I walked into the dressing room pulling at my collar. The long dress shirt running forward a little bit, in waves of fabric. I pulled and loosened and the minute I anchored my finger deep, the Sewer stopped to look at me. He stood behind dividers, him and his apprentice and Vincent who was naked and whose lithe form I could see in shadow alone. He turned to me, smirking. The Sewer ran up with a needle and thread flailing his arms.
  “Don’t touch it!” He said. “You’ll rip it. You see? It’s already starting - Shit. Get over here.”
  I groaned and walked over and he pulled my head down. He grabbed the collar and tightened it. I sat there watching the thread shake.
  “How are you doing down there?” Vincent asked.
  “Shut up.”
  “I’m still your commander.”
  “Shut up, commander.” My eyes looked up to him, and I nodded. The Sewer slapped me in the back of the head and told me be still. When he was done I rubbed my skull and took a few steps back. Mirrors lined one side of the room. It was a whole wall of them, thin mirrors with small lines of divisions only a thumbs length wide. They reflected Vincent. Around us, in little metal baskets, scented candles lit up and their fumes dribbled down to dissipate into the air. They were green. They did not smell like any herb I knew. But they made me feel dizzy, like the air had some weight to me.
  “This is a bit much. Don’t you think?” I asked.
  “What is?” Vincent walked out. Bare-ass nude. He rubbed his chin. The only thing dressed being his feet, with long hard bottomed shoes that clacked as he stepped towards me. He kept his arms on his hips.
  “How am I supposed to talk to a naked man?”
  “With your mouth.”
  “The men find this dressing thing to be a bit much. It’s new to them.”
  “What is? Wearing anything besides armor?”
  “Socializing with socialites. It seems worse than war for some of them.”
  “I’m sure they’ll find the courage.” Vincent walked over and grabbed a cup of wine. He drank and stood still. The Sewer worked around him, lining fabrics around his chest and waist. The apprentice took measurements, even writing on his body with chalk. He held up little squares of cotton. The Sewer kept nodding his head, kept replacing the pieces on his arm.
  “Why’d he invite all of us? Shouldn’t it only be you, Soveros maybe?” I asked.
  “He wants a good impression with his new army.” Vincent raised his arms. The apprentice fitted a shirt onto him. It was skin tight.
  “That it?” I asked.
  “No.”
  “So there’s something extra?”
  “In a way. Yes.”
  “Is that why you called me?” I asked. “Am I doing the extra?”
  Vincent hand waved. The Sewer took it and stood, he nodded his head and grabbed his apprentice and dragged the boy out. Slamming the door and causing a little cloud of green air to puff and exhume out.
  “You are the extra.” Vincent set down his cup. He put on some trousers and walked to me. A dresser to his side, he took out an envelope and handed it to me.
  “What’s this?” I unfolded the paper square. Yellow stained. A thin piece.
  “Don’t read it here.” He said. “But read it, you should.”
  “Wha-” I said. He put a finger to my mouth.
  “Nothing more.” He said.
  “Who wrote this?”
  “You don’t listen, do you?”
  “I just want to know some immediate details.” I said.
  “The king wrote it.” He said.
  “What? I don’t get it.”
  “But you will, not now. But you will.”
  I took the paper and tucked it into my pockets. Over to the wine bottle by the dresser side, I found a cup. I threw it. Took the bottle instead and with a quick snap of my finger, ejected the cork out. It flew and hit the glass and rolled along the floor. Marble tiles and scented candles and these bronze statues of feigned importance.
  “This isn’t a normal party. Is it?” I asked.
  “It is.”
  “Not for all of us.” I drank. “There’s something bad you want me to do. Perhaps?”
  “Bad to whom? You don’t even know.”
  “But I do know. I can figure by the way you’re standing and the way you’re handling me and the way you’re telling me like you’re walking on thin ice. I see the dark waters below. I know the surface is snapping and I’m trying to figure out where we’re going to end up if it does.”
  Vincent looked out, his own reflection staring back. He folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head.
  “How does a king come to power, Virgil? Have you ever thought about it?”
  “No. When I had power, I didn’t question it. Now I don’t really care for it.”
  “What a pleasure it must be to not be burdened by necessity.” Vincent pulled a bang away from his forehead. “I’ve thought about it. How my father ruled. Back when Volarus meant something and when Vaeleria still had a history to her name.”
  “But she’s dead now.” I said. “That’s the truth.”
  “Aye. She’s dead. Most her people dead. In a war everyone has forgotten. Now only I remain.”
He wagged his finger. I took drinks.
  “I’ve thought long and hard about how my home died. But I never really thought, how did it come together in the first place? How does it endure? How does any nation endure?” He said.
  I took a swig.
  “War? Money?”
  “They help.” He walked over and took my bottle. “A country is borne by, endured by, and lived by, a lie.”
Vincent drank.
  “A lie of its origins, a lie of its glory and a lie of its people.” Vincent said. “And like any lie, it must be fed. Fueled. Like any fire.”
  “What’s the lie then? What does Xanthus want?”
  “What he’s always wanted.” Vincent said. “To prove he’s the only one fit to rule. Him, and only him. That’s it.”
I stood silent at his words. Vincent knocked on the door and the two came back in, flooding and running to Vincent’s ribbons and hanging drapes and unfit pants.

