May 2, 2017
fain's husband lycus chose his loyalty to rezann over his wife and children and died in the war she basically sold the court insider info about the commander in exchange for immunity
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fain's husband lycus chose his loyalty to rezann over his wife and children and died in the war she basically sold the court insider info about the commander in exchange for immunity
regiecide
it’s time for the annual court dorchadas winter ball and u can probably guess what happens in this update
~
The nobility of Court Dorchadas had been robbed of every recent opportunity for festivities; it had been pretty quiet in the fortress since the mess that had become of Prince Richard's wedding. So when it was time for the annual winter ball, the nobles pulled out all the stops. Reginald was expected to attend, but his focus had been distant lately and he kept failing the memory tests Fain set in place for him.
“No,” she said, folding up the sketched coat of arms, “this is Lady Torneath's crest, remember? You're going to have to know all this if you want to convince anyone.”
He nodded meekly, as much as he could past the obstruction of his neck brace. He and Fain were in the royal study, preparing for the first night of the ball. The entire event would last a week, and even the thought of trying to maintain his charade for that long was exhausting. Sometimes it could be fun, admittedly, but only because Serraden was entertaining company. Most of the time.
Fain held up a second sketch; a dragon's personal crest and a couple of notes about the depicted dragon's primary and secondary colours. Reginald drew a blank, and the only help Serraden had to offer was a frosty silence.
“Lord, um,” Reginald said. “Fuckin'... Lord Alejandro?”
Fain's sigh of impatience was all too familiar. “No. You talked to her yesterday, don't you remember? Lady...?”
Reginald shrugged helplessly.
“This is pointless,” Fain said. “I thought you'd been mentored by Rex. Everyone assured me that you were ready.”
“Yes,” Reginald said, “but I...”
She continued to watch him. He glanced away, vaguely embarrassed. He hadn't told her about his problem; the uncomfortable heat, the sensation of being crushed into a space far too small. He'd already set one of his ball outfits on fire by accident, forcing him into the stiff, solid black clothing he disliked so much. Fain hadn't noticed. She was busy searching for that Rosa girl, dividing her time between the search, her daily reports to Rezann, and her secret care for Emiliano.
“Well?” she said sharply. “What's the matter?”
“Nothing,” he said, against his instinct to tell the truth. Lying was still new and strange to him, but it was getting easier.
Her expression changed, but he was too tired to put much effort into reading it. She set the stack of flashcards on the table between them, then rose to her feet. “There's still a couple of hours before you have to make an appearance,” she said. “You try to memorise those. I have to pick up medicine for Emiliano.”
She left. Reginald took a card from the stack at random. The crest – a black crown and an illuminated emblem – was unfamiliar to him. His hands left sooty black prints on the paper. When the gripped it tighter, the page blackened and curled, the edges glowing.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
There was no response.
“I said, I'm sorry.” He raised his voice, just in case.
Serraden refused to talk, but he let Reginald know just how angry he was. With potential assassins all around the Court, Fain had refused to leave Reginald to find the exorcist for Emiliano.
As bad as being alone had been, this was worse. Reginald dropped the flash card before it crumbled and fidgeted with his cuffs for a few moments. Not even the pretty gold embroidery could cheer him up.
The silence lasted the rest of the evening leading up to the ball. Reginald got ready only half-heartedly, too distracted to put much effort into his appearance. Any time he so much as glanced at his mirror he was met with a wall of seething disdain, which was more than enough to put a dampener on any excitement he could have potentially felt for the festivities.
His date for the evening was Iriangi. Having her around would help him seem more normal in the eyes of the Dorchadas nobility, but he had to be careful not to seem too close to her, whatever that meant. Sometimes, Fain's instructions just didn't make sense.
“Are you okay?” was the first thing Iriangi said to him, when he met her and Fain outside the royal suite doors.
“I'm fine,” he said.
Iriangi looked him up and down dubiously. “Are you sure? You look...”
“His Majesty hasn't been well lately,” Fain put in, casting Reginald hard look that was absolutely lost on him. “And we're very worried about Emiliano.”
“Yes,” Reginald said quickly. “Very.”
Serraden may have been physically incapable of straight-up punching Reginald, but Reginald got the impression that he would definitely have done so at that moment, given the chance.
“Stop it,” Reginald snapped at him.
No response.
“He's doing well,” Iriangi said. “But medicines and enchantments are a stop-gap measure. Didn't you say you were going to summon a paladin?” The look in her eyes was openly accusatory, even as she linked her arm with Reginald's.
“Our plans fell through,” Fain said.
“Why?” Iriangi set off down the corridor, her pace slow to match Reginald's.
“Someone tried to kill me,” Reginald said. Fain shot him a warning look behind Iriangi's back. Now was not the time to tell the truth, but what else could Reginald say? There were no other excuses that would satisfy Iriangi.
“... Indeed,” Fain said. “So I've decided to stay here-”
“Then send someone else!” Iriangi said.
“I'm sorry,” Fain said, “I know it's difficult, but we can't entrust this information to anyone else. We know someone wants to kill His Majesty, what's to say they won't want to kill Emiliano, too? He's the only heir to the throne.”
Iriangi nodded slowly. “So now we're not just hiding from Commander Rezann. I see.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. She glanced down at Reginald. “Any idea who wants to kill you this time?”
“Her name is R-” he began, but the swell of music from the other end of the corridor drowned him out. The great double doors were thrown wide open, revealing the richly decorated interior of the throne room. Reginald was supposed to start the ceremonies, somehow. But he had Fain on his side, for once, and she practically walked him through it, all but pushing his speech script into his hands. He stood in front of the throne and recited his speech, trying not to notice how the Dorchadas nobility eyed him like vultures circling a dying animal.
The lavish decorations and beautiful clothing the nobles wore should have delighted Reginald. But he found himself sitting on the throne, his mind wandering, gaze fixed absently on the opposite wall. The dragons were dancing. It was all very pretty to look at, just not very interesting. Iriangi moved across the dance-floor, hand in hand with someone else, but she kept glancing anxiously up in Reginald's direction.
Fain stood beside him, her hands clasped firmly behind her back.
“Hey,” he said to Serraden, “you can take over, if you want.” Maybe that would break the silence between them.
Without so much as a word of acknowledgement, Serraden shoved Reginald aside and assumed control. Thankful, Reginald got to watch and do nothing for once. Serraden rose from the throne and made a beeline for the crowd of dancers.
He caught Prince Fallon by the arm and beckoned, indicating the edge of the dance floor where there was a little more space to talk. With a bemused look, Fallon nodded and quickly bowed his head before following.
