BEXLEY BRIAR
The call of the horn goes loud and dims and blares again, and Bexley sheds hours of sand and sleep to rise at once, body burning with unhinged anxiety, lashes flared against the incoming sun: in the space of a few seconds she molts and reconstructs, turning nimbly from the innocent figure of a sleeping girl to a standing woman rife with anger and energy. The horn. Blown from someone else’s lips, while the commander’s body rots and soils. Not that it can be helped - but still Bex faces the noise with a kind of disgust, a sense of guilt that they have buried him so quickly, brows furrowed, smelling copper in the back of her throat. She exits her quarters with an expression ratcheted on high and pulse blooming in her jaw.
The dawn is watery and sickening. Bexley passes through the hallways in a blind haze, curls bumping against the sandstone, head bent in depressive determination; the world around her is strangely cold and the quiet unsettling, interrupted only by Bex’s short breaths, her steps on the rock, everything silent in bated breath of an unspoken shift. Chills erupt across her skin. In its seemed omniscience, the building looks back at her stoically, as if it has not even missed the disappearance of its sovereign.
When she emerges into the courtyard, she is unsurprised to see Seraphina and Avdotya, and although Eik is an unexpected addition, she gives him only the slightest sideways glance before drawing to a stop and turning her gaze on the other women. She arrives just in time to witness Voltaire’s bow and has to hold back a scoff - Solis in heaven, these people and their loyalty - is it not smarter to wait and calculate, to listen at least a little, before throwing one’s body on the pyre? With an idle smile she turns away from him.
Good luck, comes a quiet comment, nodded toward Seraphina, and surprisingly sincere. If Bexley’s suspicions are correct, she’ll need it.
