Serpent and the Throne (Fedosian Wars #1)

23. A Dream

twenty-three

A Dream

A lot of magic was left in Papa. He could have been the archmage had he wanted to, but he fell in love and decided he’d rather watch his wife garden. He did always have an affinity for the greens, and they moved for him now. Grand elm trees with tough barks and trunks as wide as ten men grew from seedling to seventy-foot tall, the chandeliers inside the palace swaying as their roots burrowed into the ground, and erected a wall around the heritage home of the White Guards.

Inside the fortress Papa built, Guard vines sprouted from the pond, waving to the setting sun like green arms reaching, and sprawled, appearing as thousands of men holding leafy parasols around the white horseshoe palace as they planted themselves a thousand times.

The ground was damp, they’d grow well, and they pulled up the underground water. Come tomorrow morning, the White Palace would be nested inside a marsh of light alchemy, one great circle though not cast in gold.

Sofia stood in the observatory, the jewel atop the crown palace, as Papa erected the light tower, the heart of his grand garden. Custodians they were called, and Guard nurseries had them to watch over the young plants. The ones Sofia had seen were small trinkets cast to disperse alchemy if a plant was dying, but this one was a colossal tower infused with gold, a display of Guard wealth, and raised from the ground with earth and wood. The marsh would protect the Custodian, and the Custodian would keep the plants alive, such was the design.

Two decades it would take an elm to grow to adulthood from seedling, and the spectacular display of Guard alchemy aged Papa two decades, taking the years he’d had left. It was his grandstand. He’d die in the home he shared with his wife, and strode in the armor that had grown too large and too heavy for the old man. It wasn’t his flesh and bones but his pride that held the armor tall. Still, the seamstress tucked the white cape so it didn’t drag on the ground.

Sofia had kissed her papa’s hand before he put on his gauntlet. Now he’d only speak to his knights. There were two hundred and fifty in the White Palace. Semyon Skuratov of the house of iron had come with a hundred of his own. They had come to escort Lev to Usolya Fortress, but now the three hundred and fifty would stand and defend the White Palace against five hundred sentinels and the Custodian would make up the difference.

Long after dark, Sofia wandered around the ring rooms, thinking of her aunt, the archmage… The household would not sleep tonight and she was running into servants and knights traversing the halls.

Wandering through the garden, she found a stray cat caught in a Guard vine and meowing. She cut him loose, the alchemy of the Custodian healing the vine immediately after she pulled the creature out. The cat followed her into the palace and she thought to give him a fish, but the steward yelled at her. The cat was black, the color of the queen, and Fedosians were superstitious. A bad omen, the steward scolded her. So Sofia got a bit of food for the cat and left him outside.

“Stay away from vines,” she told him, but whether he understood her, she didn’t know. Probably not. But he seemed to enjoy the fish fillet.

The hall of ancestors had warm sand on the floor, supposedly brought from the beaches of Zapadnoi Morye where Aleksander the Wise defeated Elfur against overwhelming odds—it was one of his miracles. Saints painted on the ceiling, the hall displayed portraits of every Guard ever lived, and a gold sun with a hundred rays was placed above the door with gilded pillars. All else was royal blue, except for the floor, of course, and Sofia had been sitting on the warm sand and doodling alchemy symbols with her fingers when she heard scuffling by the door. A winged statue of a gold saint obstructed her view of the door and she leaned forward to see.

At first, she thought Lev was grappling with Semyon because the young lord from the house of iron shoved her brother against the gold pillar, then she realized they were… kissing. She hid behind the statue, her face flushed, but the way the noises were going, it was about to be awfully awkward if she didn’t announce her presence.

“Lev,” she called after some hesitation.

Silence.

“Fuck, Soful?” Lev came around the statue, his face red too. “What…” He cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to get away from the… people,” she muttered. “There are so many people in the house.”

“Yeah,” said Lev, scratching his neck. “Yeah, there are…”

Some uncomfortable moments passed as they muttered in incomplete sentences making no sense whilst nodding, then Lev asked, “Do you want to drink potions, Soful?”

