The Serpent and the Shattered Sword, page 30
Kaata returned him to the moment. Teora and Flynn didn’t ask his thoughts, both knowing they would have to stand behind him, and whatever choice he made. Deep pain refused to leave him. Every muscle burned as his heart throbbed. With thunder in his mind, the aura around him began to glow, and Emile’s eyes washed over red.
He’d accepted Kaata’s reasoning, burying the traces of his reluctance within. It was her fire that would begin the spark, and it would begin with the Three Houses. He ordered the guards posted out front to throw open the doors. Though he understood the king’s place was only as the leader of the court, and not as a speaking member, he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Not with the threat of another in his city.
The doors groaned open as they were pushed to their limits by the guards, revealing three black silhouettes while the occupants inside were blinded by the morning light streaming in behind them.
“This session is already in order,” a Tallieri nobleman shouted from the right side of the gallery, lambasting those who barged in, in ignorance of every manner of decorum for a body that demanded the highest level of it. “This intrusion is an outrage.” His fist slammed against the banister of the first row that separated the nobles from the floor. “I demand y–” The man’s speech was cut short, retreating into the recesses of his throat as he realized who had entered the court.
“You demand nothing of me,” Emile told him. “I am your king, and as your king, I demand something of you. All of you.” He split the forum floor, and Teora and Flynn lingered back near the entrance, unwilling to inject themselves into Tallieri affairs.
“Sire,” a commoner said, standing up from the middle of his gallery to Emile’s left. “We’ve done as you asked. Not a single stranger from out east has found their way into the city.”
“No?” Emile asked, eyes tearing around the hall, voice rising through the rafters high above. Toward the end, past the guards at the door, and the Fates leaned against wooden supports that ran high into the ceiling, he shot a finger into the street. “Then someone, any of you, explain why I watched my soldiers remove an Evenglacian from a public court. Explain to me how the entire way up the tower I saw nothing of gold and white, nor blue and gray, until I reached the upper level.”
Across the galleries on either side of the hall, the nobles looked on in confusion, judging one another whilst neither dared cast a glance toward the far end where, in his periphery, Emile could see the old blood squirming in their seats. The temperature burned beneath their collars and heavy smocks.
Stifling.
“Then perhaps it’s who you will,” he said, averting his focus from his people to those who only quartered themselves in his city for their political benefit of being near the castle. They who fattened themselves at his banquets, and who looked down upon those beneath them from empires of their own built on the backbreaking labor of those tending their lands and surrendering their spoils. A horrifying, feudal system of master and slave.
“Which of you has answered the call of the east? Who among you has entertained the whispers of my sister and allowed the wolves into my door? Those I told you not to. Those I commanded you not to!”
“Sire.” A voice rose, and a body with it, descending from the gallery of nobility.
“Have you no honor? Will you not admit to bastardizing the sanctity of my city for–”
“Lord Riennes,” the voice called out again, drawing Emile’s crimson mask away from the disturbed populace of cowards before him to another he’d never expected to see in Vilmonde again.
“Monsieur Delacroix, to what do I owe the occasion of your intrusion? Has my sister sent you to lend an ear to my court once again?”
“Please, I thought we’d moved beyond such formalities. Allard, if it please you.” He approached Emile, requesting his presence atop the hill. A council in the sanctum, now that the day’s deliberation was about to be drawn to a close. “I do not come on behalf of your sister. I am a voting member of this body, a ballot my family has held for centuries.”
“You’re right, forgive my transgression,” Emile told him, bowing his head in reverence as a request for forgiveness. “The traveled road has been longer than I’d hoped.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” Allard told him, embracing the king like his own son.
The lord was a man touched by the gray, with a frailness alluding to his elderly years. Though sitting with the nobility, he wore a commoner’s clothes, complete with a handed-down suit jacket covered with patches, though not enough to cover a few holes worn in.
