LONG LIVE TAVRODEL

I am not a queen because I rule, I rule because I am THE QUEEN.

Birthed in my heart. Alive in my veins…

*****************

Nadezhda paced her chamber like a caged beast, her robe swishing with every irritated step.

Her eyes fell on the row of pillows she had positioned on the chaise and she turned to address them with a pointed finger, as though they were Zorgan.

“Would your head have been given to a spike if you told me yourself that you were vanishing for a while?

You vile, soulless two-no- nine-legged demon.

By every measure you are the worst man my eyes have laid on-”

She faltered, realizing he had commented that those words now felt like praise.

Her voice dropped low. “Count your days Zorgan of Valcresh.

When you return, I will make your life the most exquisite of misery ever known to any living creature.’’

With a harrumph, she flung herself onto her bed, arms wide as she stared at the ceiling.

The rain outside was soft and soothing and the house had never been quieter- everything she adored.

But tonight, she was inexhaustingly restless.

It had been a maid who had brought word that he had left for Tavrodel with no return date in sight. She had flown down the stairs and pushed through those heavy doors but he was already gone, leaving an ache that used to be only familiar with her mother in her chest.

‘He could have at least left by telling me himself. Not even a bloody smirk- the stone-hearted creature.’

Still seething, she slipped out of her room and his chamber called to her next.

She had dismissed the guards hours ago to enjoy some rest and her liberty was at its peak.

She tossed his pillows aside, stomped on his bed, crumpled his sheets in the process, and poured out his apparel.

She was pleased with her handiwork before she realized that he wasn’t the one who was going to fix it- it was the maids.

And so she got to work and tried to fix back the room to the best of her ability. She thought of which place she could go to that he would be able to tell someone had been present and his writing chamber came to her mind.

He always handled his secret affairs there and she thought to herself that the place had to be pleading for her to trespass.

She went to it, grateful everyone was enjoying the weather she wasn’t.

She found a large tallow candle and with it, she moved about.

In this space, the draperies over the windows were a blend of midnight black and grey. They seemed to drown even the sound of the rain outside, and it was eerily still.

There were wall hangings from Valcresh’s emblem to that of Ysvaldir’s and a few others. Paintings and portraits of very notable past monarchs of the South.

Her eyes found two perches for ravens, large, sturdy scroll cases, quill pens and ink pots, a comfortable chaise lounge, and an old wooden sword nailed to the wall.

She settled on a dark wood high-backed chair and threw her legs atop the complimenting dark wood table.

With the area the candlelight could illuminate, she looked around.

‘I’m certain when he sits here, he tells his guests’, “Kneel before me, for I am Prince Commander Zorgan of Valcresh, one or maybe the best commander in the Southern Realm. Pay Obeisance’’ she said, trying to mirror his way of speaking.

Her eyes fell to the drawers on both sides of the table. She pulled those by the right out and rummaged through its contents.

‘More ink pots and ink pots. Impressive Dragon, perhaps you will write to your palace while you’re away you terrible, very terrible person.’

She moved to the left and found many maps – very detailed maps- of every region in the South, battlefields, some areas the Free occupied, and even the North.

She was impressed as they looked partly worn out.

But then the last drawer seemed to be of some personally written letters, unsent words forever imprisoned.

She decided to push this particular one back, feeling rebellious enough.

But a part of one parchment snuck out. She pulled it open again and the parchment fell out totally.

It appeared older than the rest and the letters of the tongue of this particular parchment seemed to have been written roughly, like a child’s scribble.

‘Zardan is gone from me.

I should have been by him.

I should have been there.

If I had stayed by his side, perhaps he wouldn’t have chosen to fall by that balcony.

I loathe balconies.

I loathe my parents.

I loathe myself.

But I loathe balconies more. It was from it I lost Zardan forever. Come back Zardan.’ The interpretation of the parchment read.

Nadezhda placed a hand over her mouth, her heart hitting hard against its encasement.

‘Is this his?’ she thought trailing shaky fingers over the symbols.

‘Did Zorgan write this? Who is Zardan?!

Oh Heavens!’

****************

Commander Zorgan and the soldiers under his banner had little grasp of the true ruin Tavrodel had run into- least of all Zorgan himself.

Even after the council with the King of Tavrodel and a few members of his court, the weight of it escaped him.

It wasn’t until the night when they walked the broken streets and passed through the hovels of the lowborn, that the truth began to settle in.

Almost everyone was guilty of a crime, and it felt like if they had not arrived when they did, the Kingdom could most likely have broken into a state of lawlessness.

They had swept through Tavrodel, rounding up criminals from thieves to cutthroats. Bound and mostly bloodied, they knelt in the dirt, eyes blaring with hatred or hollow with defeat.

One of them, face smeared with blood and grime, grinned through split lips.

‘‘Well now,’’ he called out, voice poisoned with mockery. ‘‘If it isn’t the great Commander himself, who else could have inspired such trembling in the streets?’’

Zorgan kept walking.

‘‘But can you truly place the blame for all that has happened on us? CAN YOU?!’’ The man shouted.

Zorgan halted and then turned towards him.

A few strides brought him before the man, and he lifted him easily from his withering upper apparel.

‘‘Are you guilty of the crime you are to be punished for?’’ Zorgan demanded, voice hard.

Longer than a heartbeat lingered, before the man replied, ‘‘Yes I am’’

Zorgan dropped him back to his knees, having received his answer that seemed to matter more.

‘‘But I also assume our Noble King has spared you the truth,’’ the man spat. ‘‘Of course, he did. He wouldn’t dare speak of the living filth beneath his crown.

He’ll claim my words and the words of many you have taken to be punished are wild speeches in bitter mouths- empty rumours.

But we know better…the truth.

Tavrodel isn’t like the other wealthy and larger Kingdoms, but there was a period when we were whole and happy.

Dear King wagered our silver, our coin, our future, in a night of drunken sport with other Kings, for a game that he LOST!

Go, ask the King of Tavrodel if my words this day are lies’’

Zorgan’s gaze swept over the faces of the men and women on their knees- broken, dirt-smeared, and perhaps the pain of truth in their eyes.

It gnawed at him at that moment.

‘‘Take them to the cells,’’ he ordered, turning away.

He didn’t look back even as the man continued to shout and when he heard the sound of a crack, he knew a soldier must have silenced him into partial unconsciousness.

As he walked off, a soldier addressed the watching crowd. ‘‘This is the night of many nights. More of you will be found and justice will come. You’ll either amend… or bend…’’

The voice faded but the man’s words didn’t.

That very night, he summoned one of his quieter men and gave a simpler order: find a way to charm one of the King’s attendants and learn where the King would rest.

When he had his answer, he dressed in a way no commander would- simple and unremarkable.

Then he moved, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, just another shadow among the numerous shadows of the night, and stopped when he was above the regalest of quarters.

Through a tall window, he saw the King of Tavrodel, seated among the flickering light, watching a hall of the highest insanity.

Lust, laughter, and excess spilled like rot- but the King stared through it all, his eyes dead at the happenings.

He was the only one clothed among the many.

Moments later, he rose, and with his guards, he left the hall.

When he entered his chambers, Zorgan was already there.

His voice rose from the dark, ‘‘Long live Tavrodel.’’