Chapter Text
Blood-red banners of Edenne snapped and writhed in the wind above him, the familiar crest of the Last Tree worked in black and copper threads. They flashed in the sun and slid through their own shadows in turn, the arching branches and ever-spreading roots nearly forming a perfect circle.
Simon used to look at those banners and feel a sense of belonging, a sense of pride. He used to look at that banner and know exactly where he stood - under its standard, in the vanguard. Then came a time when the red and the copper pierced him with shame, with betrayal and dread.
Now all it told Simon was that the wind was changing. He’d spent too long at sea not to know that a change in the wind could bring anything.
For the moment, he was hoping it would bring fish.
It was the first warm day of Spring, and Simon had managed to slip away to his favorite cove. Sure, it was harder to fish one-handed, and he still felt sick at the thought of actually going out on the water, even if he stuck to the shallows, but there was a secluded little fishing spot down the hill from the Citadel that no one else seemed to bother with. Simon had unbuttoned his doublet and let the sun warm his bones as the waves battered the rocks below.
For a moment, he was almost at peace.
But because the Trees had a cruel sense of humor in Simon’s experience, a moment was all they spared him.
At first he thought the noise was the sound of a banner grommet ringing against a flagpole, but soon it became distinguishable as the clank of armor. Soldiers moving his way.
Simon grabbed for his doublet and managed to work it up and over his stump when Sgt. Shapiro cleared the corner, two others following close behind. They stopped and saluted.
“Commander Fischer.” Shapiro said.
Simon threaded his right hand through the sleeve and returned the salute. “At ease, Sergeant.”
And because the Trees had a cruel sense of humor, Simon felt a fish tugging on the line. He began to reel it in, bracing the rod between his foot and a nearby rock.
“You have been summoned to the citadel, Commander.” Shapiro said, definitely not at her ease.
“Oh good.” Simon said insincerely, his attention on pulling this very stubborn fish out of the water. “Get the net, would you, Sergeant?”
“It is a summons from the Bishop, Commander.”
Simon froze. The Bishop was not a man to be kept waiting. He glanced over the edge of the water, to where his catch was thrashing. A writhing black tube of a body and a snapping jaw bounced on the end of the line. For a brief, horrifying second, Simon thought the eel might have Looked at him.
He dropped the line like it was hot metal. Hook, line, and rod alike slipped into the sea together.
Simon swallowed, and turned away, stomach threatening to turn. Taking a deep breath, he shoved the bucket of fish he’d already caught into the sergeant's hands and headed up the path to the Citadel.That was enough ocean for today. He could atone for the loss of resources later.
They left the little cove behind them, with only the crash of the waves to bid them farewell. There was no escaping that sound, not on an island kingdom like Edenne.
Arboretum, the capital city, stretched upwards from the harbor all the way to the top of the cliffs, the buildings close-kept, and spiky. The fact that the cheapest and most prevalent form of paint on the island was derived from seaweed meant that most buildings were painted green. Arboretum from a distance gave the impression of a large bed of moss clinging to the rocks.
The Edennese clung to their traditions in much the same way. Which meant that Simon’s father, the High Bishop, the Preacher King, did not know what to do with him.
It had all probably started before the Battle of Filament, but that was where Simon’s life had taken a sharp turn. Filament Fortress was supposed to be a glorified grain silo, a supply depot for the Ferran army. Simon’s crew was meant to raid the place while the remaining ships in the harbor kept the defenders distracted with cannonfire. But then Simon's commanding officer ordered the men to shoot everyone alive in the Fort’s walls.
The place had been full of refugees. Children, old folks. It was going to be a massacre of civilian lives. Simon told his men to stand down. Some of them even obeyed. It was a shit show.
It didn't matter, in the end. The cannon fire had accidentally hit some ancient fault line in the stone, and the whole fortress crumbled into the sea. Simon, his crew, and the small few who they managed to evacuate before the collapse? They were all that was left.
Then the Ferran army showed up, and Simon was the highest ranking Edenne officer alive on the scene, covered in the blood of wounded he'd tried to save.
Simon remembered a glimpse of the harbor as he was led away in chains, with those red banners shrinking in the distance. He'd disobeyed orders from Edenne, and Edenne demanded nothing less than absolute obedience.
He took the fall for all of it.They called him the Butcher.
