The world is silent but for the hammer of her own heart. 

Even the wind outside seems to stop howling, the world crawling to a stop with the gravity of her words.

All she knows is the burn of their stares, piercing through her until it scorches the walls behind her. She meets the gazes, does not buckle beneath them and waits. 

Waits for them to grasp exactly what it is she is proposing. 

Then the silence is broken by a burst of explosive latter, from the Queen at first, then the sound ripples. Ripples until it is a tidal wave that threatens to drown her. 

It dies down when the King speaks, the amusement a barbed, brutal thing meant to humiliate and carve at her. "I am so sorry to break it to you, sweet Princess," his words are the rumbling growl of thunder. "But I am quite happily married." 

Bile burns the back of her throat, and she swallows past it. Hoping the moment of revulsion didn't flicker even for a heartbeat across her features. 

She stiffens her posture, shaking off the lingering disgust, and comments coolly. 

"As...remarkable a union that would be, you misunderstand me, your Highness." Her voice does not lift above soft tone, despite the sarcastic venom that tries its best to penetrate her words, she holds it back with every ounce of willpower she possesses.

Now her gaze drifts from the King, to the Prince. 

The Prince who seems to have caught on to her meaning quicker than anyone else in the throne room. 

"When I was a child," before any of this happened, "My parents began arrangements for my eventual marriage." 

She had plead with them not to, begged them to in the very least let her choose a partner when she was ready for it. 

Elodie had never been quite certain whether it had been out of the kindness of their hearts, or the fact... other things came up that she hadn't ended up being married off. 

Truly, her brothers and sisters subject to the same fate had ended up happy enough. 

But the idea had set a terror in her heart she remembered even to this day.

Never in a million years would she have pictured herself here, begging to sell herself away.

The breath catches in her lungs now, as she shifts her gaze from the King to his son. 

The son who is watching her. His stare shifting seamlessly from studious but distant, to alert and unwavering. He makes no pretence of this any more, and as he watches her. She swallows, wetting her lips and continuing. 

"Preparations to marry the Princess of Court Aquila to the Prince of Court Corvus," an agreement nearly half a century old. 

One she had thanked the Gods the day it finally seemed buried. 

"And I think it would be beneficial for both our courts if we seek to complete that agreement."

Romantic was far from the word for it, this was calculated and cruel, and the very opposite of any hope she had ever had for her eventual marriage. 

But for the sake of her Court, there wasn't a piece of her she wouldn't hesitate to give away.

The laughing tone of the Court has been silenced only in the space of a heartbeat, the air ice cold and claustrophobic. 

"And shackle our beloved son to a dying Court?" Theodosia's laugh dies on the icy air, freezes on it. 

"You overestimate your value, Princess," if the world is frozen, the fire in King Arzian's tone is enough to thaw and scorch it.  

"As Queen? Perhaps." She would be the first to admit it, in the days since her coronation it had felt like nothing but failure after failure. Then in her days as Princess, it had been the closest thing to running from her status that she was able to get away with. 

Pretending she was anything else. 

"But the truth cannot be said about my abilities as a Warrior your Highnesses, and those are abilities I believe you can capitalise on." 

It was not something she would usually dare to brag about. But she does now without embarrassment.

One of royal blood, even the 6th born daughter, would not usually have been permitted within a hundred miles of the frontline. But she had proven her worth, earned her keep, and made her way through the ranks. Any suggestion that she had found her way there by virtue of her blood alone, silenced the moment she unsheathed her dual blades. 

Dual blades her fingers ached for now, like a recently amputated limb she kept reaching to itch.

"Indeed we've heard of your abilities," Theodosia agrees, though somewhat bitterly. "And we all saw how much good it did your parents." 

A childish insult, one she nearly bares her teeth at. She keeps a rein on her temper, but only just.

"We have spent the last decade and a half at war," her voice crawls very barely above a growl, the thunder of it a rumble that takes over her whole chest. "And they haven't been able to get anything more than a meagre foothold in Court Aquila territory." 

She does not close her eyes, for when she does all she can picture is the map of her home. 

Her territory, the expanse of it curling across the stone tables of her father's war-rooms, keeping a track of the enemy presence in her lands. 

