TVisTV Book 3: Chapter 27 (RAW)

Chapter 27 - Buddies

Creatures should be loved for their wisdom if they cannot be loved for their kindness.

- Hannah Kent.

Seraphina’s comb whispered through the silk of Eloise’s raven hair, sliding like water over bone teeth. In the corner of the mirror, a girl with a neat blonde bob and clear green eyes stared back, poised and perfect, but very far from calm.

She needed time. Time to make her heart stop tripping over itself every time it thought the name Velens. Just the image of him wandering the infirmary gardens—alone, his storm-grey eyes emptied of memory—made something foolish and tender ache inside her chest. That ache was dangerous. It clouded judgment; it made a strong woman into a foolish, blubbering girl.

So the blonde girl worked. She let her hands distract her from what she needed her mind to forget.

“Mmh,” Seraphina murmured at her lady-in-waiting’s chatter, offering little sounds of assent, repeating the last phrase with a questioning lilt when needed. The ritual soothed her: the soft pull of hair, the clean scent of perfumed oil, the bright rectangle of morning in the window. Order.

“Lady Seraphina!” Eloise squeaked, doll-pretty mouth falling open.

“Oh? Yes, entirely—Master Belfrost is a dunce of the first order,” Seraphina replied, smiling in the glass.

“Not that! This is Miriam’s hairstyle,” Eloise huffed. “You promised me the latest Quassian fashion.”

Seraphina blinked, then laughed at herself—warmth on her cheeks. “You’re right. Forgive me, darling. Our conversation was too enthralling, and my hands wandered.” She unstitched ten minutes of careful work with quick, contrite fingers. “Allow me to make it up to you.”

She gathered the black silk anew, weaving a tight fishtail that kissed the nape, then turned braid to chignon—sleek, serious, impeccable. A style she’d worn in another life for meetings that decided the fates of millions with signatures.

Eloise watched, entranced. “You make it look easy.”

“Nothing worth wearing is easy,” Seraphina said lightly, and secured the shape with a pale horn pin carved from some winter beast of the far North. The piece caught the light—milk-white with an old memory of frost. A reminder to write to her maternal grandmother soon. In the days ahead, she would need every ally.

A horde from the North, disciplined by Aranthian cavalry… the mind leapt toward simple answers of iron and steel to solve complex problems. 

No. She drew the thought back like a hawk to the glove. Open violence like this on such a large scale was the clumsy way—the male way, she told herself. Then she felt the prickle of honesty and amended, silently: That was a convenient lie. She simply preferred subtler knives—for now. War, she would keep as a final solution.

Velens was now a blank slate. A slate could be written upon. How best to neutralize the boy and the crown behind him? Convince him to give up his claim to the throne? Seduce him and force a matrilineal marriage? Did she really want to marry him anymore? Did she ever wish to marry him in a world where divorce was not an option? A queen’s work was rarely bloodless; perhaps she could convince him to take adventuring more seriously. With luck, a monster might gobble him up. But fortune was, as Frest liked to call it, a fickle whore. Seraphina might as well pray to have a bolt of lightning strike down Elidion if she were to rely on fortune.

“There,” she said, stepping back, the chignon complete. Eloise’s delight rang bright as a bell.

“It’s perfect.”

They chatted of little things as they tidied—clothes, boys, schedules, the latest petty scandal in the other classes. Small talk was the grease that moved the world. By the time they were ready, Seraphina had almost convinced her pulse to behave.

Stepping into the corridors of the Academy, she witnessed the building itself breathe awake—leather soles on stone, sunlight filtering through mullioned glass, the background noise of a thousand voices. They parted at the stairs with a squeeze of fingers and promises to meet later at luncheon.

Seraphina turned toward Mathematica. Numbers were a sanctuary: obedient and exact. They lacked the variables that human tools seemed to be comprised of. Between proofs and the orderly march of figures, she could plan her next moves..

The emerald of her eyes flicked once, just once, toward the direction of the infirmary gardens. Then she set her shoulders and entered the classroom. Between one equation and the next, she would decide what to write on Velens’ spotless slate—and who she would have to become to hold the chalk.

