He who is ruled by the sword will take up a sword against it. He who is ruled by fear will die in fear before he takes up a sword.
-The Triptych; Book of Hells, Panel 2
Castle Tern, Dridon
All was unwell in Qarda, or so Lucanh heard. The movements within that rich and influential nation sent ripples felt the whole world over. World affairs were all he could think of lately.
“What will happen to them now, Sir Godwald?” He dodged the knight’s attack, repositioning his sword, his real sword. It took a notch more of his effort to move the authentic weapon, but his skills were so honed now that it was just a matter of his muscle mass catching up.
“Hard to tell, my Prince,” Sir Godwald replied. He swung and Lucanh blocked. Metal clanged on metal. There was a satisfying weight to their sparring now, not the flimsy, wobbling make-believe like before. “Can’t say as I’ve ever seen Qarda fail at anything militarily. Not so grievously, at least. Not like this.”
They sparred in the courtyard now. Lucanh’s advanced training, coupled with their use of real blades, required more open space than even the widest private rooms of the castle afforded them. “What does it mean for us?” the boy asked. “Will Grackenwell try to seize the whole continent? What preparations are we making to defend Dridon?”
Lucanh attacked and briefly gained the upper hand. There was only so much his yet nimble frame could do against well-trained grown-up brawn, but his own prowess surprised him. Sir Godwald, too. The man’s face glistened with the sweat of real effort.
“For an aspiring swordsman,” huffed the knight, blocking and redirecting his pupil, “you ask a lot of questions about interkingdom politics and wartime strategy. Most knights don’t know anything about such matters. That’s up to their commanders and their monarch.”
“Just preparing for when I become Dridon’s monarch someday,” said Lucanh. “And when I drive my sword into the Grackenwelsh king’s belly myself!”
A rare misstep on Sir Godwald’s part—the prince broke his block and held the tip of his sword just a few hairs’ breadth from the knight’s armored abdomen.
“You know, Prince Lucanh,” said the knight, and the formal name was cold in the boy’s ears, “I sense a proud streak in you. One that grows by the day. Permission to speak freely?”
The boy opened his arms as if to welcome it. “By all means.”
“It’s not uncommon for a boy of your age and title. But what does the Book of Earth tell us about pride?”
Lucanh sighed. “Let me guess. It’s bad?”
The man grinned. “Well, that’s the gist of it, isn’t it? But what specifically?” A pause—Lucanh drew a blank. “It tells us, ‘The end of pride is the beginning of wisdom.’” He stared at him for a moment and then lifted his sword once more. “Now then, I wanted to use my mistake to teach you an important lesson about parrying. What you must always remember...”
His voice trailed off when a commotion rose up from Castle Tern behind them, on the wings of three pillars of smoke. One came from the central chimney, one from the western wing, and one from the eastern.
“The Council of Three,” said Lucanh. “Again?”
“It seems they’ve just adjourned.”
“I wonder what’s been decided.”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s out of our hands now. We should mind our training here. Don’t you think?”
The prince said nothing. He sheathed his sword and set out at a slow trot around the castle toward the front door. He heard Sir Godwald sigh behind him, sheathe his own weapon, and follow.
Through the open doors, Lucanh could see a small crowd dispersing from the throne room. Sir Stepan herded his knights into a cautiously defensive formation. Zumawi, the High Supplicant, stormed out, her puff of black hair bobbing over her head like a thundercloud. “This is not over, Your Majesty,” she called over her shoulder, and a throng of beggars followed her. Her eyes were all fire and venom.
The boy stepped forward and walked alongside her. “What’s just happened?” He felt a gauntleted hand on his shoulder.
“Prince Lucanh—”
“Your mother is a coward,” hissed the High Supplicant. “I hope, for the sake of my children’s generation, that you rule more bravely. Or my grandchildren will come forth from the womb already wearing their chains.” She jabbed her pointer finger against Lucanh’s chest as she said this. Then she brushed past him as she walked away.
