Bargains of Secrets and Agony
The black marble of the sunken tub radiated a sweltering, herb-scented heat. Iris did not hesitate. She placed one bare foot into the scalding water, then the other. Slowly, she descended until the dark liquid enveloped her waist.
Princess Kaelen watched her from the opposite end of the vast tub. She rested her scarred shoulders against the polished stone. Valka, the shield-maiden, stood perfectly still at the water’s edge, her hand resting on the hilt of her dagger.
"Such pristine, unbroken silk," Kaelen murmured through the thick steam. "The women of Eldoria are kept like hothouse flowers. Soft. Fragile. Not a single mark upon you to prove you have ever fought for a single breath."
Iris kept her gaze steady. She refused to look away from the violent tapestry of raised, jagged scars that crisscrossed Kaelen’s chest and arms.
"We fight different wars in the South, Your Highness," Iris replied. "Our battlefields are simply carpeted in silk rather than snow."
Iris waded closer, the water rippling gently against her collarbones. She reached out toward the floating sponge Valka had discarded. "May I?"
Kaelen tilted her head, a gesture of dangerous amusement. "Lowering yourself to play the bath-maid, Lady Iris? The future Queen of Eldoria, kneeling in the water just to scrub the mud and sweat from a Northern soldier?"
"I wish to prove that I am not afraid of the work required to forge an alliance," Iris said.
She took the sponge and knelt beneath the water's surface. Her hands found the firm, scarred muscle of Kaelen’s calf. She moved the sponge in slow, deliberate strokes.
"And I wish for you to speak your mind, Princess. Tell me what it is you truly want."
Kaelen laughed, a sharp, echoing sound. "What I want? I want to swallow the sun and command the tides, southern blossom. What makes you think your delicate hands hold any of it?"
"I know you are searching for something," Iris said, keeping her voice even. "I can help you. We can work together to bring order to this fractured castle."
"Your help? I have no need of it. You offer what little you have, a desperate plea from a cornered girl. What could you possibly offer me that I cannot simply take?"
Iris did not falter. She squeezed the warm water from the sponge.
"You want the Tower of Mages. You want their secrets, and you want to understand the dark magic that burned your soldiers in the Tangle. I can give you the Tower. I can help you avenge the Valerock blood that was spilled on our streets."
Kaelen’s green eyes narrowed. "And how, exactly, do you propose to hand me a fortress that has stood for centuries?"
"I am to be Queen," Iris said, her chin lifting. "Ainsworth listens to me. I can manipulate the council, sign the decrees, and open the doors that Head Mage Mairen has slammed in your face. I will give you the legal authority to dismantle the Tower from the inside out."
"And the bargain?" Kaelen asked skeptically. "What is the price for this grand betrayal of your own people?"
"Halt the shipments," Iris demanded. "Stop loading Eldorian citizens into iron carriages. Stop sending our people to labor and die in the Valerock mines."
Kaelen stared at her for a long moment before bursting into a harsh, mocking laugh. "You are ridiculous. Truly, a magnificent comedian."
Kaelen leaned forward, water cascading down her scarred chest. "Let me understand this southern mathematics. You allow a fortune in royal gold to be stolen from my protection. You default on your tribute. And now, you demand I give up the manual labor I claimed as recompense? Why in all the frozen hells would Valerock do that for free?"
"You wish for the Tower? You wish for its secrets, its power? Then know this: I can give you the Tower. I can open its doors."
"I will take the Tower regardless!" Kaelen snapped, her voice cracking like a whip. "I do not need your permission, and I certainly do not need your conditions. If this is the extent of what you have to offer, Lady Iris, you should step out of this water immediately. Valka is entirely ready to sever your pretty head for wasting my time."
Iris felt a cold sweat break out across her forehead, mingling with the steam. The threat was not idle. She kept her hands submerged, forcing them to remain still against Kaelen’s skin. She had to guess. She had to find the unseen lever.
"You have been playing games with this country since you arrived," Iris said, her voice dropping to a rapid, urgent whisper. "You have the army to crush us, but you wait. You harass our borders and you strangle our economy. You are grinding the King, the nobles, and the starving peasants into dust, ensuring we all suffer equally. Why not just take the throne? Why make all of Eldoria suffer this slow death?"
Iris’s mind raced, searching for the hidden current beneath the Northerner’s actions. Did all of this have something to do with Valerie? It was the great, unspoken secret of the capital.
The official narrative was that an unknown assassin had taken her life. Yet everyone in the court pretended to be blind to the truth of who had actually ordered the strike. Nobody asked for justice. Nobody hunted the true culprit. Not a single courtier, not a single lord, not even the Duchess Sylvia, her supposed shadow, had made a fuss, demanded answers, or raised a blade for the truth of her murder.
Why such silence from the woman who claimed such devotion? I dimly recall my father mentioning Princess Kaelen had visited Eldoria once, long ago, seeking some counsel from Valerie. Could it be that Kaelen, watching this grotesque farce unfold, was now here not for conquest, but for retribution? To make Eldoria pay for its collective blindness to a Queen's death?
Kaelen remained silent, her eyes hard.
"Are you trying to avenge her?" Iris asked, taking a blind leap into the dark. "Is that what this is? Are you punishing Eldoria because we let Queen Valerie die? Are you making us suffer for losing her?"