***

Her teacher, Master Clemens, was a dour man. He made the figures and problems presented on the board positively grim, every statement of fact a pronouncement of grim tidings. This made the students in her class groan as he presented problem after problem. Clemens was teaching them a version of this world’s pre-calculus, a field of mathematics for which Seraphina had never seen any practical application. Inevitably, when a student failed to answer, the teacher would choose her to demonstrate, which took up some of her “free” time in the lesson.

She bore all of this with the grace befitting her station, smiling at everyone and perfect in her manners as she stood up and went to the front of the class. Across the slate of the blackboard, she wrote, in a flowing hand, the work for the various formulae. Clemens praised her, citing her as an example to the weaker students of the class. This earned her a few jealous looks but, more importantly, a great deal of respect. The students knew she had a mind as formidable as her great beauty.

One little problem in all of this was that Hughes was missing, and had been missing, since the duel with Velens. At this point, Seraphina suspected foul play by some party involved; her gut told her that the King had something to do with it. Where was the little fool? Was she, Seraphina de Sariens, worried about him? No, of course not—she just wanted to know where he was in case he was trying to deceive her, of course. And to deceive Seraphina was to insult Seraphina, and Seraphina would brook no insult.

Finally, the class ended. Seraphina spent as little time as possible socializing with the gossiping girls of her class—assuaging fears, countering rumors, paying the tax of social obligation. The girl had an image to maintain, you see. One advantage she managed to finagle was the chance to insert a rumor—one she had “apparently” heard from someone in authority—that the glorified Saint had caused Velens’s recent absence. A few probes here and there revealed the Crown Prince’s memory loss was not yet common knowledge. 

The young noblewoman weighed the positives and negatives of revealing his condition to Aranthian society at large as she went to the refectory for lunch. Of course, she would have no choice but to release the article with her newspaper once certain echelons knew of it. But in doing so, she would make the Oracle an even bigger target for the Crown…

So many things to consider, so many layers upon layers. Why couldn’t life be simple? As she sat down next to Eloise, Michelié, and Rashana for luncheon after her morning classes, she found herself wishing for the umpteenth time that she could just run away from it all. Who knows—with any luck, lightning could strike King Elidion dead, and Velens could be consumed by a monster… she thought to herself again.

Wait a moment—the latter was certainly possible, if she made an earnest effort to convince Velens to take up “real” adventuring without the training wheels of a royal escort. She thought about it as she exchanged casual words with her group before she dismissed them. Even for one of her plots—her schemes—it was far too convoluted. Not to mention that it might service the Crown Prince with a chance to awaken his ancient memories.

Her mind started to simulate various plays for the throne, but the biggest variable was always her mother. No matter what Seraphina did, it seemed she could not escape the shadow of that powerful Oracle.

“I say, Seraphina, I am thinking of checking in on Velens every now and again, as you seem to be rather busy of late,” Rashana said as she cut into a leg of some fowl with an orange sauce.

“Oh, yes, please do. You are as much his friend as I am,” the short-haired blonde girl replied offhandedly, not really listening as she picked at her food.

Like this, lunch continued in general peace, Michelié stirring the pot every now and again. Nominally, the chubby girl was officially her ally, as her father, Duke de Montan, rode with Seraphina’s father, Duke Anatoli.

“You will have to excuse me,” Seraphina declared, rising. “I have some things to attend to.”

“Oh, Seraphina, darling, I’ll need more material for next week’s article for the Oracle—what did you call it, a ‘news paper’?” her friend Rashana stated coolly.

“The Oracle? You were behind that rag sheet?” Michelié cooed, sounding suitably scandalized.

“I can claim some credit, of course…” Rashana replied hesitantly.

“Well… let me tell you, Rashana, darling, I have just the juiciest morsels!” the chubby girl declared as she finished off yet another drumstick, then dipped her pudgy fingers into a lemon-scented bowl to wash them off. “Why, just the other day…”

Seraphina’s chubby friend continued to rattle off rumors—scandalous rumors about this Lord and that Lady—salacious tales that caused Eloise to blush. Half of it could not be true, but then again, none of the newspapers in modern times hardly cared for the truth. It was the sensational impact that mattered. A part of the young girl was convinced that Michelié was able to convert gossip into body fat.

