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Commoners can marry whoever and as many people as they wish, but a noble is expected to marry a mage and a warrior. To balance them out, for council, for tradition, for multiple perspectives, to couch their bets that there will at least be one combination that will bear a heir.
Callum is a prince, but a step-prince. The oldest son, but not the king’s son. He is not crown prince. This is why he had, rather naively, assumed that he would be free to purse his marriage at his own leisure, even if it would have to be the traditional noble triad. The succession did not rely on him.
And then there is a moonelf, the unhatched but still alive dragon prince, a self ascribed quest, and then--
And then failure. He had not managed to sneak away unnoticed from the castle with both Rayla and Ezran and the egg. They had not come back for him. They had an urgent quest, after all, and they could do it without him. Perhaps even better without him. Fewer people to feed, to hide, to slow them down. All he can do is trust them.
Even though Rayla is an elf and a stranger and an assassin, even though Ezran is his little brother and he should be there to protect him--
“You’re going to have to be king now,” Viren says solemnly, putting a hand on his shoulder.
King Harrow is dead. Callum had never been meant to inherit, to rule. King Harrow is dead. Ezran is gone, out of his reach. King Harrow is dead.
The funeral is rushed, the people disturbed.
“Where is Prince Ezran?” people whisper to each other, and then shout at him.
“Prince Ezran has sadly been kidnapped and murdered by a moonelf assassin,” Viren says for him.
No, he isn’t. Rayla wouldn’t do that. Right? Even though she’d come so close before she saw the egg. She wouldn’t. She can’t.
“Prince Callum is our ruler now,” Viren says, “the coronation will be tomorrow morning.”
Mutters of discontent. They all know that King Harrow isn’t his-- his--
Wasn’t his dad.
There is a yawning pit in his stomach. Claudia is looking at him out of the corner of her eye. He’d chained her up and stolen the Primal Stone out of her hands to try and run off with his brother and a moonelf assassin. He’d put his trust in a stranger that he had no reason to believe over her. It had been gut instinct. He wonders if she’s told anyone. She probably thinks that he was tricked, is devastated, guilty, bereft.
She wouldn’t be half wrong.
Soren, the one who had caught and ‘saved’ him, yawns. He looks exhausted and not bored, at least.
Despite Opeli’s protests, the funeral goes on. Viren orders Claudia to force the issue, and she does so without hesitation.
Callum doesn’t say a word.
In his bed that night he whispers to himself, testing the words out, a quiet whisper, “My dad is dead.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. He cries until he falls asleep.
The crowd before him is large. He’s standing where his father would stand to address the people. He doesn’t feel tall enough, big enough. His voice too weak. Only good at drawing. A king needs to be more than that, than him. Especially a king in war time.
Viren has almost placed the crown upon him when Aunt Amaya rides in.
“What do think you’re doing, Viren!?” Gren calls out, translating for her.
“What needs to be done,” he calls out. Gren has to repeat his words to Amaya, as he’s standing to far away for her to easily read his lips.
Callum’s heart is doing something complicated and painful inside of his chest. He wants to run to her. He wants to sink into her too tight embrace like he used to as a little kid.
He stays standing where he is, posture perfect and straight.
“He’s just a child!” Gren calls out for her.
“He will be king,” Viren says. “Our kingdom will not prosper without a ruler, and he is the only one left. Unless you think you deserve the throne more?” he asks challengingly, an accusation.
“We do not know that Prince Ezran is dead yet,” Amaya signs. “There is no corpse.”
“Probably because the moonelf ate it,” one of the commoners loudly mutter.
Callum doesn’t believe that that’s true. He has to believe that that’s not true, or else he’ll fall apart here, in front of everyone.
“Have you seen him?” Viren asks pointedly.
“We’ve barely even looked for him. The Crown Prince deserves a bit more than a token effort, Viren.”
“Very well. You may look for him, but in the meanwhile Prince Callum will sit on the throne.” Viren looks at him. “King Callum.”
