4. Ignis III

I spread my hands out in a warm welcoming gesture, hoping the spike of adrenaline didn't show. “Thank you, everyone, for attending this humble coronation. Transitions of power can be difficult. My dearest father can attest to that personally.” There was a scattering of nervous laughter. The lights directed at this spot on the stage were so bright the faces of the crowd had been replaced with barely visible featureless pink circles.

“I can’t tell you how convenient it is to have all of you in one place. Still, these events can be trying. What helps me get through is to think of it all as a party: you’re made to stand too long, the liquor runs cheap before it runs dry, and some arse prattles on about all manner of things you pretend to care about.” I paused for laughter and it came, much less nervous than before. “Alas, as much as we would all prefer to get to the fun part, that comes later. There are matters that must be attended to. The circumstance demands it. The sacrifice.”

I mimicked the archbishop’s tedious vocal tone and his face fell into a scowl. “King Seraph bequeathed a golden ring, swearing that he would take no wife while he wore the crown. Whitefall prospered. King Tailien the Wise offered up his dagger, a beautiful piece of Chaya steel, but most importantly, a gift from his long dead grandfather. Whitefall prospered. My father.” I gestured to him grandly. “In his boundless wisdom, surrendered his conqueror’s blade, swearing to forgo violence for the sake of peace. And Whitefall prospered.” They applauded, likely as much in relief that he was no longer the king as respect.

“And so, in such hallowed company, the choice now comes to me. No small pressure. I had no idea what to choose. At first, I looked through my collection, searching for the object of highest value. But then, our fairest Queen Genevieve, gave me some advice.” I indicated my stepmother, and her eyes crinkled in a kindly smile. “My dearest mother advised me that fiscal value of the sacrifice was secondary. It needed to be something I cared about deeply. Something that would tear at my heart as I tossed it into the fire. Weeks passed. I meditated, and drank, and searched my very soul until I finally found the answer. Not an it, rather, a who.”

There was a smattering of hushed confusion and the beginnings of alarm. I held my hand out to them kindly. “Calm yourselves. No one’s getting tossed on the pyre today. It’s... metaphorical.”

Still, the nervous energy persisted. I had talked much longer than was proper for this stage in the ceremony, and would talk much longer still. They had begun to sense the hammer in the air, poised to strike down at them.

I shook my head and clasped my hands together at my waist, attempting to don a penitent air.

“To do this, there are reparations and admissions to be made. I made a mistake. My father and mother would prefer I hide this from you, but that is no way for a king to begin his reign. You see, my lords, my ladies, I committed the unspeakable. Worse than theft. Worse than incest—though,” I glance to the left at Baron Argos and his lady wife, both remarkably similar of face, allowing myself to smirk. “Some would argue that is not such a sin amongst nobles so much as an inevitability.” They didn’t laugh that time. Baron Argos puffed himself up and was about to respond, a massive faux pas, but I sprung the trap before he could.

“Worse than murder.”

I turned to my father and, for the first time in my life, allowed him to see the depth of my hatred. His face was closer to purple than red, and his massive hands gripped the bottom of the seat. He would kill me for this, of that there was no question. But I no longer cared.

“I fell in love. That was my sin.”

It was a solemn moment. No one spoke until everyone did, a wave of whispers rushing out so collectively loud they no longer resembled a facsimile of quiet. I saw Annette out of the corner of my eye, hand on her forehead. I couldn’t bring myself to look, but I heard my stepmother crying. The anger and the bitterness nearly overwhelmed me then. She may have not had a hand in it directly, but she had certainly condoned it.

Somehow I reined myself in without lashing out. Instead I searched the crowd for a particular face until I saw him in the back row. I clapped my hands twice. The whispers ceased.

“Bard!” I called and waved to him. All eyes turned towards the back where the bard I met in the tavern was sitting, glancing between me and the door, face twisted in terror, contemplating making a run for it. He gave another look towards the guards and seemed to come to the conclusion he wouldn’t get very far. He stood, the instrument case dangling off his back.

The bard cleared his throat delicately. “Y-yes, my lord?”

“Come.” I made a sweeping motion to my left. “I require accompaniment.”

