Zac reached to his collar, adjusting the fabric against the sweat and heat as midday crept upon them. He surveyed the crowd and steady stream of people still pouring in. Those with Merits moved to the front and the meek Mark carriers drifted back, relegating themselves to the curbside and hawking for exchanges. No matter how he’d tried, his small efforts were never enough. The old divisions prevailed, and the poor were forgotten in the shadows of the castle walls. He wiped the sweat from his brow as he checked the ramparts. The guard had increased in the last hour, and unlike their usual counterparts in old uniforms and minimal protective plating, they donned polished armor. No wonder the crowd had grown.
The entire kingdom had come to call, come to mourn their king. Three days earlier, he’d broken through the doors with Perdion, and they’d found first the quiet. The stillness. The heaviness of something terrible. Blood spilled along the floor and soaked dark in the rug, staining it nearly black. The fire crackled in a villainous laugh, and the pounding in his ears were distant drums of war.
“Let go of me, you grubby Mark-counter!” a man shouted, shoving against another. The crowd gasped as they tussled, throwing fists back and forth.
“Merit-holders to the front! Queen’s orders!” a guard down the line ordered.
“Get off of it!” the one said, stepping back and smearing the blood from his lip. The merchant wrapped in the finery of a mountain craft smith sneered. “Smelly ass cattle coddler.”
“What did you call me?” The other whipped around, his eye swollen nearly shut, worse for wear and outmatched.
“Ready, hold.” The order echoed through the courtyard. A creak and groan of bows stole the attention of those below. They ducked, moving away from the men, parting like tidal seas from their semi-neat rows. The two men stepped farther back from each other, hands in the air. “You there, to the other side.” The guard said, raising a hand for his men to lower their aim. “Keep moving.”
The man gave an affirmative nod, removed his hat, and pushed back his stringy hair. Mountain elves had a reputation for thin hair, but this one was nearly bald. His speckled hand clutched harder his Rose Merit like a badge of honor. “I didn’t come all this way for nothing. Her Majesty wants proper, hardworking folk up close. Mark-grubbers can watch from the wall, I’ll tell you that much, I will.” He sneered back at the other merchant.
Zac’s hand moved to his sword hilt. The day was aging, and the lines were long. The last thing they needed was trouble. Jace shot him a dark look, a small shake of his head. Zac tried his best to unclench his jaw, but between the muscles of his shoulders locking stiff and the cold chill creeping up his spine, he wasn’t sure he could call himself to relax. It wasn’t a typical day.
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“Queen Valixia’s guard will handle it,” Jace warned, vaguely motioning upward as he counted a stack of mixed Merits.
Zac looked back through the gate. The palace guards were already moving through the crowd, striking awe and fear into everyone they passed. Their polished armor gleamed in the sunlight, and their impressive swords swung at their sides, adorned with red gems. He wondered for a moment if the rumors were true. Had the palace guards been blessed by the highest orders of magic? No, he thought and returned to his duty. Things like that were rare these days. The ancient elves may have once woven spells into common items, enchanted their guards, and blessed liberally, but those days were long past. If there was any magic to be found, it wasn’t in those guards or in his green eyes, no matter how much they shined like their armor. These days, magic showed itself mainly in the queen’s presence, in the way the air seemed to grow thick and strange around her.
That was why she was queen, though, was it not?
Then, as if summoned by mere thought, a chill wind swept down the castle towers, cascading along the walls, and spilling through the roads. People drew their cloaks tighter, wrapping their arms around themselves for shelter. Whispers rippled through as they danced on their toes, twisting away from the cool sweep of unfamiliar magic. Most had gone their whole lives with the delusion that magic didn’t feel like anything more than a tingle. Few had any concept of how ice cold it could be when it was untempered.
“They say she hasn’t slept,” an old woman muttered nearby. “Three days of mourning and the castle windows glow all night.”
“Grief’s a powerful thing,” her companion replied, but her tone suggested something more as she eyed the castle walls.
Not more than a year earlier, when the summer festival invited in the entire kingdom and more, the queen had made a grand appearance. She laughed at the jugglers, danced with her husband to the playing of bands in the heart of the festivities, and for a moment seemed almost as normal as those who admired the swing and swish of her skirt and her brilliance among them. But she wasn’t normal. There was something in her eyes that made even the most stoic woodland elves uneasy. Still, those who had privilege enough to live in the cities, in the citadel of Verathral, didn’t notice, but he did. That rogue sparkle under the right slip of the tongue. Power, barely contained. And he was sure the king had seen it, too.
The crowd surged forward, shoving into one another as they hastened toward the gate. Rose Merits waved overhead like flags and the jangling of Marks grew louder with cries for exchange. Children squealed and parents parted them from those perceived as other, the poor from the sound. A shoulder knocked forward, pushing him aside as more guards came from around the gate to quicken entry. Zac grabbed the man by the arm, reeling him back and checking in a quick sweep for a ticket, a band, any sign he’d paid entry.
“His wife’s already through,” Jace called over the roar of voices, motioning to the woman waving for him.
Let the man go through… Chapter 4
No Merits, No Entry… Chapter 5