And then he places the crown on him. It’s a heavy and strange weight.
My dad wore this, he thinks, and clenches his hands into tight fists, nails digging into the palms of his hands. His eyes burn. He can do this. He has to do this. Rayla and Ezran will will deliver the egg to Xadia, will stop the war, and he’ll hold down the fort here. He’ll be a good king.
There’s no other choice.
“Long live the king,” Viren says. Aunt Amaya doesn’t look happy at all.
Callum still doesn’t say anything. His voice would shake. He’d stutter. It would be unkingly.
“Go to bed, Callum,” Viren kindly tells him, even though the sun is high in the sky. “I can look after things for now.” He pats Callum on the shoulder and gently pushes him in the direction of his chambers.
“R--right,” he chokes. “Thanks.”
He wouldn’t know where to even begin, being a king. He leaves.
He wishes he could find the letter King Harrow-- his dad, had left him. He wishes he knew what was in it.
“Step-prince,” Soren calls out through the door. “Shit, I mean, uh, King Callum? Your Highness? Damn, that’s weird.”
At least they agree on something.
“Come out of your room,” he says, and he sounds more awkward than bossy for once. “You’ve got, ummm. Sword practice?”
“I don’t even like sword practice,” he calls out. He doesn’t.
“I’m pretty sure that the king needs to be good at swording, your high dorkiness.”
“The king needs to be good at making the right decisions, and making people follow those decisions,” he says, and doesn’t get out of bed. He’s doomed. He’s a kid, a step son, a last resort, all alone. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.
“So you just need, like, someone smart to help you make the right decisions and someone scary and impressive to make people do as you say on your side. Duh. Easy.”
“Easier said than done,” he says. Rayla and Ezran were the closest thing he had to allies, and now they’re far gone. Aunt Amaya and Gren are off hunting them down. And dad’s…
At least Viren’s here. At least he isn’t making Callum come out of his room.
Soren tries to cajole him out of his room a bit more, but he loses interest quickly. Or maybe he actually feels bad.
That’d be pretty unusual of Soren. But it’s pretty unusual for the king to die too.
Soren gives up, and Callum remains in his bed.
Callum is listless for hours, until the thought of forgetting King Harrow’s face suddenly lances through his mind and he springs up like he’d just gotten hit by lightning. There are portraits of his father of course, statues-- he’s the king. But he’s always solemn and dignified in those. What if Callum forgets what it looked like when he warmly smiled at him, the way his eyes crinkled as he laughed at some joke Ezran had just made? It would be lost.
He draws every expression he can remember until his hand cramps. Dozens of sketches, getting them on paper as fast as possible.
“You’re very good,” Claudia says right into his ear, and he screams and stands up from his chair so quickly that it falls over.
“What!” he says, voice breaking. He looks to the door that should’ve been locked. It’s standing open. He looks to Claudia, who’s grinning and waving at him. “How!”
“Uh, mage, remember?” she asks, one eyebrow raising as she points at herself.
The lock on the door is smoking. So that’s probably ruined.
“Um, right,” he squeaks, rapidly beginning to feel stupid. “Right, yeah, of course.”
“Where’s your crown, your highness?” she asks, and there’s no mocking or awkwardness to the title, completely sincere. It’s hard to hear in in its own way.
His eyes dart over to where he’d set it on his nightstand and left it.
“Well, I guess you don’t have to put it on, since you don’t really have to leave your room to eat.” She grins at him. Her eyes are very green. He wants to see if he can mix his paints until he can find that exact shade. “What’s the point of being king if you can’t at least get room service?”
“Eat? Roomservice?” Just then, as if reminded that food is in fact a thing, his appetite returns all at once and with a vengeance, his stomach rumbling embarrassingly loudly.
She laughs and pokes him in the stomach. “My, what a beast you have locked away inside you, Callum! You simply have to introduce us sometime, I bet I could make some truly awesome spells with it.”