“Your Majesty,” Fallon began. “I-”
“There is a paladin living to the north of here,” Serraden said in a low, uncharacteristically serious tone. “His name is Fiach. Last I heard, he was in the company of the Beastclan Alliance.”
“Oh?” Fallon said. “Well, that's good news, I suppose? When's he going to get here?”
“He's not,” Serraden said, “you have to take Emiliano-”
“Ah, Your Majesty!” Lord Alejandro had arrived, practically elbowing Fallon aside. “What a pleasure it is to see you this evening – we were wondering if you were well enough to attend.” He cast Serraden an unpleasant smile. “Of course, appearances must be kept up-”
“I'm in no mood for games tonight, Alejandro,” Serraden said sharply, without looking away from Fallon. “Leave us.”
Alejandro hesitated. “On any other day, I would,” he said, “but rumour has it that His Majesty is losing touch-”
Serraden finally turned to face him. “Where's your wife, Alejandro? I'm sure she'd love to hear an itemised list of every dragon you've slept with since marrying her, starting with Lady I-”
“No, Your Majesty... forgive me...” Alejandro slunk away, his head low. Fallon watched him go with wide eyes.
“Um,” Fallon said.
“They don't pay attention to anything less than an open threat,” Serraden said, indicating the nobles on the dancefloor dismissively. “I suppose that's partially my fault, but they've been rather out of line lately. Fallon, listen to me. Neither you nor Emiliano is safe here, so you may as well do something useful when you leave. If you find Clan Fuil Darach, you'll have found this paladin, but it may be difficult.”
Fain, who had been standing several metres away, scanning the perimeter of the room, turned suddenly. Her hand drifted down to her sheathed dagger. While Serraden continued to instruct an increasingly bemused Fallon, Reginald watched as Fain pushed through the crowd, heading for one the guards at the opposite wall. The one of the guards in question was arguing with his companion over something, and the two were almost at the point of drawing weapons.
“Your Majesty,” Fallon said faintly, “are you sure it wouldn't be safer here? You're asking a lot of me.”
“Do you care about him?” Serraden said. “If you do, then meet me tomorrow morning in my study.”
Fallon dropped his gaze to the floor. “Yes, sir. I'll see what I can do.”
Fain was subduing the guards, questioning them loudly. They were beginning to draw more attention. With a murmur of goodbye, Fallon drifted away, while everyone else was distracted. Seemingly satisfied, Serraden silently invited Reginald to take over again.
Reginald didn't want to, at all, but he owed Serraden. So he took over, edging back as the crowd of dancers began to slow and halt. Fain had one of the guards by the arm and was relieving her of her sword. At least this was interesting.
“For Xandra!”
“Regie, look out!”
Regie turned. A third royal guard was running up behind him, flagpole in hand. There was no time to react; the crowd was yelling, the guard was fleeing, and Reginald stood in the centre of it all, staring at the sharpened metal rod protruding from the side of his chest.
“Oh no,” Reginald said, “oh no – what do I do-” Everyone was still staring, he had to do something...
“Fall. Regie, fall!” Serraden ordered. “Make it convincing.”
Reginald let his knees fold. The back of the flagpole clanged off the flagstones, dripping black oil. He shut his eye, for good measure, and stilled himself despite his mounting panic. Where was Fain? She'd get rid of everyone else. The pole wasn't incapacitating or painful, but it did crunch strangely, and all that escaping oil didn't bode well at all. Reginald felt hot, as if he was about to start shedding sparks again.
“I don't believe this!” Serraden exclaimed. “How dare – oh, if that was Alejandro's doing I'm going to haunt him until he drops dead, the filthy little weasel-”
Fingers found his wrist, searching for a pulse.
“He's dead!” a woman's shocked voice said.
“Move!” Fain had finally arrived. She scooped him up in her arms. The noise of the crowd began to fade away. A door swung shut, cutting off the cacophony of shocked voices entirely.
Reginald opened his eye. They were in the private stairwell.
“Stay still,” Fain said, setting him down at the base of the wall.
“I'm sorry,” Reginald said, pausing to cough up a spatter of oil. His eye-patch was starting to smoulder. He felt wrong, displaced, like someone was squeezing the life out of him. Maybe he really was dying.
“Quiet,” Fain said. She took the flagpole, then just as quickly let go, hissing in pain. The red and gold banner streaming from one end was blackening, both from the oil and the heat it let off.
“Regie, are you okay?” Serraden said, breaking off his own angry ranting. “Something's wrong.”
Fain wrapped her hands in her sleeves, took the flagpole again, and pulled. Slowly but surely, it began to slide out, but it brought scraps of cloth and metal with it, the tangled remains of wires and the iron baseplate to which Reginald's preservative spell-tags had been attached. More oil spilled out, hissing and bubbling in the heat.
The moment the flagpole was out, Reginald's body began to burn. And, saturated with highly-flammable preservative as it was, it burned fast. Fain leapt back, her hand over her mouth. Reginald remained where he was, watching in a faint daze as his container burned to ash around him, without taking him with it. Somehow, he remained; an insubstantial, smoky silhouette with no host.
He didn't die instantly, like he expected. He persisted, shell-less and bare to the world.
“Regie?” Serraden said quietly. No longer bound by the dull senses of a corpse, Reginald could actually see him properly for the first time; a translucent dragon crouched beside him, frowning in apparent concern. It was a slightly different face to the one Reginald had grown used to seeing in the mirror, but still instantly recognisable.
“Oh,” Reginald said. “It's you.”
Fain appeared around the corner, one hand still clamped over her mouth. Smoke filled the stairwell, making Reginald difficult to spot. She didn't see him. Cursing under her breath, she turned away and ran upstairs, presumably to go and contact Rezann.
Serraden watched the last scraps of cloth and flesh catch fire.
“Sorry,” Reginald said again, “I know how much you liked your body.”
“I never thought I'd say this,” Serraden said, “but we're probably better off without it.” He sighed, sitting back against the wall. “This puts a dent in my plans, but we can overcome it. Well, I can overcome it. You really have no reason to stay at all.”
“No.” Reginald tried to move, experimentally. It was like pushing against the wind, but he managed to form a blurry hand. It dissipated moments later. “I owe you. I'll go and find your paladin for you, okay? I know you probably want to stay here with your son.”
Serraden nodded. “But only until I'm sure he's ready to take the throne. I have other plans. Rezann has always been my target.”
“Well,” Reginald said, “If you need any help with that, let me know.” Was he supposed to say goodbye? He didn't want to. It was strange; even as a shade parasite in a corpse, he'd so rarely been alone. And now he had no other choice.
