RE: Monarch

I awoke with a groan. My temples vibrated with the stern drums of morning, one thought rising to the surface.

Really? A hangover? After three glasses of wine?

Still. If I closed my eyes, shoved my face into the plush, furred duvet, and ignored the headache, I was exorbitantly comfortable. It almost didn’t matter that I was lying on the ground, bare feet pressed into the door. Sure, it was a little cold. But the comfort of the blanket alone felt exorbitantly luxurious compared to my rough sanctum bedroll.

Maybe if I just closed my eyes for a while, I could get back to sleep.

“Who the fuck are you?” Alten snarled.

“I could ask the same question,” Vogrin replied testily. “In fact, I would love an in-detail explanation for why a simpleton in ill-fitted armor was staking out my master’s sofa.”

“Is there something wrong with the bed? Why is he sleeping on the floor?” Annette asked, her voice deadpan.

“Dunno,” Eckor said. “He’s strange more often than he’s not.”

So much for sleeping it off. I threw off the blanket and sat up blearily, taking in the surrounding chaos. Vogrin faced off with Alten, the latter having drawn his sword and placed himself between me and the demon, while Vogrin floated about a foot off the ground—creating a far more menacing image than necessary. Annette and Eckor stood off to the side, and seemed to treat this like some sort of spectacle. I looked back at the door, then to my youngest sister. Maybe I was reading into it, but from the small quirk of her mouth she was enjoying this a little too much.

Annette shrugged. “It’s nearing mid-morning. I knocked, was gruffly told to ‘piss-off’ by a voice I didn’t recognize who offered no further explanation, and like any responsible sibling was concerned. So I came through the secret passageway in the fireplace. Eckor escorted me.”

“Apologies for the intrusion.” Eckor bowed.

“There’s a secret passageway in the fireplace?” With the pounding in my head, I was having trouble keeping up.

Annette walked to the foot of the room, reached over to pull a goddamn candelabra, and the entire fireplace rotated ninety degrees, revealing a dark passageway beyond.

“… Please tell me that’s a recent addition.”

“It’s been here for longer than either of us have been alive.” Annette blinked owlishly. “You didn’t know?”

That really could have come in handy last time.

“Now that we’ve got infrastructure out of the way, can I get an explanation for the wight in the goddamn room?” Alten glowered. He’d assumed a defensive stance, protecting me from the threat but not advancing on it out of order. Vogrin had forgone any attempt to look mortal, and with his black-veined alabaster skin, bloodied blindfold, and that he was floating, Alten’s concern was understandable. Hells, with the concentrated level of menace Vogrin was channeling, I was almost concerned, and I’d had years to get used to him.

Eckor had met Vogrin during the conflict on the journey home. But Annette had no prior experience with the demon. Which made her lack of reaction stand out all the more.

I rubbed my face. “Alten, this is Vogrin, my demon. And despite being an eternal sourpuss, he’s mostly on our side.”

“So it is a demon.” Annette studied him, the explanation only seeming to interest her more.

“Mostly?” Alten’s eyes narrowed.

“Why didn’t you hide yourself?” I asked Vogrin, more than a little frustrated. I could have easily avoided this if he’d just stayed out of sight.

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Vogrin vibrated with rage, his fists clenched. “I accomplished the task that was set before me. My instructions after said task were to report directly to you. If I returned to the amulet, I would be insensate for quite some time. And seeing how I have very little mana to draw on given my host and drastic change of environment, and true invisibility is not a cheap spell, I had little recourse beyond dropping it.”

Alten had yet to lower his sword. “Bastard was watching me sleep. Just… standing over me.”

I groaned. I’d spent so much time with the demon that his more unsettling habits had become a matter of course. “Vogrin, are you bothering Alten intentionally, or just being yourself?”

Vogrin sniffed. “I am an intellectual above all else. And as an intellectual, I have a responsibility to investigate the inexplicable wherever I find it.”

I waited, not wanting to pull on any thread that would send him off on another rant.

Vogrin gestured to Alten. “He has a feeling of a power—of the same sort that might emanate from a mage of three or more elements, yet no mana to speak of.”

Alten’s eyes flicked toward me. “What the hells is he on about?”

