Talystasia: A Faerytale

by Haadiyah Cardinalis

  “We’ve had long talks about you already.”

  “I know I’m being a fool … but I can’t stand it. I’m responsible to her. I owe her discipline, and I have none myself.”

  “… Are you sure you’re not in control?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean—? I don’t want to harm her.”

  “Perhaps you’re punishing her for the bad things that have happened to you. Because gods forbid they only happened to you.” Kalorn shrugged and walked away.

  “That’s sick—” Andreas raised a hand to stop him, then dropped it lethargically.

  Wouldn’t I know though?

  ... Maybe not. Perhaps he really was going mad, losing pieces of himself. What was left behind was increasingly blind, inhuman, and savage.

  As he had expressed on many occasions, killing was an intensely personal act. What could be more intimate than slowly murdering the person who was closest to him, one excruciating day at a time?

  … Surely he had fantasized about it. Who was to say he hadn’t been executing that plan on some deep, unconscious level?

  Julia froze when Kalorn reached her, glancing questioningly over her shoulder.

  Still asking for my permission. For such a small thing.

  He smiled despondently, disgusted with himself. In the beginning, her assent to him, aglow with burgeoning self-awareness and self-respect, had broken through his disregard and pain. Now it was a surrender of self-respect, and still, his dominion over her being filled him with satisfaction.

  That was the crux of his monstrosity.

  He waved her out.

  Collapsing at his desk, he heaved the breath out of his lungs and buried his head in his arms, Kalorn’s words ringing in his head.

  Nerve trauma, brain damage, possible paralysis ...

  You’re as fine a killer as any I’ve heard of. You know what you’re doing.

  Then he stopped thinking completely.

  Hours, possibly only minutes later, he sat up, his mind empty. There was a new sheaf of papers on the corner of the desk. With nothing better to do, he started to read.

  "I'm not saying we won't go to war. I’m saying that we need time to rebuild first and consider where we stand. Lord Telyra murdered those nearest and dearest to me, by his own hand, from all accounts. I have every cause to loathe him, as much as any of you. I’d much prefer a world without him and a city united, but Lord Telyra did not cause us the grief we are suffering today. He proposed and carried out three successful, bloodless years of truce before my father broke that truce and brought the consequences down on us all—including himself. I love my father, but his lack of faith cost him his life, and it killed my brother.

  “If Telyra gives us a chance ... I think we should consider giving him one."

  Blood roaring in his ears, he released the paper before he crushed it, hands shaking. He felt like he’d been trampled by a horse or like someone had lit the desk on fire—but what was burning were his reservations.

  "Roselia Loren,” he said softly.

  It was all he could manage. Outside, through the narrow slit of the window, the constellations shimmered.

  One thing he was certain of, and that was that this city was poison. Hope was a narrow window.

  He recalled his conversation with the dryad in the forest not four days before. It felt like a month since he had seen her.

  (“No one wants to think he's being controlled by something he doesn't understand. I—wasn't always like this. Violent tendencies perhaps ... but not ...")

  A wild, unspeakable hope surged in his mind, coalescing out of the disorder of the night and the rare opportunity in front of him—and with it a desperate, suicidal idea.

  Snatching a clean sheet of paper, he started to write.

  Another break like this might not come again. It was now or never.

  What's Rizaq going to say. Oh hell—

  An hour later, he finished, snapping open the bottom drawer. There were about a decade's worth of meteorological notes in there. The key charts were already collated.

  Digging deep, he withdrew the stack of sloppy pictograms—Julia's work, dated in his hand—stuffing them into a broad envelop, depositing the letter last. He was just sealing the package and addressing it when she knocked on the open door.

  "Come in," he said, setting down the envelope.

  She strode straight across to him and hoisted herself up on the corner of his desk, her right arm cradling the broken left in its sling.

  Hesitantly, he held up his hands and clasped her shoulders.

