Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
“… A
nd this is a cattleya orchid,” said Auro, gesturing.
They’d been walking the royal gardens for almost an hour. Cosmo still hadn’t decided whether or not he wanted to be part of Auro’s mad plan to free all four of them from their curse, but he knew for sure he’d missed his brother’s company. He couldn’t help but watch and listen fondly as Auro waxed on about all the growing things in the royal gardens. Auro had not been awake to see the wonders of summer for four hundred years, and all the flowers and fruits that had only just begun to bud had him tripping over himself with delight and excitement. It was infectious, and Cosmo had some knowledge to share with him, as well. By the time summer rolled around, most of the plants were well on their way through their life cycles, so they didn’t require as much careful management as they did in spring—but still, Cosmo’s grace touched them all, nourished them on their way.
They were in a massive structure Auro called the greenhouse, the likes of which Cosmo had never seen before. It was a building made entirely of glass with iron frames holding the panes together, like a skeleton. The entire place shone like a massive, faceted gemstone when the sun hit it, absolutely enchanting, and inside the air was warm and moist and fragrant. “Alexios’s mother collects rare plants,” Auro explained. “When we first met, I spent my nights sleeping in here.”
There was a lull in Auro’s lecture about the plants, so Cosmo put to words something he’d been wondering since Auro had first told him how he’d spent the last four hundred years. “Why did you spend so long alone?”
Auro didn’t answer right away. He crouched beside one of the flowers, touching its petals, his eyes fixated on the blossom.
Cosmo sat beside him. “Auro?” He was still getting used to the sound of his brother’s name. It felt oddly like summoning a ghost.
“I felt we deserved it,” said Auro. His voice was so quiet Cosmo had to lean in to hear. “I felt I deserved it.”
The notion was so absurd that Cosmo nearly laughed—but the tearing sensation in his chest was far too painful. “How could you think that?”
Auro tossed him a strange look. “It was my fault,” he said. “Whatever happened between you, Kryos, and Ozias…” Auro trailed away. “He never would have found you, never would have known the location of your duel, had I not told him.”
“Auro,” said Cosmo gently, and it seemed easier to say this time. “That’s dumb.”
That startled a laugh out of Auro, and Cosmo smiled too. That, at least, he still knew how to do. He could always make his brothers laugh, could always cheer them. Sometimes, he felt it was all he was good for.
After Ozias’s death, it hadn’t even occurred to Cosmo to run. He’d wandered about, as in a fog, with no destination in mind. If Kryos actually had wanted his head, he would have found Cosmo easy prey, then—so perhaps Auro was right. It was their father who found him, and that was worse. He had spoken not a word, simply looked upon Cosmo in disgust, with that terrible, stern face of his.
He beckoned, with one crooked finger, and Cosmo had followed mutely behind. The dungeon cell in which he’d been locked had not been a natural one. Cosmo had never known such darkness. He shuddered, recalling the way he’d strained his ears, listening for sounds of life, for any sign that he had not been abandoned.
When his father came for him at last, blade in hand, Cosmo had been almost grateful.
“Perhaps,” said Auro, returning Cosmo to the present. He lowered his voice, as if sharing some terrible secret. “I think father was wrong.”
His eyes widened and he clapped a hand over his mouth, and even Cosmo couldn’t help the way he twisted around, looking for some sign that Auro’s blasphemous whisper had been overheard, even if the far off reaches of the untouchable Godsrealm. “What do you mean?”
“Locking us away didn’t fix anything, did it?”
Cosmo allowed the grace to flow down from his fingers as he toyed with the calyx of a nearby lily. He could feel the nectar swelling within, and he encouraged its anthers to split, the golden dust of pollen emerging where they did, soft and enticing to any nearby insects. He’d never had Auro’s way with plants, but they still responded to his touch, his power. “The earth seems happier, for our imprisonment.”
“It does,” said Auro. “But I think it would be even happier if we could learn to work in harmony.”
Cosmo withdrew his hand. “Maybe,” he said, but he was doubtful. The head of the lily followed his hand, turning its face toward him like it might turn toward the sun in hopes of catching more rays. “Can I see it?” he asked abruptly.
