Blood and Majesty

Prologue

- The Basilisk Valley
 
"I'm not going!"
 
"You are," Bal said calmly following behind the soft, black satin train of his sister's gown as it slithered along the marble behind her like the stalking shadow of some ghostly serpent.
 
"I'm," she turned on him, "NOT!"
 
"You are,” he sighed. “It is what father wanted."
 
"Truly?" Her hands went to her hips, "I could be wrong, brother, lord knows I never claimed to be the wisest of the brood, but I am thinking you have mistaken me with our other sister. Yes? The little one? Looks a bit like me. Different eyes and face?"
 
"Sending Nym now would be an insult,” he said. “Would you marry your brothers’ husband?”
 
“Would I what?”
 
He took note of what jumbled mess just left his mouth, made a face like he bit into something sour.
 
“Your husbands’ brother,” he corrected, “It’s simply not done. Even the northern savages have limits to their depravity. This is the way it must be.”
 
"Why?" She asked. "Explain to me why."
 
"I have,” he slowly walked past her and pushed open the large, gilded door that was engraved with bronze serpents twined and curled around one another to form the shape of a tree.
 
He waited for her to enter but she didn't budge.
 
"Because why?!"
 
"Because Nym was meant for his brother, Syra" he explained for the umpteenth time.
 
"It is unacceptable in their culture to marry your brother’s bride. Would you eat from my plate after I had already had my fill? No. It's disgusting. Same goes for women in their lands. These are their traditions, Syra. Who are we to debate such things? Oh, how delightful. We have grapes. Look, love: grapes."
 
Her eyes narrowed, "They were not married. They had not even met, Bal. You see an opportunity to be rid of me and you are taking it."
 
"It is all the same to them," he said making his way to a pitcher of wine and disregarding the bait she tossed into the air to lure him into a discussion he had no desire to have.
 
She followed him through the door, it slammed behind them with a thunderous echo that filled the parlor.
 
The room was round and had four gilded pillars centered with an intricately carved obsidian table adorned with plates of fruit and fanciful pitchers of spiced wine.
 
"They are," he popped a grape into his mouth, "Strange people. With strange customs. They are not like us. They are backwards. And from what I hear, they stink­."
 
"THEY WERE NOT MARRIED!"
 
"ENOUGH!"
 
He slammed his fist to the table.
 
The silver tray of fruit shook, a grape fell loose and rolled onto the floor.
 
His display of anger had not the desired effect that he was hoping for.
 
She didn't cower.
 
She didn't even flinch.
 
She stood there with her gold flecked, almond shaped eyes fixed on his own. Her fists now balled at her sides. 
 
The dry, salty breeze of the Basilisk Valley sent the silk draperies fluttering, reaching inward like ghostly, phantom fingers grasping for her.
 
To envelop her in comfort or to pull her away into the Deeping sands, she didn't know.
 
He raised the wine to his lips, took in a large gulp, shook his head and said coldly: "There is nothing to be done but for you to do your part, Syra. None of us asked for any of this. We are merely doing the best we can to salvage the situation. Hmm? I honestly would have thought that of the three of us, you would be the most understanding of this."
 
She looked down at the floor as if the swirls in the marble held some cryptic answer to the current problem at hand. As if she could interpret the best course of action if she could read some divine message hidden away within the pattern of the stone.
 
But there was nothing. No message. No answer. Not even a hint.
 
She could feel her cheeks were now wet. Her vision blurred. She was crying. And that only fueled her anger.
 
Worm.
 
Bal sat the empty glass onto the table and closed the distance between them with a few slow, methodical steps. He gently placed two fingers beneath her chin and lifted her face, bringing her eyes to meet his own. She looked away, retreating from his touch like his fingers smelled of something icky.
 
He smelled of flowers and oranges, as did all children of the valley monarch.
 
"Why," she asked in a whisper: "Why do you hold so much hatred for me? You are taking away all that I have known over some petty grievance or offense that I myself am unaware of. You have no love for me, Bal. And yet you call me sister.”
 
She was prepared to continue but when she opened her mouth all that came out was a half chuckle as she shook her head and bit her lower lip.
 
He stared at her with a patient frustration.
 
Nothing stirred but the drapes rustling along the floor, reaching for her again and again with every gust of breath from the dunes.
 
"Sweet sister," His fingers returned to her face like that of an angry, scolding father, smooshing her cheeks, pulling her gaze once more to his own.
 
"I do not hate you. But you will do what you need to and no less than what is expected. And what it is that you need to do, love,” he leaned in close, brought his lips to her ear, “is whatever I tell you."
 