Whispers shifted into mutterings of righteous indignation. The bard looked toward the exit one last time, as if bidding a final farewell to a dying friend, then began the long walk down the hall to the stage. He arrived and knelt at my side to open the case. As he unpacked, he spoke, barely loud enough for me to hear.

“Will you be singing?” The bard asked, trying to keep his voice from trembling.

“No. Narrating.”

“Accompaniment then. Do you have a preferred chord progression?”

“Whatever feels appropriate.”

“My lord,” the bard said through gritted teeth, “has anyone ever made you aware of the fact that you are a gaping asshole?”

Bard strumming behind me, I told them her story. In truth, I’d brought him up because this was the sort of story I was afraid to tell alone. There’d be far too many moments of quiet and contemplation without the music. It was like trying to tell the story of the sky. Where do you even begin? How do you describe true beauty to those whose very sense of it is counterfeit, derived from the objects they own, calculated from the volume of their treasuries. It is an impossible task. So I could only try, knowing all the while I would inevitably fail.

I told them the story of Lillian Gray. The words were hard at first. I’d been holding them in for the better part of two years. If you were to ask me the beginning of my story, the true beginning of the larger tale I’m telling you now, I believe it all started with her.

Lillian found me stumbling down Gretna avenue. It wasn’t my best look, staggering and concussed, covered in mud, bleeding like a stuck pig from my forehead. She told me later that the blood had trickled down my forehead and into my left eye, dyeing the sclera a hellish pink. Poor girl thought I had the plague.

What I actually had was a combination of the ol’ drunk and disorderly crossed with not looking raggedy enough in topside, which of course resulted in being robbed.

Who would dare rob a prince, you might ask? Well, this was back before my parents gave up trying to curtail my vices, and therefore getting properly drunk was a laborious sequence of events. I had to buy clothes that could pass me as a commoner, ditch my squire, avoid the guards, convince the cook I made a habit of bedding to let me through the servants entrance—usually with promise of seed to be sown later, then put the unknown yet always significant required distance between myself and the castle before my absence was noticed.

Like I said, it was a process.

The topside denizen that cut my purse had made a point of kicking my head a few dozen more times than strictly necessary. I found myself wandering through topside in a fish-bowled haze. My head pounded, my memory was hazy, and every time I thought I was heading the correct way, I’d find I’d walked in a circle instead.

I’ve no memory of speaking to her or even seeing her. All I remember is a set of small hands gently tugging my arm, guiding me through the streets, through countless lefts and rights, supporting me as I stumbled. I remember her voice, a gentle murmur of encouragement that quelled the fear in my gut. My injuries were serious, that was obvious, but I couldn’t bring myself to be afraid. The voice would guide me. Somehow I never doubted that.

The spiraling turns took me deeper into topside until the smell of piss and trash and vomit were overpowered by the spiced scent of freshly brewed medicine. A lopsided sign marked the otherwise unremarkable building: Gray’s Apothecary, a smiling face carved into the wood next to the more traditionally etched font.

My head pounded. I wanted lay down and go to sleep. It had not occurred to me how tired I was until that moment and all I could think of was sleep. But it wasn’t meant to be. She guided me around the back and took me inside, laid me down, and put a cool cloth on my head.

It was only then that I saw her. Truly saw her. If you were to see an artists’ depiction of her you might not think her beautiful. Light of hair, but in practice it was closer to brown from dust and sweat. A button nose that had been broken once, the story told by a horizontal pink stripe of skin marring honeyed brown. More freckles than I could count, and I did try. Deep brown chocolate eyes that held equal depths of kindness and intellect. These are only pieces of the whole, of course. You cannot appreciate the essence of her from merely a picture, you must see that picture in motion.

Lillian treated me with the preciseness of a surgeon. Bathed me. Checked my pupils. In the mornings and evenings she fed me, mainly bread, with bits of meat and vegetables she’d pull from the many pockets of her apron. I only saw her father a few times, a jolly, stocky man whose smiling lips would press together in irritation each time he passed me in her room, for which I could hardly blame him. With this as a clue as well as Lillian’s practiced bedside manner, I had a strong feeling I was not the first stray she picked up off the street.

