* * *
'Sy
* * *
I really didn't plan to have this conversation yet - I don't understand how Katherine managed to stalk me like this, nor what tipped her off to do so. I'd blame our new Jhe h'Logos, but he was with me when I even so much as mentioned that Katherine would be staying in Radia while I went to Robinstead, and I didn't notice him trying to tip her off. I don't think he'd dare be so brash, anyway. Elete would have.
Maybe it's not even about that - Katherine could perhaps be angry at me for a completely unrelated reason. Yes, that's probably what it is. She does have her moods - though she's had so few of them in the past months, after the mess with her father blew over. That's why I let my guard down.
She's kind enough to pour the tea, then sets down the pot gently and takes her seat. She blows the steam across the rim of her cup, tracing the patterns it weaves in the air. She doesn't look up and cue me to begin, though - she seems to be waiting for me to act.
Strange. She tends to take the initiative first. Why's she giving it up? Now I have to start this, and that means possibly showing my hand. I sip from my own teacup, then set it down and look at her. She's let her brown hair hang loose this morning, eschewing her usual looped braid. She looks so casual, really. So relaxed. "Well," I say, "what are we meeting about?"
She pouts up at me. "Why do you want to leave me here?" Her green eyes sparkle just a bit, and the emotional impact gets me right in the center of my chest.
Well-played. Very well-played. "I have a little trouble answering that without knowing how you came to such a conclusion."
"Because I can see the guilt on you, can smell it from a mile off, and I always notice when you're avoiding me." She sips her tea, partially obscuring her expression with the cup and the steam, and a curtain of hair that artfully slides across her cheek.
I chew on that. I belatedly realize that my expression probably looks more guilty now, and I hear Diyn snicker in the back of my mind upon the recognition. I try to ignore him. He never helps with Katherine... never helps me, in any case. "I wasn't sure how to tell you."
"Were you going to?" The reply isn't charged with anger the way I expect it to be - she's honestly curious, and... hurt? But I didn't mean to hurt her, per se. I'm trying to protect her, and she'll never understand that.
"I couldn't see how I could avoid it." I let out a deep sigh, then set my tea down and lean back, hands on my armrests. It helps to affect relaxation, and really... it has been tiring, managing all this, preparing for the journey, knowing I'd be making it without her. "You'd follow me, otherwise. And I can't have that - we can't have that. You. Your fathers. Crux Radia, and the Emperor of Chethar. Katherine, I don't think you understand sometimes just what it means, being the Treaty." I look at her, obscured as she is. Every time I do so, a part of me remembers what it was like to lose her and fear that loss was permanent. "Your loss means the loss of all we protect and hold dear."
That, for some reason, triggers the anger in her eyes. "Bullshit," she says, "Chethar will torch both Empires even if I manage to live for the next eight months. Have you done the math, 'Sy? If I'm supposed to guarantee the safety of so many people by living in a safe little box and never seeing any hint of harm, then why did the Gahalespbar-archo threaten to kill me if the two Empires couldn't be at peace?" She bites her lip, pausing to swallow, to calm herself. "I am that peace, 'Sy! But he threatened me because Father can't take his throne yet! If I'm not the guarantee of peace, then why the fuck do I have to be the Treaty?"
It's almost as if she'd directly threatened everything I held dear, and I can't exactly explain that. What she's said, though, puts me so on edge that I almost grab for Diyn. I remind myself not to do so just in the nick of time, and merely clench my armrests instead.
"If it takes Father to sit on his throne again for Chethar to be happy, then shouldn't he be enough? Why me? Sure, Daddy and Father needed to agree to raise a child together to keep their Empires from going to war. I can see how I was the compromise way back then. But now they can keep their own peace, especially now that Father's been cleansed of what was tipping him back towards a war. I don't see why I'm necessary anymore--"
"Katherine!" I only realize after the fact that I've given voice to the objection.
"--and why being the Treaty has to get in the way of me being Advocate, something that the Empires actually need!" Her eyes are so fierce now, so radiantly green, that I'm lost for a moment. It's as if they have a fire all their own.
But I've got to quell it.
"Katherine. I am sorry. I... will miss you on our journey. But if I endanger you again before your Father takes his throne back, I risk threatening everything. Your life is more important than whoever the Advocate could possibly save in Robinstead-- and you assume I'll be killing anyone over there, when I could always just bring them back to Beleth to face Trial."