“For a Shade monster,” Serraden said, with a faint grin, “you're certainly sentimental. Get going, before she returns and finds you.”
So Reginald left.
a fine cask
reginald meets rosa and has a totally fine and not-at-all dangerous meeting with her
~
Reginald had been left alone for the evening. Truly alone, for the first time in months. He didn't know what to do with himself; even Fain was gone, preparing for the trip north with Delta.
The wind howled around the spires at the top of the fortress. Fain had called it cold, but Reginald could only feel heat. Loud, angry heat. He did his best to ignore it, but he had no one else to talk to to take his mind off things. He'd paced around the royal suite but that only made things worse, the itchy heat rising from the stump of his knee as if his skin was reacting with the metal of his prosthesis. He sat on the unused bed and, after casting a surreptitious glance across at the bedroom door, materialised his box of trinkets onto the bed beside him.
The box appeared in a burst of smoke, scattering soot and sparks over the bedspread, nowhere as neatly as it had been when he'd practised earlier. Embers flickered out, burning holes in the black silk sheets. That would be difficult to hide later. Fain – and by extension, Rezann – didn't know he could perform this particular trick.
He brushed soot off the dented metal lid and opened it up. His collection of golden coins, rings, and wire was mostly intact, though they sat on a bed of smouldering leaves. He had to wait for the flames to wink out before he extracted one of the coins he'd gotten from Lorne. Turning it over and over in his hands, he forced himself to pay attention to the play of light on the shiny surface. And it worked, for a bit.
“Thierry, can I ask you something?”
Reginald almost dropped the coin. He glanced aside, fixing a borderline accusatory look at the column of spiritual energy that had appeared by the bed.
“Oh. You're back,” Reginald said, the faintest hint of an irritable tone in his voice. He set the coin back down in its nest of cinders.
“It's about Shade parasites, I assumed you'd be an authority on the subject,” Serraden said. “Would it be possible to convince one to leave its host? It can hear me, and I can be rather persuasive when I want to be.”
“Fuck off,” Reginald said bluntly. “Why don't you ask it?” The itchy heat had done a lot to wear away his patience, but that wasn't why he was feeling irritable. Serraden was spending so much time away from him, since Reginald was too dangerous to be around for mortals, and Serraden still wanted to see his family. And Reginald didn't like that.
“I hope you realise how pathetic you sound,” Serraden said sharply. “I'm only trying to help my son – whose condition is your fault, I might add – and you're getting jealous. Well, forgive me for playing favourites, but my living child matters more to me than some temperamental – excuse me, what are you doing?”
Reginald held up a bundle of cloth. One of Serraden's projects; black velvet, intricate gold embroidery trailing a needle and thread. Without looking away from Serraden, Reginald forced the cloth to disappear, sending it away in a cloud of virulent smoke. The cloth appeared on the other side of the room, on fire.
“Very mature. Enjoy your tantrum without me.”
Serraden left, walking right through the bedroom door. Reginald glared after him, shuddering a little as his skin burned. He checked himself, found that he looked fine, and tried to shake away the pain. But of course it wasn't physical, it wasn't something he could escape that easily.
He'd passed the time before by writing notes to other shade creatures, reassuring them as best he could, but Serraden had stolen his quill and hidden it somewhere. Anyway, there was no parchment left. Some nights he'd spent out on the terraces ringing the fortress, exploring the herbalists' gardens, but now that he had a tendency of burning anything he touched he couldn't bring himself to see the gardens. He didn't want to hurt any plants.
The problem facing him wasn't one he wanted to think about. Anything was preferable to that, even Serraden's running commentary in the back of his head. But the question remained. What was happening to him? Was he dying? Shade parasites weren't supposed to live like he did. Maybe his time was up.
There was a gentle knock on the door. “Beg pardon, Your Majesty,” a thin voice called, “but there's a dragon here to see you. I have her out in the tea rooms. She's a representative from the Winterborn trading company.”
Fain's instructions were that nobody was allowed to interact with Reginald without her being present. But Fain was gone, and this was the distraction he'd been waiting for. So he opened the door. The servant just outside took a quick step back, unaccustomed to being answered by anyone but Fain.
“Why does she want to meet me?” Reginald said, fumbling his way through his mental dictionary of kingly vocabulary. He'd been taught how to address the commoners by Rex, but he'd let a lot of his lessons slide since he'd actually reached the Court, since Serraden could usually be counted on for directions on how best to act.
The serving girl ducked her head. “She says she has urgent news. Lady Fain arranged the meeting to take place tomorrow, but Adair Winterborn couldn't make it, Your Majesty, he sends his wife in his place.”
Reginald mulled it over, forgetting to blink or breathe for several moments. He'd heard of the trading company, and Fain had said something about a meeting. Yeah, he could definitely take this one on his own. And if he fucked up, then it wasn't his reputation he'd be ruining.
“I'll see her,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “Lead the way.”
The serving girl nodded, her eyes wide with some emotion he didn't have the attention span to decipher. She set off along the suite hall and he limped after her.
“What's your name?” he said. It always felt odd to him that the dragons around him were essentially nameless non-entities. It wasn't right.
“Velina, sir,” the servant said.
“That's pretty!” he said eagerly, hoping to open her up to a proper conversation. But she didn't respond, aside from a tiny whispered 'Thank you, sir'.
Velina brought him outside the royal suite, to a tiny tea room that defied the court's usual colour scheme; the walls were papered deep blue, lined with bookshelves in places. A table stood in the centre, by which sat a young woman cradling a glass of wine. She quickly rose to her feet as Reginald entered, curtsying swiftly. She wore a very pretty red and purple mantle, and her hair was long and loosely curling, jet black. Immediately enamoured, Reginald pulled up a chair opposite her.
“I'm so grateful that you've found the time to see me, Your Majesty,” she said, sitting again. “Adair sends his regards, but his business truly was urgent, he couldn't have come. I'm his wife, Rosa.” She watched him with deep brown eyes.
“I see,” Reginald said, which was what you were supposed to say when you didn't see at all but wanted to prompt the other person into revealing more information. Because, honestly, he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing with the representative of a trading company.
“He sends this, as a gift,” she said, uncorking a carafe of red wine. “One of his favourites, he hopes you'll accept it in his absence. We brought a whole cask up.” She poured Reginald a glass of wine.
He was out of his depth already, of course, and had no idea how to respond, but he took the wine just to be polite. “Thank you,” he said, which seemed appropriate.
“The company has holds all over Sornieth,” Rosa said, taking a delicate sip from her own glass. “We've found that Dragonhome is surprisingly fertile, and Adair has made great strides establishing his vineyards here. He named the strain after me.” She flashed a grin. Reginald didn't know why.
