PAVS:HCK Index (All Chapters)
[Liria — Barony of Selventile]
[Selventile City— Jailhouse]
[Lady Silver Sapphire Selventile — Day 10, awaiting verdict]
They moved her out of the frosted and misty cell, as they often did, but it wasn’t into one of the isolation cells; it was the one she’d come in on, with a window, and on Lady Sunshine’s request.
That was a bit eye-narrowing.
What are you plotting?
Silver looked between them in the crowded cell through new eyes. Five bodies filled the little stone room: the three who’d come and the two flat-eyed knights who’d followed them in.
The worst part was that her skin was radiating a chill.
I can make the air cold in song, but now you decide to do the cold thing on your own?
She cursed her inconsistent powers.
The spring afternoon gleamed outside the high slit of the window, a single bar of pale light falling across the straw. Lucian did not sit. There was nowhere worth sitting but the bench. It was a power move.
Thank you, Machiavelli!
“I’ve come to give you an offer,” he began, never breaking character; the man was really trying to play the part. “Things are not going well for your family. The evidence is undeniable.”
Good cop, bad cop.
And I thought you two were supposed to be some of the best at Deep Dive.
Silver folded her hands at her front and waited.
“Confess.” He said it the way he said everything, flat and exact, like a blade laid on a table. “Stand up and admit that you read the forbidden manuscript. That you, not yet a woman, sought it out and learned from it of your own will. Your parents are already to stand trial. Let the fault sit where it belongs, on a child too young to know better, and I can persuade my father to be merciful.”
Lucian paused as Silver’s head tilted, face a mask of ice, before continuing.
“I’ve spoken with the duke. He says he’ll abide by whatever we decide.”
His mouth became a line as she didn’t react.
“You’d live quietly, with an allowance, in a small countryside house, far from any of this. Comfortable enough for you to be happy. No cell. No rope. My father wants you to hang… A great many want you to hang. Including your own people, once they learned about your family’s crimes.”
His eyes moved over the ruin of her gown and came back up without pity.
“Lady Sunshine has already agreed to support the arrangement, which has, I’m told, gone some way toward earning her own mother’s favor to place you inside her lands. It would be outside of my father’s influence. A simple confession, and you buy a life for yourself outside the ire of the county.”
Silver let the offer sit in the cold a moment, allowing the storm to brew.
Is this the best they came up with?
To be fair, I would have fallen for the attempt a few days ago.
But now? It’s almost insulting.
A slow smile grew on her lips that didn’t reach her water-lit eyes.
“How that must taste bitter on a guilty tongue,” she murmured. “It’s hard for you to admit I’m the chosen one, with an offer like this. What do I see? Nobility, ugly, drunk on power, cold, and steeped in greed for what is mine. Your offer reveals your position.”
The squire-girl made a strangled sound.
“What arrogance! Guilt? Chosen one?” Her hand still hadn’t left her hilt. “You are one breath from the gallows, and you curse Lord Lucian? That is the kindest deal you will ever be offered! Lord Lucian went to the duke for your sake; do you understand what that’s worth? And you thoughtlessly mock it? Do you want to die?”
Silver breathed out. A thin curl of mist left her lips and rolled into the air.
Both flat-eyed knights dropped at once into a stance, half-drawn steel whispering.
Silver paid them no mind. She turned her back on all of them as an insult, plain and deliberate. She crossed the cell to stand beneath the slit of window, lifting her dirty face into that one bar of sun.
“Thoughtless? Hmm. Being thoughtful,” she whispered, almost to herself, “can be so very hard. I’m sure you will agree, Lord Lucian; everything has become so messy for you. This was supposed to be a perfect painting of your family’s rise to status.” Her smile grew at the twitch in his eye. “The evidence I gave my maid, a spy for you, and my parents dealt with…”
The light cut across her at an angle, and for a moment she showed the smallest smile as her head tilted, rippling eyes meeting his green.
“Only for a wall of ice to rise in your ascension. How unfortunate are you, I exist.”
Lucian’s fingers curled at his side.
“Are you insinuating? No. I must be wrong. What made you this way? Can you not see the thorns you are casting yourself into? I am offering you a life of peace. Do you not realize the position you are in? Even should you retain your family’s title, what hope is there to regaining your standing in the public?”
