#markum

Markum removed his brooched cloak from his shoulder and placed it on his bureau with a sigh. “It is late, Iyzela ja. You should return home. I will send for a Seeker to escort you.”

Iyzela bowed and dismissed herself. However, when we were two paces out the door, she lingered at the threshold and listened in on Markum’s private soliloquies.

“That arrogant fool…” he whispered to himself. “He does not understand the forces he toys with.”

“No one does, Jer’vazir,” Iyzela spoke from the doorway. Her boldness shocked me. I did not expect her to actually vocalize her displeasure, especially considering her oath of silence in every memory. Her nerve struck louder when Markum drew his attention towards her. “They do not understand because Hilbert was not wrong in his claims.”

“Iyzela.”

The warning sent a shiver through my spine, but mine alone. Iyzela remained unnerved.

“You cannot tell me, Jer’vazir, that Hilbert’s growing authority over Soilaila does not alarm you.”

My father’s sigh was cynical. “Do not concern yourself over Hilbert, Iyzela ja. He is but a man.”

“But also a Limious,” she rebuked.

His frown dimpled his brows. “The one who gifted him that title has revoked it from him. He may claim the people hold him in that regard, and while I admit the riots speak in his favour, the fact remains that the monarch is Von Doro. He may call himself whatever he pleases, but he is a Limious no longer.” A strained silence stretched between them. “But that is not what truly bothers you.”

“The monarchy’s opacity remains its own greatest enemy,” Jervee Iyzela argued. Her voice was firm and her stance sharp and defiant. “Hilbert only threatens civil war because Von Doro’s lack of transparency enables his audacity. They respect him now more than ever, Jer’vazir, because he is passionate about his ideologies; but more importantly, honest about them. Every subject wishes to know their ruler, and that is intelligence Von Doro has denied her people for centuries now. They grow weary, and the cost of their weariness is why we stand at these crossroads.”

The midnight moonbeams illuminated Markum’s face with long shadows. When he turned his eyes towards us, they were darker than night and more slyly feral than Hilbert’s had ever been.

“Von Doro governs the people, but there are forces that govern even Von Doro. Tell me, Iyzela—do you truly wish to uncover those demons?”

At last, a shiver coursed through Iyzela’s body like an ailment. Still, she retained her composure enough to ask, “Do you know of them, Jer’vazir?”

His smile was mystical, especially in the moonlight.

“Day and night, I whisper in their ears.”

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