Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Y ou haven’t eaten a bite, Austyn, whatever is the matter?” Magdor asked in exasperation.
It was Princess Austyn’s nineteenth birthday and she sat with her veil in place at the far end of the long banquet table, her father at the opposite end beside his empress.
Austyn looked alone, so many seats and so much food piled between her and her father that they had to raise their voices just to speak to one another.
Which I noticed they didn’t do all that often.
Not like they once had, before Magdor. I hadn’t been the emperor’s personal guard back then, I’d been fairly new at my job when Magdor had arrived, still training most evenings with Captain Marik.
He was a cutthroat man who took joy in punishing the new recruits, and even now he still thrived on punishing any of us who stepped a toe out of line.
If our armour wasn’t aptly polished, our jerkins not precisely laced.
..all mistakes held a price. I had received so many lashings from him in my life that the scars on my back blurred together into a criss-crossing web, a mark of my enforced obedience.
It was hardly a surprise I liked my surroundings clean and perfect, because the cost of tiny imperfections had been blood.
My father had known the cost of his own misgivings too, working as an honourable protector of the crown.
He had served as a royal guard his entire life and had died protecting the emperor’s first wife, Austyn’s mother, during an attempted invasion on the palace from the Quellioths when I was a boy.
Their country was an island in the Forken Sea which bordered our great empire and had once sought to overthrow Emperor Tarim and the Lunarelle royals, though they had more recently begun an all-out war with the Forkens.
They had been slaughtered by our men, their army desecrated, but not before they’d pillaged the city and wreaked havoc through the streets.
Peace had eventually been agreed between our empire and their kingdom despite the Osarian Empire being so much larger than their island home.
The truth of it was that their borders were too well defended and their seas too heavily populated with war ships for us to attack without it costing far more than we would gain.
The cost in lives and coin would have been far too great, so we won the battle and agreed upon peace rather than declaring war and dragging it out by chasing them back across the sea.
My mother called them the dark days. Witnessing my father losing his life fighting for peace in Osaria had instilled in me the desire to follow in his footsteps and ensure that peace remained.
It seemed like I was honouring the sacrifice he’d made, making it worthwhile.
Though I had never realised the extent of that sacrifice until I’d joined the Guard myself.
His death wasn’t the only thing he had offered the crown, he had given up certain freedoms only enjoyed by Fae with less responsibilities.
He had offered up nearly all of his free time, had stood guard for endless hours, sometimes not speaking a single word in all that time.
This life was a sacrifice in itself, and I had decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t take a wife or bear children, because for as much as my mother had loved my father, she had told me of the brief windows of time they had gotten together, of how deeply she’d missed him even when he was only a stone’s throw away from her at the palace.
I had known that loss too, aching to see him for days on end only to be gifted a few hours in his company.
This job didn’t lend itself to family life, it was solitary and lonely and sometimes I despised it.
But then I thought of my father and of the lives he’d saved, I thought of the children who played safely in the streets of Osaria and of the princess who sat safely within these walls.
And the pain of my natural instincts became easier to bear.
But since Magdor’s arrival, I had felt on edge, knowing the slums were growing in size, that many of our people were starving, that taxes were increasing and that our empire was facing a new, more deadly threat. One which had slipped in our back door and was present amongst us now.
“I don’t want to eat while I wear my veil,” Austyn said. “I want to eat with my father in my rooms, like we did when I was younger. I want to talk about my mother and I want-”
“How dare you disrespect your father so?” Magdor bit at her. “He has laid out this wonderful feast for you, but you must have more. More, more, more. Perhaps if you were a more grateful child, then you would not miss your mother so because you would have a new one in me.”
“You will never be a mother to me,” Austyn snarled and my jaw ground as I vehemently agreed with that.
The emperor seemed to be dozing off, oblivious to the argument unfolding between his wife and daughter.
My hand moved automatically to the hilt of my sword, his vulnerable state making me wary.
I was always wary around Magdor, she gave off a vibe which set my hackles rising, and I knew better than to ignore my instincts on such things.
