chapter 73- twin chaos
The noise began outside the courtroom.
At first, no one reacted.
That was not unusual.
The imperial palace was never truly silent, no matter how often people insisted upon describing it that way. Silence belonged to abandoned places. Dead places. Places where no one felt safe enough to move freely.
The palace had servants hurrying through corridors with armfuls of linen, guards changing shifts beneath the scrape of boots and armor, messengers carrying sealed orders between wings, and nobles whispering too loudly outside doors they believed were thick enough to protect their secrets.
Something was always falling. Someone was always late.
Somewhere, Elias was usually threatening a person who had inconvenienced him.
Noise was normal.
It simply knew better than to cross into court.
The courtroom remained governed by a different kind of discipline.
Even breathing seemed quieter there. The scrape of a chair drew attention.
A cough during a petition could feel like an insult.
Every word spoken before the throne was measured carefully because words in court had a way of becoming records, and records had a way of surviving longer than the people foolish enough to create them.
That morning had been particularly dull.
A minister stood near the center of the floor discussing grain storage in the southern provinces.
He had been discussing it for so long that I had begun wondering whether famine might be preferable to hearing the end of the report.
The court recorder sat at a narrow desk below the throne, pen moving steadily despite the fact that no human being could possibly require so many pages devoted to damp wheat.
Beside me, Ophelia read through a separate ledger.
She listened while reading.
I had never understood how she did that.
I could listen to court or read documents. Attempting both usually resulted in neither being done properly. Ophelia somehow absorbed every number on the page while also correcting ministers when they lied by omission.
The first shout came from the corridor.
Distant.
High-pitched.
Angry.
The minister paused.
Only briefly.
Then continued, apparently deciding that any crisis outside the courtroom did not concern southern grain.
The second sound was laughter.
Not polite laughter.
Not the restrained amusement of nobles pretending a duke had said something clever.
This laughter was loud, bright, and completely without shame. It rolled down the corridor toward us and struck the closed doors hard enough that several members of court looked toward them before remembering they were not supposed to appear curious.
I lowered my gaze to the report in my hand.
Perhaps ignoring it would cause the problem to pass somewhere else.
That strategy had never worked before.
I attempted it anyway.
Another scream echoed outside.
Closer this time.
The minister stopped speaking completely. The court recorder's pen hovered above the page. Every noble nearest the doors straightened. Guards positioned along the walls shifted almost imperceptibly, hands moving nearer their weapons without yet touching them.
Ophelia lowered her ledger.
Her eyes moved toward the doors. I looked at her.
The faintest smile had already begun threatening the corner of her mouth.
That was when I knew. Whatever waited outside belonged to us.
No other family in Elysium approached the imperial courtroom screaming as though execution had become a recreational activity.
A heavy impact struck one of the doors.
The wood shook.
One elderly lord was startled so badly that his cane slipped against the floor.
Then came the voice.
Clear.
Furious.
Unmistakable.
"PUT ME DOWN, YOU ONE-EYED FOOL!"
I closed my eyes.
A silence followed.
Not true silence.
The kind created when several hundred people simultaneously attempted not to laugh before determining whether laughter would result in their deaths.
Ophelia turned her face away. Her shoulders moved once.
She was already laughing. The minister near the center of the floor looked down at his papers as though grain storage had suddenly become sacred.
The doors shook again.
I stood.
The movement happened before thought.
Some habits lived too deeply inside the body to be reasoned with. My hand moved toward the sword at my side. I stepped in front of Ophelia, placing myself between her and the entrance as the guards drew steel.
The courtroom changed instantly.
Every noble lowered their head or stepped back. The court recorder abandoned the pen altogether. The minister gathered his documents against his chest as though parchment might stop a blade. The double doors slammed open.
I tensed.
Then the entire court began laughing.
It started somewhere near the back.
A muffled sound.
Then another.
One young noble covered his mouth too late. A visiting king turned his face toward his wife, shoulders shaking. Within moments, the laughter moved through the room until even several guards failed to maintain discipline.
