Chapter Text
Her heels — impractically high and fastened at the ankles with delicate silver straps — clicked across the marble floor. The sound echoed through the cavernous hall as she approached the throne.
Click… click… click…
The room was a show of pure excess: enormous, opulent, and uncomfortably empty. There wasn't even a carpeted walkway, just a lilac marble path veined in iridescent copper and edged in an intricate gilded pattern, hence the click… click… click…
A scattering of courtiers and servants mingled around the edges, peering around towering columns to stare at her in apprehensive silence as she passed.
Serafina ignored them, her gaze unwavering as she walked toward the throne, which appeared to be approximately one mile away — or, at the very least, offensively far. She wasn't particularly adept at judging distance, but she was fairly certain that the entire row of shops outside the palace gates could fit in this room three times over. She increased her speed slightly.
Click-clack-click-clack-click-clack
It didn't seem to help.
She was out of breath by the time she was within speaking distance of the throne. She held up one hand, indicating she needed a moment before she could make her formal address, but it turned out to be unnecessary — the queen, an attractive, surprisingly youthful-looking woman with deep auburn hair and brown eyes flecked with gold, spoke first.
"Thank the gods you came!" the Queen wailed, her voice pitched perfectly to carry throughout the hall. The small entourage of courtiers surrounding her moved closer. "We are in desperate need of your aid! A moment more, and I fear it may have been too late!"
Serafina straightened up and swept her long, dark hair over one shoulder, skeptical. If the need had truly been so great, why hadn't the queen at least deigned to meet her at the gates?
Ugh.
Royalty.
"I would have met you at the gates," the Queen said quickly, as if reading her mind, "but I'm afraid my husband is in a perilous state!"
She gestured to the floor, and Serafina noticed, for the first time, a man spread out on a stretcher. He was older — though the queen's aura sparked with magic, so Serafina assumed she was using cosmetic spells, as most nobles did, to improve her appearance — and covered in a pile of blankets and furs. His skin was an unnatural, pallid gray color, and he didn't appear to be breathing. The aura around him also felt heavy with magic, but Serafina couldn't quite put her finger on what type; she'd need to perform a detect magic ritual for that.
She watched his face for any signs of life for several minutes, and then glanced back at the queen. "Are you sure he's…"
"He is! But only barely," the Queen said quietly, leaning down to stroke her husband's face before turning back to Serafina. "Please. They say you are a sorceress of great power, with magic that reaches beyond the borders of this plane."Serafina shifted uncomfortably. This was not her purview, and something — she couldn't quite put a finger on it, but something — seemed… off.
"I'm not a god," she said quickly. "Or even a cleric. I don't think there's much I can do. My magic is… volatile, at best—"
"I've tried clerics," the Queen interjected. "I've tried healers, both scientific and divine. I've begged the gods. Nothing has helped. Please."
"I…" Serafina hesitated. If clerics couldn't help this man, then he wasn't sick or injured. And that meant the only option was some sort of… magical bargain. A dangerous venture to undertake, especially when you didn't hold all the cards — and Serafina wasn't sure she even held a full hand. But she couldn't outright reject a queen. "The price would be… very great."
"Anything," the Queen said quickly. "I'll pay anything. Name it, and it's yours."
Serafina let the silence stretch, the theatrical part of her savoring the way the queen and her entourage held their breath. Then she said the most outrageous, outlandish thing she could imagine — a price so monstrous, so appalling, that it was clearly designed to force a rejection.
"Your firstborn child. Bound to me for eighteen years. To do with what I will."
A gasp rippled through the throne room. All eyes were on her. A couple of the courtiers looked like they might faint. The queen, however, simply blinked, and then nodded.
"Done," she said, without missing a beat.
Serafina's carefully-constructed loftiness faltered. "I… beg your pardon?"
"Agreed," the Queen said, her voice suspiciously calm and unwavering. "My firstborn child, in exchange for my husband's life. I will write it in a royal decree, witnessed by the court. The magic will bind it."
Serafina stared. This was not how this was supposed to go. The queen was supposed to scream, call her a monster… order the guards to imprison her until she obeyed. The misty step spell Serafina had been readying in anticipation fizzled in her palm.
"Your Majesty," she said, unable to hide the genuine note of confusion in her voice. "You… you do understand what you're offering? The future of your kingdom? The heir to your throne. Not gold, not jewels, but a… a person. Your child."
