DAMON RAVENSWOOD

He was dressed warmly, as he was meant to be, garbed in a thick woollen doublet of grey, in which he took shelter from the cold that pricked his skin the same way it did everyone else’s… unless they were his mother… and Aria.

The hearth of the bedchamber was unlit, the windows open, and they were there on the bed, mother and daughter, both dressed in soft linen sleeveless gowns of emerald and serpia, one colour for each. They really were the same, taking after each other in more ways than few, one of such ways was their mutual preference of the cool chilly air to the one of warmth, it was as though the cold seldom got to them, or maybe the ravens had just blessed them with the warmth of bear fur for skins. Damon wished he had such. The doublet warmed him, make no mistake, but it came with the dampening of his armpits, nevertheless that was better than the cold, that one made him shiver uncontrollably even at its slightest bite.

“I heard,” the queen told her son at the shut of the door without giving him her eyes. She had taken her time to stroking the brown hair of silk her daughter carried on her head while the young lady lay on her laps with eyes wide open, a smile rushing across her face as soon as she saw her brother.

“Brother!” Aria cried gleefully at Damon before her smile turned into a pout. “Mother was telling me a story. None of it I understood though, but she said I must listen…”

“How about you tell me all about it later,” Damon cut in, smiling. “I have something to speak to Mother about, do you mind going to your bedchamber for a while?” He paced away from the door and further into the room, his hands itching to hold something in it, which was less doubt a goblet of wine, but in the absence of such, they held themselves in tender embrace instead.

“She stays,” Ophelia thundered, more in tone than in voice. It was not harsh, but it no doubt took Damon’s smile away. Did she always enjoy taking away whatever smile he had on his face? He wondered.

“It’s about the savant, Mother.” Damon turned his eyes to her, widening it a slight queer so she understood that he did not want his sweet sister to be in their presence while they talked of such matters. But it was not what he wanted that his mother would do, it was what she wanted that she would do. She said her daughter would stay and she would stubbornly adhere to it no doubt.

“I said she stays,” the queen insisted, her stroking unrelenting, but her green eyes had gone to look at her son’s brown now, her eyebrows stopped from pinching against each other by the lump of flesh that folded between them.

Damon tsked. “She’s fifteen…”

“And old enough to listen.”

Aria blinked puzzledly while they spoke, her thoughts jumbled about in her tiny head as she wondered what her mother and brother were arguing about. She herself had no problem with either leaving or staying, it was not something worth the hassle of an argument, and even if it was, she hated arguments, she did not like to see people quarrelling. She was fine with anyone, anyone at all. “I’m fine with leaving, Mother,” Aria spoke up, her voice tender and untainted, the same with the eyes she took to her mother’s face from where she lay her head. She did not have the green eyes of her mother, hers were a soft brown, tender and kind, like her father’s, and that tenderness was what her mother wanted to rip out of her. She was too old to still be tender. Far too old.

“You will stay and listen, my little flower. Mother insists,” Ophelia said and smiled at Aria then took her eyes back to her uncrowned son with nothing of the smile remaining, “and your brother would do good to keep his mouth shut of this matter.” She was scary, she had always been… to anyone who was not her little flower. They were not graced with whatever speck of tenderness she had left, all that remained was for her beloved daughter, but Damon sensed that was nearing its end as well, the same way it had done for he and Dante.

Damon sighed in defeat, then stole a glance at Aria, whose head had returned to gaze at him from the comfort of his mother’s aged thighs, before returning his eyes back to the queen. “He’s dead,” Damon told her, unwillingly.

“Like I did say when you entered. I heard.” Ophelia had already returned to stroking her daughter’s hair once again, but that came to a short stop as Aria posed her a question.

“Who’s dead, Mother?”

“The savant.” Ophelia beamed a smile at her daughter, a wan smile in truth, the warmth that a smile should normally bear was nowhere to be found on her face.

“The savant?” Aria jumped up from her mother’s lap. “When?” There was no stroking of silk hair now. It had all ceased.

“A few days past, my dear.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“He was not as old as the grand savant and he’s dead,” Aria intoned, quite sullenly. “Am I to cry? He had taught me a few things of sort.” Her eyes dropped, she was wondering how to feel. The savant was not someone she had a large familiarity with, she had only just a little bit of engagement with him, but wasn’t she meant to cry for someone who had died? Was it not the right thing to do, especially if it was someone she knew? This was all that wandered her mind, but all that ceased when her mother’s slender fingers took hold of her chin gently and raised her eyes from its down gaze.

