Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

There were more Deaths about in the morning. Most belonging to the enclavers, though a handful belonged to the nobles. He tried not to startle when they flickered into view. Tried not to give them a wider berth in the halls than the others unconsciously did, nor to stare overlong at their expressions, as the solemn occasion they’d been prepared for gave way to simple confusion. It was like they’d shown up for a play only to find the stage missing.

The Lady Death’s had taken to chatting with the Deaths of mice. The little ones seemed largely unaffected by whatever calamity had been rescheduled; it had affected people more so than their charges. The calico cat charged through their gathering, scattering them all before careening around a corner.

“Rude,” one of the little Deaths said, peeking back out from a chink between stone wall and baseboard.

“Quite,” agreed the Lady’s Death, with seriousness to match.

Orin’s Death remained absent. As did Orin. The court ate their breakfasts with his empty chair sitting amongst them. When the ocean wind howled particularly loudly past the room’s arrow slits, some were less than subtle in listening.

“That is not,” Princess Rose said, her fork and knife clicking against her plate, “how banshees sound. Your king is not dead.”

“Of course,” one of the nobles hurried to say.

“ ‘Of course, Your Highness,’ ” Lochlann corrected.

“...Of course, Your Highness.”

His dear sister ate nearly as fast as Aaron did, and looped her arm through his before he could finish his final bite.

“Brother,” she said. “Now that the princess’ tour is out of the way, I believe you and I had a prior engagement.”

Aaron tested her grip and found himself more likely to escape a bear trap. He finished his last bite while she waited. Took a drink. Used his napkin like a civil sort. Then he hooked his ankles around his chair’s legs, to prevent being bodily dragged from it.

“I’ll be visiting His Majesty,” Aaron told her. “Someone should see to him, more than just the servants.”

“His family will,” Adelaide said.

“And who are we, but his dear cousins?” Aaron smiled up at her. His sister smiled down on him. They were not the same sort of smile.

“Aaron,” said the Lady, from her own seat, “may a word?”

“...Adelaide’s been wanting me,” Aaron said. “Waiting, you know. Since yesterday.”

The Lady had a smile, too. “Who am I to interrupt sibling bonding time?”

Adelaide did not miss her cue to drag him off.

“Are you going to tell me what that was about?” his sister asked, when they’d reached the hall.

“No,” he said, with complete honesty.

“But you know that you could, if you needed to? If I could help?” she asked.

That one, he didn’t answer.

“Well,” she said. “You could.”

She let the subject drop. Unlike his arm, which she kept firmly in hers until they’d located the guard captain and, by extension, his keyring. It was the sort of keyring that held all sorts of important things. Like keys to the fort’s cellblock, if the position of guard captain here was anything like it was back in Onekin.

Adelaide was more interested in the armory. And in a professionally heated debate on what sort of sword suited Aaron best, based on the length of his arms, his height, and a few more esoteric categories like temperament.

The sword they eventually decided upon was very… straight. And sword-like. And an awkward weight at his right hip that slapped against him when he moved, while being altogether impossible to hide under his clothes. It was the sort of weapon that everyone would always know he had. Worse, it wasn’t even sharp.

“Can I at least have a real blade?” he asked, as the captain locked the door behind them, and put the keys back on his own belt.

“No sharps for beginners,” she said. “Get used to the weight, learn enough not to stab your partners, and we’ll take it to the smith for a real edge.”

“If I’m going to stab someone, it won’t be with the blade they see coming,” Aaron said. “This does not suit my temperament.”

“We’ll just have to temper you, then,” said his sister.

“You’re not funny.”

“I bet I can beat you with one arm tied behind my back.”

“...Do I get to pick the arm?”

He did not. And so he was dragged off to the castle’s training yard, to be tempered.

It was terrible, but less terrible than learning to knife fight. They were even in a place he could go straight to the baths afterwards, with clean clothes already waiting for him, and someone else cooking his lunch down the hall. And she didn’t actually want to hurt him, which was certainly a way to learn.

His hair was still damp as he picked meat from his stew, and dropped it into his sister’s bowl. Down the table, the king’s chair still sat empty.

“I really do need to visit him,” Aaron said. “Can I borrow your sword?”

“For visiting him?”

“Not him,” Aaron said. And waited, as his sister thought that through, and realized who was always near King Orin. Jeshinkra really should be questioned, before things here came to a head.

“Ah,” she said. But did not hand over her kirin’s bone, nor the blade that happened to come with it.

Aaron set his shoulders. Then he offered one of his own knives to her, hilt-first. “You can hold onto this, while I’ve yours. As ransom.”

