Blood Shaper

A pair of Seramist royal guards swept into the room, scanned the environs, made tense eye contact with Kay’s Blood Guard, then stepped back to allow Alahna to pass by them. Kay and Eleniah were sitting across from each other in the small dining room attached to the suite that Kay was staying in, which was different from the attached large dining room. They’d returned from the dungeon, had a quick chat with the bevy of negotiators they’d brought along to assist Kay in making deals while Amanda wasn’t there to advise him, and were just about to dig into their meal when the queen suddenly showed up.

“Oh good, you haven’t finished eating yet. Do you mind if I join you for a meal, your majesty?”

Kay quickly glanced at Eleniah. “Please join us, your majesty. We only just started our meal.”

“Wonderful.” She sank into an open seat next to Eleniah. “Since Eleniah is one of your people and you’ve had more than enough time to hear old stories about my childhood, feel free to be less formal when we aren’t in public.”

They’d already been doing that since Alahna herself had dropped the formality in their first private meeting, but Kay caught the subtle nod of her head toward one of the guards who’d accompanied her into the room, and Kay thought he’d gotten the message. The guard in questions was a stern looking elven man he hadn’t seen before and he looked just like the kind of person who would be bitchy about protocol.

“Do you know who’s serving you at the moment? I haven’t been paying too close attention to who’s assisting you, but I am hungry and I’d love to eat sooner rather than later.”

Miri swept into the room, already carrying a full meal on a tray. She set it all out in front of Alahna and set out cutlery and a napkin as well. “There you are, your majesty. I had the chefs prepare it just the way you like it. Please enjoy.”

“Thank you Miri, that’s quite lovely of you, although there was no need for the chefs to go out of there-.” Alahna froze for a moment before whipping her head around to stare at the maid. “Wait, Miri? What are you doing here? Why are you serving lunch?”

Kay glanced between the two women. “Is she not supposed to be here? She’s been working as our liaison or official intermediary or whatever since yesterday.”

“All the staff that needed to be tested for safety and security reasons but weren’t absolutely vital to keeping everything running were given time off to let them get away from the situation. Why are you still here Miri?”

“My parents aren’t home right now and I didn’t feel like sitting around and doing nothing, so when they needed a volunteer to assist his majesty king Kay during his public appearances and general day to day I volunteered. I’m sufficiently in the know about what’s happening and discreet enough to not spread what I know around, so I was a good match for the role needed. It’s been quite interesting so far.”

“I… When was the last time you took a vacation?”

“Hmm. It has been a while. I just get so bored sitting around and not getting any work done.” Miri shrugged and gave a small bow. “Please enjoy your meals, your majesties, Eleniah.” Without waiting for a reply she turned around and left.

“Does Miri seem to be acting odd to you?” Kay asked.

“No… That’s how she normally acts. The real question is, what is she trying to achieve? She’s always helpful and working for someone’s best interest, but its never clear who or what the end goal is.”

“’For someone’s best interest’, like she’s not always loyal?”

“Ha! No. But sometimes she’s maneuvering things to help me out, sometimes it’s one of my kids or my husbands, and sometimes its a random worker she felt needed help. She’s rooted out quite a few spies or people who were being naughty, although she insists they were amateurs and she noticed without trying. She says she wasn’t cut out to become a real spy and doesn‘t plan on going back to it.” Alahna stared at the door Miri had left through for a moment more, then shrugged and turned back to her food. “Oh well, it’ll come out eventually when she gets whatever she’s after.”

Lunch was, unsurprisingly, seafood. The main heft of the meal was a light soup that included bits of fish, shrimp, mussels, and a bevy of local vegetables. After they finished eating Kay took the time to ask the questions he already had planned to find Alahna about.

“How’s the investigation going?”

She sighed. “It’s only been two days, but the results they’ve been finding so far are annoying. There are definitely people acting strangely among even the people you cleared and there hasn’t been a breakthrough in figuring out what the hell the people who aren’t impostors are doing. I’m not really expecting one yet because, again, it’s been two days, but its still a pain. Without knowing if we have collaborators who haven’t been replaced, a completely separate set of plotters doing something sketchy, or just a group of idiots being nosier than they should be with no malicious motives we have to sit back and watch, which I hate. The more time we take to root out the enemy the more time they have to enact their plans.” She groaned and put her head in her hands. “Why can’t we have gotten a giant monster from another reality? Why did it have to be cloak and dagger bullshit?”

“I’ve been thinking this since we met, but you’re a lot more, well, open than I was expecting. A lot of the nobles I had to deal with when we were wrapping up that thoughtless attack on my city were more uptight about formality and image.”

Alahna pulled her face from her hands and looked up with a bored expression. “I’ll do all the pomp and use all the circumstance when it’s useful, but with people I trust I don’t bother. Once I learned how to call down lightning bolts on things that annoyed me I stopped giving much of a shit.”

“You trust me?”

“Eleniah and my source both vouched for you, and both of those earn you a lot of leeway to prove them wrong. So far you haven’t. Keep it up.”

“Thanks. Speaking of your source, has there been any indications that this whole business has vampyr involved?”

She looked confused. “No, why?”

Kay shrugged. “Your source has been pushing me in the direction of dealing with them whenever possible since the day we met. When they contacted me and asked me to come help here I was really expecting vampyr to be involved.”

Alahna stared blankly at him for a moment. “I’m… I don’t really have anything to say to that. They compensate well for doing what they ask, so… Yeah. No evidence of vampyr involvement so far. Just keep doing what they ask, I guess?”