Life as a prisoner of war certainly could have been worse. As an officer, Simon was kept in a solitary cell rather than having to scramble for rations or deal with prison yard politics. His men, however, did. And as they hauled rocks or whatever brutal labor they were subjected to, no doubt they cursed the day they ever ended up under the Butcher's command. Ferrans took a nasty delight in forcing Edennese prisoners to chop down trees and split logs. They left no time for prayers.
Simon was simply left to rot until the Ferrans could ransom him back to Edenne.
Edenne didn't want him. He'd thought that surely they'd at least pay a token sum for a prince of the Old Blood. Apparently the Bishop thought he needed to suffer more for his sins.
Finally, left with a prisoner they could not ransom, a small team of Ferran researchers came asking for expendable labor, preferentially the kind with seafaring experience. And so Simon went. What happened in that stretch of bloody ocean left him cursed, scarred, one-armed, and haunted by nightmares he did not dare to explain.
And because the Trees had a cruel sense of humor, he'd washed back up on an Edennese shore anyway.
The Bishop welcomed an at least nominally-penitent Simon back into the fold, but everything had changed. His own half-brothers avoided him. Between insubordination and injury, it was clear he'd never be deployed again, so “Commander” had become a courtesy title. The Citadel gossips tittered about how fortunate it was that Simon's mother had passed years ago, so she did not have to witness this shame. Simon managed not to punch out some gossiping old hags with his remaining arm.
Simon was not able enough to do laborious tasks, not trustworthy enough to do important tasks, not fit enough to do dangerous tasks. All the ways in which a man was supposed to contribute to the resources of society and preservation of Edenne and their sacred trees, Simon was at a loss. He’d been resorting to reading reports and writing summaries. Scribing was traditionally soft work, but damn it all, he was at least trying to be useful.
At times he wondered why they didn't just make a sacrifice of him. Let his broken body become the soil. Little did Simon know that the Bishop had already found another use for him.
The Bishop’s chambers were on the tallest level of the Citadel, a short jaunt down a corridor from the Garden of the Last Tree. The layout was such that one had to walk through the Garden and its vast dome, to be confronted with the sacred Tree and its cuttings in all their glory. Then and only then could they pass to the chambers beyond - generally reserved for the Bishop, high ranking officials, and the rest of the royal family.
Simon walked the Garden with his soldier escort behind him, very aware of the altar with its carved stone channels, the runnels that poured out in radiating, root-like patterns before diving into the depths of the soil. He made proper obeisance to the holiest of holies, and went to see what the Father wanted.
He wasn’t Simon’s blood-father, of course. Simon’s blood-father had been a prince of the old blood, a warrior who had died in battle as was right and proper. Another person’s memory whom Simon had the potential to fail.
But the Father, the High Bishop, the Preacher King was also of the old blood. A cousin of some degree. And as the Father, and patriarch of the royal family, his word was law. Simon had never doubted the Father’s word, in the time before. Now, he suspected that the Father was a pompous ass who loved the sound of his own voice, but Simon knew better than to betray that thought in word or deed.
He stepped into the Bishop’s chamber like a man walking into a death trap. Simon could feel himself counting the details and tried to keep an eye on all of them at once: Two guards at the door, plus his three escorts. The tall gothic windows that looked to the sea, the heavy iron desk, clear of paperwork, it's candlesticks awaiting the coming dusk, not to be lit a moment before. The Father himself, dressed in a simple brown robe with its hood and mantle, a higher-quality rendition of the robes that simple gardener-monks wore.
“Simon, there you are. Come in, my child. I hope I did not interrupt anything.” the Father put a hand on Simon’s shoulder, and steered him further into his chamber. There was an edge to the voice, a slight pressure in the hand. Simon had kept him waiting. Shit. Grovel.
“My apologies, Father. I was down at the shore. The poor Lieutenant had to track me down.” Explain, don’t excuse. Take responsibility.
The Father gave Simon one last squeeze on the shoulder and guided him to a chair. “All things return to the soil eventually.” A dismissal, not an absolution. “Now, my son, I have exciting news. I know you have been…seeking guidance ever since you returned to us, and I believe there is a new heading for you. See, in the days of old, when the Tree was but a sapling -”
Simon did try to pay attention, he really did. But decades of letting his mind wander during sermons took its toll. At least he finally tuned back in just in time for “- we have found a match for you.”
Simon blinked. Had he heard that right? “What kind of match?”
“A marriage match, my child. As part of our treaty with Francisco, you are now betrothed to one of their royal line.”
