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And more Peony fic....
Title: Dreams Born From Death
Fandom: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Angst
Rating: PG-13
Words: 4107
Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of the Abyss
Summary:
"ND2014: The Emperor of Malkuth, Peony the Ninth, ascends the throne at age thirty-three."
"That's the problem. When faced with a Score of death, people become unable to live peacefully."
Author's Notes: While I could have written this all in one go, considering how inspired I felt, it was emotional enough that I needed to break it into three separate writing sessions. I think I've managed to convey the emotion effectively enough--Yoshimi seemed to think so, anyway.
This can be considered AU, if only because I made up the history for my headspace Peony before I found and began to translate a timeline of recent events in Tales of the Abyss (starting with Jade's birth).
“It was so good of you to come today, Your Highness,” Lady Gardenia told him at the door to her chambers in the palace. She was an old woman with soft white hair and very regal wrinkles, and, as far as Peony was concerned, was a lot more fun to spend time with than anyone—herself included—seemed to realise.
He smiled and said in reply, “Not at all. I got to spend my time in excellent company.”
“Really, Your Highness.” For all the words sounded like chastisement, there was a clear note of fondness in her proper voice.
“Yeah, really,” Peony agreed. “See you around, Lady Gardenia.”
The old woman curtsied to him, the motion impeccable despite her arthritis, and, impressed, Peony nodded back. Then, he walked off, half-listening to the chatter of the other invitees to the old woman's tea. Only when he heard the door close behind him did he roll his shoulders and let out a sigh. For all he enjoyed Lady Gardenia's company, her teas always involved more than just her, and he usually wound up feeling a bit cramped and confined afterward the socials.
As he strolled along, smiling at or briefly greeting nobles, servants, and occasionally soldiers as he passed, he considered the best way to fill the next hour or so before he was scheduled to attend another (hopefully more exciting) event with some considerably younger nobles. Playing with his rappigs immediately came to mind—he'd not had much time to spend with them lately, except for a few pats before bed, and he missed his pets.
He had already changed direction to head towards his quarters when he paused and smiled down at himself a bit ruefully. The clothes he was wearing were particularly fancy today, and by the time he got changed into something more suitable to spending time with his rappigs, he'd have to get dressed again.
Pestering Jade it was, he decided. After all, that could be done in any kind of clothes at all.
He changed direction again, this time to find a guard able to escort him to the headquarters of the Malkuth military.
*
“To what do I owe the honour of this visit?” Jade asked, putting aside his quill with a sigh calculated to only creep up to the line of rudeness without actually crossing it.
“I'm bored and it's an hour to my next appointment—well, less than that now,” Peony corrected himself. “And I'd mess up my clothes if I played with Nephry and Gelda.”
Jade adjusted his glasses. “Your Highness, we've been over this before. I would greatly appreciate it if you would cease to refer to your pets by name in front of me.”
“Sorry, forgot,” Peony said with a complete lack of repentance in his voice. “Anyway, now that I'm here, I think I'm going to finish that book I left in the pile, so go ahead and keep working. I could do with a bit of quiet for a change.”
“Yes, peace and quiet is notably short in supply, isn't it?” Jade mused as he took up his quill once more.
“Terrible, isn't it?” Peony agreed, heading over to the mass of his belongings in one corner of the room.
After nudging aside some papers and books with the toe of his sandal, he picked up the book in question. Having been dropped carelessly on his last visit, a couple of the pages were now bent, and he worked at fixing them as he draped him over the chair of the second desk Jade kept in his office. Propping a foot up on the desk, the legs of the chair scraped against the tiled floor as he let out a sigh. It wasn't the most comfortable place to read, but, aside from the scratch of Jade's pen against paper, it was pretty soothing.
About ten minutes into his visit, Peony distantly registered shouting in the halls of the military headquarters. He ignored it; no doubt a new recruit had mistaken the paper disposal chute for a superior's mailbox again.
“Your Highness.”
Jade's voice broke his concentration; the major's tone was surprisingly low and tense.
“Yeah?” Peony asked, and then he heard it, too—heavy footsteps pounding their way.
Jade was already on his feet and Peony had dropped his book and was sitting up when someone pounded heavily on the door.
“Major Curtiss! Is His Highness with you?” an urgent, almost panicked voice shouted through the wood.
Jade strode out from behind his desk and stood in front of Peony before replying. “Yes, he is. Why?”
Peony's stomach was already falling before the man on the other side of the door gave his answer:
“There are assassins in the palace!”
Peony shot to his feet, then had to grab the back of his chair for support. Bright light flashed in his vision as Jade brought out his spear from his arm.
If he hadn't decided to visit Jade—
“Have your superiors been informed?” Jade called sharply through the door, reaching over to lock it.
“Yes, sir! They're already mobilizing a rescue team!”
A team? How many assassins were there? His breathing shallowed at the thought and he swallowed, trying to calm down.
“Then tell them His Highness has been found and is safe.”
“Yes, sir!”
