Chương 376: 9.8

Jewel struggled to hold her composure, to keep back the burning desire to destroy or change the world before her. This was an absolute disaster! She could not deny Evren's truth. His words had sung and echoed with agreement in the world when he declared the High King's Treachery. That was unfortunate, it required a reprisal, it required a response. Fortune's damn Mathias! If she was only here as the countess of Viznove she could have held back on her response!

But Murad had betrayed her not as a mere countess, not as the Lady Jewel. But as the voice of the entire realm of Cantor Reborn! There had to be a reprisal, a recompense made. And not a small one. To do less would be treachery to the High King and her allegiance to the realm! Then Evren proved he was yet a child and immediately began spewing a spell that may very well have spun loose to cover all of Magarska! Possibly risked his very life! Was this what her father had thought of her going to war?

Was this why he had been terrified when she was sleeping in the oven as a hatchling? Jewel wasn't sure but what Evren had almost done utterly terrified her! A working on only a thousand men had exhausted her when she was significantly older and larger than Evren was now. She did not know what the cost would have been to cover even the capital, nevermind all of Magarska! And then there was all of the undeserving that would suffer the curse the younger wyrm was calling?!

Still the way that the other Wyrm was collapsing into a miserable terrified pile wrapped around his brother as she marched towards Murad the first and his princes pained her. Thank heavens the boy had his family! His brother was making soothing noises in a language she did not know. She hurried her pace to relieve the pressure she felt prying up from his huddled form. Hopefully it would let the poor child recover. Now she had work to do, to try and salvage this situation.

The princes bristled, although there was a tension there, a feeling of chains and bondage to them all. Some were harsher than others. Some seemed eager in their leashes. The high king had not spoken lightly about vows to the heavens." Murad, First of your name, In respect of our many years of friendship and your hospitality as host I will give you this chance to explain the Prince of Vanand's words as otherwise.

Don't you dare speak a single untruth, This is a matter of war between our lands and I speak for all of Cantor Reborn!" Murad glared into her eyes as he spoke.

"The Patricide of Wallachia took the sons and daughters of Magarska he found in his lands during the uprising, men, women, children, he forced them into his monstrosity—he had them vow in their deaths to never again stand against or bring harm to Wallachia or its people." The Man stood before her, furious, stinking of fear and hate in equal measure. But he had the sense to not lie. He turned to look at his princes. And continued his speech"Then, he sent them back to us.

Blood drinking monsters, ever hungering-" A rumble in a furnace interrupted.

"As is your custom, there were vows of loyalty made to Magarska were there not? Some surely vowed to you or your prince's commands? Made under the providence of the stars? Were those bonds still intact?" Erhard spoke from beside Jewel. She did not turn to acknowledge him, did not even give a hint of her surprise, he was the closest to Mathias and most knowledgeable of the details on the curse in attendance. The High King was silent. Jewel waited, but he did not answer, she added her voice to the demand."

Well Murad? Were their vows of loyalty, ensured by the stars and heavens not still intact after they became vampires?" She did not let it show, not on her face or in her voice but this was just getting worse! Why was he being so stubborn! Fool man! They could still salvage the peace! She had exchanged letters with Murad for a decade about their shared desire to preserve the growing bond between their realms! He had thanked her effort to give recompense for the suffering from Wallachia's rising!

He just needed to admit what was wrong, perhaps at worst abdicate in shame and place his heir on the throne, A trifle cost to salvage this! Jewel kept her composure while silently pleading for the shaking man before her to see sense! Murad's son trembled as he turned to his father, face twisting in fury, muscles flexing with the effort of acting, straining, pressing against his vows." Father, You said he sent back their corpses..."

Murad did not turn away from Jewel this time, eyes fixed on hers as he answered his son.

"They were corpses, Bayezid, your wife and children were walking dead." Erhard rumbled in annoyance.

"Not dead, the children would have grown, the wife might have even borne a new heir with some divine assistance, she certainly could have raised one. The subject with which I perfected the ritual has raised a very fine young man from her infant son. He works in the menagerie." The high king turned slowly to face the wizard, a rictus of fury rising over his face." It was you?! You that created this blight upon the kingdom! That attacked your own people!" Jewel's eyes narrowed.

The Magarskan's court wizard was suddenly there among them, slipping into position even though there was no visible sign of them, the figure of sand, wind and silk remained silent. Jewel glared down at the man and pressed harder with her tone." Murad, you've not answered our questions. I will ask this plainly and simply. Was it you that sent the vampires north? Was it you that broke our truce!?"

The High King braced himself, looked to either side, then spoke the words like they cut his mouth on the way past his lips.