Simon’s mouth opened. He closed it. Then opened it again. “...a betrothal.”
“Yes.”
“To me.”
“That’s right, my child.”
“And they…” Simon’s hand went to cup the edge of his stump. “They know who I am, right?” A broken, scarred monster of a man…the Butcher.
“They will know you as a prince of the old blood.” The Father said. “That is all they need to know.”
They just needed someone of the royal bloodline, that was all. Well, Simon did have that genetic material. And Edenne did not throw away things that could still be useful somehow. A ripped tunic with one sleeve would be taken apart and sewn into something else - a lining, a satchel, a garment for a child. Simon was being repurposed. Recycled. Used for parts. Simon would sire a child who would be new and fresh and whole and maybe they wouldn't fuck up raising it the way they clearly had with Simon.
And he was the only prince of the old blood that Edenne could afford to spare.
Nevermind the ordeals he had been through or what he had already given for Edenne. Simon was an inconvenience to his family, a burden on society, a wobbly gear that was throwing the whole clock off-tempo.
So they were sending him away. Making him someone else's problem. Making him one more reparation to be repaid to the coastlands, like another chest of woolens, another barrel of salted fish or seaweed that their Island could scarcely afford to give. (Simon had in fact read those reports. This treaty was trying to squeeze old blood from a stone, and it seemed the Bishop found a way to give exactly what was demanded but less than he thought those smug Consolidation bastards deserved.)
Simon swallowed hard, feeling like an oarless rowboat, watching clouds across a questionable sky. “When do I leave?”
--------
“A month?!”
Later, His Royal Highness Prince Doctor Ryland Grace would admit that he took the news of his impending betrothal poorly.
On an intellectual level, Ryland knew that arranged marriages were more common than not in royal families. He knew that his parent’s marriages had been arranged, as had his grandparents’ on both sides, his cousins - well except for his fourth cousin Jeanie**, but she was… the exception. Ryland knew that he was closer to thirty than twenty, and that he had been allowed to delay things like matrimony and other princely duties while he was at university. It appeared, however, that three doctorates was considered the limit of his, ahem, grace period.
Knowing those things did not necessarily prepare him for the fact that he was going to be married off in a month. And this meeting was not helping.
Ryland was already in a bad mood, having been pulled away from his laboratory in the middle of a sensitive experiment that Ryland now knew he would never be able to return to in time. No, now he had to deal with the volcanic-eruption-level disaster that was his betrothal.
Chancellor Stratt herself delivered the bad news, which was how Ryland knew it was really happening. Chancellor Stratt was no stranger to telling people bad news. If she said something was going to happen, it was going to happen. And she used almost the same tones that she did for good news, not once raising her voice louder than she needed to be heard. She stood there, in the queen’s parlor, in her practical charcoal-grey dress buttoned to her collarbone and her practical silver chain of office and her practical stack of reports balanced on her hip and her strawberry blonde hair bound up in a sensible bun, and she gave Ryland the news that he had a month before his life would be irrevocably chained up with a complete stranger from a foreign land.
“Yes. Thirty days until your betrothed arrives in Francisco. You have until then to prepare.” said Stratt, as chilly and inexorable as a glacier.
“But…” Ryland’s heart was beating faster, and he could feel the stormcloud forming over his own head. “That’s…it’s...Why didn’t anyone warn me?!” he asked, running a frantic hand through his hair, letting his spectacles hang from one ear.
“I am warning you now.” said Stratt, as if that were helpful.
“Thirty days is not enough warning.” Ryland scrambled in the library of his brain, trying to find any scrap of information that would Make This Not Be Happening. Unfortunately his inner Librarian had stepped out.
Stratt paused, watching his face. “Some would say,” she began gently, as if telling him that the following was not her own opinion, but that she would report it anyway, because it was important for him to hear. “- that you have had nearly thirty years to prepare.”
The words struck Ryland like a blow. Breathing was suddenly something he had to think about on purpose.
“Be reasonable, Ryland,” said his grandmother, waving a hand for him to sit in the chair next to hers.
“Gigi…” Ryland began, knowing that it was no use. He sat and let her offer him a cookie, which he declined.
Her Majesty Gloria Grace, the Queen of Francisco, pursed her lips thoughtfully at her grandson. “Chancellor, would you leave us? I am sure you have many important things to do.”
