Heavy Is The Crown

Yashira Medani sat on a piano stool in an unseeming corridor within her family estate, yet with no piano in sight. Twenty-two minutes ago, she planted the stool directly in front of the antique grandfather clock and began her eager waiting. Her golden eyes were wide and unmoving, fixed on the hands of the clock inching ever closer to the top of the hour like an attentive feline ready to pounce. Not that she was racing to count how long she could watch the hands of a clock march onwards, of course. No, she had put the stool there for a good reason – she was waiting for it to strike seven so she could claim her prize.

An eclectic assortment of items lay at her feet as they swung back and forth over the edge of the stool, heels catching the woven rug on occasion and ruining her flow. The items seemingly had no connection on first glance – a playing card set, an old history book, sheet music, and some silverware from the kitchen. Yet each item had small pieces of parchment neatly unfurled by its side, a cascade of cursive ink sprawling along each one in the same, distinctive format.

Riddles.

Each riddle had been carefully crafted to lead her to a specific item, with that item containing a new riddle to send her on her way, mind whirring to find the connection between each one. It had been a tradition she’d shared with her older brother as long as she could remember – every month without fail, she would find a curious slip of parchment tied to a piece of furniture within the estate and light up with the knowledge that a new hunt had begun. The final riddle this time was so simple, yet it tied all the previous items together.

“I’m always running, though I never walk. I can sing, but I never talk.”

A clock. Not just any clock, this specific clock. It was an antique gifted to her family generations ago by some distant relatives who resided in Thrane, or so her mother had told her once before. It was made by talented crafters and tinkered with by a magic of some kind. Yashira didn’t really understand the specifics of the magic part – all she knew was that it allowed for a different set of clockwork characters to dance from high atop the clock with each strike of the hour. They would exit from a hatch door and follow a mechanical track, slowly moving in time with a soft melody.

She couldn’t quite understand what a clock ever did to earn such a complicated glance from her older family members. The melody practically had them flinching nowadays, and they would mutter comments to one another certain mornings after hearing the chime. Maybe they were just getting sick of hearing it after so many years. Yashira couldn’t imagine a world where that would be the case for her. Oh, right, the riddles!

She had concluded that her prize would be revealed to her at seven o’clock when the Knights Templar appear to valiantly slay the ghoulish undead at the top of the clock on its clockwork pathing. The playing card gave away the time of day, and the sheet music had an oddly familiar tune when she played it on her cello. The history book had been Thranish, delving into the Church of the Silver Flame and its sects and important figures, which neatly led her to the silverware in the kitchen. A silvered butter knife was a stretch of a connection, but she decided to let it slide as she was having fun.

She watched the clockwork figures dance into view, a familiar scene she had seen countless times before. However, it seemed that the silvered knight had finally put his ever-ready sword to good use. Striking true, he had pierced straight through the heart of a perfectly folded parchment. Not quite his fiendish target, ever looming two inches out of his reach on the predetermined clockwork path, but he could take pride in striking something invaluable to her at the very least. Her eyes strained to focus on the intricate cursive ink, patiently trying to decipher if it was yet another clue or the end of her long day of hunting.

“Congratulations!”

A soft gasp cut through the silence. Yashira wasted no time making her little hands busy with the mechanism under the piano stool, hurriedly twisting and turning the wheel to extend it to its maximum reach before climbing atop. Steadying herself on the glass pane of the clock, she extended a hand up to delicately remove the parchment from the silvered sword. It had a weight to it she hadn’t expected, her heart racing even quicker at the realisation there was a physical prize waiting for her.

After successfully clearing the crime scene, Yashira wasted no time in racing to her room and closing the door behind her, leaping onto her canopy bed and hastily drawing the sheer curtains. Closed off from the world, she opened the letter with barely contained excitement, carefully retrieving the gift first and foremost.

It was a pristine, ornate silver pocket watch. The metal casing had been expertly shaped and moulded to mimic the pattern of a Mark of Detection, framed by gorgeous gemstones that glinted like golden scales or stars. She recognised it as Fenriel’s immediately.

Did he leave it behind by mistake? No, it wouldn’t make sense. Then why…?

Yashira retrieved the letter with haste, hoping the answers would lie between inked lines.

“Dear Yashira,

How quickly did you figure it out this time? Bet I can answer even without being there – it was a day, wasn’t it?

I know I didn’t say it before I left, but I’m so proud of you and how far you’ve come. You’re already twice the person I was at your age. And I can’t wait to watch the person you become. I may not be around for some time, but work hard with your studies and look after the house and little Hina while I’m gone.

Keep my pocket watch safe in the meantime, will you? I have a feeling it’ll suit you more than me as you grow, anyhow.