"Yes, yes," the Queen said quickly, almost dismissively. "My firstborn child. The heir to our kingdom. Yours, to do with as you wish, for eighteen years. It is a great price, but my husband's life is everything. Do we have an agreement?"
Serafina's skin prickled. This was a trap, obviously. A game she didn't understand the rules of. But now that the words had been voiced by both parties, her own power thrummed under her skin — eager for the contract, for the taste of such a potent, binding promise.
"I have your word?" she asked, a last-ditch effort at rationality. "This contract will be bound in magic. You cannot pay or fight your way out of it. Even my death will not remove your obligation to honor it."
"You have my kingdom's word," the Queen affirmed. "My vow."
Against her better judgment, Serafina nodded. "Very well."
She approached the throne, weaving a detect magic spell to determine what incurable magical malady she was dealing with. Her hands glowed and her magic sparked — a glittery flare of bright teal and silver — as she pressed them against the king's temples. The answer came to her in a hazy wisp that fluttered across her mind: Necromancy.
She pulled back, her eyes narrowing. Necromancy? That didn't make sense — necromantic spells were used on creatures that were already dead. Or…
She waved her hand in a delicate motion that looked like she was unraveling a thread of yarn, and muttered a soft, simple incantation. Dispel magic.
A soft teal glow wrapped around the king's body, and his eyes opened. He took a deep, theatrical breath, and the color flooded back into his cheeks.
"It's a miracle!" the Queen cried, rushing forward to embrace her husband — though her eyes remained on Serafina, sharp and triumphant.
"It was… a bad cold," Serafina pulled back, annoyed. A child could have detected what was wrong with this man. Surely not a single cleric had been within leagues of the palace. She wiped her hands on her dress as if they were dirty, and shook her head to clear it. "The magic is bound. Send for me when you have your… heir."
Feeling utterly flustered and outmaneuvered, she turned on her heel and misty-stepped out of the hall, not even waiting for an official thanks.
Her home, a modest townhouse on the edge of a quiet, wealthy neighborhood, was a blessing. The light, salty breeze off the Sea of Swords, the shelves lined with very lightly-used leather-bound tomes, the silence that was hers alone. She slumped into a comfortable armchair before her hearth, kicking off her heels and watching as the sheer, mesh skirt of her robe shimmered and pooled around her ankles. What a disaster. She'd been played. For what? She didn't know, and not knowing was the worst part of it.
She pondered for a moment, running her eyes over the shelves of books surrounding her. A faint shimmer in the air, like heat rising from a stone in summer, caught her attention. It coalesced in the center of her small study, resolving into the shape of a man. He was tall, with the broad-shouldered build of a soldier and the unruly dark hair of a scholar. He looked around her room with an expression of polite, bewildered curiosity, his dark eyes glinting gold in the firelight.
Serafina was on her feet in an instant, a ball of crackling, silver-streaked teal energy forming in her palm.
"Who the hells are you?" she snarled. "How did you get through my wards?"
The man flinched at her reaction, raising his hands placatingly.
"I have no idea," he said, and to her immense irritation, he sounded genuinely sincere. "One moment I was in the training yard, and the next…" He gestured vaguely to her bookshelves. "Here. In your… office? Study? Which, by the way, appears to contain an impressive, if modest, collection of arcane texts. Are you a wizard?"
"Of course not," she scoffed, taking a threatening step forward. "Get out."
"Right, of course," he said, though he didn't move. His eyes were fixed on the roiling ball of energy in her palm. "A… sorcerer, then? A warlock? Some kind of mage."
"I am the woman who is going to turn you into a pile of ash if you don't vacate my property in the next three seconds."
"Understood," he said, though he still made no move to leave. He didn't even glance toward the door. Instead, he studied her for a moment — and then his eyes lit up, as though he'd just figured something out. "You must be a sorcerer." He snapped his fingers, and a crackling ball of energy, identical to hers but deep purple and twisted with gold, appeared above his hand. "I can feel it."
Serafina hesitated. Mages weren't uncommon, but the lazy ease with which he manipulated his own sphere was, well… unexpected, to say the least.
Who was he?
A trespasser, that's who. Hesitation over, she flung her orb at him.
