Chapter Text
When Naberius Tern was fourteen, he knew he was going to die.
The twin princesses of Ida used to walk in lockstep, used to be entirely identical except for the way one smiled rarely with a bare curl of her lips and the other with all the pallid frailness of her body - but as they grew Ianthe fell back like the shadow of death that walked behind life's glowing image. He saw this from afar, of course, his family was in related social circles, but not very close - he was getting better and better at the sword, he knew he was in consideration for the position of their first cav when they were ten but -
they chose someone else, and she barely lasted three months.
Coronabeth Tridentarius had laughed when they asked about her. She had been beautiful and promising and from a good family, although not an excellent one, and she had been missed. Corona had laughed, and tossed her hair behind her shoulder, showing off the intricate high neck of her shirt. She leaned in and her audience was compelled to lean in closer to her sparkling eyes.
"She just..." Coronabeth tapped her gloved hand on her lower lip consideringly. "wasn't quite the thing. She would have been grand as someone else's cav but - well."
Ianthe snorted, in the circle but not caught up in her sister's orbit. "Really, Rona, you think so?"
Coronabeth laughed and it rang easy and free, something you want to trust. "Ianthe, you know they say not to speak ill of -" and then she glances around, like she's let slip a secret she's not supposed to tell.
Ianthe's laugh was cool but not desert dry. "Who am I to argue, sister," said Ianthe, who regularly called Coronabeth an idiot in public. "I bow to your superior wisdom."
And Princess Coronabeth made a face at Princess Ianthe, and Princess Ianthe made a face back, and the whole room laughed at the death of the Princesses of Ida's first cav.
It wasn't proper for the Heir(s) to the Third not to have a cav, so they soon were assigned another one. One who was maybe not as accomplished, one from not as good a family. But their father did manage to get one who was beautiful.
He lasted longer than the first one, but not by much.
And so was the life of the Princesses of Ida for many years, Coronabeth growing more beautiful and Ianthe sharing in her spotlight, both of them skilled and clever and an honor to have at your party for their conversation, not just their coy laughing scandal, their unexplained gaping maw of death.
They brought in new fashions - high collars, gloves, seventh-like sentiments. Wouldn't it be romantic to die in their (Coronabeth's) hands, in the fashion of whatever popular rumor? To be spread out at table and feasted on as a particular delight, to play a game of death for months before having the life pulled out of you with the twitch of a finger, for whatever purpose? Some faced their fear by courting their favor; some ignored their unease and courted them for other reasons. Some slunk and hid and left every time they heard their names.
Their favor or not didn't matter, if they were chosen they couldn't refuse.
Naberius Tern had spoken to them. He had been at a party and he had embroidered his own sleeves, roses faceted like jewels climbing up his arm, and the mood was loud and boisterous until Ianthe's bare hand reached out like a claw and curled around the thorns on his arm, drawing him closer to take a closer look at his sleeves. Then he stopped being able to breathe. Her eyes had gone sharp, free from their affected laziness by - by something in him.
"Coronabeth," she sang, a little louder than a whisper but somehow piercingly carrying. "Come look at this. He stitched this all by himself."
And then Coronabeth moved in, closer than she habitually stood to anyone despite her welcoming air, and took this other sleeve. "Oh, this is very good! The stitches are so small and intricate." She smiled, wide and easy, but Naberius saw the same gleam of hunger that he saw in Ianthe's eyes. He saw her teeth.
"Yes," he said, "yes, I - this is my work."
They smiled at him, both at the same time, and he saw in the gleam of their teeth himself, ribcage cracked open and gasping his last breaths as they laugh and play with the blood pooling in the ruin of his torso.
"Most of the people at this party are awful bores," said Coronabeth conspiratorially, running her fingertips over the embroidered thorns, her other hand circling around his wrist and guiding him with her. "Come sit with us."
"You're one of those Terns, aren't you," said Ianthe, one thumb pressing on one of the jewel-roses on his forearm and following with Corona. "Mother is always encouraging us to make more friends of good breeding." He couldn't quite tell who in that equation she was mocking.
Her hand slipped down his arm to his hand without moving farther away from him, feeling at his sword calluses. She presses on the middle of his hand with her thumb and he can hear the satisfaction in her voice as she says "You use the rapier, Tern. Do you happen to be any good at all? Or at least passable."
Some of his pride shook back into him at that and he puffed up. "It's Naberius, actually, Naberius Tern, and yes I am very good."