  "It was an accident," he said as she flinched, counting on years of callous boasts otherwise to prove his sincerity.

  She nodded. "I know. Master, the horse, it spooked. It wasn't your—"

  "That's not what I meant. I meant it was an accident—and it was my accident. I was … scared. That place ..." he broke off. "That place was where I woke up the day I found myself with this." He indicated the circlet. "I don't remember how I got there. I remember fighting, the night before—after that … just … nothing. The next morning ... I woke up sprawled in the woods with a headache, staring up at the Wall. And this rolled up to me out of the bushes, covered in my mother's blood.

  "I broke your arm. Not the horse. I just couldn't have you there in that place—that place is wrong. That was the day my life was ruined forever. I was trying to protect you. And a piss poor job I did of it."

  "It's okay, really. Kalorn says it'll probably heal fine."

  “Does it hurt—?”

  “Only when I move it, really.”

  “And it really is not the first time?”

  “No Master.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Are you?”

  “Truly.”

  She shook her head, smiling sadly, and reached for his cheek. He closed his eyes, accepting the gift of her touch. He didn’t deserve it, and both of them knew it, but he leaned into her hand gratefully.

  “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t do it again,” she said, her voice still gentle. “But you will. So don’t.”

  He pushed her hand down tenderly, placing it in her lap.

  I’m trying. This time I’m really trying.

  He didn’t say it. There was no point.

  "… I … need to ask you a great favour. I need ..." He handed her the envelope, closing his eyes. "I need you to take that ... out of the gate, around the mountain, and into Talystasia West. Gulthor will accompany you at dawn as far as the enemy gate. You are to place that envelope directly into the hands of Roselia Loren."

  "Lady Loren!” She gasped. “How am I supposed to do that—? And why me? Why can’t Gulthor come in with me …?"

  Because I’m killing you, one day at a time. Because you carry the marks of my inhumanity—and the last proof of my humanity.

  But he could hardly tell her that, could he?

  "You've proved your loyalty to me and I know that I can trust you. Gulthor has other things to do, as does Rizaq, and I don’t trust anyone else to accompany you. And as I said earlier today, it's not like you're going to run away. The contents of that envelope are for no one's hands and no one's eyes but Roselia Loren’s. I'm sorry to ask this of you after the past couple days—"

  "But why me? There're other people that—"

  "It has to be you. Please don’t ask me why. Now here is some money—the seal on the envelope is your permission to be out—you should be fine. Come back straight away after you've finished, with or without an answer from Roselia Loren, and find me. I don't care what time of day it is, or where I am or what I'm doing. Bang on my bedroom door in the middle of the night if you have to."

  "Okay," she said in a mystified tone. "I guess I'd best be getting some sleep then."

  He shrugged. "I'll see you when you get back."

  She slipped off the desk. "Right then—see you then."

  She waved then, like she was going far away. Which he supposed she was. As far as she’d ever been.

&
nbsp; After she left, he gazed tiredly outside. The ubiquitous clouds were already settling back into their familiar lodgings. The last stars blinked out—but not in his heart.

