The three-hundred foot clock tower that was the symbol of Vultheras’ Clockwork Palace was also the private residence of the royal family. Behind its exterior, armored in steel and bronze, were separate rooms for the royal children, the king, and queen if necessary. King Kalen’s bedroom was near the apex, just beneath the turning hands of its western clock face. From behind thin slits of shock-resistant windows, he could see a vista of mainland Bastilhas.
It was cold that evening, on the 61st day of Atilonian occupation. The majority of the capital had been evacuated to the care of Mathematzen and his daughter, the princess Hannah, was in the company of his former ritualist, the enigmatic Ghost. King Kalen stood alone, beside the warm lamp light in his gray and brass-colored satin pajamas, as he considered all he had done, and all he could still do.
If there was more time, the king thought as he watched the distant shore, dark beneath gathering clouds. There was a knock on his bedroom door and the king turned his head.
“It’s open,” he said.
The smooth oakwood door opened and an old gentleman with a white handlebar mustache stepped through the threshold. “Eric,” the king said, “thank you for coming.”
“I thought only Iona called me that name,” the man replied.
“Would you prefer I call you duke Eddleston?”
The duke raised his hand. “Whatever you prefer is fine, my liege.”
“Then I prefer we don’t stand on protocol,” the king said.
The duke bowed his head. “Of course,” he replied.
King Kalen turned from the window and into his lavish bedroom. His four-poster bed, the lounge chair, the cabinets, and—in fact—all the king’s furniture, had been carved from wood. The bed was richly adorned in sheets and pillows, while the heraldry of his great house was displayed on its headboard. The lounge chair, upholstered in the same rose-color as the bed linens, was leafed in tasteful gold that did not detract from the bright color of its polished oak. Like the cabinet the king approached, the bed and the lounge appeared dusted, but unused.
On the cabinet was a jewelry box, partly opened; a mirror, turned low; a set of pictures in brass frames, cleaned, but turned to the side. The king knelt down to open a glass cabinet door. He retrieved a bottle and a pair of crystal cups.
“How are you feeling?” the king asked the duke.
Eddleston slipped his hands neatly behind his back. The duke was in his state uniform, indistinguishable from an ordinary officer’s dress with its gray coat and slacks, but for the checkered cloak that fell over one shoulder. There was no scabbard hitched to his belt.
“Uneasy,” he answered. “The Atilonians have us by the throat and they’ve yet to bite, but they will soon.”
The king set the cups on the cabinet counter top. He uncorked the clear bottle and poured two drinks; one-third deep. “Why do you say that?” the king asked.
“Tomorrow’s forecast calls for rain,” Eddleston said. “Seems there’s always rain on misfortunate days.”
Kalen handed Eddleston a glass, which the duke grasped in hand. “It was raining that day too, wasn’t it?” the king wondered aloud.
Eddleston frowned. “Perhaps this is why we stopped meeting like this,” he said as he looked into his cup.
“Do you think she would have approved?” Kalen asked.
“If she were here,” the duke answered, “she would have let Hannah fight.”
“If she were here, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place,” the king said. “That’s what I keep thinking.”
Silence passed between them and they both took a draft from their glasses, drank deep until the cups were empty.
Duke Eddleston coughed. “What is this?” he asked.
“Clear brandy.”
“I never did appreciate your predication for drink,” Eddleston said, rolled his tongue in his mouth. “Tastes… almost fruity.”
“It was her favorite,” king Kalen said. “Blue plum from the groves of Edwindy.”
“I wonder why,” the duke asked, his tone thick with sarcasm.
“It was from the very same field,” the king said.
The duke made a slight smirk. “She was as fond of mementos as you are.”
King Kalen took the glass from the duke and poured another drink for the both of them. He placed the cup back in the duke’s hand and turned toward the bed, gestured toward his own heraldry as if to set a scene.
“1965,” the king said. “Edwindy declares war on us. You and I are sent to the front while our fathers play politick. We’re in the trenches outside the plum grove.”
“Rifles in hand,” the duke remarked. “We were still getting used to the idea of fighting at a range, but we were young.”
“The Edwindians called artillery on us. Blew the field apart, and most of the trench,” the king continued. “Our commander was dead; we lost a lot of men.”
“We would have died too,” Eddleston said.
“Then a bright shield crossed the sky and blocked the next barrage,” Kalen said as he stirred his glass with the swirl of his hand. “She appeared before us, like an angel.”
“Foul-mouthed angel,” the duke remarked. “I was bleeding from shrapnel in my side, but she shouted at me—told me to move despite myself. You and I, we exchanged one look, dropped our guns and drew our swords.”
“Charged through the grove,” the king added.
“While they poured fire on us from their defended positions,” the duke said. “We crossed a mile of no man’s land. The field was just mud and bones, and torn up plum trees withered by all that death.”
“I cheered, didn’t I?”
“So hard your throat gave out.” The duke smiled. “But it really got the men going.”
“She shielded us, and somehow we made it across,” the king said.
Eddleston nodded. “Made short work of them, when they didn’t have the advantage of distance.”
“If she hadn’t of come, we would have died,” the king said, his voice low, bothered by his own thoughts.
“But she wasn’t one of ours,” the duke added.
“The Knights of the Devil King,” the king said. “Is that where this started?”