“See…what?”
“Him. Cedras.” His name in Cosmo’s mouth was just as foreign as Auro’s, like something in a language he’d known once, but since forgotten. He realized with a jolt he could not remember the last time he’d spoken any of their names aloud.
Auro nodded. “Come,” he said, standing. “We’ll need to find Alexios.”
Cosmo could not help but note the way Auro’s cheeks pinked at the mere mention of his princeling. A jest was on his tongue, but it died there before he spoke it. Teasing Auro had been second nature to him, once—but it seemed like yet another thing he’d forgotten how to do, like something from someone else’s life.
They found Alexios in his apartments, along with his handsome, scowling shadow. Cosmo tried to offer Leofric a friendly smile, but it curdled when met with an icy stare. Unconsciously, it seemed, Leofric cupped his burned hand in his off one, flexing the fingers and narrowing his eyes. He did not bother to mask his distaste, and for some reason it gave Cosmo a little thrill.
“I’d like to show Cosmo Cedras’s grace,” Auro was saying to Alexios.
Cosmo pulled his gaze away from the frowning soldier to smile at Auro’s paramour. Alexios opened his mouth, but Leofric cut across before he could answer.
“Your Highness, that would be most unwise.”
Alexios appeared taken aback. Auro too.
“What makes you say that, Leofric?” Asked Alexios.
With a furtive glance at Cosmo, he said, “I’m certain your royal parents would only wish to admit trusted acquaintances to the lower vaults.”
Cosmo told himself the mistrust of a stranger meant little and less, and held his tongue. He was pleasantly surprised when Auro spoke for him. “He’s my brother,” said Auro, stung.
“He’s right, Leofric,” said Alexios. “This is as much Cosmo’s as Auro’s. I have no right to keep either of them from it.”
“Perhaps,” Leofric allowed, “But it resides in the vaults with all of your family’s treasures.”
“ Please, ” scoffed Cosmo, twirling the golden cuff on his bicep. “Rest assured, Prince Alexios, I have no interest in your trinkets. I have plenty of my own.”
“The vaults are well guarded,” added Alexios, untroubled. “No one would be permitted entrance without my or my parents’ presence, at any rate.”
Leofric sighed and nodded, and Cosmo took that for a victory. They made their way through the royal villa, trailing behind Alexios and Auro, with Leofric bringing up the rear of their party. The upper vault was just behind the throne room, where the Papian royal family displayed some of the artifacts they’d collected over the years since the kingdom’s founding. Two guardsmen flanked the door. Stern and alert, they bowed to the prince and saluted Leofric as the four of them passed, and took no notice of Auro or Cosmo. Inside the upper vault, toward the back, another door was guarded as well. This time the men crossed their spears, despite the approach of their crown prince and his guard. “Your Highness,” said one. “Respectfully, we cannot allow more guests in the lower vault than there are guards on the door. Two of your party must remain.”
“By whose decree?”
“Her Grace, the queen,” said one of the men. “Some of her most precious valuables have recently been relocated to the lower vault, for security.”
“I forgot about her bloody books,” said Alexios under his breath. “Some volumes were stolen from her private library, and no treasure is more sacred to her.”
“She and Cedras would get along splendidly,” quipped Cosmo, surprising even himself.
The guards cast him a curious look, perhaps wondering who this stranger was, who spoke so boldly of their queen.
“No doubt,” Auro agreed. To Alexios, he added, “Perhaps Leofric could remain here, to help guard the door.”
Leofric opened his mouth to protest, but Alexios silenced him with a look. “That would bring the numbers even,” he told the guards. “Shall we pass?”
“Of course, Your Highness.” The men bowed deeply and stepped aside, allowing Alexios to escort Auro and Cosmo through a small antechamber. The door was locked of course, but Alexios had the key.
The lower vault of the Papian royals was something of an anticlimax, after all that fuss at the door. It was far smaller than the upper vault, and had the air of a neglected storehouse. Most of the showiest and flashiest items were on display in the chamber above. A bookshelf had been moved in to house the queen’s rare volumes, and there were a few odds and ends hung upon the walls, including a familiar tapestry that was older than Auro and Cosmo put together. It had once hung behind their mother’s throne. Alexios’s forebearers must have looted it from the fallen Mykellian palace.