He feels a blush rising to his face. He can’t bring himself to knock her hand away, but he takes a step back. “Excuse me.”
“I’ll find it in me to forgive you if you invite me to lunch with you,” she says, smiling.
Everyone looks so solemn or pitying or disappointed when they look at him, lately. Claudia’s as cheerful as ever. It’s a breath of fresh air.
“Uh, ah, okay,” he says, laughing nervously.
“And my brother,” she says, and for some reason a blush seems to be rising to her face too as she averts eye contact.
“Sure,” he says quickly, and then bites his tongue at it. Why had he said that? Soren might not be working against him when it came to his crush on Claudia, but he just turned down alone time with her so he could be around and make fun of him.
Soren’s not so bad though, when he isn’t pushing him into the mud or being an ass about the step son thing. Awful jokes. Nothing in common with him. But he wasn’t so bad.
And so Claudia goes and gets someone to deliver food to his room so he doesn’t have to put on his dad’s crown and pretend like he knows what he’s doing, and goes to fetch Soren. Callum takes the opportunity to hide his drawings of King Harrow and start finger combing his hair.
When Claudia drags Soren into his room a servant is already laying the food out on a table, and Claudia’s whispering something into Soren’s ear. Soren has that particular disbelieving baffled look he gets whenever his family talks about magic to him, and keeps darting looks at Callum.
“Seriously?” he asks.
“Seriously,” Claudia says. “Dad said so. And shh!” She turns a dazzling grin over towards Callum. “Hi, Callum!”
Callum waves at her, feeling unbearably awkward. “Hi Claudia… and Soren.”
Soren looks at him strangely for another minute, and then swings his attention over to the food. He brightens at the sight of it. The cooks are clearly trying to put their best foot forwards with the new king, even though Callum would of course never think to replace them. Ezran adores the head chefs jelly tarts.
And now he’s thinking about Ezran. Maybe he should draw him too, so he doesn’t forget his face--
“Aw, stop looking so glum!” Claudia says cheerfully, punching him surprisingly hard in the shoulder. “Dig in!”
And then she’s forcibly ushering him into his chair, Soren settling down to the one at one side of him, Claudia down in the other. Claudia sits with her legs together, Soren with his spread apart. Soren picks up a chicken leg with his bare hand in the presence of royalty with zero thought. Claudia happily follows. Callum stares, stunned at how much she manages to cram into her mouth while still somehow having it be daintily pursed. She looks like a chipmunk.
“Sho I wash thinking,” Soren says, talking with his mouth full.
“Er, Soren, I can’t really understand you,” he says.
Soren swallows his mouthful too early, coughs a bit, hitting his chest, and gulps down some water to ease it down. He burps, but with his mouth closed.
“I was thinking,” he says, “how much are you, like, actually gonna rule, and how much is dad gonna do?”
“What?” he asks.
“Because, like, in the last few days it’s basically been a hundred percent dad making decisions and doing stuff with you moping around and being the figurehead or whatever. Just curious.”
Callum stares at him.
“Soren, be sensitive,” Claudia chides. “His entire family was brutally murdered this week, remember?”
Callum stares at her.
“Oh, um,” she says belatedly, “I’m sure they didn’t feel that much pain!”
He’s not even sure how to respond to this. He numbly takes a drink and tells himself that Ezran isn’t dead. More out of the idea that he thinks he should need it than that he actually does. He’s so incredulous he doesn’t even feel hurt or horrified.
While he’s been zoned out, it seems like the siblings have been exchanging silent facial expression instead of actual words. They seem utterly fluent in it. He has no idea what’s going on.
“Viren isn’t the king,” he says. “He shouldn’t be doing stuff without-- without at least telling me.”
“Well how’s he gonna tell you stuff with you crying in your room?” Soren asks.
Callum is ninety percent certain that Claudia just kicked him underneath the table. He puts a forkful of food in his mouth to hide the fact that it made him smile on reflex.