It was difficult for me to speak. The man that robbed me had tried to finish the job, strangling me until I passed out, making a painful mess of my throat and vocal cords. The gravel you hear in my voice now was not there before the alley. Still, Lillian would talk to me, even as I faded in and out of consciousness. She called me her Tristan, after the handsome court jester who made a mockery of King Illade and stole his wife. I chose to take it as a compliment to my looks, not as a suggestion that I was, in fact, a clown.

No one ever cared for me so selflessly. Not knowing who I was, not plotting or planning for anything in return. After a couple of days, I was well enough to help around the apothecary, though not enough to speak. Grays was a surprisingly busy establishment, and they needed all the aid they could get. Even nobles would send runners down to pick up orders, a rarity for topside. Those three days were like a crash course. What plants grew in the outskirts of the forest were useful. How to prepare an alchemical tincture or powder. Still, not even a fraction of what there was to know about making medicine.

Lillian’s father, Gunther, became much friendlier towards me once I’d established myself as more than an unnecessary drain on his resources.

As I helped around the apothecary and began to hold small conversations, though stilted to not further damage my voice, Lillian’s kindness began to grow into something more. She’d take any excuse to touch me, massaging my arms at the end of a long day, lightly brushing against me in the tight confines of the kitchen.

She seemed to understand I didn’t wish to talk about my life before I met her and stayed away from the topic, but beyond that, nothing was off-limits. We would talk long into the night about everything and nothing. Lillian was incredibly educated for a commoner, thanks to a mix of her own drive and the fact a nearby bookshop owner let her use his establishment as a library in exchange for monthly salve for the man’s feet.

It was too good to last forever. I knew it. But that didn’t stop the ending from coming too soon. We were making the rounds in her wagon to the local shops when a man dressed too well for topside stopped in his tracks and called out my name. My real name. I quickly recovered, but Lillian caught my momentary shock. She was quiet for the rest of the day. That evening, soldiers came to take me back to the palace.

It was over.

Over a month later, I returned to the apothecary with a retinue and a carriage. Gunther and Lillian both emerged from the apothecary bowed stoically, no doubt still angry with me and irritated I’d just scared off their customers for the morning. I called a servant over with a bag of golden rods, having tallied how much I’d have paid for a month-long stay in a high-end inn, and for Lillian I brought books from the royal library. Her eyes glowed then immediately dimmed as she looked at her father. Finally, Gunther smiled his jolly smile, and Lillian ran to me—stopping inches away, realizing our circumstances had changed. She was poor and I was not. She was dirty and I was not.

I didn’t care. I embraced her.

For years, I courted her in secret. Bought her and her father a house straddling the line between Topside and everywhere else. Helped in the apothecary whenever I could get away for a day.

We went on picnics outside the city limits, which extended into weekend getaways in the next town over. I brought in teachers for her in etiquette, dancing, and music. In truth, I intended to introduce her as a noble from a faraway land. I did not want her as a mistress. I wanted her as a queen.

And what a queen she would have been.

The bard struck a minor chord, full of sadness and longing, and my chest clenched. Bringing the bard had been half joke, half flight of fancy. But he was a little too good at his job and it was backfiring.

I buried it.

The entire room sat on the edge of their seats, as if under a spell. I was under no delusions. They didn’t care for my pain, nor for me. It was the gossip they were after. The crown prince dating a commoner. What scandal.

“My king.” Thaddeus’ condescending monotone roused me from my sorrow. He approached the dais, one hand palm out. “I understand that this is difficult. But it is not the time-“

“Silence!” I shouted, gripping the lectern with both hands. There were more than a few cringes in the crowd. “You don’t get to stop this now, spymaster. Not when you play the main role in the next act.”

“Please, my lord,” Thaddeus said. It struck me that he was begging. This was the first time I’d ever heard him beg.

“Sit down, Thaddeus. Or my first order as king will be to part your head from your shoulders.” I said. It wasn’t a joke. At that moment, all it would take was a single push, and Thaddeus’s head would roll. He seemed to sense this and backed away with a cordial bow.

I turned to the audience, and the Bard struck another minor chord.

