Chapter Text
There’s a crowd gathered in front of the manor. A loose half-circle of knights keeps the mass penned in, armour glimmering in the bright noon like the sun scattered on water. The jeering throng spills out along the avenue in a contained spill. Thirty people deep at most, if Godwyn’s estimation is right. Enough to draw his attention, but still more of an inconvenience than a threat.
A path parts through the crowd by sheer virtue of his presence. Faces upturn to watch him pass, twisted in some form of eagerness or fury. Righteous fury, he notes, affording himself a private frown. The two have a tendency to shake hands more often than not, coalescing into an outrage that’s rarely simple to handle.
“Pray, what is the source of the commotion here?” He says as he emerges, surveying the scene. The frown is exchanged for something more placid, easily worn to appear disaffected.
A knight steps forward, bowing. “Thank you for coming, My Lord. We feared the outburst would have grown harder to control were this to go on long enough.”
“Very telling of thee,” he murmurs. He’d hardly call whatever this is an outburst. “But why do they protest so?”
“They protest the orders of the Elden Lord,” they say, almost tentatively.
That takes him aback. Barely half a year since Radagon’s coronation and people have already grown audacious enough to openly resist him. He’s not exactly fond of the turn of the events himself, but he still can’t allow the outrage to grow out of control.
A flicker of movement distracts him before he can ask anything else. From the open doors of the manor a pair of human workers emerge struggling under the weight of an overlarge chair before setting it indelicately on the ground, among other odd pieces of furniture he’s only now noticing.
It’s his father’s old chair, recognisable on sight. An oakwood dresser lies on its side amongst the clutter, drawers carelessly wrenched open. A set of chairs. A pair of tarnished candelabras that glimmer dully in the high noon sun. Odds and ends, all polished wood and reliefs carved in the imagery his father used to like, scaled to accommodate the size of higher beings.
So much of it is so familiar, sprawled across cobblestone like the innards being dragged out post-hunt. He scowls.
“Is this what they protest? This barbarity?”
The knight shifts. It’s the only indication given that they’re unnerved by his sudden fury. “By the decree of Lord Radagon, all possessions of the former Lord Godfrey are to be removed from the premises within a fortnight. It was declared only this morning, My Lord, during your hunt.”
“Such an odd thing for him to concern himself with. Should it not be I who takes control of this?”
In normal circumstances the rites of inheritance are handled by the next of kin; for all intents and purposes Godwyn is the only son of Godfrey. There’s no precedent for divinity, but he’d accustomed himself to the idea of following in his father’s footsteps far before Radagon had made himself known.
No precedent for succession. No precedent for- what is this? An auction? A form of grave robbing, given official value by Radagon’s flowery words? His father used to sit in that chair. A handful of centuries ago and Godwyn was a small thing balanced on his knee, indelicate fingers fisted in the braid of his beard as his warriors laughed and drank and sang in a cacophony around him.
Not even half a year. Four months and two weeks, by his count. The body’s barely cold, and they’re already robbing the grave.
“I… cannot say, My Lord,” his knight stammers. He sighs.
He turns to face the crowd. The projection of his voice is barely enough to be heard over the clamour. “I beseech ye, leave this place at once. Make no more spectacle of this robbery than thou’st already, and return to thy homes.”
A voice sounds, somewhere towards the back of the crowd. “But they plunder your father’s memory, My Lord. It cannot be stood for.”
It’s not as if they’re wrong. Godwyn just doesn’t want them standing around to watch. Too many witnesses for the dissection. He doesn’t have enough patience to bear with it.
“Indeed, thou’rt right, but still can I not allow ye to continue this. By my rights as the former Lord Godfrey’s son shall I be the one who quells this; ’tis not thy place.”
There’s a murmur of reluctance, but the crowd begins to filter away. Some quelled by his reassurance that he’d put a stop to it, likely, but he can’t discount the stragglers that just hoped to get their hands on his father’s remains.
He gives a sharp look to the knight. “Who is it that is in charge of this operation? I wish to inform them that they shall be allowed no further involvement with my father’s estate.”
“An appraiser, My Lord, well-regarded among the nobility,” they reply, clipped. “He is still within the manor.”
“Very well.” He doesn’t know whether it’s preferable they drag everything out to rot on the cobblestone or pile it up to use as kindling. The latter is a type of blasphemy, but it’s also the option that feels less like a slow death. “Take care of the remainders here. Not one is to linger on this sight.”
The interior of the manor is warm and dark, hitting him all at once with the familiarity of an embrace. He squints as his eyes adjust, shocked by the transfer from sun-bleached marble to wooden walls and the smoky scent of the hearth.
Barely a few steps in and it already feels suffocating. He must’ve grown toothless in the past few months if he’s struggling under the non-burden of sentiment. A hand idly reaches out the trace the walls as he drifts through, more ghost than man.
This should have been his. It would have been, had Radagon not decided to wrench his legacy from his hands so violently that his skin still feels raw. His claim is in the imprints he left in his youth, straining the reach the same knots in the wood his fingers find so easily now.
Not that sentimentality would be taken as an excuse to keep Radagon from gutting all evidence of his father’s influence from the city and displaying it like a head on a pike.
He finds himself in the dining hall. The grand table remains firmly in the centre, all supplementary fixtures shucked off save for the treasure piled in heaps. His father’s, recognisable on sight. Breathless was being charitable, when there’s a hand actively squeezing his throat.
There’s a few workers clustered near the far end, silhouetted by the hearth. One stands out in noble finery, all rich greens and golden embellishment.
“Art thou the appraiser appointed by the Lord?” Godwyn says, storming over. The workers cower. He ignores them.
“Indeed I am.” He clasps his fingers in front of him as he bows, weathered old flesh neatly dressed up in an array of gaudy rings. “To what do I owe the pleasure, My Lord?”
The pleasantries are already grating. He keeps his face set in his normal placid mask, restraining the snarl that’s threatening to break out. It wouldn’t help the commotion he’s causing, but heavens know the catharsis would feel nice.
“I come to inform thee that thine operation is to cease at once, and thou’rt to return all that thy workers hath taken immediately.”
He receives a blank look. “May I ask why, My Lord?”
How to phrase it in a way that doesn’t seem overly petulant. The fury might’ve let him chase away all flies on the corpse, but now that he’s well stuck in it he feels more like a child bawling for his father than a man negotiating burial rites.
It’s barely an unfair assessment, all things given. The tears never came, but he’s still clinging desperately to the hem of Godfrey’s cape.
“Is it not apparent to thee? These are my father’s possessions thou’st so carelessly pillaged from his estate. Yea, he is Lord no more, but I still remain, and by all rights this is now mine.”
“I-“ he looks startled. Should be, shoved into the harsh position of being forced to bend the knee the king or the angry god in front of him. “My orders came from the Elden Lord himself. I cannot so easily defy him, My Lord.”
“Oh, I am well-aware.” He glares. “Perhaps I shall take up the matter with him personally, seeing that thou’rt unwilling to give up thy cause here. Know well, in any case, that thou’st no right to these possessions so long as I am the master of them.”
“Of course, My Lord.” He bows again, ostensibly to hide the terror flashing across his features. “I meant you no offense, although…”
A raise of the eyebrow. “Speak thy mind.”
