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asilisa Regina sat in her quarters, lighting a bundle of blood-soaked wolfsbane before she left the herb to rest at the edge of a ceramic bowl. The herb coiled plumes of steam around her in calligraphy patterns and sealed all sound within the walls of the room.

Burning wolfsbane was a small ritual practice she’d taken from her mother before marriage and she’d learned to burn it before all important meetings she wanted kept secreted from her husband’s ears.

The resulting smoke would be masked by the rich musk of Mortesian Beauties native to her gardens—thick black roses with the faintest tinge of red. She leaned over to inhale the scent of one of her bouquets, fluffing its petals, before returning to her seat to stir her tisane of peppermint and poppy.

Darius entered not long after and closed the door behind him. He instantly caught the whiff of wolfsbane and acknowledged Vasilisa with a low bow. “Your Highness.”

“Good morning, Darius.” She ceased stirring and wiped her spoon lightly at the edge of her glass. “Thank you for coming. Please sit. I hope you enjoy medovik.” She gestured to the confection served alongside hot buttered black bread.

Darius took his cue, stepping forward to the empty chair. He curved his hands over the billowing skirt of his deep navy fustanella before he sat. A glass of tisane had already been served for him and he picked it up with relish.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I called you here.”

Darius simpered softly. “Well, I assumed you’d get to that.”

She took a moment to straighten her kokoshnik which today was adorned with the horns of a ram—a common custom for married occasselle. According to folklore, the bigger the horns, the more endowed her husband, and being no less at the mercy of Lanius’ mercurial whims, she would clutch at any chance to bolster his ego.

“I was thinking we haven’t had a chance to discuss Dominus’ return. What it means for the state of the Citadel, for us as a family, for well- you.”

It didn’t go amiss to him how he’d been excised from the concept of family for her.

“I wanted to tell you that, well, you may have thought, in Dominus’ absence, that is, there may have been a chance for you to transgress your role here. But now that he has returned, I feel required to let you know that will not be the case.”

Darius took a long sip from his beverage, deciding how to answer. “I respect your concerns, Your Highness. But I have always been quite thoroughly, startlingly, aware of what my position is to be in the Citadel.”

“Yes, of course, dear, I never meant to imply otherwise.” Vasilisa petted his hand gently, following it with a soft breath of laughter. He recalled when he was younger how he’d always been taken with her pearl white prettiness stretched over periwinkle veins, her autumnal locks. She was a Mortesian Rose embodied; pale as the driven snow and just as frigid towards him. “But I know you’ve been hosting private meetings with some of your father’s courtiers, wives talk you know, and I wanted it to be clear that, whatever schemes you may have, I will not tolerate any threats against my son’s claim in them.”

Darius’ saurian smile remained solidified into place. This confrontation didn’t come as much of a shock to him as it should have, inconvenient though it may be. However, the fact he was currently having this conversation with Vasilisa rather than his father’s prison guards told him more than he required.

“Dominus’ claim.” Darius traced his finger over the rim of his glass. “But not my father’s seat?”

Vasilisa sighed. She set down her glass and cut herself a portion of cake. “I tried so very hard for him. Your father. You must understand. I did everything I could to make him love me. Sometimes I wonder if I’d been better at it then he never would’ve gone back to that… to her. He never would’ve done the ritual. I had one duty and I failed it.”

Darius swallowed, his mood darkening at the mention of his mother. “You don’t have to castigate yourself for that, Your Highness. I’m not certain my father has ever been capable of loving anyone.”

“He loved her. Or at least obsessed over her enough that he’d never truly gotten over it when she ran away from him. I kept trying. I tried so hard. I thought if I could give him Dominus then maybe… but even that only pushed him harder towards the ritual. And now Dominus… he’s all I have in the world, do you understand? Mothering him was my greatest accomplishment. I couldn’t bear losing him. And so I need you to tell me truthfully that whatever move it is you intend to make against your father will be in the interest of seating him on the throne thereafter.”

“Dominus will never be convinced to turn against our father.” Darius drummed his fingers impatiently against the table. “You know this.”

