The four diplomats and the King picked sporadically at a pleasant looking brunch of many cakes, fruits, and smoked fish and toasts. They sipped braiberry bubbly and exchanged mumbling conversations and stacks of papers around the table, as the Elementals filed off to stand against the walls, four on each side of the table. At Strelzar's cue, they all stood completely erect, feet together, hands clasped firmly behind their backs, and stared straight in front of them. With all of them in their uniforms, adopting the same stance, they looked very impressive.
Strelzar was right. Matching worked, she thought with a smirk, but hid it quickly.
“Commander, Lieutenants, Elementals,” Browan said, “thank you for joining us.”
Veria nodded but did not say anything. She refused to look at the table. She knew Andon was likely glaring at her with disdain or something like it. And she didn't think she could bear to lock eyes with the King after the previous night's revelations.
“We have been discussing the reports from Tal'lea, from the Villicreys, and Sir Merrow and Greggen's reports from Esperan,” Browan explained.
“Tensions are extremely high in Tal'lea,” Willis chimed in. “We are on decent terms with the King himself, but his diplomats are less certain, given the trade issues, and his advisers insist they have no intentions of attempting to curb the Separatist movement themselves.”
“And if another Kingdom sent forces in to deal with them?” Browan asked.
“They would see it as war. Any foreign troops on their soil,” Andon answered. “They see the attack at the border as an act of war, even though it appears to have been carried out by rogues, and targeted a common enemy.”
“We can't seem to get through to them on the matter,” Willis said with dismay. “They have very strict feelings about what constitutes war and aggression, and much of it doesn't make sense to me.”
“They feel the trade sanctions were aggression, they feel that reinstating the Elemental Guard was aggression,” Andon listed off.
“What?” Greggen snapped. “The Elemental Guard doesn't have anything to do with them.”
“It does have to do with them if the group of radical militants they allow to run free across their land were behind the attempt on my life,” Browan said. “They have to get this under control on their own if they are not going to let anyone else help them.”
“I agree,” Greggen and Andon said together.
“So, they either need to be persuaded to take matters into their own hands,” Browan ordered, “or be convinced to be more receptive to foreign involvement. Greggen, is King Henetro on board to aid against the Separatists, if needed?” he asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Greggen confirmed. “The Esperan diplomats have also offered to host an international peace council, if necessary. Peace is their number one priority, as you know. They would much rather see this solved diplomatically than with military, but they will always aid us when they support the cause.”
“Willis, Andon,” Browan asked. “Do you think this peace council could be the appropriate channel to try and convince the Tal'lean diplomats of our goals?”
“I think it's as good as any,” Willis replied.
“The added perspective from other representatives besides my father and I, and besides Londess, may be enough to bring them around,” Andon added.
“Then I suggest we organize this Peace Council at once,” Browan ordered. “Can it be scheduled to begin in two weeks' time?”
“Tal'lea will have to travel the farthest to reach Esperan. By sea it's just around a week, so I believe so,” Greggen said.
“Good,” Browan said. “You three will go, Sir Merrow, you will stay with me and give me reports on the progress.”
“Your Majesty,” came Andon's voice, “the Tal'lean diplomats are quite concerned about the hard elemental issue. As I said before, they are offended by the reinstatement—”
“Of course,” Browan cut him off, “we need to put their minds at ease. Better our chances of breaking through to them. Take one of the Elementals with you.”
All of them snapped their heads to the table briefly before quickly going back into their stances, staring straight ahead.
Abruptly, Raken jumped out of line and addressed the table. “Your Majesty, Lords, sirs,” he said, “my wife and I are expecting our first child. I humbly request that neither myself, nor Pascha, be required to attend the Peace Council.”
“Fair enough,” Browan said.
“Congratulations!” Willis uttered happily.
“Thank you, my Lord,” Raken said, bowing and rejoining the line.
“Lieutenant Ladny would be a vital resource for communication back to you, King Browan,” Greggen suggested.