I shook my head dismissively as Vogrin continued on, almost talking to himself. “It’s not an uncommon finding high potential mortals who have yet to awaken, but to not have a wisp of mana so late in life—”

“I ain’t that old—” Alten interjected.

“It’s almost like he’s broken. An inferno surrounded by stone, or a partially erased rune.”

“You little shi—”

Vogrin talked over him, still deep in thought. “Only it’s more accurate to say it’s not even there. The inferno, or the rune. His soul is entirely pedestrian. Which raises the question, if the feeling of power doesn’t stem from the soul, where does it stem from?”

“About to power my boot up your ass—”

Vogrin’s face lit up, as if something had just occurred to him. He directed the question at me. “Perhaps the secret lies in the musculature, similar to spirit beasts. May I flay him? Nothing extensive, just the upper left quadrant of his torso.”

“Okay.” Alten’s eyes narrowed, and he moved towards Vogrin with purpose.

“Enough.” I caught Alten by the shoulder, and leveled a long-suffering look at Vogrin. “No flaying. No unexpected experiments. Not now, not when I’m not paying attention. That’s a contractual order.”

“As always, your closed-mindedness knows no bounds,” Vogrin huffed.

Painstakingly slowly, Alten sheathed his sword, hand never moving far from the hilt.

But I was barely paying attention. Something Vogrin had said earlier lodged in my mind.

True invisibility is not a cheap spell.

The statement stuck out to me. Vogrin’s ability to move in and out of areas undetected had been routinely invaluable. If I’d just blundered in without his scouting and information, multiple environmental deathtraps and dangerous creatures would have killed me easily. But in all our time in the sanctum, I’d never bothered asking Vogrin how he pulled it off, just assumed it to be a demonic ability, or that he was perhaps phasing between planes.

But if it was a weaved spell that wasn’t entirely dependent on an element I was lacking, I could learn it. Between Eckor’s dual cast—made even more impressive in the context of using void with another element—and Vogrin’s invisibility, my to-do list was growing ever longer.

The crash of a battering ram echoed through my rooms. Everyone present jumped, including Alten, and to my surprise, Vogrin. The sound repeated twice more before the door swung open and revealed my father’s massive frame silhouetted in the morning light.

He panned the room with a slow look, eventually returning to me. “You’re up early.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Sleeping late is a novelty I’ve forgotten, sadly.”

“As it should be.” King Gil nodded approvingly. Then his mouth turned downward. “Though I question your priorities. I was told you commissioned an artist?”

“To update my inscriptions,” I filled in quickly. I’d considered doing it myself. The work on its own wasn’t terribly difficult, but considering the volume of modifications I needed, it seemed far simpler and time efficient to just pay someone to do it for me. I’d need to explain how to use the mana-infused ink, and the importance of not embellishing the designs I’d selected, but forgoing that, outsourcing the effort would reduce something a month’s worth of tinkering into several days.

The king considered that. “Magic is a sword like any other. I suppose maintenance would be in order, from time to time.”

I wasn’t used to him agreeing with me—or approving. Even after we’d dealt with the ambush on the road home together, it still threw me off.

And almost just as quickly, his demeanor changed, growing surly and ill-tempered. “There is a matter of some importance for us to discuss.”

My mind raced as I reviewed the events of the previous evening. There was plenty that happened the prior evening that he might take issue with. I’d shirked the proceedings twice, snuck off to Topside, raided the armory, and danced with Maya to close out the evening. He’d been laxer with me of late, but any of those improprieties would have precipitated a lecture in my previous life, if not a beating.

Whatever it was, he clearly wished to speak to me alone.

“A moment, while I put my affairs in order?” I asked.

When he agreed I turned to my sister first. “Annette. We can still do breakfast, but I’m running late. I’ll be meeting the artist in the infirma—best option for some privacy and a sterile environment. You okay with a change of venue?”

Annette nodded, curtsying to our father and hurrying away. King Gil’s lip curled, and he called after her, following out into the hallway.

“Eckor?” I prompted.

Eckor startled at the acknowledgement. “Yes, milord?”

“What were you here for?” I smiled thinly, patience running thin as I tried to give the man my full attention and still pick up what Annette and my father were talking about outside. “Was there a problem with the royal botanist?”

