RE: Monarch

Maya crouched at the river's edge, knees drawn to her chin, gently placing the basket down and gripping its rim. Beneath the surface, a school of small, dark-colored fish swarmed, already nibbling at the resin.
"They intend to sink our navy," I murmured, smiling as Maya bravely lowered her index finger into the water. Several broke from the group, drawn to the foreign object, and she startled as they nibbled at the residual resin on her fingertip, doing her best to stifle a series of giggles and failing.
"That's the point. Or part of it. Fearsome little things." She glanced at me, still standing awkwardly at the river's edge. "Hurry, before the whole thing comes undone."
I crouched beside her and placed my basket in the water, gently pushing a few of the small boats that threatened to congest our riverside harbor into the greater stream.
Maya tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "I spent a long time after returning from the sanctum racking my mind over how best to carry on the work you started. I'm so grateful that the summer months brought you back to me so that we may walk our path together."
"Not fair, you stole mine." I eyed her with mock irritation. "Now I have to think of something while fighting off boarders."
It was a joke, mostly, though I could still feel them rapidly dismantling my coating through what felt like countless tapping fingers. Even that seemed calming somehow—gentle vibrations that soothed the constant noise and turmoil of my mind.
When I spoke, my voice was raw, but the words flowed easily. "The summer months have given much this year. My homecoming and the confrontation with my father went far better than expected. I have a better relationship with my sisters than ever, and gods be shocked, we are actually aligned. And my mother..." I struggled to move past the sudden surge of annoyance and irritation, "not only draws breath, but is healthy. By this period she was already terribly sick, posted at the veil of the afterlife, all but waiting for it to draw back." My voice grew quiet. "Yet much has been taken from me as well. Had you not returned to my life, I'm not sure I would have endured the soul sickness at all. I place too much hope in you." I glanced at her wryly. "Yet you've never let me down. Not for a moment. Despite my shortcomings. For all of that, I am grateful."
Embarrassed, Maya puffed out her cheeks and looked away.
"I thought we were doing short and sweet. That was three times as long as mine, not to mention more elegant and poetic." She muttered, still refusing eye contact.
"It isn't a competition."
"Keep that in mind before you go wandering off monologuing."
"If it's verse that calls to you, feel free to etch poetry into my flesh later—" I fell back in a fit of laughter as her resin-stained thumb jabbed into my ribs, which loosened my grip, freeing my boat from its anchor. Maya scrambled to recover mine while keeping hers in hand, balanced precariously on the edge.
With both baskets in hand, she turned and glared daggers at me. "Must you ruin every tender moment with that lecherous mind?"
"Not every moment, no. Does it bother you?"
She paused, caught out by the directness of the question. Instead of answering, she shifted her grip, holding both baskets immersed in the river with one hand.
"Something wrong with the fleet?" I asked.
"Yours is missing something. It's unremarkable." Maya sniffed, looking over my carefully prepared bouquet with contempt.
"What?" I sputtered, glancing around at the other baskets floating by. "That one is composed entirely of grass."
"Mmm. I rather like it. It's tidy. Uniform."
"Alright." I rolled my eyes.
"Nothing but a sea of blue and gold. Ah—" As if the solution had suddenly come to her, Maya removed the orange aster from where it was nestled behind her ear, placing it at the center of my basket. She stared at me, offering a silent challenge.
I raised my hands. "It's perfect. Thank you."
"No pithy comments about tending gardens or cross-pollination?" She squinted.
I barely stifled a laugh. "Who has the lecherous mind now?"
"Hush."
Maya shook her head and tugged my sleeve. I followed her to a nearby slope further downriver. We crested the top as the sun reached its zenith, peeking out from behind scant clouds and showering the river in light. While we were not the first to release our baskets, we were certainly not the last.
Hundreds of baskets filled to the brim with flowers of every sort floated downstream in quiet synchrony, some drifting to the sides and rotating with gentle impacts as the straying vessels collided with smooth stones and bleached branches, spinning along the river's fingers until the current's invisible tendrils righted them, simultaneously drawing the stragglers back toward the center.
We watched our ships' slow passage further down the river and around the curve that led deeper into the Everwood until only a handful remained. The romantic in me begrudges to report that though they stayed together for the immediate stretch, they did eventually drift, diverging to either side of the river until they disappeared.
