The only sound in the court room was that of the guard's heavy boots as he moved towards the king on the head of the long table. The monarch's face was blank with an expression of pure fury and disappointment as he took the scroll the guard presented. Arcturus crossed his arms above the velvet waistcoat. The heat stifled him and yet he kept the black Draeked cloak around his shoulders. He had seen the monarch angry before but never had it been as blazing as this. This time he knew that the source of Harfen Parr's vexation would be incinerated. He hoped it was Faske.
Never had the members of all the courts of Falargimea sat before the king as they did now. The Court of Draeked sat nearest to Harfen Parr, two on each of his sides. Next came the War Council which made up half the attendees and took up one entire length of the table. In front of them sat the Bench of Philosophers and the Hall of Ambassadors.
The House of Night, the band of Parr's spies and assassins, was the only one who could not be distinguished. They were the king's ears and eyes. Arcturus knew the identities of only four of their number.
"Humour me," Harfen Parr's voice rang cold along the walls and the cold blue flames in the hearth flickered, almost going out before springing back up.
None of them knew what to say and he knew it was better to remain quiet. It was better not to speak when they had been the cause of the monarch's ire.
The silence prolonged and Parr finally stood up and turned away from them. They watched as he walked over to the high windows, the sunlight filtering from the tinted glass, shadowing his face green.
"Tell me," he started without turning around. "Have I failed in asserting the importance of catching each and every VannØrn? Have I not been clear that it is the Bones girl that I want to be brought to me no matter what it takes?"
A few of them stared at the oak wood table with their heads low, as if that would save them from being burned by the man's wrath. It wouldn't work. If any of them didn't take responsibility for their failures, the council would end with flames leaping in the air. And he knew it would be him, he knew it would be him because it had been his fault anyone in that village had escaped, wasn't it? He was the one who had been delayed and the soldiers at Kapok had hatched half-baked disasters without him. All because of Faske. He wanted to blow the man into smithereens.
"Yet, you have failed time and time again to do so," he grit out. "Twice, she was in your grasp. As Ward Ceri informed me, she was there, injured in a forest and yet you failed to get your hands on her. You led the troops onto the village and the very people I wanted captured escaped."
Arcturus knew his name was coming. He clenched his hands into fists, trying not to point an accusing finger at Faske. If this ended with the king's trust broken in him, then he'd make sure Faske faced the retributions of what he had done. For now, he would keep his lips sealed. He would keep his silence. He would not play his cards till he knew what the others had in store.
"Master Toluer you failed in Pyropa."
There it was. That rebuke he had been expecting but there was lesser heat in the words directed at him. The anger was clouded with curiosity and some confusion.
No wonder. His best man had run to the ground.
"Did you manage to find out who it was, Master Toluer?" Arcturus frowned. Managed to find what? "The one who countered your attacks against the woman?"
Arcturus remembered. He had searched high and low for the culprit and yet the only thing he had managed to find was the ripped edge of a worn out cloak.
"There was no one on the battlements from where the attack came, Sire," he leapt to grasp the one opening that he had been given to palliate the anger towards him. He would not see Faske as the victor. "We reckon whoever it was, had allied themselves with Bones. We searched the citadel for traces of unfamiliar Draedech and found none, Sire."
Harfen Parr turned around, his hands crossed behind his back and eyes cold. The fire made each and every contour of his face stand out. He started to slowly circle the table.
"Ward Thane," all eyes circled to look at the knight, whose face was mottled with bruises and cuts. Arcturus saw him pale slightly when Parr came to a stop behind his seat. "Brief the council. Tell them how Bones escaped your clutches."
The words 'Tell them how you failed.' lay beneath the smooth cadence of the words.
"She has allied herself with a Draedechian, Sire," Ward Thane's voice trembled only lightly as he spoke. "We followed her out of Medlar. I tried to take away her will as she was crossing the river. Tried to drown her."
Arcturus' blood ran cold. They needed that woman alive. They had no use for her cold lifeless corpse. He saw the tightening of the muscle around the sovereign's mouth. Saw the chill creep into his eyes. He said nothing and Thane continued.
"She survived. I felt it when she broke free of my control. We lost her after that, Your Majesty. The next time we saw her, it was a few hours ride away from the Vakhor territory. She was being accompanied by someone, Sire. Someone with Draedech. They attacked us. Together. We shot her twice before they plunged straight across the treeline and beyond the Vakhor border."
Then the woman was as good as dead. A chill went down his spine. He knew who it was that would leave the table with their head detached.
"But it was the strangest thing, Sire," Thane continued and frantically turned around, sensing the rising danger behind him. A prey snatching at the last moments of calm. He leapt out of his chair and fell to his knees, a pleading note seeping into his voice. "The woman. The Vakhor descended upon them like hounds from hell, and I saw a shield of pure blinding white cover them, Sire. It repelled the Vakhor and they shrank back shrieking like the banshees of Smyrces. We did everything, Sire. Everything."
Parr looked down at the ward with steel in his eyes. He whipped around once again and Thane kept kneeling, not daring to move.
"The Vakhor," Parr began. "Interesting creatures aren't they?"
Silence was the only answer.
"Some believe they are demons," Parr continued, pacing the length of the hall. "Some say they are the troubled souls of the dead. All of them foolish thoughts of meagre minds. Tales weaved over the centuries. The Vakor were always there. Long before we dropped into Afsan. Long before the Arranoa took the throne.