Cosmo whirled around, and the flaming sconces on the wall spit and hissed as they echoed his ire. “You have no right?—”
“ Cosmo, ” said Auro, touching his arm. “It’s alright.”
“I don’t understand,” said Alexios, raising his hands. “What have I done?”
“This belonged to our family,” Auro explained to him, indicating the tapestry.
It was a map of the continent, woven in exquisite detail. Cosmo had spent a lot of time staring up at that tapestry in his youth. “Why did they make it so big?” he’d asked his mother once, his neck craning up so he could see all of it.
“To remind us the size of our responsibility,” Empress Soli had said. “What we owe our people is as vast as the world.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Alexios asked Auro, cupping his cheek. “I wouldn’t have?—”
“It’s alright, Alexios,” Auro soothed. He turned to his brother. “Cosmo?—"
“It’s just an ancient rag,” said Cosmo, turning from it, from them, throat tight. The sconces guttered as he crushed his own anger. “The sight of it surprised me, that’s all.”
In the awkward wake that followed, Alexios led them to a small, spindly table in a shadowy corner of the room, as unremarkable as the rest of the forgotten artifacts in here. It was draped with a stained, grey linen shroud. Auro removed it with a flourish, and Cosmo gasped. Upon the table was a small wooden box, that had perhaps been plain to start, but tree roots had begun to push their way through the cracks where the wood was joined, shoving against the bronze hinges like something inside were trying to fight its way out.
“I had to cover it,” said Auro. “I had to try to conceal the magic.”
“People don’t come in here, much,” Alexios added. “I asked my father if I could store something private. The shroud isn’t much by way of a shield, I know, but it’s something.”
“Yes,” said Cosmo faintly, eyes transfixed upon the little chest. He reached a trembling hand toward the box, and he could feel the warmth seeping through the wood.
Auro hovered by his elbow, waiting with baited breath as Cosmo gingerly lifted the lid. Within the box, cradled in a nest of autumn leaves, was a phial of glowing crystal. The light it threw was warm and golden, and when Cosmo reached for it, he could feel the strength flowing from the bottle to his hand. He hefted it, watching the amber liquid inside slosh around. Against his palm, the bottle felt like fall sun. It felt like … the hearth in their den, where they’d gather as children. It felt like knowledge, and it felt like round spectacles and the gentle hoot of an owl. It felt like candles and old parchment. When the liquid moved it sounded like wind rustling through stalks of wheat as they ripened in some distant field. It had a smell, too, like apples, cinnamon, and the musty scent of leaf litter on the forest floor. It smelled like… “ Cedras. ”
“Yes,” said Auro, but Cosmo barely heard him, because he was drowning. Drowning in a memory centuries stale, a memory he didn’t even know he still had, of a stormy spring night when Cosmo had been so young and so afraid. There had been a storm, a terrible one. It was before any of them had been burdened with their father’s godly grace. Cosmo had wondered where Auro was, Auro, who was always terrified of thunder. He’d crept through the silent halls of the villa like a ghost, but he’d found Auro’s chambers empty. Where would Auro go, if afraid? Before Ozias had come to live at court, he would have crept into their mother’s bedroom of a night. After though, even Auro had recognized the change in her, young as he was.
Eventually, Cosmo found his way to Cedras’s rooms, peeking through the crack in the door to see them bundled in blankets on the floor, beside the great window that led to Cedras’s balcony. Cedras had his face in a book, as ever, and Auro sat curled beside him. Unafraid.
They’d made a game of it, Cosmo recalled, of counting between the flashes of lightning and the cracking of thunder. Alone, Cosmo thought the thunder sounded like it was going to crack their home like an egg. Beside his brothers, though, it had transformed a pleasant, distant rumble that made his belly swoop, like he’d missed a step going down the stairs. No longer terrifying, but thrilling.
Cosmo slammed the lid shut on the chest, sudden enough to make Auro startle.
“I will help,” he announced. “I’ll help you break the curse.”