“No.” Eckor rubbed his face, and for the first time I noticed how tired he looked. There were bags under his eyes, and patchy stubble on his chin. “He was most agreeable. The lab they’ve given me is spacious—possibly a little too spacious—and they allowed access to all but the rarest materials.”

“Then what do you need?” I asked.

“A mattress.” He winced like he was asking too much. “A few pillows as well, if it’s not too much trouble.”

It took a second before I realized, and once I did, I could have kicked myself for the oversight. Eckor couldn’t stay with the Crimson Brand. He’d effectively defied them to help me, and they were as vindictive as they were enigmatic.

“Wait—Where did you sleep last night?” I asked.

“In the lab,” Eckor said, overtly miserable. “I had a bedroll, but it and the rest of my belongings were thoroughly displaced.”

Crimson Brand bastards. Have to deal with them, eventually.

“Uh. I apologize, my friend.” I ran a hand through my hair, trying to solve this quickly to not further exacerbate the situation with my father. “It’ll be simple enough to requisition some things. The least I can do. You said the labs were spacious. Would you prefer your own quarters, or a live-in situation at the lab, closer to your work?”

“Several of the materials I’m working with are volatile, liable to explode. Others are toxic. Others still are poisonous enough that if I inhaled a stray particle, I would begin frothing at the mouth and meet my end in minutes,” Eckor said. He wasn’t being sarcastic, exactly, just blunt and morose.

“Noted,” I muttered. There were several guest rooms in the castle I could assign him with no issue, but there were problems with Eckor’s situation I hadn’t fully considered. The first was the Crimson Brand. They seemed to blame Eckor for my father’s punishment, which meant he was absolutely in danger. People who spoke out about the Brand had a nasty habit of disappearing, and magicians who departed the institution with no love lost were even more likely to step off the edge of eternity. I’d need to make sure soldiers I’d vetted, preferably men and women with no ties or love for the Brand, were constantly on guard.

That would take time.

But maybe there was an easier solution. My rooms comprised the bedroom proper, a sitting room that doubled as a study, then into a second bedroom proper in case I entertained guests late into the night. “I’ll need to talk to the head servant, but we’ll have something for you shortly. Why don’t you stay here until we lock down something a little more permanent?”

Eckor’s jaw dropped. “I’m a commoner, my lord.”

“Blood matters little.” I turned him towards the sitting room, and pointed him to the door on the end. “I barely use the place. Rearrange it however you’d like. And get some rest.”

Eckor wandered through the sitting room in a daze and I closed the door behind him, giving Alten a look.

“He at risk?” Alten asked, always quick on the uptake.

“Oh, yes.” I rubbed the rest of the sleep from my face, still feeling odd and out of sorts. “You mind expanding your duties a bit? Monitoring him until I figure something out?”

“No trouble at all.” Alten smiled, a sliver of shadow from his helmet obscuring his eyes. “And if that expanded duty means eventually getting license to crack some pompous mage’s skull, all the better.”

“You realize I’m a mage,” I pointed out wryly.

“You don’t hail from the Crimson Brand. That’s enough for me,” Alten said, and I made a mental note to ask when I wasn’t running so low on time.

With that sorted, the only matter left to deal with was Vogrin’s. I looked him over. “Anything critical?”

Vogrin’s lips pursed. “Possibly.” He paused, glancing at Alten, then back towards the open door where my father had retreated. “Though nothing definitive, there were aspects of his behavior that were… concerning. He was not easy quarry.”

“Can it wait?” I asked. My father had finished talking to Annette and returned to my rooms, shutting the door behind him.

“As I said, there was nothing definitive.”

I nodded. “Then recover your strength. We’ll speak as soon as you’re able.”

Vogrin vanished, his body dissolving and losing shape as he disappeared back into the amulet around my neck, cold metal at my collarbone warming slightly.

Now that we were alone, my father broke out into a grin. It looked slightly unhinged on his face, almost menacing. “Elphion smiles on us today, boy.”

“Does he?” I asked. This wasn’t the beginning of the lecture I’d expected. This was something else.

King Gil’s smile grew wider. “What if there was a way to end this war before it even begins?”