SEAMUS:

  “Please, mercy!” Squealed the merchant, Seamus merely knocked him back down to his knees with a smack across his jaw. Fabian Storm, though now going by Fabian Peafee, was quite the interesting man to have locked in a cage. The merchant spat out globs of red blood, darker than the red of his silks that were now tatters and rags.

  Seamus let out a snicker, his beady bck eyes peering down and through Fabian’s soul. Oh how he loved to watch them squirm in his grasp. Tears were welling in the young merchant's eyes, Shay was surprised that they took so long to arrive. “Life is full of wants and desires, sir. I wanted to spend my life like this, nothing changing, with my darling sister as a beautiful maiden and my father staying in his station.” Seamus told the man, in a silky smooth voice. He crouched down to the level of a snivelling rat. “Why are you crying, Mister Fabian? There is so much light in the world yet quivering in the dark, you are? Why cry, sir? You better not be crying.” Seamus smiled at the little worm in his grasp, ready to crushed. “Was it because of the slip of my hand?” He let out another snicker.

  Fabian looked in horror at the coldest eyes he’d ever seen, the most evil. Cold, bck beads of eyes. And the smile with nothing behind it. That’s why the merchant cried. “Sir! It’s not because of your hand, m’lord, I promise!” Fabian shouted his pleas, desperate not to anger the little duke. Sweat ran down Fabian’s face, blood dribbled down his nose. Such a twitchy little freak.

  “Crying for the starving kids?” Seamus asked darkly, his smile dropping. He grabbed Fabian by the pel before rising to his feet. “Now, I will ask you a question. Give me the answer, and this will go smoothly.” Shay whispered in his pale ear. “Will you do that?”

  The merchant nodded, tears coming down his face. “Yes! Anything, anything, please. Ask, ask, by the Titans just ask.” He spouted out in fear or agony.

  “Does he know?” Shay asked softly, breathing on Fabian’s neck. “Does the king know?”Fabian’s bruised mug fshed a look of confusion, disobedience. “What? What? I don’t know!” Seamus’s fist struck him in the gut, he fell to his knees before being grabbed and lifted by his throat.

  Shay shook his head, tutting softly. “Not good enough. You are not listening, Pissy. The coronation, you know about it! You took your ships, sailed from Broxen to Faeton and spilled our little secrets to the usurper! Or am I wrong?”

  “Wrong, wrong … please mercy sire.” Fabian sputtered, blood drooling from his mouth. Seamus struck him across the jaw, sending him flying to the ground. “You have no right .. no right.” He whispered as he lied, broken and bloodied.

  The Duke’s son perked right up at the words. “No right to what? Speak up, you toad.” Seamus was sick of this vile little merchant. He twisted his head in curiosity, smirking at the man.

  Fabian rolled onto his back and grunted, before weakly speaking.“No right to touch me, no right to py god!” Seamus ughed, being lectured by a prisoner, now that was a new one.

  “Please. Being a god, if I was pying one, seems rather easy. If Lothor can do it …” Seamus was truly amazed. T he moral high ground, he dares try and use that me? The moral high ground was a term invented by the ones on the bottom, Seamus thought. “You believe you py on my morality? I’m not pying god, I’m doing a duty. You try to py that game, the game of morality and the gods, when we both know that you’re an animal. How many girls did you force yourself upon? I always forget. Eleven, was it? Or was that their age?” Seamus raised an eyebrow before letting out a ugh.

  “Lies! Snder! You are not a godly man. I hope you rot in the cold, you feckless murderer!” Fabian spat his words at Seamus, hoping that they cut deep like knives. He crawled back, pushing against the wall.

  “I never was a godly man. You don’t know anything, do you? About the crowning, you just did trades like a good little dog.” Seamus asked.

  “No! I said that when you asked, please mercy already!” He cried to Seamus.

  Seamus slowly shook his head, smirking. He reached into the sheath in his belt, drawing his bde. “No, I’m afraid not. You know too much, I’m afraid you need to be . . . silenced.” He whispered that st part, an eager thrill in his voice at the notion.

  The merchant cried and screamed, he got to his feet and to the bars of the cell. He rattled them, banging on them. Screaming his lungs out. Until he knew the Titan’s will was in that room, in that knife, in his silence. “You kill me, what do you leave me? A legacy of death, subordination.” Fabian turned to look at Seamus. The shadows veiled the man, his dark ringlets framing the delicate features. His beady bck eyes blended into the darkness of the dungeon.