His velvety voice was sharp, uncompromising.
 
He let go, brushed past her, and left both the room and the conversation in a hurry.
 
She stood like a statue as the large door shut with another thud behind him. She grabbed the wine glass he had just emptied, turned and hurled it at the door.
 
All she could do was watch it shatter.
 
Each fragment a piece of her life that was now cascading to the floor.
 
To the sand.
 
How had she not known he'd be rid of her as soon as the opportunity presented itself?
 
How had she not known for certain before today the depth of his hatred and disdain for her?
 
She had known.
 
Suspicious people are not thought well of, they tend to be dishonest.
 
But she knew. And for days she had just been sitting on a kettle of boiled emotions, waiting for him to remove the lid.
  
"He doesn't hate you," one of the ghostly wisps of silk said softly, "he is jealous of you. He has always been jealous of you. You would know that if you tried talking instead of fighting all the time."
 
Nym, the youngest of the three siblings, stepped out from behind the drapery.
 
"You were spying?" Syra asked accusingly, wiping her eyes.
 
"No, I was on the terrace looking at the dunes. Tolma says there’s a big storm coming, and I wanted to see if it was here and so I went out on the terrace and then that’s when I heard you yelling."
 
"What did you hear? Hmm?" Syra cut in sharply and began fiddling with the end of the silky black braid draped over her shoulder.
 
“You, yelling.”
 
“And?”
 
Nym stepped forward with her hands clasped in front of her nervously as Nym tends to do, "I heard that you will be taking my place. That Bal is sending you to that ‘Arik’ person."
 
“And where is that? Hmm?”
 
“North,” Nym said pointing a finger east.
 
"North." Syra thrust one hand toward the terrace and her finger in the direction she thought was most likely North.
 
"I have been promoted from useless middle child to sacrificial lamb."
 
"I am sorry."
 
“No. You are not.”
 
“You don’t know what I am!” Nym shot back.
 
“I know you are not sorry.”
 
“I am.”
 
Syra searched her sisters face for the truth.
Nym was young. Ten years and four but still smaller than one her age should be. She was a budding young girl who still looked at the world through the trusting eyes of a child and those eyes were now on the floor.
 
Not going to find much help down there, baby girl, Syra thought to herself.
 
Nyms’ skin, which was usually a shade of light caramel, now looked almost chalky and sickly, as it always does when she's teetering on the edge of crying or throwing up.
 
Her black hair only made the contrast that much more noticeable.
 
The child was doomed, and the sands are unforgiving.
 
"I am sorry," Nym said, "but also, may mother forgive me, I am not. And I cannot be. I was so afraid, and I did not want to go. They are monsters. They are savages and brutes, Syra! And it's always cold up there, Tolma says so! They will get drunk, and they will be mean to me and they will eat me, Syra! Like a Monga! And they stink! They smell like animal poop and dead raccoons!”
 
“Yes,” Syra chimed in, “so send me to be eaten by these raccoons!”
 
“I don’t want a raccoon to eat you!” Nym cried.
 
“Yes, you do.”
 
“I do not! I promise on all that I have!"
 
“on all that I have,” her sister mocked.
 
“This is why he’s sending you away and NO ONE IS GOING TO MISS YOU!”
 
"Shut up," Syra poured a goblet of water from the table, "drink this before you are sick and we have to clean the mess with you hair."
 
“You would not do that.”
 
“I would.”
 
“I was lying when I said no one would miss you. I was being hateful."
 
“Yes, you were being hateful,” Syra rolled her eyes, “but it wasn’t a lie.”
 
“I will miss you.”
 
"Hush. Drink this before you're sick."
 
She brushed her little sister’s hair from her face with one hand and held the water to her lips with the other, "drink. I am not asking you."
 
Nym drank reluctantly.
 
Syra sighed and did what she had always done: made excuses to herself for why things had to be the way that they were. And why she must accept it.
 
Nym would not have done well in the cold, she told herself. This soft, loving little burden would not have survived up there with strangers. Brutes.
 
Not Nym. And not with these raccoon tribes she speaks of.
 
Nym was no warrior.
 
She would never stand a chance.
 
They would eat her all up. Syra thought. Like a Monga.
 
"I love you," Syra said with a sigh, "And I am not angry with you. None of this is your fault, my love."
 
She pulled the girl to her bosom and rest her chin on her head.
 
Nym let her arms fold around her and burrowed as deep into her sister’s affection as was possible without inflicting injury.
 
"They stink so bad, Syra."
 
“Quiet now.”
 
“And the raccoons.”
 