Coronabeth found the small sofa she was looking for and threw herself on it, drawing Naberius to sit down next to her, close enough to kiss. Ianthe settled herself just as claustrophobically close on his other side. Coronabeth looked at him, and smiled, and in that moment something about her terrified him, something about her beauty from this close was so terrifyingly not quite right, like if she opened her mouth her face would crack open all the way to her ears like a wooden doll, like her eyes might darken and pool and overcome her whole face to eat the whole world whole.
She squeezed his wrist and ran her thumb over his pulse point. "Naberius Tern," she said, testing out the syllables.
"Not exactly a name made for nicknames," Ianthe murmured, thumb still pulsing in the center of his palm, "but I suppose we can make do."
Coronabeth brought her other hand up to his face and ran her gloved thumbnail over the line of his cheekbone, the fabric over the flat of her other nails resting over his lips.
He leaned away from Coronabeth and into Ianthe and Ianthe laughed into his ear as Coronabeth sighed blissfully. Coronabeth's hand moved to cup his cheek as Ianthe's hand casually crept around his waist.
"Naberius," she said, "I think we three are going to be the very best of friends."
The real paper the decree is on is thick and marbled a pale coffee color; he runs his thumb over the edge of it and it's too blunted to cut. He flinches anyway.
He hadn't even known their last cavalier was gone.
His mother smiles when she sees, wide and bright, but her teeth are flat and her eyes are wide like prey when she takes him to the station to send him on a quick trip to visit his great uncles at the Fifth.
The ship he is scheduled to take is boarding when a hand catches his forearm and spins him out of line.
"Naberius!" cries the eldest Princess of Ida. "And your mother, of course." She makes an elaborate little bow, a natural affectation unique to that shows off the glittering shards of red glass on the backs of her gloves.
"Lovely to get a chance to talk to you outside of a formal setting, Lady Tern. Too bad we seem to be interrupting your departure." Ianthe has her arms crossed. She looks more amused than vindictive, which calms Naberius. He wonders how many other cavaliers tried the same thing.
His mother opens her mouth and closes her mouth and says something about her uncles on the Fifth and they both laugh.
"Good luck on your trip!" Coronabeth beams.
Ianthe tucks her arm coquettishly through Naberius'. "We have very high hopes for our cavalier-to-be."
"Yes!" says Coronabeth. She seems genuinely very excited about this, glowing even brighter than her usual genial glow. The wide choker she's wearing today is red and gold, and matches her gloves perfectly. She takes his hand and turns it palm up towards his mother, her thumb pressing into the meat of his own, displaying the callus from when he wields the rapier. "He really is very good at dueling."
"We checked," Ianthe says at normal volume towards Naberius' ear, an open secret.
"You must be very proud," Coronabeth continues. Naberius can see his mother soften, and he finds where his tongue was stuck in his mouth.
"I told you I was good," he says, and it's weak to his own ears but at least he managed to say something rather than be a spectator to his own doom.
Coronabeth drops his hand and turns towards him, hair bouncing in her wake. "I know you told us, but now that we know you really should show us!"
"Corona's just wild about swords." Ianthe says dryly.
"Not all of us care about muscle just for its thanergy content, Ianthe." Coronabeth retorts. Ianthe hums. Naberius can feel her nails on his arm through his jacket.
"We wouldn't presume to ask for a demonstration before you've said your goodbyes, of course, would we sister," Ianthe says, faux solicitous.
Coronabeth's smile widens, and he can almost see the blood on her teeth. "Of course not, sister," she says.
And Naberius does want to say goodbye to his mother, he does want to hug her and maybe cry like a child, like the immature idiot he swears he isn't anymore, but even more than he wants that he wants neither of them to look at his mother the way Coronabeth is looking at him.
His eyes roll like a spooked horse, catching a last glimpse of his mother in his periphery (conflicted, sad, worried, still hungry for social status despite it all?) and he says "No, we're already done with that - I can show you to where I usually train?"
Coronabeth moves towards the exit and Ianthe drops his arm, walking a little behind and to the side of him, in his blind spot. It makes him speed up - to stay a little closer to both twins than he thinks he can stand.
"Oh do come see where our cavaliers practice," Coronabeth says. "There's lots of rapiers and offhands there, surely you can show us something as you're familiarizing yourself."
He feels himself puffing up about how all rapiers are not the same, about weighting and specificity and his knives.
"They are making some for you, too," says Ianthe, "they just aren't ready yet."
