by Skyler Grant
“What do we have on the agenda for today?” I asked, as she sucked in a breath and I struggled to get a fastener bound.
“I’m continuing to play diplomat through the scrying network,” Elsora said. The castle had once been connected via magical crystals to several other major positions of power. Although most seemed to have gone silent, we found some who answered.
“How did you ever get in and out of these dresses before I came along?”
“Largely I didn’t. I don’t have to eat, I don’t sweat. Leosi certainly wasn’t tearing them off me despite my best efforts,” Elsora said with a laugh. “The closest I came was spending a week naked once in an effort to get that man’s attention.”
Right. And I thought she and I had a strange relationship. Moving on.
“Anything coming of the negotiations?”
“We have a shipment inbound from the merchant houses of Theys,” Elsora said. “Progress is slower elsewhere. The castle was a center of the light and you are a total unknown. Until we start making some noise, nobody really has a reason to care about us.”
“Aren’t there all kinds of dark prophecies tied to the castle? I mean, we aren’t exactly bringing suffering to the masses, but surely we’re making a start.” My fingers fumbled with another tiny hook.
Elsora glanced back at me and I saw a smile tugging at one corner of her lips. “You are bedding the curse that destroyed one of the great centers of good in the land. You have raised an army of the undead and butchered the latest incarnation of one of the eternal heroes, and call spiders your closest of allies. Since coming to power you have bathed the land in a cloying darkness lit only by the flames of your fire Goddess. It is a promising start, I can sell that. I am trying to sell that and your reputation. We’ll get there.”
That was a chilling sort of thought and I went still—until she cleared her throat. Right. I resumed the buttoning and was nearing the top. Elsora really did cut an elegant figure, pale skin contrasting with the blacks and greens of her dress in a striking manner.
“So what do we do?” I asked.
Elsora smiled again. She liked being asked that, she liked me feeling afraid and coming to her for advice. That made me wary, but unfortunately couldn’t see any way around it. I didn’t think she was wrong and she seemed the best source for guidance. Had Maria stuck around I might have asked her. She was at least a Queen, but I hadn’t seen her since the death of her father—when she left to find and kill her mother. I finished the last of the fasteners and stepped back.
“I do what I am doing,” Elsora said, as she tossed her hair and studied herself in the mirror. “Let’s get you into your armor. I find every neutral power that will talk to us and prepare to host those more aligned with our cause. We spin everything you do to grow your reputation as well as that of Yvera.”
I splayed my limbs and she began to fix the heavy pieces into place on my arms and legs. Elsora was deceptively strong for her size. I figured that was her demonic origins coming into play.
“Fine then, what do I do?” I asked. “Making certain that things were stable around the castle and growing a bit stronger seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“It was,” Elsora said, attaching my greaves. “You needed to show who was in charge and that you and your companions had all been through an ordeal. But we’re not going to forge an empire out of the natural resources, people, or talent that we have, given we are short on all of these things. Do you trust me?”
I hadn’t expected that degree of frankness, it seemed to warrant some in return.
“Can I? Truly? You aren’t shy in your manipulations.”
“Dangerous thing to say when I’m coming to your codpiece,” Elsora said with a trace of wry humor. “I’m manipulating you, Liam. I’m meant to be Queen and I’m doing what I think is most likely to make that happen. If you get used to me in your bed and ruling from a throne, it will seem natural.”
The codpiece got attached with a bit more force than was necessary and I winced.
“Usually,” I said. “But is that the sort of thing you should really say?”
“Liam, you are quickly going to find out that when you have something others desire, everyone manipulates you. Your friends, your lovers, your enemies,” Elsora said, starting to lecture me. “At best it is two-sided. It is in this case. You need me. You need someone smart, focused, and ambitious working on behalf of the kingdom. Our interests align.”
“That seems a cynical way of looking at the world.”
“Evil,” Elsora said, with a laugh and she brushed a kiss against my jaw. “You want selfless sacrifice, you are playing for the wrong team.”
I had to admit that she was making a lot of sense. She pretty much always made a lot of sense, even when she was talking over my head. I had utterly no interest in getting married and wasn’t planning on it. That hope of hers was a total falsehood. I didn’t say a word, so I guess I was manipulating her, too. I couldn’t help feeling a bit of a jerk about it, but I truly did need her.
“So now that I’ve taken a week to recover, level up, and determine that our interests are aligned…” I said.
“You can move on,” Elsora said. “You know we are surrounded by threats on all sides. Ashley has been pushing you non-stop to go after them. Make some noise.”
“I didn’t know you paid that much attention to Ashley and Walt.” Largely, she seemed to ignore my companions.
“Of course I pay attention to them, they influence you,” Elsora said, as she fiddled with the last strap of my armor, “Ashley is too aggressive and is ruled by her heart, Walt is too timid and is ruled by his head.”
That summary pretty well fitted with my experiences, she really was paying attention. I studied her—I really studied her—and I still couldn’t make up my mind. We were surrounded by threats—spawn campers, as Ashley called them—but to go after them meant someone else ruling in this castle.
