Two youthful young men are reclining on cushioned loungers beside an outside pool. It’s hard to tell if the pool is natural or man-made, though its location in the centre of a sprawling mansion seems to indicate the latter. Small fish dart through its waters, their colours glinting in the sun. It’s a beautiful day and promises to be hot.
One of the men is a study of contrasts with deep black hair and exceedingly pale skin. His eyes are a stormy grey with odd flecks of red. When he turns his head, the sunlight paints a red sheen onto his otherwise dark hair.
He lifts a roll of paper full of some sort of herbal mix to his lips. Raising his other hand, he flicks his index finger slightly. A flame emerges from its tip, and he lights the roll-up. Taking a drag, he flicks his finger again and the flame disappears. Letting out a long breath of smoke, the man sighs in evident satisfaction.
Staring up at the blue sky above, he takes a few moments to enjoy his herbal smoke, then turns to his companion.
“Do you have anything new for me, Josi?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that, Layton,” grumbles the other man, though it’s clear from his tone that it’s more for the sake of having his complaint known, rather than expecting anything to come of it. His appearance is far less one of contrasts than Layton’s. Although his hair is dark, it’s clear that it is brown rather than black, and his skin is far more olive than pale. He’s also shorter than the other man, stocky where Layton is willowy.
With a slightly mischievous smile, Layton looks back up at the sky and just waits. Josi sighs after a moment.
“I heard an interesting rumour.”
“Oh?”
“About the King’s upcoming declaration.” This attracts Layton’s interest and he actually turns to regard his companion, offering the man his full focus.
“Go on.” Josi smiles, just a little smugly.
“I’ve heard that it’s something to do with the Lost Continent.” Layton’s eyebrows go up.
“The Lost Continent?” he wondered out loud, then focused back on Josi. “How…reliable is this rumour?”
Josi shrugs.
“More than some, less than others. But honestly, in this case, despite its seeming improbability, I think that it’s more likely to be accurate than others I’ve heard.”
“Huh,” opines Layton, lying back on his recliner and staring up at the blue sky above. “Do you think he wants us to colonise it? Or just explore? Does he think that a new attempt will change anything?”
In his position, Layton is unable to see Josi’s shrug, but he knows his companion well enough to hear it in his voice when he speaks.
“Given what else I’ve heard, I would suspect the former.”
“Have you heard who might be involved?” Layton asks, his brain already turning.
“Well, if we consider who is being invited to hear the declaration…all the Houses.”
Once more, Layton turns to regard his companion with his full attention.
“All the Houses?” Josi nods slowly.
“All of them.”
“Even the Great Houses?” Josi nods again. Horror flashes across Layton’s face, fast enough that only those who know him well would be able to catch it. As it happens, Josi is one of those people, and he smiles grimly in response. Layton shifts back to stare up at the sky, though this time his gaze is far more troubled. He drags on his roll-up with the air of a man desperate for succour.
After a moment, Layton speaks, as if to himself.
“It’ll be a bloodbath. The five Great Houses have been at loggerheads for generations, held back only by the King and the need to move carefully so as not to destroy their own interests. If they’re given free rein to move against each other, no holds barred…”
“We don’t know that will be the case,” Josi reminds him. “All I’ve heard is that the declaration will involve the Lost Continent, and I would hazard a guess that it involves colonisation given everything else going on. But perhaps the King will set limits, conditions.”
Layton snorts derisively.
“As if that will matter once he’s out of sight? Too many ‘accidents’ and ‘coincidences’ can happen for that to be any consolation. No, we need to consider how to best orientate our own Houses if this should indeed be the King’s decision. Should we throw our lots in with one of the Great Houses, and if so, which? Or should we do our best to stay out of the way?”
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“In no world will I align my House with Lady Flameform,” warned Josi. “I know she might be your preference, but there is too much bad blood between her family and mine.”
“Fair,” breathes Layton. “And I have no desire for our Houses to be at odds. And I refuse to align with Lord Torrent. Not only does his Class not play well with my family’s, but his House has proved itself honourless in the past and its current lord does not make me feel that they’ve changed in any way.”
“Good point,” admits Josi. “Which leaves only two options.”
“Three,” corrected Layton. Josi gives him a long stare.
“House Forestheart has been under the thumb of House Titanbend ever since that whole debacle with the kidnapping and extortion two generations ago.”
