He hoped, somewhere deep down, that she’d ask him to stay. He did not expect friendship. He did not expect kindness, not from an Eyrien. Not truly. But a simple conversation on what it mean to be hers would have given him insight into the Queen before him. Was she a just woman? Did she want to oppress the Rihlanders? Did she hate his father for being a half-breed? Questions filled his mind and threatened to leap from his mouth unbidden. He’d never wanted to talk to someone as badly as he wanted to talk to the Queen before him. Was her hair as soft as it looked?

Was her scent as strong up close as it had been in the foyer?

He needed to explain what it meant to be his? He would make no claim to her secrets or anything else she deemed personal, though he would accept what she gave. They could navigate this. They could find a way to coexist and live through the next thousand years in, if not harmony, then civility. He had few friends and fewer people still that he trusted enough to confide in. Perhaps it would be nice to have a Queen.

But he saw it, then, the wave of disbelief and disgust in her mien as she looked at him, those feelings crawling along the bond between them. It quickly gave way to an expression and sentiment that he’d seen a thousand times before. From Rihlanders, from Glacians, and even from the Eyriens who tormented him until they realized what he was really capable of.

Fear.

She was afraid of him. Of him!. She, who Mother Night granted his leash, was afraid of him.

She shielded herself and put her back to the wall. Odinar stepped forward, instinctively, holding up a hand to calm her. Seconds. He just needed seconds to draw close enough to speak to her, show her the truth. He wasn’t here to hurt her. He was just here for the information his father asked for. He could take it and leave, come back another day, and speak to her in a less formal setting.

“I am not here to harm you, Lady Aethelas. You've nothing to fear from--”

“GUARDS!”

Everything went to hell.

The door guards rushed in, weapons ready, to defend their Queen. To defend his Queen. Odinar’s shield wrapped around her first, and a second shielded him. Father would counsel him to remain calm. Father would not have to worry about these ants stinging his hands and feet. He would simply flex his power and they would realize that trifling with the Black meant death. These men were not so fortunate.

Odinar was not his father.

“Stand down! She is not in danger!” he growled.

“Step away from her, Half-Breed! Last warning!” Prince Merenar roared, even as the other guard moved to flank him. The blatant disrespect mowed down any respect he might have had for these idiots protecting their Queen. The room was too small. The walls were closing in. Her scent was trapped in his mind and all he wanted to do was take her and fly her away from here until he could get a handle on the situation. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. He waited for Yserian to come to her senses and call them off. She would tell them it was a misunderstanding. That it wasn’t Odinar’s fault. They could still get through this.

She said nothing.

The Eyriens attacked him as they always had. As they always would.

Palimar’s spear smashed through his shield. A deft sidestep was the only thing that kept Odinar from being skewered and held in place for the deathblow. Even still, the spear’s head lacerated his ribs and drew a snarl from the Warlord Prince. Merenar’s sword streaked downward in a vicious slash that would have opened up his skull. Odinar constructed another shield around his right forearm, getting it up and over his head as the blade came down hard.

The shield took most of the impact and shattered again, but the blade itself lodged in Odinar’s forearm.

The floor froze solid. Ice blanketed the walls.

He could not protect his Queen if he was dead.

He shoved away the spear, but didn’t bother watching Palimar fall off balance. He’d be standing again shortly. Odinar’s right arm shoved away Merenar’s blade and he stepped into the other male’s space, grasping him by the throat. Odinar sank down to the level of the Green, suffusing his limbs with power.

He drew back and punched Merenar twice in quick succession, so hard that his shield flicked and then shattered. He tried to construct another, but Odinar’s left hand was around his throat before it fully sealed.

“Burn.”

Witchflame consumed the man like a Rihlander effigy. He screamed in agony as Odinar dropped his corpse. There were more guards coming. He needed room to fight.

He whirled on Palimar, who was only now gaining his footing. Odinar lunged and crashed into him with the force of a raging bear. He drove him backward, back to the wall and then through it to the outside beyond.