"I ordered them north, to roam the border of Wallachia. I never ordered them to attack." Erhard took two steps closer to the high king.

"Of course you couldn't do that, staging an attack that implicated wallachia would assuredly be impossible under their vows." Jewel could not order the wizard back as he approached, could not break the unified front of Cantor Reborn in front of the rulers of their ancestral enemy. Even as she saw the fury building even stronger in Murad's eyes. Obliviously the wizard continued.

"So you tried to simply send them to the border, but they refused that command too of course, they could not with a clear mind follow such an order that would so obviously go against Wallachia and Count Tepes, could they? High King?" The high king stilled and Jewel internally sighed, this was the man she had worked with towards making a lasting peace, perhaps a foolish man, but they would be able to make- The sound rang through the hallway, leaving Jewel staring in shock.

It was over before she had realized it happened. Murad the Conqueror had struck Erhard before she could even blink, much like Leo had that terrible morning being discussed. But where her priest had ruined his hand in the act, the king stood unharmed, triumphant, arm still extended, hand open and pristine. However, far more surprising than even that, where Leo had broken on the wizard's iron face without moving him an inch, Erhard was now clear across the room.

A body sent tumbling, cracking the stone tiles as he had rolled over and his face was visibly torn open, shining, twisted metal around where it split under fingers. The black marble of a pillar was deeply cracked where the wizard had been stopped, and a sound like groaning metal only now was rising from the heap he had fallen into, body struggling to find its feet. Half the normally stoic face peeled back in shreds to reveal a shining steel skull with smoldering eyes.

A creaking voice echoed from the slowly rising metal figure. As the jaw opened and the sparse shreds of intact lips moved." You must have starved them, until they could no longer think ahead even so much as an hour for the consequences. You took your sworn servants, bound to your command and starved them until they would massacre your own people in their madness." The princes turned to the fury of their king, then considered the dragon he was snarling at.

Three of them began to start stepping away before Murad's voice shocked them still." Princes! Do your Duty!" Jewel finally lost her composure, the dismay rising to her face, her last hopes for the peace crumbling before her, only three of the princes dared to even try to resist Murad! The rest she could see firming their resolve, he called them to muster themselves and they obeyed. Three out of twelve, four if she could count on the young wyrm, that was not enough!

At best, even if she demanded Murad abdicate, it would not secure peace. Not with so many eager faces waiting to ally against. Too many of them smelled agreeable to the betrayal of the truce! Jewel couldn't find the words, everything she had spent nearly a third of her life attaining was coming apart. A quiet voice cut through the tense silence that echoed after Murad's desperate growl." And what about your duty as their King?"

It was a far too familiar, far too smug voice, Jewel felt her scales rattle in discomfort up and down her coils in waves, she only just refrained from letting a snarl loose. Of course, the smug wizard would be here to make the situation even worse." What about your side of those vows, High King of Magarska?" Jewel did not want to look behind her, did not even want to tilt her ears back to listen to the somehow far too loud little taps of feline paws on polished stone.

She still heard a pause and a deep sigh then a whisper." Young Erhard, take better care of yourself, you are yet quite shallow in the depths of your truth. Only a slightly harder blow would have ended you." Jewel heard only a pained groan of metal from the iron wizard. Then there was the sound of a cat leaping up onto the table and with that finally the strange weird of wind, sand and silk revealed themselves again. Rising in a fury of raging dust, hissing silk and biting heat.

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"Ghergeintat! Scheming Kingslayer! You have no hold here! Leave this place! This court and its kings are under the protection of the Djinn Nation!" Fizzbunches of course was licking at a paw completely unconcerned in his stupid floppy red hat despite a whirlwind of silk, wind and sand yelling at him.

"Sirazad, who in that little village of yours did you upset so badly that they have you out here having to treat with filth like this in penance? And my question is a valid one, for those that might think themselves chained by lesser men. What about the-" Wind and sand screamed in the air, again faster then Jewel could see, and the smug cat was silent, eerily still, then it was two halves of a cat falling bloodlessly to either side on the table, still held rigidly in the pose of licking its paw.

Around the column Erhard was still using for support, an identical black cat with yet another red floppy hat came sauntering into view.

"Very rude Sirazad, And so strange, was it not you who won your life with stories? For you to interrupt the sanctity of words? Why would you deny another your own power, I wonder?" Jewel growled, before the smug wizard could make the situation somehow even worse she broke into the moment after he stopped talking.

"High King Murad, First of your name, You have broken hospitality, you have welcomed me to your lands as a guest under truce and then struck honorlessly in treachery against me, my people and your own. Worse, you have struck against me as an acknowledged representative of the Realm of Cantor Reborn!" She raised her head up, keeping the tension of her fire in check. Not releasing even a hint of a working loose from her lips. Not unleashing any of the fury of this situation.

