My mother used to tell me stories of the old gods. Rhadis. Khetrix. Elphion. Onara. I struggled to stay awake those nights, fighting the ever-growing weight of my eyelids, struggling desperately to make it through just one more tale, wanting nothing more than to ride upon their victories and battles till morning light. It was engrained in me from childhood that one day I would join them, not as a supplicant before a deity but as a deity myself. That was what it meant to be Cairn, son of Gil, descendent of Thotar himself. When I crossed into the afterlife, the watcher would see the purity of my bloodline, the value of my very soul, and welcome me into Valhalla. I was the recipient of a noble gift. All I had to do was die honorably in battle.

They lied.

The day I died started innocently enough. Stepmother was buzzing around like a common maid, tossing clothes around, holding them up, clucking her tongue, and then putting them back.

“Oh, why don’t we have anything for you in purple. You look so dashing in purple,” Genevieve fretted. I pulled the covers over my head, hoping that if I just ignored her, she’d go away. The sound of fabric swishing continued, capitalized by little staccato sighs. Infuriating.

I threw the blankets off with a flourish and sat up. She was somewhere near the back of the closet, managing to completely disappear within the expanse of dyed wool and cotton.

“I’ll find something appropriate,” I said, barely managing constrained civility. “It’s a coronation, mother, same as the rest. The crown is passing from father to son.”

“It is historic. Don’t talk about yourself like you don’t matter, darling.” She crossed the double door gap to the other side to further bother my garments. “You’re a prince, and more importantly, my darling boy. I’m just going to give you a few options to pick from. I know how you get.”

When I finally return to the Pantheon in the afterlife, I believe simply surviving my stepmother will rank chief among my accolades. You would be hard-pressed to name a person more needling or generally bothersome. The contrast between my parents was almost comical. Father, a living legend. He united Silodan under a single flag. He fought in countless wars, slaughtered armies, subjugated rebellion and established peace.

Then there’s my stepmother, whose achievements include teatime diplomacy, picking outfits, and the vice chair—yes, you read that correctly, the vice-chair—of the Noble Ladies Book Club. The logic never ceases to confound. It’s not as if there were no better options. Whitefall had plenty of strong warriors, male and female. Tournaments had become more fierce and less gender segregated. King Gil had his pick of plenty of viable, superior matches. Yet, he chose her. Genevieve. Perhaps after all his accomplishments, my father just wanted something… simple.

“Don’t say it.” Mother warned. She had shifted from her nattering to watch me from inside the closet.

“Say what?”

“Whatever it is you’re thinking. You always look all squinty right before you say something nasty.”

“Such cruel, baseless accusations.” I feigned hurt.

Mother sniffed, managing to sound affronted and apathetic simultaneously, before continuing her work. “You know, the sooner you stop mooning over that girl-“

“Enough.” Anger rose in my throat like hot bile. I rose from the bed and pushed past her into the closet, grabbing the first thing that didn’t look overly frilly and tossing it on, ignoring her cry of protest and cloying fingers.

“Don’t forget the offering for tonight!”

They’d always been like this, my parents. It wasn’t enough that they ruled all of Siladon. No, that would be too simple. They had to dominate every aspect of our lives. I stalked down the hallway, servants and other lessers scurrying out of my way. Everyone suddenly had somewhere better to look and I realized I wore what my younger sister referred to as, “Tyrant Face.” No matter. That worked better for my purposes right now anyway, I’d rather not be delayed from my brusque walk towards the gates. I needed the sort of air that only existed outside the confines of the castle.

Thunder boomed, threatening to deafen anyone in earshot, despite the absence of a single cloud in the sky. Someone yelped in the courtyard. Another flash of lightning, another yelp. I couldn't help but smile. My older sister was “sparring” with the guards again.

The courtyard was a disaster area. Grass scorched black, topped with cherried red embers, burning out only to be immediately reignited. What was astonishing was how little attention the scene was drawing. People walked back and forth along the walkway, barely raising an eyebrow, sometimes pausing when an errant crackling ball of fire was thrown their way, or tossing a dirty look when they caught a proximity shock. Funny how commonplace even the strangest events become, given enough time.

