My Beloved Queen

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

xxxiii. the king and the scholar

strategist
// there is a pattern to all things—a cycle that devours its own tail, and those of sharp eyes can spot it even in the fog. hasten to find the signs, the pieces hidden in shadow; then, and only then, shall the way forward be made clear.

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The chronicler's hands had begun to shake. It was a nervous, slight sort of quivering, crawling down from the base of the man's skull and ending in the tips of his chalk-stained fingers. Sweat beaded upon his pale brow, and when his stare crossed that of the king of Ceorid, his gaze faltered.

"Something amiss, Chronicler?" Orelus's eyes were narrowing, and a frown pulled at the line of his mouth. Slowly, he sat up in his chair, and though his gaze did not falter, the comfortable cool that lingered just beneath his flesh began to bubble, and frustration seeped into the ends of his tongue.

Chronicler Vizlin started, and his infirm stare returned to the map laid out upon the table. "Not—not at all, Your Majesty," he replied, but the waver in his voice was as obvious as the day. The man swallowed, and Orelus watched him without speaking.

The silence bristled, but its spines hardly grazed the king's flesh. The scholar had caught its attention; how it did love to watch men squirm.

"It's—It's merely that, well," the blue-eyed man paused, but annoyance sharpened Orelus's frustration, and his patience strained beneath its weight.

"Out with it." A sour taste was seeping into Orelus's tongue, but the silence snickered, and the sound echoed like snapping bones in the air. The beast had laid itself across his feet, but now it began to rise, and with slow, determined care, it wove itself between the legs of the table and settled behind the chronicler.

It watched the nobleman, and its smile was as pointed as its pupils. The historian must have felt its gaze, for sweat began to bead upon his pale forehead, and another tremor shook his fingers.

"I'm—I," Vizlin stumbled over his tongue, and the silence jeered and mocked him, "I'm shooting arrows into the dark, Your Majesty. I can't—there are no records as to the Serpent's whereabouts."

Slowly, Orelus settled back into his seat, but his frustration did not fall with him. It remained as it was, warm and quietly simmering within the confines of his chest. "Did you expect a map?" His voice was sharp and firm, and it curled flatly off his tongue. His hand sat upon his chair's armrest, and he began to tap at the wood, but his thoughts were neat and folded, and his glare narrow. "The gods don't want him found."

"You are in—indeed correct, Your Majesty," Vizlin agreed, "and that, my lord, is—is the issue." He tried to nod his head, but his nervous shaking nearly turned the motion into a shiver. "There are tales mentioning Mehreus, but none even hint as to where he may be hidden beyond 'the ocean,' or, 'the sea.'" The scholar's brow began to furrow, and thoughts, quick and grasping, flashed across his face. "Perhaps...perhaps if I had the aid of an augur, I might—"

Orelus's hand stilled, and immediately, the chronicler caught himself, but his face was whiter than chalk, and his blue eyes were wide and pale. The silence began to cackle, and its smile was so wide that it nearly split its gruesome face in half. The tip of its long tail twitched, and its pus-colored eyes fled from the scholar to the king and back again.

The ire was quiet and cold. It was his frustration that fizzled, that simmered like water, eager to boil. Orelus watched the chronicler; he stared and the man hurried to correct his mistake, to take back the words that had accidentally slipped free of his skull.