The princes she saw could not shift from their places with the High King despite the attempt, his own son was rooted by the heaven's touch.

"That could have been forgiven and made right through a proper weregild or recompense to The Realm. But then you personally struck a blow against the Court Wizard of High King Mathias Stein! You struck my guest with death in your eyes, you have refused to offer honest defense or supplication for your crimes and tried to kill a courtier of my King!" She flared her wings before the Princes.

"I demand satisfaction from the court of Magarska and its princes! I demand this dishonor is met and justice made! This will be my last offer Murad! You have dishonored our friendship, our truce, your hospitality and all your realm!" One of the princes moved as if to speak, but without even a flex from Murad he was stifled, Jewel noted him, the way that even those that seemed furious with the high king did not move. The silence dragged. Until finally a voice rose up behind her.

"The principality of Vanaand will back the claim for recompense by the realm of Cantor Reborn." She did not glance behind her, but Jewel could feel Evren approach as close as he dared. The far too smug voice of Fizzbunches rose from close to the other wyrm.

"Is it not the proper way that if a prince of Magarska backs a claim owed by Magarska it can be decided by the princes themselves? But for such a serious crime as this? It would require a truly severe act to make it right..." Jewel wished this would be the last time she had to hold her tongue to avoid alienating the infuriating cat and his smug tongue. But somehow she doubted it, It was the High King's son that broke the silence.

"My Father has shamed us all! Shamed Magarska! Twisted honor with dishonest schemes! My elder brother rose up once before and you did not side with him! I did not side with him either! But this is beyond all reason! I call second fo-" Just as fast as it was before, Murad's son was talking, and then the High King had moved. And then the man's body fell to its knees then toppled, two of the princes closest to where the heir of Magarska had stood now drenched in blood. Murad turned back to Jewel, smiling at her.

"No, I think we will not be doing that." Jewel glared at the man she had thought her ally, a supporter of peace. Who had twice now proven himself a betrayer. Was he mad?! Jewel tried again to reach him despite her earlier words!

"You do not have the loyalty of Evren! He nearly cursed you and every man that serves Magarska! You, your princes, and all the men beneath them owe me a debt for saving you from a curse likely worse than death!" Murad looked up at Jewel, then behind her, following his gaze she saw Evren standing with his wings flared and his coils protectively blocking a path to his dogfaced brother. An infuriatingly familiar black cat sitting on the coils.

"I suppose not, a pity, but where loyalty and vows fail, family will suffice. Evren of the Principality of the Vanand. I see you've found yourself a djinn all your own?" Fizzbunches scoffed.

"I am a Wizard and a Weird, I do not play at being what I'm not." Murad laughed at that and shook his head.

"The Ghergeintat, city of lies, claims it does not play at disguises? Having infiltrated into my very home?!" He spat, then turned to the space that contained a particularly feminine twist of wind bereft of silk or sand.

"Well I'm sure you have made many clever and sorcerous arrangements Evren, but I will have you know that-" Fizzbunches smiled. That smugness that Jewel hated so much radiated off the damned cat, but it was Evren's face that the king had noticed.

"I have already secured the Wolf Prince's family beyond your reach, Murad pretender king." Fury flared up again on the High King, why did Fizzbunches have to say that now?! The furious king whirled back to Jewel.

"So it was your ploy all along to steal the Wolf Prince?" Jewel glared at the man and spoke evenly.

"It was not, my dealings with Fizzbunches and his circle ended last year." He glared at her, then at Evren, anger seeming to cool, visibly calculating his next course of action as if her words didn't matter.

"No more lies from the shining doom of cantor reborn, This is a rebellion and treason! First creating the Vampire and sending us the patricide of wallachia and now this! You and your realm have interfered in Magarska for the last time! This final insult will mean war!" Jewel stared at him, taken aback at the princes rallying to him, with the blood of his own son still on their finery they stepped behind the man that had murdered his heir!" I am giving insult!? You strike my people with your own hand!

You murder your son before my very eyes! You try to hold a child's family hostage to collar him! you send Vampires against me?! And you declare war, claiming I have given insult!?" Murad stood firm with his princes, even the bloodied ones seemingly with him.

"Wolf Prince of Vanand, this is your last chance, do your duty and stand with me, submit your brother as hostage to curb your youthful foolishness or it will be war with you and all of the Vanand too." Fizzbunches began to speak, to add more flames to the inferno he'd set off of her plans! But Jewel's voice filled the room, she would not let him make this even worse!" Silence, you insufferable interferer!" The flames of her fire were crackling in her mouth. Sparking in white flashes from her lips.