The Guards weren’t doing much, though, that’s likely because they were mostly strewn on the ground, some breathing hard, others completely unconscious. Several chanting priests in the ceremonial Bakhal robes walked among the dozen bodies, occasionally stopping to spritz crimson water across the foreheads of the more “gravely” injured. From my limited knowledge, the water was only latently magic, and the chemical smell that made my head spin from all the way over here was primarily a smelling salt.

Poor bastards.

Sera headed my way, awkwardly attempting to step over an incredibly broad man before giving up, hiking up her robe, and using his chest as a footbridge. My oldest sister pulled her attunement gloves off. She was almost tragically tall, towering over all the women of the castle and most of the men. There was a rumor that had persisted for almost as long as I could remember that Sera was a half-elf. Total nonsense, but unlike many rumors about my sister, there was some logic to this one: her height and magic.

Hundreds of years ago, we thought magic belonged exclusively to the demi-humans. That it was some result of their heritage, or some ability unique to their psychology, or, more heretically, their gods. But as humans began to proliferate across Siladon, the talent began to show up in one in every thousand.

“My liege,” she said with a deep bow, eyes twinkling from my stiff reaction.

“Cut the shit.”

“Ooh, my, aren’t we snippy this morning. Wake up on the wrong side of mother again?”

I looked at her blankly, wondering if she ever fully considered the implications of her words.

“Well, did you?” She pressed. Her cool eyes glimmered in the winter sun.

I stepped past her, making a show of surveying the wreckage. Even the shrubbery was beaten and bruised, leaning pathetically to the side. “I see you’ve been terrorizing the help.”

“Cairn,” she warned, “they are loyal knights, our first and last line of defense.”

I maintained my blank stare, giving her nothing. Finally, we both broke, cracking up beneath the sun-kissed sky.

“Stable?” I asked.

“Stable.”

We made our way through the lower sections to the outer yard and stable. The castle was an architect’s wet dream: sprawling and intimidating, consistently valuing form over function. After a lifetime of existing within the walls the sense glamour fades, and the only remotely interesting thing about it is its various quirks. For example, It’s cold all year long, so snow gathers on the towering roofs, needing only an errant wind to shift loose and come slamming down on some unsuspecting sap. There’s a betting pool for who will be hit next.

Sera shooed the stable hands away and, after one thorough check to make sure we were alone, broke into one of the stalls, pulling out a wine skin with a knowing smile.

“A present for his highness.” She purred. I snatched it away from her with more force than necessary.

“If you keep making dumb little jokes like that, making light of my status-“

“Someone will put it together, yes, yes. There’s no one here. Relax.” Sera stuck out her tongue before reaching out an upturned hand.

“There were plenty of witnesses in the courtyard.” I glared, and took an extra swig out of spite.

“Plebeian!”

“Shrew.”

Sera snatched the wine skin back and held it to her chest like some sort of jealous treasure hunter, then upturned the skin, taking several large gulps while maintaining eye contact. She handed it over casually, as if she hadn't just thrown down the gauntlet. After a moment's hesitation, I took a light sip, deciding to end the escalation there while we both still had legs. My mind slipped away from me, summoning the image it always did of late: brown honeyed skin, chocolate eyes looking down at me through a canopy of chestnut hair—I squinted my eyes shut, frowning.

“Hey,” Sera’s voice cut through the image. Her warm hand was on my arm. Gently, I shifted away from her, and she let go, hand dropping to her side.

“I’m sorry, Cairn.”

“Don’t.” I took a long pull from the wine skin. It burned in a way that good wine never should, but succeeded in clearing my head and incinerating the unwanted image. In that instant of clarity, I looked at my sister. To an outside observer, it might seem like we were great friends. Like we had a solid relationship, a codependent bond of support and commiseration. In truth, we were completely estranged little more than two months ago.

Father drove the wedge in early, figuring if he could turn us against each other, we’d be more competitive, more likely to learn. They were right. But unfortunately, an accumulation of resentment over the course of an entire childhood isn't the sort of thing you just let go of. The only reason Sera no longer hated me was because, on a rare sunny day six months ago, I told her a secret that would alter the course of her life. Still, it meant something to me that she tried: prompting me to open up. Raiding the winery. Treating me like a friend and actual sibling.

It wasn’t real. Still, it felt... nice.

“They’re awful. But they do love us,” Sera said.

“Your problem. Not mine. Not anymore.”