As the other man left at a run, footsteps fading into the still far-off noise, only then did Jade turn to look at him.
“As soon as it's quiet outside, we'll change rooms,” Jade said levelly. “You'll be expected to be here with me, and while I would expect the assassins to know how foolhardy it would be to assault Malkuth's main military headquarters, I would prefer not to take the chance.”
“Neither would I,” Peony managed to say with none of his usual lightness of tone. It was a weak joke, and Jade didn't smile.
He didn't think about why Jade was being extra cautious, or tried not to. It had only been six years since the most recent member of the Malkuth royal family had been assassinated—his older brother Franz. His father had been paranoid about further attempts since that day. It looked like he'd been right to be.
With that thought, Peony rubbed at his face. “. . . Any way for us to find out what's going on in the palace?”
“Not without risking revealing your position to the assassins,” Jade replied, and Peony didn't ask again.
For a while longer, shouts and running could be heard in the halls. Inside the room, there was only the tick of the clock over Jade's desk and Peony's breathing. He felt silk crunching in his hand and looked down to see himself clutching at the material of his light, summery pants. Sweat from his palm and fingers had dampened the material—the cleaners were going to be mad at him again.
Sweat was easier to clean than blood.
“Stand back.”
Jade's voice took him by surprise, and it took Peony a moment to obey. Once he did, Jade listened—it was now silent outside—then unlocked the door. His spear gripped firmly in hand, he opened the door first a crack, then wider. He stepped outside and looked about. Looked back over his shoulder.
“Come on.”
There was no more “Your Highness,” no pretense of politeness. It would have been ridiculous now.
Peony took in a breath, let it out, and followed.
It was eerily quiet in the military headquarters, and Peony could feel the tenseness of the remaining soldiers in the air as he followed Jade. For all there were many soldiers left behind—almost half—the place seemed both lifeless and expectant.
Peony's shoulders hunched forward, and the muscles of his neck clenched painfully and he and Jade hurried through the corridors. He was struck with the sudden urge to reach out and take his friend's hand, for comfort, to not be separated. He fisted his hands instead. Jade needed every advantage he could get if it came down to a fight, and holding a frightened prince's hand wouldn't help.
He made himself do the breathing exercises he'd been taught by his teachers, the ones who had shown him how to defend himself in an emergency. Not that his few techniques would be any use, if the assassins were so good, so effective as to throw the military and the palace guards into a state like this.
Jade stopped abruptly, and Peony very nearly ran into him.
“Wait.”
Jade pulled open the door to an abandoned conference room just a crack. Obviously seeing nothing inside, he opened the door further and gestured for Peony to follow.
Once he had, he ordered, “Close the door behind you, lock it, and don't come any closer until I give the word.”
Peony could only watch as Jade examined the room, forcing himself to keep breathing, to not hold his breath. Only when Jade at last returned to his side after locking the door at the other end was he at all successful.
“We'll stay in here until we're given the all clear,” Jade finally told him. “Enough soldiers will have seen us come in here that they'll know where to find us. We'll just have to hope none of them are siding with the assassins.”
“You don't think some of them are. . . .” Peony couldn't finish saying it.
Jade looked at him. “I don't like placing blind trust in others when your life is at stake, Your Highness.”
His response was purely automatic. “Do you ever like placing blind trust in others, Jade?”
The other man adjusted his glasses with his free hand. “No, but I like it even less in this case.”
Peony didn't reply, and again, a near-silence fell. The only difference was Peony, listening so hard he could almost feel himself doing it, heard the ticking of a different clock, the sounds of different soldiers moving tensely outside their hiding place.
The conference room was large and open, and it made him feel incredibly exposed. Were Jade not with him, standing so close Peony could reach out and touch him, he would have been tempted to hide. It wouldn't have made him any safer—might've made him less, if he couldn't get out fast enough—but at least it would have made his skin stop prickling as he waited for a sword or an arrow or fonic artes.
He let out a breath, trying to let out the thoughts that were further knotting his stomach along with the used-up air, and looked up at the clock. Minutes had passed; that was all. It would take time for the palace to be searched, even once the first assassins had been captured or killed. He would think waiting was the worst part if he didn't know better.
“. . . Jade.”
Jade didn't look back at him; his gaze alternated between the two doors of the room. “Yes, Your Highness?”
“I don't know. I'm sick of the silence.” Not speaking gave his thoughts the chance to wander in ways that only scared him further.
“If I'm talking to you, Your Highness, I can't focus on keeping you alive. You might want to stay quiet.”
He couldn't argue with that.
Time passed.
“. . . He's seventy,” Peony said to himself after a while. “He's old. They could have just waited for him to die instead of trying to kill him like this.”
“Knowing your father, Your Highness,” Jade remarked, still not looking at him, “he would live twenty more years at the very least simply to spite his enemies.”
Peony almost smiled. Would have, were this any other day. “You're right about that one.”