She continued to look at him expectantly, so he drank some of the wine. It tasted of nothing. But he smiled anyway. She seemed satisfied with this. He set down the glass, trying to make peace with the thought of coughing up the wine later, before it could do any damage.
“Now, to business,” Rosa said. She unrolled a map of Sornieth and flattened it on the table. Several points on the map were marked out with elaborate crests. “We're looking to open a depot here, on the northern coast, but the border of His Majesty's territory ends here, crossing through our planned site – we could move, but the bay is ideally sheltered, so Adair has requested that the monarchy border be moved to encompass the bay. It shouldn't be difficult, there are precious few dragon clans there and none would be able to resist His Majesty's troops...” She kept looking at him, her eyes flashing up to fix on his face every few seconds.
He nodded, as if he understood, and stared at the map. Well, there was Sornieth. It looked like the maps in Rezann's personal quarters. That was Dragonhome, that was Court Dorchadas, and those were the tiny dragon clans Rosa wanted him to eliminate with the Court's army.
Nobody deserved that. He glanced up at her, certain that he'd somehow missed her meaning. She was still staring at him.
“I see,” he said again. “Well... I can't make any decisions now...”
“You'll find Adair's proposition here, in more detail,” Rosa said, extracting a wax-sealed letter from within her cape. She pushed it across the table. “I hope you'll give it your full consideration.” But her voice wasn't quite as warm as it had been earlier.
The door crashed open, almost knocking a couple of books off the shelves. Fain came in with her dagger drawn, but when she saw Reginald and Rosa at the table she quickly sheathed it.
“Excuse me,” she said, with a curt bow.
Rosa left shortly after, offering Reginald the cask of wine and a rather firm handshake. As soon as she was gone, Fain slammed the door shut and rounded on him.
“You don't have permission to see others without me,” she said in a harsh tone. “We're in a delicate enough position as-is. Who was that girl?”
“A trader,” he said, shrinking back in the chair. Steam – the remains of the wine – issued from his mouth when he spoke. “She's the wife of... fuckin, uh...”
“Adair Winterborn?” Fain said.
“That's the guy,” Reginald said, nodding. “Look, he sent this letter, and some special wine.”
Fain snatched up the letter when he offered it to her, then took up the empty glass of wine. She sniffed it, scowling, then wiped her finger around the rim and muttered a faint spell under her breath.
“It's poisoned,” she said, with a deep sigh. “Of course.”
“It is?”
“Yes.” She set the glass down and fixed a look of suspicion on the cask. “This was the work of a professional, it's undetectable except by advanced magic – Reginald, you can't just do things like this. Half the nobility think you're about to drop dead, it's the perfect opportunity to – oh, never mind.” She sank down onto Rosa's vacated chair. “I'll have her arrested. I think it's safe to bet that you surviving this will draw more suspicion than if you'd just died.”
“Well,” Reginald said, appropriately chastised, “no one will find out? Right?”
Fain sighed deeply. “That's the best-case scenario. I'm not sure I should be leaving you right now, with this going on.”
Serraden wasn't going to like that news, but Reginald couldn't argue. Already he felt safer, now that Fain was back. As he stared at the glass again, recalling how Rosa had watched him expectantly, waiting for him to drop dead, he couldn't help but feel extremely, embarrassingly stupid. And there he'd been, thinking that she was just being nice with her gift of wine. He already knew he was gullible, and that was part of the problem. There was something wrong with him, something that stood in between him and any effort he made to understand others, and it was becoming obvious that there was nothing to be done to overcome it. No wonder Serraden had been on the verge of laughter any time Reginald wrote a note to one of his Shade penpals. Doubtless any message Reginald had sent was complete nonsense, because he just didn't understand.
As Fain escorted him back to his room, he realised that his distraction had worked. The awful heat had subsided. But he didn't feel any better.
Pokemon team/ace for Fain :o
ooh that’s a tough one since there’s no light type. so i’m going to say electric instead. in fact, she is one of the 11 gym leaders of the region (if we’re going to assume that rezann is the champion/head of the pokemon league). fain prefers special attackers
her ace is heliolisk, and she also uses magnezone, manectric, ampharos, and for a bit of extra flavour, espeon and fan rotom. her meta is manectric and if she had pick a starter it would most likely be snivy actually
she’d be one of the later gym leaders you face in the league, in the level 50s
ultimatum
with regie’s help, delta’s about to get his ticket out of jail
~
“Okay. It’s your turn now.”
Seafra pushed herself away from the damp wall and squinted around the cell. “Uh, there’s not much left here to spy.”
“That makes it more interesting,” Neven insisted.
“Fine,” Seafra said, pulling her filthy woollen blanket tight around her shoulders. “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with…”
Delta let their conversation wash over him. The game had been going on for several hours now and he’d ducked out after losing one too many times. It was rigged, anyway; Neven couldn’t see, so they always chose the most difficult things based on what distant noises they could hear. Delta would have been pleased for some distraction, any distraction, but this didn’t do it for him. He couldn’t get his brain to shut off the way he wanted.
He closed his eyes and tried to block out Neven and Seafra’s voices. From beyond the thick wooden door blocking off the cell from the rest of the dungeon there came a subtle ticking noise. A clock of some kind. It was the only indicator of time the prisoners had. It chimed every six hours, signalling a guard change.
All this was useless information, of course. Escape from this dungeon was impossible. The prisoners had been fitted with anti-transformation spell collars and the walls were made of solid blocks of stone. Buttresses and columns held up the ceiling, and a steady drip of icy water had promoted the growth of an abundance of slimes, moulds, and various mosses. The only light came through a slot in the door smaller than Delta’s hand.
“Moss?” Neven said, trailing a hand along the wall.
“Yeah, you got it.” Seafra sighed loudly. “Are you sure you don’t want to play, Delta? It’s not like we’ve got anything else to do.” She traced a crack in the floor with a finger.
He shook his head, hunching his shoulders.
“You’re thinking about Xandra, aren’t you?” She said. There was a bitter note in her voice, a hint of self-deprecation.
At least she could understand. “When amn’t I?” he said with a tiny smile.
He’d been so sure that his whole escapade with Seafra and Neven under Court Dorchadas would cure him of his obsession with the late queen. But it didn’t work that way. Now all he could do was wonder. If she’d been somebody’s corpse puppet then who had he really been obsessing over? He’d spent months neglecting his leadership duties in Clan Fuil Darach only to discover that his target had been dead all along. It was a lot to accept.