Leofric had no idea what happened down inside the lower vault, and he did not ask. It was not his place. When His Highness emerged however, it was with Auro beaming and Cosmo smiling a shy, tentative grin. Prince Alexios had decided to sup with his parents, and as such would be well guarded. This relieved Leofric of his evening duties, so he took his supper in the barracks with the other men, leaving Auro and Cosmo to their own devices.
Technically, Leofric was the captain of Prince Alexios’s personal guard, but it was a mostly empty title—he was the only member of the prince’s guard. The rest of the men were formed into commands under other officers, tasked with protecting the royal family and the villa at large, or guarding the king and queen specifically. In the aftermath of all that had gone on in the spring, Leofric had been suggesting His Highness might want to expand his guard, but Alexios wouldn’t hear of it.
While he’d never been the most talkative sort, Leofric did feel more at home sitting at the long bench tables in the barracks hall, elbow to elbow with the other soldiers, men like him, men like his brother and all the men he’d known in the legion. Simple men, enjoying simple things and each other’s company. Guarding a prince was solitary work, at times, and it was nice to recall what it felt like to belong.
The feeling had been difficult to enjoy, after Hamalcar’s death. Soldiers reminded Leofric of his brother, almost as much as his own reflection did. Enough time had passed, now, that Leofric could find comfort amongst them once again. He listened to the men jesting and telling tales as they ate, and the food was plain but filling. The sort of food he might have eaten on the march—but elevated versions, brought to them fresh, served with wine.
The days were growing longer, and warmer. The Papian natives griped good naturedly about the heat, but Leofric did not mind. It reminded him of home, of blistering nights in Sokol passing a wineskin back and forth with Hamalcar, sparring in the camp among the other soldiers, and yes, from time to time, sharing a tumble with another man in the shadows of their tents.
One such night, after far too much wine, Leofric had stumbled back to the tent he shared with his brother. Hamalcar had been drinking, too, and the two of them had made a wager. Their mother had always joked she couldn’t tell them apart, so Hamalcar had drunkenly declared the loser of their bet would get a tattoo, making it easier on her. Leofric had lost, so he’d submitted to the needle and allowed a camp follower to carve the vines on the side of his head. He’d been horrified upon waking in the morning. Hamalcar had laughed himself stupid at the sight. “Mother will certainly be able to tell who’s who, now,” he said. “Be grateful the artist didn’t let me choose the design.”
Leofric had grown his hair out to cover the tattoo, which only made Hamalcar tease him all the more, as it came in bristly and patchy at first, compared to the luxurious hair on the rest of his head. It was only after Hamalcar had died that Leofric had bared the side of his scalp again, taking comfort in seeing it when he had call to look upon his face in a mirror. It was a part of him now, just as his brother had been.
Back in the present, it was still early, so Leofric wandered out of the mess hall toward the armory beside the practice yard, thinking he might find someone with whom to spar. It was critical his skills not be allowed to rust, and the dance of swordplay always helped calm him, helped him feel as though there was some semblance of balance in this peculiar world. Here, he felt understood.
Hours later, sweaty and sore and feeling quite at peace, Leofric paid a visit to the baths in the barracks. He could have returned to Prince Alexios’s apartments for the privacy of his own chambers, but he suspected Cosmo would be there. Leofric had fixated on him far more than was wise, and he knew himself well enough to know that keeping his distance from Cosmo would be the wisest course of action.
The baths were below ground, the room carved out of the earth to form something like a grotto around a natural hot spring. In the antechamber where the soldiers could gather towels and clay cups of water or wine, it smelled like sweat and salt and men, a smell that Leofric had always loved, ever since he’d been a green recruit with the Sokolian auxiliary. It like felt a million years ago. There were pegs to hang one’s clothing if it could be worn again without washing, and bins to toss it into if not. Leofric stripped out of his soiled uniform and dropped it in the bin.
