4. The Price of Grief #5
“The council were always out for blood tonight, Alvira,” Eltoar explained.
“Vastillion was not simply a betrayal, it was a signal fire to the council just how little control they have over us. They needed someone burned. And they were right, I should not have killed Panakír.” He nodded, watching the flames dance, swirling wine in his mouth before swallowing.
“I let my grief take me. They were always coming for me, but there was no reason to give them you as well. A man on fire need not spread it.”
A look of defeat touched Alvira’s face, and she dropped herself into one of the free armchairs, then took a long draught of her wine.
“They took from me something I never wanted. To be Archon was never the path I would walk. I don’t have the temperament for it.
” The words were part truth, part lie. He didn’t have the temperament for it, for all the fake smiles and placating.
And yet, he could not think of a greater honour than to stand as Archon of the Draleid.
To be chosen to lead his brothers and sisters, to be the arbiter of their fates, the navigator of their destiny.
It was all he had ever wanted. But nothing would be gained by speaking those words aloud.
He had made his choice, and it would do him no good to put a weight in Alvira’s heart in thinking that she had cost him that dream, when in truth he had cost it himself the moment he took Panakír’s life.
“This is the way of things,” he said. “All the council, and Thalumas if we’re being honest, care about right now is protecting the name of The Order.
What happened at Vastillion must be managed at many levels.
They were not wrong, there will be thousands who question the Draleid now.
And I do not blame them. All swords seem a valiant thing until they cut you, and you learn to fear their edge.
But what we must focus on is why today happened.
Why would Panakír, Daraní, and the others have turned their back on us? So suddenly? None of it makes sense.”
“‘Your presence here only shows me that everything he said was true’,” Alvira whispered.
“What did you say?”
“It’s what Panakír said. That our presence was exactly what ‘he’ said would happen.”
“And who is ‘he’?”
Alvira shook her head, staring into the flames. “She wasn’t making any sense. Something was wrong with her, Eltoar. I got no feeling that she desired any of what happened. I… I don’t understand it.”
“We will not find the root of it tonight,” Farda said.
He let a soft sigh out of his nostrils and raised his glass.
“Today should never have happened. And I am sorry that Maquil and Carasín were the ones to pay the cost of it. He was a fine young man, and she was a dragon worthy of all the skies. Draleid n’aldryr. Rakina nai dauva.”
Hours later, when Farda and Alvira had retired to their chambers, Eltoar still sat in that chair before the fire, swirling the dregs of a third bottle of wine when a knock sounded at the door.
“Enter,” Eltoar called. There were few souls it could be, and at that point he cared little.
Without turning his head, the heavy footsteps told him it was Thalumas.
The Jotnar set himself into the armchair beside Eltoar, the wooden joints creaking beneath his weight.
“My Archon.” Eltoar lifted his glass in a salute.
“I am sorry,” Thalumas said after a moment. “For my silence and for everything.”
“I do not blame you,” Eltoar said, sipping at his wine and staring into the flames. “I set you between a fire and a pit of wyrms.”
“I’ll tell them you called them that. More wine?”
“In the cabinet beside the bed.”
“I think you might have a drinking problem,” Thalumas said as he heaved his massive frame from the chair and walked towards the cabinet.
“I have many problems. I happen to count wine as a solution.”
The chair creaked again as Thalumas sat with a bottle of wine and no glass.
“Did you bring any for me?”
Thalumas removed the cork with threads of Air and took a deep draught straight from the bottle.
“And you say I have a drinking problem.” Eltoar laughed as he sipped at his glass, but in the silence that followed, he grew sombre. “I will never be Archon, will I?”
Thalumas bit at his lip, then shook his head, staring into the crackling hearth before them. “I’m sorry, old friend.”
“It is of my own doing.”
“I know few who would not have done the same in the moment.” Thalumas took another draught from the bottle, his massive hands almost obscuring it from view. “It is a delicate balance between the Draleid and The Order itself, between my voice and that of the council’s.”
“They do not know what it is to be Draleid.”
“No. But they are our connection to the people. They are what keep us grounded. We do not obey them, nor do they rule over us. But we must heed their words or at the very least give them the illusion that we are doing so.” Another long swallow of the wine.
“There is truth in what they said today, despite the ignorance in it.”
“I know.”
“I am sorry, my friend.”
Eltoar sank back into his chair, swirling his wine before him, images flashing of Maquil’s broken body, blood flowing. He let his mind drift into Helios’, each sharing in the other’s grief. “As am I,” he said, staring into the depths of his glass. “As am I.”