“I’d forgotten about that,” sighs Layton. “They don’t always vote together so it had slipped my mind. I see your point: the choice is really between House Titanbend and House Goldmine. Or staying independent.”
“Which isn’t really a possible option,” points out Josi. “If our theories are correct and it’s going to come to a clash between the Great Houses, not choosing a side is equivalent of becoming an enemy to all of them. But I’m not sure that we’ll have much of a choice at all.”
Layton frowns.
“Why is that?”
“Because House Titanbend still has no heir.”
Layton’s eyebrows go up in surprise.
“Still? I would have thought that the lord would have chosen his cousin or maybe his niece – she has the correct Class, I believe?”
Josi shrugs again.
“All I know is that there is no heir yet declared.”
Layton leans back and takes another drag on his roll up, staring sightlessly up at the sky once more.
“Which means that, if our guesses are at all correct, either Lord Titanbend will have to go himself – a risky prospect – or he’ll have to abstain and take whatever penalties the King will impose.”
“Or choose an heir,” Josi added.
“Or that,” agrees Layton. “But if he hasn’t chosen one yet, I don’t see him doing so in the short time before the King’s declaration.”
“Especially since I suspect the King will have warned the Great Houses long before now,” comments Josi. Layton makes a vaguely agreeing noise – they both know that the uneasy balance between the power of the monarchy and the Great Houses is only intact because of the allowances and preferential treatment the King gives the Great Houses. Small Houses like Layton’s and Josi’s never receive such advantages.
There is a long silence as both young men think over the discussion and its possible consequences.
“Let’s see what the declaration actually contains,” decides Layton. “It’s only next week, after all. Then we can decide what to do.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Josi agrees. “But it’s worth considering what we will do in the various scenarios in case the time frame after the declaration is short.”
Layton nods slowly.
“I’ll try to arrange a meeting with Lady Goldmine, feel her out a bit.”
“And I will try to do the same with Lord Titanbend,” replies Josi. “Even if only to get a sense of whether he’s intending on taking part at all.”
“He’s your preference?” asks Layton with a sharp look in his eyes as he twists his head to look at his companion again. Josi shrugs.
“While his Class certainly makes me uneasy, his actions and history are more reassuring than Lady Goldmine’s.”
“You always know where you are with Lady Goldmine,” points out Layton.
“Yes. On the losing end of the deal,” remarks Josi dryly. Layton points at him.
“Exactly!”
They both chuckle, but without much humour. Instead, the idyllic surroundings seem just a little less perfect as their worries about the future and the way they should steer their Houses.
*****
“Are you sure about this, sire?” a man dressed in smart, yet sober clothes asks another man dressed in far more obvious finery. They are both showing signs of age, the first man more than the second. Yet the second man seems tired, wearied by something more than just lack of sleep.
“No,” he sighs in response, shifting position and hearing the clink of his various pieces of jewellery as they collide with each other. An expression of irritation passes briefly over his face before he clears it. “But I don’t see any other choice.”
“It could inflame tensions even higher,” warns the first man.
“Do you think I don’t know that, Jasper?” demands the second man. “But tensions will be inflamed anyway. Sometimes allowing a forest fire to rage and clear the dead wood is better than suppressing it until the dead wood accumulates sufficiently to light anyway and creates a much bigger blaze.”
“That’s true, your majesty,” agrees Jasper, “However, the forest is damaged after the blaze regardless of when it takes place, and vulnerable to other threats.”
“Which is why I want the forest fire to take place in a different forest,” argues the King, then makes an impatient gesture. “The metaphor has fallen apart. The fact is that there are far too many threats facing us at the moment for us to be able to continue with the same kind of divisive politics my father, and his father before him, allowed to run rife.”
“Over seven hundred years is a lot of deadwood to burn,” warns Jasper.
“I know!” the King snaps, then sighs and leans back in his ornate chair. “I know,” he repeats more quietly. “But can you think of any other option which will potentially solve as many problems as this one?”
“I can’t,” Jasper answers quickly, revealing that this isn’t the first time he’s considered the question.
“Neither can I,” the King admits. “Which is why we’re going forward with it, despite its potential risks.”
“Yes, your majesty,” Jasper answers, bowing deeply. At the dismissing flick of the King’s fingers, he turned away and left the room.
Behind him, he doesn’t hear the final words of the King, staring at the distant wall from his lonely throne.
“Gods will it that the oracle is right.”