Sera stared at me, her eyes calculating. “It just doesn't seem real. It seems like the sort of thing you'll go back on.”

“You really do take after Father, Sera. Already looking for a way to hold on to something that's not even yours yet.”

There was a snort towards the back of the stable, startling us both. Titan had caught my scent. I chuckled, appreciating the break in the tension. Sera didn’t seem amused, her lips pressed together tightly. I left her to finish off the wine skin and approached the gray and white speckled horse.

A few minutes later, I’d replaced Titan’s oats and combed out his mane. Father had nearly pitched a fit when I picked him from the merchant’s lineup. “There are war horses, and peace horses.” He’d gravelled. “This is a peace horse. Might as well pick yourself a nice fat pony.”

Of course, he was missing critical information. Even then, I was piecing the plan together. The fat and sturdy sort of horse my father preferred would have a better chance against a spear, but I didn't plan on fighting any spearman, and slow horse with a heavyset gait would leave deep tracks and be a complete liability for what came next.

Sera was still grim faced when I returned. She watched me, as if expecting the answer I’d previously denied.

“Since you’re obviously not going to let this go, I may as well tell you the rest of the plan.”

“Oh?” Sera raised an eyebrow.

I motioned her closer to whisper. Maybe a little paranoid, but our resident spymaster had practically the entire staff on a secondary payroll.

I told her the rest of my plan and her eyes went wide.

We spent an hour riding—grudgingly on Sera’s part, she’d never really gotten the hang of it—before a runner came and took her away.

I had just requisitioned a second wineskin from the wine cellar and tipped it skyward when a man in dark robes seemingly appeared out of thin air right beside me.

“My lord,” He said, as if spontaneously generating out of nowhere was entirely reasonable.

I choked. “Elder gods, Thaddeus.” My throat still spasmed from the errant wine. “Someone needs to tie a damn bell around your neck.”

“Very droll, my lord. However, I believe that would impede my purpose.” His voice was coy and simpering.

“I assume you have a reason for being here?” I asked. Even if I didn’t loathe Thaddeus entirely, he was bad company at the best of times: along with being my father’s spymaster he was inherently insidious and disquietingly insightful, a combination I needed to avoid at all costs. Just speaking to him right now was dangerous. He was the sort of person that could stare at you across a cramped room, and accurately guess what you'd done that day based on nothing more than your appearance and disposition.

Thaddeus opened his mouth and closed it, looking over my shoulder. There was a clatter. I followed his gaze to see a man in mercenary grays staggering down the hall, ignoring the planter he had overturned. Uncle Luther passed us and clipped my shoulder, leering through long greasy bangs with an expression that could only be interpreted as hateful and dismissive. I didn’t even bother taking it personally. You could count on one hand the number of people Luther didn’t look at that way, my little sister Annette, and...

Actually, maybe it was just her.

“I do hope—once the throne is yours—that you’ll be retiring that man soon,” Thaddeus said. “He’s an embarrassment to the family.”

“I’ll consider it, spymaster. Will that be all?” I asked.

He blinked at me owlishly and I cursed my nerves, wondering exactly what twisted insight he gleaned from my response.

“There is a matter of some import.” Thaddeus looked around us cautiously.

“Then get to it.”

“I have it on good authority that the elves are on the move.”

Gooseflesh prickled at my skin. “Where?”

“Alabaster Forest.”

Whatever interest I had immediately waned. Alabaster was hundreds of miles from here. It was also a designated Elven reservation. That made it an issue immediately filed in the cross categorization of probably-nothing and not-my-problem.

“They’re elves. They do things in forests,” I said, resuming my walk towards the castle gate. Thaddeus let out a little huff.

“True enough, my lord,” he said in a voice that didn’t lend itself to the sentiment, “but it is more complicated than that. My operative believes they are mobilizing, preparing for an attack.”

If the conversation went on much longer he would start putting things together. I turned and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Thaddeus, my friend, you know I have nothing but faith in you. But there’s a reason you’re talking to me, rather than the current king. What do you need?”

“If it pleases you, my lord, permission to send out a small regiment to scout and serve as deterrent.”

Ah, so that was why he came to me. Father would want all hands on deck for the coronation. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t been in anything remotely resembling a war for the last five years. I could almost hear his voice in my head. “You must project strength. All visitors must see the might of their future king.”