“Do not speak of them. You will have nightmares.”
 
“…They wear masks.”
 
 
 
- The Nor’ man Kingdom of Orryn
 
 
Arik pushed open the large oak doors to the Kings reading room.
 
Cold stone walls abutted with old, heavy wooden tables greeted him within. A large desk in the middle, centered like a timber island among a cold stony sea.
 
"There is little more to be done than to wait." Olfric, the old man who has successfully tended to and tutored Arik since the monarch was a boy was now struggling to gain any headway with Arik the man.
 
He walked to the serving table, poured two mugs of mead and offered one to the younger man who took it eagerly and finished it in a gulp.
 
Arik wiped his long beard free of any droplets, sat the mug down harder than necessary and brushed a long, blonde lock of hair away from his face.
 
"She's. Not. Coming," he placed his palms flat on the desk and leaned forward. "Send a bird. Send a messenger. Send smoke signals or some divine message from the Gods. I do not care. She is not coming. Not here. Not ever."
 
Olfric took a drink of his Mead and sat the mug onto the desk, "Your Grace -"
 
"Arik," he cut in, pushing off the table and standing straight as a serving girl entered the room.
 
"It is my name,” he said, still watching her, “The same name you have called me my entire life. Nothing has changed.”
 
"Everything has changed,” the old man said, “as things tend to do.”
 
“Yes,” Arik said absently.
 
His eyes trained on the girl who step by step drew nearer his side.
 
It wasn't until she reached for him that he noticed what she clutched in her fist.
 
He recoils and swats at her hand: "What are you doing? What is this?"
 
The girl looked confused: “A comb?”
 
“I know it’s a comb, girl. What are you planning to do with it?”
 
She looked to the old man who only shrugged.
 
"I am combing you? I was told to do so."
 
“Told to do so? By whom?”
 
“Him.” She pointed to the old man.
 
Arik was confused.
 
He turned first to Olfric who only shrugged and then back to the girl.
 
"The last person to comb me was my mother. Somewhere from then until now I picked up on the skill and have been combing myself. Thank you."
 
"Very well, your grace." The girl dropped her eyes to the floor.
 
What followed was an uncomfortable silence accompanied by a confused look from one man to the next.
 
"She is waiting to be dismissed," Olfric said finally.

"Didn't I?"
 
"No, boy, you did not."
 
"All of this," Arik muttered. “it is fluff and nonsense. Nothing more.”
 
"Should I perhaps leave then?" The girl asked.
 
"Yes," both men replied.
 
They watched her leave the room, turned on one another.
 
"She is not coming."
 
"She most certainly is."
 
"That was very uncomfortable just now, was it not?"
 
"What?"
 
"The girl. The comb. That entire debacle.”
 
“Can we discuss –“
 
"Ugh," Arik groaned. “Why are you still telling me what to do? I’m told where to go, who to see, what to wear, what to eat and now I am even being told who I am supposed to share my bed with? I am to make decisions that involve other people’s lives while at the same time having no say or control of my own? I am sorry to sound so ungrateful but none of this makes much sense, Olfric."
 
Arik pulled the chair away from the desk and took a seat.
 
"Please, friend, explain it to me. Use small words because there is something here that I am not understanding. I drink too much. Make me understand."
 
Olfric sighed and began tracing his fingers along the grain of the desk in front of him. His ability to devise an explanation had expired.
 
“I am terribly sorry for the mess we are in, Arik. Truly, I am. This has been hard for all parties involved."
 
"And Brenna?" Arik asked. "What happens with that? You remember Brenna, yeah? Stands about yay high and rather blessed in the front? Golden Hair? Breasts, Olfric. Large.”
 
“I know what she looks like!” The old man snapped.
 
“And what happens with that?”
 
"She will marry another.”
 
"And when she does, she will make the man a Duke," Arik shot up out of his seat, "An entire Duchy falling into the hands of some stranger. Some milk drinking, root boy. Do you know how many soldiers, how much barley and grain that Duchy provides this kingdom, Olfric?"
 
"Do you?" The old man shot back.
 
“Don’t turn this on me.”
 
“Do you?”
 
“You’re dodging the question.”
 
“I am the one who asked the fucking question!” the old man barked, “Do you know or not?”
 
"Of course not,” Arik snapped, “But I'm sure it's a lot. Many, many bushels of Grain. Grain and tits aplenty. And I’m fairly sure I asked you first. Stop spinning lies, Olfric."
 
"As I expected," Olfric cut in, "500 men at arms. And they do not produce enough grain or barley to even export, you twit. You do not need that Duchy, your grace."
 