“Here’s what I think you should do,” Claudia says. “Take a bath, put on some clean nice clothes, the crown, and then get out there and be all kingly. Between Soren and me we should be able to catch you up on stuff!”
“That’s,” he says, and then has to stop to swallow. “That’s very… helpful, of you.”
Almost like having allies. His heart aches at the idea. He needs some of those so badly.
Claudia’s smiles are so beautiful. When Soren echoes her, a cocky lopsided thing, he’s abruptly struck by how handsome he is.
He looks away, face red.
“We’re happy to help!” Claudia says cheerfully, and then with obvious subtlety elbows Soren in the gut.
“Uh, yeah,” he says, and then glares at Claudia. She gives him a pointed look and there’s something like a realization rolling across his face before he straightens and looks at Callum. He does a little bow, and he’s shocked at it, Soren who’s knocked him into the dirt more times than he can count showing him sincere respect. “You can count on us, your highness.”
It turns that Viren has been gearing up to take an aggressive stance against Xadia. They’ve been on the defensive for a while now, but the murder of-- of their king, it makes sense that that would change. It wouldn’t go well with Ezran and Rayla’s mission to return the dragon prince to Xadia and end the war, though.
Callum puts on his elaborate and dark funeral clothes. It’s for his dad, but he doesn’t realize that it could be taken as direct disagreement with Viren about not mourning him for the full seven days until he walks into court and there’s some scandalized gasps and murmuring. He stiffens, forces himself to keep walking, hopes to god that he doesn’t flush.
“Your highness,” Viren says, his brow furrowing in a look of concern. “Are you sure you should be up and about so soon?”
“I am the king,” he says.
“You are young,” Viren says sympathetically.
“You’ve been making some big decisions without me,” he says, not sure how to respond to that one. He’s right. But so is Callum.
“You disapprove, Callum?” Viren asks skeptically, eyebrow raised.
He dropped the ‘your highness’, he realizes. Could have been a slip. Recent transition, not used to thinking of Callum in that way.
“The last time we let elves slip into our kingdom, King Harrow died.” He makes himself make eye contact. “I’d rather not have a repeat incident. High alert. Hold the Breach.”
And then he leaves before he trips or stutters or starts apologizing.
Viren visits him the very next day.
“Callum,” he says, “I’ve seen the way you look at my daughter.”
“Um,” he says, voice high, images of being turned into a toad running through his mind.
Viren smiles paternally at him. “And you seem to get along with my son.”
“More or less.” Now he’s not sure where the conversation is headed any longer.
“And you’re king now.”
“Yeah, yes.”
“It’s time for you to get married.”
“What?” he yelps.
“Soren and Claudia are both born into good standing, and they’re highly skilled. And they fit. A warrior and a mage. They’re perfect for you.”
Callum opens and then closes his mouth.
Viren smiles at him like that’s confirmation enough and pats him on the back. “I’ll start arranging things.”
“Wait,” he says as Viren walks away. He reaches out and snatches thoughtlessly at his robes, holding him back. “Wait, wait, wait! What!?”
“Callum,” Viren says disapprovingly, tugging his robes out of Callum’s hands.
“Married!? Just like that?”
“Well of course there will be some more proceedings to make it a touch more official, but it’s basically a foregone conclusion, yes.”
“Why!? How!?”
Viren sighs through his nose, eyes closed, and then claps Callum’s shoulder.
“It was always an understanding between Harrow and I that you and my children were intended for each other. You all know each other, get along, and it’s best to marry people that you already trust if it’s an option. I’m sorry this all had to be broken to you so suddenly at such a tumultuous time, but, well… that’s just the way it is sometimes, with royalty.”
“I,” he says.
Viren looks him in the eyes. “You need people who you can trust. People at your side that you can rely on to have your back. Allies. Let my children be that. I promise that they won’t let you down.”
Allies. The word hits him like something physical.
He feels so lonely, without Ezran. (Without his dad.)