“You are our king, and you’re correct to suspect matters are amiss. A sentiment I share.” He held out his hand toward the door, showing the king to it. “But this is not the place for such discussion, nor accusation. If we might speak in private, I’m sure you’ll agree with what I have to say.”
Having abandoned the quiet discussion flowing through the art spaces, Emile signaled for Flynn and Teora to join him, remaining silent until they neared his throne room high above.
The more he walked through it, even to the extent of passing beneath the marble arch and the threshold onto floors of stone and hewn wood, the more Emile couldn’t shake the feeling of dread, as though he were only a guest in his home. Subtle nods were given to the members of his house, who bowed as he passed. His guards snapped to attention at the sight of him.
And weaving through the castle, he reached the throne room, ordering the doors shut behind the four, even barring the helpful Guillaume from entry. The coming discussion would require neither the ears nor counsel of a chamberlain, though the king wouldn’t say no to a case of wine in the hours that followed.
The three sets of boots followed him across the marble floor to the resolute throne at the far end, one that sat a height above any who wished to address the king.
“Talk,” Emile said, a hand resting against the arm of his throne, face turned away as he held back his anger. Behind his lips and clenched teeth waited the demons of his inner voice, wanting to be unleashed upon the unsuspecting.
“It pains me to bring you news of this, sire,” Allard began, bowing his head in courtly reverence to his monarch. “But I do so in memory of your father.” The words grabbed Emile’s attention, but were explained away. “Or rather, how I knew him, before the craze.”
“I waste no love on his memory,” Emile replied, shifting his gaze over the heads of his guests. “I do not grieve the man he was, for the father I knew died before his heart stopped beating.” He folded his hands together, fingers interlocked tight enough to break. “Make your point.”
“This incursion runs deeper than you believe,” Allard began, explaining that, though Josée was the one who agreed to the demands of the zealots, it’s their influence that has allowed it to spread through Talliers. “It’s struck an already impressionable mind, to say the least.”
“So, what you’re telling me is they’ve not only gained a foothold in my kingdom, but that my sister and, by proxy, Périzieu, are the bridge that binds them to us?”
“Across the western sea they come,” Allard added, taking a few paces up the steps in the king’s direction before he was forced back down at the points of the guards’ halberds. “Unchecked. Unchallenged. They land on the northern shores, spreading like specters across the realm.”
With the flick of two fingers, Emile summoned a third guard, one who leaned in close enough to hear him whisper, “Get word to my contact in Elysées. I need to know if the haven at the breach is compromised.” The guard nodded, setting off at a hurry with the message in hand.
“There’s a way to be certain of how deep the infection runs into the cut.” Allard’s sole focus was on Emile, choosing his words with care and concern. He must’ve anticipated the hushed confidence between the king and his house guard. “You’ve seen it. You know where it festers, sire. It’s to those of the broken church that you must turn your attention. Their vast amounts of Til and affluence would prove to be a powerful ally, and bring Vilmonde to its knees if they were to side with the Evenglacians.”
Emile stood from his throne and began pacing. The sunlight crept in from the stained-glass window behind him, casting the throne room in a sanguine hue. His shadow was thrown down onto the floor below, stretching far across the marble to the stone, obscuring even Teora and Flynn, who stood back from the unwanted guest.
“I’ve allowed you here, Monsieur Delacroix, because you brokered the peace between my sister and me. Though I harbor a tenuous amount of regret, I cannot let that cloud my judgment.” He took the steps before the throne down to the floor. The heavy beat of his cadence clanged through the empty room as he descended. A short distance from the bottom, he lowered himself and sat at eye level with the others. “What is it you propose?”
The corners of the old man’s wrinkled face turned up at the question, ready to deliver his proposition. “How well do you know our history?” Allard asked. Emile’s eyes rolled over in his head as it sank to his chest. Displeasure palpable. “I ask, because it’s important.”
“To what are you referring?”