And then, not long after, the sound of slow footsteps could be heard, coming down the hall to stop at their door. Even before the person on the other side had knocked, Peony had moved back. Jade stretched out his left hand behind him in a shielding gesture and firmed his grip on his spear in his right.
“Yes?”
“Major Curtiss, the assassins have been caught,” a woman's voice said through the door.
“One moment.”
Now Jade looked back at him, and Peony took several more silent steps away from the door. Jade undid the locks and opened the door, his spear at the ready—but the only one there was a very pale colonel. No one else.
Jade examined the hall with a quick flick of his gaze, then returned it to the face of the colonel. “Report, if you would.”
Peony moved a bit closer to the door, but not much as the woman, ignoring the breach in protocol—people always did with Jade—did as asked.
“The assassins forced their way into the audience chamber,” the colonel said in a too-steady voice. Her helmet concealed her expression. “More were found waiting in His Highness' rooms. They'd taken your secretary and one of the maids hostage.”
“How are they?” Peony asked, his stomach dropping.
“We managed to save both of them, although the maid suffered minor injuries.” The colonel hesitated.
In the end, Peony had to ask, and that in itself told him all he needed to know. “What about my father?”
“. . . Oh Lorelei.” The soldier covered her mouth with a hand, then pulled it away. “Your Highness . . . His Majesty is dead.”
There was one long moment where the twisting of his stomach and his suddenly shallowed breathing combined and turned into lightheadedness, giving himself a sense of complete unreality. The edges of the walls, the tables, the chairs, they all seemed too sharp, and the colours were too bright.
Then Peony spoke with a voice and a throat and a mouth that all seemed to belong to a far calmer man. “Where is he?”
“Still in the audience chamber—no one dared move him. Your Highness—”
“I'd like to see him,” he said, still in that calm voice.
“Yes, Your Highness.” The colonel saluted him, then turned and walked down the hallway.
Peony started to follow, but he felt the touch of a hand on his lower arm. He looked down at it, then up at the man it belonged to.
The sense of unreality receded, then, and now he felt as though he fit in his own body to the limit of its skin. He was no longer disconnected.
He was Peony Upala Malkuth, and his father was dead.
“I'll go first, Your—” Jade made a quiet noise. “. . . Your Majesty.”
Peony made a quiet noise of his own, and gave Jade a ragged smile that was more grimace than grin. “Yeah, you're right. I guess that's me, now, isn't it?”
“Yes. It is.” Jade adjusted his glasses. “After you, Your Majesty.”
Peony stepped out into the hallway and headed toward the colonel, who had stopped to wait for him. The lack of flashing light behind him told him that Jade had yet to put away his spear. That was enough to keep him on his guard as well; Jade might be mistrusting but he wasn't paranoid.
When they reached the main room of the headquarters, General Nordheim was waiting for them.
“Your Highness, are you planning to go to the palace?” the older man asked once he had saluted.
“Yeah, I am,” Peony replied. “I'm going to see my father.”
He watched as Nordheim exchanged a glance with the colonel, who was still nearby. He was going to have to get her name, later.
Then Nordheim said, “Allow me and some of my soldiers to escort you, Your Highness.”
Peony nodded. “Right. . . . Thanks.”
Nordheim gave his soldiers their orders, then, and soon their group of three was far more. Peony didn't bother to count how many more. He simply followed as, with Nordheim at their head, the group of soldiers formed around him and they exited the building.
The walk between the military headquarters and the palace was one he made every other day, more often if he could manage it. Usually, he'd use that time to chat with whichever guard or guards he'd manage to grab to escort him there.
He'd never walked with a substantial portion of a division, and he'd never done it in silence—if silence was the right word to describe the sound of so many marching feet over the constant rush of Grand Chokmah's waterfalls and the dozens of other little noises that came from clothed and armed bodies in motion.
When they arrived at the square before Grand Chokmah Palace, save for a few guards who had either stayed or returned to their posts, it was completely deserted; no doubt all the nobles had fled. The palace itself looked exactly as it always did. It made sense, of course, but subconsciously, he'd been expecting it to be different. It should have been.
It was only when the soldiers and Peony halted outside the audience chamber that someone finally spoke.
“Your Highness, are you sure you truly want to do this?” Nordheim asked him. “His Majesty was—”
“I do.” Peony's reply was far quieter than was his norm, but firm. He looked up at the taller man, his gaze strong. “He's—he was my father.”
“Very well.” There was nothing else Nordheim could say, after all.
One of the soldiers who had accompanied him opened the doors to the hall for him, and, aware that he was being watched by everyone, Peony nodded at the man and stepped inside.
There were numerous soldiers lying on the blue stone floor, under the tall, tall ceiling of the audience chamber. The ones without Seventh Fonists around them, Peony knew were dead. They were mostly clustered near the thrones on the dais at the far end of the room, but some had died at their posts, from arrows and—scorched and torn clothing and the stench of burning told him—fonic artes.