“The Lord has claimed this manor on behalf of the Golden Order, as your father no longer bears claim to his title and the rights it is owed.”
“Has he, now?” His voice comes out steady. A borderline miracle, considering his feet have been swept out from under him. The first time Fortissax allowed him on his back he spent the whole time paralysed with the fear that he’d be tossed out into open air like a handful of dead leaves. The sensation isn’t overly dissimilar.
He looks out over the table. A loose pair of gauntlets rest at the head, folded hand-in-hand. They’re immediately recognisable to him, fur-lined and rich with delicate golden embellishment. His mother forged them for his father to commemorate the thousandth flowering of the Erdtree. There’s a pair of axes beside them, taken from the conquest of Stormveil. Spare bits of jewellery, weapons, armour. Disparate parts, laid out in loose mimicry of the feasts held in the same room.
A glint of colour catches his eye. The royal-blue glintstone of a catalyst sparkles idly in the dance of the hearth, the silver staff nearly buried under the weight of everything else. A gift from Caria, his mind unhelpfully supplies, gifted in honour of a full century of the house’s union with the Erdtree.
Given by Radagon’s own hands. How ironic that barely forty years later he’d take it back for himself.
“My, does he even bear the right?” He mutters, mostly to have something to chew on.
“My Lord?”
“No matter. Cease thine operations at once. I care not if the Lord himself hath declared this his, ’tis mine in truth. I shall not allow a single being to further besmirch my father’s legacy.”
“Yes, My Lord.” Another bow. So many mindless obeisances tossed at his feet, as if it would do anything to curb his temper.
“Shouldst thou fully oblige, I shall offer thee my protection in the case that Lord Radagon turns his ire upon thee. My quarrel is with he who gave the order, after all.”
“That is most gracious of you, My Lord.”
Little point in thanking him, considering that he’d still love to see the man jailed. He’ll keep it to himself. Best to start compiling what little bits he can salvage, now, with Radagon methodically dissecting everything he once thought of as his.
“Indeed,” he sighs, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Call thy workers to return all that thou’st pillaged from this place. I am to deal with the Lord myself.”
The glare of the noon sun blinds him on exit, a white ghost overhead that bites his shadow into nonexistence. Heat comes like an afterthought. There’s a mild breeze that blows down the avenue, carrying off the lingering scent of smoke and spice from the manor.
The workers have already begun hauling in what they took out, grouped off to struggle under the weight of the heavier pieces. More of a bandage to quell the bleeding over a severed limb than anything truly substantial, but it’s better than leaving everything to bake in the sun-bleached streets.
There’s a subtle commotion further down the way, grouping at the stairs like the backlog of a drain. More stragglers, if he was forced to guess. Either railing at the injustice or hungry for the chance to claim something of the former Lord’s. He weighs going over to quell the crowd, then discards the idea. The day has already been enough to make him feel like collapsing, and the sun hasn’t even begun to threaten to set.
The exterior of the manor has been left untouched. Small mercies. He’ll have to start scrabbling for those too, now. Begging for mercy is the coward’s solution. He’s not a coward, but he’s also not his father, which leaves him in a prime position to bend in his shadow and number the scraps he’s been tossed.
Maybe his father has died already. Unlikely, but he’ll still entertain the thought. Another mercy, so he isn’t forced to picture Godfrey’s hulking form whittled down by the knife-sharp winds of the hinterlands. Merciful in the same way that he prays that his brothers died quick as well.
A glint of gold. He squints. One of his knights makes their way down the avenue from the direction of the disturbance. Godwyn bites on a sigh and rolls his shoulders back, drawing himself into something less pathetic. All his talk of tainting his father’s image hasn’t stopped him from moping like an orphan.
“My Lord.” They bow. Godwyn folds his hands behind his back, internally dreading what mess he’s about to be pulled into. “Lord Radagon requests your presence.”
So soon. Barely an hour since he put an end to the pillaging, and already he’s being called like a dog to heel. He has no real desire to actually talk to the man and end the strange dance they’ve done around each other, like two ghosts fluttering at the perimeter.
Well, Radagon was the one who disturbed the peace. He can’t be blamed for provoking his mother’s strange new husband.
“Very well. Where is he?”
“Upon the stairs, My Lord.”
They gesture to the throng at the base of the stairs, with immediate explanation. A crowd come to gawk at the new Lord that’s been thrust on them. All the more to bear witness to Godwyn fighting tooth and nail to keep his dignity intact.
“Will you oblige?” They continue, eagerly gauging his reaction.
Very kind of them to offer him a choice. So utterly wasted. “I must.”
The growing crowd splits for him at his approach. Radagon has claimed the stairs as his pedestal, perched halfway up. Godwyn has to tilt his head to see him like this, eyes straining against the stark blue sky. Atop his head, the crown viciously glitters.
“Lord Godwyn,” he greets, voice set in his typical dark monotone. On an off glance he simply looks bored, or just apathetic. “Thy grievances hath reached mine ears. Pray, what is thy problem here?”
“Lord Radagon,” he mirrors. “I think thou know well why thou’st been summoned.”
His tone comes out even, somehow. It’s difficult to restrain the revulsion that bubbles up on sight. Radagon might’ve been praised as a war hero, but all he sees is one of his father’s old stories of the war come to life, bleeding ox-blood red on his mother’s polished gold.
“I was told only of the commotion thou’st caused. Perhaps thou may enlighten me.”
He’s being backed into a corner. It’s obvious, with the feral little glint in Radagon’s eyes. All he’s done is struggle to paint the situation as him being anything but petulant, and he’s forced to continue with the glare of the crowd settling like sweat.
“Thou’st ordered a mere appraiser to pillage my father’s memory and toss it about on the streets as if it were garbage.” He gestures down the street for added effect, a stay few pieces of furniture still left waiting on the cobblestone. “’Twas by thine orders, I hear, and I hath heard as well that the manor is no longer under my possession.”
Radagon arches an eyebrow, darkly unimpressed. “So, thou decided thy next course of action was to threaten all involved with the promise of thy wrath.”
He considers it a miracle that he’s managed to keep himself level. He crosses his arms, and in his mind’s eye pictures himself grabbing Radagon by the scalp and howling at him for defacing his father’s image.
“Perhaps thou were misinformed. Ne’er did I speak any threats, only that I demanded that any involved with this disgrace wouldst cease at once. Thou distract from the point I make, that I was only brought to this on account of thine orders.”
A flicker of a sneer. Godwyn digs his nails into the meat of his arm in lieu of any blatant response. What is he, a child?
“That thou’rt to be divested of thine ownership of the manor, yes. ’Twas the Lord’s manor, thou know’st, and as thy father hath been divested of his crown, so hath it and all within come under my possession.”
Divested. Such a pretty little word for his mother wrenching the grace from his father’s body with her bare hands and casting him out to the open sea. “Is it not my right, as his only son, to claim what is left of him as mine own?”
“The manor was not Godfrey’s possession, but the crown’s, and thus not within thy rights.” He fixes Godwyn with an unimpressed stare, and he restrains the urge to flinch. Out of everything, it’s the eyes that unsettle him the most, bloodshot to the point of blackened and unholy in every respect. “Look not so dour at the thought. Limgrave was within thy father’s possession, was it not? Thou’st not been robbed so thoroughly as thou claim.”