The duke held out his glass and the king glanced at him. There was a pause, but the king did nod, and they clinked their glasses together. “To misfortunate angels?” Duke Eddleston asked.
“To fortunes and misfortunes,” the king said. “And those women that embodied them.”
They took deep drafts from their drinks and the king pounded his glass to the cabinet counter. The duke frowned and the king turned his head, his back arched and hand still touched to his glass.
“Do you still think you made the right choice?” the duke asked. “Giving Hannah to the same people that killed Mary.”
“You can blame them, and I certainly do,” the king said, left his glass where it sat on the counter as he straightened his back. “But I share some of that blame.”
“Could you have stopped Mary?”
The king clenched his hands. “I could have tried,” he said through his teeth.
Duke Eddleston sighed and approached the old king, patted his shoulder with his gloved hand. “We could have tried together,” the duke said, “and she would have pushed us aside.”
Eddleston set his glass on the counter and poured one for himself.
“I hope Hannah can forgive me for what I’ve done,” the king said aloud, “but I remember what pride earned her mother. I wasn’t going to plead, or argue; I wasn’t going to take another chance.”
“Do you think Ghost has plans for her?” the duke asked.
The king grabbed the bottle and poured another 3rd. “I want to say he got what he wanted with Jessica, but after Anton, I’m not so sure. I should have hanged him for what he did to your boy.
“Misleading him, like he could possibly control the Eyes power. Jessica barely survived, and her mother…” the king’s voice trailed away as he gripped his glass tightly. “What the eyes demand is far too great for a mortal to bear.”
“Anton feels lucky enough to have his life,” duke Eddleston said. “You need not worry on his account.”
“But he’s your son,” the king said.
“Now you sound like your daughter.”
The king chuckled as the duke moved beside him; they watched the darkening sky through the thin window. “Anton has had three years to reflect,” Eddleston said. “He’s come to terms with it in his own way; as we all do.”
“I’ve had seven years to reflect,” king Kalen said, a long stare drawn through the window, wet with drops of rain. “And, I still haven’t….”
The king’s voice trailed away as they shared a quiet moment.
“Who do you think Jessica takes after?” duke Eddleston asked.
“Between the two of us?” Kalen replied. “That’s a tough one.”
“She’s cold, dispassionate, and calculating,” the duke said.
The king nodded. “That does sound like you.”
“But, she’s also very protective of some things; this country—”
“Like her mother was.”
“And, Anton.”
“That,” the king said and paused. He swirled his drink in his hand. “Sounds like me.”
“You can come off as cold,” the duke said.
“But once I’ve got my teeth in something, I have a hard time letting go.”
“C’est la vie,” duke Eddleston said.
The king glanced at him. “Picking up phrases from Giles?”
The duke nodded. “Such is life, as the Selecezi say. I thought there was a nice ring to it.”
“So much poetry was lost when Selune was destroyed,” the king ruminated. “What will the Adohas lose with us?”
“Nothing she will miss, I hope.”
The king nodded. “You’re probably right,” he said. “Whatever the world could lose from our learning is nothing compared to what she will gain after we flood the tunnels to the slumbering.”
“Do you plan to go down fighting?”
“If it were by your side, the pair of us against however many Atilonians they send, then maybe.” The king made an all too brief smile. “But I fear they’ll send you to lead the charge, while I stay behind.”
“You’re our king,” the duke said. “Not some spry princeling. We can’t very well throw you before the treads of their tanks.”
“I’ll decide my death at the moment of my choosing,” king Kalen said.
“But she did die where she wanted to be,” the duke said. “If you decided to take the charge, who could stop you?”
“Hah,” the king laughed. “I’m not quite as stubborn as she.”
He raised his glass and they clinked their cups.
“To… dying how we like?” the duke asked.
The king nodded. “If it was good enough for her, it should be good enough for us.”
“Here, here.”
They drank from their cups, bottomed out their glasses, and breathed deeply. The king turned and set his glass down. The duke did the same and began toward the door.
“That’s as much brandy as I can bear, my friend,” he said. “I’ll be in the war room if you need me.”
“Are you worried at all?” the king asked. “About your wife, Iona, and your other children.”
“She knew what it meant,” he stopped and answered. “To be a noble of Bastilhas, I suppose.”
“Did she know about Mary?”
Duke Eddleston turned halfback, eyed the king carefully. “Yes,” he said and nodded.
The king tilted the mirror on the cabinet counter and stared down at his own reflection. “Did you ever resent me?”
“She made her choice,” the duke said. “And I… did come to terms with that.”
The king frowned at himself. “I see, thank you.”
“My sword will always be at your service, your highness,” Duke Eddleston said. “Goodnight.”
The door was opened, held briefly, and then again shut closed.
King Kalen tilted the mirror back into position and turned away from the cabinet. He walked across the bedroom to an oak wardrobe and opened its large doors. Beneath a rack of coats and fine, folded dresses, were a set of drawers. The king pulled open the top most drawer and inside were two letters and a white, horned mask that covered eyes and nose of the face.
Kalen took the first letter between his fingers and it read thusly—
I know what will come, and I can’t stand by. I won’t ride the flows of time and let its current push me where it will. I must paddle against them, no matter what it costs me. When your time comes, to sink or swim, open my last letter.
And I will tell you how you will die.