Sir Godwald touched the hilt of his sword, drew it out to flash a sliver of the silver blade. Zumawi replied by drawing two slender daggers from her sleeves and aiming them at the armored man. Her stance called to the prince’s mind the time he took a wrong step on the beach and earned the ire of a memorably hostile crab.
“Sit, lap dog,” she told the knight. “You’ll have a lot more than these two daggers to deal with if you try something.”
The knight glowered, clinking his weapon back into place. Zumawi led the other supplicants away from the castle grounds. The moment diffused like the chimney smoke curling up into the sky.
Lucanh led his caretaker through the towering doors of Castle Tern and down the stone corridor. “My mother must be up to something again.”
“If I had to hazard a guess, my Prince, I’d say the controversy stems from her inaction.”
They stopped midway to the throne room. “Would you go to war against Grackenwell?”
“If Queen Rhoda commanded it? In a heartbeat.”
“No.” Lucanh shook his head. “I’m asking if you would.”
“I certainly wouldn’t strike out on my own to do it. Not right away, at least. I’d make an attempt at diplomacy first.” Sir Godwald chuckled, but Prince Lucanh steeled his own face, forcing himself to be serious and adult.
“I’m not asking if you would go on a one-man mission. I’m asking you this: If you were somehow in charge or in command of Dridon’s army, would you issue a declaration of war? Suppose the choice is yours alone.”
The knight gave the prince one of those piercing looks that was vividly familiar, striking and short-lived as a bolt of lightning, and then his eyes roamed elsewhere. “Not quite sure how to answer that. In my line of work, I’m quite accustomed to doing the bidding of another. No matter how strongly I might feel otherwise.”
“I wish you would grow accustomed to giving straight answers for a change.” They exchanged a quick look and then kept on walking.
The throne room was in subdued disarray. Noblemen argued quietly with each other by the tall glass windows. A commander issued orders to his underling knights, something about “unrest in the Paupers’ District.” Lucanh lamented the plight of Dridon’s poor; not only did they live lives of paucity, but now they had the looming specter of Grackenwell to dread.
As such, seeing Queen Rhoda lounging in her throne, polishing off another chalice of wine, boiled Lucanh’s blood.
“I didn’t want to believe Zumawi,” he said.
“Lucanh,” the queen slurred. “What’s wrong?”
“But how could I not? How could anyone not? Look at you!”
Her brow furrowed over her half-lit eyes. “I don’t know what this is all about, but I don’t appreciate—”
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“When King Brynh knocks down the doors of Castle Tern and throws you to the floor, will you offer to dust off your throne for him?”
“Lucanh, go to your bedchamber! I’ve had enough of your sour attitude lately. Sir Godwald—”
“No,” the prince persisted. “No, I’m not going anywhere. I may not be a man yet, but I am no child, no matter how much you wish me to be. I deserve your respect and everyone else’s. You will listen to me!”
“I will do what I feel is best for the people of Dridon, be they royal or... Otherwise.” She pursed her lips, blinking drunkenly. “No matter if you’re two hundred thirty-eight and a half years old. I. Am the queen.”
“You might be queen of the slaves someday soon if you continue to sit there and do nothing about those backstabbing northerners!”
“We are not Qarda, Lucanh. Dridon does not overflow with such abundance that we can...” She scoffed, fidgeting in her throne. “...finance a bloated military and go wherever we please! Be the lord of everyone, just because we have a moral bone to pick... And thank Triad for that! Qarda’s interventionism... well... finally beginning to catch up to it.”
“At least they stand for something. Unlike you!”
“You’ll grow out of this haughtiness someday. I hope.”
“And I hope that you’ll grow a backbone, mother. You’re never too old to change.”
The queen slammed her empty chalice down onto the armrest. “Now that you know how to swing a sword, you think you know war? You think you can do what I do? Think you know best? Maybe you’ve been spending too much time with Sir Godwald.”
“Not war, mother. Decency. Right and wrong! Bravery, which is something—”
“You think you’re brave because you’ve never lost anything!”