He isn’t wrong, though he discards admitting it. In no way can he allow Radagon something to lord over him when he’s already casting his shadow down the stairs.
“’Tis not the manor that concerns me so, but my father’s image. What is to be thought of him, when his treasures are being treated like the spoils of a hunt? Surely thou must understand the ramifications of such a display.”
“Further disgracing an exiled man?” He tosses his braid over one shoulder with a fluid little flick of the hand, hair brushing his calves like the heavy rope of a noose. “I am aware.”
Instinct begs for him to defend the honour of a man who for all intents and purposes is dead, as if he was in the position to be able to do such things. What would he do? Give into fantasy and crack Radagon’s head on the marble stairs? A single finger laid on him is technically blasphemy, now. He wouldn’t be able to stand himself if he decided to discard all pretense and give into impulse like a beast.
Another approach, then. Maybe he’ll escape unscathed if he plays along. “Even if thou’rt to claim the manor, would it not be more prudent to retain the treasures held inside?”
“Pray, what do thou wish for, in this case? What action of mine couldst ease thy soul? ’Tis increasingly apparent that thou rather I allow to manor to sit and rot, to let the dust cover all surfaces until wood and gold become one.”
“Still-“
“Thy father’s reign hath ended,” he says, brutally final. “A page is to be turned; I pray thou will be able to bear with it, rather than continue to cling so.”
He turns to leave. Godwyn stares with a burgeoning sense of panic clawing at his chest. Dismissed so quickly, and so carelessly too, another treasure to be discarded by the wayside.
“Yet his line lives on.” He steps forward. A challenge, with one foot on the stairs. “I will not content myself with this until I am the one who decides what is to be done with his remnants.”
Radagon pauses, perched almost delicately at the top of the stairs. A look over the shoulder, borderline irritated. At least there’s that small victory, in a day of consistent losses. “What wouldst thou do in my place, then? I am most curious to hear it.”
“Ne’er wouldst I be so careless, were I in thy position.” The crowd stares in his periphery. If anything it bolsters him, holding Radagon’s gaze with an exacting fury. “Perhaps I will discuss with this my mother instead.”
“Do as thou wish. ’Twas thy mother who gave the order, after all. I merely spoke it.”
He waves his hand in dismissal, leaving Godwyn to stare helplessly at the bloodstain of his retreating form. Above, the sun glares on.
It’s overcast when he wakes. Dull light filters through the sheer fabric of his curtains, casting his chambers in a pale glow. He pushes them aside to find the landscape smothered in the heavy hand of an impending storm, golden fields rippling in the high winds.
He can’t tell what hour it is, without the sun visible. He supposes he should be thankful. It’s hard to sleep, and when he does, it’s even harder to wake up. Pitiful for a demi-god, but that leaves enough space within him to let the compulsion of humanity take root.
He makes his way to his dresser half-asleep and sits, wincing as he barks a toe against heavy wood. A look in the mirror does nothing to encourage him. If anything, it does the polar opposite. Better to crawl back under the weight of his comforter than to let himself be seen in such an awful state. The misdirection of cover can cause him to cease to exist on a whole, doing away with his knotted hair and the way his nightgown hangs from his muscles like limp streamers in the breeze.
Halfway a god. Halfway human, implied through omission. Is this what humanity feels like? His body is so heavy, and it’s been so hard to think through the fog that clouds his head. He’s a sword left out to rust in the rain, a relic of a battlefield forgotten in the black peat and trampled scarlet meadow.
Fingers find his hairbrush by habit. He weighs it briefly in his hand, idly wondering how hard a swing he would need to break bone. An entertaining thought, not that he can follow through on it. Godwyn the Golden would never stoop to something so pathetic as spilling his ichor on his dresser and vainly hoping that his mother’s eternity would somehow overlook him.
A knock at the door. He startles. The brush falls from his hand with a solid clatter against the wood of his dresser. The noise makes him wince.
“My Lord Godwyn?” A voice sounds. He immediately rules them out as a page solely by the terrified pitch of their voice.
“Pray, speak,” he answers. It comes out too awkward. He really would just love to sleep. With the weight of Fortissax’s arms around his waist as an anchor, if he’s allowing himself to indulge further.
“I come to you bearing summons from Queen Marika the Eternal, asking that you join her by the outer wall to embark on a hunt halfway to noon.”
A summons to hunt. Of course she would do something so unexpected, during a period where he’s being carried out to sea by a riptide. In the mirror his expression looks shaken. More hollow, the bags under his eyes more like a fresh bruise than sleepless discolouration.
Half-human. Does she really want to see him like this? Is that the point?
It’s his mother. He shouldn’t act like he’s been just handed a warrant for his execution, but Marika wears the role like layered robes that were never meant for consistent use and Godwyn still finds it hard to look her in the eyes. Execution is the more preferable of the two scenarios, really. He’ll admit that much if he’s apparently decided to shuck off all assumptions of dignity and wallow in his self-pity this morning.
If it even is morning. Halfway to noon may as well be in five minutes for all that the sky gives away. It would be very like her.
“My Lord?”
He snaps back with a jolt, then straightens, solely to appease himself. “Very well. Convey to her that her summons hath been well-received by I, and that I shall meet her at the intended hour.”
“At once, My Lord.”
Retreating footsteps. He slumps in his chair and rubs his eyes, the hard edge digging into the back of his neck in a way that isn’t entirely unpleasant. A hunt. What is he then? The prey? Will she and Radagon take turns trying to pin him to cork like they’ve done to his father?
He really does hope that the man won’t be coming along. He doesn’t think he could maintain an air of civility after yesterday, all the while with his mother’s eyes trained on his back.
He finishes brushing his hair and ties it in a loose braid as consolation before rushing into his riding habit. A cloak is added to the ensemble after a quick glance at the sky confirms that it’s still likely to rain. One last look in the mirror to check that everything is in its place; hair slung over one shoulder to catch in the light, unwrinkled robes, an expression finely tuned into something more beatific than defeated. Godwyn the Golden, and not the Godwyn of his father’s side, stubbornly half-human and buried alive.
Marika is waiting for him when he makes it to the outer wall. She’s astride a bone-white horse with the reigns of another held loosely in her slender hand. He gauges her expression from a distance, anticipating how he’ll have to carry himself. On an off glance she doesn’t seem disgruntled, if mildly impatient. That, he knows how to weather.
There’s only one other horse. It seems like Radagon won’t be joining them. Another small mercy; two for the tally. He’s counting them already, and he’s only been awake for an hour.
“Fair tidings thy presence brings,” she greets evenly, the violent gold of her gaze raking him open with a brief sweep. “’Tis an unprecedented summons, I know, though I am glad to see thee.”
Kind of her to act as if he had a choice in the matter. Refusal just doesn’t register for a god of her calibre. He only knows because he’s mostly the same. “I would be a fool to pass upon the opportunity to hunt with thee. Rare is the occasion that either of us have time to spare.”
He swings himself onto his horse. Marika passes him the reins. The bite of the saddle feels foreign. It shouldn’t be too different from riding astride the juncture of Fortissax’s shoulders, but to him it’s like trying on a set of robes made for a younger version of himself.