“Okay,” he rasps.
“Great!” Viren says.
“--Wait!” he calls out again as Viren turns around to walk away. Viren stops in his tracks to deeply sigh, his shoulders moving with it again. He turns around slowly with a patient smile on his face.
“Yes?” he asks politely.
“Are Soren and Claudia okay with this?”
“Certainly. Good night, Callum.”
Viren quickly leaves before Callum can voice any other questions.
Just like how the funeral was rushed, so is the wedding.
“Can my wedding dress be black?” Claudia asks.
“I don’t see why not,” Callum says.
The wedding planner has a particularly pained look in her eyes, but she smiles and nods.
Claudia smiles at him. He can’t tell if it reaches her eyes because he hasn’t been able to bring himself to look at Claudia’s eyes since they officially became fiances. It’s just so-- strangely mortifying. And weird. Really, really weird. He feels absurdly guilty over the happiness he feels about it.
“There better be jelly tarts,” Soren says.
“Of course, sir,” the planner says.
Soren also being his fiance brings the surrealness to a whole other level, though. Maybe if he’d just thought to keep the possibility of arranged marriages in the back of his mind while he’d grown up then he wouldn’t be so startled, but he is. He’s very startled.
“Can we do a blood oath?” Claudia asks.
“U--um,” Callum says.
“That’s gross,” Soren says, saving him.
“I think it’s pretty romantic!”
“Bleh. No.”
“Fiiiine.”
Soren and Claudia both seemed to be far less startled about the whole ‘suddenly engaged’ thing than he was. Maybe they’d known before he had. The thought of Viren telling his kids, but Harrow not him-- stings. He makes himself not dwell on it.
“Original vows,” he says.
“Yes, sir,” the planner says immediately, while Claudia and Soren both look at him. He flushes and looks away. Somehow, the combined stares of both of his fiances is something he’s no match for.
He can feel their curiosity, but he doesn’t tell them that he just wanted to put his own touch on their wedding the way they were doing. Wanted to be a part of it. That’s silly. Of course he’s a part of it. He’s the noble of the triad, the one the marriage centers around.
He realizes that now he’s going to have to come up with vows to say to them in front of everyone, and just sits there and lets the panic slowly flood him as the planner prattles about bouquets.
Opeli, the officiator, is furiously scowling at the indecency of it all. A wedding so quickly after a funeral, tsk tsk. A wedding marrying the king to Viren’s children, ugh. Claudia, who lit the bonfire against Opeli’s will. Claudia, spectacular and grinning in a magnificent black nontraditional dress.
Callum’s having a hard time paying attention to Opeli’s disapproval, standing next to that.
“Jelly tart?” Soren offers through a mouthful of his own jelly tart. Callum looks at him. He has clearly stuffed several snacks into his pockets to get him through Opeli’s clipped recitations. His hair looks soft, his jaw hard, shoulders broad, waist trim, tall. There’s a bit of jelly on his lip.
Callum feels sweaty. He can’t move to tell if he’s sweating or not. There’s an entire church worth’s of people staring at him.
Soren shrugs and eats the jelly tart himself. Claudia reaches across Callum and grabs one from Soren’s pockets and starts eating it herself. It is literally impossible that no one has noticed. Opeli looks like she’s about to pop a vein.
How are both of them so beautiful. How are both of them so, so silly. How are both of them seriously marrying him.
It feels like a dream.
“You may now recite your vows,” Opeli says.
Claudia, the mage, goes first. She turns to him, and her smile fades as an earnest expression takes it place. “Callum,” she says, “I want for you to know that I want nothing but the best for our kingdom, and you. My intentions are good. My powers are awesome. You can count on me.” She makes intent eye contact with him. “Count on me.” More order than pleading.
He believed her.
But his gut had told him to go with Rayla instead of Claudia.
Because something was wrong. Because she’d, she’d had the wrong information somehow, or--
Soren tugs him around to face him, and he looks down at him with uncharacteristic seriousness.
