A Darkening Honor

Chapter 3

Lydian dreamed that night, but it was not of salt and sea.

    She opened her eyes to find herself in a grand hall, the floors a smooth marble, inlaid with gold, and the ceiling arching up above her, so that it almost appeared to disappear into the sky, held up with grand columns, the same marble as the floor. Richly dressed people, men and women, floated around the room as if on clouds, carrying them from one place to the next. It was the most luxurious place she had ever seen.

    Perhaps that was why she found her father so quickly. Laszlo's island garments, while always clean and mended, were far simpler than those of the crowd surrounding him. He didn't match his surroundings in the slightest.

    He knelt before a golden-clad man, the King, Lydian gathered, from the throne he sat lazily upon, and the crown perched surprisingly delicate atop his graying head. She had never seen him before, never been given a memory of Laszlo's to dream. They always spoke in dreams, never had she been simply a bystander to something that had already happened.

    Confused, she approached her father and the King, knowing they could not see her. She bumped into a young man, wearing a solemn expression, who vaguely resembled the King, and she jumped back, but of course he could not feel her, he was only a memory. A prince, she supposed.

    Though she didn't know why Laszlo was showing her this dream, at least she knew he was, indeed, away for work. She had been previously unsure of what her father did, at least until that evening, when Callum had called him the Dreambender. Yet another myth that no one thought was real. She had only known that he was indebted to the King of Galrude, and must visit the mainland when called upon. She had not known the extent of his magic, that it could not only pull things out of dreams, but manipulate the world itself, or that it, and by extension, Laszlo himself, was the most highly sought after weapon on the mainland- by demons and men alike.

    "You did not tell us you had a daughter," the King was saying, and Lydian forced her attention back to the scene in front of her. "That is a rather large secret, wouldn't you say?" Laszlo shook his head, looking slightly panicked, which was, perhaps, what made Lydian realize something was quite wrong. Her father had never been anything but calm and collected, as far as she had seen him. If he was panicked... No, she was certain Laszlo would be alright. He always had been.

    "She is nothing," he whispered. "She is not like me." Lydian frowned. Not at his words, she knew they were meant as protection, but rather at the fact that he felt she needed it. Why would he have hidden her from the King?

    "Not yet," the King said. "But she will be, once you die."

    Lydian felt a chill. Her dreams had recently begun to manifest. More and more often she had been pulling things from her dreams, it was true, but if what Callum had told her was true she was nowhere near the power that her father possessed. She was sure it couldn't mean anything but an overactive imagination, because if she was really inheriting her father's powers, it meant he was nearing death.

"No," he pleaded with the King, "No she won't, she's nothing, she doesn't dream." Even Lydian could see his desperation.

    The King leaned forward and grabbed Laszlo by the neck, raising him from his knees a few inches off the ground. Lydian cried out and ran forward, but she was an observer, she could do nothing. How had it gone so wrong?

    "Don't lie to me."

    He released Laszlo to crumple on the floor, and Lydian ran to him, even though he couldn't feel her. She wrapped her arms around him as tight as she could in this strange dream state.

    "I'm sorry, Your Grace. Never again." Laszlo shook his head, jerkily, as if being forced to. "She causes no harm. She does not know who I am, what I do for you."

    "What you fail to do for me, you mean." Laszlo opened his mouth to protest. "No, you have been quite useful, Laszlo. Don't worry, I may yet let you return to your island. Your job is not done yet."

    Lydian saw her father open his mouth, to ask, to protest, she did not know, for the scene in front of her faded away, disappearing into tendrils of golden smoke until it was all she could see, and she woke from her bed with a start.

___

Alexei was so very tired of politics.

    As he listened to his father drone on, prattling to some noble or other about something Alexei was sure didn't matter, he found himself wanting only to lie down. He had felt faint, for days now, ever since he had returned home bearing the bodies of his brothers on his back. It all seemed some very cruel dream, but Alexei had seen death enough to know it was a very cruel world. Even the arrival of the Dreambender, a weapon they had so far been able to conceal from the demons, had seemed pointless with the deaths of his brothers looming over them.

    Alexei had not wept since that night in the forest, not when he entered this very hall and dropped the bodies of his brothers at his father's feet, not when their bodies had been burned, not when he realized he might lose his chance to become general. He would not weep for them. He could not.

    "Alexei," his father announced. Alexei looked up. He had not expected to be spoken to. "Step forward." Alexei did so. The King cleared his throat. "As of today, with the court here as my witness," he paused. Dear gods no. Not now. It was too soon, Alexei hadn't even been given a chance to change his father's mind. But Alexei knew what was coming. "Prince Alexei shall henceforth be known as Crown Prince Alexei, heir to the throne of Galrude."

    A scribe approached the dais where the King sat, head bowed in respect, and presented him with a scroll and quill. Alexei watched in horror as his father signed the decree, in full view of every noble with an ounce of power in Galrude.

    "Do you accept your task?" Alexei's father asked, and there was a warning in his eyes, because of course this was not a question. This was an order, and Alexei was, above all else, a soldier.

    When he accepted, the words tasted like ash. He thought perhaps he was going to retch, and that if he did so, perhaps the offer would be rescinded for causing such an embarrassment.

    But it was too late, the heads of the court and the nobles and even that blasted scribe were bowing, not the bow they would give him when he was king, but a bow nonetheless. It was done.

Alexei strode from the courtroom a few moments later, boots clicking against the marble tiles. He could bear it no longer, not when his head was spinning. He couldn't do this. He wasn't a leader, he was barely a prince, and he was certainly no king. Alexei was good at war. Strategy, cunning, fighting. That was where he was meant to be. He was fighter, not a politician. He was not meant to be King. He was not meant to be King.

    He was not meant to be King.