“Hmm.” Elva was silent, except for the occasional question to Ruli as she looked him over. She waved off his apology. “I’m sure she will appreciate it. I told her to take the day to rest. But do know that you can’t be responsible for your actions under the influence of a deadly and excruciating poison,” she said, then smirked. “We’ve dealt with difficult patients before—Kire being one of them, in fact— though not ones with teeth as sharp as yours, mind.” She nodded, satisfied when he said he felt sore and heavy. It was what was expected in the aftermath of the cure. “But, in future, perhaps a warning about the disappearing? If you’d ended up outside and we didn’t find you, you’d be a frozen sorcerer by morning. Some things I can’t cure.”
She lectured him a little more about caution and taking care of himself—though not to same extent she would Kire or her cousins. Afterwards, satisfied with the rest of the results of her examination of him, Elva called for someone to bring him food, something easy for him to consume. Some soup arrived later, along with tea, and some bread and cheese. A servant brought her a bowl of fruit just as she took out her pipe to light. Sitting opposite him, she started smoking, pausing now and then to nibble on fruit.
“If they all move back to the Capital, it’s going to be awfully quiet in here again,” she murmured to herself chuckling as she shook her head, sinking into a few moments of contemplative silence as she let Ruli eat. “You’ve done so much for our family. For her. You might be tired to hear it, and I’m sure Kire is grateful, but—thank you. At this rate, Kire should put you on the royal payroll, what with all the heavy lifting you had to do on her behalf,” she said with a smirk, taking out her pipe to light. A servant brought her a bowl of fruit to nibble on, and she leaned back on her chair, taking small bites as she smoked. “I hope you don’t mind if I’m feeling chatty. Lots of emotions going around lately, as you can imagine. The way you disappeared yesterday reminded me a little of Kire during her worst times. Though you can be forgiven, you weren’t exactly lucid. But she used to be so terrible at showing weakness, even if it tore her apart inside, even if she actually wanted to be comforted. What could you expect from an orphan who got thrust upon a throne, after all.”
She blew out smoke, reminiscing. “I mean she can still be insufferably stubborn, of course, but she’s gotten better about asking for help over time. Gods know she’ll be vulnerable only with the people who matter. Which, I guess, brings me to a question I’ve been meaning to ask, and again, do forgive me for springing this on someone who had just recovered from poison, seeing as you’re rather a captive listener at the moment.” She blew out a ring of smoke, then turned her gaze on him. “Is there anything between you and Kire, besides the occasional romp in bed? No judgment on the answer, I’ve had my own dalliances here and there. But as the unwitting hostess of your trysts, I do have a little bit of a right to my curiosity.” She tapped the stem of the pipe against her lip absentmindedly as she waited for his answer.
--
Kire shook her head at her cousin and Ysayrn. “You two will have plenty of time to ‘spar’ all night later,” she commented. Gavin wrinkled his nose, looking between the two of them, while Daryll’s brow creased in confusion. “As for tasks, I only have one for you, and we’ll be doing that together: getting rid of the rune circles around the Palace and the Red Tower.”
Daryll nodded. “I assume we’ll leave the negation wards for last, in case any other magical boobytraps spring themselves on us?” He looked to Gavin, who nodded in assent.
“Besides Kire herself and the gate—or whatever that was that we summoned—everything else should still be contained by the wards we set,” the young Gemini said.
“Palace first, then,” Kire said, leading them in.
The Palace still looked eerie to her this way. In shambles, with signs of violence everywhere. The Great Hall used to be so resplendent, with stained glass windows and the portraits of her predecessors lining the walls. Banners from all the noble houses would have hung in between the columns that lined the aisle. She assumed the Gemini had either destroyed them, or perhaps made coin from them, but didn’t keep them. It wouldn’t have hurt as much if they could have at least left the portrait of her parents alone, but she knew it was folly to think they’d spare that for any reason. Sighing, Kire gave the floor to Gavin and Daryll, who gave everyone else instructions for how to scratch out or deface the rune circles. Once the Great Hall was done, Kire led them to the end of the hall, where two grand doors led into the Throne Room itself.
