Sanguine Prince | Chapter 22: The Cost of Loyalty (Second Draft)

Arcturus set off from Angela’s shop in a jovial mood, his coat partially undone despite Tylariel’s grumblings about ‘proper decorum’. The party that departed the now-repaired storefront was a simple one; Tylariel was there, of course, and joined by Jess and Sumeko—both of whom volunteered to assist in acquiring both proper attire and helping with any ‘menial’ work.

Despite how much it irked Arcturus’ earth-born perceptions of equality, he had discerned quickly that questioning the social hierarchy was about as poor a choice as shouting a racial slur in the Dean’s office at Yale—especially given his supposed background then, and now more so.

“Where to first?” he asked as he glanced at the eclectic passersby.

“Clothing,” Tylariel said without hesitation. “I will not suffer my Apprentice to look like a vagrant, especially when this will be the first impression you leave on potentially long-term contacts.”

“Does a store owner’s opinion carry that much weight, Mentor?” Arcturus asked curiously, walking alongside the Archon and admiring the colorful crowd of armored and Victorian-clothed people respectfully parting around them—or more specifically, around Tylariel. “I thought I was meant to be above that.”

“Once again, your ignorance rears its head,” his Mentor scolded, flashing him a disapproving look. “The opinions of merchants matter, Arcturus, because the populace matters. If the flock does not respect the shepherd, how are they to heed when ushered to safety?”

“Pardon the interruption, Archon Tylariel,” Jess said from behind them. “If I may add to that?”

Tylariel waved a hand permissively, which Arcturus schooled himself not to roll his eyes at.

  “Thank you, milady,” Jess said before looking to Arcturus. “It isn’t just about shepherding either, Your Hi—” she caught herself as Arcturus flashed her a look. “—I-I mean, A-Arcturus.”

It took her a moment to get through his name, much to his suppressed annoyance.

“It’s also about your retainers, your oathsworn, and the banner-houses you will—that is, may—” she corrected herself again “—eventually command. Valarians, especially, are proud people, even by the standard of the Empire. Until you prove your worth in battle, it is things precisely like your presentation, oratory skills, political acumen, and martial prowess that they will assess you on. That goes not only for the Nobilis Imperia like her ladyship, but also common soldiers.”

“My ability to kill is directly correlated to my worthiness?” he asked with a flicker of disgust, immediately repulsed—though admittedly not necessarily surprised—by the implied barbarity of Imperial society. “I remember Angela mentioning that. It still strikes me as primitive, especially for a society as seemingly advanced as the Empire.”

“Physical prowess is an indicator of power, my lord,” Jess replied with a more comfortable address after a hesitant glance at Tylariel, who seemed to be content to listen. “Among the people of the Empire, strength dictates worth. How can a weak leader properly defend what is theirs? How can a craven King protect a dominion?” she asked as she gestured around them, pausing for what Arcturus suspected was dramatic effect.

“The Empire has many enemies,” Jess continued more confidently, “and since its inception, has defined strength as a mandated necessity for those who would govern. To control, one must have the strength to command. That doesn’t just mean physical prowess, though: it also means strategic and tactical capability. The ability to maintain supply lines, outmaneuver an enemy force, and properly wield the power of one’s domain, both on and off the battlefield.”

“A succinct and eloquent explanation, young lady,” Tylariel said approvingly, earning a blushing smile from Jess. “Though ‘yes, so deal with it’ would also have been appropriate for my new, reticent Apprentice.”

Jess and Sumeko giggled at Tylariel’s words, drawing an incredulous look from Arcturus. The two women were as battle-hardened and capable as any soldier he’d ever met, but in front of the redheaded Archon, they seemed to regress to girlish youths. It was bewildering.

Shaking his head, he refocused on the discussion.

“Okay, so perception is reality,” Arcturus conceded. “I can accept that.”

Look at that, common sense! Keep this up, and you might actually avoid looking like an ass. Or at least, any more of an ass.

Arcturus ignored his snide subconscious and directed his attention to the packed streets around him, taking note of the avenues and paved roads leading off in every direction. Though Angela’s shop was positioned on a main thoroughfare, he was quickly reminded of Lilian’s claim that Luxanium was massive. Based on what he’d learned just from talking to his companions, it might have even dwarfed cities like New York, Paris, or Tokyo.

Another glance found him glaring up at the boundary wall that had stymied his earlier efforts to reach the Cathedral, and he gestured to the offending barrier while speaking.

“What’s with the wall in the middle of the city?”

“That’s the Outer and Inner divide,” Tylariel said simply. “Each city has one. Outer territories are for the far more numerous and squabbling members of the Minor Houses. It keeps their skirmishes and inter-house conflicts from disrupting the High Houses.”

“That would have been nice to know…” Arcturus murmured, thinking back to the cute waitress who had given him directions once again.

Probably slipped her mind, given how nervous I made her. Can’t hold it against her.

It was, nonetheless, frustrating.

“Where is your House situated, Mentor?” he asked Tylariel curiously while turning to her with a raised eyebrow.

A sudden thinning of his mentor’s lips immediately prickled Arcturus’ danger sense, and he realized too late that he’d likely just made another social faux pas.