Turning, with the sunlight framed at her back, she gazed at her opponents.
“Nothing.” That snapped their mouths shut as her chin lifted. “I am of no delusion. Nothing is more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success, or more dangerous to carry out, than to initiate a new order of things… Yet, never was anything great achieved without danger. Would you not agree?”
Lucian’s eyes defocused, his lips soundlessly repeating the line, as if he’d heard it before, yet Silver moved to the next line of attack. Strike while the opponent was off-balance.
“My perfect life is ruined. My family raked across the coals. And what do you offer me, My Lord? The chance to hold my parents’ faces to the fire? Is that compassion? My mother could not so much as speak to me when carried away in chains, and ask me to choke the life from her throat?
“Yes,” she breathed, flakes of snow crystallizing around her, “being thoughtful can be so hard. What you offer is for me to curse my blood and set it alight. This home of mine, what happened to this family? Well, you did.”
Silver’s glowing eyes drifted to the stiff blonde, a lump dropping down her throat, glancing toward Lucian for support, but he was still processing her accusation.
“And, Lady Sunshine, is this the honey you offer, laced in venom? This home of mine, I see it in my dreams. Where everyone looks happy, and everyone still likes me.
“Yet, when I awake, what I see are fake friends, all smiles, claiming they care for me, yet treating me as if I am worth only a stone to step on for their political goals… The favorite son and daughter that everyone likes, offering me coals to swallow and be grateful for it.”
Her rippling eyes settled on Lucian and held.
“What will happen to your family?”
Sunday blustered beside him.
“You’re threatening—”
Lucian held up his hand, making her bite her tongue with a yelp.
He didn’t soften his face; if anything, the line of his mouth went harder.
“You are blaming us for what your family did. Your words may seek warmth, but the ice underneath bleeds through. We cannot help you if you will not allow us to. Sowing seeds of doubt in our own family motives will only cause chaos. Do you understand the damage you did… Not your parents, but what you did by those same poisoned seeds, planted in the duke’s mind?”
“Every sin can be found in the dark… So don’t hate me for mine if I wear them on my chest.”
Silver moved her hands behind her back, back curved, as she slowly stepped toward him, her words as soft as silk until she looked up at him with a genuine, sad smile. She stopped an arm’s length from his chest, close enough to see her own cold mirrored in his eyes.
“Most families lie. You are no different. You wear a mask of compassion. But you’re nobody’s friend. You look at me, at even your own parents, as empty shells. Puppets for your entertainment. I never once said I was perfect… But at least I am better than a puppet of their own design.”
Sunday’s face flared red, but her retort died as Lucian took a step back.
“Are you content being hated? Being the target of every house in the county? Why go this far? Already, five baronies have fallen from the duke’s investigation. Why do you not think yours will be next? I have the duke’s ear.”
Her frosted breath curled up to craze across his cheek, her smile low and sharp.
“Did I already not tell you, My Lord? It’s hard for you to admit I’m the chosen one. So far as she is able, a princess should stick to the path of good… But if the necessity arises, she should know how to follow evil. This is the path you have chosen for me.”
Sunday shifted, uncertainty moving her face as Lucian took another step back, turned, and left in a hurry, mumbling something Silver only half caught.
“She’s locked. What kind of model is—”
It wasn’t frustrated, as she expected…
It was intrigued.
The squire choked on her response, frustration bubbling up as she glared at her, growling one word before chasing after her charge.
“Monster. I hope you hang, Ice Witch!”
The knights looked as speechless as they always did when she tried out lines like these on them throughout the week. She projected presence with her ice and mist, but never stepped across the line of truly threatening to warrant action.
Silver removed them from her sight, turning to the wide-eyed blonde woman.
“And then there was one.”
The blonde woman lingered, though she did retreat behind the bars, which the knights immediately closed and locked. Sunshine was now fidgeting in a way that was more natural, and Silver had to wonder if it was the real woman bleeding through: she had a strand of pale hair wound thoughtfully around one finger, studying her with her head tipped to the side.
When she spoke, it was low.
“What do you actually want?” she asked. “I can’t figure you out. I’ve been trying the whole time, and you’re not consistent. There’s a complexity I’m not used to.” She unwound the hair, wound it again. “Are you the Ice Witch they all say you are? Or is there something else, behind that wall?”