I love you, Yashira. And don’t miss me too much – I’ll be home before you know it.

Your eye in the sky,

Fenriel”

Yashira frowned as she read the words, a thumb tracing over the signature slowly as she re-read the letter twice, then thrice. She pawed with the chain of the watch to ease the knot building in her stomach. Why did her brother’s words fill her with so much unease? Fen wrote nothing but encouragement— he’d even entrusted her with the pocket watch that father had given him. He was never without it. Well, until now. And looking out for baby Rha’hina was an honour, something important he entrusted to her. She was going to grow up to be someone the house could take pride in calling their own, just like him – he said it himself! Everyone was so happy when he manifested his dragonmark, complementing its size and talking about matters of the House. She hadn’t taken it in at the time, fixated on the brilliant cerulean glow as it danced on his skin.

But…

…Oh.

“Do all your nights end like this?”

“Only the fun ones.”

Yashira barely heard Fenriel’s exhale of amusement over the sound of her apartment door closing behind them. It was nearly drowned out by the ever-bustling nightlife just beyond the threshold of her abode, a cacophony of revelry, bustling business and raw, unabashed life itself being lived – messy and abrasive and beautiful. An assault on the senses. There was a time Yashira found it so invigorating, a spark in her eye every time she explored the sprawling streets, enticed through winding alleys with illusory magic signs and frontmen encouraging passersby into their establishments. At a certain point, it became a monotonous white noise. Still, there was a charm in its consistent gaudiness, the streets she called her own.

Muscle memory kicked in before her mind could catch up to her actions, deft hands locking the world outside as she had done countless times before. Unlike those countless times prior, however, there was a wetness at her fingertips she couldn’t place. Yashira blinked slowly, her brow knitting together in sluggish bewilderment as she noticed the slight smear of blood on the brass doorknob. Hers? No. She got off light during the chase – some light bruising to her ribs at worst. Fen’s blood, then. But when did it happen? At the bar, when the broken glass started flying after things turned sour? During the chase through the dilapidated portion of the laneways?

She turned to look over her shoulder, brow knit in concentration as her golden eyes carefully assessed him. There was a trail of tiny, uneven blood droplets leading in his direction like vampiric breadcrumbs. The longer she observed, the more peculiar his stance seemed. He kept his right side facing her at all times, even as he freely explored her living space, taking in every tiny detail he could. She raised her brow and slowly side-stepped to flank his left. He manoeuvred away without a glance in her direction, feigning interest in her half-dead potted peace lily as if it had always been his intended target. It was a beautiful dance of deception.

He would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it were anyone but her.

“How bad is it?”

He blinked in surprise at the question. She could tell he was silently pondering all the clues around him to try to ascertain what she had deduced, following her gaze to give himself a once-over. Seeing her dissatisfaction with his lazy self-assessment, however, he pulled his hands from his coat pockets and began a more thorough check. Right hand scuffed but otherwise healthy. The left? Wet crimson, a light trickle dripping along his fingers from a wound that clearly started higher up the arm. Dead to rights.

“Huh, would you look at that? Must’ve been the adrenaline – didn’t feel a thing.” He gave a nonchalant shrug, that ever-casual smile at his lips, “I’ll consider it a souvenir of our first reunion of the new year.”

White lies were a rite of passage in their family. It was an odd love language that each became fluent in from a young age, seen as a playful game to test their skills in a low-stakes environment. The only rule? Never lie to one another about a serious matter. Fenriel was starting to toe the line.

“I’m not letting you get off so easily, I’m afraid. Besides, you’re ruining my floor. Have you ever seen blood in an Inquisitive’s office before? It’s bad for business, Fen.”

A comfortable silence fell over the apartment after that, occasionally disturbed by the retrieval of sewing and medical supplies scattered haphazardly throughout the apartment. It wasn’t the first time she’d need to administer first aid between these four walls, nor would it be the last. She was just more experienced in administering it to herself. Yashira knew the procedure of how nights like these go, wasting no time in pulling a chair out and gesturing for him to sit. And Fenriel knew better than to test her patience – he’d already lost the game by failing to cover his tracks, he deemed this his punishment. She scoffed at the thought. Punishment, really?

She might have given him a harder time about his behaviour, but her priorities quickly shifted after she got a good glance at his injury. His jacket and shirt had been partially removed on the left side to expose his upper chest and shoulder, his dragonmark shimmering brilliantly in the low light of the apartment despite a thin smear of blood attempting to block its radiance. Had it grown since their last meet-up? It certainly started in the same place, snaking along his left jaw and down that side of his neck as it had when it first manifested all those years ago. It continued along his chest and shoulder in an intricate pattern, disappearing under the shirt and making it hard to know exactly how far it stretched. Perhaps it seemed larger because they hadn’t seen each other in such a long time. He was so busy nowadays.