“You let me handle that should the time arise,” Vasilisa said tersely, “but do we have an understanding?”

Refusal lingered on the edge of his tongue before Darius swallowed it thickly. He knew the law of the land by now, that bastardry precluded him from any spoils of political warfare. He also knew Vasilisa was the one best equipped of any to thwart his aims with a mere bedtime whisper—even in spite of knowing she and the rex hadn’t shared one since heartlessness stripped him of virility. Still, he would humour her for now up until it benefitted him not to.

“Of course, Your Highness,” Darius said, hollow dimples appearing beneath the sharpness of his cheeks when he smiled. “I think I’ll have a slice of that cake now.”

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Drakalyk Castle was a building of soft-toned masonry reminiscent of gingerbread pulled from the oven, capped with onion domes in slate grey. In spite of the otherwise romantic architecture, it was further ornamented with vulturine statuettes which tinged the dwellings with an undertone of foreboding. The estate was often reserved for the honour of visiting royalty but had recently been granted to Laila on behalf of Lanius Rex to serve as the site of the Soleterean Embassy.

Her velvet shoes padded hurriedly around the vicinity as she made clipped, exuberant demands of her servants to rearrange the interiors to her ultimate liking. She had Darius acquire many of the fixtures she considered essential in her Soleterean home—from the handwoven silk sheets to the bobbin lace netting.

She rearranged this setting into an exhibition of her innermost self—transfiguring every one of her girlish reveries and fanciful whims into objects such as a cream chaise lounge that sprawled as dramatically as she did. She took these material things and used them to solidify herself into being; to magnify her presence against the impermeable gloom of the country.

“So, this is going to be our new home for the foreseeable future?” Léandre asked, his own hard leather soles clacking against the reflective ivory floorboards.

At the use of the plural, Laila smiled. “It would seem so.”

“Well it could be worse, I suppose,” Lyra called out from her reclined position on the settee. “I mean the weather is appalling and the people are bleak, but they have good woods here and nice, clear springs, so perhaps all is not lost.”

Laila laughed. “I would not have blamed you in the least if you chose to return to Château de Rosâtre.”

“And leave you in this frozen nether-hole alone?” Lyra cried in mock-offence. “Perish the thought.”

“We’ll both be with you for as long as you need,” Léandre said, placing a hand on Laila’s shoulder. “We came into this accursed realm together and together is how we will leave it.”

Laila smiled, warmed by his claim. Then she put her hand over his with a sigh. “I wish it wasn’t only us who would be leaving here.”

“I know,” Léandre said. He took her into his arms.

Laila rested her head against his chest and exhaled. The letters she’d written to the families of the passengers would soon be making their way, dictated over mirror transmission with Aurora. Dr Isuka’s was the one she had ruminated on the longest and part of Laila hoped the scholar would have closer, if not total, peace of mind.

She opened her eyes, moistening her mouth to speak until she saw the clock on the wall which morphed her next sentence into a shrill gasp. “Look at the time! I need to be at the Citadel to discuss trade negotiations within the hour.”

Thus she detached herself from the bustle of her household to take the carriage that would lead her to Gravissia.

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Darius awaited at the gates of the Citadel, looking out for Laila’s carriage. He flipped open the mouth of his skull-shaped watch and snapped it shut again with a sigh. Trade negotiations had not been a great success and each time he had to find himself censoring for his father’s ill decorum. He considered it a fortune that Laila had not learned to speak Mortesian but he was uncertain of how much longer he could keep the charade going.

He was about to glance at his watch again when he saw her, a blonde blur of lightspeed, as she entered the courtyard and adjusted her skirts.

“How late am I?” she asked, flattening her windswept curls back into place.

“Actually you are—” He checked his watch “—just on time.”

“Perfect.”

She swept past him like a breeze and he followed her close behind—a lean dark silhouette to her bright beacon body.

They passed the Portrait Hall up the steps to the Eyrie.

Lanius was already there when they arrived. He was seated alone, as was often the case—the self-imposed isolation of a creature who valued the voice of no one but his own echo.