The queen’s outburst hushed the whole throne room at once. Her chalice clunked to the stone floor and rolled some small distance, a visceral intrusion on the newfound quiet that fell over the chamber. Then came the sudden sobbing. The queen buried her face in her hands.
“Let’s go, Prince Lucanh,” said Sir Godwald, and the boy didn’t resist him. Lucanh felt as though he’d just kicked a stray dog without thinking, and instead of biting him, all it did was curl up and whimper.
They made it to the throne room’s eastern entryway when a still-cracking voice called after them. “One day, I won’t be able to protect you anymore. You will know loss. And I won’t be there to save you!”
Some caretaker to the queen could be heard muttering a soothing, “Your Majesty...”
“Keep walking, my Prince,” the knight told him, and he obeyed.
The Hells and the Heights raged within him. Neither would budge.
***
Three days elapsed. Lucanh didn’t leave his chamber except to run drills by himself with his sparring sword in the eastern tower. He had two rationed meals a day instead of three, ordering the cooks and servers to donate his uneaten food to Dridon’s only haven for the homeless in the Paupers’ District. He didn’t touch the Triptych.
On the evening of the third day, Lucanh drilled in one of the eastern tower’s landings, practicing close-quarters movements, as these were the only ones he could rehearse with such limited space. Every once in a while, a knight patrolling the castle would rattle up the spiral staircase, acknowledge the prince, and proceed on his rounds, their exchange even more awkward when the knight came back down the stairs and the prince had to step out of the way with his sparring sword behind his back. He longed for privacy.
Stepping back to allow the knight passage, Lucanh felt the tickle of an evening breeze on his ear through a small open-air window. The breeze carried a certain worrying sound from far below the castle: horse hooves clopping on the cobblestones.
“Invaders,” he breathed. His sparring sword clattered to the floor.
He scrambled down the spiral staircase, slipping past the rounding knight on the next landing below, and rushed to the throne room. He’d have no time to fetch his real sword from his chamber. Maybe one of the knights would let him borrow theirs—he was skilled enough now, with the courage to match. Or so he believed.
“That’s far enough!” Sir Stepan shouted. Even his soft, high voice was intimidating with enough volume, his stature and demeanor doubly so. Two visitors wearing gray cowls stopped in their tracks halfway across the throne room. Queen Rhoda sat in her throne with no chalice, arms folded, face stern and alert.
“Queen Rhoda of Dridon,” said the one on the left. “We come as ambassadors from the proud nation of Grackenwell, dispatched from Zan Vayonado to bring you word from our new king.” A few nervous onlookers echoed those last two words among themselves incredulously. New? New king? “King Kimbel Garrotin has graciously offered to negotiate a peace treaty with the free nation of Dridon.”
The queen’s eyes sharpened to slits. She motioned for her scribe to take dictation. “Explain yourselves.”
“Recent events have made most of the known world wary of costly and crisscrossing wars,” said the ambassador on the right. “Zan Vayonado dissolved the Concordat of Gacilia and soon accepted our terms of peace with minimal bloodshed. We’d like to avoid spilling even one more drop if we can. In doing so, we hope to unite the entire Stone Continent under one peaceful banner.”
Her voice waivered, but she said what Lucanh wanted to say, or at least something in the same spirit. “Grackenwell will not subjugate a single hair on the head of any Dridic man, woman, or child. Tell your new king to dispose of those fantasies at once.”
Even from this distance, Lucanh could see the ambassador’s vindictive smile, shrouded as it was, judging only by the way the wrinkles around his eyes deepened. “Of course not, Your Majesty. King Garrotin also wishes to dispel fantasies of some protracted war for control of the Stone Continent. This is merely a preventative measure. We ask that you draw no sword against Grackenwell, and in return, we will not roll our cannons to your castle and utterly demolish it. This way, everyone prospers.”
“Except your slaves,” Lucanh spoke up. The ambassador shot him a look. He feared the rebuke of his mother, but it never came.
