Chapter 4
Evelyn

Four stones are laid out before me in an arc that gives the four royals a clear view of my figure sitting straight-backed in a black glass throne, a crown of the same like adorning my head.

I am a beautiful imitation of a balance between life and death.

The Mercer queen stares at my face, her eyes scanning me. She doesn't know what to do with the figure before her as she attempts to ignore the offenses I radiate. "Evelyn Aculiac, what is it you wish to speak of?"

I dip my head in her direction, not breaking my eyes away from her, "I wish to have a conversion, at the end of which, you will decide if aiding me in my war is worth it."

Devon Adceran twirls a glass between the fingers of his left hand, "Just one conversation?"

I nod in assent, "That is all I ask."

Ervin Vaughn scoffs at that, "Then you are very much unlike your ancestors."

"What was your mother's name?" I pose the question to the four figures that stare back at me, Jezebel included.

Valindra sighs, already wanting to be done with this conversation, but indulging me anyway, "Analyn Mercer."

"What was her smile like?"

Her eyes dart to mine, sudden discomfort darkening them, "It was light and pretty. She was far too good to remain in this world."

"Did you love your mother?"

She lets out a short laugh that sounds more like a scoff, "Who does not?"

"Answer the question?"

"Very much so."

I flatten my palms against the fabric of my dress, smoothing it, "Then you and I, Valindra, are two very different people." My breath comes out sharply, more so than I had intended. Cassandra's words echo in my head as they berate me, confuse me and inspire me to continue. It is hard to hate someone who is so fundamentally broken.

"Varsillian's are raised on the principles that we have no one and nothing. It is a lie to most, a front we uphold to protect our hearts, but to me, it was reality. I had maybe four conversations with my mother. In the first she told me that my younger sister would be queen.

The second, she told me to keep my mouth shut. I don't remember the third or the fourth, only that they happened."

Ervin's hands shake slightly, only on the arm of his throne and the other gripping his chin, "I don't see the relevance."

I hold up a hand, "Let me finish."

His hands stop shaking. I continue, "My mother was a fool, a whore and an awful person, but she was a person all the same, so when she died I mourned her name. My father soon after sent me to die the way my mother did. He did not succeed. When he died, I had no mother. I had a sister who was raised to be queen, but did not have the power. You see, it takes a strong person to rule over the unruly. That person was me. For every moment I was queen, I was prosecuted for crimes I did not commit and when I killed the leader of the Rebelled, I was thrown into prison. I am now here, fighting for the people I can only pity."
Valindra throws her hands out, psalm to the sky, fingers spread wide, "As wonderful as that sounds, I see no reason why we should help you."

My fingers ache to do something other than lie still, "Vienna is about to have a civil war. The Qiem ley lines are as blackened as Varsillian ones were and Ervin-"

"That is enough." Ervin cuts in quickly, his voice deep and filled with a darkness that I know well.

Jezebel stays ever silent, the quiet spectator to the madness. Devon stands, leaning over the table he was sitting at calmly just a moment ago, a conversation, you said we'd have a bloody damn conversation, not a game of blackmail."

At the same moment Valindra speaks up, "then we have our agreement, Aculiac bastard."
Devon turns on her, angry as ever and ready to point fingers, "how dare you align with-"

"My affairs do not concern you, Adceran." Her voice comes out cold and sharp, her eyes steely.
She reminds me of Aaliyah, a mix of fire and ice, not at war, but together as one destructive force.

I give her a nod full of respect and she mirrors the gesture. I turn my attention to Ervin, "You don't have much of a choice-"

"Are you taking that choice from me?" He wilts as he comes to the immediate conclusion that I am the evil in our equation.

His eyes are cold and weary, showing the weight of his age and how tired he grows after each mess he cleans up, "I do not take choice. You may think me a monster, but there is always a choice. I will bleed to help you keep your freedom. That is what being a my allie means." I mean every word that falls off of my tongue smoothly.

After Aries Aculiac had torn through me and taken my humanity, my happiness, the life in me, I knew intimately about the importance of choice.

Without that alternative route, you are trapped in a lose-lose battle of wills that was created to destroy you.

Aries Aculiac had created my lose-lose world and when I was freed from that prison, I had to start myself over. I was no longer a person, but a dead-eyed girl attempting to imitate the act of being alive.

His mind runs circles and paddles through never ending oceans as he takes my measure, finding little to glenn.

I would bleed for him.

If he fights for me- no question about it.

"Convince me then, that you are the right choice."

"Ervin, my cards are on the table, it is time to lay yours out or leave."

Harsh- yes, but true.

We are going to war and I don't have all day to coddle old men. If he wants to join me, then he should say so. He should leave otherwise.
He has taken my measure, I have taken his.
The air seems to go still and my throat dry. A million expressions pass over his face in mere moments, but it tells me all I need to know. He wants the same deal I made.

I'll help you win your war, then I'm out.
I know that feeling all too well. Except he will get out- someday, he will. The same cannot be said for me.

His voice is strong and steady, like a cold evening in the winter dark. It feels like forever and so do his words, "I will send aid and then I want everything buried."

In other words: If I win this war with you, destroy all the blackmail you have on me and let me and my people be.

I don't need to think as my head involuntarily nods his way, "Agreed."

"Devon Adceran, how do you plead?"

He dares meet my gaze head on, "I cannot."

His answer does nothing but annoy me because we both know that it is the fool's way out of associating with me.

"So then you will remain neutral because you cannot go against me. Although I am in a tricky spot, I still pose a great threat, one that you fear. Remaining neutral will get you killed should the Varkeshian's win and it will make you hated by my people should we win. You are caught and floundering, so you are choosing to not make a choice at all." My voice is harsh and it beats the eardrums as if a thousand drums were being sounded. Stand. Stand and fight. Become the monster to kill the monster. Live, but do not greed, rule but do not love. Walk the line of all insanity.

I continue on. Devon's gaze matching mine blow for blow, but his are unfounded pretenses- mine are far more sincere and far deadlier, "I will win this war no matter the cost. You wager your people's lives on this and you wager correctly, but I will not show you mercy should the time come. Gamble your life away, Devon Adceran. Gamble it all away, but do not gamble on a lose lose fight for something worse or downright awful."

He goes to speak, getting but half a syllable out, the other rulers are silent as my hand slices the air, cutting the king of the Adceran legacy off, "I am not finished, Adceran. You gamble on the notion that Varkeshia's darkness is greater than mine." My eyes blink before I can continue.

I am calm, determined.

Thunder is in my head.

Thunder beats my words.

Thunder runs my blood.

I am thunder.

My hand curls in mid air, my lips tugging up, my eyes sharpening to daggers that draw blood at every chance.

"You gamble on falsehood and fantasy. Your words are folly, your heart is not true. You will die a disgraced king at my hand, if you choose to walk this path."

His gaze darts, but his face remains stone, "what happened to no threats, no obligations?"
"I make truthful statements only. One day it will be you and I at war and this time you will have no room to negotiate."

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