Her eyes murder me, I swear. Some part of me rips inside, just a little. Maybe she does it on purpose - maybe she's just that hurt.
"You can't possibly weigh the tiny possibility that you could be needed with me in Robinstead against all the lives you'd endanger by accompanying me there. Katherine, Thelea is sending agents there. It could very well be a trap for you." I try to approach this subject reasonably, but I think I lost any chance of winning her over when I told her she wasn't necessary. Perhaps not my most tactful hour, but it's the truth - whoever she'd save would end up dying anyway.
She narrows her eyes. "If it's a trap, then how do you know it won't happen to me here, while you're away in Robinstead? The last time she tried to kill me, it was right outside of Beleth. Two months ago. And she succeeded in her attack - it's a miracle she didn't destroy me permanently."
I have no reply to that - I can't refute it per se, and I'm angry that she even reminded me at all of my utter failure the night that she died. "Well then. You'd best be careful while I'm away, mustn't you? Otherwise you doom all those lives you're so set on saving, and mine as well."
Her look isn't quite poison, but there's something of a knife in it. Then she looks away, turns, and leaves.
That's as close as I get to a goodbye from her before my trip. I'd kick myself, but she might sense the urge and decide to come back in here and do it for me.
* * *
Luciprochoros
* * *
There's barely enough coffee in this Kingdom to fuel me for all the things that need doing. I gulp mine down quickly enough, then see to the papers I'm writing.
Too late. I started this too late. I took the Crown from Elete far, far too late, and it still feels funny resting on my head after two months of wear. I swear... it used to be different, back when I first wore it in Chethar. It wasn't so... heavy. And it was shaped a bit different too. When I gave it to Elete ten years ago, it assumed a shape that fit him. Now that I've reclaimed it, it hasn't shifted back to what it was. It's as if it's still his, and all the itchy thoughts of the Poets attached to it certainly fit his role better.
And Jhe Alestere's a dear, and is trying to be helpful, and I'm fine with him being the Poet King, but I wouldn't curse him with this thing. It did enough to Elete, as much as it kept him alive for the years that he couldn't quite keep himself alive. In the end, though, it was his undoing, wasn't it? He took it off before my son could reach through it and end him, and then Jhe h'Akribastes did the duty of protecting him permanently from such an end.
That wasn't the way Elete should have died, and it's my fault. So many things are my fault. I should have found another way... I'm the damn Song, aren't I? Why couldn't I have just listened for something better than foisting my responsibilities on Elete? Never mind that he did a fine job of it. He's not here anymore, and now this is my job. This... mess.
I pour another cup of coffee and down it. How many words? How many pages? How much can I manage before Theos acts this time? It took me three months once, to cancel out his attack on four of us, to give us just enough time to edge towards freedom and something akin to safety. I have a whole Empire now... and there's Audiva Rocale, too. So many lives. How many words will it take? Will there even be enough parchment for it all? I start to count out the blank pages. A throat clears behind me, and I almost knock all the work off my desk. I turn, blinking the figure behind me into focus.
'Sy. My stomach turns into a rock. He's angry, and I'm never one to make him happy these days. "Hello," I manage to croak out.
He twists his mouth to the side. "Good morning. Or afternoon I should say, by this point." He casts his eyes around my office. Papers everywhere, and most of them aren't even the financials and the records and the official certificates and all the other bits of paper that make up my Empire, the bits of paper that I loved making into my day-to-day business. This is all Poetry. "Are you busy?"
I swallow. "For some time, yes." It's hard to meet his eyes. Ever since Elete died and I took the Crown back, the air between him and I has been chilly. I always feel like I should be ducking away from him, dodging the crosshairs.
"Hm. Well, I've been trying to arrange things so that I could leave for a few weeks, maybe even a month, without them falling apart by the time I return. It seems possible, yes? Nothing seems as if it'd fall apart if I turned my back on this city for two seconds?" Can't you tell? Aren't you supposed to be the Song, Luciprochoros? He doesn't say it aloud, but I hear it in his thoughts, even if he doesn't mean for me to.
"That seems reasonable. Everything's been calm at sea and on land. Jhe h'Logos's Hall is quiet, and full of alert Poets who know the dangers to look for. Were something to happen, you'd be quickly contacted. There's no reason you can't go off on a mission, by all logic." There's something so... frosty to him. Is it just around me?
