Chapter Six Fenlia #2
The table’s conversation does not mention Fen in the least, but rather the actual work Cat and Elician have been doing in that damnable office.
Their sigil has been finalized, and Demaintain has sent word that she forwarded Cat’s letter, but she did not confirm who she sent it to.
Adalei seems to believe she sent it to Captain Partho and not Gillage, but there’s no certainty at all.
‘Let’s hope for the best in this case, and hope he’s receptive as well,’ Adalei says, lifting her glass in a gesture of good faith.
She sips from it with an elegant poise that Fen has never managed to replicate.
Adalei never says anything that she ever regrets. She thinks before she speaks.
‘Were you fond of Captain Partho, when you knew him?’ Adalei asks Cat.
‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘I don’t remember much…but I think…I think he helped my father teach me how to use a sword.’
‘Helped your father teach you?’
‘My father’s knee kept him from doing certain positions or lasting long on the training ground. I remember…spending hours there. I must have spent that time with Partho, but…’ He shrugs. ‘I don’t remember him so much as the exercise.’
‘Well at least if he does come to your aid, we can expect the help of a good swordsman. You’ll need it.’ She is pleased with the arrangement Cat and Elician have made with Laure. But Fen doubts she’s ever going to be fully pleased with Elician’s decisions at this point.
‘Yes,’ this Cat says with confidence. ‘He was the best.’
‘Speaking of swords,’ Elician cuts in, tearing off a piece of bread and actually putting it in his mouth to chew. ‘Fenlia, where is yours?’
Her sword. Since returning to Himmelsheim, and on top of the other duties now expected of her, he has demanded she start practising swordplay again.
You can be captured and hurt just as easily as anyone can, he insisted.
Learn to defend yourself without your flames.
Each lesson has felt like a distraction.
They muddy her head, keeping her exhausted when she goes to her next lesson with Adalei or to stand in at court and greet members of parliament as they arrive from their many territories.
There is so much more she can be doing, and the sword is useless.
‘It’s…not appropriate with court dress.’
‘Neither is your murder or kidnapping,’ Elician replies. He has his sword with him. Cat does as well. Even Adalei has a dagger on her. ‘Get it after the meal. Wear it. Do not go anywhere without it.’
‘I can just light people on fire if they try anything,’ she reminds him. Lio, who didn’t even flinch when she accused him of failing to keep Elician safe from more than a year of torture, breathes in sharply. Cat stills in his seat.
‘Have you ever heard the sound of someone screaming while they’re burning?’ Elician asks, ice dripping from each word. She swallows, shaking her head, not trusting herself to speak. ‘Smelled their flesh as it—’
‘Elician.’ Cat very nearly whispers the word, breathing it out on an exhale that Fen barely hears.
Elician takes the napkin by his plate, wipes his hands, then mouth, then stands. ‘Wear the fucking sword.’ He marches from the room, Lio following in his shadow, and leaves silence in his wake.
No one speaks. No one eats either. The food lies before them, all, for certain, to now go to waste. ‘You should do as he says,’ Cat murmurs. Then he stands and follows Elician and Lio out. Tears prick at Fen’s eyes.
Fuck everything about today.
She pushes back from the table and flees to her room.
The sabre she has been practising with rests next to her desk.
Right by the letter Aliamon had given her.
A letter detailing her multiple flaws but telling her she still has time to correct them.
All she needs to do is behave. She is very bad at that, but reading and rereading it has become something of a nightly ritual.
The last words her adoptive father had to give her, and she is still a source of shame.
She snatches at the sabre and its belt. Both clash with her chosen dress, not formal enough by far, but she loops the belt around her waist and makes sure the sheath and sword sit well at her side.
She needs to run to make the start of the parliament meeting, but she still gets there before all the lords have assembled.
Everything has been prepared meticulously for this occasion.
All are seated according to rank and purpose, the front row allotted specifically for Elician’s interior council.
Fen sits in the first seat closest to the aisle, her hands folded in her lap, desperately trying to hold back tears.
Adalei is directly across from her at the head of their gentry.
Just down the line from her sit Lord Hamad and his son, Rodans.
Tall and lithe, Rodans exudes a charming aura of confidence.