He was on top of Palimar, raining down a flurry of blows that cracked shields, then the man’s nose, then his orbital bone, then his teeth. It was all Palimar could do to get his hands in front of his face to ward off the worst of Odinar’s strikes. But then the Warlord Prince rose, grasping the male by his neck.

He spun and flung him back toward the palace, up and away. Palimar smashed through the wall and into Yserian’s bedroom, cracking the pillars of her large, ornate bed, and rolled off the edge to land on the floor of the bedroom with a heavy thud. The blood on the sheets would ruin them.

Odinar had no way of knowing that he’d just destroyed part of his Queen’s bedroom or the bed she loved so much. The guards were mustering in the office. Odinar could hear them checking on her, putting themselves between him and her. He drew his blade, wings flapping in irritation. If they came to him, they would die. His Queen would not speak for him. Eyriens only understood one language.

Odinar spoke it fluently.

Whatever response her servant gave her was forgotten the moment Odinar Elbremov stepped into her office. She was certain that she had given him permission to enter but she couldn’t remember doing so, not after he stepped in and stared at her with those dark eyes, his dark wings folded back politely like his hands, but every line in his body was fixated. Yserian felt her stomach drop, then rise in a sickening wave that nearly had her gagging to maintain control, as she remembered both everything she knew about the man in front of her, as well as struggled to comprehend what she was suddenly learning about him now that he was here.

The Red Jeweled son of Kalvar Elbremov.

The Master of the Guard for the Territory Court.

The half-Eyrien, half-Tacean half breed everything Warlord Prince. 

But it was the final title, that final damning piece of information, the one that whispered somewhere deep in her heart, that was the most terrifying of all.

Mine.

Odinar Elbremov was her male, bound by the Darkness to serve, chained to her will as a Queen.

No.

NO!

A Queen more familiar with this scenario would have handled it with far more grace, even if the man in front of her was the son of her enemy. Hell, any Queen might have handled it better than Yserian was about to. It wasn’t like she hadn’t Bonded to a male before, in the centuries that she had been alive, but they had been Eyrien like her and…and…

They hadn’t been the enemy.

In her rising panic over this inevitable, irrevocable pairing, Yserian, being both fearful that her fledgling ties to the Eyrien Rebellion would be discovered right then, as well as how she would handle a man like Odinar, did the absolute wrong thing.

She instinctively Shielded herself with her Purple Dusk, holding out both hands as if to ward off Odinar as she tried to back away from her desk.

And she shouted, “GUARDS!”

And the shitshow began.

The Eyrien males that had been standing guard outside of the door behind Odinar charged into the room, weapons drawn, Shields up, ready to fight even the Red Jeweled Warlord Prince for daring to somehow threaten their Queen. It was like they had been itching for it ever since he had walked in, though Yserian was unaware of that. Palimar, the Warlord Prince on the left, wore the Blood Opal, but Merenar, the Prince on the right, only wore the Summer Sky. Still, they moved in tandem to attack, one flanking, one charging.

They would be the first wave. Yserian’s shout would undoubtedly draw others. 

As Dragos allowed Suleiman to enter, he was almost immediately surrounded by a Queen that smelled of motherhood and the moment shattered him from the inside out. Rage rose up in his throat and mind and threatened to spill over for absolutely no reason than he could even tell, and that was before the Queen of Dena Nehele grabbed his hand. But also he felt deep, immense gratitude for her reaction to his flowers. The two intense emotions threatened to snap the Sapphire Warlord Prince in half with terror. The absolute last thing he wanted was to hurt the Lady Vlas. She was a Lady that had survived pregnancy and came through the other end of it whole, happy and bright.

His face paled from strain as he very nearly dropped the stunning crystal vase; Sapphire Craft kept the several days' creation floating half in his hand; he hated the way his Jewels did not hold up well to Telekinesis. It was then that he heard the Opal Queen tell him to put the flowers on the table as well as Dragos' request to handle the item himself. After a brief panic, but also a soothing moment in which he reminded himself that his younger cousin was blessed to be deeper in the Abyss than he was, he nodded.

