Private Tales The Broken Crown

[Mariana]

"If only," the priestess echoed. Eyes cast downward to the markings along a part of her skin where his shawl had fallen off. She quickly tugged the fabric back over.

"I hope some of my sisters are still alive," she gulped.

She turned to the prince. "When we get somewhere. I want to get word to those men who did that as quickly as possible. I want to lure them away from the remaining temples."

Away from the innocents. Away from those who could get hurt.

 

[Alre Castielle]

He perked an eyebrow. "Lure them?"

Alre sounded utterly incredulous, not quite able to believe that she would want to actively get those bastards closer to them.

They were headed to Cortos, there they would find enough trouble already on their own. Did they really need to expend energy and bring down another mountain on top of them? The very thought made him want to hurl onto the sands.

"There's only two of us!" He objected. "I protected you once but I can't fight an entire band of..."

Alre stopped suddenly. "Who the fuck were those guys anyway? Mercenaries? Bandits?"

Cultists?

 

[Mariana]

There was a fly buzzing around her. She waved her hand, trying to shoo it away and accidentally smacked it into Alre's arm.

"Ouch," her hand shook out. "I know," she said patiently, gaze locking into his own. Her pale blue eyes seemed paler in the bright light. "You take me to your kingdom where your uncle is and we lure them there. Make your uncle and his men fight them somehow."

Shoulders shrugged.

She was fuzzy on the details but it was the beginning of a plan.

"And I don't know who they are," she said quietly. "Maybe a rival court. There's also the...dark wizard."

 

[Alre Castielle]

He frowned for a moment.

It was a plan...a good one. Alre had not intended for such a thing. He had wanted to use Averey's magic for his own purposes. Yet if he could pull this off what would the difference be? His uncle would be dead, and he would have his throne.

"Easy enough." He said. "He just has to think they're working with me and he'll attack them like a rabid dog."

His uncle had never had much of a sense for strategy.

The old fool had only managed to beat Alre's father through deception and the fact that the young prince had not been in the Kingdom.

Alre half stopped when she mentioned the wizard. "Err...Excuse me?"

He prodded.

 

[Mariana]

"Well," she breathed without stopping. Leaving the prince behind if he didn't get his ass into gear. "He's a legend. Maybe she. Legend has it a fae fell in love with an elf. This is back when fae were at war with elves. This fae even fought with the elves against his own kind only to be betrayed by his lover. He was captured and tortured because the elves knew he had great power in his bones. The power that was scattered among our scrolls. Power to build and end continents."

She took a breath.

"But it's just a legend."

 

[Alre Castielle]

Well that all sounded like nonsense. "Uh huh."

Alre said, clearly not impressed.

In truth he could not really deny the magic, he had seen the magic, but...what the hell would someone whose bones had been scattered due on the world now? There wasn't much chance for him to come back if he was just a bunch of scrolls.

Right?

"So." He frowned. "You think this...Dark Wizard...wizardess, is pulling the strings?"

 

[Mariana]

"Maybe," she squinted. It looked like a small town on the horizon.

"I wouldn't be surprised. Or if some fae has a vendetta against us based on history alone. I wouldn't blame them. And when love is involved?" She exhaled. "It can be powerful magic. How're we going to convince your uncle these people are on our side?"

 

[Alre Castielle]

He blinked for a few seconds, not quite following what she was saying.

Most of this magic business was entirely above his head. He did not know much about it and...well he was just winging it most of the time anyway. Fingers tightened for a second, hand rubbing at his face as he tried to wrap his mind around it all.

"Well." Alre answered after a few moments of thought.

"My Uncle is paranoid." So paranoid that he'd burned down more than one village in the last few months of Alre's escape. "If he catches even a hint of me and them together he'll just assume they're helping me."

He was a man of violence and action, not strategy and thought. "So if we can lure them to one of the Kingdoms outposts..."

It might get them far.

 

[Mariana]

"Thank the goddess, civilization," she murmured at the town growing in size as the approached.

A tired not to Alre.

"How long is the journey to an outpost? Would we need to take a portal stone?"

Riders approached them, riding on black stallions and robed in black cloth with everything covered except the eyes.

 

[Alre Castielle]

Alre watched those approach. "No portal stone near home."

His voice was a rasp, showing how parched he was and just how on the edge he was to actually falling down onto his face. Water was scarce, and the sun had beaten him down to the very edge of what little life he had left in him.

