“Treno mourns.”
The words were hushed, almost awed. Lord Bishop poured yet another glass of wine, and for once, Achtung said nothing. If ever there were a time for stress-relieving habits, surely this was it. The aging spymaster - no, pardon, scholar - turned away from the auctioneer’s office window, looking around at the intimate gathering in muted disbelief. “Treno mourns,” he repeated. “I have watched this city through countless Lords and Ladies, Knights and Rooks and what have you - Treno does not mourn.”
“She mourns now.” Astraea, the reclusive Queen Stella’s representative, managed to sound matter-of-fact despite the worn, drawn look in her eyes. “It’s been some time since Treno last lost her King.”
In truth, the entire continent was mourning: supposedly the newly-crowned young Queen of Alexandria had worn a black veil for her long-delayed coronation, and a pall had fallen over the Regency of Lindblum, particularly the Theater District. The story had spread - the fight on the northern continent, and the fall of Kuja, the enemy of Gaia. Zidane Tribal’s heroic rush to save Kuja despite all he’d done - and the Iifa Tree’s violent retaliation, which no one could have survived. For the young hero’s valiant sacrifice, the continent wept.
Treno did not mourn for Zidane.
“You truly haven’t heard anything?” Bishop swirled the wine in his glass, peering at Achtung. “Nothing?”
The auctioneer met the man’s gaze calmly, evenly. You try so hard to make it sound like you’ve no personal stake in this. That Bishop and Lord King had a long history - both personal and professional - was no secret to Achtung, and Bishop knew it. “Nothing. Nothing to confirm Lord King’s death, of a certainty.”
Astraea cut in. “But nothing to suggest he’s alive.”
“But that doesn’t mean anything,” Lady Frangelica, daughter and heir apparent of Lord Knight, piped up from her seat in the corner. She looked younger than Achtung could ever recall - and perhaps a bit afraid. In her lap, her familiar black notebook was closed, and her hands were completely, utterly still. “That proves nothing. He could easily still be alive.”
Bishop eyed her. “Is that a bet you’d be willing to make, Frannie?”
“Long odds and high risks have the best payoffs,” she retorted, but she sounded uncertain. “I’ll believe nothing until a body is found.”
Astraea gave a delicate snort. “From the depths of the tree’s collapsed roots?”
This is giving me a headache. “The fact remains,” Achtung said, placid. “That no proof of Lord King’s death has been provided, and as such, this meeting is unnecessary.”
“I’m surprised you aren’t biting at the opportunity to name yourself King.” Astraea drummed her long fingernails on her arm. She didn’t sound surprised - she’d known the auctioneer since long before King had sunk his claws into him. “Enneas, are you... provided for? Is there - I suppose he was too young to have written a will? Did he never name an heir?”
“Wills are for dead men.” He rose and held his office door open, an unspoken get out. “If there is nothing more I can do for you, my lord, my ladies, I really do have a great deal of work to be done.”
[ - - - ]
When the war began, Treno did not mourn for the loss of peace; it buckled down for the coming storm. When Lindblum fell, Treno never mourned; it embraced the opportunity for increased weapon and armor sales and the sudden influx of goods from Burmecia and Lindblum into the black market. When Queen Brahne was killed, Treno did not mourn for the loss of a great queen; it began shuffling its social deck - who would rise in the new queen’s favor, who would fall? When Alexandria fell, Treno did not mourn the tragedy that had befallen its mother city; it began picking at the bones for meat.
Treno did not mourn, Treno persevered and thrived in the face of chaos.
And Treno alone was never threatened by the shadow of war.
And Treno noticed.
[ - - - ]
The feathers started coming almost immediately. Achtung found them outside of the auction house, pinned delicately to the door: white feathers, in various sizes. He plucked them from the door, looking around curiously - but there was no one in sight.
After that, the feathers became a regular event.
He found them pinned to the door, hung from the walls. In baskets by the door. Scattered across the plaza. Tied and hanging from the bridge. Floating on the water in the canal below the auction house. Some enterprising individual had even climbed the mansion walls and hung gigantic feathers from the towers - every day there seemed to be more of them.
White feathers. Some were clearly loose pigeon feathers, dipped carefully in white paint; others were delicately-crafted facsimiles of feathers created from wire and beads; some were actually steel or silver, hammered carefully into shape; others were cut from paper; others were carved from stone or glass.
Graffiti appeared on the canal bridge: Long Live the King.
Achtung saw feathers appearing in unusual places: white feathers became a common motif in ladies’ gowns and men’s hats, and in the slums, children were paid a gil by a mysterious individual (in the employ of Lord Bishiop, of course, Achtung knew) for each stray feather they found that could be painted white. The feathers were not sold - they simply turned up at the auction house like an offering to a pagan god, more and more each day.
At a soiree one evening, Achtung saw a white-feather pendant glittering at Lady Frangelica’s throat.
And thus did Treno mourn.
Achtung continued working, unfazed, collecting the feathers each day and setting them aside; there would be time to deal with them when this collective madness died down, surely.
[ - - - ]
Long Live the King.
How long was it going to take, he wondered, sending the servants to collect the day’s bounty of white feathers, before life got back to normal?
Long Live the King.
Astraea, Frannie, and Bishop came to visit time and time again, always with the same questions. He sent them away each time. Treno had a Lord King; it needed no other.
Long Live the King.
“I could get you one, you know,” Frannie said, touching the pendant at her throat. “It helps to remember him.”
“He’ll be pleased to hear it.”
[ - - - ]
The feathers never stopped coming. He began throwing them out; he was running out of room to store them.
[ - - - ]
“Long live the king!” shouted a patron at the auction house, and then nothing would do but that the entire room must stand and chant it, throwing white feathers like confetti, filling the room with white.
Achtung stood quietly on the stage until the chanting stopped and he could resume his work.
[ - - - ]
“Are you sure you don’t want one?”
“I am quite certain.”
[ - - - ]
“You’re sure he never left a will? Nothing? Never suggested who his heir might have been?”
“I’m certain he’ll discuss his intentions with you in depth upon his return, my lord.”
[ - - - ]
He almost threw the note out, tied as it was around yet another feather, but this feather gave him pause: it was larger than the rest had been, and shifted in color as he gazed at it; it was silvery, nearly iridescent. Achtung held it a moment, letting his heart stumble over itself, letting his breath catch in his throat.
Letting himself hope.
Abandoning the other feathers, he retreated to his office, untying the note from around the feather with hands that weren’t shaking - not quite, not yet. He set the feather carefully - reverently - on the desk, and held the note in the light. The letters were shaky, but the hand was familiar, and the words -
It’s a simple phrase, a code but not quite. It means ‘I’ll be back.’ It means ‘This is dangerous, but don’t worry about me.’ And just now, it means ‘I’m alive. I know what you’ve heard, I know what everyone thinks, but I’m alive. I’m alive.’
And the words on the note -
Keep the hearth warm for me, darling.
- K
Achtung set the scrap of paper aside, eyes burning. Absurd. I haven’t wept since my mother’s death. But he knew that writing, he knew that flourished K, he knew that phrase, the phrase he’d chuckled at when first he’d heard it. He picked up the feather, turning it over in his hands. It was a promise of a return - an assurance that no matter how loudly, how ostentatiously Treno mourned, her King was still very much alive.
And would return.
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