Having unburdened his chest, the Prince of Yarzat sank back down onto the emerald turf. The wrinkled parchment he had fought so fiercely to defend now rested limply upon his knees, curled and spent.
Merelao draped himself onto the lawn beside the boy his velvet mantle spilling across the green like splashing wine.
A long silence settled between them, broken only by the cold rustle of the high willow branches.
"So," Merelao began softly adding his help to the window, "The crux of the tragedy is that blood must inevitably spill regardless of your stroke, and yet said stroke cannot be stayed?"
"Yes," Basil replied, his voice flat and blunt. "And I’ve already had my ears boxed with the speech about having a soft heart and needing to make the hard choice. So if you came out here to dump another lecture on me, my lord, the garden gate is wide open. Pick a direction and walk your grace there."
"Truth is ever an astringent draught," Merelao said, tilting his head "yet it remains vastly preferable than the sweetest deceit."
"Very poetic," Basil muttered, staring down at his boots. "I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m saying I’m sick of hearing it. Everyone loves telling me what a prince ought to swallow and how many people have to die so kings can move on with their rule."
"They are collateral. The necessary fuel upon which great states are forged."
"Aye. Heard that too.Got anything else?"
"Then why linger in the shadows like a chastised page?" Merelao gestured languidly toward the palace towers above them. "Doubt is a patient rot; the longer you indulge it, the deeper it feasts upon your resolve. Look me in the eye and tell me: does your heart race merely at the prospect of presenting your decree to your sire?"
Basil pressed his lips into a tight line, offering no answer.
"A modest counsel from one who has stood before the same precipice," Merelao murmured, his golden eyes steady and serene. "If an ordeal is before you and dread seizes your breast, act while terrified. It is an infinitely nobler burden than languishing in the paralysis of your own hesitation. The board awaits. March to your father’s solar, deliver your verdict, and let the consequence fall where it may. As befits a sovereign. As befits you"
Again, Basil offered no rebuttal, only a long, weary sigh that seemed dragged from the bottom of his chest.
But a sigh was not an answer.
Merelao shifted on the grass, propping his weight upon one forearm, the cloth-of-gold edging of his sleeve catching the pale sun.
"All this torment over three packs of hill-hounds?" Merelao asked, a light, teasing cadence returning to his voice. "If their presence offends your ensibilities, by all means, sign them over to my banner. I recall those savage bastards howling behind my vanguard, magnificent butchers with an unquenchable thirst for southern blood. I will gladly relieve you of the burden, particularly if the only price to be paid is the distress of a few nameless peasants I have never laid eyes upon."
For a fleeting second, Merelao allowed his mind to wander into the splendor of that iron vision: wild mountain axes ranked behind his heavy Kakunian horse, the bronze horns splitting the sky as they fell upon his usurping uncle’s lines like an avalanche, leaving a carpet of butchered foes four times their own number.
He glanced down and caught the sudden, sharp glare flaring in the boy’s eyes.
Merelao chuckled inwardly. No chance of that. The mountain auxiliaries were too lethal a tool to be given away.
"My father would sooner sell his soul to the deep hells than lose his prize after paying full price for it," Basil snapped, glaring up at the older prince.
"A prize?" Merelao arched a golden brow in exquisite disbelief. "What grand price could the Crown possibly have paid for a few leagues of unwashed fury?"
"Who do you think bought their mail and forged their axes?" Basil countered plainly. "Who chartered the ships that hauled them across the straits, filled their bellies with grain, and paid them two years’ silver? Certainly wasn’t the Five Gods, given how loud the priests scream about the heathens in brown. It cost a bloody fortune,my lord. Like I said, my father would sooner sell his soul to a devil."
"A trifling danger, that," A grin "All above the dirt would tremble from the devil’s wail once he realised he was cheated. There is no creature more cunning than a Yarzat, and no Yarzat half as venomous as your sire. He was not crowned the Fox for the charm of his laughter."
Despite the leaden weight in his chest, Basil let out a sudden, startled laugh.
