Merisa
She lifted the hood before Benz would attempt to grapple her with his bare hands. Upon lifting the veil, she got a clear glance of Benz panicking and then that confusion slowly residing and turning to embarrassment and rage. She laughed at it and teased, "how are you brave betrothed? You thought I wouldn't honour you with a first-hand welcome?" "You didn't," Benz sneered, "welcomes are done publicly to show it to the world that you are meeting with an equal. In private, they are meaningless."
Ah, he isn't as dumb as I had thought, she mused. "Well, I had welcomed your father publicly. And technically, I am Lady of the Eye and your father is the Lord of Seachurner so we are equals but you … She left the sentence incomplete. Benz had gotten her message and she could see that he was actively trying to suppress his anger. In a hard tone, Benz said, "I am the only heir to Seachurner." "Aye, and then you will be an equal, as per position," she interjected. "Though, I consider you as an equal already," Merisa said as she sat beside Benz on the bed. She could see that Benz didn't believe her. Well, she knew that people had different strengths and weaknesses, he was less smart but more courageous and stronger. It was her way of thinking.
"Once we marry where will we both be? The Eye or Seachurner?" she asked the question she had been itching to ask.
There was another question which she knew the answer to yet wanted to ask: why did Rulerstead deny Robert and Alicia's union but not her and Benz's? It was because if Rulerstead were to oppose, it would be a mistake repeated. If they were to deny her and Benz's union, they would have to count Seachurner and the Eye in their enemies list but if they allowed it, there was a chance that Seachurner and the Eye would support Rulerstead. Seeing the opportunity, she and Benz had hastily been betrothed.
She shook out of the trance when Benz replied quickly to her voiced question, showing that he had already thought about that topic. Maybe he is smart, he just doesn't have the vicious cunning, she thought. Benz spoke, "I will be revolving from Seachurner to the Eye, till I become the Lord of Seachurner. I believe my father is someone who won't die soon, so I hope by the time I become Lord of Seachurner, we have an heir who can rule here at the Eye. Once that happens, you will be the one majorly revolving between the Eye and Seachurner till you decide that the child at the Eye becomes ready to rule without supervision."
She nodded while uttering, "Seems fair." She stood up and walked to the room's door. Before leaving she said to Benz, "The meeting will begin soon in the courtroom."
She was thrown off balance by how unprepared she was for the future. Merisa looked out of a window in the hallway. Five floors below she saw a balcony – the balcony to the library. She looked slightly outwards and saw around the balcony to realise that it obstructed a 20-floor fall at 60 feet. She leapt out of the window! Merisa straightened her body to resemble an arrow. Her both hands suddenly turned 90 degrees at the elbow so that they were parallel to the ground. With her forearms protruding at her waist, she muttered an incantation. She was 20 feet down when her momentum began to slow. She was still going too fast. 3 floors down! She muttered another word, one floor above the balcony, and she parachuted, a jerk, which she had become used to, pulled her up for a second and then she slowed to a pace with which bubbles swayed in the air. She softly landed as if she had never jumped from five floors above.
The library was empty like usual. She slid open the sliding doors and entered the library. Here she would recollect her thoughts and formulate her words. She searched around for a brief moment before picking up two books – 'Conquest of Seachurner' and 'Conquest of The Eye' – and settled at a table. She would need history on her side if she were to convince Seachurner and its Lord, Dom.
The courtroom was monumental, with one long side devoid of walls. On that side of the room, in place of a window was an open side which offered a spectacular, panoramic view of Cobardon's green fields for thousands of miles till clouds met the fields and merged into a haze of invisibility which they called the edge. Legend portended that the day the Eye didn't exercise dominion till the edge, that would be the day the Eye would fall. Nearer she could see the massive, marble dome that looked like a disproportionately large bubble in a vessel. The dome was a temple to Loshpel, situated in the middle ring and to the north of the Eye so that anyone entering the city from the south, the sea-facing gate would not see the temple as it would be blocked by the Eye. Closer in she could see the keep. The river Cromer ran like an incision across the city and emptied to the south.
Merisa snapped back into the courtroom filled with the haggling, bickering courtiers of the Eye and Seachurner, determining her fate. She muttered under her breath, "I have given them enough pleasure; now down to actual business." Merisa said with a voice that was loud yet devoid of emotions, "Grave for the gossiper." After a moment's silence, she declared, "Leave respected gentry." The wizened courtiers scurried away on four legs; a whistling wind occupying their emptied seats. Remaining in the room were Merisa: the ruler of The Eye; Benz: the prince of Seachurner; Dom (one of his ad infinitum names): the ruler of Seachurner.
She stared at the edge for a moment to achieve a dramatic effect. Merisa drew in a deep breath and with an infuriated expression looked at the father-son partnership. She told, her expression filled with superfluous disbelief, "You were kings? Who are you now?" No reply. Good.
"Let me tell you," she yelled, her voice defiant and malicious. "Nothing! What land is yours? None! None, because what was justly ours was taken away from us. Sacked and snatched. We were insulted, suppressed. But no longer, for we have the chance of aeons within our grasp. We shall not be insulted anymore! We will be kings and queens! We shall rule! Once, we had fallen, but now we rise stronger than ever. May Lady Loshpel and Lady Makhri smile on us. This time, Rulerstead shall fall and shatter to pieces beneath our feet! We are kings and queens! We are invincible!" She stretched the last word as if it portrayed all the might of The Eye and Seachurner's.
"Who is it?" asked Dom in a hushed speech. A smile crept up Merisa's face.
"Fort Wingbearer!"
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Benz
He remembered his departure from the Eye. When his nosy betrothed had questioned his leave he had replied, "I have a personal agenda. The navy of Seachurner will follow a few days behind me and I will regroup with the navy after a week. That is all you need to know." In her questioning Benz had found some genuine concern but that could be because he was an important pawn to her plans.
A racing gale ruffled through his dense, black hair as he stood on Soulcrusher, with a hand against the mast, eyeing a raging thunderstorm on Seachurner's prince's path. His build was larger than most people, almost 6 foot tall, giving him an advantage in his ruthless combat style.
"All cowards escape to the berth," he boomed loud enough for the adjacent ships to hear. Nobody stirred. Good, he mused proudly. "Then brace yourself for a storm," he announced, stretching the last words threateningly.
The deck jiggled beneath him. Benz's eyes were fixated on the storm, daring it on. The deck quivered. Powerful gusts threatened to push overboard. Lightning crackled. A blanch yet violent odour replaced the tangy odour of a calm, saline sea. The sea turned darker and fiercer, a colour like black ink. Waves lapped higher and higher. Fog enshrouded everything beyond the ship.
The first drop fell, and the downpour increased gradually and unnoticeable, like an hour hand on a clock, till it became so obscuring that keeping your eyes open was a feat. Everything was drenched bone deep yet, Benz never stirred watching ever ahead. This was Makhri's glory. He would have seemed a statue except for his eyes — red and aflame with an inexplicable lust of anything that could slay him and the beast within him.
No one and nothing could, yet, but his time would come, and it was not now.
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