ZEPHYR RAVENSWOOD

Zephyr sat shirtless in a tan loose pant beside the flaming hearth, listening to the sound of its crackling spits which ran through the gloomy ambience of his chambers, while he stared down the small piece of paper that lay just atop the red cover page of the tome he had received from the grand savant, the yellow flame of the lamplight seated before him on the table, flickering about in his pale silver eyes.

Poisoned, the paper bore, and poisoned his mind recalled. The sound of the fire’s solemn wails reminded him of how he had died, while the words written on the paper reminded him of how he had somehow come back to being alive after his death, and how unsafe he still was in this new world he had wandered into.

The tourney was fun, feasting was fun, and he was going to have a wife when the sun rose—not once did he ever think he would wed someone so early in his life—but none of it made him feel any safer than he had been when he had come into this world. Taking his mind away from searching for the murderer and instead focusing on shielding himself from harm in the form of food tasters and bath checkers had helped him with his weariness, but how long could that shield hold. How long could it keep shading him from harm if the unknown murderer kept swinging their sword at him from the shadows? Could he last for longer than he had already done? Melisandre’s little trick at the feast had helped him with the realisation that he was slipshod. Maybe that was her intention. Maybe she was trying to tell him that he was getting too carefree with his situation. If it was such, then she had no doubt succeeded, and she was undoubtedly right as well. He really was.

“M’Grace,” Ser Aaron Westerling called from beyond the door of the king’s chambers, snapping Zephyr absent from his labyrinthine thoughts. “I have the torch,” the knight added.

Zephyr gave a deep exhale and swiped the small piece of paper that gave him those tangling thoughts into the tome. He could not seem to have himself get rid of it, even though he had now found out that it had been written by Melisandre and not the former Zephyr, and somewhere deep within he was glad he could not. It served as a reminder to him of his actual status in this world, and it had not failed to do just that now. “Very well,” he returned a word to the Kingsknight outside his door as he pushed himself back from his table and covered his body in a thick black robe flowing all the way down to his boots.

He met with Ser Aaron outside his chambers. The knight was without his greathelm, showing in the light of the torch he held, the double sweat trickles that ran down his forehead from beneath his jet black hair. “Where to, M’Grace?” The knight had a crude way of speaking for someone so young and born of nobility. Zephyr had expected something more flowery from him, like the way his father: Ser Calix, spoke, but the stripling knight had no similarity to his father who was the lord commander of the Kingsknights and the lord of Westerling, well, apart from his features. That they both shared.

Zephyr had let the wonder of his knight’s upbringing hit him briefly, but that fraught to be the lesser of his concerns just yet. The knight posed a question to him: Where to? He had said, and Zephyr now pondered a decision. He had always gone to meet with Melisandre alone, no knights, no guards, but his mind diced with him now. Should he go without, or should he go with? Damn, he had never been held up in making so many daunting decisions before in his past life, at this rate he would grow older faster. “The Kingsgarth,” Zephyr let his lips loose to his Kingsknight. He had decided that the knight came with him to meet Melisandre, dare say he was feeling a tad unsafe, he did not even know what to think or how to feel about the witch he was to meet anymore.

Ser Aaron bowed in concession and they went on their way, the knight not too close that he walked the same path as his king, and not too far that he risked not giving light to the route they were taking to the Kingsgarth.

After a while of silent twists and turns through the castle grounds, past guards and serving maids and the like, they arrived at the Kingsgarth in all its grace of flowery beds, filling the air with their flowery scents. The wind poured over his body coolly, while a crow cawed so far up in the dark grey clouds of the starless night’s sky. “Wait here,” Zephyr told the knight, “I’ll be just up ahead. Open your ears for my call, it may come.” Zephyr decided that whatever way he and Melisandre’s talk went would decide if he would summon the knight closer or not. He took the torch from Ser Aaron’s hand.

“Aye, M’Grace.” The knight nodded. “Who might you be planning to meet with if I may ask?” Ser Aaron Westerling was curious, anyone in his position would, that much was normal.