The little insubordination game Thaddeus was playing annoyed me—more that he had read me correctly than due to any real loyalty towards the king—but if I had to choose between irritating Thaddeus or irritating my Father, it wasn’t much of a dilemma. The only tragedy was that I could not do both.

I waved a hand dismissively. “Do it. Send as many as you need.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Thaddeus said, but much to my disappointment, kept stride with me. We walked in charged silence until he finally stopped.

“If I can offer a word of advice, my lord?”

I crossed my arms. “Go ahead.”

“Let us... speak in hypothetical.”

The hair on the back of my neck began to prickle and rise. “As long as it does not belabor the point.”

He smiled, the expression disturbingly out of place. “Let us say, in this hypothetical scenario, I am a prince, and my coronation is imminent.”

“How strangely familiar.” I glanced around. All at once, every person nearby seemed to have disappeared, leaving the hallway vacant.

“Let us also say, for the sake of wild speculation, that I was angry. Enraged even.”

Shit.

It took everything I had to keep my expression blank. A creeping worry built in my chest. How much did he know?

“What’s there to be angry about?” I asked, shrugging. “You’re about to be king.” Thaddeus’s eyebrow climbed higher and I wished I'd said nothing at all.

“But say I was. Imagine, just for a moment that my parents had made a grave miscalculation in their attempts to prepare me for succession. They meant well, but they wounded me deeply.”

“I can’t imagine you’d let your emotions get in the way. In fact, I’m not even sure you have them. Emotions, that is.”

“Of course.” Thaddeus pouts, an image I really could have gone without. “But imagine for a moment that I am a lesser man. It would be tempting for anyone to take advantage of the events to exact some sort of... justice. At the very least, to use the coronation to embarrass them.”

Relief flooded me and I relaxed. He had some sense of the situation but nothing in the way of specifics. This whole interaction had been nothing more than a fishing expedition. Still, something about his manner was questionable.

“A bit dangerous to refer to a king as a lesser man, isn’t it?” I asked him, letting the ice into my tone. “It almost sounds like hypothetical treason, Thaddeus.”

Thaddeus bowed deeply, showing his too-white smile. “I live to serve in the demonstrable, my lord. Forgive this old man the occasional flight of fancy.”

“Think nothing of it.”

I made it a few feet away, quick to put distance between us before an idea struck. “Thaddeus,” I said carefully. “Say I was in the market for some clothes.”

“Clothes, my lord?” His beard twitched.

“I’m a day away from having to be very selective with my outfits. Let's say I wanted to go all out on my last day of freedom. Where in Whitefall should I go if I want to try on everything?”

“Ah.” Thaddeus leaned forward, face over-serious. “I may have a few ideas.”

The next four hours were exhausting. I soaked up the bliss quietly for a few minutes before I leaned over to kiss Illia on the cheek. Reth glowered at me from the other side, so I pushed Catarine’s—I think that was her name—leg out of the way to plant another kiss on Reth’s forehead. It was suddenly tempting to just forget about my coronation and stay the rest of the day—rest of the year even. Say what you want about Thaddeus, the man was a master of two categories, lying and laying.

With a sigh, I navigated the tangle of bodies and staggered off the bed to a cacophony of disappointed cries. Their smoky eyes nearly drew me back, and their enthusiasm was infectious.

“My lord!”

“Don’t leave yet!

“We’re just getting started.”

“You haven’t even sampled the fun side of the menu.”

“Honestly, if we lived in Panthania, I’d take you all as wives my dears. But unfortuantely, this is Uskar.” I leaned down towards Catarine’s head and stage whispered, “We have to at least pretend to be monogamous.”

“Pity.”

I slid my jacket on and buckled my pants. “Mourn me well, new friends, for I go to a place you cannot follow.” My farewell was met with coos and cries and sultry poses, and I took one last long look, hoping to commit the scene to memory.

From there, it was a short skip down the street to the Noble’s Cassock. There my friends bought me drinks while I joked, and japed and tried laboriously to think of them kindly. It wasn’t their fault that their parents were conniving bastards. I tried to think that, in another world, if I wasn’t the heir to the throne, we would all still somehow be friends. Then someone would elbow me chummily and all too casually mention a court appointment or a favor to be named later and the illusion fell to ruin. My father’s words echoed in my head. “A king does not have friends. He has allies.”

