Page 78 of The Oracle of Dusk

“And there have been…developments.”

“Come in then, but keep your voice down.”

As Theron rummaged hopelessly in the wardrobe for something of finer quality, the spy gave his report.

“Bandits attacked the grain shipment. Most of it was recovered, but the nobles are using it to suggest it was the Viridians’ doing.”

Of course, the ones slavering for war would take anything as a provocation. They had sons and daughters hungry for the kind of honour only a battlefield could bequeath, and mines rich in the metals needed for weapons. War could be profitable for the nobles whose lands were furthest from the Viridian borders.

“Was it?” he asked, giving up on his fruitless search for better garments. At least his hair was no longer a mess, courtesy of his sleeping fairy.

“There is some evidence of it.”

“Definitive?”

“No.”

Thrice-damned fools. Couldn’t they see what they would risk with war? Did they think nothing of the people and livelihoods that would be erased by open conflict? One where they didn’t have the moral high ground? Who would come to their aid if they didn’t have a good enough reason for their attack? Not Niveum or Gilvus. And who would be able to spare the soldiers or supplies? Their losses would only be compounded during a cycle of chaos. Every kingdom that had risked war during a cycle of chaos had been reduced to ashes and dust. Much as he loved Aureum, Theron was not fool enough to think it would be different for his realm.

“Is there anything else?”

“Dualists tried to breach the palace. Batea’s beasts devoured them.”

And a good thing too. The cultists believed the monarchs were heavily responsible for their plight. They were as fanatical as they were organised. But the attack would only give Orithyia more reason to encroach on his territory.

“Let’s get this charade over with.”

“I apologise, but you’re required to wear these.”

The spy produced a pair of gold handcuffs.

Theron barely repressed a snarl. Maybe war wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He held out his wrists and allowed himself to be bound. As he was led from the guest palace to the main palace, it became clear that today was meant to be a public humiliation. Even the servants of the main palace were dressed better than he in dyed and patterned linen garb.

No doubt Queen Flora meant to have him reenact her own humiliation before Aureum’s court when she was but a young, hotheaded princess who thought she could claim the Colonnades for Viridis. His parents had let her off lightly, forcing a public apology and for her to pay the lifetime wages of all the Aurean soldiers she’d killed to the bereaved families her attack had created. Flora had been obsessed with retaliating to sate her damaged pride ever since.

She’d envisioned herself as a conquering hero, trying to recapture territory her great-grandmother had lost long ago. The moment she’d been crowned queen, Flora had been a thorn in his side, along with her high priestess.

His parents could have declared war all those years ago.

Theyshouldhave beheaded her as their price for peace.

But they’d had no appetite to fight Viridis then. And only a few years later, they’d been carried off by disease, leaving Theron to shoulder Aureum himself. It had taken a decade to whip the unruly, ambitious nobles of Aureum into line. Had they fallen in line more quickly, he might have defeated her all those years ago. More's the pity.

Theron stepped into the royal receiving hall, a nightmare in vivid green, as if the whole palace had suddenly been swallowed by a carnivorous plant. A nightmare made all the more grotesque as the sky outside darkened, thunder rolling ominously in the distance. The sneering crowds he might have expected under normal circumstances were absent. Theron smirked. With a plague, they’d likely fled the city to hide out in their rural mansions. Only the most sycophantic loyalists remained to pad out the queen’s meagre retinue. Not even Orithyia was present.

Flora sat on her emerald throne wearing a jewel-encrusted gown of the same, a triumphant sneer twisting her tanned features, now showing her advancing age. Grey threaded through the deep brown of her elaborately coiffed and bejewelled hair, her crown like a spray of green and silver snakes on her head. Her dark eyes sparkled as her gaze lingered on the handcuffs.

“On your knees, Theron. This is Viridis.”

As a guard approached him to shove him to his knees, Theron glared the man into submission.

“A pair of gaudy handcuffs won’t stop me from rebreaking every bone in your body.”

The guard was frozen, caught between his queen’s implicit order and Theron’s explicit threat. Theron turned his glare on Flora. He should keep his head, truly, but she was just so fucking prideful. So much so, he knew exactly how he wanted to humiliate her in turn. She expected him to be beaten and disgraced, to be fighting in vain to preserve his honour. There was only one remedy—shamelessness.

“I seem to remember that when last you visited Aureum, you were treated with the respect due to your station. Has Viridis fallen into barbarism since, or has it always been thus?”

That wiped the sneer from her face.

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