Zephyr wheeled around, turning away from the Kingsknight’s gaze. “If I call then you shall see, if not then that’s that.” The king carried on with his steps, moving further away from his knight and deeper into the Kingsgarth where the flower beds closed in on him with a greater tranquillity. He wished he could be as tranquil as they were. No weary thoughts, no fear of death, just swaying a carefree and lovely dance in the wind—the way he used to once. And as if to bestow him with what he so wished for, the wind came again stronger so that he could turn and dance the lovely flowery dance he so wanted. His robes danced, in his hand the torch’s flame danced, but he did not. The wind left the tranquillity that would allow him dance far away somewhere, and as his peace was lost so was his joy.

“Your Grace,” Melisandre purred softly as soon as they both caught a glimpse of one another. Her cowl was down and a small smile painted her face. She seemed to have been waiting patiently on her feets for Zephyr, every inch the dark glimmering beauty she was in her overflowing cloak. “You came with your Kingsknight this time, may I ask why?”

“You know why.” Zephyr stopped at an arm’s length from Melisandre, the torch firmly gripped by his hand in between both of them.

“I fear not.” Her smile widened further. “Did you come to see me, Your Grace? You gave no call for me.”

Zephyr wore a stern look, grim and unappealing for someone with such a beautiful face, one that was meant to be home to lovely smiles and flowery gazes. There was nothing lovely and flowery about his face at this moment, and the only kind of gaze he had now was one of mistrust and gall. “I had a mind I would find you here. Well, after that trick you pulled, how could I not?”

“What trick, Your Grace?” She let her head askew slightly to give an impression that she was oblivious of whatever trick Zephyr was talking about. She had done the same when he had asked about the death of his guards, maybe it was some sort of taunting jape that she was beginning to grow accustomed to. He had no time for that, king or not.

“You made me seem a fool,” Zephyr spat, his voice hushed but so strong that even the wind ran from him in response.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“I only poured you wine, Your Grace.”

“You poured the red mist.” Zephyr was not having it. “And you poured it in such a manner that would have raised anyone else’s doubts the same way it did mine.”

“I poured it as I would have poured any other wine,” Melisandre told him, “and it only raised your doubts. The fact you’re here shows how much you understand the situation. You are still in danger, Your Grace, did I have to pour wine forebodingly for you to see that?” Melisandre sighed. “Is that why you brought your knight? You fear I might want to kill you?”

Zephyr bit his lips softly. “Can you?” Do you? More like he wanted to say, but his mouth let the other one free instead. Why? He was not certain. It was as though it was the word of another he spoke and not his, but even he could not believe that as much as anyone else would.

Melisandre huffed. “I am a witch, Your Grace, and great powers exist, one which I used to bring you back to life. I am sure you know that as you have experienced it.” She was not bluffing. “If I was in truth your enemy and I wanted to take your life, then coming with your knight would have changed none of it.”

Zephyr watched her civet eyes watch him, the flame in his hand dancing fiercely in their midst.

She continued then, after their feral glares. “But I am not. Your true enemies are your stepfamily. Do they still fear you not? Does death not fear you, even after going through it once already?”

Zephyr sighed in exasperation. “It does.”

“Then kill them and be done with it,” Melisandre rendered in a tone dark and grim. “The more you let them roam free, the greater chances they get to plot your death. Take them onto the pulpit of the Blood Square and declare them traitors before the eyes of all, and then have them beheaded and their heads put on spikes, and you will no longer slap away goblets of wine when they are poured for you or your betrothed.”

Zephyr thought of it for a second, but shook his head quickly. “You will have me behead them all, even Aria? How could that little girl possibly have any plans for my death?” And Dante too… there was no way he could kill them all. He could not…

Melisandre lowered her head and let out an exhale. “Do you feel the same way for the taster and the maids?”

“What?” Zephyr asked, unable to understand what she insinuated. What did she mean by that?