“I think you mean collateral,” she said, slowly accepting the sheathed blade. “Wait. This is mine.

“I’m trusting you to give it back,” he said. “Can you trust the same of me?”

She looked at him. Really looked at him, in a way she hadn’t done since those first days of having a new brother. She tucked his knife under the stub of her arm, and worked her sword free. Handed it to him, belt and all.

“Remember what I said about my brothers,” she said, “that they get ambitious, and then they die? I’m trusting you not to die on me, Aaron. I’m not allowed to outlive you all. And I intend to die an old, old woman.”

“It’s just a few questions,” he said. “Not a fight.”

“Just be sure to ask them with others around,” she said. “In case the answers aren’t what you’d like.”

Aarong gave her a crooked smile. If she took that for agreement, it was hardly his fault.

He stopped by his rooms and ditched his practice sword on the bed. He thought of wrapping the hilt of his sister’s to hide its make, but deception wouldn’t make it any more potent. And so he showed up to His Majesty’s chambers with kirin’s bone clear on his hip.

Jeshinkra was not at her post outside with the guard Adelaide had posted. Jeshinkra was inside, badgering the king.

“You’re not dying,” she said.

“You say that,” Orin replied, “as if that’s not the entire point of this exercise.”

His Majesty was laying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. Presumably because it was less inclined to argue.

It was a scene reminiscent of the last time Aaron had seen King Liam. He’d been laying in his bed, too, the night Aaron had followed the Lady to the man’s rooms.

“You’re not dying,” Jeshinkra said. She’d noticed Aaron; shot him a look, even, a sort of Did you even knock look that showed how very little she knew him. “And I’m not letting you lay here for the next six days, wallowing.”

“I’m not going to give them the pleasure of watching me stumble about. They can order me killed, but they can’t treat it as entertainment.”

“Have you considered vomiting on their shoes?” Aaron offered, which was the point that Orin noticed him. “Or higher. You’ve a few days to practice your aim, and no one to call you on it. Perks of being king.”

“Do you ever knock?” Orin asked, which showed how well the king did know him.

“What’s the plan?” Aaron asked. To Jeshinkra, not the king.

“Taking him out for a ride. Fresh air and a lack of gossipers around every corner will do him good. And food; we’ve got to get something in him. He didn’t keep dinner down last night.”

“I brought some,” Aaron said, rummaging.

Orin stared at the offering. “...Your pocket bread is not appealing, Aaron.”

“I don’t see how that’s the point of food,” said Aaron. “If you wanted better, you could have gone to breakfast. Or lunch. Or asked a servant to bring something. Or—”

“Thank you, I quite grasp the concept,” said His Majesty, with a distinct lack of reaching for the offered bread. So Aaron dropped it on the man’s chest.

“...Jessie, if you would please order a meal to my rooms. Something light.”

“At once, Your Majesty.”

“So you’re not going to eat that?” asked Aaron.

Jeshinkra returned with some broth and fruit. Aaron left, and returned a few moments later. He smiled at His Majesty, who’d been bullied into sitting up, and who’d stopped mid-spoonful to treat Aaron to a rather suspicious stare. Aaron continued smiling. When, a half hour later, the king had managed a quarter of a bowl of broth, a strawberry, and the laborious act of getting dressed, Rose and Lochlann had quite adequate forewarning to join them at the stables.

Jeshinkra took the lead as they rode north, to the forest past the enclaver’s fields. It was a different sort of forest than the one Aaron was becoming used to. Nothing came to greet them when he knocked on wood; nothing cared how many branches they bent as their horses wound their way through deer trails. They stayed in sight of the fort, more or less; the point of this endeavor wasn’t to get lost, or to run across yet another thing that could make the nobles question their king’s humanity. The point was to let Orin pit his will against the laziest gelding the stablemaster had, instead of against his nobles. The point was pretending, for an afternoon, that everything would be okay. The Lady’s fox has been right, in that story she’d told: everyone needed someone to lie to them.

They found a little clearing where His Majesty could sit on the ground for awhile, and they could all sit with him, like they were doing it to enjoy the warm sun and mosquitos instead of because the king had started swaying in his saddle. Aaron helped Lochlann tie a picket line for the horses between two trees. Shenanigans and Seventh Down promptly untied themselves, but they stayed in sight, so that was all right. It really was a pleasant day.

“Told you it would make you feel better,” Jeshinkra said.

“Not drinking poison every night would make me feel better,” Orin replied.

“And whenever you want to turn into a dragon and eat the nobles who are making you, I’ll be there to mock you over your aching belly,” she said, patting his arm.