Only one body was covered with a cloth, guarded by two soldiers and Chief of Staff Sesemann, and it was that one he slowly walked toward.
He passed a few soldiers being healed as he crossed the long room, and his steps slowed, giving him time to check on their states. If they were conscious, he nodded at them, unable to manage much else. He'd talk to them later. Right now. . . .
Chief of Staff Sesemann had been looking down at the body of Malkuth's emperor as he approached. Only once Peony stopped beside him did he slowly look up, the movement so tired.
“Have you come to see your father, Prince Peony?” Sesemann asked him, grief clear in his voice.
“Yeah,” Peony answered in a hoarse half-whisper.
Sesemann nodded at the two soldiers on guard, and they bent to fold back the blood-stained embroidered sheet, slowly bringing the face of Peony's father into view.
It was immediately clear the emperor's death had not been peaceful. The pain of death had deepened the wrinkles of his face and twisted his mouth, and his eyes were wide—it looked as though no one had dared shut them.
Peony knelt next to his father's body, unaware of splatters of blood seeping into his clothing that the saturated edges of the sheet had been unable to soak up. It was those blue eyes, now, that held his attention.
Emperor Karl V's eyes had always been hard; now they were glassy and blank. It seemed death had done what age had not: it finally softened that strong gaze.
After a moment, Peony noticed something else—his father's head was bare. He glanced up, found the crown where it had rolled away from the dying monach's head. He looked back down. Slowly, he reached out and brushed the thin hair away from his father's forehead.
He hadn't seen his father for eighteen years of his life. Karl had always been a distant figure, even before he'd sent his son to Keterburg. In the years since Franz had died and Peony had returned to Grand Chokmah Palace, their relationship had been strained, becoming increasingly so as time went on. Sometimes, often, Peony had come as close to hating him as he would allow himself.
It didn't matter, now. His seventy-year-old father had been murdered, dying a painful and terrifying death. Hating him for what he had and hadn't done was pretty senseless right now.
Peony reached out one more time, gently closing his father's eyes. He didn't speak and he didn't pray. All he did was fold the cloth back over the dead emperor's face, and then he stood, his bloodstained pants unsticking at the knees.
He looked to Nordheim, who had joined him at some point; he hadn't noticed when.
“I want a list of names of everyone who was killed by the assassins,” Peony said quietly. “Soldiers, servants—it doesn't matter. And I want the names and addresses of their families.”
“What are you going to do, Your Highness?” Nordheim asked him.
“I'm going to write their families,” was his simple reply. “And I'm going to send them double the pay for soldiers killed in combat—triple, if we can afford it.”
“What about the soldiers who were injured defending His Majesty?” Nordheim asked. “They didn't lose their lives in service of their emperor, and His Majesty was killed. Should I have them punished?”
On these moments, the future turned.
“No,” Peony said, and his voice was low and strong. “No. I want their names, too. I want to thank them in person for their part in defending Malkuth. If their injuries are permanent, I want their disability payments doubled or tripled, the same as the ones who lost their lives. They did their best to defend His Majesty from a surprise attack in the centre of the palace. I won't have anyone punished for that—not ever.”
Nordheim sounded almost thoughtful as he replied, “Yes, Your Highness—forgive me, Your Majesty. I'll see to it your orders are followed at once.”
“Thank you.”
It was said with sincerity as Peony met Nordheim's eyes. It wasn't at all automatic, and it was a word not often uttered in this hall—not by the emperor.
Nordheim saluted him in reply. “By your leave, Your Majesty.”
Peony nodded at him and watched him stride briskly away among the injured and the fonists and the soldiers now bringing stretchers to bear away those wounded and dead.
“You are beginning your reign most unconventionally, Your Majesty.”
The quiet remark from Sesemann drew Peony's gaze away from the activity of the audience chamber, and he looked down at the shorter man. The Chief of Staff—his Chief of Staff—wore a thoughtful expression, too, as he looked up at Peony in return.
“I've never been a particularly conventional guy, Sesemann.”
He looked up, out to the waterfalls that surrounded the palace, always unchanging, in sharp counterpoint to his dreams for Malkuth that began the day Franz died. Those dreams had been the only good things to come of his brother's murder.
“. . . I wish it didn't have to be this way.”
“Mm, yes. You would wish otherwise. But you cannot alter the past, Your Majesty.” It was said kindly.
Peony looked over at him, the arc of his gaze taking in a slain soldier, blood, the throne, and the dead emperor at his feet before it rested on the old man beside him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I'm just going to have to do the best with what I've got.”
“As must we all,” Sesemann replied.
He nodded at that, his movement small. His eyes dropped one last time to his father, covered in that red-soaked cloth, before he looked up again and took in the activity of the audience chamber, the Seventh Fonists now almost done their work. His glance paused on a tall, brown-haired man in the uniform of a major at the other end of the room, but only for a moment.
He didn't look down at his father. He didn't look back for confirmation. Instead, Emperor Peony Upala Malkuth IX looked forward when he spoke:
“Well . . . I'd better get started.”
