TVisTV Book 4: Chapter 7 (RAW) (Patreon)

Chapter 7 - Transgressions

Compassion begins when judgment ends.

- Unknown.

The next morning came as mornings always did, a brittle thing stained by rose-fingered dawn. Seraphina rose with a delicate yawn, rang the bell, and was soon attended by a team of servants who prepared her for the new day’s trials. They drew steaming water from the hot springs beneath the keep and bathed her skin with towels soft as clouds. They dressed her with her arms outstretched, layering her in the finest cloth, then brought breakfast to the private corner of the expansive chambers set aside for her use.

She dined alone, or rather without guests, since maids and body servants still hovered at her every whim. Seraphina de Savant cut into a warm, thin pancake sweetened with a reduction of wildberries, southern red wine, and honey. When she had finished, she set knife and fork aside, dabbed delicately at her lips, and nodded to the butler.

The man coughed politely, then opened the doors to her room.

In strode Sir Ferdiad Frest. He was better kept now, having spent several days off the road and within the bosom of safety, but there remained a tightness around his eyes. He looked like a man wound too tightly, still searching for some acceptable release.

“Report,” Seraphina ordered as fresh servants brought in the next course of her breakfast.

Looking at the devastation she had wrought, the girl could hardly believe how much she was able to eat. She knew growing teenagers had appetites, but the demands of her body still surprised her. The quantity of food she could put down her gullet felt, at times, almost embarrassing.

Frest snapped to attention and gave an awkward bow from the hip.

“As per your orders, milady, I went to the Lehman’s branch here in Carcaronne to collect your latest dispatches and missives,” he answered rapidly, handing her a bundle of letters tied with a fine silk ribbon.

Most of the communications looked like a random collection of poetry and the sentimental ramblings of distant lovers. In truth, they had been written in a rotating cipher Seraphina had already memorized. Together, they gave her a general outline of the state of affairs in her kingdom: the progress of the press operation, Bottlesworth’s Confectionaries, the Calabrian Bogs, and the disposition of commoners and nobility toward her.

The picture was conflicted. Most of the commoners still supported her strongly, suspecting foul play by the Crown. The nobility were more difficult. Opinion seemed split somewhere near the middle. They knew the Crown had been clearly in the wrong, and they feared that same injustice being turned upon them. Yet the fact that her own mother and father had adopted a more neutral position made many hesitant to throw their support behind her. At least, vocally.

All of it, every last thread, turned upon whom Seraphina chose to marry now that King Elidion’s attempts at her detention, and then her assassination, had so absolutely failed. The future of the Kingdom of Aranthia could now be said to depend upon her choice of husband, since she was, in the eyes of the realm, a free woman. And, with marriage to any of the local nobility of Aranthia almost de facto treason, a foreign alliance looked to be the most likely outcome.

She had become a prize to be wooed and won, now more than ever, and it was a truly nightmarish condition for the Crown.

An alliance with a Quassian philosopher-sealord would give that sea-born power a vaunted base of operations on the mainland, one of their generational ambitions. An alliance with a Holder Prince of Al-Lazar, such as the elder brother of her friend Rashana, would grant Seraphina access to the Sultanate’s vast and exotic resources. Yet the greatest threat would be a marriage into the Empire, Aranthia’s most powerful and bitterest rival. Though the two realms were ostensibly at peace, tensions simmered, as they always did. A marriage alliance with an Imperial prince would give Seraphina access to legions of men, and give the Empire a casus belli to reignite the war, not as conquerors this time, but as saviors. In one stroke, they could vastly expand their influence across the continent. 

With the correct choice of husband she would be able to reign as Queen of Aranthia, and with suitable politicking, merely give lip service to the Mandate of Heaven and the Jade Dragon Throne. There would be concessions, of course, but there would also be a long and lasting peace.

Which meant that the logical recourse for the Crown was to try and stop her. 

But, here in the Duchy of Carcaronne, with winter’s grip tightening by the day, she enjoyed a position of relative safety. At least until spring, and perhaps even beyond. Without her father, the Duke, to lead and unite the banners of Aranthia’s military, Elidion would find any campaign to subjugate her grandmother’s lands extremely costly.

That was, of course, assuming her grandmother was not drawn into a military conflict with the Tribes.

An annoying little point, that. Annoying enough to make Seraphina almost regret killing the Ice Drake. Almost. The experience gained from its death had been rather welcome. Besides, she was reasonably certain Grandmother Adelaide would settle the matter peacefully, perhaps by offering the barbarians some fine steel weapons, or a few more goats and cows.

Seraphina pursed her lips in thought. “It seems my maid Miriam has found someone to manage my holdings. She will be arriving within the fortnight, despite the deteriorating weather. You will, of course, meet her when she arrives and ensure she settles in.”

“Of course, milady,” Frest answered dutifully.

His stomach growled. He coughed at once, as if hoping to cover the source of the sound .

Seraphina’s brow furrowed in mild annoyance. “It seems they are not feeding you properly in the barracks. Sit, if it pleases you, and tell me how you intend to spend your time here while we wait for matters to advance.”

It was both an order and an offer, delivered with a wave of her hand.