“Centuries ago, the church used certain...methods to root out the practice of dark magic among our citizens. Across the realm it spread with the reckless purpose of wildfire, and none found guilty of the practice were spared. It rooted out those who practiced the nocturnal arts, but so too did it claim the lives of innocents as well. Collateral damage, but a necessary loss to weed it out.”
“You’d have me put my own citizens to the sword?” Emile rebutted. “Cast a blanket accusation over all of them?”
“None shall be held above suspicion,” Allard continued, drawing closer to the king. “For that was the effectiveness of the High Inquisition.”
Emile knew it from his lessons as a boy. The period of fifteen years was indeed effective, but became a black mark on the realm’s history, claiming thousands of lives. It wasn’t a decision he could make without proper counsel. Flynn’s was the first voice he looked to, who also knew of the Inquisition from his studies in the court of the Marquis.
“I would tell you not to do so lightly, but even I believe there is cause. Not for death, but enough to cut out an infection,” Flynn told him, his voice heavy with resignation, regretting what he was about to say. “We have neither the luxury of time, nor certainty.”
“But we needn’t be hasty,” Allard interjected, drawing a look of ire from the king as his words escaped him.
“The need for haste is ever present,” Emile told him, a sternness in his voice stressing the need for it as his nod offered an acceptance of Flynn’s belief. “The loving sentiment for Evenglacia was once confined to my sister. As quickly did it infect Périzieu, and now...” he said, hammering a fist against his leg. “Now, it’s in Vilmonde. And I’ll not allow it in my kingdom a moment longer. Teora?”
Her eyes flickered between the king and the guest, whom it appeared she had placed no faith in. “As much as I agree, I learned once that even in the direst of circumstances, when all seems in favor of action, there must always be someone to vote against it.” But she appeared to agree, and the painful dilemma of inner thoughts wore on her. “I cannot condone the rounding up of innocent people and holding them against their will.”
She held up her wrists, drawing back the sleeves of her dress as she did. The horrifying memories of her past had become scars cut into her skin from the tearing of shackles as she fought against them.
Forever a part of her.
“Teora, I–” Emile tried to interject his own opinion on the matter, but she wouldn’t allow it, cutting him off as she continued her explanation of reasoning.
“If you pursue this course, Emile, there’s no going back. You might expel the sympathizers from Vilmonde, but what will be the cost? As such, I vote no. For myself, and for Alira, because I know it’s what she would do.”
It was with the last sentence he made his decision. An even split for a delicate balance that needs to be struck. He ordered his guard to the fore, ready to rule. “Call up the House Guard. On duty, or off duty, it doesn’t matter. I want all assembled in the foreyard in fifteen minutes.”
A guardsman set off in a sprint through the throne room, asking for the doors to be thrown open to not delay the passage of orders. He descended the last few stairs towards his guest, ignoring the sullen look on Teora’s face, who didn’t yet have the entire story.
“We begin with the descendants of the old clergy. After that we re-evaluate our situation. No citizen shall be arrested for inquisition until the aristocracy has gone before them.”
Allard bowed, accepting the King’s rule. The Inquisition would begin again, and swiftly. Emile left the throne room with the other Fates, while the king descended through the castle, now alive with chaos, to the foreyard. When the full contingent gathered, he ordered them down the hill to the forum, leaving his captain to follow with the rest.
The beat of boots and rolling drums echoed through the streets. Emile, Étincelle drawn, reached the forum first. Guards sealed every exit as the doors swung open, and he stepped inside, one hundred eighty-nine soldiers behind him, sending the chamber into stunned silence.
“What is the meaning of this?”
A member of the clergy hollered as the king crossed the forum to the center, where he could project his voice for all to hear. The footsteps of his guard continued, to the far end, taking command of the entire building.
And as they passed, the voice of the Eagle of Talliers screeched loudly. “This court is suspended with immediate effect by a royal decree.”