Fandom: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Angst
Rating: PG-13
Words: 4107
Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of the Abyss
Summary:
"ND2014: The Emperor of Malkuth, Peony the Ninth, ascends the throne at age thirty-three."
"That's the problem. When faced with a Score of death, people become unable to live peacefully."
Author's Notes: While I could have written this all in one go, considering how inspired I felt, it was emotional enough that I needed to break it into three separate writing sessions. I think I've managed to convey the emotion effectively enough--Yoshimi seemed to think so, anyway.
This can be considered AU, if only because I made up the history for my headspace Peony before I found and began to translate a timeline of recent events in Tales of the Abyss (starting with Jade's birth).
“It was so good of you to come today, Your Highness,” Lady Gardenia told him at the door to her chambers in the palace. She was an old woman with soft white hair and very regal wrinkles, and, as far as Peony was concerned, was a lot more fun to spend time with than anyone—herself included—seemed to realise.
He smiled and said in reply, “Not at all. I got to spend my time in excellent company.”
“Really, Your Highness.” For all the words sounded like chastisement, there was a clear note of fondness in her proper voice.
“Yeah, really,” Peony agreed. “See you around, Lady Gardenia.”
The old woman curtsied to him, the motion impeccable despite her arthritis, and, impressed, Peony nodded back. Then, he walked off, half-listening to the chatter of the other invitees to the old woman's tea. Only when he heard the door close behind him did he roll his shoulders and let out a sigh. For all he enjoyed Lady Gardenia's company, her teas always involved more than just her, and he usually wound up feeling a bit cramped and confined afterward the socials.
As he strolled along, smiling at or briefly greeting nobles, servants, and occasionally soldiers as he passed, he considered the best way to fill the next hour or so before he was scheduled to attend another (hopefully more exciting) event with some considerably younger nobles. Playing with his rappigs immediately came to mind—he'd not had much time to spend with them lately, except for a few pats before bed, and he missed his pets.
He had already changed direction to head towards his quarters when he paused and smiled down at himself a bit ruefully. The clothes he was wearing were particularly fancy today, and by the time he got changed into something more suitable to spending time with his rappigs, he'd have to get dressed again.
Pestering Jade it was, he decided. After all, that could be done in any kind of clothes at all.
He changed direction again, this time to find a guard able to escort him to the headquarters of the Malkuth military.
“To what do I owe the honour of this visit?” Jade asked, putting aside his quill with a sigh calculated to only creep up to the line of rudeness without actually crossing it.
“I'm bored and it's an hour to my next appointment—well, less than that now,” Peony corrected himself. “And I'd mess up my clothes if I played with Nephry and Gelda.”
Jade adjusted his glasses. “Your Highness, we've been over this before. I would greatly appreciate it if you would cease to refer to your pets by name in front of me.”
“Sorry, forgot,” Peony said with a complete lack of repentance in his voice. “Anyway, now that I'm here, I think I'm going to finish that book I left in the pile, so go ahead and keep working. I could do with a bit of quiet for a change.”
“Yes, peace and quiet is notably short in supply, isn't it?” Jade mused as he took up his quill once more.
“Terrible, isn't it?” Peony agreed, heading over to the mass of his belongings in one corner of the room.
After nudging aside some papers and books with the toe of his sandal, he picked up the book in question. Having been dropped carelessly on his last visit, a couple of the pages were now bent, and he worked at fixing them as he draped him over the chair of the second desk Jade kept in his office. Propping a foot up on the desk, the legs of the chair scraped against the tiled floor as he let out a sigh. It wasn't the most comfortable place to read, but, aside from the scratch of Jade's pen against paper, it was pretty soothing.
About ten minutes into his visit, Peony distantly registered shouting in the halls of the military headquarters. He ignored it; no doubt a new recruit had mistaken the paper disposal chute for a superior's mailbox again.
“Your Highness.”
Jade's voice broke his concentration; the major's tone was surprisingly low and tense.
“Yeah?” Peony asked, and then he heard it, too—heavy footsteps pounding their way.
Jade was already on his feet and Peony had dropped his book and was sitting up when someone pounded heavily on the door.
“Major Curtiss! Is His Highness with you?” an urgent, almost panicked voice shouted through the wood.
Jade strode out from behind his desk and stood in front of Peony before replying. “Yes, he is. Why?”
Peony's stomach was already falling before the man on the other side of the door gave his answer:
“There are assassins in the palace!”
Peony shot to his feet, then had to grab the back of his chair for support. Bright light flashed in his vision as Jade brought out his spear from his arm.
If he hadn't decided to visit Jade—
“Have your superiors been informed?” Jade called sharply through the door, reaching over to lock it.
“Yes, sir! They're already mobilizing a rescue team!”
A team? How many assassins were there? His breathing shallowed at the thought and he swallowed, trying to calm down.
“Then tell them His Highness has been found and is safe.”
“Yes, sir!”