“I do, Your Majesty. Your Highness.” Chancellor Stratt said, in the tones of one already checking this meeting off her list like ‘ Ruin The Rest of Prince Ryland’s Life’ was just another item on her agenda. She bowed and swept softly from the room, closing the door behind her.
The silence settled in the room like dust left in the chancellor’s wake, like a gentle ashfall while lava was busy demolishing the mountainside.
The Queen held out her hand to Ryland. He took it, squeezing hard. “My sweet Ryland.” she said. “Breathe for me.”
Ryland realized on the exhale that he was shaking. Queen Gloria squeezed his hand tight and let him get his breathing under control. “Now. Do you want to tell me what’s going on in that brilliant little mind of yours?” she offered him a handkerchief.
Ryland used it to dab at his eyes. “...thought I had more time.” he said, almost in a whisper.
“More time for what?”
Ryland made a vague gesture in the air. “Science? I don’t know, I just thought I had more time to…” Silence wrapped around the words ‘be myself’ and swallowed them whole.
“And you think you won’t be able to do that once you’re married?”
Ryland shrugged. “...won’t have the time.”
“It is true,” Queen Gloria admitted carefully. “That you will have more demands on your time than you do now. Do you think that marriage means you will have to spend every hour of your day with your spouse?”
Ryland shrugged noncommittally. He supposed there were couples who did not spend much time together at all. Some who even lived separately. But “You and Grandfather did.”
Queen Gloria smiled sadly and patted his hand. “Would you believe that we didn’t always? Oh, we could barely stand each other when we first met.”
Ryland blinked. “Really, Gigi?” At her nod, Ryland pressed. “What happened?”
Queen Gloria smiled as gently as only a grandmother could when she tricked her grandson into letting his curiosity win over his fears. “We got used to each other, dear heart. Children, wars, plagues. If you go through enough with someone by your side, then you eventually get to know them just a little. After your father…” she trailed off and gave Ryland’s hand a squeeze. “Well. That kind of grief can tear people apart or bring them closer. For your grandfather and I, we finally decided that we had actually become quite fond of one another, irritating habits and all.” she added this last with a cheeky little wink. “And even then, I still needed a break from him now and then.”
Ryland smiled weakly back. “Gigi, I don’t even know who I’m supposed to be marrying yet. And I…I hoped…”
He had always hoped that falling in love would happen to him eventually. Real love, not an infatuation like he’d felt for Lady Linda, who’d never appreciated his genius. No, Ryland wanted love like he’d read about, the kind of love he knew probably didn’t exist outside of books, but he wanted it anyway. And then he’d introduce his love to his grandmother and do whatever petitioning he had to in order to keep that person by his side.
Now that dream was slipping away like the tide clawing a sandcastle back to earth with every pull of the waves.
“You can keep that hope, dear heart.” She sighed, smiling at him. “But you also have a duty….I trust you know what I am about to say next.”
“‘With power and privilege comes duty to our kingdom and its people’,” recited Ryland, who had heard that speech enough times to memorize it.
“And?”
“Sometimes that duty means doing things we do not want to do.”
“Or?”
“Or that we don’t think that we can do. And then we have to find a way.”
“And then we will find a way.” Ryland’s grandmother put her hands on the sides of his face and gave his forehead a kiss. “You will find your way, Ryland. I know this.”
Ryland tried to give her a reassuring smile, and did not quite succeed. It was too late. The gears of the Great Anxietas Ex Machina of Ryland’s brain had begun to move. What if he didn’t like his fiance? What if his fiance didn’t like him? What if they were too different? What if they got weirded out by all the jars of bugs in his laboratory?
What if - and Ryland really cringed to think about this - what if having heirs became a whole ordeal? Because there was already a lot of silent pressure and okay, he had to admit that the entire Kingdom would breathe a sigh of relief if the succession was secure and everyone knew there would be a monarch today and a monarch tomorrow and probably a monarch next year and they could all get on with the business of living their lives, but! Everytime Ryland thought about…that…especially the idea of doing….that with someone he didn’t even know, much less liked…well the whole subject made it hard for Ryland to breathe.
“Would it help to know more about your betrothed?” Queen Gloria asked, observing these emotions move over Ryland’s face like clouds across a questionable sky, or as if he were the bug in the jar.
Ryland nodded. “Yeah.” he exhaled shakily. “Yeah, I think that would help.”
It wouldn’t, but Ryland had no way of knowing that.