YOUR TEETH WILL NEVER FEEL SHARP ENOUGH
the body always holds a burning feeling
the body always holds a burning feeling
Dawn is here, Nestor crowed as she sailed through the door, urgent, but the nobleman did not look up.
He was watching the sun. Watching as the noonday rays bent through his half-lidded window in fragile slivers of amber, casting upon the carpet a scattering of golden triangles. They looked, Senna thought, just like the triangles of spun sugar placed atop the rose cakes Zofia had loved so much.
Crown's Confectionary, branded and sealed. Delivered in a box with a white silk bow to her room every Altar Day, when the little family would be permitted (generously granted by dearest brother Zolin) to leave the castle for the sand shrine in the Mors. "Crown's — the Best Bakery in all Novus!" Zofia Dubbed. Zofia Loved.
Crown’s Confectionary: [Out of Operation — Fall 503] The first victims of the ration had been the sweetshops.
(He'd gone to see it, once. There it had stood, at the end of an alley, at the end of a city, at the end of its Best Bakery life. Shattered glass windows. Doors kicked down to splinters. Sacks of slashed sugar bags, contents long devoured, strewn like skins beyond the entryway. Faded gold lettering on a faded old sign, crossed through with painted blood. It stated, with glee: CROWn'S CONFEctionarySSIONAL.)
Dawn. Is. Here. came Nestor's piercing cry, and finally, with startled indignity, did Senna stir. “The court," he said, slow and hissing, for rose cakes crowned in sugar triangles were being cut into thirds in his mind, "did not receive word to expect a Delumine ambassador."
Not an ambassador, the falcon clucked, unrelenting. She cared not for rose cakes and dead wives, not when Dawn was here. The regent himself.
At this, the Regent himself, Senna's head lifted. A cloud chose that moment to slip over the sun, so golden triangles and cake-loving wives chose that moment to slip over the River (Cocytus).
"And Raum?" he asked, quiet as Lethe. Undercurrents of contempt curled and caught around the single, curt syllable. A thousand words and none it gurgled, but Nestor understood.
Out, she replied, equally curt. Equally understood. Out to meet the Dawn.
---
At first, he didn’t make his presence known. If all went well, he thought, jerking back his hood, he wouldn't need to.
Under the blazing noonday sun, Senna was a stone splitting a frantic flood. Women and children, a symphony of ribs, pushed and parted like a stampede of spooked antelope. Deftly he twisted out of their way, unwilling to look at them yet unable to look away. He settled for piecing together the parts as he passed: the symphony of ribs, the matchstick legs, the jaundiced eyes. He waited for the feeling to come. The pity (on their behalf). The anger (on their behalf). The injustice (on their behalf). And come it did.
Plainly put, justly observed, the people did not deserve to suffer for crimes they did not commit.
“You have no right to starve these people. You have no right to call yourself their king.”
But the curious thing about empathy, was how easy it was to reverse. Like flipping a lightswitch. On: pity you. Off: pity me. Senna wondered, when he flicked the switch to Off: had they pitied her? (Zofia) Were they angered for her? (Zofia) Had they demanded justice for her? (Zofia) Because plainly put, justly observed, Zofia had not deserved to die for crimes she did not commit.
All had not gone well.
“Regent Ipomoea. King Raum.” A nod for the furious regent, a bow for the crow king. And a crooked half-smile for the reclusive warden. “Warden Torstein.” The dark woman — he did not recognize. But perhaps that was a small mercy.
Senna's heart beat like a war drum in his chest. Drum, drum, drum. The song of violence ascending. Regent of Dawn, his eyes demanded. Why have you come? The apple in his pocket whispered to him the answer. To feed them fruit and sweet sympathy?
A wave of a wand, blessed by Dawn, and out rolled a barrel of forbidden apples. Out filled the cheeks of the cherub-children, out clawed the laughter of the twice-damned. Once by Zolin. Once by Raum. Where was the wand, the apples, the cherubs and the laughter, three years ago?
When the capital burned. When the insurrection raged. When the rebels stormed the castle, slaughtering them (the hateful, hateful nobles!) like cows at a grand butchering. “You damn nobles. What have you ever done for us?”
(The Azhade kept the black market alive; they were buyers of stolen goods, gold-provisioners for desperate fathers. The Sevetta furnished the weapons to be used in hypothetical revolution. The Ieshan eased the anxieties of disgruntled Denoctians, Terrastellans, Deluminians. "Raum will not attack. We are a civilized court." And the Hajakhas. The Scarab edged deeper into debt with each piece of gold he lent to nobles and hungry peasants.
Nothing. They were doing nothing.)
“I advise you to calm your weapon, Regent. Solterra has seen violence enough. Is that really what you wish to bring upon us?”
One hair on Ipomoea's pretty head — that was all it would take. One hair singed by Raum's infamous wrath, and what would keep Oriens' scholar court from severing all ties with starving Solterra? Denocte, already a madhouse with the disappearance of their magic-blessed queen, raged like a tempest in the South. Terrastella, peace-loving Terrastella, twiddled its thumbs until it could bother risking its neck for a revolution.
Now Delumine came knocking, without notice, without merit, to slice one more limb off dying Neutrality. Kick one last leg out from the stilts keeping the sun court from total collapse. All under the iceblue stare of a king who despised his own empire.
Who cared not who he brought down in his reckoning.
“Would you like to hear a secret?” the Regent asked. Ah, little Regent. Would you like to hear mine?