She did. He gave her his hand and pulled her up. When she straightened her dress and stepped out from behind the saint, Semyon was studying the portraits of the Guards.

“I thought the hall of ancestors was for Guards who have passed,” Semyon said.

“It is,” said Lev.

“But isn’t that her?” Semyon pointed.

Sofia didn’t need to see what he was pointing at to answer, “That’s Lady Yelizaveta. She was my mother.” Everyone always said she looked like her. It had been the first thing Aleksei asked her.

“Yeah, Soful looks a lot like her mother,” Lev said in passing.

“Not your mother?” Semyon frowned.

“She’s my cousin, Syoma.”

“Oh, I always thought she was your sister,” Semyon said. “You’re an only child? That explains a lot.”

“Fuck you, Syoma. Come on, let’s go get inebriated. We’re going to die tomorrow anyway.”

“Hush, Lev. Bad omen,” said Sofia, following Lev and Semyon out of the hall of ancestors.

“Fuck omens,” Lev said, and that was probably a bad omen as well. It had been one of the last things the archmage had said.

Lev flicked the crystal glass and the water turned blue and the concoction smoked. “Magic,” he whispered.

Sofia smiled. That was his sleight of hand. He’d gotten much better since he was a boy. She still didn’t know what the potion was for and sniffed it when he handed the glass to her. It smelled like… She couldn’t place it. The only thing she could think of was ice on a hot day but that wasn’t a scent.

“What is this place?” Semyon asked, walking about the emerald stone railing at the center of the room. There was a gold sphere on a pole inside it. The floor was brown tiles.

They were hiding here because the palace was busy, bustling with a hundred servants and over three hundred knights. Deep of the night, the candelabras on the walls were alight.

“It’s a bathroom,” Lev said.

“That’s gold.” Semyon pointed at the orb.

“We’re rich,” was Lev’s answer.

“Where’s the bath?” Semyon looked around.

“Lev, don’t!” Sofia yelled when she saw the mischievous smile on her brother’s face but it was too late.

The gold orb sprayed water and the whole floor fountained, soaking them all. With a snap of the finger, Lev turned off the water but now the floor was wet and so were they.

“Nice.” Semyon spat water, wiping the drenched hair from his face. He’d been closest to the orb.

“Lev, you’re stupid.” Sofia got up and wrung her skirt.

“Who cares.” Lev sat in a puddle of water with his back to the wall. “Who cares,” he whispered, his eyes sad. He’d been making various potions for hours and was intoxicated. He had a predictable way of dealing with duress.

“Come on, Lev.” Semyon sat down by him. “Five hundred sentinels aren’t shit. We can win, take Aleksei’s head for a trophy.”

“Who the fuck cares. My father just threw away his life to protect some,” he knocked on the floor, “bullshit.”

“It’s Auntie’s home,” Sofia said. The blue potion was called Euphoria and Sofia drank it. She wanted to be… euphoric.

“My mother is dead. Now my father too,” Lev said. “Uncle is gone. The synod is gone. The church is gone. Every family has elders, but not us, Soful. One of the oldest houses of Fedosia and I’m supposed to be the head of it. Fucken ridiculous, isn’t it? It’s a selfish thing Father did, choosing to feel grand and go out self-important rather than crawl through the shit of it. Fuck him. Fuck this house. Fuck the Guards.” He put an opium pipe to his mouth. “Fuck it all. The fuck do I care?”

Her brother cried while he laughed, banging the metal pipe on the tile. His face, clothes, the floor, all of it was wet anyway, so a few tears wouldn’t matter.

“Fucken ridiculous,” Lev mumbled. He closed his eyes and laid his head on Semyon’s shoulder.

Feeling she was intruding, Sofia got up to leave but not before saying, “If it doesn’t go our way tomorrow, you will get him out of here.”

“I will,” said Semyon. “Good fortune, Lady Sofia.”

“To you as well, Lord Semyon.”

With that, Sofia stepped out. She’d go to her room and change, perhaps even get a few hours of sleep. The potion made the floor sway and she fancied she was on a ship to Elfur with Aleksei. Maybe that was what euphoria was—a dream.