Her home. 

The red colours slowly leaking over the map like the spread of plague. 

But for every step forward it managed, it would inevitably be thrown steps back again. 

A horrific cycle, a needless and bloody one. 

"They couldn't beat us using honourable tactics, so they stole away into my home in the dead of night and killed my parents as they slept." She swallows again, tasting blood at the back of her throat when she does. "Killed children in their beds, my whole family, gone in the space of hours because they couldn't defeat them where it mattered." 

Silence again, that ice working its way into her bones, lacing through them until her very heartbeat slows with it.

The King does not remember, nor does his Queen, not from their reaction. 

But from the visceral reactions of a number of the Guard, the elders in the shadows of the dais, they do. 

Remember a time under the iron thumb of the iron courts. Suffocated and crushed by them, years they had very barely managed to survive and escape the first time. 

It would not be possible the second - any attempt at rebellion would be quashed and burned before it could so much as spark. 

If they got the chance. 

She would do everything in her power to make sure they never would. 

"So we join our courts, and turn our combined powers against a force that will not stop until all of us are gone or belong to them." There is no growl, no anger, only truth. 

Elodie wasn't able to remember it, there was a good possibility the King and Queen didn't either. 

But the older members of the guard, a couple of the elder members of the Court in the shadows of the dais, do. 

From the visible, bodily flinch, they remember it all too well. The years spent under the iron thumbb of the iron courts, suffAny 

A truth that resonates into the very stone. 

"In truth my Court is most likely done for if you do not agree," tears do not come for she has none left to weep by now. The honesty of it enough to break the heart of a God, though her captive audience shows no true response. 

The King moves as though to speak, to cut her off, but she does not give him the chance.

"But who, pray tell, do you think Court Draco will come for next?" The venom slips out a little this time. 

And those who don't have quite so iron a grip on their emotions, visibly flinch at the suggestion. It is subtle, but the Queen sees it.

"Do you think it will be two courts and done?" She allows her own laugh to rip free of her, it ricochets from the rocks, until it seems to bounce through her very bones. "No, they will not stop until the whole island is theirs."

She turns her gaze to the great stained glass windows again, from here the sea is not visible, but she can imagine the lap of the water against distant, white sand shores. 

"Maybe even the islands beyond ours, until all of it is theirs," she finishes, and the continuing silence is something that coaxes her knees to buckle. 

But she stands strong in spite of it. 

The collapse of Court Leo had been unprecedented, for months after no one could quite believe it had happened until there was little other choice to. As refugees from the remnants of the Courts began flooding the other Courts. 

It was impossible not to see what was going on. 

There had been a distant hope it would be a one off, a fluke, a personal vengeance Court Draco had been desperate to reap. Then they had come for Court Aquila. 

And Elodie could only imagine where else they might be turning their gazes - their weapons. 

"Of course it might be Court Lepa next," her voice adds to the contemplative, mildly afraid silence. "And they might well come here - begging the same thing." 

"But a combined front might well be the only chance any of the Courts stand at surviving at this point," her voice is quieter now, but as clear as a shout.

She takes a step, the guard moves for her, moves to stop her. 

But the King lifts a darkly gloved hands, and they move away from her wordless. 

And the Queen continues her journey until she stops a mere stair away from the King. So close she can smell the meat on his breath, the bear in his beard. 

The fear on his skin.

The glower in his eyes, the fury at the challenge. But beyond that, in the steel grey colours, she can see the fear, though he does his best to hide it. 

There was no tricking themselves, not anymore.

It was only a matter of time.

"Combine Courts Aquila and Corvus, and we might just have the chance to survive this." 

Her body trembles as she lowers, taking a knee with a thud barely muffled by the great, grey rug underneath them. 

Now she is closer, she can see that it is bloodstained among the other beautiful colours. 

Her head bows to her chest, the moment of silence that follows is terrifying. 

She half believes she will feel the kiss of steel on her skin, as someone takes her head clean off with one, clean sweep of a blade. 

Instead, a soft voice breaks the silence. 

"Take her Majesty to her rooms while we consider her proposals."