  “A world without you.” Seamus stepped closer, Fabian let out another bloodcurdling scream and turned back to the bars. He banged and banged, begging for a rescue, begging for a white knight to come and end the murderer. “Look at me. Look at me or I’ll make it slow.” He whispered in the dusty room of his amusement. Fabian slowly turned and looked back into the shadows. The merchant let out a flurry of murmurs and whispers, prayers to the gods, to the Titans, to any man or being that could save his soul. Then the bde struck his chest, slipping inside with a gentle ease, the sweet calm of death liberating Fabian of his worries and hardships, a storm returning to the skies. Then it came again, slipping back, then out and in, again and again, until Fabian was nothing more than a doll, a figure that once housed a man, a man with feelings, a man with love in his heart, a man with a family and a man with everything at fingertips. The fingertips went cold, limp, lifeless.

  Bloody hands, sin washed away in the basin of water. Seamus had the guards take the body outside and burn it, no need for a rotting corpse to infest his dungeon in flies and disease. The water turned red as Seamus scrubbed his hands raw with a block of tallow soap. He needed them clean, rid of the stench of death. He peered into the basin, his own reflection staring back at him, a reflection bathed in blood.

  He turned and left the washroom of Castle Aston, he marched through the halls of the grand seat of his ancient family. Seamus eventually reached the council chamber, he found his father standing at the edge of the table and with Sir Eric Croft at the opposite end. “Cousin, have you taken my pce on this council?” Seamus asked Croft with a raise of his eyebrow. In truth, Eric was not Seamus’s cousin but merely wed to Seamus’s sister Edith and was raised a ward of the Astons.

  “What council? Three people hardly constitute a council, or am I mistaken?” Eric asked with a daring smirk, he was ever the comely d, with dark brown hair and boisterous green-eyes. The Croft’s of Crawford were not the biggest house, but they had loyalty to their superiors and Eric was as good a man as Seamus could have wished his darling sister would have.

  Wilem Aston stood in silence as his son entered, the Duke’s beady bck eyes locked onto Shay. “I take it that the merchant is dead? Did he know, does the king know?” He asked in a stern voice. The Duke had thin, white and receding hair, and thin white beard with spots of grey.

  Seamus shook his head, his hand resting on the bde that sure that silence was eternal. “He denied it, it could be a lie but it does not matter now. If the king knows, then let him know.” Shay decred with a sly smirk. A prince, he knew he would be when the sun sets. “The crowning happens today, he won’t be able to stop us.”

  His father gave a curt nod. “Yes, I suppose you are right. He will march his armies up north as soon as the letter of my kingship reaches him, a week or so. Shan’t matter if he marches now, perhaps it would be better if he did march now.” Wilem decred, The Duke knew that the High North was the best guarded pce in all of Soren because of the mountains to the south and east and the sea to his east. And with the hundred isles, his ships would control the seas. “We already have a thousand troops stationed at the three locations they’re likely to arrive on. Lord Finnigan’s ships aren’t patrolling the seas, I’ve sent four letters but your uncle isn’t complying.” Wilem expined to his sons, one in name and the other in honor. Lord Jacques Finnigan was indeed Edith and Seamus’s uncle, he ruled the seas and Wilem hoped that the marriage between himself and a Finnigan would help ease the lords tension over matters. “The crowning is soon, we shall best be going soon. Ede and your mother have delivered the crown to the Tideus.”

  Seamus nodded slowly, a crowning was a sight he’d never thought he’d see in his lifetime, they were so far away from the Fae Kings but one was happening right in dear old Bckaston. “Will the Mage Caspian be attending? I do hope that worm stays in the castle.” Shay asked, he did not trust those mages.

  “No, the mage is the st thing I need for this.”

  The three of them set out quickly, riding on their horses from Castle Aston and into the streets of Bckaston. The ride was bumpy and short, Seamus always felt uneasy on horseback, even at a trot. Appuds and cheers came from the Storms in the street, filthy little peasants desperate to get as close as they possibly can to people who can eat freely everyday. The appuse, the glorious cps for the prince-soon-to-be, it was music to his ears. They reached the Tideus, and dismounted. A tall temple stood before them, a towering monolith of worship to a false promise of salvation. Tall, oaken doors stood at the helm of the vast Tideus, they were open wide and a warmth radiated from inside of it. The Tideus was the cleanest thing in the filth of Bckaston, the only part of the city that looked like it had any care or love put into crafting it. “Gather the Storms, Croft. They need to know that they have a king now, not a southern usurper who they have never id eyes on.” Wilem told Eric before the father and son entered the prayer hall.