I'm trying so hard to make things right. I've just got to hurry, is all. I could be writing right now. I could be getting closer to finished right now. I wonder if 'Sy will be here for much longer.
He snorts. "By all logic. Fine, if you feel like wording it that way. But you'd better not drop your guard. That fool of an ex-monarch that Jhe h'Logos sees fit to house in his Hall is being watched by my damn daughter, you idiot."
I tense up. "I talk to Stevane quite often about Jhe Ebrelle. She has a level head and can handle herself."
He just regards me. And I can see that on some level, he blames me, and not Jhe h'Logos. I am wearing the Crown, I suppose.
"Is there anything you need before you're on your way, 'Sy?"
"No. Not from you. Just don't screw up while I'm gone, and don't have a bigger mess waiting for me than the ones I'm about to leave here. You can manage that, at least." And before I can say anything in reply, he leaves. The door shuts behind him, the most appropriate punctuation.
A bigger mess than this. Perhaps that's not something even I can manage to make happen. I take solace in that, and continue writing, a million voices nagging in the back of my head as to how slow I am, and how inadequate, and how pathetic. I wonder how I ever ignored them before I gave the Crown to Elete, and then wonder if that's really why I passed it to him.
I'm so terrible, aren't I?
* * *
Katherine
* * *
He doesn't notice me watching him, or if he does he doesn't acknowledge it. I'm keeping myself pretty damn well-hidden, though. Being able to find Lute when he's hiding means that I've picked up my own little tricks from him over the years. So I guess it makes sense that 'Sy doesn't notice me as he looks over the horses and asks Erynn and Gerude if there's anything else they need before they leave.
Then he looks over his shoulder and right at the shadows along the city gates that I'm skulking in, and locks eyes with me. There's that one glance, no words. Just enough.
Just enough to make sure that I know he knows I'm there. He's not going to let me follow him to Robinstead. That's what this is all about. He's smart - I'm still considering getting on my horse and riding after them after the sun sets. But I know that's the wrong thing to do. Not because it's wrong to follow them... I just know it the way a Poet knows things.
For whatever reason, I just shouldn't follow him. That's not how it's supposed to go. It's strange to be so certain, but... it's definitely a Poet sense, this feeling I have. Usually I can sense out a reason behind the premonitions, but it's not unheard of to have a blind hunch. And this is certainly a blind one - feeling out the potential of following 'Sy is like running into a cold black stone wall.
Maybe it's because I'm mad at him. I just watch him as he and Erynn and Gerude recede towards the horizon. Eventually they become dots, and soon after that... well, they're gone.
I sigh and wrap my arms around my legs, and let myself cry. It hurts. It hurts the most because 'Sy thinks he's doing what's best for me, when all I can feel is the tug of my Duty and my inability to rise to its call. I should be there with him, and I'm not, and there's nothing I can do.
It's cold in the shadows. I let myself live with that for awhile... and I'm tempted to just stay in them. Somehow, it's comforting, and sort of numb. But there's just the teeniest beckoning for me to return to the Palace and see if I can find a friend to talk to, and then there's thoughts of dinner. It's time to go home, and try to figure out what I'll do while 'Sy's away that doesn't involve just sitting here and waiting for him.
* * *
Gerude
* * *
Dad rides up ahead, out of earshot, under the pretense of checking the trail for snakes.
I grit my teeth. "Erynn. Damn it. Stop singing!"
* * *
Myles
* * *
I'm pleased to note that Katherine never notices me in the shadows while she watches Jhe h'Akribastes leave. I'm a little sad to see her left behind. I'm sadder to see her cry. I'd give her a hug, but...
Nobody's supposed to know I'm here. Not even Stevane. Especially not Stevane. I'm a little chilled by how she knew I'd be leaving today. I actually doubted her just a tiny bit, figured it might be some Poet silliness, but... well, here I am. Watching the horizon. Watching my back. Feeling out the air around me and whether anyone's occupying it.
No one that I can sense.
I leave. There's a horse waiting for me out beyond the city gates, in a completely different direction than the Judge and Gerude and Jhe Blackirons left in. Out of those three, only the Judge knows that I'm riding to Robinstead as well. On different trails, though.
The Judge gave me my own map to follow, a path well-marked on it that I'm to intersect. Jhe Lyric's path, it seems.
At least I'll have some company.
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