It was not lost on Aaron that she’d just said that over kirin’s bone. Not lost on His Majesty, either. Orin let his head rest back against the tree behind him, and let out a breath.

“Lieutenant Varghese, please tell me you aren’t as eager for treason as the rest of this lot,” he requested.

“I’m not,” said the good lieutenant. “But you are my king. And… points regarding doppelgängers have been raised.”

Orin cast a glare Aaron’s way.

“We don’t have to talk about this,” Rose said. Then was compelled to add: “Today. We don’t have to talk about this today.”

“You are not bringing that sword tomorrow, Aaron,” Orin ordered. “Why do you even have it?”

“Adelaide is making me learn the sword. She’s holding one of my knives ransom, while I have this.”

Statements could be true without answering a question. Orin either didn’t realize the distinction, or didn’t care to press.

“Tell me more about your team,” he said instead, to Rose. “Do you think you’d like to fight with them again, next spring?”

“Yes,” said the girl, who was still wearing the medal her team had pinned on her, albeit in a less prominent position—she’d moved it from her chest to her belt. “Did you feel the same, with yours? Or did father pick them for you?”

For a moment, no one said anything. The late king and Orin’s old team were two topics not easily raised.

“...They were picked for me. Commoners, from every corner of our kingdom, so that I could learn about them even as I learned to fight. I was… very angry about it, the first year; that I’d had no choice. I was a bit of a brat.”

“He absolutely was,” Jeshinkra put in. “As if any of us would have picked being stuck with the crown prince. It’s not exactly a cushy post, when your team leader is required to be on the front lines and at every major strategy meeting. We’d half the down time of anyone else, and this tiny princeling—you didn’t get that growth spurt until you were, what, sixteen?—”

“Fourteen,” the king insisted.

“Is that a kirin’s bone, or a cow’s leg?” Jeshinkra countered. “You were short far longer than that…”

And so they turned, or perhaps devolved, to reminiscing over Orin’s team. And Rose began to speak up, about hers. On the ride back, the two siblings rode side-by-side—as much as the trail allowed—still talking.

Aaron and Jeshinkra left them to it, staying behind to see to the horses while Lochlann trailed the royal pair back to their rooms.

“So,” she began, as she placed a saddle on its rack. “Kirin’s bone. Your sister already questioned King Orin.”

“She did.”

“And I sincerely doubt she’d have you practicing your forms on her personal sword.”

Aaron hefted Shenanigan’s saddle onto the next rack over.

“Which leads me to believe,” she said, “that the Late Wake is finally getting around to questioning me.”

“I’ve a few questions, yes,” Aaron said. “And the both of us can say you were questioned by a member of the Late Wake on your loyalties, when this is through.”

“That’s one way to phrase it.”

“It is,” he agreed. And checked, once more, that they were alone in this particular corner. “Would you support Orin’s kingship, doppel or no?”

“Would you?” she retorted.

“Yes,” Aaron said. And repeated his question, because it really was best to have the question fresh when trying to enforce an answer. “Would you support a doppel king?”

“Yes.”

“Are doppels human?”

“No.”

“Are they people?”

“...Yes.”

“Are they people that inherently need killing?”

“No.”

“Right,” Aaron said, and picked up a curry comb.

She followed him back to the stalls. Didn’t start working again, either, as if these horses were going to brush themselves.

“You’re not going to ask if I’m human?” she asked.

“Would it change your loyalties?”

“...No. It won’t.”

“There you are, then. One interrogation over kirin’s bone, in which the Late Wake was content on the status of your humanity. Should anyone else ask about that, over other bones.”

“What are your loyalties?” she asked.

“Are you going to help with this, or not?”

Her own loyalties didn’t include strangling him, much as she seemed to give it a hard thought.

Later, Aaron knocked on his sister’s door, her sword in hand.

“All’s well?” she asked, reaching for it.

“Passed every question,” he said, keeping it tucked to his chest. “You’ve got my knife?”

“My knife.”

Protest aside, she traded sword for knife easily enough. Which put it in his hands, thus clearly making it his.

Still later, he sat on the end of a bed with Rose as the king took his third dose. The both of them, and Lochlann and Jeshinkra too, stayed. Rose had been in the middle of telling them how she’d gotten her medal, after all. Or at least, her brother and king had been pressing her on the topic.

“No,” she said, “I am not telling you. Medals are given out for being stupid. How many did you get, brother?”

His Majesty took this opportunity to retreat from the conversation, even if it continued on around him. He’d a letter to write to Connor, after all.