LAUCAN

Are we just lost to this fate of ours? Our songs, our wings, our names; everyone buried underneath the snow dunes. I am not enough, my timeless magick isn't enough. I wanted an answer to the blizzard, not another question of the blood feud between the Travon's and Traye's. Laucan curled on his loveseat and sat his chin on the arm, where the outside tugged at him with pale apathy. Though the barriers continued, the blizzard sucked the energy out of him at his defiance against their truth. In the distance, the opera house shone, where he once sat in the king's seat, and a dancer tossed to him a resolution of the story on his name day. Strong is the sword placed in ice, awaiting the once and future king of Naveera — the Snow Prince. He wrapped himself in blankets and shuddered at a blast of cold. Frozen blood oozed across the floor and his knees, Father's, or Yuven Traye's.

Efram came with a soft spoken word, but Laucan dismissed him without hearing his voice. He lit the fireplace, then bowed before disappearing into the mist. A slow killer. He rested his hand on his chest, digging it into his evening furs he hadn't bothered changing out of for the upcoming council meeting. Days of avoidance, where he gave Hayvala the reins to move Yuven. Keeper Blackwall sat at the world sphere and wrote down copious notes, though when he tried to find further questions, they fell flat on his tongue and he left him to his work.

So he sat in his room and tasted the bittersweet sunlight. Royal petitions straight into his lap, though he discarded them for Hayvala to peruse with a full return to her station as his regent. Because I'm just a child, and she is not. She is older, wiser, stronger even... but just because she is a woman, people won't accept her. Frustration chewed on his song. But they do not accept me either. We can't win. Over the mantle of his fireplace, his icesteel chakrams glimmered in the pale embers floating in the air. I've more than fallen, Magistera, I have broken every rule, every tenant you tried to install in me. Laucan tugged his knees closer to his chin and glared at the monochrome snow outside the window. What have I done?

He abandoned his bookshelves of fairy tales for the hefty tomes of Naveeran law and traditions. Every old line buried underneath ice. Extinction. The slow killer of their culture and home. At what point does our song die? Laucan mulled over the truth of the stories, the loss of their pride. I just wanted them to see the sun, to experience the warmth that we cannot have.

A bristle of energy brushed against his downy feathers, and he twisted his head over the couch when the door opened. Hayvala stood there. Pearls and opals hung off her long feathers and wound around her hair loops pinned behind her ears. "I can feel your aura shrinking from all the way in my quarters," she said, her tone cold, but she came inside his room. "You aren't even dressed for the council meeting. The Hanekan diplomats are due to arrive soon, and the festivities are in full swing." Her hand rested in the fur hems of her sleeves. "We need your presence. You are the Wyvern King, Laucan."

Laucan shook his head at the measly words of a single fluke. Up the icy steps across the mountain, where he lifted his crown aloft for the acceptance of Naveera's heart and the deep song in the tundra. Anyone can slip on ice... but the whole point of that coronation was hearing the song... and I didn't hear it. I didn't slip on the steps, and still I didn't hear it. Laucan buried his nose behind his scarf when Hayvala rounded the loveseat. "I am not dressed... because I'm not going."

Her calm expression broke into one of confusion. "What? Laucan, you are the king, you can't—"

Laucan stared at his older sister, who the world saw suffer but she refused to kneel. "I can, because you're my Queen Regent. It is imperative that you go, since it's obviously clear to everyone, including you and especially me, that I just make things worse," he pointed out. "So, I am simply removing an extra hurdle. I shall focus on the upkeep of the barriers around Volaris." It twanged pressure through his feathers, and he frowned at the doorway to his balcony. "We are about to go into another long night. Anyone out in this cold and not in the safety of city walls will perish."

Hayvala frowned at him. "Not going is a mistake."

"Going is also a mistake," Laucan argued. "It seems like no matter what, I'm making a mistake." He raised his hands. "At least, with me not there, maybe you can affirm power. That's what Lord Vlazis wants, right?"

Her eyes widened. "What do you know about that?"

He longed for a smile, but he bared his fangs out to the chill between them. "I am just a foolish child, aren't I? Too dense to see what's right in front of me? Or too focused on something so far out of reach that I've completely stepped over the foundational cracks," he whispered. "I'm not that stupid, Hayvala. I knew something was up when Lord Vlazis spoke at the last council I attended. He never used to argue so boldly... which means his position has advanced, which means that someone must've given him the push he needed to do so."

"You figured that out from him just talking?" Hayvala whispered.

"Am I wrong in my assessment? You said I had a lot to learn, maybe I am just a child, but I'm not a babe." He cuddled into his cocoon further. "With you there, he'll be emboldened, and maybe the older lord's will finally bend on the important matters. Our unity as people, as Avaerilians. As for the Hanekan diplomats, I will greet them when they arrive."

Her posture stiffened. "And you are still not going to this meeting?"

"No." Apathy chewed and spit out his song, and he rested deeper into the cushions. "I wish to be alone, and I've had my fill of people for a couple decades."

