Work Text:
"You can aim for my heart go for blood,
But you would still miss me in your bones"
Aeryn has no idea what made them bend to her pleas, her threats, her silences tinged with promises of ruin. She suspects it might have been Eli, frightened by her recent withdrawals, whispering platitudes about closure and confrontation. Whatever this conference brings will not be cauterized here. Nothing but more slowly oozing blood is promised by this meeting.
The Arcadian delegation walks into the vaulted cathedral, and all of them wear masks. Their formation forms the point of a spear, with Tahlia at the point and Aeryn, in another mysterious concession, on her left side. As the doors creak open, Eli reaches out a hand and brushes her back with his fingers, propelling her forward and reminding her that escape could be hers anytime she chooses. Aeryn is glad of the mask. One more advantage among many.
The sound of chairs dragging out echoes against the ceiling and between her ears, adding to the rushing in her head as a pair of green eyes scan past her. With the benefit of advance notice, Leon’s presence still hits her as corporeally as a cast glyph. He looks the part of the war-king, the seasoned commander, the man who burned her because he could not be bothered to trust her word enough to conduct the most meaningless investigation. He looks the part of the boy on the cliff who was all teeth when he kissed her. That boy was the one who motioned to the executioner to light the pyre.
Eli’s hand on her knee reminds her to breathe and to inspect the faces of the other negotiators. She only sees the king. And when he speaks, he is all she hears.
“Welcome,” says the voice that cursed her, “I hope your journey was not too difficult.”
She drives her nails into her own palm, hands curled into fists under the table to prevent them from summoning a spell of such destructive power the whole cathedral would fall on all the heads in the room.
Without a response from the Arcadian delegation, the king continues.
“My brother would chide me for being so frank,” says the voice that promised devotion, “but I cannot see another path. This is a hostage negotiation, and I ask your price for the safe return of my brother.”
The lips of her mask are immovable, thank Isha, as her own indulge in private amusement. If only the king could have watched her reunion with Saine, seen his drift over to the middle of the chessboard, ready to cut ties with his brother for his murdered sister, restored to him.
One thing gives her pause, that she had been ready for, but it snags her all the same. The pain in her lover's eyes, the fear she had seen so often in the war, the doubt he seemed to reserve for her eyes- until it became betrayal and then cold cruelty.
As she stared, negotiations began in earnest.
“I do not see how we could trust you,” responds her killer to a theoretical promise, and she can no longer take it.
“I suppose we should assume you know all of trust, Your Majesty, that your judgment on this point is impeccable. We passed a statue on our way into the city, of your people’s hero, who sacrificed herself for your survival. You call her a martyr- to your own cruelty. What was it like, I wonder, to rid yourself of a lover by the most painful of methods in order to become the tyrant king you imagined you must be? What are we meant to answer your lack of trust with, when you could not muster a shred of faith in the woman you loved?”
Eli grabs her hand, puts his other arm on her leg to force her down and silent, but she burns now as she did on the pyre.
“How like a king to sever friendship and turn devotion to ashes once he is faced with something he cannot understand. How like a coward to accept a kiss on the side of a cliff, to beg for a promise beside a carriage, and to discard both as soon as he pleases. It is we who should ask how to trust you, Leomar, who have proven false to every vow that mattered.”
Breathing heavily, she subsides, less because she has run out of accusations to throw at her betrayer than because they all seem repetitive of the same thing, and because her breath comes in short bursts.
Both sides of the table are standing now, and Eli shunts her behind him as they face an unshattered silence. The only man sitting is the king.
His mouth moves soundlessly, imitating the young man perplexed by the desire of village women. Aeryn closes her eyes, realizing her mistake. Hadn’t she said she hadn’t told a soul? Hadn’t she promised her lover that the development of their relationship was a secret between them? He did not believe she had betrayed him in this, at least.
“Leave us,” whispers the king. All his mourning from the dungeon is in his voice, but instead of the hard steel of betrayal she hears a self-pity that curls her lip. Everyone but Ante obeys him.
“Get out,” says Leon, and Ante leaves. “Please,” begs the king, “if you could leave me with the fox-masked one, I would owe you a debt.”
Talhlia’s chin tips up in triumph. This is why she gambled on your volatile mental state, to put you in a room and launch you at your enemy.
You lean your head close to Eli’s and muster your most earnest voice as you ask, “Please, get them to leave me, I’ve butchered diplomacy enough. You can stay behind, if you must.”
A breath, two, and the cathedral is empty. Empty except for Eli, hovering by the door, to protect you from him or from yourself. She sits in her ornate chair and swings her ankles up onto the table. Her robe might slide open, but this man has seen her at her most vulnerable before, and she holds all the cards.
He can do nothing but beg, and so he does: “Tell me how you knew that. Who told you that story, of the cliff, of the carriage? Please,” says the man who shattered himself when he signaled to the executioner. He stands and moves, his joints seeming to scream with every step until he stands near the end of the long table, far enough from her that both of them could reach out and their fingertips would not brush. Neither reaches out.
Aeryn realizes, in a shuddering second, that she has not rehearsed this moment as she should. She cannot speak all her lines at once, her rotten love, her molten betrayal, her icy hatred, her pathetic hand of friendship.
She takes off her mask and brings the king to his knees.