"We'll need a ship." His hand rubbed across his face. "Just...I'll take care of it, okay?"

It might be weeks yet until they reached home, but he did not want to discourage Averey. "Lets...lets just get a hotel first, ok? Food, water, bed...we can even share one if you want."

It was a joke, but one born of tiredness and exhaustion.

 

[Mariana]

She stiffened as the riders approached but they kept going, only casting them a bored glance. "Okay," she breathed. "You can take care of..," she paused as he continued speaking.

A glare his way.

"We most certainly will NOT." The back of her hand smacked lightly across the outer edge of his arm. "That's not funny Alre," she chided. "I just want water. A cold bath. New clothes. Can you take care of that too?"

 

[Alre Castielle]

"A bath with me, I got you." Alre said the words just as the riders came close enough to hear anything else that Averey might have to say.

"Salah Malechum!"

The voice carried out, and Alre knew the language. It was a dialect of Cortos, an old one, but something close enough that Alre actually knew what it meant. He raised his hand and then quickly offered a greeting in return. "Le'chra Annum!"

Alre could almost tell the joy in the man who approached, as if he had not been expecting the be replied to in kind. The once King smiled to himself, glancing at Averey.

"Welcome, my new friends. What, May I ask are you doing here?"​

"We are travelers, lost in the desert sands. We were meant for Salitra but the storm chased us here." It was a lie, but a lie close enough for the truth to be believed. The man peered at Alre for a moment, then looked to Alre. "We seek only refuge, a place to sleep."

There was a pause, longer than he would have liked, and then finally an answer.

"Yes, the storms of the sands can be perilous. Please follow us, and welcome to the City of Sira, jewel of Cortos."​

 

[Mariana]

She was about to punch Alre very hard in the arm but the riders saved him. The elf smoothed her features as she inwardly was impressed with his language skills. She wouldn't have known.

"Thank you," she dipped her head in gratitude as she followed them.

"You're not that funny," she hissed to Alre as the riders turned to lead them into the small town. "And just for that comment I'm claiming the bath water first."

 

[Alre Castielle]

Alre ignored her for a few seconds, glancing towards the men that they were riding with and studying them. After a few seconds he finally spoke back to the Elf. "With me, yeah. I know. I'm great with a sponge."

He was ribbing her of course, joking, but the words were so absent of mind that Alre hardly realized what he was even saying.

His mind was spinning with a thousand different thoughts instead. These men seemed to be soldiers, if he had to guess. Likely representatives of the local governor. Sira, if Alre remembered, was a Trade city, one with a standing army and navy.

One of the more powerful Cortosi free cities.

Before Averey could respond with another biting rebuke he whispered to her. "Stay close to me."

The words were said as they neared a large sandstone gate.

"No one in this place is our friend." In a city where money, merchants, and the Church ruled...no one could be trusted.

 

[Mariana]

She was a priestess of the night court. She’d been awake all day, dragging across the desert. She was tired, hot, and cranky. And his teasing only made her moreso.

“Why do you say that?” She whispered. He was trying to tell someone who never had a problem making a friend wherever she went that no one was to be trusted. A quick dart of her bright blue eyes to the ones on horseback.

It’s not like they had much money anyway. Whatever Alre had stuffed in her pockets before her magic...released. An irritated swipe of her hand across the skin of her ear where he’d whispered in.

 

[Alre Castielle]

Alre didn't move too far away from her, not to be annoying...but almost protective this time. "Cortos is a different animal."

How much did she know this place?

"The Radiant Church rules here, not Kings, not dukes." Alre had heard stories of what the Church was like from childhood. Tales of executions, crucifixions, a dozen different tortures that saw all other religions snuffed out. "Coin is the only thing that will buy our way, and if the Solar Choir catches wind of..."

Alre gestured to her tattoos. "You'll be in a dungeon before nightfall."

They passed beneath the massive limestone arch, Alre sticking close to Averey as they stepped into the bustling merchant city.

 

[Mariana]

"What would they do?" Fists curled at her sides. She'd heard rumors of a church like that. Magic haters. That anyone so violent and xenophobic could exist made her heart ache.

"Would they burn or hang me?" Self-consciously, she pulled the rags he'd give her over her markings.

She looked to him even though she was still mildly annoyed at his closeness.