“I will make no such decision of any treaty with Grackenwell without consulting my advisors,” said the queen. “You are free to take up quarters in the dungeon if you refuse to return to Zan Vayonado without an answer.”
“On the contrary, Your Majesty,” said the ambassador with a deferential bow. “We would never presume to rush a decision on your part. Let us take our leave. A half-moon’s ride back to Zan Vayonado will give you plenty of time to arrive at your ruling, and we will send our replacements immediately upon our arrival home. There may be snow on the ground by the time we return, eh?”
Queen Rhoda glared down at the two men, twirling her scepter in her right hand. “Remove their cloaks. Search them.”
“No, queen!” said one of the ambassadors. “Please don’t! We—”
But it was too late. Four knights stepped out of their formation to yank down the strangers’ cowls. The two men who stood in the center of the throne room were pale, gaunt, and looked withered beyond their years. One of them had a deep scar across the bridge of his nose that snaked diagonally down his face. Their most striking feature, one that they shared, was the quindent brand on their necks. Lucanh knew from his reading that this signified the mark of a slave in Grackenwell.
“Nothing, Your Majesty,” said one of the knights.
“Slaves,” said Queen Rhoda. “Some brave conquerors the Grackenwelsh are. Instead of a visit from the king himself, he sends his slaves. And what did he promise you for your service, ambassadors? Your freedom? Or a few coins?”
“Six days’ rest and six hot meals,” said the first ambassador. “Each.”
The queen set her jaw. “Stay here at Castle Tern. I will provide you real quarters in the towers. Feed you real food. Once you’ve built your strength, you will work only voluntarily. Chains will never touch your wrists or ankles again, unless you break my laws.”
“If we don’t return,” said the second ambassador, swallowing his fear, “the king will come to collect us. Truly, we would rather live as slaves than endure what he would do to us then.”
Rhoda sighed. “If you ever change your mind, Castle Tern is open to you. We have taken in runaway slaves from the north before. Remember that.”
“We will remember, Your Majesty.” The ambassador’s pretend bravado and swagger had been stripped away with his cloak, which he now timidly gathered up and returned to his shoulders. “Are we free to go?”
“A poor choice of words, I’m afraid. But go if you feel you must.”
The re-cloaked ambassadors bowed in unison. “Our replacements will return in another moon to hear your decision. Farewell, Queen Rhoda of Dridon.” They shuffled out of the castle meekly, looking completely unlike the two shrouded figures who’d strode in so proudly earlier.
Lucanh had never wanted to be in the throne room less than he did at this moment. Before his mother could say anything to him, he turned and left for his bedchamber, where he decided he’d stay until the ambassadors returned, or maybe longer. For the first time, his bravery was shaken.
How could the slaves have turned away and returned home like that? How could they turn down the prospect of freedom? They were offered safety and security in a land far from home, and yet they were so afraid of the Grackenwelsh king that they didn’t dare betray him, even from this distance.
He’d always imagined the Grackenwelsh slaves as noble-hearted people suffering under a great oppressor. He thought of them like the paupers of Dridon, who held their heads high and banded together against the cruelty of their circumstance to forge a better life. An organized caste who might one day even overthrow the archaic system that kept them in chains.
Not so. Slavery was so ingrained into their very being, deeper than the quindent brands on their necks, that they perpetuated it themselves. They feared their king so much that they would walk back into their own chains rather than risk the consequences of desertion.
What kind of fear could do that to a person?
Not only that, but King Brynh Garrotin was no more. Now the prince, Kimbel, was in charge. But how? King Brynh was still a healthy man with ravenous ambitions to conquer other lands. It was unlikely that he would die so young—at least of natural causes. What was the story there? And what did it mean for Dridon? For the world?
How desperately Lucanh wanted to be brave. For his people. For his mother. For the Zan father he never knew, whom he hoped was watching him from the Heights. For himself. But something had changed in him. His bravery lay crumpled around his feet like a cloak.