“I pray thou’st not forgotten the art of horseback riding,” Marika comments as she draws her braid over one shoulder, the end swinging by her stirrups.
“Not at all.” He frowns. Was his discomfort so apparent? “Why?”
“Thou’st a habit to ride other beasts of burden,” she says. He catches a faint tilt of her lips before she urges her horse to start in the direction of the road.
Too obvious, then. He flushes, before following suit. Hopefully the pallor of the sky and the shadow of his hood will mask the blush.
Weather aside, it’s not an unpleasant day. From the vantage point of the highway the fields stretch out in a boundless ocean of gold, a fantastically wild colour in the dull light. A cool breeze picks up as they trot, bringing with it the rattle of fallen leaves and the scent of impending rain. He’s been fond of storms since Fortissax taught him to embrace the shock. They’re unbridled in a way he can only admire.
“I am surprised to see that Lord Radagon was not to join us,” he comments, watching Marika’s expression from his periphery to see how she’ll react.
“Alas, he dislikes making himself known.”
Placid, like normal, but the lilt of her tone implies that she’s making a joke he isn’t privy to. His brow furrows. “’Tis a poor quality for a Lord to have.”
“Perhaps it is. It shall take time to grow accustomed to his eccentricities, I know, so different from Godfrey is he.”
“May I ask why?” He tests.
She arches a thin brow, the gold of her eyes glittering dangerously in the low light. “Why he is eccentric, or why it was him whom I chose?”
Rhetorical question. She’s toying with him, the pleasant tone of her voice like an embroidered sleeve hiding a dagger. “The latter.”
“Thy father served his purpose to build the foundations of mine age with his axe and arm, but no longer does this stable land require such a thing. He was a man with so strong a bloodlust that it rivalled the beasts, thou know’st. In this time of peace did he grow restless, and so I thought to cut his bough from the tree that bent under his weight.”
“A mercy killing, then,” he finds himself saying, the words coming from his mouth before he has time to process them.
An even look. She tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “He did not die.”
Yet, he thinks, and has the good sense to bury that under his tongue. “But why Radagon in his stead? He was well-renowned for his brutality during his campaign.”
“I did not say that I required a Lord divested of all capabilities, only one that was not solely infatuated with the swing of his sword arm. Yea, he is ruthless, but so too did he end a war through pacifistic means, and he hath expressed his tendency to value unification above all else. ’Tis more suited for rule than endless war, is it not?”
“I… suppose. Thou speak the truth.” He bows his head in thought, the movement of the countryside an idle distraction from the plain fact that his father grew obsolete.
“I do. A crown is warranted through strength, as thy father once professed, though strength might entail many things,” she continues, measuring his reaction.
Face rearranged in hard neutral. He straightens, fixing his gaze on the swing of the windmills in the distance. “As I recall, Lord Radagon raised no weapon to claim his throne.”
“Thou’rt welcome to test thy father’s theory, if thou wish.”
“Truly?” He startles. “Would it not be uncivil for the son of the former Lord to challenge the new?
“Thou’rt thy father’s son as thou art mine own, art thou not? Easily was he the strongest warrior on the continent, now bested by another. Hast thou no wish to test his mettle?”
He does. He’s been itching for it since yesterday afternoon, idly picturing himself tearing out the other man’s hideous hair in fistfuls. His father’s son, truly.
His father’s son. Half-human. He rolls his shoulders back. “Perhaps I shall, though he is not of divine blood. It will hardly be fair.”
There’s a funny little look that flashes across Marika’s face, equal parts smug and furious. It’s gone as the wind blows a strand of hair into her face, but the afterimage lingers like the imprint of the sun on closed eyelids.
“That remains to be seen,” she says, with an indifferent shrug. “My, do I sense some animosity towards him? ’Tis unlike thee to be hostile.”
Windmills in the distance. A distraction to keep himself from snarling like an animal. He can run off and braid pink flowers in his hair and twirl on the grass until his legs give out. Anything to escape the corner his mother has him in.
“I am not hostile. If anything, he is the one who hath overstepped his bounds.”
She hums in noncommittal acknowledgement. “’Tis not the version I was witness to. Pray, enlighten me.”
Witness to. Odd choice of phrasing.
“He summoned an appraiser to sort through the contents of the manor as if it were mere garbage, when by all rights the task should have been given to Godfrey’s only son. Furthermore, he claimed that I no longer bear right to the manor, and that it is, in fact, his.” Even recounting the tale has him irritated. He lets out a short breath, attempting to draw his tone into something less petulant. “Thou who gave the order, so he said. I know not if I am to trust his word yet.”
“Thine instincts misled thee. Indeed, ’twas I who ordered it.”
He turns to stare, shocked. He doesn’t know why it still feels like a knife in the back, when scouring his father’s influence from the streets is very much her flavour of ruthlessness. Side-effect of the last minuscule hope of preserving Godfrey’s face dissipating in his hands, maybe.
“Why? Further defacing father’s image does not bode well for the kingdom. He is still beloved. Being so crass will not endear the new Lord to the people.”
“All the more reason to do so,” she replies evenly, fixing him with a severe look that has him feel like cowering. “A page is to be turned on thy father’s reign. The Golden Order looks to the future, rather than lingering upon the past. Bear with it, willst thou not? I wouldst hate to see thee so lost in thy sentimentality.”
It’s the second time he’s been accused of clinging to his father’s memory. Near verbatim to what Radagon said yesterday, he realises, with a dull confusion. They really have conspired, or he’s lost his mind. Both options at once is the most likely scenario.
“Even so, to be divested of father’s manor-“
“Is it truly the manor thou’rt so concerned with, or thy father himself?”
His father, and not her husband. She’s shucked off all connection with him so easily, exchanging one consort for another like bringing out a heavier cloak to endure the winter chill. He can only envy it.
He can’t answer. She doesn’t make him.
They approach the copse in silence. It’s muted in the trees, swaddled in golden leaves and the soft bed of pine needles underfoot. He silences the tread of their horses with a quick prayer, removing all sound that isn’t the whistle of the wind. Marika draws up her hood, the bottle-green fabric shrouding her features like a veil.
The sky rumbles. Rain begins to fall in a gentle downpour. They’re spared by the canopy, only a few droplets making their way to disturb the forest floor. It’s a soothing noise, languid and distant. If he closes his eyes he can easily imagine he’s elsewhere, parked beside the warmth of a hearth rather than clawing for his legacy tooth and nail.
“Regardless,” Marika starts, her voice nearly a whisper. She’s leaned in close to speak, enough that he can feel the brush of her hair against his ear. “I care not if thou clash with Radagon.”
He looks over, startled. The intensity of her gaze is borderline terrifying, sunlit-gold eyes fixed on him a bare few inches from his own.
The eyes. Always the eyes. He restrains the urge to flinch. Show no weakness to a predator, lest they sniff it out and sink their teeth into your throat.
“I do not wish to cause undue trouble,” he manages. His voice sounds too loud for the muffled cage they’re both caught under, like a rock thrown in a well.
“Perhaps thou should. Thou despise him, clear as day. Do not cloister thyself out of fear of causing a disturbance.”