“Now. Where were we?”

We thought we were careful. That no one outside my inner circle knew. That all my servants were loyal—more importantly, that everyone who met Lillian would love her as I did.

We were wrong. It turned out we were just children playing at espionage, clueless of the real monsters that lie in the dark. Thaddeus was aware of Lillian, what she meant to me. He knew the whole time. But he held off telling Good King Gil, as I was only nineteen, the crown a long way off.

I still remember the morning Lillian rushed out to the carriage, her cheeks flushed, to tell me the news. She was pregnant.

After that, everything changed.

A part of me died that morning. It started like any other. We had a picnic outside the walls, though it was a little different than usual. No wine. No fish. She leaned on me more, almost clung to me. Scared but too brave to show it. I held her and fed her grapes as we basked in each other's company.

Percy for a girl, perhaps? No, of course not, Percy is a boy’s name. What about Katherine for a girl? Too snobby. Brunhilde, shortened to Hilde? Hilde is good. Regal. Kind.

Our peaceful naming session was cut short by an ambush. The guards were there, yanking us up and tearing us apart. They wore blackened armor. My father’s personal retinue. Everything was so well executed the plan must have been in place for some time. I tried to fight, but they swamped me, making it impossible to move.

The last I saw of Lillian, she was being dragged by her hair to a second wagon. Confused as I was, there was a finality to the scene I couldn’t shake. I grabbed at one of the guards scabbards. It was halfway out of the sheath before the guard cocked his armored fist and put me down.

Thaddeus was there when I woke up. So sincere. So full of regret. With all the feigned sympathy in the world, he sat by my bedside and relayed what had happened. That my father had learned of my dalliance with a commoner. He actually called it that, a “dalliance.” He pretended to empathize as he relayed to me that, as tragic as it was, Lillian and Gunther were being relocated to a city far away from Whitehall. That my bastard would have a simple but happy life. Away from me. All told from the kindly perspective of an outside observer. As if his hand wasn’t in it at every single step.

This was a race against time now. I had to find her. I would not be like my father who sired bastards and banished them to the ends of the earth.

I paid a guard enough to retire several times over to tell me where they were headed. Millwood. Some rat’s ass little town far south. I used the contacts I’d made amongst the commoners to buy a decent horse and hire a tracker while staying outside the purview of spies. The horse was not worth the golden rod I’d paid for it. The tracker was worth every bit twice over. By the second night of hard riding, we’d caught the wagon’s trail.

On the third night, we came to the end of the trail. The wagons, people, and horses had all disappeared. No tracks leading away into the forest or otherwise. They were simply gone.

I looked out amongst the audience. There were all the expected reactions, outrage, irritation. But to my surprise, though few and far between, there was also sympathy. I could not take comfort in it, however. My sadness had rotted into something much worse.

I turned to my father, slowly, dramatically. His face was etched from stone. “I spent days questioning the tracker. Getting second opinions. Talking to experts about what kind of animal could possibly attack a caravan and leave no trace. It took far too long to realize it was you.”

There was a cry of surprise from the crowd. My father said nothing. He had already decided he was going to kill me. The damage was done. Now he was just biding his time.

“Remember that story you used to tell, father? About how you conquered the lizard men? Let's see, if I remember correctly: they agreed to surrender if you let their royal family live. You acquiesced, on the condition that they live in capital city as vassals. Then, once their home was occupied and their defenses disarmed you marched that little scaled royal family down the road, just out of view, and slaughtered them. The appearance of mercy was important, you said, so proud of your cleverness. It occurred to me, if you’d execute an entire family for daring to defend their home, what would you do to someone who, theoretically, actually posed a threat to your throne?”

“You... are a disgrace.” My father said.

“I'd rather be a disgrace than your spawn.” I snapped back. “But that posed a problem. How would I even go about taking revenge? I was stumped. Then the idea came to me. You took away that which I loved most. You cherish your life, certainly, but there is something you love more.” I spun the crown between my fingers, smiling madly, before turning back to the crowd.

“But I digress. We were talking about my sacrifice. Obviously, it cannot be Lillian Gray, as thanks to my father, she is gone. So I searched my mind, and my heart, and came to one vital, final revelation.”