Neven and Seafra helped. Both of them had been fooled just as badly as he had. But whenever the two of them started wondering what they could have done differently, he magically came up with the words to comfort them. He just couldn’t do it for himself.
“I can’t believe I didn’t notice,” Seafra said, for perhaps the hundredth time. “She was right there! We practically slept in the same room. No matter what you did, Delta, at least you didn’t make that dumbass fucking mistake.” Her fist hit the wall, gently.
“It was magic,” Delta said. “It’s easy to get fooled by magic, Seafra.”
“Even I did not notice,” Neven put in, slumping comfortably against Delta’s side. “She even had a heartbeat. That is. Exceptional magic.”
Seafra nodded. She’d heard it all before – they all had – and by now the conversation was well-worn, almost comfortable in its familiarity.
The clock chimed gently. Chair legs scraped against the floor as the guards rose from their game of cards, yawning loudly.
“Oh, finally,” one of them said, “come on, drinks are on me tonight.”
Another door crashed open. Delta glanced up, moderately shocked by the sudden loud noise, and put a protective arm around Neven.
“Bring out one of the prisoners,” an unfamiliar female voice said sharply. “The guardian boy. He’s being interrogated.”
Delta’s other arm began to inch around Neven. He clung onto them, his eyes wide, trying to settle himself. The three of them had been promised interrogations by the guards, but so far only Seafra had been taken. She had not yet spoken about what they’d done to her. But she hadn’t been injured anywhere that he could see, so hopefully it would just be some kind of forceful questioning. Not torture. He didn’t even want to think about that.
Someone moved in front of the door, blocking out the light. “On your feet,” the guard said sleepily, tapping the handle of his sword against the door. “Guardian boy to the front, everyone else back.”
Delta didn’t want to let go of Neven, so they took it upon themself to extricate themself from his arms and dart to the back of the cell. Seafra followed more slowly, casting Delta a look of deep concern that did not reassure him one bit. He took a deep breath, trying to loosen the tension in his shoulders, and pushed himself to his feet. He approached the door.
A second slot opened up mid-way down the door, spilling more light into the cell. Light fell against Delta’s front, highlighting the loose, ragged apron and new scars. His fingernails were filthy, he realised absently.
“Put your hands through,” the guard said. He did so, and a pair of heavy iron manacles closed around his wrists. The guard pushed his hands back through the slot, then wrenched the door open. He clipped a chain to the links of the manacles and led Delta out of the cell. Ducking to get through the door, Delta did not immediately take in his surroundings; he hadn’t been conscious when they’d first brought him down here. Straightening up he glanced around. The place was nothing special; grey walls, flickering torchlight, a pair of guards who looked more asleep than awake.
A skydancer woman took the chain from the guard, unceremoniously elbowing him aside. She was tall and very dark, a line of pale spines jutting from her deep black hair. The black and yellow uniform she wore was vaguely familiar, but thoughts of torture had thoroughly distracted Delta from thinking more on it.
“Come on,” she said, leading him away. Beyond the guard room was another door, this one blackened iron. “You two,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the guards, “your shift is over, shouldn’t you be somewhere else?”
The guards left, and the skydancer wrenched open the metal door. She pushed Delta inside – he jarred his horns off the top, wincing – and slammed it shut after him.
He was alone, his chain caught in the door so that he would be unable to reach most of the interrogation chamber. And this definitely was an interrogation chamber; several tables lay by the walls, old blood stains marking their surfaces. Cabinets lined the opposite side of the room. Some of them hung open, torchlight flickering on the various tools within. Delta stared at a set of wicked-looking tongs and turned, trying to get back out again, but the door was of course locked.
The chain had enough give in it to let him reach the middle of the room. A smaller, cleaner table sat there, with a pair of chairs opposite one another. Delta eyed the nearest chair, uncertain. Maybe he should sit? There was no one else in the room. Presumably, the interrogator (he refused to think the word torturer) would arrive soon.
Without anything else to do, he returned to the door. His imprisonment had had a marked effect on his figure, and his strength had really suffered. He couldn’t push the door in, and kicking at the lock made no difference. Feeling dizzy from the exertion he stepped back, gasping.
A key turned in the far door. He turned, his heart pounding, grabbing at the chain and tugging, pulling out enough slack to use as a weapon. But what could he do? If he miraculously killed the interrogator, then what? He wouldn’t be able to fight his way out past hundreds more, and he couldn’t abandon Neven and Seafra.
Delta retreated until his back was at the metal door. He dropped the chain and reached for the tiny leather pouch that held his charge instead. The door opposite creaked open.
A faint whimper escaped him. His guest was Serraden, which made no sense at all, but it couldn’t have been anyone else. Delta couldn’t look away from the marks he himself had left on the king’s face. Those last few desperate seconds on the mountaintop played back in his head; the spade falling from his hands, blood-stained, as he backed away.
“Sit,” Serraden said curtly, indicating the table in the centre of the room. “I had hoped that our eventual meeting would be under slightly difference circumstances, but this is how it’s going to be.” His voice was sharp, tight with anger, and the look in his eye was far from charitable.
Delta didn’t want to go near him.
“I had it all planned, actually,” Serraden said coldly, drawing back a chair. “I was going to have you marched into the throne room, so that you could see – and truly appreciate – how you failed, and how truly insignificant you are, and how worthless.” He hissed in a breath, and the faint charade of amusement in his voice fell away. “But actually, I’m here for your help.”
“My-” Delta frowned, closing his fist around his charge. “I don’t… wait, aren’t you supposed to be some Shade thing now? Luke told me-”
“What Luke doesn’t know could fill several libraries,” Serraden said, cutting across him. “I asked you to sit, didn’t I?”
At various points in time, Delta had been Serraden’s deputy, then his clan leader, twice. And Delta had never seen Serraden so audibly close to losing his temper. There was nothing of the usual careful wit in him now.
“Okay,” Delta said faintly, edging forwards. He sat opposite the king, one hand still clutching his charge. “So, um. Why do you need my help?”
“I have a problem that must be solved with the utmost secrecy,” Serraden said. “My son is sick, and-”
Delta gasped at that. His free hand rose to cover his mouth. Serraden stopped talking, his gloved hands curling into fists on the tabletop.
“Oh yes,” he said, “I have a son. You didn’t know that when you tried to murder me, did you? Neither did I, and I came so close to never knowing him at all, because of you – you-” He broke off and took another deep breath. Delta leant back, his chest aching.
“But that’s not why I’m here,” Serraden said, making a visible effort to even out his tone. “He needs help, but circumstances prevent me from publicly seeking a cure. Ideally, he needs a paladin’s help.”