It was a small, bright sound of relief. Merelao watched the dark cloud lift from the young prince’s brow, feeling his own grin becoming a smile, fast enough.
What he felt was pride, he supposed. Fate might have had for him a life of glory, blood and war, with his uncle and cousin having played their fair part on that arrangement, but even despite that, these small victories he would never deny himself.
Valleys made the mountains after all.
"Perhaps you are right," Basil muttered, his sudden burst of mirth settling into a wry, resigned grin. "I am merely kicking a stone down the road, waiting for it to turn into bread. What use is that? I have already weighed the valleys and chosen the ground. There is no sense in frolicking among the weeds; I simply have to swallow the bile and live with the cost."
He looked up at the Kakunian prince, a quiet mixture of surprise and gratitude flickering in his dark eyes.
"I’ll write to you of the outcome, my lord. Or perhaps you will still be idling in my father’s halls when the first smoke trickles back to court." With a heavy, resolute sigh, Basil gathered his papers, tucked them securely into his doublet, and turned toward the path.
Before the boy could take his third stride, Merelao surged to his feet, his body moving with almost before his mind could order it to.
His fingers snapped shut around the young prince’s wrist.
"One final counsel, if you will indulge me," Merelao murmured, his melodic cadence dropping into a low, arresting solemnity. He did not know why he had done that, but he did.
Basil looked down at the hand holding him fast, startled, yet he made no move to wrench himself free.
"You believe your stroke is final," Merelao said, his golden eyes fixing upon the youth with piercing clarity. "Yet even after a decree is sealed, the field remains fluid. There may still be maneuvers within your reach to blunt the edge of the ruin you so despise, and that design need not descend from your father’s ledgers."
Basil’s brow furrowed in genuine bewilderment. "What do you mean?"
"You are the Crown Prince of Yarzat," Merelao said softly, his voice imbued with that effortless, highborn poise that commanded courts. "Authority flows not merely from the King’s indulgence, it’s in your blood and name. Remember that, Basil. No matter what other whisper in your ear, you are not merely your father’s son. You are your own creature.With your dream and your thought, let none force them on you."
A strange, shifting light flickered across Basil’s face, a gaze so profound and unexpectedly sorrowful that Merelao felt a sudden prick of discomfort in his chest.
Pity, Merelao realized with an inward recoil. The cub pities me.What did he ever had to be pitied on?
Instantly, he released his grip, stepping back and sweeping his hands into the voluminous, gold-embroidered folds of his sleeves. The courtly mask slammed back down over his features as though the moment had never occurred. He cursed himself inwardly; he was a prince of ancient Kakunia, not a nursemaid to spill his soul to every reflective boy he encountered in a garden.
"You had a path before you," Merelao drawled lightly, the warmth vanished, replaced by smooth, cool indifference. "Go to your father’s solar, deliver your verdict, and let the steel bite where it must. Bear in mind what I have said if nothing else, it will serve you in the future too."
He expected the boy to scurry off as he had intended, but Basil froze.
The young prince stood rooted to the turf, staring straight through the weeping willows into the empty air, held fast by the sudden, violent turning of his own thoughts. For three long heartbeats, he did not draw breath.
And just when Merelao was thinking of saying something else and check on the boy, it was then like a drawbridge snapping shut on iron chains, Basil’s head jerked up. His dark eyes flared up, and a broad, breathless grin split his face.
Without a single word of farewell, the Prince of Yarzat spun on his heel and sprinted toward the court, his boots tearing up clumps of green turf.
"You are a bloody genius!" Basil shouted back over his shoulder, his voice ringing across the lawns as he tore toward the very halls he had spent the morning fleeing.
Merelao stood alone beneath the swaying willow, staring at the empty path in astonishment. He adjusted the saffron velvet of his collar, a slow, bewildered smirk breaking across his handsome face.
"A genius, am I?" Merelao murmured to the empty breeze, turning his gaze toward the palace spires. "The gods preserve us all... and it is to me they say is mad?"