon, and it dawned on him that he could not stay here any longer than he already had; he might fall again when day comes, tired and weary like he had been the last time. He stretched his hand and took the torch back from Melisandre, who handed it over forthwith while a wondrous check smeared her eyebrows. “You have your trust,” Zephyr muttered as he walked past her and began to set for his bedchamber.

Melisandre bowed as soon as the light of the torch left her vicinage, whatever mien she had now was hiding behind the chill air of the dark of night. “May I ask a question, Your Grace?” She started, her head still bowed only just slightly, as she stopped the brisk walk of the king. “Why have you not gotten rid of the second branch? I made mention of them being the ones that took your life, and you no doubt have felt their hostility towards your sit on the throne, so why do you still let them roam the castle free and do whatever they want?”

He did not turn back, but he allowed her the answer of her question before he walked away, “You have no proof of the claim that they were the ones that took my life, and I have a firm belief that nothing good comes of wrongly judging people for sins they have not committed. Suspecting is one, and judging another. So far, the only sins they have committed, are like you said, the ones of hostile words, I will not persecute them for sins anyone in their position would commit. But if they do take their hostility further than just words and glares, then I would have to judge them based on their actions. That I will do as king.”