They’ve slowed to a crawl, riding so close their knees knock together. Her sheer proximity is so suffocating it’s as if the copse had to contort itself just to withstand her presence, her entire being like a white-hot comet that’s approaching the horizon. He’s just unlucky enough to be caught in the blast radius, reduced to a ghost of himself.
“What would be thought of me if I were to actively harass him? Nay, I cannot.”
“There is a fine line to be drawn between a simple argument and harassment. I agree, I cannot have thee putting his head on a pike, but that does not mean thou must subdue thine animosity.” A hand on his shoulder. He stiffens beneath it, the weight of her palm alone like a bar of iron.
How hard would she need to swing it to break him? He’s already collapsing under its weight, like a paper-fragile tower set ablaze.
She raises her other hand in motion for them to stop, a slender white shadow in his periphery. A stag limps through the pillars of trees, chestnut-brown coat patchy and dull. Godwyn stills, holding his breath, and watches as it moves closer, its twisted back leg dragging behind like dead weight.
He unslings his short bow from his pack in slow movements. His spell may have silenced them, but instinct howls for him to treat every breath like it was glass. He strings it using his lap as purchase, and his hand moves to the quiver at his side for an arrow.
Fingers against his. Marika presses his hand away from the quiver and moves to pluck a hair from her head. It solidifies at her touch, gleaming in the low light like the wink of a blade before she gives it to him.
It’s an arrow. Long, elegant, the sharp point rendered in golden filigree and fletched with pure white feathers. It’s cold in his hand. He stares.
His hands are shaking, he registers distantly. Shame. As if he hadn’t humiliated himself enough in the past few days.
“I believe it would be good for thee,” Marika says, leaning in again in full whisper. Lips barely brush his ear. All he can do is stare at the arrow in his hands, a glimmering thing against dark backdrop. “To challenge Radagon. ’Tis the first time thou’st borne such adversity. I dearly anticipate thy next course of action, whether thou shalt remove the barb of the arrow from thy flesh, or simply endure it.”
He manages to nock the arrow, gold stark against the stained wood of his bow. His hands are foreign objects. An edifice, and not something connected to the rest of his body.
He draws, aim stuttering, torn between the deer and the beast over his shoulder. “What wouldst thou have me do, then? I cannot be brash.”
“’Tis thy choice, is it not? Stay or flee, kill or die. I cannot make it for thee.”
Fight or flee, the universal inheritance of all mortal things. He’s half a god and his father’s son, and by virtue of that he’s still forced to choose between the two. No third option. He’s drawn the arrow, and he’s at the end of it, both versions of himself caught in simultaneous stasis.
Half-human. His father fled.
“Thou must drink the bitter to taste the sweet,” she says, breath hot on his ear.
The shot goes wide.
The marble is cool under his palms, a pleasantly numb counterweight to the warmth of his skin. A breeze whistles through the wide arches of the Erdtree sanctuary that disturbs his hair and sends leaves scattering across the floor, the burning haze of the sunset carried in afterthought.
The little balcony he’s claimed for his solitude overlooks the streets below, cast in long blue shadows. It’s a fair drop down. He’s accustomed to heights, but the distance is still enough to make him feel dizzy from ill-buried reflex.
The sky would make a fine painting. Marika had a fondness for the art, once, and taught him the colours she named herself. He still retains enough of the habit. Rose-pink for the bloom of the clouds. Lazulite for the dark eastern skies. The throne room is a charcoal silhouette that towers above in contrast, the tip of a knife swinging over the back of his neck.
His father must’ve shared this same view, when the sanctuary was unofficially his. Once it was used for quietude and prayer, and now Godwyn is carrying on the legacy in intangible form. It’s not something Radagon can crush in his fist, barring destroying the sanctuary itself. He’ll take whatever small comfort he can from the idea while he’s caught between two different shapes of his father’s ghost.
There’s a branch that curls against the marble rail. It’s thick enough that it would without a doubt support his weight. Backup plan in the event of a pincer attack. Marika did present him two options, didn’t she? Fight or flee. Stay or die. He knows what he’d pick.
It’s a useless idea. What would he do? Pick out a plot of land in some backwater hovel and spend his eternity posing as a farmer? He can run off with Fortissax, make his living mixing paints from the pigments he harvests until his mother’s fist comes down on his neck. Rowa berry-skin for the sunset. Miranda flower as substitute for the blush-pink of the clouds. Scarab shells make a deep red, like the flowers that grow over the corpses of fallen knights. Blood-red. Giant’s hair red-
He sighs. He really is caught on all sides. His- what? Father? Is he still allowed that?- Godfrey was strong enough to break through the opposition no matter how the enemy rallied. Godwyn may have cloaked himself in the golden ichor of the Erdtree, but he still fits quite neatly in the shadow of his parents.
Singular shadow now. There’s more than enough room for him and his cowardice.
The petals of sunflowers are used to paint the rooftops in the early dawn light. He holds fast to the image as his hand wanders to the pouch at his belt. The buckle undoes with a snap, and his fingers map out the engravings that mark the shell of his cigar case by touch. A surreptitious look over the shoulder confirms that he’s still alone.
Another minuscule shame of his, and a gift from one of his commanders to celebrate the century turn of their unification with the dragons. It tends to collect dust in one of the drawers of his dresser, but he must be feeling particularly desperate as of late if the humiliation barely registers.
He draws a cigar out, considering it between forefinger and thumb. It must be a type of small heresy to burn plants in this sacred place. The part of him that’s his mother’s son howls for him to put the accursed thing away, divest himself of the sin and toss the case over the rail. Better yet, himself.
“’Tis a surprising hobby for thee, I must admit.”
Grave flower-red. Blood-red. He startles and turns, hiding the cigar behind his back like a child. Radagon’s hair is the colour of self-immolation, violent and unholy. On short glance he could easily be mistaken for one of the heretics that drift around the north, even if his eyes are still in their sockets. All the worse, considering their tendency to pin him to place with a single look.
“Ah, thou,” he says, in poor attempt to save face. “’Tis unbecoming to sneak up on someone.”
“Perhaps.” His head tilts, presumably gauging Godwyn’s reaction. He really is so much worse up close. “Forgive me for assuming that thou heard my step.”
“Noted.” He straightens, assuming a more natural position to distract from the cigar between his fingers. Radagon’s already seen it, so there’s really no point, but he’s not going to put his sin on display for a man who’s notoriously brutal to heretics. “Pray, why come here at this hour? Hast thou no duties to tend to?”
“Is this thy method of getting me to leave?”
Yes. “Thou may stay if that is thy wish. I cannot make thee do anything.”
“No, thou cannot,” he says, and settles beside him in audacious self-invitation, hands poised at the rail. “Thou were about to smoke, were thou not? Do not allow me to come in the way of thy habit.”
Burning plants is a mockery of the first cardinal sin. Is this a trap? Will he fist a hand in his scalp and declare him a blasphemer the moment he lights his cigar?
He supposes he could fight him off if it came to that. Marika prodded him to confront the man, but he’s certain she didn’t mean that he should start a fight just so he could smoke.
He concedes, pulling the cigar out and lighting it with a quick spark produced between the fingers of his off hand. Radagon watches appraisingly, an unreadable look on his face.