Maybe they joined together again once they were beyond our sight.
"Next time we should brush the sides with resin. Bond them together." I mused, then added belatedly, "If there's going to be a next time."
"I'm not opposed." Maya murmured, studying a grassy patch near her boots. "But this period of anonymity is ephemeral. Even now you're drawing looks among the infernals. Whitefall knows you far better than it used to, and word will spread."
It weighed on me she was probably right. Then again, there was a good chance it would prove less of an issue than she expected. While the quiet moments we had to ourselves might wax and wane, and some periods would inevitably be more sparse than others, if you love someone, you create space for them.
More worrying were the whispers beyond public opinion. I couldn't afford to be blindsided again. I needed an information network, comprised of eyes and ears loyal to me. That was where I'd gone wrong with Lillian—carrying on our dalliance blissfully out of the loop while tongues wagged behind our backs and knives circled.
The immediate problem was Thaddeus. He was decades more established and dominated the flow of information within the kingdom. Kilvius had already made inroads in that area, but understandably didn't seem interested in freely sharing what he and Persephone had gleaned unless it furthered some mutual interest, like the lithid disappearances.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Getting Kilvius on my side seemed like the most obvious way forward. Still, it was a difficult ask. And even if I somehow managed it, a growing trickle of information would do nothing to address the far greater problem.
Which was that sometimes, it didn't matter if you knew everything.
"You're pale." A cool hand on my face roused me as Maya regarded me analytically from far too close.
The fear grew stronger, and stronger still, even as I pushed it down and forced a smile, hoping she couldn't see it—that she'd mistake it for discomfort, or drunkenness, or some odd trick of the light that would disappear when I cracked some joke about her touch giving me the wrong idea. But even as my lips parted, the joke wouldn't come.
I looked away. "Since we're both covered in dirt and
smell vaguely of smithery, we should probably go back to the house and freshen up before our appointment, yes?"
Maya nodded, but she didn't answer. I felt her eyes on me throughout the journey home, filled with questions that had no easy answer.
/////
We spent the next few hours in relative solitude. I bathed in the spring while Maya busied herself inside, changing and preparing for the evening. I'd stopped drinking after our sojourn at the winery, but from the newly opened bottle on the countertop that appeared to be missing half its contents, Maya had not. She did an excellent job masking her intoxication. The slur in her speech was barely detectable, and both her walk and posture were exceptionally prim—at least until we were in the back of the carriage Lucius sent, when she draped herself over me like a marionette with cut strings.
I struggled not to grin as I idly guided strands of hair from her face. "Elphion, what a mess we are."
"Is it that bad?" Maya propped herself on one elbow, groping around on the seat between us for her satchel.
"No. Stay. You look remarkable."
"But my hair—"
"I'll fix it when we arrive. Be at peace." I pulled her back down by the shoulder gently, the back of her head settling on my thigh. She really did look stunning. While I'd been lounging in the bath, she'd changed into the formal, high society dress she'd greeted my father in. It was deep emerald in color, silky texture hugging her form snugly.
I removed the canteen from her satchel and held it to her lips. "We can reschedule if you're feeling ill. Lucius has waited years, one more day—"
Maya put her hand to the canteen, signaling she was done. "—is one too many. Thank you." Her mouth quirked, and she frowned. "Just felt the elation waning and wanted a little more. I'm not that far gone—I can still perform adequately in a social setting."
"You don't have to perform. This is pleasure, not duty. Lucius is a friend to both of us, a true friend, not some noble ally we're looking to impress. Drink your fill." I thought of something else and smiled. "
, if you ration your wine with water, and we part from their estate with your legs beneath you... I'll come up with a suitable reward."
"Oh?" An inquisitive eyebrow rose. "What sort of reward?"
"To be determined."
A moment of thought passed. "So you
think I'm too drunk."
"That'd make me quite the hypocrite." I parried easily. "Later tonight though, you very well might be. And if something were to transpire in those waning hours, I think we'd both prefer to remember it." The carriage rocked, wobbling over an uneven section of cobble as I raised the canteen to my lips.
"Will the reward be a Panthanian Goodbye?"
Somehow I managed to choke down the water instead of spewing it everywhere and openly glared at the innocent expression staring up at me. "Not a chance."
