#wnaric

Beneath the palace walls, where no light dared go, the Crow had hidden. For months now, not a soul had seen her. Some had started to doubt she was still in Nore at all, but, oh, she was. And, oh, she was far from idle in the dungeons deep. With her cauldron of gold, and her brew of everything unholy in the world, she made the perfect gift for the infant prince.

Theodric. How sweet the sound, how sweet the sight. It made her sick. The Caddocks, celebrating and naming a babe before it had even started to teethe. The were sentimental fools. He wouldn’t survive the year. Especially if Ammut had something to say about it, and she had something to say about everything. So she’d cook him a spell. A subtle, slow-working thing that would seem like nothing more dangerous than a golden ring. In fact, it was nothing more than a golden ring.

In appearance, anyway.

Once slipped over his fat little wrist, the infant would no longer belong to the Caddocks. His teeth would grow in sharp, and his eyes would fade to black, rather than the pretty Caddock Blue. He’d be her creature to command and to craft into her perfect little spy, and her perfect little flesh-and-blood sacrifice at the end of it all.

A darkness fell over the Palace when the iron door finally opened. Ammut filled the corridor like a shadow, like a sickness, leaving what remained of her ingredients and meals to rot beside her pot. She held the bracelet in an obsidian box, jeweled and ornate and everything she liked in a trinket.

It could not have been much past dawn.

Curtains were not yet drawn, and lit candles were snuffed out as she passed. (Ammut always did like making an entrance.) Up the stairs, through the halls, and past each wing of the palace until she could smell him -- the king with his weak blood and old heart, and his pretty perfumed bath heating up the air around him. She snapped her fingers. Somewhere, blood was spilled, and it mixed with freshly-fallen rain. With this mixture, Ammut drew the power to turn herself to smoke, seeping through the walls until she found the king.

“You must think me terribly discourteous,” she mourned. Her voice echoed around the room before she materialized completely. “I’ve been away for so long, I have not even joined you for a simple meal.”

Her black gown spilled across the floor as her wicked eyes took in the king and all his vulnerability. With sorrow and guilt painted across her sharp features, Ammut decided his figure was left wanting. He had grown fat and old. A terrible thing for a monarch to be.

If, perhaps, it is not too bold. I know I am unworthy of your time, but I fear this is something you'd want to hear.

Leave all your love and your longing behind

Maeve knew her way around the castle, whether she liked admitting it or not. Enough servants ordered deliveries or received gifts that she had successfully learned to navigate her way around, or at least have something of an idea of where she was most of the time.

After this delivery, Maeve had plans to visit Cynwrig. She was sure he was running low on something, and so she carried with her no small amount of unusual items - dead mice, mushrooms, spices and a bolt of cheap fabric - just in case he needed a new coat. 

For now, however, she was wandering through the palace, wondering if she should have simply left the bread with a cook and collected the money later. The last time she had been here with something for Royalty, she hadn't made it inside the gates before her health caught up with her, and that, coupled with missing two meals in the past two days, left her more uncertain of herself than usual. Dizzy and pale, Maeve walked too quickly, forgot to watch where she was going. Maeve rounded a corner and all but walked into the king himself.

[As far as Ini-Herit was concerned, Milah was having fun screwing him over. Or at least that's what it felt like. He had absolutely no idea what he was doing and he was fairly certainly that he was screwing it up terribly. On one hand, he had Sophia whose father pretty much rejected him and who was not precisely fond of the prince. On the other hand, he had Charlie who he was growing more and more fond of every time he saw him. Altogether it left him a little lost and he didn't know who to turn to. He couldn't exactly ask his mother-she was hardly the expert on romance-but he did know one person who had a happy relationship. King Aric. And so he found himself wandering the halls searching for the king with all the direction of a mouse in a bakery.]

She gripped the letter in her hands now, wondering if she should have regretted writing it in the first place. Astrid was better at politics, and that was why Sophia so rarely intervened. But the few times she did, it was because she was better at knowing people, and she expected to be listened to.

I spoke to Her Majesty of the Southern Isles at the feast, as was expected of me, her letter began, and each word had been carefully chosen long before she even opened the inkwell. I have been told in the past that my opinions are formed too quickly or through bias, but I confide in you now my magic is irrepressible of late. My opinion is of not her person, but of her very heart, and I ask you to read these words with consideration.

It was formal. Too formal for her liking, but the preamble served its purpose nonetheless. With fear settling like lead in her fingertips, Sophia forced open the great doors to the throne room. The long hall had, as a child, been her favorite place to race herself or her guard, as it allowed just enough uninterrupted running room for her to run out of breath by the end. Now, though, it seemed too, too, too long as she took each step with deliberation. Now was not the time to turn back and keep her fears to herself. Still, something told her to halfway down the hall and wait to be told she could go further. So she did.