“Yes, a vital communication resource he is, which is why I much prefer to have him on my side of things,” Browan said. “If you want the best representative of the standards and objectives of the Elemental Guard, than you want none other than Commander Laurelgate herself.”
Veria's stomach flipped nervously, but she didn't not react.
“Oh, no, we couldn't possibly take your Commander,” Andon politely argued.
Of course he didn't want her to go, Veria thought with resentment.
“Madame Livida has an extensive knowledge of the Tal'lean conflicts, and previous Consortium led diplomatic councils,” Willis offered, “given her time as an official historian under Strelzar Plazic.”
“Then wouldn't it stand to reason that Strelzar Plazic also has an extensive historical knowledge?” Strelzar quipped, without looking at the table. “Not to mention that he lived it.”
“Good point,” Browan said curtly. “Well, there you have it, gentlemen. Those two are the leaders. If you want to make the best impression on foreign diplomats, I suggest you take one of them.”
“Well, no one likes Strelzar,” Greggen groaned. Strelzar laughed in his throat next to Veria, and she caught a smirk on his face from the corner of her eye.
“I would relish the opportunity to have another Mager at the council with a similar skill set to mine, and Commander Laurelgate does,” Willis reasoned. “Another person acting as a verifier is not anything I will every turn down.”
“I trust your judgment to the ends of the world, Lord Willis,” Greggen said. “Lord Andon? Is this acceptable?”
“Of course, Greggen,” Andon said.
Veria felt the lie sizzle and spit like flames inside the front of her head. In her darkened, twisted mood this morning, she couldn't help but laugh through her nose, and Strelzar seemed to be stifling giggles next to her, as well, his stomach tightening and his lips pursed together to keep the laughter from escaping.
“Commander Laurelgate, is this suitable for you?” Browan asked her over his shoulder.
“Yes, sir, Your Majesty” she answered, continuing to look straight ahead.
“Fantastic, gentlemen,” Browan said. “Sounds like we all have a lot of work to do to prepare for this Peace Council, and I am confident it will yield impressive results. Dismissed.” He said, and the diplomats rose from their seats, grabbing their papers and exiting the room with short, respectful bows to the King.
“Elemental Guard, you are dismissed, as well,” Browan said as he stood from his seat and addressed them. “A word with the Commander, if you please.”
Veria exchanged a quick glance with Strelzar before he led the rest of the Elementals from the dining hall, then she approached Browan slowly.
“I came by your room this morning,” he said once everyone was gone. “To check on you. To apologize, I suppose. But, you weren't there.”
“I was in Strelzar's room,” Veria stated plainly.
“I am aware,” Browan said. “Anyway, I just wanted to check and make sure you were alright. And it seems that you are, so I shall bother you no further.”
Veria had no response, not really wanting to talk to him at all, knowing that every moment she was around him made it more and more likely that she would erupt into a raging inter
rogation about why he had her kill Cadit Ohren.
“Well, here you are,” Browan said. “Just returned from a month-long recruiting trip, now heading back out for the Council in less than two weeks. How about you take some time off and go spend some time at home with your mother and Irea before you head to Esperan?”
“Thank you,” Veria said, nodding.
“My pleasure,” Browan said, distantly. “You are dismissed.”
Veria left the dining hall and went back to her room in the barracks to pack for her visit to Longberme. Strelzar sat in her den, waiting for her, as usual.
“I listened to him while the discussion of representatives was going on,” Strelzar said.
“You have to stop doing that,” Veria warned. “He's going to find out and be angry, and he already doesn't like you.”
“You have no idea...” Strelzar grumbled. “He wanted them to choose you. That's why he suggested you. Twice. He's sending you away because he thinks we're sleeping together.”
“He's separating us?” Veria asked, cocking her head.
“He's punishing us. Again,” Strelzar replied with a nod.