And for once Fizzbunches was finally quiet! Her first mission beyond Cantor's borders, seeking peace could not end like this. But she was a countess, she had other responsibilities. She spoke in Ridgevaulic, the native Viznove dialect.

"Adelyne, take Paul and secure everyone, we are leaving as soon as possible. The wool can stay." Then, in the court tongue of Magarska, she spoke to Murad, it was the only proper thing she could do.

"High King and Princes of Magarska, I have offered you a chance, a means to make amends, I am now declaring. Cantor Reborn will stand for nothing less than the abdication and replacement of Murad the First. The dishonor he has committed is irredeemable. And there can be no peace between our realms when such a monster sits upon the throne of this kingdom." Murad looked between his ten surviving princes, bound by one way or another, then dipped his head and dared to smile!

"So it is war then? Very well, And you! You will insist on your treachery, Prince of the Vanand? You will doom your principality for this beast from the north?" The boy wyrm snarled, a white flare building in his mouth. Jewel saw the war to come." I will see this end here and now!" This time Jewel moved in time. The thought of the princes and High King of Magarska slain under a truce of peace with her by wyrmfire?! Her honor and any trust in her word destroyed irrecoverably?

She dove to interpose herself between the younger wyrm and the High King. Bracing for the pain, the dissolving touch of white flame on her flesh, washing over her and- Doing little else?

The white searing presence was roaring through the air with all the fury of her own wyrmdoom yet it was not harming even a single hair on her spine. Simply stirring the threads of her mane in its turbulence, not even feeling as intense as tongues of fire. Until the searing light ended as Evren cut off his wroth. Jewel turned to the space she had shielded, the stone around her wings and feet pitted where Evren's fire had eaten into it after splashing over her.

The place the High King and his princes had stood was empty of any sign of them but the lingering scent of sun baked sand and dry wind. A current of wind and spiraling grains leading in every direction and down every hallway of the palace. The taste of swift wind, faster words and endless grating ages marking all routes equally. She gave a heavy sigh." Well then, now we must both depart under the messenger's peace.

Rally your people and hurry to your lands, I will send missives to coordinate the war, you need to muster an army and-" The younger wyrm audibly snarled, he was staring at her, an expression of utter confusion, anger, betrayal. Jewel took a deep breath, trying to ignore the suspicion and fury that the absence of the world surrounded him with." I'm sorry Evren, but I could not let you slay him while It was within my means to prevent it. I am a noble here under truce! It is not how these things are done!

To murder a king as his guest!" He stared at her then to his brother, then Fizzbunches and back again." Not how it's done?! He's a monster! And you've let him free! I could have ended it all here twice! And you protected that man both times! You were even going to make a deal with him! And what of those monsters the wizard made! I saw you! You knew of that!" Jewel flinched, trying to meet his eyes but he refused to even look at her.

"I was going to make a deal with Magarska! With a kingdom of thousands of thousands! We are Noble! We are Wyrms! We are Inviolate! We are rulers of men! If we do not hold ourselves to a courtly standard how are we better then-" Evren stepped towards her, white flame flickering in his maw. Pressing against her with the silencing of the world around him." He just murdered his son in a perfectly courtly way! Adelyne was right about you! You stopped me! I could have FIXED EVERYTHING and you stopped me!

You did it twice! Why did you stop my spell! He didn't suspect a thing!" Jewel whispered softly trying to explain, but she could already hear the sound of soldiers moving. She hurried her words.

"The spell you were about to cast before could have doomed you with its cost and struck innocents all across the kingdom. I could not let you make the same mistake I did! He will pay for the dishonor of his kinslaying! There will be justice but it must be done properly!" Evren snarled and moved as if to strike her, but the presences around them ground against each other and pushed them both back, forcing a stalemate.

Their writhing bodies breaking and shattering the furniture in the throes of it before he stopped pressing. After glaring across the ruined tables and cushions for the feast the wolf prince finally turned to his brother then barked in a language she did not know and dipped his head, the dog faced man leaping onto his back like a Gryphon rider. Then, they were gone. Galloping down a hallway. Leaving Jewel alone with Erhard, still slumped against the pillar." Countess, I think I may need assistance in our departure.

Will you assist, or should I call on my armours?" Jewel sighed and looked around the wrecked and ruined throne room with its torn finery, cracked stone and shattered furniture. She had, just a half hour ago been expecting to enjoy a Magarskan feast and now she was fleeing after a declaration of war!

"Call only what you need Erhard, I want the rest acting as protection for our party as we depart."