“I daresay, Michelié, would you like to help Rashana? I am sure the pair of you will be able to inform the good people of many of the goings-on in the kingdom,” Seraphina suggested, smiling like a saint as she primly sat back down.

Rashana shot Seraphina a weary look, her smile thin. “I am sure…”

“Oh, I would love to! Rashana and I simply must spend some more time together! Why, I do believe it will be like the old days…”

“Why, Michelié, I do believe it will, don’t you, Rashana?” Seraphina added with good cheer, laughter dancing in her eyes.

Serves you right for making me dance like a common entertainer for the masses! Seraphina thought with a vengeance. Let’s see you deal with Michelié’s verbal diarrhea for hours at a time.” 

Now it was time to see if Miriam had been successful in procuring what she had asked for. She stayed for a few more minutes before she was able to safely extricate herself from the girls’ company.

Seraphina had some work to do in the library… work she was not much looking forward to, for recently, working alone had, well, become rather lonelier without Hughes’s company. The young noblewoman swore she would give him an earful for going back on one of his promises… where that fool was.

***

The school day ended much as it had of late: girls from her class and the neighboring classes hounding her for scraps of information. Desdemona—surprisingly—proved a treasure, the de Savant girl running interference with unerring social grace, parrying questions and redirecting gawkers until the worst of the swarm dispersed. She reminded the young noblewoman much of her former secretary…  

Once again, Seraphina found herself the center of everyone’s little universe. It was a heavy burden, and apparently one only she could carry. With grace, she bore it with a long-suffering sigh.

Escaping the young ladies—who, in her other life, would have given the paparazzi a run for their coin for their sheer doggedness—she rejoined her personal guard. Sir Gravens took the lead, Sir Filippe fell in behind, and other house retainers shadowed the flanks. She moved at a measured pace, letting their presence and hard gazes discourage unwanted pursuit.

Maria’s Repose lay in a sheltered cloister of old granite and ivy, a garden raised by one of Seraphina’s own ancestors, Lady Maria de Austene. It married two philosophies of design: one part was all symmetry and clipped geometry—the eastern urge to domesticate the wild and force it into pleasing shapes; the other favored meandering paths, borrowed vistas, and carefully curated “accident”—the western gardening style of making premeditated nature into art. Stone inlays formed five radiating beds surrounded by the green of a moss lawn—the Five Virtues—each traced in pale marble, while the plantings themselves were allowed to grow as they might in the field or forest, only coaxed into an elegance of form.

Wintering blooms nodded in the crisp, stubborn flowers offering color where native species had long given up. A rill whispered beneath a low arch, and the perfume of citrus and cinnamon mingled in the air. There was a subtle philosophical lesson to be learned here, the young noblewoman felt.

But Seraphina needed such deep thoughts as much as a horse needed a fifth leg. Philosophical musings could only change your interpretation of reality; they did not objectively change it. Perhaps she would think differently if she had someone to enjoy it with. Again, a treacherous thought. She crushed it at once, assigning the stray ache to hormones. Damn this traitor body of hers. Sir Gravens, Velens—why, even Sir Filippe—she could understand. But Hughes? Absolutely not. Maybe he was like that because of his…

No! Focus!

She told her Knights to wait outside the calm of Maria’s Repose, begging for some time alone. With crisp salutes, they placed themselves at a guard position at the entrance.

There it was, she thought with a small satisfied smile.

Waiting for her beneath a yew, half-hidden by a drape of black cloth, stood a wicker travel cage atop a small picnic table. Inside, a raven the size of a small dog worried savagely against its captivity, oil-slick feathers flashing green and purple in the light. Ravens, she realized, were not just black. Its eyes were chips of obsidian, bright and unblinking; its beak clicked like sharp menace.

“Tia,” the young girl exclaimed as she patted her fairy’s head. “This will be your new friend.”