"It was Zardan Tyll, a Borskalle, one of the strongest Draedechians of his age, who travelled beyond the southern kingdoms and found the land of Vakh. Saw the creatures. They say Zardan was fierce. Had such a strong lust for blood, riches and the misery of others that the Vakhor thought them as one of their own. He put the Vakhor under an enchantment, one that would last beyond his death. It tied the Vakhor to the Borskalle. They became our allies. Their lands were only a safe haven for us. Any other man was burnt from the inside out, till only their blackened bones and ash remained."
Arcturus had never heard of that before. He had thought that they were demons unleashed as a punishment for their sins. He looked around. It seemed everyone except a few members of the Bench of Philosophers were hearing this for the first time.
"There was an artefact created by Zardan," Parr said. "The Halo of Vakh, he called it. A powerful object. Zardan passed it down and it went from son to grandson, daughter to granddaughter, till it was lost. For years, none of the Borskalle knew where it went. For the past thirty one years no one knew of its whereabouts."
No one dared to interrupt. They listened with rapt attention, trying to understand why they were being told this. On the floor, Thane shifted a bit, his head still bowed, body tense as if waiting for some strike. The king continued.
"And now, I am afraid that the Bones spawn will get her filthy hands on it."
The chill intensified and the Parr turned around, silver-grey eyes burning with fire and flint. The glare landed on Thane.
"I gave you my seal, didn't I?" he whispered and the low voice carried all around the room. "It should have allowed you to enter the Vakhor territory. And yet, you return empty handed, like a dog with its tail between its legs. Do you know what your cowardice has cost me? What it shall cost Falargimea?"
The sound that left Thane was pitying, a low whine deep from his throat as his head lowered itself further, his golden locks falling over his face, trembling. Overhead, the king's fury mounted like a cloud gathering watering till it burst. He turned around and swiped the scroll he had been handed off the table and put it in front of Master Cadar of the Bench of Philosophers. The old man looked stricken.
"Read it," Parr ordered. "Read it and tell everyone what this says. Tell them what you told me. So that they know what is at stake."
The wrinkled hand shook only slightly, not out of fear but from old age. None of the councillors had anything to fear now that they knew who the prey of the king's anger was. It wasn't a thick scroll just a paper of parchment rolled up once and tied with reed. The high pitched voice of Falargimea's soothsayer floated over them.
"Blood shall kill blood, love shall fell love, the bone will crack and fire shall reign again. The scorpion's sting and the fireblood's kin shall meet upon the plain of death. When the departed wake in blood and ash, it'll bring the end of the halfblood man. When flame meets the forsaken right, when wronged meets the fox crow hide, when friend becomes the fiend, the crown of blood and crows shall fall. When the halfbloods rise, the willow shall thrive and the scorpion shall meet its end in another's home."
It was a prophecy, something Cardar had probably come up with months ago. Arcturus didn't know what to make of it. The only thing he had understood was the bit about fireblood's kin. He knew it referred to the VannØrn.
"We are heading to our deaths," Parr spoke up. "Sapphire Bones is a direct descendant of Zardan Tyll. Her mother betrayed her family. The eldest of four daughters, she was the worst of them all. A shame upon the name of the Tyll household."
His fist came down hard on the wood. The bang echoed off the walls.
"She stole the family heirloom and ran off never to be seen again for the next thirty one years of her life. She hid the Halo, hid the artefact that would have brought her glory, given her family and sept the magnificence of a thousand kingdoms at their feet without a single word. And you failed me. All of you!"
A chill went around the room. Sapphire Bones was a Borskalle, an object of prophecy and doom of Harfen Parr. For the first time since the council had commenced, Arcturus feared for his life.
"All of you failed whilst I made it clear that each and every one of the VannØrn should be dead. And yet, half of them linger around Falargimea like hidden ants! You dishearten and upset me..."
The silence that fell was absolute, and Thane shivered ever more violently, his shoulders shaking like a leaf in a hurricane and yet no sound escaped him.
"Thane Yart," a sob escaped the ward, loud and stinging. "I lay your charges before you. You disobeyed an express order from your king. You let a woman charged with the murder of one of our most respected number escape, despite having all the means to catch her. You posed a threat to the Kingdom of Falargimea. Do you deny your charges?"
"No, Sire," Arcturus saw Thane's lip wobble. "Sire... Have mercy! Have mercy, Sire -"
"You, Thane Yart of the House of Arranoa, are stripped of your lands and your title of Ward," Parr's voice rang over the table, cold and unforgiving. Thane pleaded below, falling on his hands to crawl towards the king's cloak, tears falling onto his mottled face. "You are charged with high treason and announced a traitor to your land. Your children and wife shall be stripped of their nobility and sold to the Adarth Bandits along with all her wealth as a peace offering. Your children shall be sent as slaves to work in the Hardan Sulfer mines."
The sentence was worse than death itself. The Adarth bandits were the sea looters, raging through the southern seas, plundering Falargimea's ships to Sataria. Thane's lands would be enough to strike a truce with the bandits. The Hardan mines were a death trap. Half the miners died after five to six years. The children would never survive. Thane cried out.
"Sire! Sire pardon the children! Pardon my family! Sire... You're kind, Sire. Merciful. My children! My wife! Take me, Sire! Sell me to the bandits. Send my children and wife into exile... Sire! Pardon! Mercy..."
The king ignored the snivelling man at his feet. His head lifted and the cold gaze swept the room once, unforgiving.
"Thane Yart of the House of Troyanruẑa, sixth son of the late Gabriel Yart, you are hereby sentenced to death by fire after a set of hundred lashes by barbed iron. May your life be a lesson to all those who stand in the way of Falargimea's golden age."
For the next ten minutes, the traitor's yells and calls echoed in the hallways beyond.
.·:*¨༻ ༺¨*:·.
Yes, I love seeing you hate Toluer.