I paused then, basking in the tension of the room before delivering the final blow.

“I don’t give a shit.” I was yelling now. Murmurs of disapproval and anger. “Not a single, stinking, dog-squatting shit. I hate my family. I don’t care for my sycophantic, sophist, smarm-swallowing friends and sure as hell’s frigid circles don’t give an alley rat’s ass about any of you. If I have to listen to one more noble whisper sweet nothings in my ear in a vain attempt to forcibly penetrate my good graces I might just throw myself off the sky hold. All your petty little problems. The mountains of flaccid in-fighting and resentment for your peers. It’s disgusting. You’re all worth neither my effort nor my time.”

“They are your subjects! Your people!” Thousands of heads turned as Sera stalked down the aisle towards the dais.

“Thank the gods for you, sister, I was tiring of talking to myself.”

“Why are you doing this?” Sera asked. She raised her voice slightly, subtly projecting so the auditorium could hear.

“Better question. Why are you?” I indicated the crowd, playing up my disgust. “They hate you for your magic, though it protects them. I’ve heard them call you demi-human spawn. They even joke that a man will never love you more than he will fear you. Why speak up for them at all?” There were more than a few looks of guilt in the audience, speaking to the truth of my words.

My sister surveyed the room slowly, looking magnificently wounded before bowing her head. “Rumors and gossip are irrelevant, Cairn. They are my people. I will serve them regardless.” She raised her head and stared at me with defiance. “But what kind of king can you possibly hope to be if you hate them so?” Heads bounce back and forth between the two of us. Out of the corner of my eye, Thaddeus sat up ramrod straight in his seat, shocked mouth reforming into a coy smile. So, he finally figured it out. I could hardly blame him. Sera was giving a downright masterful performance.

“Yes Princess. Why indeed? I cannot stand the sight of them. Their pudgy frames, their slow and prejudiced minds, their poorly managed hygiene. The question struck me as well.”

“So? Why should you be king?” Sera asked.

“My answer? I should not.”

The crowd roared, hundreds jumping to their feet in outrage. The guards started actively managing the crowd. My mother rushed off the stage, her face in her hands. My father’s hand was on his sword, his body poised, ready to strike me down the second of abdication.

It was time. I waited until some semblance of order was restored to continue.

“Still,” I finally said, “it is simpleminded cruelty for a king of Whitefall to refuse the sacrifice. We all know the story of King Hess, who disregarded the sacrifice and brought ruin and famine across the land. If I truly hated you all, I might do just that. But the fact is I do not hate most of you, my lordlings, save a small number I loathe with all my heart.” I throw a meaningful glance in the direction of Thaddeus. “It would be more accurate to say that I do not think of you at all. So, lacking a better option, I’ll dedicate my wish to the one person here I can actually stand.”

It was the idea I’d been incubating for nearly two years now, ever since Lillian was taken from me. The masterstroke.

I grinned like a madman and took the crown off my head.

Then tossed it into the sacrificial pyre.

It was consumed instantly. I shouted over the raging crowd, my voice filling the room, and made my wish. The wish so many kings had used for the greater good.

Mine was not so magnanimous.

“I wish to live! Freely and forever!”

The arch-bishop fainted. Sera’s mouth dropped. This was the part I'd left out. And finally, the angry roar of the crowd was deafening.

My father had frozen, his sword halfway out of its sheath. He realized it in time, then. He couldn't do anything. To kill me would be the same as denouncing the legitimacy of the sacrifice. I'd twisted the rules, wadded up his legacy, and thrown it in his face, all without giving him any legitimate recourse.

I laughed then, long and hard, my cackling nearly drowned out by the chaos. I didn't stop until Sera pointed her sword at my throat. The room went silent once more.

“Leave this kingdom. You are not worthy of it.”

I inclined my head to her and hurried to the exit.

It was halfway to my rooms when I heard them begin to chant her name, and despite myself, smiled.

It actually worked.

I had the gall to be pleased with myself. It was pure hubris. Had I looked out the hallway window, I would have seen thousands of shadows flitting through empty streets, descending on the castle itself.