Book 3: Chapter 25 – Revelations [Part 1]
Book 3: Chapter 25 - Revelations [Part 1]
On a crowded path, a man carrying a cup was jostled. The tea splashed and stained his robe. He turned to blame the stranger. An elder said, “Do not fault the stranger. He only revealed what you carry. If a cup holds black tea, black tea spills. If a heart holds anger, anger spills. Fill your heart with loving-kindness and compassion—and when life bumps you, only kindness and compassion will flow.”
- The Book of Wise Tellings from the Land of Streams.
The whole Academy was in an uproar—whispers coiled through colonnades, and there were arguments and disagreements in the common rooms. The shockwaves from the duel resounded for weeks. Autumn had taken a heavier grip: fruit bruised the orchard air with sweet scent, gulls and seabirds wheeled inland before a salt-cold wind, and the mild promise of winter’s bite slid in under doors. With the cooling weather, the pleasant fiction of equality that the Academy liked to espouse was cracking. Students, faculty, and staff drifted—no, were pulled—into their proper orbits around class and coin and crown.
It was how Seraphina wanted it.
Her rooms in the dormitory were warm despite the draft, the fire burning merrily behind a thick pane of glass with a sleeping Cornelia beside it like a guardian beast. A ledger lay open on her desk beside three sealed letters and a chilled cup of tea she had not touched. Miriam stood on the carpet with a sheaf of notes clutched to her chest, while Eloise perched on the arm of a chaise, small and exquisite as a porcelain figurine with her ankles crossed and a look that promised knives.
“Report, Milly, if you would,” Seraphina said, not looking up as she dried a blot of ink with sand and tapped the page shut.
Miriam swallowed. “Your father, Lord Anatoli, marches with a very, very large ducal escort toward the capital as we speak, milady. He is accompanied by Lord de Montan, Lord de Lehman, and even the Bishop de Francey…”
“What is it? Continue your report, you silly thing,” Seraphina murmured, eyes on the wax of her signet ring. Her allies, it seemed, had not forgotten her.
Lord de Montan, however, had probably just seen where the wind was blowing. But he, and his spawn, would have to be watched.
“Your lord father, by all accounts, is most wroth,” Miriam rushed on. “He is demanding that Elidion pay the price of your dowry for the insult, and that the Crown Prince make a formal apology before the Hall of Lords…”
“Ha!” Eloise barked, inelegant as a slap. “That is the least a good father would do. Why, I do believe he is in his rights to demand the prince’s head to decorate the city gates.”
“I think cooler heads must rule,” Seraphina said, and if her smile was thin, it was still very pretty. “I do not wish this to escalate further. The stability of the realm is threatened.” A lie slid from her tongue as cleanly as oil. “Damn that Velens for only thinking with his dangling bits.”
Eloise’s delicate nostrils flared in satisfaction. Miriam shifted from foot to foot. “Speaking of Velens…” she tried, wincing under Eloise’s immediate glare.
“Yes, I hope he wasn’t hurt too badly,” Seraphina said mildly, a ribbon of amusement winding through her voice. Eloise snorted, an unladylike little thunder.
Ah, how swiftly a heart turns, Seraphina thought to herself.
“He seems to have fallen into a sleep,” Miriam whispered.
“That’s not exactly unusual; everyone goes to sleep.” Seraphina lifted one shoulder in a shrug, vaguely annoyed. “He did strike his head. Nothing a healing draught and a night’s rest cannot mend.”
“The thing is, milady… the prince is not waking up.” the maid continued in explanation, the words coming in a rush. “He hasn’t attended classes and shows no sign of recovery. He is simply not waking; all of the healers have tried already, even the Royal Healers—”
Seraphina’s green eyes sparked. “He’s breathing? He’s alive. That’s all that blackguard deserves.” Her fingers, pale and slender, drummed the desk once. “Why won’t the Church heal him? He has the little silver-haired trollop to cry at his bedside, does he not? Can’t she fix him?”
Miriam’s cheeks colored. “My sources say the Church is demanding… an exorbitant balance. They speak of equivalence before the Goddess; that the prince’s treatment requires a price to match the harm. The King—being, well… the King—hesitates. It is a great deal to weigh. But that is not what I—I mean, there are whispers. Rumors that you planned this. That you… tried to assassinate the Crown Prince. That the duel was only a mask, an elaborate part of a grand scheme.”
Seraphina stilled, and silence reigned until a coal cracked. “And why in Heaven would they say that, Milly?” she asked, voice turned silk and steel. “It makes no sense at all. Everyone saw him insult me. Everyone saw Velens decide to sully his station in a rain-slick courtyard with a public tantrum. And then, he lost. The end.”
“If you will forgive me, but rumor seldom keeps to the road, milady,” Miriam said miserably. “It seems to take a life of its own. For example, why… there is another whisper that—”
“What is it, Milly? Spit it out,” Seraphina snapped, patience evaporating.
“That Lady de Laney’s brother was set on a quest in exchange for your hand in marriage!” Miriam blurted. “That is why he has gone on an expedition.”
“Preposterous! Lady Seraphina would never—And my brother would never!” Eloise’s voice cracked like a glass. “He can barely walk with his crutches; he has always…” She bit the words off, throat working. She turned those dark eyes on Seraphina. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t. He hasn’t… has he?”
“Of course not.” Seraphina dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand, as if batting away a gnat. “What silliness.”
Miriam twisted the hem of her apron. “If you will forgive me, the point I am trying to make, milady, is that these things grow legs. As I said before, they take on lives of their own.”
“What are we to do, Lady Seraphina?” Eloise asked, voice small as a child’s for once. “This whole business looks like it could become… rather messy.”
Seraphina pressed two fingertips to her temple and closed her eyes. Her mind rearranged people like pieces on a slate: father, King, the Bishop and the Church, Velens asleep like a sword returned to its sheath, a thousand gossiping mouths opening and closing like fish. Under it all lurked a familiar taste—bitter poison sweet, as from a memory. “Give me a moment,” she breathed. “All of this has the hallmarks of my mother’s meddling.”