Greater Mark, greater responsibilities.

She could not afford to get distracted by unimportant matters. She wiped some of the stray blood from his skin to get a better look at the area and felt a knot in her stomach almost instantly. The shard had nestled rather comfortably in his left deltoid muscle. Directly on top of his Mark of Detection.

Fuck.

The pressure from the shard was restricting the blood flow for the time being, and it looked rather shallow, thankfully. If she moved swiftly enough, she’d be able to remove the glass and suture without too much blood loss. Fen was trained for situations like these; he wouldn’t flinch or make a harder job for her. It would be easy. Suturing over a dragonmark would be easy.

She wondered how many times she would need to repeat that phrase before she would begin to believe it.

Fenriel was far too relaxed for her liking. If it was done purposefully to comfort her, it had the opposite effect. Surely a situation like this should illicit a more panicked air about the room, a tension she could cut through. The lack of it made her feel off-balance, like there was an important piece of information she was failing to consider. With a heavy sigh, she brandished her sewing needle and began her careful work of suturing the wound.

It didn’t help that Fenriel seemed intent on distracting her careful work with idle conversation, his attentive eyes scanning the apartment for things to discuss.

“It’s a nice home you’ve made for yourself.”

It wasn’t. Yet the lie sounded so sweet on his tongue, she felt compelled to believe it. Yashira hadn’t decorated in the entire decade since she took up residency, save for the odd piece of furniture she bought after deeming it a necessity. The walls were bare except for a spidering crack at the edges, the wood flooring well-worn, but sound and stable. Her desk was buried in weeks’ worth of countless cases she’d taken on, each pile of parchment overlapping the next in organised chaos.

“Convenient for work, I imagine?”

“Living in the heart of danger,” he means. Underlook’s residential district was a far cry from their family estate; the lengthy elevator journey between the two proved it. Two raps of his knuckles on the hardwood of the table confirmed the restlessness building in him, as masterfully as he tried to pass it off as an idle motion. Not a topic he wanted to get into, a soft plea without words. Well, he couldn’t say anything as far as she was concerned: she stayed in Middle Dura, at least. No need for him to know she frequents the Lower Wards several times a week for work.

He opened his mouth as if to continue this multilayered conversation, somehow not tired of the mental energy it required. She shot him a patient glare, one their family passed down through the generations like a sacred heirloom. Yashira took great pride in knowing she had perfected it before any of her siblings. The stern flash in the eyes offset by a gentle head tilt, a curious upturn of the brows as if daring the other to continue down a dangerous path. A look that perfectly conveyed one sentiment: I am not your case.

Fenriel, on the other hand, had mastered the perfect retort. A softening of his features, an apologetic upturn of his brows, a near-silent exhale of breath and a raising of his hand in a playfully defensive motion. There was a smile on his lips that invited a truce, making it impossible for her to keep her own look of disapproval.

“Force of habit.”

Even in a situation like this, Fenriel had an infectious nature about him. It was downright unfair, really. Covered in blood yet keeping his cool, not letting pain or concern sully his carefree expression. There was a glow in his golden eyes that hers seemed to lack, and his smile always managed to reach his eyes in a carefully practised way to ensure it never crinkled his eyes into a squint. The greatest “flaw” he had to concern himself with was a beauty mark below his left eye – it drew attention, something he had never liked. She never understood why in her youth. Nowadays, it’s painfully obvious: it was because it made him easier to recognise at a glance. Misfortune can follow you over the smallest of details.

How many years of her life had she dedicated to emulating him with little success? How many of his own had he dedicated to making it look so easy, being him?

“Is it much different? Between sewing flesh and fabric, I mean.” A flicker of a grimace passed over this face, followed by a silent mouthing of ‘Sovereign,’ as if to dignify the reality of the question he just uttered aloud. It made her smile, though she made sure to stifle the laugh to save his face. Not a common thing to ask your little sister. Then again, growing up Medani makes you anything but common.

She was just glad he had stopped interrogating her living circumstances.

“Not particularly. It’s similar to certain leathers in terms of thickness, especially the deeper into the tissue you get. Easier to do it on others, though. There’s no pain to spur on hesitancy, so it makes for quicker and cleaner—”

Yashira wasn’t sure what came first, the flash of dazzling cerulean or the spasm that seized her hand. Perhaps they happened simultaneously, and the pain came second. The world stopped spinning for what felt like minutes on end. Everything seemed so crystal clear yet painfully slow, her body stuck in paralysis as her mind raced to catch up with the situation. Was it the needle piercing his Mark of Detection? Surely not. The previous injury, perhaps, given its depth? She furrowed her brow in thought. She had never heard of such a thing triggering a reaction like this.