He turns his head and sees that Ianthe is dragging her feet, has turned her head to gaze back consideringly at his mother. "It still remains to see if you're worthy of them."
He's invited to a lot of parties in the few days before Tern becomes the Third. He goes to a few, ones above his paygrade that even his father might have trouble getting into for his jockeying, and father and son stand side by side as guests toast to his health and smile like jackals. Carrion feeders.
They ask him questions. Apparently the Princesses have never shown such specific interest in one of their future cavaliers. They picked him up from the airport personally! Apparently some previous reticents had been allowed to escape and then just banished. How had he managed to catch their eye? What had he done to command her attention?
He smiles and ducks his head and says "I don't know, I don't know," and tries not to let them see the whites of his eyes. *I don't know, but I'd stop it if I knew how,* he doesn't say. *I think it's too late to stop, I've been picked and considered and placed into their orbit. If I stop doing whatever it is I'll fall out of orbit and out of favor, and there will be a new Third to toast to.* He also doesn't say *I'm scared,* but he can tell they feel it. He can tell it makes them lean closer.
After the ceremony officially making him their cavalier, Naberius sits alone in the back of a private car with the twin Princesses of Ida, headed towards his new life. They're sitting together, across from him, and the car is so large that their knees don't even touch. Coronabeth is absorbed in her phone, gloves apparently either thin enough or conductive enough not to cause any issue with the screen, and Ianthe alternates between looking over her shoulder and gazing out the window. Sometimes she starts chewing at her nails.
Neither one of them is paying any attention to him at all.
Coronabeth snorts. "Look," she exults. "She bet on a full year, that hasn't happened in *ages.*"
Ianthe leans over and her eyes flick up at Naberius and the corner of her lips curls. "Who is this Edie? A cousin, consumed by sentiment?"
"Look at how much she put down! A very rich cousin, soon."
Ianthe is still looking at him. "We're not related she's... just a friend."
Ianthe reaches and taps Coronabeth's phone. "Just a friend, huh." They both look at the phone intently.
"Well, she's pretty enough, if you like that sort of thing," Coronabeth said charitably, even though there was no reason she had to be charitable. She may not have been on Coronabeth's level but she was... pretty enough.
If you liked that sort of thing.
Ianthe smiles and brings her hand up to touch Corona's high collar, and Coronabeth makes a face and swats her away to fall dramatically back in her seat.
"His just a friend won't be rich at all if he can't bring himself to try," says Ianthe. Coronabeth makes a face. "For things to come together we actually do need his cooperation."
Coronabeth straightens up with a little shimmy and... pouts. She sticks out her lower lip and opens her eyes wide and tilts her head just a little and puts her full attention on him. This is the least threatened he's ever felt while in her presence, and he knows it's dangerous. He knows. But he finds himself leaning a little towards her anyway.
"Naberius, oh won't you try? For us?" she asks.
"Like a good cav should?" says Ianthe, mocking.
"Like a good cav should?" repeats Coronabeth, turning her head so her hair falls next to her face in golden waves, looking at him beseechingly. Then she leans back and looks down and to the side.
"Father will be so annoyed if the cavalier we chose all by ourselves doesn't work out." she continues.
Ianthe drapes her hand across her forehead and monotonously says "He may even forbid us from going to the big ball."
Coronabeth rolls her eyes at that but she laughs too, breaking character and flicking her hair behind her shoulder. "We're the Princesses of Ida, we're invited to all the balls," she says archly.
Then she leans forward with her elbows on her knees and says "But sincerely, Naberius, all we're asking is that you try your best."
"And if I don't?" says Naaberius, gritting his teeth and refusing to cower back as soon as he says it. Coronabeth looks shocked but Ianthe is the one who laughs.
"She wasn't lying before, Father really would be annoyed," she drawls. "A promising swordsman from a good family..."
"But if he's not perfect he's not perfect," says Coronabeth.
"And we only accept the best," mocks Ianthe in a nasal voice. She throws her legs over Coronabeth's and settles leaning against the window, closing her eyes. "God that's tiresome," she mutters. Coronabeth hums in agreement, losing interest in Naberius entirely and balancing her phone on Ianthe's knee.
Ianthe yawns and arches her back. She says "Naberius is an old man name. I think I'm going to call you Babs."
Her eyes are only barely open but he can see in her face the glimmer of the expression that both princesses had before they were certain that they owned him. "Whatever else we say or do, Babs, we do sincerely hope that your best is good enough."