“It was his duty, you do not cry for someone just because he had taught you a few things. If you speak to a guard in the next hour that does not mean you should cry for him if he ends up dead on the ‘morrow. Your tears should be saved, they are better off not wasted on people of little regard to you, do you understand, my little flower?” She smiled, one of indecency, considering she spoke about a life, but little matter it had to Damon that watched, now perched on the edge of the chamber’s table.

She had grown he and Dante that way as well. Tears were better kept than wasted on people who serve us no purpose, she had told them both once, rather than waste time crying, such time should be spent seeking power. Power ruled all, power is everything, power is strength. She had made sure they heard. If only power was so easy to gain. Damn you father! Damon spat.

Aria answered her mother’s question with an unsatisfied nod, but Ophelia would not ask for more this time, it would take a while but she would come to understand soon enough, she was her daughter after all. Her eyes returned to Damon. “And? Is that all you have come to speak of to me?”

“No,” Damon lowered his head then continued. “Mother…” he faltered a bit. “I might be unable to get the grand savant on our side.” It was a struggle to let those words free from his lips. He hated failure, everyone did, but none did as much as he, and what he did now was admit that he had failed, and to his mother of all people, his mother.

“Little wonder of that,” Ophelia said, sounding unsurprised like she had been waiting for him to fail. It angered him more.

Damon bit his lips. “It is impossible, Mother,” he raised his eyes sharply back to her, its exhaustion seeping out as it went deeper into hallows of weak anger.

He was growing to hate his father even more for what he had done. Why had he not just crowned him, he was the one that was meant to be king, his mother was his first wife, he should never have taken a second, and he had his brown hair and his brown eyes, he was his son, more than Zephyr would ever be, more than that bastard would ever be, so why was he crowned instead? Why? All these would not be happening now if he had just been crowned. He had killed someone, he had taken a life, and all for what? A crown that was by right his? It made him bitter. It made him want to ride all the way to Ravenswatch and dig his father out of his grave and scream his questions out to him. But that was impossible, his questions served no purpose, his father would never answer, he had no voice to speak now. There was no turning back, a life has been taken, and more shall if that would give him the crown. He would do whatever to have that gold on his head.

“Why don’t we just take the throne the old way, Mother? Waiting to get the grand savant on our side is going to take too long, and near impossible.” Damon’s voice went strong now, a quick transition from the weakness it had a few seconds ago. And his eyes went narrow as he stared at his mother’s plain and watching face, awaiting her reply which he hoped would be in his favour.

“Usurp the throne from the usurper…” Ophelia muttered. “What do you think, Aria? Do you support your brother’s notion?” She turned to her daughter.

Aria had little understanding for what was going on, but even a fool would know what they were talking about, and she was not one. She would be sixteen on her next name day in the winter, so she was already of age to piece the hints of their conversation together. Mother and brother are talking about taking the throne from our blue haired brother… if only she knew why. But still she had to answer, and answer well to her might she would. “Wouldn’t usurping require an army and killings and blood? Would that not mean our half-brother would die? He’s the king, is that in any way possible?” She answered a question with questions. The sought answer was nowhere.

Ophelia pulled her daughter closer, placing her hand on her head as she turned her eyes to gaze at her son who watched her with a determined gaze. “Yes we would need an army in the event that a war breaks out, and yes, the bastard would have to die for your brother to take the throne. Does your brother have an army that can rival the king’s own, or does he have some way to kill the king, I wonder?”

She was asking him, Damon knew, and he answered, “Talk to grandfather, Mother, he’d be willing to give you his men-at-arms, and the other houses will join us if we convince them that he’s a bastard, take for example House Blackwood, they would not want to serve under a bastard, they are one of the first three houses of the realm. They have their pride.” He was sure it would work, he was sure.

But not his mother. “And how do you convince them that he’s a bastard? Oh, I have my father’s brown hair and he has blue hair, he’s a bastard… is that how?” She licked her lips. “How you convince them he’s a bastard is by getting the damned grand savant on our side, that’s how. What don’t you get Damon, that man knows it all, everything my stupid husband did before his death, everything, bring him here and we have the throne.”

Aria had never seen her mother so flared before, it was queer to her eyes, so much that she shuddered as she watched the exchange. If only she understood better, maybe she would have been able to help her out. She wanted to, she did not like her mother agitated. There had to be some way she could help, there had to. “If you give me some time I will speak with the grand savant, Mother.”

Ophelia turned an unusual stare to her daughter, and so did Damon. Aria noticed and added, “He likes to tell stories, he will tell me some if I ask.”