As the other man left at a run, footsteps fading into the still far-off noise, only then did Jade turn to look at him.
“As soon as it's quiet outside, we'll change rooms,” Jade said levelly. “You'll be expected to be here with me, and while I would expect the assassins to know how foolhardy it would be to assault Malkuth's main military headquarters, I would prefer not to take the chance.”
“Neither would I,” Peony managed to say with none of his usual lightness of tone. It was a weak joke, and Jade didn't smile.
He didn't think about why Jade was being extra cautious, or tried not to. It had only been six years since the most recent member of the Malkuth royal family had been assassinated—his older brother Franz. His father had been paranoid about further attempts since that day. It looked like he'd been right to be.
With that thought, Peony rubbed at his face. “. . . Any way for us to find out what's going on in the palace?”
“Not without risking revealing your position to the assassins,” Jade replied, and Peony didn't ask again.
For a while longer, shouts and running could be heard in the halls. Inside the room, there was only the tick of the clock over Jade's desk and Peony's breathing. He felt silk crunching in his hand and looked down to see himself clutching at the material of his light, summery pants. Sweat from his palm and fingers had dampened the material—the cleaners were going to be mad at him again.
Sweat was easier to clean than blood.
“Stand back.”
Jade's voice took him by surprise, and it took Peony a moment to obey. Once he did, Jade listened—it was now silent outside—then unlocked the door. His spear gripped firmly in hand, he opened the door first a crack, then wider. He stepped outside and looked about. Looked back over his shoulder.
“Come on.”
There was no more “Your Highness,” no pretense of politeness. It would have been ridiculous now.
Peony took in a breath, let it out, and followed.
It was eerily quiet in the military headquarters, and Peony could feel the tenseness of the remaining soldiers in the air as he followed Jade. For all there were many soldiers left behind—almost half—the place seemed both lifeless and expectant.
Peony's shoulders hunched forward, and the muscles of his neck clenched painfully and he and Jade hurried through the corridors. He was struck with the sudden urge to reach out and take his friend's hand, for comfort, to not be separated. He fisted his hands instead. Jade needed every advantage he could get if it came down to a fight, and holding a frightened prince's hand wouldn't help.
He made himself do the breathing exercises he'd been taught by his teachers, the ones who had shown him how to defend himself in an emergency. Not that his few techniques would be any use, if the assassins were so good, so effective as to throw the military and the palace guards into a state like this.
Jade stopped abruptly, and Peony very nearly ran into him.
“Wait.”
Jade pulled open the door to an abandoned conference room just a crack. Obviously seeing nothing inside, he opened the door further and gestured for Peony to follow.
Once he had, he ordered, “Close the door behind you, lock it, and don't come any closer until I give the word.”
Peony could only watch as Jade examined the room, forcing himself to keep breathing, to not hold his breath. Only when Jade at last returned to his side after locking the door at the other end was he at all successful.
“We'll stay in here until we're given the all clear,” Jade finally told him. “Enough soldiers will have seen us come in here that they'll know where to find us. We'll just have to hope none of them are siding with the assassins.”
“You don't think some of them are. . . .” Peony couldn't finish saying it.
Jade looked at him. “I don't like placing blind trust in others when your life is at stake, Your Highness.”
His response was purely automatic. “Do you ever like placing blind trust in others, Jade?”
The other man adjusted his glasses with his free hand. “No, but I like it even less in this case.”
Peony didn't reply, and again, a near-silence fell. The only difference was Peony, listening so hard he could almost feel himself doing it, heard the ticking of a different clock, the sounds of different soldiers moving tensely outside their hiding place.
The conference room was large and open, and it made him feel incredibly exposed. Were Jade not with him, standing so close Peony could reach out and touch him, he would have been tempted to hide. It wouldn't have made him any safer—might've made him less, if he couldn't get out fast enough—but at least it would have made his skin stop prickling as he waited for a sword or an arrow or fonic artes.
He let out a breath, trying to let out the thoughts that were further knotting his stomach along with the used-up air, and looked up at the clock. Minutes had passed; that was all. It would take time for the palace to be searched, even once the first assassins had been captured or killed. He would think waiting was the worst part if he didn't know better.
“. . . Jade.”
Jade didn't look back at him; his gaze alternated between the two doors of the room. “Yes, Your Highness?”
“I don't know. I'm sick of the silence.” Not speaking gave his thoughts the chance to wander in ways that only scared him further.
“If I'm talking to you, Your Highness, I can't focus on keeping you alive. You might want to stay quiet.”
He couldn't argue with that.
Time passed.
“. . . He's seventy,” Peony said to himself after a while. “He's old. They could have just waited for him to die instead of trying to kill him like this.”
“Knowing your father, Your Highness,” Jade remarked, still not looking at him, “he would live twenty more years at the very least simply to spite his enemies.”
Peony almost smiled. Would have, were this any other day. “You're right about that one.”
