Stalemate | A Rise To Power

𝘈𝘶𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘺

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Alika helped her into a black dress while she stared absently into space. The sleeves were slashed and covered in strokes of silver thread, winding small curves down the length of her arm, and the bodice was tightly fitted and studded with white gems along the top, like stars shimmering in a night sky. While the underskirt was long and lined with iridescent silver brocade, the overskirt was tiered and parted in the middle, a usual fashion displayed in the North. She played with the material, feeling the soft silk smooth out beneath her fingers, while she sat on a stool to let Alika do her braid and listen to her gossip.

Landon was advancing things quickly: the building of an extension to Northstone had begun, trade agreements restarted with the Free Isles, and the East freely opened their borders to the North for the first time in years. The people had taken to Landon a lot more easily than they had to Kael, charmed by the boy's smiles and lies. He humoured the nobles, flattered ladies, raised the pay of the guards, and somehow the treasury grew every day despite the amount he was spending. People flocked to the castle to try to glimpse the young king, often bringing gifts to thank him for something he had done: paying for repairs after natural disasters; encouraging literacy rates to rise; rebuilding merchant ships destroyed by pirates. He sat in the throne room, blessing commoners and lords alike, yet kept his people wary by signing warrants to confirm the executions and imprisonments of criminals and traitors. Alika said he had a thief flogged half to death in the middle of the throne room and no one raised a finger to stop him.

It is only a matter of time before he has them in his grasp and feasts on their fear, Audrey thought as Alika came around the stool to touch pink powder to her cheeks.

"What are you doing?" Audrey asked. Alika knew she hated having cosmetics on her face—they had given her bad spots in the past.

"You've gone very pale," Alika said. "You need to put on some weight—you look like a commoner."

She looked at Audrey's face, turning her head in her hands before sighing and letting go. "How much sleep have you been getting?"

Audrey chewed her lip. "I don't know. I have nightmares."

Alika's face softened. "I know that I'm just a maid, but you can trust me with your worries."

You might spy for Landon or Ethelind, Audrey thought. Alika must have seen the hesitation on her expression because she nodded and turned to go.

"I sometimes think that Aldric is still alive," Audrey confessed to Alika's back. She paused, stopping in her tracks, but did not turn. "I see my brother, and crowns, and blood, and..."

Hazel eyes burning into hers. Landon's curly black hair, the sharp planes of his cheekbones and his slender fingers, setting out a chessboard in front of her.

You can be my queen.

Alika turned. "I'm sorry."

Audrey shook her head, looking at her chewed nails. "Sometimes I think that maybe... I'm growing. I'm learning, I'm losing my innocence. And then things happen... like Aldric dying, and then I'm back to the beginning again. I'm back to being that scared little girl who cried every day for her brother." She wanted to believe that everything was happening to build her, but it was doing the opposite. She was crumbling, clinging onto hope that wasn't there. And one day she would fall into an abyss that she wouldn't be able to climb back out of.

Landon knew what he was doing. He could control through fear and lie to gain love. And she could do nothing but pray for something in her to steel itself and become more of a fighter, like Ethelind. They gave her lessons. They spoke as if she understood nothing, as if she was just a girl who needed to learn how to fight. But she didn't know how.