“Clever,” he remarks. “To avoid the use of flame.”
He accepts the compliment in silence, taking a long drag to give him an excuse to not answer. Wildfire sparks up in the dry bush of Caelid when there’s been a lack of rain. It’s a trick Fortissax taught him long ago, now whittled down into a more leisurely function.
“Do thou… wish to join?” He tests, despite his better judgement. Very much like Godwyn the Golden to extend a hand to his bitter enemies. It was a trait his mother praised, once, but he’s certain it would be frowned upon in this situation.
“No, thank you,” he says, with a small wave of the hand. A glint of silver catches his eye with the movement. It’s a ring, intricately cast, a lion’s jaw stretched to grasp a sapphire that glimmers idly in the dusk light. It sits loosely on his thumb, as if it wasn’t fit for him.
He knows that ring. It’s his father’s. What once sat proudly on Godfrey’s index finger is now reduced to a bauble that clearly doesn’t belong.
“I remember thy father once shared the same habit,” Radagon continues, either ignorant or blatantly uncaring of Godwyn’s cold silence.
“Did he, now?” It’s nothing he didn’t already know. His youth was spent at his father’s side in the manor, watching him trade stories with his warriors, the acrid scent of smoke heavy in his nose. Yet another treasure Radagon’s claimed for himself, now discussed like it’s not a point of contention.
Silence falls as he takes another drag, letting the smoke filter out slowly through his lips. If the scent bothers Radagon he gives no indication. Privately, Godwyn hopes he’s choking inside.
“I did not know that thou knew my father.”
He tilts his head back, eyeing the sunset. The sun illuminates his hair like a comet, or a halo set aflame. “Yea, I did, though I cannot in good faith say that I knew him well. His sights were set elsewhere during my campaign in Liurnia, and afterwards I served as a mere ambassador between the two houses. Any meeting we had was under the utmost formality, as thou can guess. I was hardly one of his dear warriors.”
That’s news to him. He furrows his brow. “Ne’er did he mention thee.”
“Wouldst thou speak of the hunchbacked farmer that thou passed on the road during thy march to war? I was of little notice in those days.”
“Yet here thou’rt,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “A Lord.”
Another drag. Radagon stares evenly at him. Despite the damage, his eyes are oddly familiar. Almost an exacting shade to his mother’s. They certainly bear a similar tendency to suffocate him.
“A Lord,” he echoes. “Much to thy chagrin.”
He sighs, propping his elbows on the rail. The exhaled smoke drifts out from the confines of the sanctuary, leaving nothing but a bitter scent and the taste of wooden spice on his tongue. He knows he’s sunk low when he’s begun to envy the smoke he’s spat from his lungs.
“Pray, what didst thou know of my father?”
“He was bold,” he says, almost reflexively. “Loud. We meshed poorly on the few occasions I was in his company. There was no blatant animosity between us, though I could sense that he found mine appearance to be unsettling. Fitting, for the man who once felled the giants.”
There’s a slight venom to his tone. Faint, but noticeable. Whether it’s directed at his father or himself, he can’t tell, though he’s inclined to agree with the latter.
“He was a man who favoured action above all else, occupied solely with the swing of his axe and little beyond what was at the end of it. ’Twas the time when the priorities of the Golden Order began to turn, when there were fewer wars that needed to be won and more territories to manage. I imagine he sensed his age was to come to a close.”
“Take care not to speak ill of him,” Godwyn warns.
“I speak no ill. This is well known of thy father.” He sighs, gaze fixed on some unseeable horizon. “Perhaps, in other times, could he hath known me.”
Godwyn taps the ash from his cigar, a fine smattering of black against the marble of the rail. He thinks of his mother’s charcoal-stained fingers, smeared across parchment to create the contour of a face. Fill in the sclerae. The rest of the page too, for good measure.
It’s an odd statement, made worse by the tone of his voice. Nearly reminiscent of the way Fortissax describes his ruined kingdom, on a private scale. Less nostalgic, and more-
Smoking is a very useful excuse to not have to answer. There’s no good reply. In fact, he’d love nothing more than to discard the idea immediately. It’s hard enough to make small talk with the man who’s plundering his father’s grave. Worse still to do so knowing he harbours such untoward feelings towards the corpse.
The ring glitters in his periphery. He hopes his cheeks aren’t flushed.
“Pray, how well do thou know the tale of the cuckoo?” Radagon starts abruptly, reverted from the brief jolt of emotion back to his unyieldingly dark gaze.
Godwyn stares. It’s such an odd change in conversation that he gets the distinct impression that he’s talking in code. Very much like his mother. She must’ve rubbed off on him in the few months he’s spent playing lapdog.
“Cuckoo… The bird?”
“Yea, along those lines. So goes the tale that the humble swallow awoke to find an egg in her nest, far larger than the ones she had laid. When it hatched, it was far earlier than her other children, and it did not resemble a child of hers; ’twas an ugly thing, grotesque, and nearly her size.”
There’s an unreadable look in Radagon’s eyes, the middle ground between glee and violence. Godwyn shifts back, hoping it’s subtle enough that he doesn’t catch on.
“She could only watch in horror when its blind writhing pushed her own eggs from the nest. ’Twas her only remaining child, then, and so she had no choice but to raise it, but the cuckoo was a far larger bird, and far more demanding than any true child of hers would hath been. She and her mate worked tirelessly to feed this strange thing, nigh to the point of death, all the while it begged for more and more.”
He frowns. “’Tis a disturbing tale thou tell.”
“They do exist. I believe they prefer the wilds south of Liurnia. Inspiration for the tale, I suppose.” A slight smile. It’s an unsettling expression on his otherwise blank face, as if he had to prop the corners of his lips up by force. “It’s a tradition of the Carian royal family, used to keep overly selfish children scared and docile.”
“I imagine it works,” he manages. A longer drag, to avoid confronting the meaning layered underneath his deceptively gentle voice.
Is he the child, then? Too much time spent begging for something of his father’s to keep for himself, and now he needs to be frightened into submission by the man awkwardly trying to slot into the gap left behind. The ring doesn’t even fit, but he’s claimed it regardless.
“If they deign to listen, which children are rare to do.”
The child, grown too fat and comfortable in the nest. His brothers have already been tossed from the branches by his flailing. He may as well be next, for all the threats that are being tossed about.
“And who might be the cuckoo in this tale?” He dares to ask, almost nervously gauging Radagon’s expression.
He doesn’t answer.
Fallen leaves crunch underfoot, an off-key chorus as he traces his path through the copse. It’s only been a week since his hunt, but it’s ingrained in his mind well enough that he can pick out a stray few landmarks to keep him on track. A dead tree split by lighting. A cluster of yellow shelf mushrooms perched on a log. Surprising how his memory managed to retain the information, when he was otherwise occupied with the knife held to his throat.
A branch cracks behind him. He sighs. Fortissax is considerably less inclined to step lightly, though he can’t rule out that he’s being more rational. It’s not as if they’re tracking prey. Godwyn has just become good at proving his cowardice as of late.
“Remind me to never invite thee to hunt in such delicate conditions,” he says, eyes still trained on the root-laden path. “I fear all prey within a mile has fled in fear of thy step.”