She looked up at him again, her eyes searching his own. “You have your food tasted for poison by tasters and serving maids, have you come to think of their life if your drinks and meals were actually poisoned?” Zephyr’s chest tightened. “You subject them to potential death, innocent they are, but you fear to kill the ones that you should in all truth kill. Your ideology differs, Your Grace, I ask you to pick a side. Do you subconsciously choose the life you take based on their significance to you? They are mere servants and tasters so their lives matter less, but your stepfamily is made up of a queen and princes’ and a princess, they have more to offer the throne one day. Is that how you think? Is that how you see it all? If it is so then I ask you take a different look at it all again, because you will benefit nothing from them than you will benefit from the lowborns.”

She was right. What was he doing, what had he been doing? He had never thought of it that way, he had never. What if his food had been poisoned? Then those maids and tasters would have all been dead now, and it would have been all his fault. Should he really be hesitant to kill the ones he suspected the most? Should he…?

What would you have done dad…? Zephyr intoned thoughts of his long gone father as he strolled past Melisandre and took a seat on the bricks of one of the flower beds. He sat silent for a long while until Melisandre could take it no more.

She said to him, “You are the king, you can do whatever you want.”

Zephyr turned sharply at her as the words kept ringing in his head. He had heard those words so many a time now that he might not be able to get it off his mind any longer, but the more he heard it, the more he found out that they were not true. He was the king, but he could not do whatever he wanted. He could never. “Ser!” He voiced through the blowing winds, and as quick as a horse, the knight arrived, his eyes going straight to look at Melisandre after his bow. Melisandre spared the young knight no glance though. She and the king were still exchanging looks. “The king cannot do whatever he wants.” Zephyr rose to his feets, handing the torch to Ser Aaron. “I will have no one killed with only a guess as proof. Thank you for teaching me something on this night, but as it is unfair to push those servants and tasters to their death, so it is unfair to put the heads of people on spikes without proof of their sins. The ethics of a king should be just that, should it not? Fairness for all, if I put it in words.”

Melisandre’s brows furrowed. “Then, will you starve yourself? Deprive yourself of both water and meals all because of your worthless ethics that would give you nothing but death?” A deafening backhand slap embraced her face and fell her to the floor. Ser Aaron had little patience for impudence.

“Mind your tongue,” the knight seethed.

“You need not have done such, ser,” Zephyr reprimanded him, then offered a hand to help Melisandre back to her feets, the knight bowing in pardon. “Forgive him,” Zephyr begged on his knight’s behalf.

Melisandre groaned as she took his hand and wobbled back up onto her feets. “I hold no grudge, Your Grace.” She had no anger on her face, only blood on her lips, or maybe she had hidden it.

Zephyr heaved as he let go of her palm, sweaty it was despite the cool air waffling about. “I will not starve myself,” he said, “I have another way.”

“And what way is that, Your Grace?” Her voice cracked, it was as though she wanted to cry. The knight’s slap must have given her such a great pain.

Zephyr smiled. “You. You are the way. You shall become my cup bearer and my personal serving maid. You shall make my bath, bring my meals, bring my milk and water, bring my wine, and every other thing I am in need of. You, Melisandre, shall become my handmaiden. If you truly are not my enemy then I shall not die by your hands, but if I do… Well, this young knight here bears proof and my mother will waste no time to have your head on those same spikes we spoke about. In the meantime, maybe find proof of your claims. If you give me something greater than just words, then I promise you I shall do as you ask and have their heads. A threat to my life is a threat to the kingdom, if you love it as much as you claim to do then I hope you work just as hard to stop the threats to it.” His heart drummed beats for the risk he was taking upon, but a gamble it was. It could either turn so bad that he would wish he had never brought up such an atrocious plan, or it could turn out so good that he would see himself unrivalled in wit. He preferred the latter, he wished for the latter, and in truth he had grown out of options.

Melisandre gasped and gaped at the king with a swollen cheek.

“You asked that I give you my trust. Well, you have it now. That should be all then. I do not enjoy staying outside for too long these days, my body grows weak a bit too quickly. The grand savant says my stress doubles.” He turned to Ser Aaron Westerling. “Let’s go, Ser, my bed calls.” He chuckled, but deep down he was still a bit scared. At least, maybe he would be able to get a good sleep tonight. After all, the larger of the gloomy murk he had walked into this garden with had somehow found themselves lost, so maybe, just maybe.