And then, not long after, the sound of slow footsteps could be heard, coming down the hall to stop at their door. Even before the person on the other side had knocked, Peony had moved back. Jade stretched out his left hand behind him in a shielding gesture and firmed his grip on his spear in his right.
“Yes?”
“Major Curtiss, the assassins have been caught,” a woman's voice said through the door.
“One moment.”
Now Jade looked back at him, and Peony took several more silent steps away from the door. Jade undid the locks and opened the door, his spear at the ready—but the only one there was a very pale colonel. No one else.
Jade examined the hall with a quick flick of his gaze, then returned it to the face of the colonel. “Report, if you would.”
Peony moved a bit closer to the door, but not much as the woman, ignoring the breach in protocol—people always did with Jade—did as asked.
“The assassins forced their way into the audience chamber,” the colonel said in a too-steady voice. Her helmet concealed her expression. “More were found waiting in His Highness' rooms. They'd taken your secretary and one of the maids hostage.”
“How are they?” Peony asked, his stomach dropping.
“We managed to save both of them, although the maid suffered minor injuries.” The colonel hesitated.
In the end, Peony had to ask, and that in itself told him all he needed to know. “What about my father?”
“. . . Oh Lorelei.” The soldier covered her mouth with a hand, then pulled it away. “Your Highness . . . His Majesty is dead.”
There was one long moment where the twisting of his stomach and his suddenly shallowed breathing combined and turned into lightheadedness, giving himself a sense of complete unreality. The edges of the walls, the tables, the chairs, they all seemed too sharp, and the colours were too bright.
Then Peony spoke with a voice and a throat and a mouth that all seemed to belong to a far calmer man. “Where is he?”
“Still in the audience chamber—no one dared move him. Your Highness—”
“I'd like to see him,” he said, still in that calm voice.
“Yes, Your Highness.” The colonel saluted him, then turned and walked down the hallway.
Peony started to follow, but he felt the touch of a hand on his lower arm. He looked down at it, then up at the man it belonged to.
The sense of unreality receded, then, and now he felt as though he fit in his own body to the limit of its skin. He was no longer disconnected.
He was Peony Upala Malkuth, and his father was dead.
“I'll go first, Your—” Jade made a quiet noise. “. . . Your Majesty.”
Peony made a quiet noise of his own, and gave Jade a ragged smile that was more grimace than grin. “Yeah, you're right. I guess that's me, now, isn't it?”
“Yes. It is.” Jade adjusted his glasses. “After you, Your Majesty.”
Peony stepped out into the hallway and headed toward the colonel, who had stopped to wait for him. The lack of flashing light behind him told him that Jade had yet to put away his spear. That was enough to keep him on his guard as well; Jade might be mistrusting but he wasn't paranoid.
When they reached the main room of the headquarters, General Nordheim was waiting for them.
“Your Highness, are you planning to go to the palace?” the older man asked once he had saluted.
“Yeah, I am,” Peony replied. “I'm going to see my father.”
He watched as Nordheim exchanged a glance with the colonel, who was still nearby. He was going to have to get her name, later.
Then Nordheim said, “Allow me and some of my soldiers to escort you, Your Highness.”
Peony nodded. “Right. . . . Thanks.”
Nordheim gave his soldiers their orders, then, and soon their group of three was far more. Peony didn't bother to count how many more. He simply followed as, with Nordheim at their head, the group of soldiers formed around him and they exited the building.
The walk between the military headquarters and the palace was one he made every other day, more often if he could manage it. Usually, he'd use that time to chat with whichever guard or guards he'd manage to grab to escort him there.
He'd never walked with a substantial portion of a division, and he'd never done it in silence—if silence was the right word to describe the sound of so many marching feet over the constant rush of Grand Chokmah's waterfalls and the dozens of other little noises that came from clothed and armed bodies in motion.
When they arrived at the square before Grand Chokmah Palace, save for a few guards who had either stayed or returned to their posts, it was completely deserted; no doubt all the nobles had fled. The palace itself looked exactly as it always did. It made sense, of course, but subconsciously, he'd been expecting it to be different. It should have been.
It was only when the soldiers and Peony halted outside the audience chamber that someone finally spoke.
“Your Highness, are you sure you truly want to do this?” Nordheim asked him. “His Majesty was—”
“I do.” Peony's reply was far quieter than was his norm, but firm. He looked up at the taller man, his gaze strong. “He's—he was my father.”
“Very well.” There was nothing else Nordheim could say, after all.
One of the soldiers who had accompanied him opened the doors to the hall for him, and, aware that he was being watched by everyone, Peony nodded at the man and stepped inside.
There were numerous soldiers lying on the blue stone floor, under the tall, tall ceiling of the audience chamber. The ones without Seventh Fonists around them, Peony knew were dead. They were mostly clustered near the thrones on the dais at the far end of the room, but some had died at their posts, from arrows and—scorched and torn clothing and the stench of burning told him—fonic artes.
Only one body was covered with a cloth, guarded by two soldiers and Chief of Staff Sesemann, and it was that one he slowly walked toward.