Perhaps the only sentiment on which we agreed.

A bard, either incredibly insightful or absurdly lucky, strummed out an instrumental only rendition of The Prince’s Lament. I slid off my stool and approached, the world drunkenly shifting from side to side. The bard raised an amused eyebrow at me and continued to play. Not coincidence, then. Too clever by half. The state of his clothing was ragged, his face dirty and unwashed. A sense of respect washed over me. The Noble’s Cassock was more than a little on the high end of the nose. It followed that this particular bard had played his ass off to get here.

“Greetings to the bard.”

“Regrets to the noble.”

Mouthy. I liked him immediately. Interestingly, he didn’t correct me, meaning he was either unscrupulous or a legitimate bard. Traveling minstrels and troopers were a bronze sliver a dozen in these parts, but actual bards were rare.

I raised my hand with two fingers extended and glanced towards the barkeep, requesting a refill for the both of us. The bard bowed appreciatively, fingers strumming all the while. A serving girl brought out the drinks. Mine was served in the same embellished metal stein I’d been drinking from for the last hour, while the bard’s was brought in a stained wooden mug. I smelled it experimentally and winced, firing a glare at the bartender before switching our drinks.

I took a long pull from the wooden mug, wincing as the acrid taste hit the back of my throat. “Sander been making you drink this piss all day?”

The bard shrugged, played the final chord of the chorus and stopped, reaching to take the traded mug. “Beer is beer milord.” He smelled his new drink and looked delighted, taking a sip, savoring it. “However, hades will melt to a puddle before I ever turn down an Oteron. It’s nice to see that not everyone around these parts has forgotten proper hospitality.” His accent betrayed the fact that he wasn’t local. Certain consonants were elongated in a subtle old county twang.

“And this is the good side of town. Stay out of Topside if you can manage it,” I said darkly, “nothing but sorrow to be found there.”

“Appreciate the advice,” The bard replied, though I suspected he was already aware.

Topside, unintuitively, did not refer to the true north of Whitehall, rather the west. When the city was first established, the castle, mercantile, and educational districts were all constructed first, built closer to the road for easier trade and access. The poorer and less desirable real estate was pushed out to the west. While the east was properly spaced, with a reasonable distance between each building and well-maintained roads, the west was cramped, buildings at the far end jammed up against the mountain itself. Over time, the roads grew smaller and smaller. It was the geographical equivalent of a hangman’s noose. The corresponding unrest and eventual upheaval had been as inevitable as breathing, though my father had crushed it so mercilessly that there hadn’t much noise since the revolt nine years ago.

“How long have you been in the city?” I asked, killing the beer with as much resentment as one could have towards a beverage and signaling for another.

“A week? Give or take a day. With the clouds constantly darkening the sky it’s hard to keep one’s sense of time around these parts.” He plucked a single note on an open string, adjusted the corresponding tuning key, then moved to the next.

“Thank Elphion for the sun today. You think it’s bad now, wait until we get further into winterscrest,” I joked, “eventually it stops being about how cold it is and becomes a question of how long you can stay outside before breathing your last.”

The bard shuddered. “Too much for my summer blood. I'll be long gone by then.” My friends had finally noticed my absence and were shooting questioning glances in my direction. I sighed.

“I should be getting back.”

“It was a pleasure, milord.” There was a hint of something in his voice, but it was too subtle to know for sure if I was being mocked.

“Say, bard?”

“Yes milord?”

“How are you at composition?”

After a brief negotiation, I left him with an invitation to the coronation, a letter of introduction and credit to my favorite local tailor, a promise of a story worth writing songs about, and enough silver to feed him for a year. His eyes had bulged as I placed the silver rods on the table and for once, his laissez-faire attitude slipped. He snatched them away, his gaze panning the room, ensuring no one had seen the magnitude of the exchange. I made a few requests and he happily obliged. My friends all drank their fill and sang along with me. The rest of the nobles noticed and followed suit. For one perfect moment in time, the oh-so-respectable Noble’s Cassock was transformed into a much bawdier establishment, passers-by glancing in, wondering if they had inadvertently wandered into topside.

What none of us realized, was that the division between topside and central would soon be nothing more than a line in the descriptive history of a dead city.