Fenriel’s hand on her shoulder and panicked voice snapped her back to reality.

“Sovereign, Yash, are you okay? I didn’t— it wasn’t intentional. I don’t know what happened—”

It was the first time she’d ever seen her brother flustered, a raw and unfiltered expression of concern on his face for once. She tested the hand, slowly flexing the joints until they regained their full range of movement. Stiff, but functional. Her nerves were completely shot, a strange sort of tingling below the skin that extended as far as her shoulder. She was relieved her expression hadn’t betrayed her and given it away as she watched Fenriel sigh in relief.

“Nothing to worry about. It was temporary, whatever it was. Better to leave dragonmarks to reappear over the skin and not tamper with them, I suppose…” Yashira couldn’t stand seeing Fen’s guilty eyes inspecting her hand, waiting to see signs to the contrary of her statement. She needed to diffuse the tension. With a swift turn of her injured hand, she extended it palm up in an expectant gesture before smiling playfully, “I charge by the hour for my sewing services, I’m afraid. Don’t worry, I’ll throw in a family discount.”  

It either worked or he was humouring her attempt, because he let loose a soft laugh and returned her banter, “How generous of you. Always handy having a tailor in the family, it seems. Think you’ll be able to patch up my jacket while you’re at it?”

“Depends, what are you offering for it?”

He pondered the question playfully, fingers thrumming the worn wood of the table before replying, “I’ll help you catch your runaway suspect before I leave again. I’d wager they’ll have until next light before we track them down.”

“Didn’t realise you’ve been a member of House Tharashk this whole time. My condolences.”

“Ouch. Where did you learn to say such hurtful things?” The question was rhetorical, cemented by his knowing smile, “Who needs a Mark of Finding when we already make up the sharpest minds in the city? It would be like cheating for the sake of it. Painfully dull way to operate, I say.” A grin flashed across his face, “Besides, you know it’ll be more fun our way.”

Yashira slipped her fingers into the pocket of her leather breeches, fishing out the ornate silvered pocket watch that once belonged to her brother many years ago. A satisfying click set the mechanism in motion, popping the metallic casing open to reveal just how early in the morning it was. Twilight hours. Had the time really passed so quickly? She, ironically, didn’t have time to think about it.

Six hours until dawn breaks. Nothing but scraps to work with after exhausting their prior leads, simply the last known location of the suspect. They’d be hunting a single person in the most populated city in all of Khorvaire.

The odds were near impossible.

Near impossible.

Her nerves felt like they’d been hit by a lightning elemental, crackling with an excitement her body could barely contain.

“Deal.”

Slow. Intentional. Her fingers danced between the red thread anchored around her knuckles with poised precision, weaving an intricate cat’s cradle of crimson. Her usual deft movements were sluggish by comparison, she had to admit – the injuries sustained fighting Margana were barely knitting back together and not so quick to remedy. The web of cross-sections befuddled her for numerous seconds at a time, leaving her golden eyes drowning in bleariness that only lifted with copious, strained blinking. With a heavy sigh, she gave in.

Her eyes drifted instead to the open sewing kit beside her, the silver needle glinting under the golden glow of the campfire embers. It’s funny how such a small thing can bring back so many long-forgotten memories. Fondness was quick to make its exit, however, a creeping dread settling in instead as she replayed the events of the fight in her mind. Damien’s sickening cry of pain ringing in her ears, the warmth of his blood soaking her hand, the familiar seizing of her muscles as his dragonmark began to spit out raw, uncontrolled energy from the open wound. No matter how much she willed it, the memory refused to leave her mind’s eye. It encroached her silence, demanded to be replayed over and over and over again. What if she had attacked from the blind spots provided by her teammates? Taken a different angle to strike? What if she hadn’t been so arrogant, so direct in her attacks? So many opportunities to make it right, squandered and wasted in the moment.

Damien’s pride and joy – his very identity, his dragonmark – mutilated by her hand.

Guilt festered deep between her ribs, a wave of nausea rising inside slowly but surely. Yashira knew she had to try to make it right. She’d stitched up Fen’s all those years ago – surely it wouldn’t be any different this time around.

But this was Damien d’Orien we’re talking about. Nothing was ever easy with him. Even if his pain threshold was high enough to tolerate it, Damien wouldn’t sit still to allow the placement of clean sutures. Yashira had never met a man so incapable of stillness before – it was like he was allergic to the very concept.

Every angry Aundarian phrase she’d ever heard in passing filled her mind in an instant, almost putting the foolish ambition of stitching her teammate’s injury to rest once and for all. Better to leave it in the hands of skilled healers or inanimate potions, perhaps...

Still… She owed it to him, after everything. It couldn’t hurt to offer.