Delta’s eyes widened. “Oh, you want – oh, gods – I’m really sorry, but I don’t know where Luke is. Our clan was destroyed and we were separated. I haven’t seen them in weeks.”
There was a short silence. Serraden looked like he wanted to slap Delta. Something dark and formless curled up from the runes on his eye-patch.
“Are you sure?” he finally said.
“Yes,” Delta said. “They could be dead.” Not that Delta would ever actually believe that. As far as he was concerned, Luke was immortal.
“They’re not dead,” Serraden said. “I’d know if they were. They’re not.” He dragged a hand through his hair, almost pulling out his hair-tie. Then with a sharp movement that made Delta flinch he shoved back his chair and rose to his feet. Something smoke-like trailed in the air behind him.
“I’d tell you if I knew,” Delta said helplessly.
“I’ll kill you if you’re hiding anything from me,” Serraden snapped, rounding on Delta again. “And I’ll know if you’re lying, I promise. I’m going to-” Abruptly, his voice cut off. He turned away and, before Delta’s bewildered eyes, walked out of the room. He slammed the door after him.
Raised voices sounded on the other side of the door. Delta could only sit and listen as Serraden furiously berated… somebody, presumably, though Delta couldn’t hear any other voice.
“Let me talk, Thierry – oh, like you have anything constructive to – excuse me, is he your son? No? Then this is my business – that’s-”
The door opened. Delta hoped to see somebody else but no, it was Serraden again.
“I’m sorry,” he said calmly, taking the chair. He sat down again, watching Delta with the strangest blank stare, his single pale eye wide. “He got too angry. I won’t let him yell at a prisoner.”
Delta got the distinct impression that the thing in front of him was not Serraden at all. And somehow that was even scarier. His breaths hitched and he gripped his charge until it left an imprint in his palm.
“I’m Reginald,” the creature said. “Luke told you about me.”
With a tiny nod, Delta glanced back over his shoulder, hoping for escape.
“He’s still yelling,” Reginald said, with a disconcerting smile. “I think he’s very worried about his son.”
“Um,” Delta said, “that’s. Understandable?”
“I know you can’t find Luke,” Reginald said. “But can you find the other paladin? She’s a yellow and blue spiral? I think she might be able to help.”
“Vaska?” Delta shook his head. “I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“Anyone else?” Reginald said. He still hadn’t blinked. “See, we’re in a real fuckin awkward position here. Emiliano – the son – can’t be found out as an heir to the throne. That would be bad for him. But he can’t go to a normal healer because if people knew there was a Shade infestation they’d lose their shit.” He shrugged mechanically.
“Right,” Delta said. The way Reginald spoke reminded him of someone, someone he knew very well, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“What about the old man?” Reginald said. “The wildclaw.”
“The… oh, Fiach?” Delta said. “How do you know about him?”
“I met him,” Reginald said. “Actually, he pretty much put me in this body when he exorcised me!” He was smiling again. “I’m very grateful. And I hope Leo is feeling better, too. I hope he knows that I never wanted to hurt him.”
Delta finally understood what exactly he was talking to. His mouth went dry. Amazed, he could only smile weakly and try not to wonder about the mechanics of all this Shade stuff.
“Well, Fiach is with the beastclans,” he said. “The caravan, do you know it? They went north. Listen, er, Reginald… I know Fiach would help you. That’s what he does. But he won’t help you if I’m still in prison.” He widened his eyes expectantly, waiting for Reginald to understand just what he meant.
“Oh,” Reginald said. “Well, Serraden says he’ll let you go if you help him. He’s telling the truth.”
“Let me go,” Delta said, hardly daring to believe it, “me and Neven and Seafra. We’ll fly straight north, then come back with Fiach. I’ll even tell Leo that you say hi. Is that okay?”
There was a pause. Reginald deliberated, his gaze distant, then nodded. “Yeah, okay. But we’ll send Fain out with you. And, um. Can you apologise to Leo, too? For the arm thing. I didn’t mean it.”
Purgatory
the 1.5 dads (and the entire dorchadas noble class) discover the effects of regie’s energy problems
~
As expected, there was a lot of explanation needed to get the nobles to understand what exactly the king had been doing during his absence. This took the form of endless banquets, balls, and brunches, each more boring and repetitive than the last, during which Reginald talked the ears off the nobles, reciting whatever bullshit story Rezann had fed him.
“I knew I couldn’t re-capture the court on my own, so I went to get help,” Reginald was saying, gesturing animatedly. Even though every word – every move – was part of a carefully rehearsed script, he was astonishingly convincing. Very impressive strides for a creature who’d been so leery about lying.
Lady Torneath nodded, sipping from her glass of wine. “It is good to see you back,” she said, delicately avoiding looking directly at Reginald, “However – and I hope you’ll forgive me for asking, Your Majesty – are you quite sure that Commander Rezann would be satisfied with his part in your alliance?”
The thrill of being called ‘Your Majesty’ had worn off slightly. Serraden watched her with distaste.
“I hardly think she has the requisite authority to speak to me like that,” he grumbled, to no particular audience. Reginald was concentrating, he couldn’t respond. “She’s from the court guard, she’s barely fit to shine your boots.”
“The Commander has been so generous,” Reginald said, addressing the rest of the dining table, too. The other nobles had had their own – justified – qualms about Court Dochadas’ supposed 'alliance’ with Rezann, and all of them clearly wanted answers. “He saved my life,” Reginald went on, indicating himself idly, “after what Xandra did to me I wouldn’t have survived alone. We can only stand to gain from an alliance such as this; Rezann has access to resources from all over Sornieth, while we are limited by our borders.”
Iriangi gestured for a servant to refill her glass, catching Serraden’s attention. With a faint sigh, she pinned her hair back behind her ear and took a sip. She didn’t seem particularly interested in Reginald’s story. Every so often her worried gaze would slide down the table, to where Prince Fallon sat,
It was odd, how important one person could suddenly become. Serraden had thought of Iriangi perhaps a handful of times since the forgettable affair, but now he found himself considering her again and again. The anxiety was new. He didn’t care for her, not quite, but he was bound to her irreparably, and there was nothing he could do to remedy that. He wondered a lot about her – how she interacted with her children, how she had been able to bring herself to send so many of them away. The life lessons and morals she had instilled in them.
Even he could admit that she’d done a good job. He’d only seen Emiliano once or twice, but the boy seemed agreeable enough, if not quite as sharp as Serraden would have hoped. But that was a given. Too much sword practise, too few literacy lessons. But that could be remedied. If Serraden had been able to teach Reginald of all people how to engage in small-talk, he could teach Emiliano to hold a decent conversation.