"You are not attending the masquerade either?" Hayvala came closer. "Laucan, I am giving you some leeway because I know this is difficult, but others will not. They will not take this as a mature response. They will view this as a vulnerability, and they will use it against you. You do not have the option to bury yourself under your bed at nightmares anymore. You are a king, and you must present yourself as such."

"I don't think I can... compose myself right now in a large crowd, so they will see it as vulnerability, a weakness... because that's what I am in the end," he admitted his vulnerability and tasted the last wasted tears. "Did Yuven Traye take that medication?"

"No, but I left it with him. I had him moved out of the Ice Gaol into a warmer cell and posted my Sentinels to guard him instead," Hayvala whispered. "I am loath to keep him in the dungeons, but if people spotted him there would be conflict, war once again." Sadness dripped through the soft edges of her jaw. "We can only hope that the cycle does not continue. I cannot force you to attend council meetings, but I will warn you that your inaction will have a ripple effect, even if you do not wish it so." At his side, she knelt down and rested her hand on his. "You have a gentle spirit, Laucan. You have made a choice against your very song and you are falling into the trap that is our apathy." She squeezed his fingers. "I bid you to not follow that easy temptation... you will not come out alive."

Laucan stared at her and found his limbs frozen.

Hayvala's brow creased in frustrated concern, but she drew closer and rested her brow against his. "I will do what I can to quell their thoughts," she said and pinched his chin, though he tore himself out of her comforting grip and pushed his hand into her arm. "I will leave you be, and can only advise you that you at least attend the masquerade."

"Your council has been noted." Laucan adjusted his blankets when she left his room and closed the doors behind her with a whisper of icy magick. In the heaviest of his thoughts, he turned to the wyvern's dance, but it drained out of his legs and he flopped into the cushions beneath him and the warm furs of his layered blankets. The moonwatch she gave him for his nameday ticked on the table, a cold reminder of the inability to tell time from sky alone. Its hands spun around the anchor point and pointed at the Navei script for each number. It ticked. Endless. Ceaseless against their frozen time. He closed his eyes to its constant, unwavering tune.

Mother's voice sang out through the crystalline foci.

"Oh, this bond of love,

"Broken only by a brother's forlorn song,

"Underneath the crimson tide, a single, icy melody,

"A reign, left to the four winds,

"Children of Space and Time, seek one answer of bliss,

"Shatter the chains of the past and seek solace and create the song of fire."

His memory faded with the hymn she sang for a lullaby. Awakened once more by the dying embers of his fireplace, he lifted himself out of the furs at the unwelcome quiet. Efram had fluffed his pillows and set aside wrapped poundcakes on his end table. Legs swung out, he shuffled over to his bookshelf and counted the stories, the poems, their creation which connected them from past to present, and the future untold. He found the one translated into Common back when his court Magister taught him the fundamentals of Common, though with his own grumblings of the language. He sighed, and tucked it underneath his arm before leaving his room.

The royal wing long fell to its own silence with the festivities ringing out around him, outside the windows to the shining city, withstanding against the blizzard's might. He avoided any voices and bustled to the old wing where he kept Adara Sazaka at Keeper Blackwall's request, and his heart dropped at the sound of Yuven's convulsions with the Keeper tearing out his precious memories. Up the steps, he hesitated once more outside her door.

He tapped his knuckles against it.

"Who is it?" Adara asked.

I suppose it is one small relief, it does not seem like Blackwall has visited her. Laucan stiffened against the tension in his shoulders when she opened the door, then frowned at him.

"What do you want?" she said, her tone guarded, but lacked the venom and hate of before.

Laucan held the book in front of his chest, then stretched it out to her. "Here. You told me you wanted a story."

Adara took it from him, then raised an eyebrow. "I honestly thought you would've forgotten that I asked for one." She flipped through the pages, her brown gaze scanning each passage of a shared song and a gentle lullaby. "I've seen some of these before."

"What?"

Her uncertainty returned with a sharp glance. "It was a translated book I had with my things."

Laucan tipped his head. "There are... Naveeran tales out in the sunlands? That people can just... pick up and read... whenever?"

"Is that odd?" Adara mused and resumed her skimming.

Laucan froze at the threshold. "I hope that you are satisfied with those stories," he said with a nod at his childhood. "Maybe you will... find something new." He took a large step back when she gazed at him. "I will not disturb you further." Back to her, he went to leave.

"Did you get that medication to Yuven?"

He lowered his head, then nodded, though found his words lost on the tip of his tongue at the cruel reality he created.

Her shoulders relaxed, and she sighed. "Thank you for remembering my request, King Laucan."

King Laucan. He waited for her to close the door on him, and he headed down the steps without the comfort of Mother. Through the empty halls of their family, with him and Hayvala who remained, abandoned. Yuven Traye, the complete last of his. Laucan dug his fingers into his palms and tested the point of his fangs with his tongue.

Will this cycle never stop until we're all dead?