Gavin gaped. A great marble dais—white flecked with gold-- rose from the floor at the far end, with a red canopy trimmed with gold thread hanging over the throne itself. An amber rose window shone above the whole affair. The ceiling rose into a dome above the dais, and on it Gavin could see what looked like a painting of gods and goddesses. The throne itself, however, looked like it had been carved from a massive block of dark green jade. It was a squarish affair, almost too simple for the trappings it was surrounded with, yet it was the simple design that made it look all the more intimidating. To Gavin, it almost looked too huge for Kire to sit on. “Holy shit,” the murmured—a little too loudly, his curse echoing in the room.
“Tradition says the Jade Throne was carved from the petrified remains of a dragon,” Ed said. Kire was silent as she went up the steps of the dais. She couldn’t feel anything from it, so no traps at the moment. She stood before the jade throne upon which she had presided over banquets, made royal declarations, pronounced death sentences, and governed her lands, the way her ancestors had, the way her father had. So much blood… Her fingertips brushed the cold armrest. Did they ever sit on this? Did they think of destroying it, the way they destroyed the portraits of my sires?
Daryll and Ed looked at each other, then at Kire, letting her have this moment in silence. Gavin, too, looked at a loss for words inside this room, the weight of its history sinking into him. After a silence, he cleared his throat softly. “There’s fewer to erase here, we’d be done in no time.” Kire nodded, turning away from the throne to continue the work.
After they were done, the Palace grounds were next. It tore at Kire to see the state of the orchards, with trees felled or defaced. Those with runes etched into their bark too deeply had to be cut down, too. “You don’t have to go to the crypts,” Ed said, when they took a break after completing their sweep of the orchards.
Kire shook her head. “I’m seeing that through.”
The entrance to the Wyvern crypts weren’t far from the orchards themselves. But where once there stood marble statues of dragons guarding the entrance, there was now just broken stone. The gates had been forced open. Kire’s hands curled into fists. “You don’t have to,” Ed pressed. Kire rubbed her face and nodded silently. Ed looked at Gavin, Daryll, and Ysaryn. “Let’s make it quick.” Down below, the carven likenesses of Wyvern emperors and empresses had been defaced. Gavin coughed; it looked like the mages, in their search for any part of a Wyvern they could use for their rituals, had scoured these crypts for material. After searching, however, Gavin shook his head at Ed. No runes here. When they went back up to meet Kire, they said as much.
“Most likely, they took whatever little they could from here and took it back up to where they’d laid their circles,” Daryll explained.
Which only left the Tower now. Daryll and Gavin, not having seen its current state before, both drew a deep breath at the crystallized mages. Beneath the mages were remnants of the runes. Some of them already looked scratched out. “Fuck…” the lad said.
“You got that right,” Kire muttered. “But that concerns me more,” she said, pointing to the still-faintly glowing windows above them.
Daryll, unable to help his morbid curiosity, stepped closer to one of the crystal ‘statues’, both awed and chilled by how much of the features had been preserved. “What do we do with these?” Ed asked, not liking the idea of even being in their presence.
“Smash ‘em seems most appropriate,” Gavin suggested.
“Before that, I’m going up to the Seer’s Chamber. My hunch is, the world gate’s somehow in there,” Kire said. “I’ll go in first—yes, Daryll, that means you stay out here. Your alchemy chamber can wait for you another hour or two.” Daryll looked completely deflated by her cutting him off before he could even voice out the desire. “When I tell you all it’s safe, come in.”
The Tower, as she had expected, was untouched. Even after all this time, its strange magic only allowed Kire, her family, and whoever they trusted inside. Dusty, or at least much dustier than when Daryll was in charge of it. A smell she’d rather not identify wafted up from the alchemy chamber, perhaps from all his stale ingredients. She climbed up, past the living quarters, Daryll’s room and library, up and up until she pushed open the door that led into the Seer’s Chamber. Eight windows circled the chamber, and right across from her was a door that led nowhere. It was through there that the Seer had stepped out to meet her and give her the Ring.
But this time, one of the windows was glowing blue. The halo of light looked like a smaller version of her portal, which puzzled her. Cautiously, she stepped close enough to peer at it without touching it. In the middle of the light was an image. Caves? Kire squinted at it, the image looking familiar somehow, before she gasped. She went to another window to lean out and call down to them. “Hey, come up!”