Elsora caught me staring and she gave me another one of her tiny and yet surprisingly brilliant smiles. “You are too weighed down by your thoughts.”
“I am,” I confessed. “But I think I just figured out whether or not I can trust you.”
“A subject you won’t let go,” Elsora said, interest in her astonishing, sea green eyes. “Tell me what you’ve decided.”
“I think that I’ve been asking the wrong sort of questions.”
“Then what would be the right ones?”
“You’re lonely, aren’t you? You would have to be, after so long with Leosi and his stubbornness.”
“If you say that you now trust me, because you feel sorry for me, I shall be most cross and start to lecture. And if you in any way try to cast me as a weak figure deserving of your pity, I swear to you that I shall make you regret it.” Elsora spoke brightly, but with a dangerous look in her eyes.
“I’m not that dumb,” I said. “But it’s just… I sometimes try to simplify situations and shouldn’t. We’re allowed to be complicated.”
“I prefer it, in fact,” Elsora said. “Good and evil can be simple, pious cruelty on the one hand and mindless destruction on the other. The more nuanced reflections of each are far more intriguing.”
The conversation was soon to matter far more. A slow pounding shook the door.
CHAPTER THREE
When you need urgent messages delivered you really shouldn’t rely upon the undead. While some of our zombies were of the rapid, leap and tear your face off before you can blink variety, they seemed to have exclusively come from former guards. For whatever reason, the castle staff were the slow and shambling sort.
When I opened the chamber door the figure outside was one such creature, grey flesh and a head tilted at an awkward angle, wearing a unicorn mask. I hated the masks. They’d worn them in the battle to take the castle to help distinguish them from the enemy. When our side proved victorious they seemed to have become something of a uniform.
I think his name was Renalto, although to be honest I wa
s still having a problem with most of the staff names. The only member of the undead I could talk with was the old castle steward Wimbley, who seemed to have somehow kept his ability of human speech. The rest just growled, flailed, and rattled their bones. Elsora spoke their language, of course. Elsora was fluent in several languages and always knew everyone’s name.
Whatever Renalto was saying pissed Elsora off, judging by the way her spine stiffened and her eyes narrowed. She replied, “Get Ashley and Walt as well and have them meet us in the war room.”
Renalto gurgled some more as Elsora gave her and me a once-over, making sure we were suitable for the public. She said, “That was very thoughtful of him. They are already on their way, Wimbley called for them. I don’t like that man issuing orders.”
“He was the Castle Steward in life, and leader of those who fled below. Wimbley is a smart guy,” I said. I found Wimbley a reassuring presence, I couldn’t fault him for his loyalty to Maria and appreciated him not killing us when he’d once captured us.
Renato stumbled off and Elsora stormed off down the hall leaving me following in her wake. “He loathes me, and he is only supporting you because he thinks he can hook you up with the Sardonis brat. He is a loyalist through and through. That will come back to bite you, if you let it.”
That perhaps had some truth to it. When we aimed to take the castle the undead had more chosen to follow Maria than me and I did sometimes get the impression that they were all secretly hoping for her to come back and set everything right. This also seemed a thoroughly secondary concern at the moment.
“Mind telling me why we’re rushing down a hall? It’s not because you don’t get along with Wimbley,” I said.
“I’ll explain everything once we get to the war room. Matters with Wimbley will become clear soon enough.”
The war room hadn’t gotten much use given our lack of any actual wars. A majestic marble table with legs carved in the shape of perched gryphons was supposed to have magical projections revealing perils to the kingdom in wartime. It ran off mana and after centuries of magical shielding the castle batteries were more or less dead. Currently, old and faded maps had been laid out over it showing what I believed was the western shore.
Ashley and Walt were hovering near a snack table. That is exactly what it was—a snack table loaded down with an assortment of beverages and snacks. The castle store rooms had turned up a good supply of preserved alcohol, but sadly snacks always meant various varieties of grilled fungus.
Wimbley was there as well, an unusually well-preserved zombie who managed to be balding and slightly overweight even in undeath. Several skeleton guardsmen stood against the walls.
Elsora glared at the snack table, but made no mention of it as she advanced instead to the war table. “Thank you all for coming. As you may know I’ve been speaking with the merchant houses of Theys and had convinced them to send us a shipment of supplies as a gesture of goodwill towards future trade. These are things we needed—tools to rebuild the walls, foodstuffs, seeds of crops that can thrive even in these dark conditions. Word has come that our shipment was seized just off the coast by pirates.”
Those words hung in the air. I felt anger stirring inside me and a dull echo from my hip where Intemperance hung.
“Fuckers think they can steal from us? We’re the ones that do the looting,” Ashley said.
“Unacceptable,” Walt said.
I tried to focus on something other than feeling angry and asked, “Do you think you can get them to send a second shipment?”
Elsora pursed her lips and shook her head. “I’ve not spoken to them yet, but I’d consider it unlikely. It was difficult to manage the first one, they were willing to take one chance on potential future returns, but they won’t risk a second. It would seem like throwing good money after bad.”
We really needed those supplies.