Before Frest could even begin contemplating whether he ought to sit, the servants were already in motion, clearing an appropriate place for him. He had no choice but to lower himself awkwardly into the seat, armor and all. To refuse would be churlish. “If it pleases you, milady,” he accepted as neutrally as possible, removing his mailed mittens and laying them across his lap.

“Tell me, Frest, just how much have you fleeced from…”

Seraphina stopped mid-sentence as shouting echoed through the corridors, loud enough to reach even her chambers.

“What is that awful noise? Is the keep under attack?” she asked a nearby maid.

The maid could only answer with a panicked look.

When no proper answer looked forthcoming, Seraphina decided to take matters into her own hands. “Well, I might as well find out, I suppose,” she declared with a small sigh.

“Excuse me, Lady Seraphina…” Frest began.

A single look from her silenced him.

“You stay there and have your fill. I will not have it said that we are starving you, now can I? If I need you, I will call for you.”

The blonde girl turned up her nose slightly and clicked her fingers. Servants fetched her a thick cloak and draped it over her clothes, since some of the corridors remained unheated. Seraphina then marched from her chambers, following the loud, unintelligible noise.

The young girl would soon find its source soon enough. It came from the main entrance hall of the keep, just before the warming rooms. There the sound boomed and swelled loudly that for a moment she thought people were killing each other. 

Control and grace, she decided to herself as she glided down the stairs. It would not do to seem perturbed at all by a little shouting. Descending, her eyes finally grasped and took in the scene.

A large group of giants stood in the hallway. Not true Giants, perhaps, but giants in the way all people of the north seemed to be. And, at their head stood what appeared to be their leader, a towering blond man clad in steel, hides, and thick scales. His hair was duller and more flaxen than Seraphina’s own gold, woven into dreadlocks that fell past his shoulders like a lion’s mane. He had a barrel chest, a warrior’s build, and eyes of frosty cobalt blue that nonetheless held a great fire within them.

At his side stood a woman a head shorter than he was, with features similar enough that even from this distance their kinship was obvious. She held a staff in one hand, decorated with bone fetishes and small ornaments that clicked whenever she moved. Unlike the man beside her, she wore no armor, only thick white Cronir fur. Her hair had been left straight, and her eyes were grey rather than blue.

The booming sounds, it seemed, belonged to the man. Or at least half of it did, for her grandmother, Duchess Adelaide, seemed determined not to be outdone and answered him in a volume nearly equal to his own.

To Seraphina, it sounded like a positively awful way to discuss matters. Her borrowed memories held no understanding of the northern tongue, but she was not without means to decipher their guttural, thunderous exchange. She narrowed her eyes and cast Identify upon the heated debate itself.

“The price will be great if you do not wish that price to be paid in blood,” the towering blond man exclaimed. “The insult you have brought upon us is without compare. Those outside the clan cannot take the life of such things.”

“You speak of price, Three Bears, and threaten me within my own home,” her grandmother retorted, every word as sharp as a drawn blade. “It was clearly an accident. My kin did not purposefully hunt the Ice Drake. And even if she had, by the ancient accords, we are well within our rights to take one-tenth of whatever crosses the ice. Or would you relight the old days, when metal was washed with blood?”

“You who live in stone tents always have a way with little words,” he shot back, “thinking they can twist you free of the problems you have caused.”

The woman at his side nudged him with her free hand, then gestured toward the stairs.

Then it happened. One of those small, absurd turns upon which fate seemed so fond of. The massive blond man paused in the lull between one accusation and the next, and looked up toward Seraphina.

The girl could almost feel the moment her raw Charisma overrode his reason as she continued her descent to the bottom of the stairs. 

Once she reached the foot of the stairs, Seraphina gave a formal curtsy. “I see the envoys of the Three Bears clan and offer greetings as a daughter of this house,” she offered, all demure beauty and hidden iron. “I have been named Seraphina.”

Her grandmother looked at her and came very close to shaking her head before relaying the words to the Three Bears.

The man remained frozen, as if the sound of Seraphina’s voice had pushed him over some invisible edge. His jaw looked in danger of dropping all the way to the floor. The men around him stirred, and Seraphina could almost imagine the word passing among them. Witch. It was, after all, a common refrain from the simpler sex when faced with something they could not understand. Across ages, kingdoms, and worlds, some things remained depressingly consistent.

The large man’s companion nudged him again, and the spell broke just enough for him to remember himself. “I see you, Seraphina of this house,” he said, his voice halting now. “I am Enkarn of the Three Bears, and this is my Windspeaker, my sister Aresthea. We offer you greeting.”

Her grandmother translated the words a moment later, annoyance writ in the lines of her face as her grandaughter interrupted their dealings.

Little did they know that Identify had already revealed their meaning.

Seraphina smiled then, innocent and wide, batting her eyelashes at him with exquisite precision. “I do believe we were discussing prices,” she said softly.

Enkarn found his steel again and turned his gaze back to Lady Adelaide. “The price for the transgression is to make it no transgression at all,” he declared. “We would welcome the daughter of this house into our clan as a bride. Name your bride price.”