Kaelen went utterly still. For a split second, the air in the room seemed to freeze. Then, the tension broke as Kaelen let out a low, melodic chuckle.
"Avenge Valerie's death?" Kaelen asked, shaking her head. "Why on earth would I need to avenge her death, southern blossom? What a terribly dramatic notion."
She's lying, Iris thought frantically. She is circling the truth, wasting time.
Iris let go of the sponge. She stood up, the water sluicing off her bare body, and looked down at the Northern Princess.
"I know you are walking in circles, Princess. You are looking for something you cannot find with swords and soldiers." Iris took a sharp breath. "I have Valerie’s private journal."
Kaelen’s playful demeanor shattered instantly. She sat up straight, water sloshing violently over the edge of the marble tub.
"My father moved it, Princess, long before the King’s men burned her personal effects," Iris said, her heart hammering. "He ensured it was kept hidden."
"Why would I care about a dead woman's diary?" Kaelen demanded, her voice dangerously tight, her eyes locked onto Iris with a sudden, burning intensity.
"Because it contains every thought she never spoke aloud," Iris countered, sensing the shift in power, grasping it with both hands.
"It holds her deepest regrets. Her private confessions. Her hidden truths about her reign, her magic, and the people she dealt with. Including the North. And if you have this journal, Princess, perhaps a certain Northern Princess's name is inscribed within its pages, a story of her own ambition?"
Iris paused, letting the silence stretch. "Are you interested, Princess?"
Kaelen stared at her, revealing a raw, desperate hunger underneath her calm mask.
"Give it to me," Kaelen whispered roughly. "Bring me that journal, unread and intact, and I will stop the carriages. Not another Eldorian will be sent to Valerock."
"We have an accord," Iris said, bowing her head slightly.
She turned and began the slow walk up the marble steps out of the tub, reaching for a towel left on a nearby bench. As she dried her shivering limbs, her mind spun with a dark, bewildering realization.
How is it possible? Iris thought, staring blankly at the stone wall. Valerie is dead and buried. Yet Sylvia is willing to burn the kingdom down just to mourn her. And now, the most dangerous woman on the continent is willing to halt an entire slave trade for a book of her scribblings. How did Valerie manage to wrap both of these terrifying women so completely around her fingers? Even from the grave, she rules them.
Miles away, the silence within Lady Annelise’s childhood home was heavy, broken only by ragged, labored breathing.
In a dusty guest chamber, Annelise sat perched on the edge of a heavy wooden chair. She wrung a linen cloth out over a porcelain basin, the water splashing softly.
On the bed lay Clara. The Tower Mage had been unconscious for three days, locked in a terrifying, unnatural fever. Her skin was flushed a deep, angry crimson, radiating an intense heat.
"Just a little cooler, please," Annelise murmured to herself, folding the damp cloth. She pressed it gently against Clara's forehead.
Clara let out a low, pained groan, her head tossing weakly against the pillows.
Annelise pulled her hand back. She could feel a strange, vibrating energy beneath the mage's skin—a dark, pulsing thrum from the transference spell Clara had used.
"You took too much," Annelise whispered, swapping the hot towel for a fresh, cool one. "You foolish, brave woman. You took it all."
She stood up, her back aching. She picked up the heavy porcelain pitcher from the bedside table and stepped out into the quiet corridor. She moved softly past the covered furniture until she reached the door at the far end of the hall.
She pushed the door open and entered.
On the large, four-poster bed lay Vera.
Annelise set the pitcher down and walked to the bedside. She reached out, placing the back of her hand against Vera's pale forehead. It was perfectly cool.
"Your skin... it’s already knitting back together," Annelise murmured, tracing the edge of the clean bandage with a trembling finger. "She ripped the agony right out of your body, Valerie. She took every ounce of it into herself."
Annelise sat down on the edge of the mattress, the springs groaning softly under her weight. She looked at the serene, sleeping face of the woman she now knew was the Queen.
"So why won't you open your eyes?" Annelise pleaded to the empty room. Her voice cracked, the exhaustion and terror of the past few days finally breaking through her composure.
She leaned closer, her hands trembling as she took Vera's limp hand in both of hers.
"Come back to me, please," Annelise begged, a tear escaping and tracing a hot path down her cheek. "I am stumbling in the dark here. I don't know how to fix this."
She looked back toward the door, toward the room down the hall.
"Clara is dying down the hall," Annelise whispered, her voice hitching with a desperate sob. "She is literally burning alive, Valerie. Her veins look like they are full of liquid fire, and the magic pouring off her is suffocating. I want to run into the streets and bring a healer back here. I want to find someone who can pull her back from the edge."
Annelise squeezed the calloused fingers tightly.
"But she bound me to a promise before she fell. Her hands were like ice, but she dug her nails into my arm and forbade me from seeking help. No healers. No guards. No one can know we are buried in this tomb."
Annelise bowed her head, bringing Vera’s hand up and pressing it firmly against her own aching chest, right over her heart.
"I am so entirely terrified, Val," Annelise wept, the shortened name slipping out as a desperate, intimate prayer. "I am trapped in this silent house with a mage who is burning to ash and a Queen who won't wake up."
She rested her forehead against their joined hands, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
"Val, please, come back to me," she begged the still, silent room. "Please, just tell me how to save us."