“We can try to trade with the pirates,” Wimbley said. “Without a navy, what else can we hope to accomplish?”
There was an idea, not that we had much to trade either, unless pirates were just hungering for low-level common goblin gear or fungus. We were limited in our resources.
“I can get you a ship and a crew,” Elsora said to me. “And you can go after these pirates directly.”
“How are you going to find us a ship?”
“I’m going to talk Theys into it. How else? That is not throwing good money after bad, that’s stopping a threat to trade and letting them get a measure of your worth. They’ll bite,” Elsora assured me and I found myself believing her.
“Do we know where the pirates even are?” Walt asked.
“All of our information is a few centuries out of date. Under Leosi piracy was not really an issue and so we don’t have a clue where they might call home. The kingdom’s major port was the city of Vala and we have no reason to assume it is not still there. If anyone should know of piracy in the shipping lanes, it is they,” Elsora said. “You’ll have your royal signet and seals to help inspire cooperation.”
“You expect me to just wander in and proclaim myself their king?” I asked, “I don’t think it will be that easy.”
“I hope you took Charisma last level,” Ashley said.
“No, Awareness.”
“At least you’ll know you’re standing in a fire when they burn us alive,” Walt said, seriously.
Elsora shot us all a warning look that proved surprisingly effective. “You all know the state of the kingdom, you have seen it out there. Cut off from Sardonis Castle the realm has been plagued with monsters and enemies and this port will be no different. You’ll find they are people in a difficult situation. They’ll have fears and greed that you can play upon.”
“Negotiations can do the same,” Wimbley said. “Without you three having to put your lives at risk. Endangering yourselves serves only one purpose—the advancement of others who might seek the throne.”
That was a weighty statement and Elsora’s eyes were glinting.
I said, “It sounds like with either plan I would need to leave the castle and head to the coast.”
“Yes, Majesty,” Elsora and Wimbly said together.
Oh good. They could agree on something.
I glanced towards Ashley and Walt to see if either of them had anything to offer.
Ashley said vigorously, “You know how I’m leaning on this. Let’s pile their bodies high. What’s mine is mine and what’s theirs is mine. Nobody fucks with my loot, somebody needs to bleed.”
“I favor negotiation. While it’s true that this port likely wants something, surely the same is true of the pirates?” Walt said.
I rubbed my eyes as I thought. I wanted all my options open.
“Elsora, get us the ship. We may wind up not using it, but I’ll make the determination based on what we find in Vala,” I decided.
Elsora nodded her agreement and cleared her throat. “Which just leaves the matter of your regent while you are away.”
I wasn’t in the least surprised that was coming.
“She is unsuitable, Majesty,” Wimbley said, almost pleading. “I realize that you find her company pleasing, but she is the curse that destroyed this castle. The curse that murdered those she would now command. You know that I have no ambitions towards the throne and seek only the wellbeing of these lands.”
“I killed them all and have a healthy ambition for the throne,” Elsora agreed frankly. “You murdered their king and took the throne. You know what you’re getting with me, Majesty, and that is someone with an interest in you and your rule.”
“Have I told you today that you have really fucked-up taste in women?” Ashley asked.
“I thought you liked her?” Walt asked Ashley.
I silenced them with a look of my own. Elsora wasn’t the only one that could do it.
They both made good points, they truly did. I already knew what my choice would be. Elsora. I don’t think it was just because I was sleeping with her, I didn’t want to be that easy to ma
nipulate or that shallow. I wanted it to be because she was smarter, stronger and more capable than Wimbley, although I might trust him more. Or maybe I was that shallow?
“Elsora will be regent,” I said with as much authority as I could muster. “I know you have issues Wimbley, but you’ll need to put them behind you. In order for this kingdom to have a future we need to leave its past where it is.”
Wimbley looked displeased, but he gave a deep bow. “It shall be as you command.”
I asked Walt, “How are the castle defenses?”
“In terms of the magical ones? Almost useless. I’ve been trying to power things up as best I can, my new portal magic does let me do a bit of that, but it’s like trying to fill up an ocean from a faucet. If need be the interior magical barriers can be raised. In terms of your undead army, they still seem tremendously undead.”
Elsora made a noise.
“Yes?” I asked.
“I did murder the original army defending the castle when I took my place at Leosi’s side,” Elsora said. “My mists are elevated, but not gone. I’d not worry too much about security while you are away.”
I looked her up and down. Petite and blonde, and very well dressed in a gown damnably hard to get on her—and a murderer of armies. Sometimes I did let myself forget just who and what people are. I vowed to remember going forward that the most beautiful things in nature were usually the most deadly.
I felt a sharp elbow jabbing me in my side. Ashley wasn’t saying a word, but she knew where my thoughts had been heading and was putting an end to them before they even formed.
I appreciated that, I was a bit prone to questioning my decisions already made, rather than figuring out how to make them work going forward. I’d made my choices, and just made another rather publicly. There was no going back.
“Thank you Elsora,” I said. “Don’t be afraid to use your mists if needed and remember that the spiders are our allies to call upon as well. Wimbley, can you see we have supplies prepared for the trip?”