He passed a few soldiers being healed as he crossed the long room, and his steps slowed, giving him time to check on their states. If they were conscious, he nodded at them, unable to manage much else. He'd talk to them later. Right now. . . .
Chief of Staff Sesemann had been looking down at the body of Malkuth's emperor as he approached. Only once Peony stopped beside him did he slowly look up, the movement so tired.
“Have you come to see your father, Prince Peony?” Sesemann asked him, grief clear in his voice.
“Yeah,” Peony answered in a hoarse half-whisper.
Sesemann nodded at the two soldiers on guard, and they bent to fold back the blood-stained embroidered sheet, slowly bringing the face of Peony's father into view.
It was immediately clear the emperor's death had not been peaceful. The pain of death had deepened the wrinkles of his face and twisted his mouth, and his eyes were wide—it looked as though no one had dared shut them.
Peony knelt next to his father's body, unaware of splatters of blood seeping into his clothing that the saturated edges of the sheet had been unable to soak up. It was those blue eyes, now, that held his attention.
Emperor Karl V's eyes had always been hard; now they were glassy and blank. It seemed death had done what age had not: it finally softened that strong gaze.
After a moment, Peony noticed something else—his father's head was bare. He glanced up, found the crown where it had rolled away from the dying monach's head. He looked back down. Slowly, he reached out and brushed the thin hair away from his father's forehead.
He hadn't seen his father for eighteen years of his life. Karl had always been a distant figure, even before he'd sent his son to Keterburg. In the years since Franz had died and Peony had returned to Grand Chokmah Palace, their relationship had been strained, becoming increasingly so as time went on. Sometimes, often, Peony had come as close to hating him as he would allow himself.
It didn't matter, now. His seventy-year-old father had been murdered, dying a painful and terrifying death. Hating him for what he had and hadn't done was pretty senseless right now.
Peony reached out one more time, gently closing his father's eyes. He didn't speak and he didn't pray. All he did was fold the cloth back over the dead emperor's face, and then he stood, his bloodstained pants unsticking at the knees.
He looked to Nordheim, who had joined him at some point; he hadn't noticed when.
“I want a list of names of everyone who was killed by the assassins,” Peony said quietly. “Soldiers, servants—it doesn't matter. And I want the names and addresses of their families.”
“What are you going to do, Your Highness?” Nordheim asked him.
“I'm going to write their families,” was his simple reply. “And I'm going to send them double the pay for soldiers killed in combat—triple, if we can afford it.”
“What about the soldiers who were injured defending His Majesty?” Nordheim asked. “They didn't lose their lives in service of their emperor, and His Majesty was killed. Should I have them punished?”
On these moments, the future turned.
“No,” Peony said, and his voice was low and strong. “No. I want their names, too. I want to thank them in person for their part in defending Malkuth. If their injuries are permanent, I want their disability payments doubled or tripled, the same as the ones who lost their lives. They did their best to defend His Majesty from a surprise attack in the centre of the palace. I won't have anyone punished for that—not ever.”
Nordheim sounded almost thoughtful as he replied, “Yes, Your Highness—forgive me, Your Majesty. I'll see to it your orders are followed at once.”
“Thank you.”
It was said with sincerity as Peony met Nordheim's eyes. It wasn't at all automatic, and it was a word not often uttered in this hall—not by the emperor.
Nordheim saluted him in reply. “By your leave, Your Majesty.”
Peony nodded at him and watched him stride briskly away among the injured and the fonists and the soldiers now bringing stretchers to bear away those wounded and dead.
“You are beginning your reign most unconventionally, Your Majesty.”
The quiet remark from Sesemann drew Peony's gaze away from the activity of the audience chamber, and he looked down at the shorter man. The Chief of Staff—his Chief of Staff—wore a thoughtful expression, too, as he looked up at Peony in return.
“I've never been a particularly conventional guy, Sesemann.”
He looked up, out to the waterfalls that surrounded the palace, always unchanging, in sharp counterpoint to his dreams for Malkuth that began the day Franz died. Those dreams had been the only good things to come of his brother's murder.
“. . . I wish it didn't have to be this way.”
“Mm, yes. You would wish otherwise. But you cannot alter the past, Your Majesty.” It was said kindly.
Peony looked over at him, the arc of his gaze taking in a slain soldier, blood, the throne, and the dead emperor at his feet before it rested on the old man beside him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I'm just going to have to do the best with what I've got.”
“As must we all,” Sesemann replied.
He nodded at that, his movement small. His eyes dropped one last time to his father, covered in that red-soaked cloth, before he looked up again and took in the activity of the audience chamber, the Seventh Fonists now almost done their work. His glance paused on a tall, brown-haired man in the uniform of a major at the other end of the room, but only for a moment.
He didn't look down at his father. He didn't look back for confirmation. Instead, Emperor Peony Upala Malkuth IX looked forward when he spoke:
“Well . . . I'd better get started.”