 

I looked at the paper an hour later, in some quiet alcove in the halls of the castle keep. There, sat, with columns in front of me and the open expanse out to the moon beyond those columns. A balcony overlooked the city. Royal guards to my right.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I crumpled the paper and threw it into the fire.
I headed down the hall past two guards nested in front of the metal door. I walked into the room, a loud pop of music struck me. A man banged on drums across, with his army of bronze instrument fellows. A flute player. Some sort of stringed instrument in the shape of a giant horse shoe, a bit like an oversized lyre.
  Women twirled with their peacock colored dresses. The bottoms expanding like an umbrella, then taking form around their slender bodies. Most of them were slender, eerily so. At close inspection I could see the scar marks covered with make up, incisions across their abdomens and sides. Their plastic smiles wide as they held their nobles tight.
  I walked in between them, swerving between the wide swings of their dances. Pushing people off me as they struck me. I reached towards the far wall where giant red curtains were slid behind the columns, where I spotted Kal (who was impossible to miss). He had a blue shirt on. A bow strung around his neck that came down to his belt with two weaved ends. He scratched at his neck and bent awkwardly over a table. He took a shell fish and ate. Edwin Silverfang stood against the wall with his leg propping him, he had a shifty look to him and kept surveying.
  “Hey Kal. Hey Edwin.” I said. “It’s a little, cold here, ain’t it?”
  “You hate this too?” Edwin grabbed my arm.
  “In a way, yeah.”
  “Please tell me we can leave.”
  “It’s alright to me.” His shirt ripped at his bicep. “Aww, man.”
  “No. You can’t leave. Not yet.” I said. “Where’s your brother, Edwin?”
  Edwin pointed into the crowd.
  “Somewhere in there.” He said.
  “What the hell do you mean?”
  “Lowell said he had fallen in love and sprinted into the crowd. I thought he was an idiot.” Edwin said. “That’s how it happened though.”
  “Are you kidding me?”
  “No. What’s the problem?”
  “Everything.” I said. “I’ve got a gig for the four of us. It’s something Vincent wants done.”
  “When?”
  “Right now.” I got closer and dragged them into a little huddle. “I can’t tell you the details, but I need you to be ready to leave at any moments notice.”
  “Well shit, you could have started with that.” Edwin said.
  “I’m going to get your brother. Then we’ll leave and I’ll tell you the details.”
He sighed and breathed in relief and nodded. The instruments boomed, I felt the bass strike my body and shake me. Vibrations going down to the soles of my feet as I traveled through the jungle of people. I stuck my hands in between flesh. In between drunken smiles, and neck kisses. The floor, a shiny white. Pale. The glare of candle lights and exploding fires in the air reflecting from its surface. Mages with shaved bone instruments attached to their fingers made intricate signs in the air. Little things of fire rose and exploded and filled the high ceilings with a light show. I continued. Paper falling along my shoulders. Dark colors now. Like the man-eaters. Wolves racing across. Fires taking the shape of monsters to me. I lowered my head and blinked. I looked up. God I should have slept. I could see them. The winged beasts. The bugs with skulls on their bellies. I covered my eyes and went dizzy.
  And in the corner of my periphery, somewhere in the background noise -
  “I’m sorry. I’m trying.” Lowell said.
  “You stepped on me again.”
  “I’m sorry.”
  “Stop. Apologizing.”
  “Sorry.”
  I turned and saw Lowell with his arms extended out to a young woman with her hair raised high up, like a spire. I yanked him.
  “Thank god I found you.” I said.
  “Virgil. Please!” He said. “I think she likes me.”
  “You’ve got a lot to learn, buddy.”
  We went through the crowd, back to Edwin and Kal.
  “Is it over? Already?” He asked.
  “In a way. Just hurry up.” I said. “Do you have your weapons?”
  “What?” He screamed.
  “Your bow! Do you know where your bows at?”
  “There’s something in my bowl?”
  “Your bow!” I screamed. He put his finger to his ear.
  I nodded my head and yanked him and pushed him. And his body flew, hitting someone to my rear. A waiter, holding a giant plate of drinks. They fell and splashed and cracked on the surface. People scattered and formed a circle around the scene. Lowell went ghost-pale. An apparition disappearing into the white tile.
  “Who? Who’s done this?” The fat man looked about. He had a rain stain across his white drapes.
  I swallowed and straightened.
  “Which one of you?” He pulled at his blouse. “Do you know-Who. What?”
  Somewhere in the circle of people, I saw Vincent. He nodded his head. King Xanthus kept a drink to his lips, looking.
  “I’m sorry sir, it was me.” The waiter said. He bent down and picked at the glass, setting it on his plate.
  “You little-” The man approached. “I am Duke Venryr, parasite. Do you understand?”
  “Yes sir.”
  Venryr raised his foot. “Do. You. Know. Who. I. Am?”
  The waiter tensed, he closed his eyes and braced.
  “Twas a simple accident.” Vincent said. “He meant no disrespect mi’lord.”
  “No dis…no disrespect?”
  “Yes.” King Xanthus said. “None. Please, enjoy the festivities Venryr.”
  Venryr grit his teeth. He turned and left the circle.
  I looked at him, Lowell fixed himself straight. I stared at the fat man and his small militia that held the way for him, towards the main door.
  This was the man I was meant to kill.