Something With a Prince

Chapter Ten: His Majesty the Big Brother

Arlyn

The desk propping up my ink-stained elbows groaned as a gust of wind threatened to unlatch my window and scatter hours of paperwork. Part of me wanted to flip the latch myself and let it all blow away. Instead, I took a deep breath and sat back against the chair that has been holding me hostage for the past couple of days.

A body is completely useless when it is achy. I find breathing requires far too many muscles, and some of them are muscles you were unaware you used until you exercise them. My neck felt stiff and gravely as I turned my head, attempting to stretch my stress away. Each vertebra of my spine, I'm convinced, was trying to crack itself in half, and on top of all that, I couldn't remember the last time I had something to eat.

Poor Arlyn. Do you want me to scare the big bad papers away? Thea's voice awoke in my thoughts, mocking me as if she were here. I could see her face screw up at me, in my mind's eye, as she took to sitting on the windowsill, watching out the window with eager attention. She would have found a way to make this fun by now. Every paragraph you read is a bottle of wine I'll steal from the kitchen. She would say, or maybe: for every signature you complete I will stand in the fountain for thirty-seconds.

She'd be standing in the fountain for thirty years at this rate.

I rubbed my eyes when they started to burn and flipped the pen in my hand across the room. All this reading and studying and writing was going to assassinate me before Rughwen or any other Kingdom had a chance. The thought alone was enough for me to abandon my desk and move to the window.

I have taken to looking out windows a lot recently. Not for any philosophical reason, but because a part of me was convinced that I would find King Dominic and his army waiting at my gates. Now, after Lansing's outburst in Slerain, I fear Dominic will not be the only one gnawing upon me like a rabid dog. Queen Cassida would be right beside him, the two of them ripping this place apart; the thrill of making me watch instigating their every move.

Before Cassida became queen, Slerian was known for being a weeping ground for the poor and a graveyard to the sick. Once Cassida ascended, it was known for much more. The "Blood Queen's" words were always poised, and they had the power to charm the most rigid councilmen. Had it not been for the lacing of poison underneath her prose, she would be considered a great leader. In fact, because of her cunning and ruthlessness, she believed herself to already be a great leader. Only second to her in the powers of speech, that I knew of, was my brother. He was supposed to smooth things over and show her the advantages of joining our side against Rughwen. Unfortunately, she had been grossly underestimated, and now Lansing had to pay the price for my shortsightedness. My own blood, forced to leave his home--an exile-- because of one misstep in the dance of politics.

I doubt any member of her court took the slightest breath without permission that day. I almost laugh when I recall what he told me when he arrived back home in Tusedior.

"I did something bad." He had said, looking equally guilty and pleased. "It was for good reason, but it had terrible consequences."

Lansing looked so much like Father when he stepped out of the carriage at that moment, I almost let myself believe that it was him. Sometimes I can't believe how much he's grown, despite the fact of him being twenty for some time now. I feel like it was only yesterday I was pinning his head in mud piles and tugging him by the hand to get him out of father's courtroom meetings. Now I think I might have to try to wrestle him down and I couldn't get him into a courtroom peacefully if I begged him.

Out of the two of us, Lansing had been all but swaddled in the Rikkar bloodline. He looked the part with our father's stately manner, distinct hair color, and that silent way he is always measuring up a room. Had it not been for his overly stated comments of never wanting to assume the throne, I would half expect to be asked to step aside. First born or not...Lansing was the image of full blooded Rikkar. Everyone knows that to play the part, one must also look it.