In the army, if one’s uniform needed washing, one had best wear it swimming as the legion forded a river. Time to bathe and soak was a rare luxury, and after only a few months here in Papia, Leofric still hadn’t gotten used to handing off his soiled clothing to servants who whisked it away, and delivered it freshly laundered to his chambers. Some of the men passed their armor and weapon off to servants, too, the other high officers of their grace’s guard especially, but Leofric did not. He liked to maintain his own weapons, felt that was part of combat practice. Part of being a soldier. Like his skills, Leofric kept his weapons sharp and honed, should they be needed.
Training with his peers had raised more bruises than usual, as he’d held his sword in his uninjured left hand. Leofric did practice from time to time with his off hand, even when whole. You will live and die by your sword arm, Imperator Hamate had told him. Leofric had seen the truth of that, and thought, Why hinge my life on one arm, when I have two? But still, he had one dominant hand, the one that seemed to think on its own, to make the right parries and thrusts without his telling it to do so. The left was…passable. But not passable enough to avoid every blow by his sparring partners, not by a long shot. He would go to sleep sore and aching tonight, but it was an ache he relished.
“You’d think with all your training, you’d have learned how to dodge some of those.”
Leofric about jumped out of his skin. He whirled toward the voice to see Cosmo standing beside him, leaning casually against the doorway into the baths. “What are you doing here?”
Cosmo raked his eyes up and down Leofric, completely unabashed to be staring. “Admiring.”
“Get out,” Leofric hissed. “These facilities are for the guards.”
Cosmo tugged at the neck of his tunic, the one he’d stolen from Leofric. “I know,” he said. He crossed a fist over his chest in a mocking salute. “And here I am, Captain, reporting for duty.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“I’ve been asking around,” said Cosmo. “The men seem to think it’s customary for a captain of the royal guard to take on a tribune, to train as his second.”
“It is,” Leofric allowed. When he’d suggested such himself, His Highness had declared he’d fling himself off the roof if a second solider started following him around.
“Well, here I am.”
Leofric scowled. “Why would you wish to join his highness’s guard?”
“I wouldn’t,” Cosmo agreed. “But Auro tells me it raises questions for multiple strangers to be hanging around His Highness, and Auro is strange enough for the two of us.”
“What are you saying?”
“I am saying that I’m reporting for training, Captain,” he said, smiling. Leering, more like. “If you’re up to the task, that is. The bruises have me doubting, but I’d be happy to massage them for you.”
Leofric flushed and seized a fresh tunic from the stack beside the towels, all thoughts of a refreshing soak forgotten. He yanked it down over his head. “The bruises are your fault,” he snapped. “I was fighting with my off hand.”
“And your right is the one that’s used to ah… grasping a hilt. I understand.” He smiled again.
Leofric clenched his hands into fists at his sides, and tried to center himself. He called up his training, picking a point at which to stare. Unfortunately, the point he chose was the loathsome cluster of freckles on Cosmo’s neck, dark like a bruise, roughly the shape of chalice—but it still allowed him to cool his anger. “A ruse may be necessary,” he allowed, his voice even and steady once again, so steady Cosmo looked shocked. That helped. “But I cannot endanger His Royal Highness.”
“Am I quite so fearsome?”
“You mistake me,” said Leofric, though he privately felt the true answer was yes. “If I were to take a tribune into my service, he would need to have training, discipline. And … adequacy at swordplay.”
“’ Adequacy?’” Cosmo looked likely to choke on the word, and it took all of Leofric’s self-control to contain his own triumphant smile.
He shrugged. “Aye,” he said. “Otherwise, what use would he be for protecting His Highness?”
Cosmo positively smoldered, and with how thick and humid the air, it looked as though he were steaming with anger. “Care to bolster those words in the practice yard?”
“Any time.”
“How about now?” Cosmo eyed him boldly. “I see a few inches of skin that still has room to bruise.”
Leofric knew immediately that accepting this thrown gauntlet would be a mistake. Call it instinct, call it years of training, call it whatever you wish. It would be a mistake. Leofric took a deep breath and got a handle on himself. He would not be goaded. A guard could never allow himself to be so goaded, when his charge’s life and his sacred oath were both at stake. Leofric opened his mouth to tell Cosmo to leave, to tell him he was tired, to tell him there was no need, to tell him no. Somehow, though, what came out was, “Yes.”
Cosmo grinned. “Lead the way.”