Chapter 6
Evelyn

Hands.

They slam into the table, they scorch the world, remake a vision, they tell a story.

My hands slam into a wooden surface made of rare Fraxinus trees. The noise echoes through the chamber, bouncing off of the intricate marble carved walls.

A crack forms where bone breaks and heals just as quickly.

My head drops below my shoulders, and my eyes clench shut, the world astound me disappears, and I don't know what to do because the King of Varkeshia is dead and it is the most unsatisfying thing to happen, the most anti-climactic and awful thing. Good for the war, bad for me.

I have no one to fight, but a people in mourning and a newly crowned Queen in a world where women are nothing but whores and disposable pieces of trash.

That Queen won't survive to the next battle, much less to the end of the war.

"When was she born?" Is my choked out, half question that should have been answered and known long ago. The atmosphere creaks and cracks to the tune of a broken heart long lost to the ages of sorrow.

"Sixteen years ago."

My eyes do not see as my head folds in on itself, "A child queen."

"Yes."

"A queen bound to die?"

"Yes."

"What is her name?" I can hear myself say, but I don't feel like me. It's like another person is using my body to talk, but I am unfeeling, unknowing of what is happening, and yet all too aware.

She hesitates before answering me, not daring to so much as look at my face, "Libelle."
I kneed my hands together, willing a chill that has nothing to do with the state of the air around me, suffocating me, away. "King Llewelyn died at approximately four suns, the only one in his chambers was his whore, pregnant with his child. This whore being Libelle Eiris, now the Varkeshian queen. Did I miss anything?"

My words are cold and foreign to my ears. The name Libelle echoes in my head. I do not want to kill a broken child queen, who has no life and is only worth her fertility. I feel sadness for her, not hate or any sense of vengeance.
Her name ticks a clock in my head. My shoulders droop and my bows. This was never supposed to happen.

Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle, Libelle.

I'm losing my bloody damned mind.

Llewlyn was the one I wanted to kill. A murderer king who had wrought such horrid things upon women. Now my enemy is a child whose mind is fractured.

My eyes blink rapidly to blink away what I can imagine is the first sign of tears. This girl- this innocent girl who's not much older than I was.
She is being torn apart by the world she lives in- trapped in a purgatory of loneliness and despair. I know what it feels like to spiral down to the end of the barrel. At some point, you crack and break, and you are left in tatters to rot.

I don't want to hurt innocence.

I do not want to corrupt the naive.

I have no desire to break the broken.

I wipe a hand down my face. This is absurd. It is sick and twisted.

Libelle Eiris.

May mercy on your soul be granted.

O0oo0O

"Libelle Eiris is toppling that government right now."

My eyes flutter closed at the words of Madeleine Monet. Her heavy french accent penetrates the air as the heady feeling of her meaning clouds my head.

"We seem to be in the backseat of this operation. What are we doing about this."

As she stands in front of me, her feet are firmly planted- heels connected and her feet making a right angle. Her hands are folded neatly behind her- her eyes half-lidded and filled with a twinkle. "I have Ikan Dravier with Valerie in the capital. It took some doing to track him down. Hmph! I had to get a team on it. He was hiding out on Earth with some witches in France where he had met a man named Guillaume Abreo(and what a person he was). Now, we never would have found him without Gilly. See, Ikan had been hiding under the name Kennedy Brenner- which I have to say, he looks nothing like a Kennedy. What a Flame awful name that is. Anyway we had to do some deep digging. Seems like he's had a few names over the centuries on Earth- he's always been there. We had to do several aerial scans of the Earth and then we sent a few teams in to do a thorough sweep. We did the preliminary sweep and nothing came up, but we did find Gilly boy trafficking magical artifacts from off world , so we checked him out. We got nothing from him because Ikan- or Kennedy rather- came to bail him out. We had him on the spot. He got away a few times, but after the first meeting we had a lock on his energy."

Madeleine speaks quickly, her words tumbling out as if a gust of wind were pouring out of her throat.

My eyes sharpen at her words- my body going taut and loose at the idea that so much could have gone wrong.

But it didn't. And I trust my inner circle to do their very best at every task thrown their way- they can accomplish the impossible within days- mere hours.

That's what power is, what motivation is.
My words smoothly flow out of mouth as they pour into Madeleine's ears- her pale cheeks and sharp cheekbones standing out. "What of Libelle?"

Madeleine's throat bobs and her eyes stray from mine- her mind being taken by shadows and swept away from the present. "They seem to be using her state to the advantage- to gain allies. It's well known that they treat women poorly and this is their chance at some form of redemption in the eyes of other courts. They have a woman on the throne and they seem to be using her weak mental shields as an in."
I nod. This all feels very familiar. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge. The next battle will be soon. I have one week at most to sway New Orleans to my side. The battle of Arentine will be in a month. We won't be at Arentine castle, so it's likely that the siege of witches will happen in New Orleans.

"I trust Ikan to handle Libelle. In the meantime, I need to be ready to leave for New Orleans soon."

"Why New Orleans of all places?" Madeleine counters- her hackles rising just as quickly as the air temperature in the room sinks. Frost coats the window sills- the air freezes, stays stagnant as the world holds its breath in anticipation.

My fingers flex on my knee, my darkness threatening to rise. I speak through the urge to break something- to cause destruction. "New Orleans architecture was modeled after Arentine. Creole style was the First Lady Arentine's preference and if you recall- and I know you do- Arentine was renowned for their witches. New Orleans has the same specialty."
Her body bounces as she rolls on the balls of her feet. "Great. Just what we need: a war with humans in the middle."

"It's not ideal, but not a worse case scenario." I say in response- my very bones on edge at the release my body begs to have. The cravings I won't succumb to attempt to take my mortality away. That will never ever happen.

Madeline turns on her heels when her eyes at last settle on me- no doubt as she sees the swimming darkness raging in my violet orbs. It's not pretty and it's in no way a power of the realm. My eyes are a force that makes kings fall to their knees. A force that drives centuries of established royalty to throw themselves upon my mercy.

The world itself shutters as I sweep out of my room and down the steps that will end up leading me to the grand front doors of Moonstone. No one is going to win this war but me- that, we can all be sure of.

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