"Okay, now, let's just calm down," he said, raising his hand quickly. The orb slammed against an invisible shield inches from his palm and dissolved into a flutter of sparkles. "I think we ought to figure out why I'm here, first, before we resort to violence." He looked entirely too pleased with himself.
"You tell me!" she spat, reaching deeper and grasping at her magic. Gods, she knew she shouldn't have wasted valuable spells on that ridiculous royal debacle.
"Well, you see, I honestly have no idea," the man continued to look charmingly perplexed. "And I can't think of anything except… oh." He grimaced, and she narrowed her eyes.
"What?" she said, tersely. "What is it?"
"Look, this is going to sound a bit… forward, but you haven't entered into any contracts, recently, have you? Made any deals? Promises?"
Serafina froze. "How did you know about that?"
"Godsdammit," he breathed, the words a prayer of profound exasperation. He ran a hand through his already messy hair. "I can't believe she actually… of course she did."
"Who did what? What are you talking about?"
He looked at her, a wry, self-deprecating smile touching his lips. "My mother. She can be a bit… overbearing, at times. And, recently, she's been hounding me about… well, a variety of things, but," — he paused, his gaze sliding purposefully over her — "Well, let's just say you're very pretty and, I assume, single."
Realization, cold and sharp as an icicle, slid down Serafina's spine. She stared at him — at the confident set of his shoulders, the regal line of his jaw, the annoyingly unbothered, smug expression on his face.
"Oh no," she whispered. "No."
"I'm afraid so," he said, giving a little bow that was more ironic than deferential. "My name's Gale. Prince Gale, I suppose. Crown prince, reluctant heir, wizard of considerable acclaim, scholar of exceptional accomplishment, and, as of about an hour ago, your… property." He smirked. "Or so it would seem."
She sank back into her chair, feeling weak. This was the trap. This was the game.
"So you're—"
"My parents' firstborn child," he leaned back against her fireplace and winked. "Only child, actually. Magical contracts are notoriously full of loopholes."
"I didn't even want a child," she grumbled. "Your mother had the audacity to send me a summoning portal disguised as a letter, and then she— she practically thrust her firstborn upon me in exchange for, what, a simple act of dispel magic?! The king was under a feign death enchantment — and a shoddy one, at that!"
Gale shrugged. "I suppose the details don't really matter, do they," he mused, pulling one of her books off of the shelf and flipping it open. He leafed through the pages as he continued to talk. "I'm here, and I'm yours. What's your name, by the way?"
"Serafi—" she started instinctively, before catching herself. "Sera. Just call me Sera."
"Sera," he smiled, and a she felt an odd flutter somewhere between her chest and her stomach. "Well, Sera, what would you like to do?"
"I would like you to leave," she said flatly.
"Of course," he said. "Understandable. This must be a surprise, though I can't imagine someone who enters into powerful, magically binding contracts without doing even a modicum of research first, is all that unused to… surprises." He gave her a pointed look, and she fought the overwhelming urge to roll her eyes.
"But, as it is — ahem — a powerful, magically binding contract, I'm quite sure it's not that simple," he continued. "I can leave, certainly, but I imagine it's likely I'll just… reappear here. Eventually. In your home." He closed the book and looked around again, a speculative gleam in his eyes. "It's not bad, as far as gilded cages go. Cozy. Is that a starflower? I'd love a tour."
She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw a fireball. She wanted to rewind the day and toss the queen's summons into the harbor.
"Get. Out."
"Alright, alright," he said, raising his hands again. He carefully re-shelved the book, and walked toward the door, opening it and stepping into the entryway. He turned and gave her one last, unreadable look. "It was lovely to meet you, Sera. See you soon."
And he was gone.
Serafina listened to her front door open and shut, and muttered a cantrip to slide the lock in place. Then she sat in silence, her mind a maelstrom of fury and bewilderment. She was an idiot. This was what she got for helping people. She had made a vow to a queen — one that couldn't, as she had stated herself, be paid off, fought out of, or even voided by death — and now she was stuck with a smug, handsome prince in some sort of deranged royal matchmaking scheme. And on top of that, he manipulated the Weave almost as well as she did (she wasn't going to admit, not even in her own mind, that he might be on her level — or better). She buried her face in her hands and groaned.
Ugh.
Wizards.