“I will protect you,” he says, “no matter how little you like it. I’m a badass and you’re just gonna have to deal with it, alright?” He shakes him a little. This must be the most inappropriate royal wedding of the century. “Now stop being so gloomy!”
His brain translates that from Soren to English, and he smiles reluctantly despite himself. He has every right to be ‘gloomy’, but-- Soren’s worried. He can see it in the way he frowns downs at him, inspecting his face closely. He nods, and Soren’s relaxes, letting go of him.
“Soren,” he says. “Alright. I’ll try and let you protect me more. It is your job, and I don’t really want to die. But try and follow me into danger to have my back, instead of trying to shove me into safe, boring places, please? I’m the king. I’ve got stuff to do, a kingdom to represent and protect and all that.”
He watches Soren start to slowly chew that over, and he turns to Claudia next.
“Claudia,” he says. She smiles at him and he reflexively smiles back. “You, uh, look great. Really great.” He forcibly pulls himself back on track. “I know that you’re awesome, and I do trust that you’re trying to do good.” But, he bites back, because they have an audience, and he still isn’t sure what exactly the but is. “I hope that we’ll be able to be on the same side,” he says instead. “I hope that we’ll be able to end the war together.”
She looks… pleased and thoughtful, he thinks. She’s so smart, and weird. It’s pretty great.
“You may now kiss,” Opeli says, less angry.
Claudia and Soren both take one of Callum’s hands and kiss the knuckles in synchronization. The audience claps, and they turn around to see Viren practically glowing with satisfaction in the first row.
Aunt Amaya’s going to be furious at missing his wedding, he belatedly realizes, and suppresses a groan.
The rest of the evening is a blur of congratulations and complicated three person dances, the gaudiest gifts people could scrounge up at such short notice, and lots and lots of cake. Claudia snuck out a book out from her underneath her skirts halfway through to page through interestedly, and Callum had nearly died of envy. Soren had found a chair in a corner to nap in three quarters of the way through to snore his way through the rest of the part and Callum had been just as jealous. His feet are tired and so is his mouth from smiling so much.
The trials of being the king and not just a spare prince is that he doesn’t manage to sneak away until the party’s almost over. He leaves, and breathes in the dark fresh clear air and solitude, the overwhelming din of the party reduced to distant tinkling of glasses and laughter and torchlight, like waves heard from the shore.
He breathes until his heart stops thundering. Thinks, count on me. Thinks, I will protect you.
He wants to accept it immediately, blindly, without reservation. But something is holding him back. Something’s wrong, and if he could just put his finger on it then maybe he could finally have some allies, could trust the people he’s now married to--
There’s a fluttering of wings, and suddenly the large dark and green form of dad’s bird lands on the tree branch a few feet in front of him.
“Pip,” he exclaims, shocked. “You scared me! How did you get out of your cage?”
Pip’s feathers are ruffled, messy. He sings at him.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” he says. A joking grin, “I’m not Ezran.” The humor quickly fades. “I don’t know where he is, either. How he’s doing. Some brother--”
Pip sings at him again, sounding almost urgent. Callum looks at him more closely.
“Wait-- is that--”
It is. In Pip’s left tallon. The scroll. The one dad left for him. His breath is caught in his throat, and he reaches for it desperately without thinking. Pip doesn’t even try to stop him.
Dad’s last words. Answers, hints, clarity. Finally.
Movement behind him. He turns around to see Soren holding back a branch, Claudia following after him.
“What’s going on here?” she asks, looking at the scroll and Pip curiously.
“It’s rude to ditch the party without the people you just married,” Soren says.
“You looked cozy where you were sleeping,” he says. Pauses, thinks. “Can you.”
“Can we…?” Claudia asks.
“Can you guys promise to keep a secret?”
They look at each other, and then at him. “Yes,” they say in unison.
He smiles, relieved. “Then I guess we can read this together.”
He opens it, and they do.