“Good, you’ve arrived.” Lanius cut the edge of his cigar and struck a match. “Let us get started then.”

For the past few days she and Lanius had been going back and forth on trade regulations. According to Lanius, Soleterea was too rigorous on their import laws and restrictions which Laila continually argued were set in place for the maximum safety and benefit of their mortal populace.

“I just simply do not believe that all this tedium is necessary simply for the sake of trying to scale our way past these borders.” Lanius exhaled to Darius in Mortesian. “I wonder if this impératrice guards her knickers quite so prudishly.”

Laila suppressed the urge to react in the face of his vileness, having perfected a neutral expression whilst allowing the rex to speak his truth in his mother tongue. Let him see her as little more than perfect porcelain pleasantness; those who couldn’t see past the facade weren’t worth entertaining anyway.

“If I may, princess,” Darius spoke on behalf of his father in Soltongue. “My father seems to believe that these might prove to be too much of a strain on our city merchants. Considering our workforce consists mostly of ghouls.”

“With respect to you sir, mortals and sprites would never allow themselves to touch something that was handled by a corpse. They view corpses as unclean and harbingers of death and disease. And they are not wrong,” Laila countered, sipping from a cup of tisane she’d had served by the very thing she spoke of. “Perhaps you do not view corpses the same way in Mortos, knowing that you will never fall victim to disease. But mortal bodies are much more frail. It will be near impossible for you to trade perishables with us, let alone any other country in Vysteria, under these conditions.”

“We are admittedly a lot more lenient in this approach than you are accustomed to in Vysteria,” Darius said. “But it doesn’t appear to have done our subjects great harm. We have many thriving races here in Mortos. And yes, while there might be the occasional plague or pestilence to dwindle the numbers, they often come back just as strong.”

“Can barely cull enough of the miserable bastards,” Lanius murmured into his own goblet. As per usual he was drinking wine. Laila wondered if he ever consumed anything else.

“I respect that,” Laila said, trying very hard not to react to the content of Lanius’ statement and the horror of its implications. “But I am not one who is in favour of what’s good for the goose being good for the gander. And neither is the impératrice. I am afraid that I must enforce the same regulations as before. You may take them or leave them.”

“Like talking to a puppet doll,” Lanius smothered a smirk. “One has to wonder if she even has a brain there to work in that feeble little skull or if you’d open her up to find her full of feathers.”

“My father says he and I will discuss this further and get back to you promptly with a response.” Darius stood up from his chair to offer his hand. “And that he hopes to see you at dinner tonight.”

“Thank you, Prefect,” she replied, shaking his hand firmly. “Oh, and one more thing before I go- do be vigilant of the fact that I am taking the time to strengthen my Mortesian. I wouldn’t want your father to think I have a-... what was it? A head full of feathers.”

She wielded her smile like a blade before she turned to leave Darius in a rare state of befuddlement.

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She retired back to the embassy that night where she spent the duration of her evening signing off correspondence with her lip print in cherry lacquer and the stamp of her royal seal. Each time, she spritzed the paper with scent or pressed flowers on them and sealed the envelope with an electric imprint so that her missives were easily identifiable; a common practice in communications between solarites.

Now The Veil had been dropped, sending things in and out of Mortos had grown considerably easier and she’d been keeping in touch with her mother on matters of trade.

Laila filed them away into her cherrywood holder once they were complete and then moved over to her vanity, her willow limbs bent in repose as she disentangled her golden tresses with a tortoiseshell comb. The brittle weather was treating it poorly in spite of the peppermint oil and steam treatments and she decided to bind them into twists for protection.

A gentle knock on the door disturbed her from her turmoil.

“Come in,” she murmured, as though the very task was strenuous.

She heard the click of footsteps she did not recognise. It was not the steady strides of Léandre nor the light, near imperceptible foot of a ghoul.

Laila glanced into the mirror, saw that it was Darius standing there and at once stood to attention. “Prefect.” She straightened out her clothes. “What an unexpected visit.”