He is not the type of person to insult everyone he knows in the worst way possible all before breakfast. He is a dutiful son, who attends these sessions despite it not being a requirement for heirs to do so.
He even joins Fen during her swordsmanship classes, and never once teases her when she fails.
He waves in her direction, and she forces herself to smile at him. Wave back.
The door nearest the front of the hall opens, and everyone rises with practised ease.
Lio is there, escorting Elician and Cat to two golden chairs engraved with gilded images of Soleb’s historic past. The great rush of fury that coursed through Elician at breakfast is gone, replaced with the placid demeanour she is far more familiar with seeing.
He is not relaxed, but he no longer seems ready to go on the attack either.
Above them, the clock strikes the top of the hour, and Elician sits the moment the toll ends. The rest of the room follows suit.
‘We welcome this, our first parliamentary session under our name,’ Elician intones, as tradition requires.
He asks for the scribe’s confirmation that the proceedings are being recorded, then begins the first in a long list of required announcements.
Fen stares straight ahead and just focuses on breathing.
On not making another fool out of herself for the third time this day.
But then, her brother is interrupted. ‘Permission to speak, Your Majesty?’ Lord Hamad asks from down the line.
Elician seems more startled than anything else, as if he had memorized the order of the ceremony and had not prepared himself for any alternative.
He glances awkwardly towards Calissia, sitting in the gallery above, before clenching his jaw and forcing his gaze back to Hamad.
‘Speak, our lord,’ Elician allows, sounding far more confident than he appears.
Hamad bows with his hand over his chest, low and submissive. When he straightens, he apologizes for his interruption. ‘I have much respect for you and your position, Your Majesty, and it is because of this respect that I am driven to speak.’
‘So…speak,’ Elician says. Fen bites the inside of her cheek. Rodans abruptly needs to change a laugh into an almost acceptable-sounding cough, and he is not the only one needing such an excuse.
Hamad is ignorant of the titters. He bows his head.
‘Of course, Your Majesty. Only, it has come to the attention of certain members of this body that there was a change last night to our book of laws. And I see from our schedule that such a change is not to be discussed. This is, of course, your due, but with the upcoming nuptials between you and Stello Alest, there are those in this body who are concerned as to what the future may entail for your house.’
Fen doesn’t understand. What law? ‘And what concerns are they?’ Elician asks.
Hamad clears his throat. He gestures, with some small attempt at civility, towards Cat.
‘We all know that Stello Alest of Alelune is a Reaper, Your Majesty. A Reaper, especially a male Reaper, cannot provide the crown with an heir. With your decision to strike one of our most ancient laws from the book – as is of course your right – forbidding the ascension of a Giver to the throne of Soleb, this body must ask if you intend for Princess Fenlia to now be your heir.’
Fen doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t think. She sits, frozen as a lake in the deepest of winter. Her ears ring with a sudden, sharp siren of tinnitus. She cannot bring herself to look to her left or to her right. Adalei sits directly across from her, and her cousin is, for once, looking right back.
‘No,’ Elician says. ‘Adalei, daughter of King Anslian, is and always will be our heir.’ Elician’s voice sounds like it is swimming through the frozen tides of her disbelief. Shouting through the water threatening to drown her as she sits there, still and unmoving, desperate to not be perceived.
Why today? Why did this question need to be raised today? When everything else had already gone so very wrong?
She has always known Adalei would be Elician’s heir. Adalei has been called such since the moment they returned to Himmelsheim. She has been primed and groomed and prepared for this very moment. She has known this.
‘Is Princess Fenlia not your sister?’ Hamad asks. ‘Would that not take precedence over a cousin, regardless of how eminently qualified that cousin may be? With the law on Givers not inheriting struck down, Princess Fenlia is legally higher in the line of succession.’
‘Fenlia,’ Elician calls. It hurts to move.
The muscles in her neck are too tight. She demands each one to respond to her, rallying each tendon like a cavalry set to charge.
She meets her brother’s eyes. ‘Will you abdicate your place as first in the line of succession to confirm our cousin Adalei’s placement as my chosen heir? ’
She has never considered it.
She has never wanted it.
Behave, Aliamon had insisted. This is what Elician wants. What she knows he has always wanted.