First, Suleiman let the flowers rest for about ten seconds on the table with Craft rather than setting them down with his hands. Then, he lifted the vase and sent it carefully moving toward Dragos' hands, all to ease that sharpness in the other man's voice. Cousin or not, he was well aware that it was possible that the Prince might need to punch him to snap free the rage, while part of Suleiman was excited by this prospect, and part of him utterly dreaded it. He didn't want to fight family. That was the worst but also the best possible outcome at the same time. He could feel his Opal drain at an alarming rate to be able to pull off such a fair, and hopefully calming measure. Suleiman was trying to acknowledge the authority of the Queen while also bending to the wishes of her First Escort at precisely the amount of time needed to avoid anyone's feelings being bruised.

It made him shiver, but he gripped Rilandra's hand back as if she too, were someone that he'd known well. It wasn't entirely unfamiliar because he'd grown up in Dene Nehele, even if he had spent several decades in Hayll. So, he was able to switch to something slightly less formal, even if it wasn't her name and address. He wasn't hers! She wasn't his. It felt so rude to deny a ruling Territory Queen her rightfully earned honourifics especially considering what the Lady Vlas had gone through to become Queen in the first place. As he took Dragos' hand and a few seconds passed where both his hands were effectively 'disarmed' so that he'd have to specifically harm two people that mattered emotionally and physically if he lashed out, reasonable sense kicked in and the rage gave a sudden snap as it dissipated completely from the room.

"Forgive me." His smile was tight and contrite. "I am more than glad that you like the flowers, and I can teach you. As a Queen, the manner of it will probably come far more naturally to you. It was a Hayllian Queen that taught me how to give a woman a floral gift and not present myself as some kind of beast in the process and hurt her feelings with cut flowers, as she put it," his tone was dryly amused, as he knew it was likely lots of men had this same issue. Learning how to put together such a gift had made it easier courting his Healer wife.

He was as such, able to smile even as tears grew in his golden eyes. "Ah. The flowers took a few days. It wasn't much. The smallest I could do. A Queen could do it in hours." Suleiman said in a soft, almost deceptively quiet and tender voice. "It's good to see you, Drake ... that's what you prefer, isn't it? Grew up tall, much like I figured." Suleiman's heels still didn't quite bring him to match Dragos' height but he didn't seem to be bothered by this fact at all, well confident and accustomed with his shape not to be troubled by someone else, and more importantly, very proud of someone he could call family. He hadn't had the chance to compliment him the last time they were able to speak, so Suleiman did now.

"And ... Lady Rilandra. I am not upset with you, please forgive me. Your scent just reminds me of my late wife, she was a Healer. I ... wrote to Prince Dragos--Drake, about the difficulty very briefly. My wife did not survive the difficulties of childbirth a pair of decades ago even if the time does not feel as though that much has passed ... and nor did my daughter, born a Queen. I did not bond her, but she was still my little girl, you know. It ... eases me, every time I meet another woman that has survived but upsets me because I am being blocked by Hayllian kin to bring their remains home. We had planned to come to live here, after ... the birth. But nothing went to plan, but I am trying to accept that such is life."

He rolled his shoulders, and only once Drake seemed ready for it, smoothly released the other man's hand with one more fond squeeze beforehand. He offered a low bow over the Queen's hand that was restrained and not too much of a formal flourish because he remembered she didn't like those. Suleiman offered a greeting that was a careful, kindly in-between. Drake, even though he was family, received a similar bow worth his Jewels, Caste, and standing in the Court. He saw a killer and a very intelligent one in his cousin that didn't want others to entirely see him. Suleiman was sure he wouldn't have noticed if not for his hair-trigger tendencies, and more, revealed nothing in his gaze except for his smile, which was fierce and appreciative. He could likely keep Rilandra safe because of it which was what allowed Suleiman to relax very slightly.