Silver let her eyes fall closed, and she sighed. Reaching up, Silver pressed two fingers to her own sternum, the way she pressed on a bruise to be certain it still hurts, and she let a piece of Vera slip through, because it felt right.
“Ten days ago, I hurt my parents,” she said quietly, eyes opening to look into hers. “Believe it or not, I am loyal. I hate goodbyes. We only say “I love you” because we are supposed to. You lie. Lucian lies… But I mean it, every time. I see it in my dreams.”
Performing a curtsy, she turned and sat on the bench, showing the ghost of a smile.
“Yet, this world only seeks to burn me. This heart of mine, it gets blacker all the time. Their affection makes me nauseous. Believe me, I don’t want this. I made my parents cry. I never say “I love you.” I let them down… Is everyone against me? Well, I never said I was perfect. But hate me, if you must. So keep your distance; I am nobody’s friend, My Lady. I can only ever make you cry.”
Something moved across the blonde woman’s face. Not pity, exactly. Something more stubborn than pity. She gripped the bars with both hands, letting the silence Silver left claw for a time.
“…A woman who has accepted her role as the villain in another’s story. How very tragic. I don’t hate you, Silver. But you have made me realize… Yes, many of my words have been empty. Ugly words, not my own. I was a puppet. I didn’t mean those words before. My father told me to test you. Sorry.”
Her eyes drifted to the side, and she wiped away a tear, making Silver feel a bit of heat flow up her own nose, but she refused to let it show.
“Being thoughtful really can be so hard. I know what it’s like to be hated… To be in a place you don’t belong. To be seen as perfect… Oh, wow!” She wiped away a few more tears, smearing her light makeup. “I didn’t expect to feel this way. But you’ve really made me put a mirror to myself. Truth is, I don’t believe anyone is past saving.”
Sunshine choked a small, rueful smile.
“Though, I will grant you, you do put that belief through its paces with how brutal you were back there to Lucian. Not that I can blame you! I just… Gut reactions. Looks like we’re both not perfect!”
She let the hair fall from her fingers, and performed her own curtsy.
“For what it’s worth, Lady Silver, I wish you well. And, for what it’s worth, your family’s dynasty was a hard thing to bring down… It took so many pieces behind the curtain.”
Silver rose to her feet, hands moving to her front, and offering another, somber smile.
“I did not expect you to be so soft inside… Though my heart tells me to let it land against spikes. Perhaps in another life, one where my heart was not so cold, we could be friends. Take care of that gift I was not born with, because such fragile things can shatter.”
She studied the butterfly worked in tarnished thread at Silver’s collar, the crest of her house.
“Oh, I think you aren’t as lost as you seem to think… Lucian was wrong. You aren’t locked. But…you might as well be. Still, I hope you rise from this like a phoenix,” she said, then caught herself and shook her head. “No. That’s my house. Yours is the butterfly.”
Her voice gentled, and the tears cleared, a new light brimming.
“If this is who you wish to be, then it is your choice. But personally, even if presumptuous, and it makes you nauseous, I hope you hatch out of this cocoon they’ve spun around you. That you come out the other side as something even more beautiful. Because you are beautiful. Now, if you’ll excuse me. That’s all I wanted to say.”
And she went with the knights, the way the others had, and her steps had nearly faded when Silver heard the squire-girl’s voice catch her in the corridor, low and incredulous:
“You truly think that can be redeemed?”
The answer was too quiet to hear, which was disappointing.
Silver stood a while in the cold she’d made, listening to the silence pour back in behind them.
Wow…
I suppose there’s a lot more to the 20th-ranked player than I thought.
The top woman…
Sitting down again, her HUD replayed every moment on the side of her vision.
Fruitful. That’s what I’m supposed to be, right?
I played my role perfectly…
But, somehow, I feel like I got something real out of that.
How it would all land, as Fairy mentioned, was still anyone’s guess.
If her decision to show a little warmth was right, she didn’t know.
But she’d made that decision.
And it felt like the right one.
She had ten days behind her now, and three days left before she could fall into her mother and little sister’s arms, and cry. She just wanted to be held, and cry.
Three days can’t come fast enough.
She began planning for whatever would come next, and her gaze settled on a new volume:
The Art of War.