My Beloved Queen

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

xxviii. the king and the ambassador

countryman
// he is no friend, yet neither is he an enemy. he is something else—a creature standing on the line, a beast floundering in the deep end, struggling to keep his head above the treacherous waves.

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The advisors' voices were grating, sharp things: the serrated edges of a saw carving a nasty groove into the sides of the king of Ceorid's skull—the tip of a dull sword pushing into the flesh of his abdomen. Yet Orelus ground his teeth and pressed through the discomfort; the sooner he found the assassin's master, the better. Weeds had to be dug out by their pale and hairy roots, lest their noisome poison spread.

"What of Lord Fullus?" Hulveddon proposed. He tapped at the records and then glanced up, and after a wheezing breath he continued, saying, "He was Hohveth's nephew."

Another advisor, a thin man with clear eyes, nodded his head in agreement. Belser was his name; he sat across from Hulveddon, and when he spoke, his voice was like sand: rough and scratching. "I haven't heard word of him in quite some time."

A frown as heavy as lead weighed upon Orelus's lips, but he raised his hand only to stroke at his beard. "Fullus is dead." His tone was curt and low, but irritation was simple enough to stomach, and he exhaled through his nose.

Hulveddon's eyes widened, and uncertainty drained the color from his cheeks. "P-Pardon?" Quickly, his gaze fell, and he and his peers hurried to thumb through all the documents and tomes at their disposal, but already, he was rushing to speak. "My apologies, Your Majesty. None of the, um, records make mention of his passing."

Orelus rose from his chair, and immediately, a hush the color of ice descended upon the room. The silence opened one of its bulging, curious eyes, and its slitted pupil followed him, but he moved only to the wooden display set against the near wall. Blades of miscellaneous make and design gleamed in the arms of their oaken bearers, but Orelus's gaze lingered upon the embellished hilt of a longsword. A faint, gossamer layer of dust had fallen across the pommel, and the fierce falcons that had been engraved into the surface of the cross-guard bemoaned their graying fate. Perhaps they would have liked better to stand guard atop the grave of their old master, but Fullus had received all the glory he'd deserved.

A frown pulled at the corners of Orelus's lips, and he ran his thumb along the curve of the pommel. The dust was pale as ash—silver, dull and flaking—and it clung tightly to his flesh, eager to cover, to smother and choke.

"Make a note to send for a historian." Slowly, Orelus's eyes narrowed, and he rubbed away the clinging dust before grabbing for a cloth.

"Of course, Your Majesty," replied Hulveddon, but his tone was haste, and the silence fixed its long, thin pupil upon the faces of the gathered advisors.

Orelus heard the quiet stretch its tangled spine, but he did not turn; his eyes were set upon the old sword, and with care, he lifted it free of its confines and set it down delicately atop his desk. It was a precious thing: a token, so that he might never squander the air in his lungs. Death's vehicle was ever-shifting, but artifacts of its earlier forms afforded no harm.

The old blade caught the sunlight, and the hilt lamented its muted shine. The embellishments cried for their former glory, their pride and vanity, but even at their height, they would always be but stones in the light of his collection's true jewel. Still, with care, he rubbed away the dust that clung stubbornly to the pommel. The metal smiled once free, and its gratitude was eager and bright—a glimmering sheen that could belong only to a sword well-cared for.