The gallery forward of him shot to their feet, protesting the outrage in a full uproar while the nobility and commoners shifted about, unwilling to test their king’s resolve.
“Members of the First House are subject to questioning with all due haste. We shall root out the sentiment of the East and expel it from the realm. By blade or by exile will be for the High Inquisitor to determine.”
Emile nodded to Allard Delacroix as he named him. The Count’s old bond with Laurent — Emile’s father — made the choice sensible; Allard had authored the inquisition plan and would see it through. There was no time for moral debate. Alira was still missing; finding her came first.
Allard strode past him, standing before the collection of the First House, eager to scramble from their seats. “Gardes, arrêtez-les! Aucun n’est au-dessus de tout soupçon. Ils attendront leur inquisition individuelle dans les cachots du château de Riennes.” (Fre: Guards, arrest them! None are above suspicion. They’ll await their individual inquisition in the dungeons of Riennes Castle.)
No sooner did the cracking voice of Amienne break than the First House’s gallery erupted into pandemonium. Chairs toppled as the guards surged among the delegates, hauling as many as they could into irons. Some went quietly; others fought. Blood stained the steps. The ancient ritual of purge returned with brutal speed.
As prisoners were dragged past, Emile’s voice cut through the chaos. “There is only one deity to whom we owe our worship in Talliers, and our love shan’t be divided.”
Many suffered in silence, hoping to clear their names later. A few spat curses. Silence fell again—tense and brittle—until a junior member of the First House, brazen, spat at the king and struck Emile’s cheek with the wet insult.
“Stop!” Emile commanded, ordering each of those already carried away to be brought back to bear witness. The young man was driven to his knees between the galleries of common and noble, nostrils flared, eyes narrow, jaw clenched.
“Where you have failed,” the boy told him, undeterred by his predicament. “They will succeed in your destruction. For it is they who shall protect us when the last day comes.”
Emile felt it then: the rot in Périzieu had spread. The Inquisition was ugly but necessary—he had little choice. The Three Houses were convened in Vilmonde on his turf; soldiers and guards were everywhere. Maliheh held the east, Rinley stood in Evenglacia—allies, but stretched thin. For a moment he understood his father’s hard logic: surrounded by pledges that could flip at a whisper, sometimes you burned the weeds before they swallowed the field. His head argued diplomacy; his gut wanted to scorch it all away.
“If even the most junior among you believes in their salvation,” Emile said, projecting his voice over the prisoners gathered around them, “then let this be the first life taken in the purging of the scourge from our kingdom.”
He drew Étincelle, spreading the fated aura around him as he whispered to the stone. Kaata’s Flame burned bright in the darkening hall, gorging itself on every ray of light coming in through the building.
Anger welled up inside him, and the power beat from his heart to his hands as he flourished the weapon before the young man staring up at him. The boy’s face softened, anxiety weaving through his veins, feeding the terror in his stomach.
Steele ground against bone as it sliced through organ and flesh, piercing the stomach of the accused. And Emile pushed him back, resting the tip of his sword on the ground behind, pinning his victim at an impossible angle. With shackled hands, the boy on the blade couldn’t right himself.
Though there were many calls to end the torture and be done with it, Emile’s own darkness found itself aligned with Kaata’s desire for the purging of the sentiment. And at the moment he should’ve withdrawn the blade, the disdain in his voice uttered only a single word.
“Brûler.” (Fre: Burn)
Kaata’s Flame leapt from the stone, searing the boy’s tunic. He was a fly in a black widow’s web. The fire consumed the fabric, feeding along every inch of him. Pale skin blackened, eyes rolled from white to red, every orifice igniting in flame. Screams tore from him as the sword’s cleansing fire purged his mind.
And his voice was cut.
Kaata burned through every cell of his body, purging the first inkling of an infection. She cremated the cadaver within minutes. Kaata burned him, but refused to transfer her flame to engulf the rest of the building. Where there was once a boy, now there was but a pile of ashes.