Sweet Zofia. Darling Princess. Throat slit ear to ear. Her crime was being born a Hajakha.
And sometimes, sometimes, he wished for the world to pay.
☾
He was watching the sun. Watching as the noonday rays bent through his half-lidded window in fragile slivers of amber, casting upon the carpet a scattering of golden triangles. They looked, Senna thought, just like the triangles of spun sugar placed atop the rose cakes Zofia had loved so much.
Crown's Confectionary, branded and sealed. Delivered in a box with a white silk bow to her room every Altar Day, when the little family would be permitted (generously granted by dearest brother Zolin) to leave the castle for the sand shrine in the Mors. "Crown's — the Best Bakery in all Novus!" Zofia Dubbed. Zofia Loved.
Crown’s Confectionary: [Out of Operation — Fall 503] The first victims of the ration had been the sweetshops.
(He'd gone to see it, once. There it had stood, at the end of an alley, at the end of a city, at the end of its Best Bakery life. Shattered glass windows. Doors kicked down to splinters. Sacks of slashed sugar bags, contents long devoured, strewn like skins beyond the entryway. Faded gold lettering on a faded old sign, crossed through with painted blood. It stated, with glee: CROW
Dawn. Is. Here. came Nestor's piercing cry, and finally, with startled indignity, did Senna stir. “The court," he said, slow and hissing, for rose cakes crowned in sugar triangles were being cut into thirds in his mind, "did not receive word to expect a Delumine ambassador."
Not an ambassador, the falcon clucked, unrelenting. She cared not for rose cakes and dead wives, not when Dawn was here. The regent himself.
At this, the Regent himself, Senna's head lifted. A cloud chose that moment to slip over the sun, so golden triangles and cake-loving wives chose that moment to slip over the River (Cocytus).
"And Raum?" he asked, quiet as Lethe. Undercurrents of contempt curled and caught around the single, curt syllable. A thousand words and none it gurgled, but Nestor understood.
Out, she replied, equally curt. Equally understood. Out to meet the Dawn.
At first, he didn’t make his presence known. If all went well, he thought, jerking back his hood, he wouldn't need to.
Under the blazing noonday sun, Senna was a stone splitting a frantic flood. Women and children, a symphony of ribs, pushed and parted like a stampede of spooked antelope. Deftly he twisted out of their way, unwilling to look at them yet unable to look away. He settled for piecing together the parts as he passed: the symphony of ribs, the matchstick legs, the jaundiced eyes. He waited for the feeling to come. The pity (on their behalf). The anger (on their behalf). The injustice (on their behalf). And come it did.
Plainly put, justly observed, the people did not deserve to suffer for crimes they did not commit.
“You have no right to starve these people. You have no right to call yourself their king.”
But the curious thing about empathy, was how easy it was to reverse. Like flipping a lightswitch. On: pity you. Off: pity me. Senna wondered, when he flicked the switch to Off: had they pitied her? (Zofia) Were they angered for her? (Zofia) Had they demanded justice for her? (Zofia) Because plainly put, justly observed, Zofia had not deserved to die for crimes she did not commit.
All had not gone well.
“Regent Ipomoea. King Raum.” A nod for the furious regent, a bow for the crow king. And a crooked half-smile for the reclusive warden. “Warden Torstein.” The dark woman — he did not recognize. But perhaps that was a small mercy.
Senna's heart beat like a war drum in his chest. Drum, drum, drum. The song of violence ascending. Regent of Dawn, his eyes demanded. Why have you come? The apple in his pocket whispered to him the answer. To feed them fruit and sweet sympathy?
A wave of a wand, blessed by Dawn, and out rolled a barrel of forbidden apples. Out filled the cheeks of the cherub-children, out clawed the laughter of the twice-damned. Once by Zolin. Once by Raum. Where was the wand, the apples, the cherubs and the laughter, three years ago?
When the capital burned. When the insurrection raged. When the rebels stormed the castle, slaughtering them (the hateful, hateful nobles!) like cows at a grand butchering. “You damn nobles. What have you ever done for us?”
(The Azhade kept the black market alive; they were buyers of stolen goods, gold-provisioners for desperate fathers. The Sevetta furnished the weapons to be used in hypothetical revolution. The Ieshan eased the anxieties of disgruntled Denoctians, Terrastellans, Deluminians. "Raum will not attack. We are a civilized court." And the Hajakhas. The Scarab edged deeper into debt with each piece of gold he lent to nobles and hungry peasants.
Nothing. They were doing nothing.)
“I advise you to calm your weapon, Regent. Solterra has seen violence enough. Is that really what you wish to bring upon us?”
One hair on Ipomoea's pretty head — that was all it would take. One hair singed by Raum's infamous wrath, and what would keep Oriens' scholar court from severing all ties with starving Solterra? Denocte, already a madhouse with the disappearance of their magic-blessed queen, raged like a tempest in the South. Terrastella, peace-loving Terrastella, twiddled its thumbs until it could bother risking its neck for a revolution.
Now Delumine came knocking, without notice, without merit, to slice one more limb off dying Neutrality. Kick one last leg out from the stilts keeping the sun court from total collapse. All under the iceblue stare of a king who despised his own empire.
Who cared not who he brought down in his reckoning.
“Would you like to hear a secret?” the Regent asked. Ah, little Regent. Would you like to hear mine?
Sweet Zofia. Darling Princess. Throat slit ear to ear. Her crime was being born a Hajakha.
And sometimes, sometimes, he wished for the world to pay.
