“The currency of Albeny is silver and gold Albs.”
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"Are you sure we should not see Xihan before we leave?"
Rayton and Lay are back on the balcony, but the night does not feel the same. It is worth to know it has gone chillier as if predicting an omen. The whole palace and very soon, the whole of Albeny would be living a lie.
They would think the royal family had gone in the cover of night for inter country matters. But the royal family would in fact be among them. Queen Eim in a powerful hairpin. Crown Prince Rayton in the guise of a knight seeking out a fugitive— the assassin. Grand Prince Lay in the guise of a commoner looking for an artist who may or may not have an accurate drawing of the Winter Solstice.
Rayton absentmindedly nocks an arrow on his bow.
"Lord Beckefort is the Hand. He would not be too pleased to know regency passed him by. And Xihan is a sly man. I wouldn't put it pass him to try steal the throne while we are away."
"Beckefort would be a bad ruler. As for Xihan, he could try," Rayton says wryly, "there is no royal cryfix."
"Albeny's government would be brought to a halt. Nobody, not you, not Xihan, not me can legitimately rule."
"Yes, we can."
"Rayton, are you planning mischief?"
"The cryfixes are convenient for Albeny, Grand Prince. So convenient that nobody has ever questioned their origin. The deepthroated bastard called us tainted mongrels. If he was brave enough to say it to the queen's face just because he was holding a sabre and she had nothing, I wonder if he will be brave enough to say it to my face when I put a dagger to his throat."
"I do not like where this is going."
"I will find him Lay. I will find his secret. I will find the hairpin and I'll restore our mother's soul. I am not returning until I complete my quest."
"But the hundred days deadline."
"You will find the drawing with little hitches in your way Grand Prince. If push comes to shove, find someone you trust. Anyone but Xihan and Bough, and Beckefort. Forge a Winter Solstice and crown yourself."
"That… that is inconceivable."
"I just conceived it. I won't tell if you won't Brother but Albeny might indeed fall like the assassin wants. Our mother wouldn't want him to win. Swear it. Swear it on her soul that you would do what you need to do when the time comes." Rayton's tone is cruelly severe.
"I swear it, on our mother's soul," Lay says.
Rayton smirks. "I will make it back before the deadline anyway. I intercepted our mother's letter to Bough. It is just as well. Coronation arrangements."
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"I've done it! I've drawn it!" Leurayssa stares at her finished work with an air of gratification. "I know I said I couldn't draw but this looks pretty good from all angles."
There is just one detail missing. Leurayssa cannot seem to remember a symbol that was on the ring's interior design. The ring sure has a lot of symbols, a major inconvenience for a first time artist drawing from memory. "This will have to do," she mutters as she rolls up the drawing and binds it.
Now, she is set to go.
Her eyes skim over the golden token, the one she had found under her cabinet drawer. Leurayssa has decided to stop wondering how it got there.
"But why?" She mouths. "Why would anybody throw away the golden chance to attend a most prestigious academy all for a drawing that I have impressively replicated, if I do say so myself?"
Leurayssa shrugs as she takes up her small luggage and opens the restaurant door. The cool night air bathes her face and she sniffs the whistling breeze. "Quite late," she murmurs. How long had she been drawing? Two hours? Three?
In fact, screw it!
She rushes back in and grabs the admission token which she had earlier decided to leave behind.
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Wuxhia burns in his father's skin. He hesitates at the door of his parents' sleeping chambers.
Would Fowella know?
Did Xihan have peculiar habits that he Wuxhia does not have? Habits by which his mother might identify and sense the deception? Wuxhia exhales a shaky breath.
Xihan's soul is currently trapped along with Medien's in Salem's Flower. Wuxhia had then moved his own soul into Xihan's body. Now his and Medien's bodies were cooling off in the crypts below the house. Wuxhia only hoped they would stay true and not decompose since their souls are not really gone.
Right now, he plans to deceive his mother. Once he enters the chambers, they would be no going back. He would convince her in his father's name that he had been sent away to play 'ambassador'.
It is left to time to decide if he really could fool everyone, including the woman who birthed him.
"Lord General Xihan."
Wuxhia sharply looks up. He resists the urge to smile for answering his father's name on first instance. Perhaps he can pull this off after all.
It is the palace messenger, he pays respects to Wuxhia and announces a message from the Crown Prince.
"Follow me to my study."
'MY'.
The word has never felt more reprieving that it did now. Everything that was Xihan's is now Wuxhia's. The Lord General position, the Dropp House cryfix, Salem's Flower, his own mother.
Even the chance to claim the royal throne.
YOU ARE READING
THE FORTUNIST
Fantasy"You don't find the Fortunist, the Fortunist finds you." Nobody knows how the nine cryfixes- magical accessories- came to be. But the country of Albeny has made their magic its foundation while submitting to the whims of a Fortunist, an alleged sor...