“Rightfully so,” comes Fortissax's response, loud enough in the quietude of the forest that Godwyn winces on reflex. “A dragon should be feared no matter the form he takes, should he not?”
He huffs. “Yea, as a dragon, but thou’rt a man for now. Perhaps it is time thou devoted thyself to the art of discretion.”
“Only hunting, or wouldst thou rather I keep my hands to myself elsewhere as well?”
Cheeky. He doesn’t need to look to hear the smile on his face, sharp teeth bared lazily. He had to teach him how, and now he’s being tormented with the skill.
He stops to stretch, craning his neck up at the sliver of golden sky he can see through the canopy. It’s late afternoon, and the sun is beginning to cast long shadows as it tilts towards the west. By his reckoning he still has a handful of hours left of daylight to continue his search, depending on his own fortune.
“Tell me,” Fortissax says as he joins Godwyn’s side. His bone-white hair is done in a loose braid today, a stark jolt against dark skin. “Why art thou so pressed to find this arrow of thine? There is a master smith in Leyndell bound to forge thee a thousand more in its image at thy command.”
“It is a treasure of my mother’s.” It’s all he’s willing to tell, though it’s not even a lie. He just doesn’t want to give a detailed account of the time Marika pressed the edge of a blade to his throat and bid him to kill.
“So dear is this arrow to her, that thou wouldst scrape every inch of the forest floor to find it for her. Any mother wouldst be overjoyed to have such a leal son.”
A songbird flies overhead, spitting a muted chorus. Eyes on his neck, gold-black-gold and predatory.
“High praise, coming from thee.”
Fortissax huffs in mock anger, tossing his head. “Still am I the greatest of my brothers. Thou’st not leashed me.”
Godwyn ducks his head to hide the smile creeping on his face. Fortissax’s newfound flair for dramatics might clash, but he’s always found it more charming than anything else. “I only leash thee when thou ask me to.”
“Hah!” A clap on the shoulder. His hand is the temperature of sun-baked stone, heavy against his skin. “There is thy sense of humour. I feared thou lost it alongside this arrow of thine.”
“I hath lost much more than that,” he sighs, before beginning to move again. “I recall this clearing well. Perhaps we may yet be on track.”
He’s nearly at the point where he’s about to start upturning the leaves. He’s been searching since noon, but the arrow still eludes him. He wouldn’t be surprised if it dropped off the face of the earth, bid to nothingness at his mother’s will.
One taunt piled on another, her and her strange new husband braiding the noose they’ll hang him with. Him, the child, youth-pink mouth agape and begging for what he’s owed.
He’s still at a lost for what he’ll do when he finds the thing. With his current streak of luck, he’s more likely to prick his finger on the point than gain any resolution from finding it. The spilling of divine blood is a blasphemy, a threat tossed to fan the lust for the heads of the opposing army. He’s leveraged it himself, on occasion. Fortissax was once a blasphemer and is now the weight that warms his bed on his off days. Godwyn the Golden would never be so careless to slice his finger picking up a weapon, but then again, he also wouldn’t be stooping to comb through an entire forest to look for it in the first place.
“Thou seem dour as of late,” Fortissax comments idly.
“My father hath been exiled. It is not so bizarre.” Cruel of him to complain about his father being driven from the land when Fortissax still walks a city decorated with the bones of his kindred.
“Recently, moreso.” He nudges a stray log out of the way with his foot, exposing a patch of worms he eyes with faint disgust. “I heard of thy confrontation with the new Lord. Tell me, did he anger thee? I’ll devour him from the feet up if thou desire.”
“Alas, thou cannot.” Though he won’t deny himself the petty satisfaction of picturing it. “’Twas no confrontation. I merely informed him of his place; that Lord he may be, he is not divine, and has no right to what he hath claimed for himself.”
He earns a sardonic look for that. Fortissax has a tendency to be overly expressive, maybe as compensation for having to learn the whims of joy and sorrow on a man’s face. He’s done a fine job of it, Godwyn’s personal bias notwithstanding.
“Even now, thine animosity stains thy tone.”
“There is no animosity to be had.” He shakes his head, scowling. “Despite what everyone presumes.”
“And the disdain writ upon thy face.”
“Wouldst thou look away for me, dearest?”
“Ah, now I am truly worried,” he says, mock-gravely. “Pray, what did he say to thee?”
“Beyond his stunt with the manor, and my mother enabling him?” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. It snags on a knot. He frowns. “Nothing untoward. In fact, we spoke the other day.”
Another blatant lie. Once he might’ve stumbled over it, but any skill shows improvement the more use it sees.
“And he spat at thy feet, I’d wager, by the way thou speak of it.”
“Nay, not at all. ’Twas peaceful.” The child, the nest, open mouth craving regurgitated scraps of his own dignity. He tugs at the knot, sending a bolt of pain lancing through his scalp. “We spoke of my father.”
“Thou say that as if it is not a contentious topic between ye.”
“Yea, perhaps.” Another tug. It fully escaped him that he left his hair unbound. The fog cloaking his head refuses to lift with every passing day, and it’s only getting harder to process his body as more of a living thing than the dead weight he pictures it as. “He only said he was… fond of my father. More the strange that he would plunder his legacy so, but ’tis the game of lions and wolves, I suppose.”
“Take heart, dear Godwyn. The dragon trumps them all.”
“Art thou saying thou will devour both if I call upon thee?”
“I did promise, did I not?” he says, with a little bow. As if he deserves it.
They come to another clearing, sparsely dotted with the thin trunks of pines. The familiarity makes him pause. The rain would’ve long washed away any evidence of their horse’s tread, but he’s certain he had fixed his gaze on the same whorl in the tree as his mother prodded him to throw down his gauntlet.
“Here, perhaps.” He takes in the thin path. Position himself at the right angle and he’s back as his past self, fingers shaking as he struggles to nock the arrow. The humiliation is still fresh. “I shot that way.”
Fortissax follows behind as he moves past the clearing, tracing the invisible line of the draw of his bow to his inevitable failure. Godwyn’s grateful that he has no further questions about the arrow. There’s nothing to elaborate on. He can’t drag Fortissax any further into his one-sided war against the heavy fist of his mother’s judgement. He’s already lost his legacy. Forcing him to watch Godwyn fumble his own would be plainly cruel.
A flicker of gold. He blinks.
The arrow is unmarred as he draws it out of a bed of leaves. It glimmers idly in the dappled light. No sign of rust, no dirt, all visible damage warded off by what he can only attribute to his mother’s grace. It was a strand of her hair. Nothing would dare touch it, even severed from her head.
“Thou found it?” Fortissax says, giving the arrow a sharply appraising look. “A fine weapon it is, though I would dare say it would look finer hung upon a wall than nestled in a quiver.”
“Perhaps,” is all he manages. He’s nearly breathless from relief. He was almost wholly convinced it had disappeared, his mother off somewhere snickering at his distress. “No matter, now. ’Tis within my hands.”
“Let us be off, then, while we still have the sun to guide our path.” A touch to his back, to usher him along. He really wants nothing more than to be able to lean into it, but nods mutely as substitute.
Mercifully, Fortissax says nothing about how searching for an arrow would imply that he missed the shot.