Darius strode into the room with caution, taking off his feathered kolpak. “I wanted to apologise on behalf of my father for his conduct. He should not have spoken about you in the manner that he did.”

“No, he should not have,” Laila agreed, her nose tilted skyward in reproach.

“In truth, I happen to agree with you,” Darius said, reclining back into her tufted chaise lounge. “Mortos needs more of Vysteria than it needs more of us. With that in mind, it’s sensible to play by the rules, so to speak. But my father hasn’t been sensible for a long time. He is a creature built for war, not diplomacy, you understand.”

“So it may seem,” Laila said, slightly unnerved by his casual comfort in her room. She had never seen anything like him before. His features were so diamond sharp, even reclined in the chaise lounge, cast in shadow. He had all the elegance of a predator, relaxed but alert. “Why is it that Dominus hasn’t succeeded him yet?”

“Ah, so he hasn’t told you?”

“Told me what?” Laila asked, with an inquisitive sparrow tilt of her head. Too curious for her own good.

“Well, it’s a rather intricate tale but I’ll let you in on the abridged version. After Dominus was born, my father procured the talents of my mother to make him heartless and therefore, deathless, for it is only in the destroying of an occassi’s heart that we tend to be rid of for good. Now my father keeps his heart somewhere hidden, guarded by a lapis lazuli egg. It is the reason he has such a… charming disposition. My father was never kind but removing his heart has made him even harder. One can never remove something so essential to themselves without it taking something else in turn, I suppose.”

Laila’s spine prickled in repugnance and she fought to disguise how much his words disturbed her. The tale clung to her in a way that she knew was bound to follow her to bed at night. “You were right, Prefect. That is quite the tale.”

“Truth be told, for all his faults, Dominus would probably make a much poorer monarch than my father. He’s a lot more… malleable, easily led, and that makes for a weaker country. Though… perhaps that’s why you’d want him.”

Laila said nothing, allowing him to draw his own conclusions. “I can’t help but notice that no one refers to you as a prince. Are you not also in line for the throne?”

Darius chuckled. “Now that is another story in and of itself. The mother I mention in the tale isn’t the same as the one you might have had in mind. Vasilisa Regina is Dominus’ mother, not mine. My mother was never regina and thus I can never be rex.”

“That matters?” Laila’s brows bent in questioning.

“Quite a bit, as it would happen,” Darius said wryly, though there was a bitter edge to it. “Do you not have similar customs in your land?”

“I am my mother’s sole child,” Laila asserted pridefully, “but such a thing doesn’t make me an heiress by default. We have a Council of Elders to decide that. An impératrice’s reign lasts for a hundred and twenty years and as soon as it passes, we must choose a successor to take our place.”

“How fascinating,” Darius said. He would have to make a note of that. He rose up from the chaise. “Well I won’t outstay my welcome in any case. Though before I forget I also wanted to give you this.” He reached into his pocket and produced a small tin.

“What is it?” She plucked it from his fingers.

“The beeswax you requested.”

“Oh, of course,” Laila said, brightening immediately. This would be the perfect addition to her hair regimen. “I must say I’m amazed by your resourcefulness. I think you managed to check off everything on my list.”

“I can’t keep all the praise,” Darius said, hands folded behind his back. “Your list was very detailed and in many ways quite specific. I suppose it also helps knowing the kingdom as well as I do.”

“Well, thank you,” she said. Then, without thinking, she leaned upwards on her toes to kiss his cheek.

The gesture took him by surprise and he became hyper-aware of the proximity of her mouth to his; the feel of her kiss lingering close behind like a chill. As she drew back his expression was imperceptible but intense in a way that made Laila’s body feel languorous as a sultry Soleterean afternoon—the kind of warmth one shed their clothes to.

She bit her lip as her eyes flit briefly to his own mouth, and then into his eyes. The moment went through them like a pulse; electric. She had to remind herself that he was a monster, that he was untrustworthy. She shouldn’t be imagining what the taste and feel of his mouth was like.

The gaze splintered the moment Darius cleared his throat. “Pleasant evening, Your Radiance.”

Then he departed from the room in a blink.