I stared through the doorway.
Elias stood there.
Covered in glitter.
Not dusted.
Not lightly decorated.
Covered.
Silver glitter clung to his hair, his beard, the shoulders of his coat, and every visible section of skin.
Gold glitter had somehow reached beneath his collar.
It coated the dark leather of his boots and gathered along the scars near his jaw.
Each time he breathed, tiny pieces lifted from him and drifted through the air like metallic snow.
His remaining eye looked murderous. That alone was not unusual.
The children hanging from his hands were.
He held one daughter in each hand.
By the ankle.
Upside down.
Elowen laughed so hard she could barely breathe.
Her dark curls hung toward the floor, swinging each time Elias moved.
Both arms stretched above her head or below it, considering her position as though being carried through the palace like captured game was the greatest honor ever bestowed upon her.
Lysandra did not share her sister's enthusiasm.
Her face had turned red with rage. Her hair hung straight toward the floor, glitter caught through the strands.
She folded her arms over her chest despite being upside down, which required enough determination that I briefly admired her commitment.
Briefly.
"Release me immediately!" she demanded. Elias stepped into the courtroom. Both girls swung with the movement. Lysandra made a furious sound. "This is an insult to the crown!"
"You are six," Elias replied.
"I am the crown princess."
"You are a criminal."
"I am being carried like a dead rat."
Elias looked down at her.
He did not answer immediately. His remaining eye narrowed with the exhausted disbelief of a man who had already survived too much that morning and had finally reached the precise limit of what his patience could endure.
Every breath sent another faint shimmer drifting from his shoulders toward the polished floor, making him appear less like a furious former ruler and more like the unwilling victim of a festival he had personally tried to ban.
Lysandra stared back at him from her upside-down position with equal hostility.
Neither moved.
Neither looked away.
The court laughed harder.
The sound rolled through the throne room in widening waves, beginning near the nobles closest to the entrance and spreading toward the raised platform until even several guards turned their faces toward the walls in a failed attempt to preserve their dignity.
A visiting king covered his mouth with one hand.
One of the older duchesses lowered her head entirely, her shoulders shaking beneath embroidered silk.
Even the court recorder had stopped pretending to write, his pen hovering uselessly above the parchment while he watched Elias hold the imperial heirs by their ankles as though this were somehow a reasonable conclusion to the morning.
I looked toward the ceiling.
The carved beams stretched above me, painted with victories, gods, and dead rulers who had allegedly possessed wisdom greater than ordinary men. I waited for one of them to explain why my court had become a stage for glitter-covered relatives and upside-down princesses.
No answer arrived.
Cowards.
Every divine figure remained painted safely above the chaos, far beyond reach and entirely unwilling to accept responsibility for it.
I returned to the throne and sat.
Not gracefully.
Grace required dignity, and dignity had left the room the moment Elias entered, carrying my daughters like captured poultry.
I lowered myself into the throne with the exhaustion of a man who had already lost a battle he had never agreed to fight. My shoulders sank against the carved back. One hand rose to cover my eyes while the other rested heavily against the arm of the throne.
I did not want to ask what happened.
Questions encouraged explanations.
Explanations involving my children usually revealed additional crimes.
One question about broken glass became a confession involving three maids, a pulley system, and a stolen kitchen ladder.
A question about smoke in the eastern corridor once uncovered an unsupervised experiment with candle wax and dried herbs.
Asking why Elias's boots were filled with flour had somehow led to the discovery that both girls possessed copies of keys no one remembered giving them.
Ignorance did not undo the damage.
It merely protected me from discovering how much worse it truly was.
Beside me, Ophelia finally surrendered any attempt to conceal her laughter.
The sound escaped her fully now, warm, helpless, and entirely without the careful restraint she usually maintained in court.
She leaned forward, one hand pressed against her stomach while the other gripped the edge of the throne to steady herself.
Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
She offered me no assistance.
No defense.