“I heard that, you prick,” Reginald said. His patience with the charade was wearing thin. Any time he pretended to be someone else, he tended to get snappish and irritable. The stress the eye-patch inflicted on both of them was definitely a factor, too; the sooner they got back to their quarters and rid themselves of that accursed thing the better.
“If anything, that was praise,” Serraden said.
“Ah, excuse me,” Reginald said aloud, “where was I?”
The servants were clearing away the dessert plates. Reginald hadn’t eaten, of course, being completely incapable of such an act, but no one really questioned it. Which was frankly astonishing, given that one of the warning signs for Xandra’s true nature had been her refusal to eat in public.
Their ignorance was a blessing. Despite the nature of his pitiful existence at the Court, Serraden far preferred his home to any metal cell Rezann could provide. At least the décor here was pleasing to the eye, even if he could rarely interact with it by choice.
Once again going over his story, Reginald idly ran a finger around the rim of his untouched wine glass. “I returned as soon as I could, of course, but I was hampered by a lengthy rehabilitation…”
Torneath’s eyes dropped briefly to Reginald’s prosthetic leg. She swallowed nervously and quickly tipped back the last of her wine. She knew that there was something not quite right about Reginald, but her narrow understanding of the world forbade her from figuring it out on her own.
The musicians at the end of the dining hall paused their gentle string-plucking and began to prepare for the inevitable dance. Reginald always sat it out, of course, fully unsuitable for the activity, but as the other nobles stood up, Iriangi rounded the table and offered him her hand.
“I was hoping for a word, Your Majesty,” she said under her breath.
“Should I?” Reginald said, hesitating.
“Yes, we need to talk.” Serraden was eager for any opportunity to interrogate her. “Ask her how Emiliano is.”
“That’s all you ever want to talk about,” Reginald snapped, taking Iriangi’s hand and rising unsteadily to his feet.
“Gods forbid I talk about my own son.”
There was a sharp crunch. Reginald blinked in surprise, his gaze moving to his empty, gloved hand. He’d been holding his wine glass, and had dropped it without even noticing. A moment’s lapse that had drawn the attention of everyone in the room.
Reginald smiled weakly. “Do excuse me.”
Servants swanned in to sweep up the glass. Iriangi didn’t comment, leading him away to the very edge of the hall, by the newly-reinstated black and gold tapestries.
“Are you okay?” Iriangi said in a low tone. “You’re shaking – maybe you should go and see a healer, Your Majesty.” She glanced over her shoulder, eyeing Fain. The Light general was standing with the other guards by the door, her pale eyes trained unerringly on Reginald.
“Ask her about Emiliano,” Serraden said.
“Shut up. You keep fucking distracting me, it’s hard enough to focus already!” Reginald’s focus was already apparently pretty low, since he couldn’t pay attention to Serraden and Iriangi at the same time. She watched him in concern.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” Reginald said, after a pause.
“It’s about, y'know,” Iriangi said, “the situation with my son. Has there been any suggestion that he might have found out about… the whole thing?”
“He?” Reginald said.
Iriangi rolled her eyes. “The Commander,” she said in a low tone.
“Oh. No, I don’t think so.”
She nodded, giving a faint gasp of relief.
“Is Emiliano okay?” Serraden demanded.
“Teodoro, would you shut up!” Reginald said, very loudly.
The musicians, bless them, didn’t falter. But pretty much everyone in earshot turned, and Iriangi was staring, her eyebrows rising. She made as if to pull away from Reginald, but he couldn’t open his hand to release her. A strange heat moved through him, reminiscent of rope burn, the strain of the eye-patch charm.
“Do excuse me,” he said, yet again, and collapsed.
He fell like a puppet with its strings cut, crumpling to the floor. Serraden found himself alone, suddenly, and in darkness; Reginald’s face was pressed into the carpet and there was no way of shifting him.
“Reginald? Hey, Regie?”
There was no response from Reginald’s side of their shared space. No sign of him at all.
“Thierry?” Serraden tried, to no avail. By all rights he should have been celebrating, finally having regained full control over his own body, but this wasn’t his body, this was as unresponsive as a lump of clay, utterly worthless without Reginald’s help.
Voices floated overhead. Serraden tried to move, but he couldn’t, he had no real connection to the body. He could only feel the faintest sensation of touch; carpet on his face.
“Oh, gods, he’s not breathing,” someone said overhead.
Well, he couldn’t stay there forever. He extracted himself, rising out of the body and standing alone beside it, an insubstantial spirit. After weeks spent in a body this change was hellish, all sensation gone. A constant undertow tugged at the very core of his being, warning him that he had to move on some time, too frightening to contemplate.
And there at his feet was his dilapidated corpse, dressed in outlandish blue and white, as still as… well, as as still as one would imagine a dead thing to be. The onlookers – nobles, mainly – were crowded around, some with eager looks, no doubt waiting to learn more about the king’s mysterious malady and how they could take advantage of it.
Fain elbowed her way through the crowd. “Excuse me – excuse me, sir, His Majesty requires specialised care – stand back-”
Iriangi hadn’t blinked yet, a look of plain horror on her face. The corpse wasn’t breathing, after all, which was fairly normal for corpses. She looked straight through Serraden. Nobody in the room could see him.
Fain hauled the body into her arms and moved away, heading for the private door at the back of the hall. It was designed for the king’s use alone, and behind it was the stairwell that passed through every level of the court. Once the door had swung shut behind her, Fain could stop pretending that she was cradling a sick person. She slung the corpse over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes – Serraden winced – and ran up the steps, taking them two at a time.
At least moving around as a spirit was so much easier than as a physical being, hampered even further by decapitation and a ridiculous prosthetic leg. Following her was no problem, but he wasn’t too pleased about the rough way with which she handled his body.
Up in the royal suite, Fain laid the corpse out on the bed and paced around the room, muttering to herself. Serraden stayed by the body, protective.
Finally, Fain grabbed one of the scrying mirrors from the top of a cupboard and contacted Rezann. This involved some kind of encrypted incantation, something that a dragon with no magical knowledge wouldn’t be able to decipher. But there was another advantage of being a spirit – a sixth sense that rendered the flow of magic visible and tangible. Serraden watched, trying to memorise the pattern. The mirror’s surface flickered, flashing through a range of invisible colours that he had no name for and that Fain couldn’t see at all.
Then Rezann appeared on the glass surface. Presumably. Serraden could not actually see the commander, hidden as he was behind a strobing nexus of colours and patterns, nothing of his features visible but the three burning magenta eyes. Behind this mess was a painted wooden wall.
“What?” he said, and his voice was painful to hear. Again, Fain didn’t seem to notice.