“Well, if you are going to be like that, then you can eat alone. Come, dear.” Magdor rose abruptly from her seat, shaking the emperor’s arm to rouse him.
He choked on a snore, rising to his feet and smiling sleepily at his wife. “What’s that, my love?”
“Austyn wishes to dine alone,” Magdor announced.
“I never said-” the princess started.
“Perhaps not in so many words, but the sentiment is clear. Guard, stay with her and escort her back to her rooms when she has finished eating.” Magdor snapped her fingers at me, but I looked to the emperor. She wasn’t in charge here, he was.
“Tell him, Tarim,” Magdor encouraged and he looked to me with a nod.
“Yes, do as she says, Cassius,” he agreed and though my feet remained rooted to the spot, I watched her closely all the way out of the hall as the other guards moved to exit too.
There were guards positioned all around the palace, but I knew she could have killed the emperor on multiple occasions if she wanted to while sharing a bed with him. I despised leaving him alone with her, fearing that one of these days I’d find him cold and lifeless somewhere between these walls.
“Do as she says,” Austyn mimicked Magdor in a snide tone. “Fucking Maggot.”
A laugh got caught in my throat and despite all my years of training to shield my emotions, it cracked out enough to be noticed and I worked hard to cover it with a slight cough.
She turned towards me, her veil covering her features but doing nothing to make me feel less under scrutiny.
“Forgive me, Your Highness,” I said, figuring it was best to own up to my failing.
“Don’t apologise, Cassius,” she said.
“It is too late for that, Princess.”
She chuckled and the sound was like music filling the whole room, bringing light into this eternally dark place. It was Magdor who had brought the dark, but it seemed she hadn’t managed to break Austyn’s spirit with her sombre presence.
“I know saying this is pointless, but I hate her, Cassius Lazar. I fucking hate her and I wouldn’t care one bit if she caught the plague and rotted away before my very eyes.”
I frowned, sensing her sadness bleeding from her into me and the worst thing was that I couldn’t do anything about it.
The next words slid from my tongue before I could hold them back and I knew they might incur me some lashings if I offended her by speaking out of turn, but apparently, I wasn’t in a mind to care.
“It is not my place to say, but I believe you will be immeasurably happy one day, Princess Austyn.”
“Why would you say that?” she asked in surprise.
“Because I know that you are dissatisfied. And I know that…” I bit my tongue, these words having no right to sit on it.
“That what? Tell me,” she commanded, and I was forced to release the words.
“All dark clouds scatter.”
She fell quiet and I wasn’t sure if she was contemplating that or if she was contemplating the punishment fitting for them. But eventually she spoke again, and I realised my breath had been held for the entirety of her pause.
“Are you happy, Cassius?”
The question was so unexpected that I simply had no immediate answer to give. It had been a very long time indeed since I’d been asked such a question, but to be asked it by the princess herself was something of a shock.
“Well?” she pressed. “Are you?”
“I am…content with my lot in life, Princess.”
“That’s not what I asked you.” She rose from her seat and I felt the power of her royal blood humming in the air, demanding I respect it. And I did so with every bone in my body.
Perhaps she wanted a lie, to hear that yes, I was happy, that I smiled often and laughed freely outside of my position here. But for some reason I couldn’t get my tongue to wrap around the words which I should have spoken to shut down this conversation. Instead, I gave her my truth.
“I believe children are happy, Your Highness. And when we grow older, the fools among us spend the rest of their days chasing what they lost. But I am no fool.”
“And why is it foolish to wish for happiness?” she asked, walking towards me, every step in my direction making my heart work a little harder to pump blood.
“Because fools will never find it, only those who deserve it will. And you deserve it, Princess. I am certain of that.”
She shook her head, looking up at me from beneath her veil, the material giving me no glimpse of her features, yet I could practically taste the beauty of her soul in the air.
“And why would you believe such a thing?”
“I…”
“Speak freely,” she pushed, a sense of need in her tone that set my pulse racing. I had her full and undivided attention, a thing I should never have possessed and yet somehow it was being bestowed on me like a gift from a god. And the darkest part of me wanted to hold onto it and never let go.