“So, him letting me have time off to visit home before the Council has less to do with being thoughtful and more to do with getting me away from you as soon as possible?” Veria posed rhetorically.
“My vast sum of wealth is on 'yes',” Strelzar said with a nod.
“Well, there's no such thing as separating the Twin Dragons,” Veria said, pulling up her sleeve to reveal her bronze talisman bracelet with a smirk.
“My thoughts exactly,” Strelzar said, lifting his arm so his sleeves fell away to reveal his matching cuff, brandishing it in front of him with a devilish grin. “Also, Birdie, you may want to be careful with that Andon fellow.”
“Ha!” Veria laughed. “I'm sure he'll just avoid me and glower at me through the entire Peace Council.”
“I wouldn't be so sure of that,” Strelzar said slowly.
“Why is that?” Veria asked. “Listening to his desires, too? I bet they went something like this: 'I really, really desire to be nowhere near Veria Laurelgate for the rest of my life.”
“Well, yes,” Strelzar replied, “but not because he hates you. I mean, he wants to hate you, but he doesn't.”
“I don't know what you mean,” Veria said, grabbing a satchel from her wardrobe and beginning to pack.
“I don't know either,” he said with a shrug. “I'm just telling you what I heard. He doesn't hate you, but he wants to. And he doesn’t want you going. So, my guess is he doesn't think he can be around you.”
“He's been around me many times over the past year,” Veria said, “and hasn't shown the slightest bit of interest in me at all. I went to his announcement ceremony right after I left Plazic Peak, and he did not utter a single word to me.”
“The night he got engaged?” Strelzar asked.
“That's the one,” Veria said, stuffing some nightgowns into her bag. “Where I blacked out from bubbly and met King Browan.”
“Your life is strange, Birdie,” Strelzar sighed. “Very, very strange.”
- XII-
The waves slapped the sides of the ship, and just when Veria thought she had found her balance in the rocking, it would lurch beneath her and send her stumbling to the opposite side of the small quarters. She struggled to change out of her uniform and into her nightgown with the constant sway of the ship. Finally, with the nightgown on, she lunged over to her cot and flopped down, hoping a recumbent position would ease the dizzy, seasick feeling she'd had all day. Regrettably, it didn't.
She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, distracting herself with reminiscence of her almost two week break at home. Irea had turned into a little girl in her absence, toddling on her two tiny feet all over the estate, a full head of curly black hair that Tanisca had braided little flowers into each morning, but Irea had ripped out in favor of letting her curls loose in her face by every afternoon.
She was, laughably, to Veria at least, defiant to Grandma Tani, and stubborn to nearly everyone else. Veria knew she hadn't been setting a good example by laughing every time Irea directly disobeyed Tanisca with an emboldened and provoking look on her tiny round face, but she had laughed anyway, much to her mother's chagrin.
And, though her mother had been overjoyed to see her and see that she was getting some rest and time away from her post, almost everything else about Veria's visit was to Tanisca's chagrin. Veria had been extremely tight-lipped in her conversations with Tanisca, not wanting to let anything slip out as a lie or a cover up, thus letting her mother onto the entirety of the Twin Dragons situation, or the fact that Browan had made her kill Cadit Ohren. Tanisca had seemed just as interested in finding out the truth about her late husband as anyone else after she had thought there was a chance. Veria couldn't bring herself to let her down in that regard. Not yet.
Veria's silence and refusal to share details about her time in the castle had infuriated Tanisca, but Veria insisted it was better if she not know, which had caused Tanisca to fret quite a bit that Veria had been placed in a lot of danger.
“Of course I have, Mother!” Veria had laughed. “I'm a bodyguard for the most influential man in the world. And I received my post by almost dying. I'm not sure what would make you think I wouldn't be in danger. But I can take care of myself.”
“Oh, trust me, I know you think that,” Tanisca had griped, rolling her eyes. “You tell everyone all the time.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better,” Veria had said, “Strelzar keeps a pretty careful watch over me.”