“I wasn’t asking for advice, but thank you, I plan to. Even if your source wasn’t paying me the vampyr have been too much of an issue to ignore if they show up in Avalon.”

“That’s different then hunting them down wherever they are though. Don’t be surprised if it escalates like that for a time, they gave me a series of jobs that escalated after we completed each one. The rewards were great but it got a bit dicey here and there. That was my first time being contacted by them and it set a lot in motion that eventually led here.”

Eleniah had seemed content to let the two monarchs talk without her input, and she’s been sitting with her eyes closed and her head resting against the chair after finishing her food. Hearing what Alahna said her eyes popped open and she turned her head to look at her cousin. “Wait. Are you talking about-?”

“Yeah. They were the mysterious client who didn’t want to be public.”

“That answers so many questions.” Eleniah whispered. “Wait, what happened to the…?”

Alahna didn’t respond verbally, she just looked at Eleniah.

“No.”

“Well, what else was I going to do with it?”

‘You-“ She looked at Kay and slowly closed her mouth. “We’ll talk about this later.”

“I’m guessing this is a secret I shouldn’t ask about.”

“Please? It’s… complicated.”

“I didn’t hear anything then. Moving on abruptly, what’s the plan for me moving forward?” He asked Alahna, “I’m here to help you, so let me know if you want me to change anything up.”

“We should spend at least some time doing normal trade negotiations and that kind of thing. I’ll need to think of reasons for the people that we’re still keeping an eye on to not be there, but that won’t be too hard. Besides that…” She Alahna suddenly looked aggravated. “There’s an event coming up that you should attend. It will be noticeable if you don’t.” She looked at her cousin, “You’ll need to come as well, since you’re his right and woman.”

“By event you mean…”

“A formal dance. It’s not officially the social season yet, but there’s always enough nobles in the capital that we have to throw the occasional ball, dance, or other event to let people mingle and talk to each other. There’ll be more than a few annoying hot heads and schemers around that’ll try something or think to poke at you to see what happens, which I’d rather avoid, but if you aren’t there people will ask questions we don’t want them asking.”

Kay shrugged, but internally he felt quite uncomfortable. “Like I said, I’m here to help, even if you are paying me for it. If you say going to this dance I the best move, we’ll go. I could use some help in preparing and knowing what to do though, I’ve learned quite a bit more about etiquette then I ever expected but I know I’m not at the level expected of a king yet, and we haven’t had the time to throw any dances back home yet.”

“That’s easy enough. There’s always a tutor or two lurking around waiting for someone’s kid to need help or someone to earn enough merit to get into the palace. We’ll round one of them up and get them to help you. There’s roughly a week until the dance so you won’t be perfect but you’ll be good enough. Plus, you’re a king and powerful enough to crush any single pissant that tries to needle you over etiquette.”

Miri swept through with some light after lunch drinks. “I’ll arrange a tutor for you and an appointment with a tailor. It will be much more impressive if you make your own outfit out of blood to wear, but it’s a good idea to view some of the current fashions so you can get the details right. Doing that will show off your class and how you’re above such a minor detail as getting an outfit tailored to you. Really show them that you’re stooping to their level, not rising to it.” She gathered up the finished dishes and left while Kay was still processing what she’d said.

“That really is a good idea.” Alahna muttered, watching Miri leave. “What are you up to…?” She shrugged and turned back to Kay. “Speaking of social things and ruling and all that, what’s your position on your eventual marriage or whatever form your relationships will take. I’m sure some of the power climbers will try to offer you someone they’re related to as a bride or groom. What is your type, by the way? Some of my children are around your age and unmarried, and if you don’t like any of them some of my nieces, nephews or other relatives running around that might work out.”

Eleniah sputtered and sprayed some of her drink on the table. “What!?”

“What? A dynastic marriage would be a great basis between our nations. It’s not like you’re going anywhere from the sound of it, so I’d like to tie our countries together so I have a good excuse to come see you and visa versa. Plus the trade options and other goodies we’d get out of it.”

“Kay isn’t a breeding stallion to be negotiated for!”

“He’s an unmarried king with great potential of course he is.”

“I’m not looking to marry right now,” Kay cut in, interrupting whatever tirade had been about to flood the room. “There’s still a lot on my plate that makes getting into any kind of romantic relationship problematic.”

“You’re looking for a romantic relationship?” Alahna grunted thoughtfully, but looked like she approved. “Don’t let go of that then. Actually caring about who you marry makes it a lot easier. People are going to insist that you need to marry sooner and make an heir, but those are the ones that are focusing more on continuity of power or want to have a child they can try and mold to do what they want as your heir. As long as you stay alive you have time to find someone, and it isn’t like succession goes to your children that often if you don’t try and force it. Power begets power, but not always in your children.”

“Thank you for the advice, I’ll definitely keep it in mind.”

“And if you’re going to marry more than one person, make sure they can all get along! I’m very lucky to love all three of my husbands, but it can be such a headache to make sure they don’t get pissy with one another sometimes.”

“The culture I’m from doesn’t support polygamy and personally I’m not interested in more than one spouse.”

“Oh? Well, if you can make the alliances you need without having to marry people to make those connections, more power to you. Stick to your guns and call lightning on the people who bitch at you, I always say.”

I thought it was ‘drown the people who get in your way’?” Eleniah asked.

“It was, but now I can call lightning on people. It’s much more dramatic and gets the message along so much easier.”