Stalemate | A Rise To Power

𝘓𝘶𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘯

⋘ ──── ∗ ⋅ ◈ ⋅ ∗ ──── ⋙

There would not be a grand feast. That night, only a select group of people were invited to dine with the two kings.

King Lachlan of the South had arrived a fortnight ago, bringing a party of boisterous retainers and knights with him to fill Northstone Castle. Lucian hated the ways of the Southerners, however: they were always complaining about the cold, for one, and never stopped lighting fires in the hearths. Whereas Lucian's people were cautious and cold, Lachlan's were the opposite; even at the dinner table, Lachlan rowdily conversed with his courtiers, japing with them as if they were all great friends.

There are no friends at court, Lucian thought disdainfully. It was one of the first lessons he had learnt.

While the Southerners sat with Lachlan in large groups to Lucian's left, the Northerners sat alone or in small groups to his right. Nearby, Audrey was sitting with her mother and Junia, while Annalee was seated near the centre of the table, grinning at a tale being told by Giulio, an Eastern mercenary who sold secrets to Lucian.

"Maybe the Northern women are so cold because they don't allow Southern men to warm them up at night!" a Southern man hooted. As he spoke, Lucian was biting into a hunk of swan meat, and almost choked on it as Lachlan's laughter at the lewd joke bounced around the large hall.

"You should speak to my husband," Emelyn, Lucian's sister and queen of the South, told Lucian with a wry smile as he took a sip of wine to get rid of the lump in his throat.

"I should," Lucian agreed, but didn't move.

If Lachlan had managed his armies better, his son might not have died.

It had taken their combined forces at Bloodfield Bay to put an end to the thirteen-year-long Southern War. When the Shadowharts had come back for their Southern throne, Lachlan had not relented and, instead, waged war to hold onto his crown. To cut deeper into the wound, he hardly acknowledged the sacrifice Lucian had made by getting involved.

Lucian mourned his son and his own honour in joining a war that shouldn't have been his. Thomas had been a capable warrior and a charismatic prince, always knowing how to win people to his side. He would make friends and spies and whisper secrets in Lucian's ear.

He could have been a good king.

As for Audrey, Lucian didn't necessarily underestimate her, but she was a girl. She could not fight or become queen without being ostracised—not like she would in the Free Isles or the South. And, if she ever married, her husband would become king in the North and have too much power.

What made it worse was that Lucian risked being the first Everwood king in decades to not sire a male heir for when he passed. Since Audrey, Adina had suffered three miscarriages to try to have another son. If Thomas had been his last chance, then Lucian would have to consider legitimising his bastard, a boy he had conceived before his marriage to Adina eighteen years ago. But the boy was leagues away, and even Adina didn't know about him. Lucian had turned away and abandoned the boy years ago—bastards were shunned in society—and the boy had been raised as a commoner. It was always a risk to take in bastards; a last resort that could result in civil war, creating an opening for enemies to tear into. Emelyn and Lachlan had been lucky in that sense; their son, Ulysses, was a healthy young man, and was staying in the South to take care of Teravardi Castle in their absence.

"You need to sort this thing out between you, brother. My husband has good intentions at heart, you know that." Emelyn rocked the baby on her arms and began to hum a lullaby for her. Malena was a year old and Emelyn and Lachlan's fourth child.