"Why not?"
"It's not the sort of thing one opens with. It has to be worked up to. And once it occurs, little else likely will."
"That's why it's a goodbye." Maya observed.
"Exactly." She was going to kill me if she kept it up.
A bump jostled Maya's head and seemingly knocked further thoughts of foreign farewells from her mind. She tilted her head, staring through the small illuminated gap beside the curtain. "They'll have questions. About where we've been, what we've done."
"Yes."
"We haven't discussed what we'll tell them."
I considered it, then shook my head. "I've thought about it."
"And?"
"As always, it's a difficult call." I pulled the curtain aside, checking over a sea of cobblestones that spiraled up to the Duke's estate and finding nothing amiss. "If Lucius had broken the years of silence between us with open attempts to leverage shared history into favor, I'd lean more cautious. But Kholis says more about him than he ever could."
"It speaks for itself." Maya agreed.
"Given that..." I breathed out, silently unclenching the part of myself that was slow to parcel out any information that might come back to hurt me. "If they ask—unless there's some big, glaringly obvious reason not to—I say we just tell them."
"Everything?" Her eyebrow rose.
"
abridging will be necessary." I blew out air. "It's a long story. Definitely too long to tell in a single sitting. And there are obviously pieces that can't be communicated because of the nature of my affliction. But the broad strokes? Lucius already knows about the metamorphosis society and their adversarial connection to Thoth. His father died because of that connection. Thoth attacked his home. His family. He deserves to know the truth."
Her eyes studied me from below. "I see."
"You disagree?"
"No. I'm happy, I think." She turned her head inward, toward my stomach, breathing out a quiet sigh. "You're more guarded than ever these days. I understand why. It can be a good thing at times. Safer." She reached up and rested her hand on my jaw, her thumb brushing fleeting against my lips. "But I see the way it wears on you. The constant vigilance. And I admit, the prospect of being able to share some of what I myself have guarded carefully with others..."
"Would be a relief." I finished, and she nodded.
Voice muffled, the driver called a halt, and the carriage slowed. Maya sat up quickly, smoothing her dress while I fixed her hair, carefully pushing everything that had fallen askew back into place.
She pulled the mirror from her bag, squinting at her reflection before giving up and looking to me. "Acceptable?"
"Better than."
The door swung open, and the carriage driver ushered us out. To my great relief, there was no announcement—Lucius had taken our request for privacy to heart. A wave of nostalgia washed over me, alongside a creeping eeriness. From a distance I'd thought the estate had changed, grown larger and grander. Seeing it up close now, that first impression was likely a side effect of the change in its surroundings. Other than the sense of scale, which always dwindled with age, the estate seemed almost preserved. Untouched.
The front door opened, and a middle-aged man with gray eyes ushered us in. I paused as we entered, a little thrown off. Despite his noble dress, he appeared to be a servant, different from the man who had served the former Duke. In addition to the fine clothes, he carried himself with uncommon airs for a servant and didn't hesitate to look me in the eye.
"Prince Cairn." He turned to address us both. "Princess Maya."
I nearly choked. Maya's face turned to stone, any hint of inebriation quickly masked. "I'm afraid you're mistaken."
"Apologies." The man bowed his head quickly. "The Lord of the house insisted on that jest, and I am not so disloyal as to hoist myself on his petard."
"Understandable. And wise," I agreed stoically, suppressing the beginnings of a laugh.
The servant retreated a half-step, hanging our things and storing our satchels in a closet on the far right side of the room, speaking as he went. "Dinner is to be served in half an hour. You will both find something to enjoy among the spread—the cook Lord Lucius employs is quite talented."
"Just don't ask her to draw you an ale." A woman with a long golden braid descended the stairs. Her visage was warm, matronly, brown freckles barely visible beneath the powder that decorated her cheeks. She reached the end of the stairs and curtsied, the glossy black of her dress catching the light. "Welcome to you both. My husband is waylaid paying overdue respects. Shall we abandon him there for greener pastures?"
"My
." The servant clucked his tongue disapprovingly.
"And condemn a man entrenched in his work to the fate of solitude?" I smiled slightly.
"Greetings, Lady Timbermour." Maya curtsied, and I bowed alongside her. "Thank you for your hospitality."