"Do you even have much coin left?" The riders paused and pointed down a street to the left. They said something in that same language she didn't understand. She assumed they were pointing them toward an Inn.

 

[Alre Castielle]

"Crucify you." Alre answered plainly. "Put you in the stocks, just torture you until you give out...I don't know. I've only heard the rumors."

He scowled slightly, the barbarity of it not entirely sitting well with him.

His family had not always been the kindest, but they had at least been just. There were no crucifxitions, no murder for no reason otehr than your beliefs. Such nonsense did not happen in his home. He found it hard to believe anyone could stand to live under such circumstances.

"I had to leave most of it behind during your flight." Alre grumbled quietly, still somewhat bitter.

"I've enough to get us where we need to go." He told her. "But it's gonna be back to bunks."

No feathered beds.

 

[Mariana]

That information was worrisome. But with her magic? And the scrol's magic now within her? She felt like she could take care of herself if she needed to. She hoped she could. And have mercy to those of the church who even tried to touch her.

"Well," she huffed. "As we've established that wasn't exactly my fault." She paused and cast a mild glare at the prince. "And what makes you think I've ever had a feather bed?" Hand fell to her slender hips, an auburn brow arching on her fair skin.

 

[Alre Castielle]

He gestured vaguely at her. "Not like I'm judging."

Alre reminded.

"Used to have three." Something that he missed dearly. A feathered bed, something nice and comfortable to sleep on. It was a tragedy in it of itself that he was getting used to sleeping on hard rock and ground. "Let's find that Inn, shall we?"

The once to be King asked. "This country isn't any cooler than the desert."

Plus...he felt like if they kept on arguing they'd end up in another screaming match.

 

[Mariana]

She nodded, agreeing with the human male finally. Yes dear goddess. Her feet felt like they were about to fall off. And she was more than a little cranky. And tired.

Luckily, the small tavern that the rooms sat above felt cooler than outside as they walked in. Behind the bar there was a human woman. She was perhaps in her forties, greying hair tied up in twin buns. She eyed them up and down as the came in.

"Room for the married couple?" A barking question.

 

[Alre Castielle]

Alre looked to Averey, already predicting that whatever answer he gave to the innkeeper would probably be the wrong one. "Yep."

He wasn't going to waste money on two rooms.

They would have to be a bit more careful now, and even if they only got one bed Averey could sleep on the floor. If she asked nice enough he might even give her one of the pillows off of the bed. He was in a rather kind mood.

"Right, this way, you gonna have dinner?"

Kress this woman was ornery. "Yeah...we have-"

"I ain't here to hear your life story."

Alre glanced over at Averey for a moment, then just shook his head and followed after the angry woman.

 

[Mariana]

Averey shrugged.

She swallowed down her protest about being married. Even she recognized that it would be safer to keep that ruse. Folk here seemed...very traditional. She was surprised the woman was not staring at her more for being an elf. Perhaps enough elves visited here. She knew sand-elves lived around these parts.

Going up a narrow staircase and down a longer hallway at the top, the woman dragged a key from her pocket and unlocked a door on the right before handing it to Alre. Palm gestured between them. "Payment up front," the woman stared him down as Averey stepped inside.

One bed.

But there was a bath.

Thank the stars.

 

[Alre Castielle]

Alre stopped himself from grumbling, reaching into his pouch and pulling out a few silver coins. He deposited them into the woman's hand, deciding that in the future he was going to find his own damned Inn's and not trust watchmen about recommendations.

A part of him wanted to still do it, but he was just too damned tired. "You're welcome."

The woman glowered at him, the expression on her face that of a viper getting ready to strike multiple times. She stared at Alre fora few seconds as if thinking something, then simply huffed and turned around. The door slammed behind her a second later.

"What a..." He trailed off, dragging his cloak free and stripping himself to all but his tunic and trousers before collapsing onto the bed.

He as ready to pass out for a week.

 

[Mariana]

Averey looked at Alre and shook her head once,

"That's fine. You stay there and don't open your eyes. I'm getting into that water." Water had already been in the tub. Clean, for the next guest. Tepid. Not warm. Perfect for how hot she felt. There was a small privacy screen over half of it.

She disappeared on the other side and stripped off her desert garb and sandals. Then lowered herself into the tub and a small grunt of pleasure.

"If you open your eyes, goddess help you." She warned a second time as she reached for a bar of soap.