The Sapphire Warlord Prince was content with Drake putting the flowers on the table if that was where he wanted them to go for his Queen's enjoyment. "Family politics in Hayll are like Court business here, and I haven't forgotten that you struggle with people that put on too many of those Aristo false airs, my Lady. If I could kill the one responsible for taking my ladies from me, I would, which is where my deep anger comes from, and nothing you have done." He let her keep holding his hand as a way to show he meant the words.

"You must be missing your little boy every second," then, watching carefully to see whether or not the Queen wanted to still hold his hand, and only once he had that indication, he playfully swung them both, while casually keeping his eyes on Drake for slightly more than half the time he spoke. Suleiman was the type that if he could ensure that everyone was calm and happy, he'd attend to that even if it meant admitting a difficulty, but also attempted to ensure that Rilandra would hopefully be less annoyed with Dragos trying to protect her. "Just as much as he misses his mother, I'm sure." That he could talk about a child at all without falling to pieces or blasting a hole in the wall startled Suleiman but he went with it.

"I talked with Prince Mercer about why I wanted to see you, my Lady, but asked that he keep the news to himself until I could emotionally process the idea, so please don't growl at him." Suleiman tapped his left foot, then the right, moving in the heels he wore with flawlessness that came from long use. "May we sit, if it pleases the Queen and her First Escort?" His eyes danced with humour as he was well aware his question held formality that might make the pair roll their eyes so far that just the eyes would leave the territory on a vacation, if possible.

Tybalt Kem wasn’t a stupid man. Mercianna wasn’t sure if she expected him to be, but knowing that the Prince wasn’t an easy mark earned him a larger share of her respect. Any man who could put together an establishment like this, where the haves and the have-nots rubbed shoulders couldn’t be stupid. She didn’t want to go into the dark and dirty details of her business because it would, in fact, turn off a few people to doing business with her. Nicolae had known that and had stolen her ledgers to damage her business.

She should have sent him to Terminus when she had the chance.

“Believe me, I don’t want to involve the Guilds any further than I must. It’s cost me a measure of pride to even bring this matter to you. I pride myself on finding my own solutions to problems. But if I hadn’t come here tonight, I wouldn’t have been able to see your fine establishment.” she said, smiling.

She listened while the Prince explained what was necessary. Two teams, one for theft and one for actually teaching Lord Milescu a lesson. Mercianna knew that this would cost her a good amount of money, but she couldn’t afford to make this loud and messy. She knew what Charles would suggest. She knew how he would handle it. Maybe she’d let him help when they had to confront the Prince Cristescu in Livada.

She flashed her warmest smile at Prince Kem. “Very well. A standard contract. What are your terms and when can you start?” she asked.

Artemisia nodded quietly and handed over the teapot, allowing Lady Vasile to finish up. That was different - playing at subservience usually went over well, but then, most people weren’t Artemisia’s bonded. She could claim to rule over very little - her bedroom, her books. Minerva liked to peddle her oddness, a queen who served.  But perhaps she ought to add her bonded to her earlier list…?

Something still seemed a bit odd, although she couldn’t quite place it. If one was trying to win power and influence, no doubt there were better places to spend coin than on a few hours of Artemisia’s company. She felt almost bad for Lady Vasile - did she expect this meeting to open doors with Minerva? Because it almost certainly would not. “Are you based in Caecian, then…” Artemisia began, and then trailed off, eyes going to the empty earrings the woman wore.

It had not escaped her notice that Lady Vasile wore but a single Jewel, though Artemisia had been trying to be polite. It wasn’t hugely uncommon in Dena Nehele, at least not of late. “Did it happen in the Decimation?” she asked, and then pressed a hand over her painted lips.

“I’m sorry, that was terribly rude of me,” Artie squeaked.

"No," said Kat after a quiet consideration, "but the Decimation contributed to it, left my Sapphire a shadow until it wasn't even that."

Whatever that meant. Artemisia nodded awkwardly and picked up her teacup, grateful that the subject turned towards caste training instead. How lucky that Lady Vasile had also trained into the caste! “My teacher came by it naturally,” she said. “And I’m not far enough into my training to know if I have the knack for it or not.  Mostly I’ve just spent two months building frames. When does the real craftwork kick in?”