“Commander,” Fain said, saluting, “forgive me for the lack of notice but the shade creature has taken a turn, it collapsed just now. Completely unresponsive. I’m not sure what to do, sir.”
“Describe what happened.”
As Fain recounted the events of dinner, Serraden drifted back towards the bed. Rezann could probably see spirits, so it would be best not to pass through his line of sight.
A faint glow caught Serraden’s attention. The charmed eye-patch was starting to smoulder, smoke leaking through. This was heartening – there would be no smoke without Reginald. But the smoke had never been like this before; embers floated in the wisps, tiny glowing particles that winked out of existence once they passed far enough from the corpse.
Reginald’s back arched. He took a laboured breath and exhaled smoke, one hand weakly rising to claw at the eye-patch. Fain turned, stifling a cough, and almost dropped the mirror.
“Oh, sir, it seems to have recovered,” she said.
“What?” Rezann sounded distracted. “Fine. Inform me of any changes.”
The mirror’s light winked out. Reginald was still gasping, almost obscured by the cloud of smoke. Fain coughed, clasping a hand over her mouth, and extracted a face-mask from her pocket. She approached the bed gingerly, but had to pause a metre away, her chest heaving.
Hidden by the smoke, Reginald’s eye flew open. It was black, dripping like the eyes of a living shade-infested dragon, and Serraden could have sworn he saw a yellow flicker in the depths of Reginald’s empty eye socket. Serraden leant over the bed, fascinated, ignoring every instinct to run and hide from the thing on the bed.
Reginald blinked, and then his eye was white again. He fixed his bleary gaze on Serraden, frowning slightly.
“Teodoro?” he said.
Satisfied that it really was Reginald, Serraden allowed himself to be drawn back into the body. There was a moment of double vision, then a flash of pins and needles as the sensation of touch returned. Reginald’s bewilderment tinged the whole experience.
“Where am I?” Reginald said. He saw Fain and repeated the question aloud.
“In your quarters,” Fain said. “You collapsed. We’re going to have to make up a cover story for that, but at least you’re back.” She sat at the edge of the bed; the worst of the smoke was dissipating, and now only the usual constant gush from Reginald’s empty eye socket tainted the air. “I assume you ran out of energy, but then you wouldn’t have come back on your own…”
“Oh.” Reginald pushed himself upright. “I don’t remember. But I’m… I’m tired…” He frowned at his own words, further confusion suffusing his mind. He’d never been tired before.
“Maybe you should rest,” Fain said, though she didn’t sound too convinced. “It’s been a busy few days.”
“Maybe,” Reginald echoed. He sagged back again, the strength abandoning him, and stared at the ceiling.
“So what was that all about?” Serraden said, prodding at him.
“I don’t know.”
so here’s fain’s predicament
she’s a general and the acting ruler of court dorchadas, she relays all of rezann’s orders to regie. to the public she’s the king’s personal adviser/medical agent (the court has been told that the king has a lot of health problems and can’t be out in public that often, to cover for the limited efficiency of regie’s anti-smoke eyepatch)
so fain is loyal to rezann, through and through. and in this case, being loyal to rezann would involve hunting down and killing all of serraden’s children. he can have no living heirs. but fain has those problematic Maternal Feelings, the same feelings that made her send away her son in secret because to do otherwise would have been hymnal’s death sentence. fain has met iriangi, the two of them have engaged in small-talk that made it very clear that iriangi is a proud and caring mother, and that regie’s return to the court has been iriangi’s first good break in a long time.
emiliano is the problem. he’s ambitious, he won’t be satisfied now with just a high-ranking guard job. he’ll want the throne eventually, and the next dragon on the dorchadas throne is going to be someone who rezann has trained personally, someone who is completely loyal and who has a track record of being very malleable (spoiler: the next king is going to be regie. in someone else’s body)
so the situation is this: fain and regie have to keep iriangi and emiliano in the dark, keeping them satisfied enough that they won’t complain and go public. and they have to make sure rezann won’t find out. but iriangi’s terms are clear: she’ll take emiliano away from the court if regie doesn’t put in the work as a “father”, and having emiliano out in sornieth, unsupervised, is also a danger.
tough stuff
i forgot to even mention emiliano’s complicated situation lmao
so i’ll just post the excerpt that i eventually decided not to continue but it should explain things
~
“You what?” Fain said sharply, leaning over the desk with both hands planted on the mahogany surface.
Reginald shrank back into his chair. “I have a son?” he said, uncertain. Judging by her reaction when he’d confessed this, it was not good news. Maybe he should have just not told her, but she’d specifically requested that he make thorough reports every evening and he couldn’t just lie to her.
Fain straightened up, pinching the bridge of her nose. “A son.”
“Yes. Two sons, apparently,” he said. “Is that bad?”
Fain turned and marched away, then marched right back to the writing desk. “I wasn’t informed of this. The Commander didn’t mention-”
“He doesn’t know,” Reginald said. Apparently this was the wrong thing to say, because Fain’s eyes widened and she had to turn away again, her breath catching.
“Have you told him?” she said quietly, without looking at him.
“No. I thought you were supposed to make all the reports?” Reginald glanced down at the blank notepaper on the edge of the desk. “Should I tell him?”
“No!” Fain said. “Gods, no, he’ll have them all killed. He won’t have any unknown force waiting to take the throne.” She dragged her hands through her hair. It was the most agitated he’d ever seen her. “I should kill them myself,” she said quietly. “I’ll make it painless, he won’t...”
Reginald couldn’t speak. Not because he didn’t know what to say, but because he was suddenly occupied with fighting Serraden for control. Fury emanated from the ghost, making him careless. Reginald shoved him back without much effort.
While this silent battle waged on behind her, Fain turned again. Her pale eyes bored into Reginald uncomfortably.
“How many children?” she said.
“F-” He broke off, his hands spasming against his will. He seized the shade strings that puppeted his body and wrestled for control again.
Outside the room, there was a loud and insistent knock on the door.
Fain didn’t seem to notice. “Never mind, that doesn’t really matter - how many children are here?”
“One,” Reginald choked out.
“Thierry I swear on every pathetic leaf you hold dear I will not stand by and let you and that crone plot to kill my-”
“Did you hear me?” Fain said.
“Say it again?” Reginald said, raising his voice over the shouting now filling up his head.
“I said, we won’t tell Rezann,” Fain said. “It’s only one child. A bastard, presumably. We can give them a high-ranking job and hopefully that’ll satisfy them, they won’t demand to be put on the throne. Your child is a threat, Reginald, but maybe we don’t have to kill them.”