"Need? Maybe not. But I wanted it," the King said matter-of-factly, crossing his arms over his chest, "and you cannot call me names anymore, old man. That is treason. I'm sure of it."
 
Olfric ignored the last part, shook his head: "You wanted that cunny. Plain and simple."
 
"How dare you," Arik feigned shock.
 
"Bollocks," Olfric snorted, "had you already tasted the dew between her thighs you'd not be creating this mess."
 
"You misspeak, sir," Arik cut in.
 
"Nor,” Olfric continued, "would you be willing to hand a Duchess a crown in order to do so! So let us not dally around that fact!"
 
"How dare you," Arik said again.
 
“She is coming, Arik. Gods help us all you will receive her. And that is the end of this."
 
The old man abruptly turned and made his way for the door.
 
"Olfric," the King called in a flat tone that gave no hint to his current mood or thought.
 
The old man was almost out.
 
Gods be damned. He turned: "Yes, your grace?"

"I did not dismiss you.”
 
The old man rubbed his temples, closed his eyes: "Gods, I pray thee give me patience and strength. Help this boy."
 
He turned for the door once more.
 
"They're not like us." Arik said to the old mans back. His voice was now soft with no hint of laughter or banter filling the air as the words left his lips.
 
The old man’s heart strings began to strum. He had practically raised this man. He knew that defeated sound and had heard it many, many times before.
 
"They worship snakes and drink poison," Arik continued, "It is said that they raise their daughters as whores and cut the man parts off their sons."
 
"Dear gods," Olfric turned to match eyes with his liege, "Where did you hear this nonsense?"
 
"It is not nonsense." Arik said with an uncertain certainty that he wasn’t completely certain Olfric was buying.
 
"It is true. Dingum knows much about those…people.”
 
“Dingum knows little about anything that does not come in a bottle or charge by the hour. Do not waste your time listening to his drunken nonsense, Arik. He is a fool. And a wretch.”
 
“He says they sleep with serpents and that brother marries sister. All sorts of ill things, Olfric. She doesn't belong here. They'll never accept her."
 
"Her lands come with quite a sizable income, Arik."
 
"I don’t care about any of that," Arik looked his friend in the eye: "How am I supposed to make sons with one of these snake charming harlots?"
 
The old man shrugged, “I am afraid that if you have not learned by now how babies are made with a woman then perhaps we should find you a suitable husband instead.”
 
Arik stood motionless and blinked twice.
 
“I will snatch your soul out of your mouth, old man.”
 
“Okay, okay,” Olfric held up his hands in surrender.
 
“The hell are you on about?”
 
“Merely banter, your Grace. Nothing more,” the old man fought back a smile.
 
Arik held eye contact long enough to make Olfric fidget before he cleared his throat and broke the silence.
 
“You were going to say something useful, yeah?”
 
The old man ran his hand through what little hair he had left and took in a deep breath: "They do not worship snakes, Arik. There are horrid and vile creatures that slither through those sands and most of them are very,” he searched for the right word, “venomous."
 
Arik began stroking his beard and slowly nodding.
 
What he always does when he doesn't understand but doesn't want you to know that he doesn't understand.
 
"Poisonous," Olfric clarified.
 
"Ahh. Of course.”
 
The old man continued: "The royal line is given small doses or tastes, if you will, of these poisons and toxins from the moment they leave the womb.”
 
“They poison their children,” Arik cut in.
 
“No.”
 
“Savages,” Arik spat.
 
“They do this,” the Old man tried to continue, “so that by the time the children are old enough to play and run they can do so without fear of falling prey to these vile creatures. Those children can survive bites and stings that would kill a man three, four, five times their size. It is a truly remarkable practice."
 
"It is sorcery," Arik cut in.
 
"It is good planning," Olfric replied with a roll of his eyes, "they do not raise their daughters as whores, but they do have their own...customs."
 
"Whores," Arik said in a monotone annoyance.
 
"And no, they do not make eunuchs of their sons. They keep eunuchs as royal guards. It's an honor among their people to serve the royal house."
 
"Why?"
 
"For the same reasons our own men are honored to serve."
 
"No," Arik cut in, fanning his hand through the air as if waving away Olfrics’ last sentence, "why do they cut off their man parts?"
 
"Well," the old man shrugged, "what better man to protect a princess than a man who is not a man at all?"
 
Arik scrunched his face. "That makes no sense."
 
"They do not want the royal line to be defiled, your Grace. It's meant to make sure that the girls stay pure."
 
Arik leaned over the desk once more, "I suspect that would not be an issue if they weren’t raising them as WHORES!"