He’s left at the gates of Leyndell, Fortissax citing the need to stretch his wings before he returns to a man’s skin for the night. The sun is a beacon of empty space through the gaps of the spires, a bar of iron freshly pulled from the forge. Above, the gold-shingled roofs glitter.
The arrow is held loosely in his hand. It occurs to him that it’s improper for him to wander listlessly with a weapon in his grip, but it’s a dull sort of warning. He can’t imagine what he’d do with it, aside from the off chance that he’d snap and decide to bury it in his eye.
He can imagine the backlash. Godwyn the Golden, one and only son of Queen Marika and the now-nameless Godfrey, tragically succumbed to his increasing mental distress; so does the golden bough sway and snap in the weight of a storm.
It’s still tempting.
By habit he finds himself in the small plaza overlooking the colosseum, and stops. Once, a statue of his father sternly overlooked the area, but his figure has been torn down in a pile of disparate marble limbs, a rope lashed around the more sturdy parts still affixed to the base. At the other end, a handful of workers are attempting to tug.
“Halt!” he shouts without thinking. The stares he earns are warranted, but the force still affixes him in place, nearly paralysed by the horror creeping over him. “Hast thou no shame? Why wouldst thou deface this statue?”
A series of silent looks, automatically rooting for whoever among the workers is bold enough to actually speak to him. He should be satisfied at the fear he inspires. Instead he feels like he’s drowning.
“It is by the order of Lord Radagon, My Lord,” one of them finally says, bowing tentatively.
“I surmised as much.” He crosses his arms, levelling an even stare in effort to not look like a spooked rabbit. “Didst thy new orders not reach thine ears? Thou’rt not to touch one more relic of my father’s.”
“By the orders of who, My Lord?”
“Me,” he snaps. “So help me, if one more hand is laid upon this statue, I’ll have ye hung by thy wrists.”
“My Lord,” another stammers. “The orders were spoken by Queen Marika herself. It is not something we may disobey so lightly.”
The metal of the arrow has grown warm from his prolonged touch. He nearly forgot about it in his anger, a weight he’s already become too accustomed to. In his mind’s eye he pictures calling down a bolt of lighting in its stead, cutting this whole confrontation off in one quick stroke. It barely registers to him to feel pity for the workers. They’re only human, and he’s forcing them to choose between obeying him or his mother.
He knows which one they’d pick. In normal circumstances, he’d encourage the blind obedience. Circumstances have never been worse.
He sighs, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Unfortunate for thee. I suggest thou cease, regardless. ’Tis I who command thee in this moment, do thou understand?”
“Yes, My Lord.” More bowing. Obeisances scattered at his feet like crumbs for a flock of carrion crows. He takes what he’s owed where he can scrape it up.
“Clean up thy mess,” he says with a dismissive wave of the hand before turning to leave. “And not one more hand upon the statue, understood? My mercy is not so freely given.”
Whatever answer they give, he doesn’t care enough to look back.
His impulse is to go directly to his mother’s chambers. She’s never reliably found and doesn’t have enough sentimentality to adhere to any sort of routine, but it’s his only real guess. Barring that he may as well comb every inch of the palace, searching for another stray arrow to pierce his skin.
The hall receives the falling light of the sun, westward-facing windows rendering the marble in painfully bright whites. His shadow casts on the opposite wall, his only companion in the march fuelled by equal parts fury and defeat. He has no real plan for what he’ll say to his mother if he manages to find her. Cower, likely. Every word she speaks is lead-weighted, and all he knows to do is concede.
What can he even do beyond immediately backing off the moment she makes her displeasure known? He can’t threaten her, because she is god and he’s proven time and time again he’s painfully half-human. She can do what she pleases, both in theory and practice. His father and brothers can attest to that much.
The snatch of a voice through an arch. He pastes himself to the wall by reflex, feeling childish. In all likelihood it’s probably a servant or some visitor, and he’s only further humiliating himself. He’ll just pray they don’t walk out on him.
“-bet all I have upon this course of action. Dare not tell me thou feel otherwise.”
He recognises his mother’s voice immediately. On better days he likens her voice to the heat of a hearth, but whatever conversation she’s in has drawn it into something dark. He braces himself almost compulsively, waiting for whatever curse she’ll spit next.
“Of course thou agree. Pray, what wouldst thou do otherwise? Thou’st hardly the capacity to stand on thine own two feet if I do not bid thee to.” A pause. She laughs, a sardonic, sharp-edged noise that makes him flinch. “Thou begged me to end it, to take thee back. Thou cannot regret it now.”
Whatever response she gets, he doesn’t hear. There’s the off chance she might be talking to herself. Can eavesdropping be ruled as blasphemy? It may as well in this case. An easy excuse for Marika to drive him from the nest that’s tipping under his weight.
“I am willing to make that sacrifice. Yea, a child of ours wouldst bear a burden unlike any other, but a plant does not grow without learning to weather the storm, does it not?”
Child- children. She’s expecting children. It’s the logical course of action. He hates himself for feeling so shocked by the idea. It’s the fate of all political marriages, even the particularly contentious ones. A union with the divine is hardly an exception.
The nest, growing ever heavier. He can already hear the branch groaning. He can only pray that whatever child is born comes out smooth-skinned.
“Wring thy hands all thou wish,” she snaps. It feels distant. “Thou know well thy cowardice falls upon deaf ears.”
It’s been made clear enough. The back of his head meets the sun-bleached stone of the wall, his gaze tilted up to the ceiling. His father was only the start of it. Marika plunges her hands into the soil, uproots the entire lineage like an overly stubborn weed. The branch snaps. He contented himself too much with never wanting to fly.
The irrational part of his mind begs him to run. The voice is muted, smothered under layers of duty and heavy gold. The sediment has now only begun to shift, leaking in air it doesn’t deserve.
He barely knows what course of action running would entail. Retreat into the fantasy he unearths every century or so, maybe. Godwyn the Golden left to rot by the wayside, taking up residence as an overly tall farmhand that grinds down the shells of beetles he finds into coloured powder. Dried sunflower petals for the hair. Clay for the skin. Blood for the imminence of his mother’s judgement.
The arrow slips from his grip. It makes a hollow clatter as it lands on hard marble. Silence. He holds his breath.
The movement of fabric. It’s not just the irrational part of him that’s howling for him to run, now. Slowly, he inches towards a shallow alcove in the wall, ducking into the blind spot. There’s no possibility of warping, with his mother in such close proximity. The noise alone would be a dead giveaway that he was standing with his ear pressed to the wall.
He left the arrow. Terror spikes. He was as well have written his mother a note for all the discretion he’s displayed, or coughed up his prey at her feet.
A pale hand at the curve of the arch. He stills his breath, sinking further into the shelter of the alcove. A sudden flicker of scarlet in the reflection of the window draws his attention and he stares, praying desperately under his breath that he won’t be seen.
Ironic, considering he’s praying to the being he’s hiding childishly from.
Radagon emerges from the room, unbound hair the bright disturbance in the reflection. He looks both ways down the hall, lingering terrifyingly in Godwyn’s direction, before his gaze settles on the arrow at his feet.
He picks it up, balanced delicately in his long fingers. Godwyn gets the very distinct impression that he is witnessing something he isn’t meant to see.