“Oddly, it does,” Tanisca had said. “You two aren't—”
“No, Mother. No.”
Veria jumped and was dragged out of her thoughts by the sound of the floor creaking outside her open door. A shadow angled across the planks. She sat up in the cot, and could barely make out Andon's face in the glow of his lantern.
“You are not sleeping,” he stated.
“People sleep on these things?” Veria joked, standing up from her cot, immediately resuming the constant stumbling dance she seemed unable to escape on the ship.
“You are lucky, Lady Veria, that our voyage is just to Esperan, and therefore a short three days,” Andon said, taking a few steps into her quarters and smirking. “It takes a week to travel to Tal'lea, by sea, and two weeks on land.”
“You don't say,” Veria muttered.
“I'm surprised you have not scouted Tal'lea in your recruitment travels, my Lady,” Andon said quietly.
“You can drop the Lady, my Lord,” Veria said, after some silence.
“Ha!” Andon laughed out loud. “If you are going to call me Lord, then I will certainly continue to call you Lady, my Lady. You are still the Ladyship of the Longberme Estate, are you not? I am not sure what else I would call you.”
“You should call me Commander Laurelgate,” Veria replied.
“Oh...Commander,” Andon smiled. “That sounds very official.”
“Well, I am officially the Commander of His Majesty's Elemental Guard.”
“Ah, I see,” Andon nodded slowly and surveyed her carefully.
She felt her brow furrow as she tried to understand his tone.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
Her ears prickled and the ship lurched down, sending her stumbling into Andon, who, seemingly unaffected by the turbulent seas, grabbed her by the elbows and steadied her. She brushed him off quickly, and shot him a disapproving glare.
“What? I cannot even touch you to keep you from eating a wooden plank for dessert?” he laughed.
“No, but you cannot lie to me,” she snapped.
“Ah. That.”
“Yes, that. So please, do tell me what is on your mind, since it is certainly not nothing.”
“You do not want to hear it,” Andon growled.
“I hear quite a few things I do not want to hear, and I have managed to survive,” she retorted.
“I just think it is an awfully official title,” he shrugged.
“And so are yours,” she argued. “Ambassador Villicrey, Lord Guyler, whatever you want to call yourself.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You belittle me. You have two titles, as well, apparently. So what is the matter with mine—they are not good enough for you, Commander?”
“I said no such thing,” Veria defended.
“I was good enough for you without them.”
“Well, then maybe that is the problem here.”
“I did not realize that you had a problem with the fact that I am on the same level as you now,” Andon said, taking a step toward her.
“I never thought there were levels!” Veria protested, her volume rising beyond her control. Her heart pounded anxiously as he closed the space between them.
“Oh, so that is why you became the King's pet, then? Because there are no levels—”
Before he finished, she let her hand fly across his jaw. The heat from the contact with his cheekbone stung and spread rapidly.
After the initial shock, Andon glared at her with an anger she had never seen. They locked eyes, and stared in silence, save for their breath and the slaps of waves against wood.
“Are you sure you want to go starting a fight with a man on a ship, Commander?” he taunted. “You do not have any of your precious dirt and stones around to save you.”
“Wood has plenty of Earth energy,” Veria said quietly. “And I wasn't starting a fight. Just giving you what you deserve.”
He lunged at her, pinning her against the wall of her quarters by her shoulders. He breathed hot, ragged breath in her face and trembled with anger.
“What I deserve? What I deserve!?” he snarled, his forehead nearly pressing against hers. “What have I ever done to you to deserve poor treatment? Tell me that!”
His hands crushed against her shoulders, but she did not try to fight his grasp.
“You left,” Veria answered in a whisper.
He pulled away as if he had been slapped in the face a second time, and looked just about as angry. He sputtered unintelligible half words, trying to find an argument, until he had worked himself into such frustration that he lunged at her again, grabbing her face and pressing himself completely against her.
The Twin Dragons: Book III in the Elementals Series Page 11