Plight of an Empire

Chapter Six- part 2: Audriel

After the king’s friends and council visited the tomb, they returned to the castle where a feast awaited them.  The king’s seat at the head of the table remained empty, as no heir has been coronated as of yet.  Audriel sat at her place next to the king’s chair and Elviva sat on the other side.  The Great Hall was filled with people yet again, the second time in only a matter of days.  Where the funeral was meant to mourn the dead, the feast was meant to celebrate their life.  The tables were filled with flowing booze and singing bards.

She had scarcely seen much of Jyrik since the council meeting.  He was spending much of his time plotting the course he was going to take to Frostfall, the closest gateway town from Mynoa to the Black Rocks.  Though she had never been, she had heard stories that the winters in the north are nearly impossible to survive in.  Those who did live in the north were tough people.  They had been hardened by the snow and ice of the land.  According to the stories, it even snows in the summer.  Jyrik wanted to be prepared for the cold he was to be facing.

Audriel took a bite of her butter soaked carrots and roasted venison as she watched the spectacle of her guests play out before her.  Veloth Oreshield was sharing stories about how he and Odirius single-handedly took down the biggest wild boar he had ever seen.  It had nearly killed the king, but he managed to drive his spear into the beast’s heart and drag it back to the palace to enjoy its succulent meat.  The meat from that boar lasted for well over a fortnight.

Ronan finally stood up and told the story of how he and Odirius had nearly killed King Odirin in their youth.  Apparently, the king had given the boys too much mead for their age and while he had been urinating in the woods, Odirius thought he was a deer and tried to spear him.  Luckily Odirius was too drunk to aim properly and ended up driving the head of the spear into the tree adjacent to the king.  Ronan did not go into much detail about what was said, but he alluded to the king making threats to drop them into the Tundra himself if they so much as told a soul about what had happened.  The crowd burst into laughter.  He blessed Odirin’s old soul and drank to his name.

More people began to stand up and tell stories of the king, causing more laughter and hooting and toasts to his name.  It was cyclical.  The drunker they got, the more stories were shared, the more toasts were held, and the drunker they got.  Audriel found herself chuckling at some of the stories as the night progressed.  She only drank a few glasses of the snowberry wine, but it began to get to her head.  As her father rarely ever consumed, she was hardly ever allowed to consume as well.  Her tolerance for it was low, as was her body weight, especially compared to many of the men who sat in her hall.

The chaos of the night’s events ended in the wee hours of the morning, several hours before the first rays of sunlight were due to paint the land in light.  Many of her guests left the castle and returned to their homes and inns, but quite a few remained with her.  Namely, many of the king’s advisors and their families.  Audriel welcomed them to stay with her and her mother for the night.

That night, Audriel had made her way to the library.  It was the first time she had entered it since the night of her father’s murder.  The damage done to the room had been minimal.  The only evidence of the damage remaining was of the scorched floor at the foot of the fireplace.  Where my father was killed.  She approached the black mark and ran her hands over it.  Oddly enough, it still felt warm.    She was unsure whether it was just her imagination or whether a small ember still remained embedded in the wood.

The room was cold.  Few have entered since the night of the king’s death.  Many of the more superstitious servants are too scared to enter the room.  Some are even too fearful to enter this wing of the palace, claiming to have seen the ghost of the dead king, seeking vengeance against those who killed him.