  Seamus’s eyes gazed around at the taunting walls, the paintings that adorned them. The Titans in human flesh, building the world out of nothing, a Ludicini masterwork. He even managed to paint a masterpiece on the ceiling, Lud Van Keepe was truly an expert in all matters concerning painting. Beautiful blues, gleaming golds and greens, it was the most color that Seamus had ever set his eyes on. The paint was peeling though, a true shame.

  His eyes nded on his dear sister Ede, radiant as always. Seamus’s mother, Ciara Aston, was standing by her. Mother and daughter looked scarily alike, both with curly dark ringlets and pale, waxy skins. Though Cia did look far more gaunt and worn than her darling daughter, it was surprising that she did not have any grey hairs yet unlike her husband Wilem. “Where’s my dear Eric, Shay?” Ede asked with a raised eyebrow, crossing her arms and walking towards her baby brother. Edith’s own dark eyes, so deeply dark like pools of water in the bck of night, easy to get lost in.

  “Outside, Edith. Gathering a crowd for our . . . king’s speech.” He told her softly before she wrapped her arms around him, he stiffened awkwardly and gave her a peck on the cheek as she eagerly embraced her younger brother. It was a tight hug, he was drowning in the warmth of familial love and needed a rope to save him from this nightmare.

  Wilem marched forwards to his wife and the Tidon, the holyman of Bckaston wore simple white robes and some stupid hat to match. In his hands was the crown, a thick bronze circlet with a small bck diamond embedded into the centre, that was for the king. And The Tidon also held onto a thin, silver circlet for the future Queen Consort. “Let us make this quick, yes. Sooner I’m with the crown on my head, the sooner we can start thriving as a northern reich once more.” Wilem told his family, and the Tidon.

  “Of course, my duke.” The weathered Tidon nodded, the man was stout and small, with thick fingers and a toad-like look to his face. He disgusted Seamus. Ede was out of the hug and eagerly watching as the holy man blessed her mother and father with the t-shape on the brow in honor of the Titans. Such baseless traditions, Shay thought with contempt as he watched the crowning of a new king in an old kingdom. Ciara knelt down as the Tidon pced the ceremonial Circlet on her head first, she did look like a queen wearing it, the only queen Soren had. His mother did not have those cold eyes like the rest of her family, Ciara’s were warm and hazel, sweet eyes.

  Then his father was up, taking a knee as his circlet was pced on his head. The Tidon muttered a few words that Seamus could not make out as Wilem was anointed with holy water underneath the masterwork of the Titans, the looming Titans peering down their spines and into their souls and hearts. Seamus hoped that the Titans didn’t peer into his soul, that would damn him to ten thousand years trapped in the icy hellscape of the next realm after this one. A just punishment, Seamus knew. “In the name of the almighty Titans, in my right authority and knowledge, I procim Wilem of the noble House Aston as the rightful King of Winter,, the King of the ice and the cold, the king of warmth and chill, of winter and summer, spring and autumn, the King of the North! Long he shall reign!” The Tidon procimed before Wilem rose as a man with a crown on his head, the king. Edith was the first to cp, Seamus followed slowly afterwards. The King had a daft smirk on his face at the notion of him being a king. This shall not end well, Seamus thought as he saw the hubris on his fathers face.

  “Best I go speak to my subjects.” Wilem told Seamus as he began walking to the door, a swagger in the bald toad’s step.

  Shay followed afterwards, slowly behind his father like a dog. A prince now, yet I have no crown. A pity. He scowled. “By all means, father. A king should be open with his subjects.” The light blinded his sensitive eyes as they walked into the filth ridden streets of Bckaston. It was bck with dirt, Shay knew. The Storms were gathered around the entrance, like swines drawn to their own shit. Seamus hated these snivelling little peasants, all grovelling for their king like he was a messiah, only the Storms of Bckaston would be dimwitted enough to delude themselves into thinking his dear father was the Mas’Jun or Dum-Barid. Fools all fools .

  “Today is the end of the North's submission into southern rule, the end of a regime that accepts the disrespect and belittling of our beautiful culture! At this moment, in a pce far from here, the Southern King lies to Soren while supporting the treachery of tax evaders and scheming merchants! This fierce reich that you have built, upon which we stand, will bring an end to the usurping Ren, to their ideals of oppression of these different nations! All remaining orders will bow to the Cold Riech, and will remember this as the st day that the North submitted!” The new King decred to his glorious nation, the Storms all raised their fist to their king. They all seemed eager to raise a storm in Astons name. They all let out a cheer at the news. “The future of this new state lies in the hands of its greatest generation!” Wilem shook his hands at the unruly Storms, only further riling them up. “ To battle! For your king, for your fathers and mothers, for these nds!” They all cpped and cheered, screaming and shouting in excitement.