  "… You're going to get your chance, Roselia Loren.”

  ~~~

  When Rose arrived to her bedchamber that night, she wasn't terribly surprised to see Lieutenant Costellic standing guard. He’d slept the rest of the evening, and now she knew why.

  She stopped, unsure of herself, wondering whether she wanted someone else to replace him.

  "My Lady ..." he started, staring vacantly at the wall across from him. "I think ... it happens sometimes, in times of calamity, one feels as though one must carry the weight of the world. Constantly you ask yourself, 'Am I a good person? Am I doing the right thing? Can I live with myself?' And the catastrophe suddenly seems a part of you, even though it happened to you.

  “It keeps you up at night as though it were your choice, as though the entire world is an extension of you, because you realize that you alone are going to bother trying to keep it all from falling to pieces. Which means in effect if you are to care, the catastrophe is your responsibility, even if it wasn’t your fault. In the end, that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?"

  He fiddled absently with the spear next to him, still engaged in his stare-down with the wall.

  She blinked several times. "Are you telling me this because ... you think it's like that for me?"

  "No. I just thought it might make you feel better to know it's like that for me."

  XII: A Narrow Window

  Pale morning light glinted off of dust particles. The flecks swirled lazily in front of the sketches on the study walls; the eddy of movement seemed to stir the battling charcoal figures to life. Lady Loren's voice drifted abstractedly through a rustle of paper.

  "... We really must schedule you for some sleep, Costellic."

  "Oh, I'll sleep," he mumbled, yawning widely.

  "When?"

  "I slept six hours yesterday,” he pointed out. “… More than adequate.”

  "There's no need for you to sit here, you know." She looked up from behind her desk. "I can manage my own appointments perfectly well on my own. You're not doing anything anyway, except dosing in my chair." She lifted the corner of her mouth in a half-smile.

  "I’ll sleep after … what is it we’re doing today?”

  She laughed, pointing accusingly. “You forgot! You are exhausted. I'm going back to Harmony to help return tax money to the poor—”

  “Ah, right.”

  “—after I keep my father's appointments. Apparently Cloin Dans—one of Father's old aides—moved all of his old appointments. Which there's only ... hmm—one of this morning."

  "Right. After that. I'll sleep then."

  "Don't you have ... you know, command things to do—? If you're tagging along with me all the time, who's running my army?"

  Who was running the army? Hell, even he wasn’t sure. He’d climbed higher and faster than he’d expected, and he was dizzy from the ascent.

  All because Andreas Telyra inconceivably came and went.

  His head slumped over the back of the chair, his unfocused gaze on the ceiling. "Everything is under control. All delegated."

  "But what is 'everything'? What exactly are you doing?"

  It was amazing he’d found the time to meet with Palianov since this started—Palianov, who was none too happy with him.

  "... Reforming our training practices and tightening discipline. It’s a mess. Rampant alcoholism and bad behaviour ... I'm talking about pranks, un-gentlemanly behaviour with the ladies and the like. We're also looking into importing a weapon that could make swords and spears obsolete. It's quite new though, quite experimental." He smiled smugly.

  "Oh?" The documents stopped rustling.

  "Who do you have to meet with?"

  She crinkled the corner of a paper, pushing it aside, and crinkled her nose at just the same time.

  Corin suppressed a chuckle, but was unsuccessful at swallowing his smile.… That’s adorable.

  "Adar Sovin?” She shrugged uninterestedly. “... A representative of some religious order.”

  “Which?”

  “The ‘Shadowfire Cult?’” Another indifferent shrug. “I'm thinking about cancelling some of these, but it's a bit late for that today. I can't find the relevant documentation, and I’ve never heard of these people. It’s an administrative mess in here."

  He snorted. “Who calls themselves a cult?”

  “Perhaps dodginess is good for business. Father used to do these things in the Great Hall on his throne, but I don't think that's really my style.” Her brown eyes sparkled, the same colour as the wood grain in the walls. “So I'm going to do my meetings in here."

  "Then you do need me," he maintained. "To protect you. This Adar Sovin could be an assassin."

  "I do have other guards, you know. It's a bit silly—"

  "They're useless," he retorted. "That's why we're reforming the army."

  "I'm sure—"

  "I could kill you right now! What’re you going to do? Guards! Guards!” he quipped loudly.

  Coolly, unruffled, she pushed a curl of her ebony wig behind her ear. "Don't do that.”

  "Do what?"

  "Be evil.”

  "I'm not being evil, I'm being practical and honest—I'm pointing out your vulnerabilities and my abilities in an effort to explain to you the usefulness in keeping me around. Your guard probably left on a piss break! This is the kind of incompetent shit—"

  "Your honesty and pragmatism are two of the reasons I am keeping you around. I don't entirely trust you, but I can almost believe in your good intentions. As it is, you have a strange way of expressing yourself sometimes, and frankly I can see why you didn’t advance.”

  “I did advance.”

  “I’m talking about before!” she snapped, her tone ripe with danger. “I did my homework on you. There wasn’t a whole lot of it.” She smirked. “But I sense great integrity in you.” She shook her head. “… God knows why.”

  “… Right.”

  “Neither one of us is going to die just because you decide to take a nap. So stop worrying."

  He laughed sulkily, but felt himself glowing all the same.

  She sees ‘great integrity’ in me. God knows why … But God knows I’m thankful for it.

  "I'm no good,” he censured himself. “… I'm pretty sure of that.”

  "... Why do you do that?" she asked softly.

  "Do what?"

  "Be defensive."

  "Do I?" he asked, bemused.

  "Yes," she answered gently. "You were defensive twice there. 'I could kill you right now ...’” she scoffed, “and ‘I'm no good.’ Really, what is that? You don't need to be like that."

  She jerked as if to clear a space on the desk, then paused with the papers still in her hands, her face falling.

  "Do you think my uncle deserved to die …?"

  This mean right turn was so abrupt he nearly choked when he tried to swallow. He gawped at her, his mouth dry, utterly dislodged from his false sense of security.

  "I … don't think nature took that into account," he answered circumspectly.

  "I didn't ask you if it was his time," she insisted, her voice tightening. "I asked you if you think he deserved to die."

  … And, back to bullshitting. He sighed. They might have common ground, but it was certainly going to be a long time before they found any sort of comfortable footing. And it might only get worse in the meantime—that too was a likelihood. How long could he let the lies pile up like this, one on top of another, before they all toppled down?

  "My Lady, as I said, nature didn't cast that judgment. He didn’t get cardiac arrest because he was good or bad. What more is there to say?"

  Lady Loren took a deep breath, bringing her hands down impatiently on the desk. "Okay. Setting aside nature’s objectivity—do you think he deserved his fate? It's a simple question. It's not an accusat
ion. I just want to know what you think."

  "... I don't know. It's hard to say if he would've killed you for the throne. The evidence certainly was pointing in that direction. Either way, he was a threat to your power—" Oh go on. Fucking take a stand.

  “So yes,” he finished declaratively.

  "… Or yours."

  He narrowed his eyes, but Lady Loren’s elegant features were soft, her face so serene and open that it was hard to imagine he was being interrogated.

  Some people in history had ruled through their looks—and she could have—but perhaps her greatest power was her own apparent ingenuousness. It must certainly be feigned, at least in this moment, but it was wonderfully convincing, and he couldn’t help but want to trust her.

  If only she could do the same.

  "My Lady ... I make no attempts to manipulate you,” he said. “That I hold power now is at your grace, not at my insistence. I would step down if you asked it."

  … And he would. The revelation stunned him. All these years of tedious effort, of feeling lost, of not knowing where to begin, had finally amounted to something. And here he was, ready to give it all up, the culmination of that long battle for clout—and its terrible cost—all for her, this woman he hardly knew.

  A couple of days ago, amid the bedlam, it would have been all too easy for her to dispose of him had she wanted to. But not today; in a power struggle between the two of them, either might emerge victorious. Her relatives despised her though. Chary though he was, he was fairly certain that gave him the advantage—anywhere outside this room.

  But here between them, it was different.

  He wished it were as clear to her as the dust in the sunbeams, paving an unambiguous golden path between them, and he wanted very much to say these things, but he couldn't bring himself to break the truce of silence, to give definitions to the boundaries of their pact. He knew that she too must always return to the scene of the crime: Garret Delvorak bleeding out at his feet, the bloodied murder weapons clutched compulsively in his hands.

  He could come clean about it all, try to explain why he was here, what he’d done, and what he hoped to accomplish. It might make her feel safer.