[Charisma Check] successful!

As the notification pinged through his mind, Tylariel sighed.

“It’s complicated,” she said, reluctantly, in an aggrieved tone. “Until recently, House Rubastra had been part of the High Houses and Inner Luxanium, but when House Honorum’s patriarch Leon Fortunis married Princess Artoria—your aunt—and Prince Leon Valoris was born…” Tylariel glanced at the massive wall and grimaced.

“My father, in his devotion to Arcturus Titus, refused to acknowledge the former Crown-Prince’s death. This inherently meant that Leon Valoris, as the eldest living direct male descendant of King Arcturus Honoris and House Valoura, was denied recognition as Crown-Prince because of my father’s stubborn insistence on refusing to acknowledge Arcturus Titus’ death. Eventually, Leon Fortunis painted my father as a dissident.”

Arcturus’ eyes widened at the dynastic drama while Tylariel spoke.

It felt like he’d woken up and been thrown into a Shakespeare play.

“It was bait—we knew it was bait, but of course, my father’s honor could not suffer it in silence. He demanded a duel to force Leon’s retraction, at which point Leon demanded that my father not only accept the brand if defeated, but that he accept exile to Outer Luxanium for his dissidence. Whatever else he is, Leon Fortunis is a powerful Archon. My father, though strong himself, is quite a bit older. The result was... predictable.”

This Leon is an even bigger ass than you. Miracles do happen.

“That’s… that’s awful,” Arcturus said with genuine revulsion. “All because your father wouldn’t accept that my dad was dead without proof?”

“Yes. He insisted that Arcturus Titus was ‘too powerful to die in silence’, to quote him. That’s why when I saw you…”

“You had a mixed reaction,” Arcturus said with realization, “because my existence validated your father.”

“Yes,” Tylariel admitted. “Which in turn meant that the rage and distance between us for what he did, especially on my end, was… well, I was wrong,” she admitted with what Arcturus was starting to see as increasingly endearing forthrightness. “I was wrong, and instead of having faith in my father, I blamed him for ruining what I saw as my prospects for the future. My betrothal was severed, my life took a different path, and now I am without a husband, childless, and staring down the ambitious designs of multiple Houses, many once too cowed to ever come against us.”

“My lady, you have my condolences for the slander against your House,” Sumeko said from behind, joined by a nodding Jess. “In all that I’ve seen, such a cruel fate was ill-deserved.”

“Thank you, dear,” Tylariel responded almost by rote. “Yet what is done, is done. My focus now must be on the present and the future. I have been bereft of even the responsibility of an Apprentice, due to the stigma surrounding my family. I will not settle for a lesser bloodline to give me a son, and I cannot in good conscience demand that a virile male from a House I would consider worthy doff his name in favor of a disgraced one. An Apprentice is my only way of leaving a lasting legacy.”

She turned her gaze to Arcturus, who felt himself straightening his posture reactively under her intense appraisal.

“In that, I intend to brook no failure.”

Charisma increased by 1 Point!

Your earnest desire for knowledge has impressed your Mentor and new attendants. Despite your asinine, foot-in-mouth question, you have managed to turn Tylariel’s painful memory into a fierce determination, centered around your existence. Yet again, you twist reality around you, you self-involved jackass!

“I will do my best not to fail you, Mentor,” Arcturus responded as formally as he could, meeting Tylariel’s expectant and determined expression with one as determined and respectful as he could manage. If nothing else, his father had taught him to honor loyalty, and Arcturus was reasonably sure that if his dad had heard what Tylariel’s father had done and suffered, all in the name of loyalty, he would have marched to Leon Fortunis’ door and taught him a lesson in respect.

“Good,” Tylariel said with a predatory smile. “Then you may begin by complying with my instructions regarding your attire, absent complaint.”

Arcturus winced at her catching him in a trap and nodded in concession, recognizing when he’d been beaten. It wasn’t as if he truly had been complaining, but it was probably wise of Tylariel to head off the chance of it occurring before it did. He knew himself well, and in all likelihood, he would chafe under the boredom of trying on item after item. His mentor was one step ahead of him, it seemed.

A glance at his map showed Arcturus that they’d walked a decent distance from Angela’s store—he still couldn’t think of her as ‘Alyerial’—and were heading in a looping westerly direction along a massive thoroughfare that seemed to loosely circle the dividing wall. 

“Where exactly are we going, Mentor?” Arcturus asked as they walked. “We’ve passed by a lot of stores.”

“Even outside the Inner City, there are gems, Apprentice. One such gem is just ahead of us,” she said with a vague gesture as they walked. “Even the most prestigious families go to Maurice for their attire. The man’s a genius.”

“So why isn’t he inside the wall?”

“He doesn’t discriminate,” Tylariel said as if that was a significant mark of nobility. On Terra, he reasoned, it probably was. “If you treat him with respect and don’t try to cheat him, he’ll sell to you. It causes a bit of a fuss with some of the more elitist families, but he was a favorite of the late Queen’s, and that means he’s protected.”

“Because of my—” Arcturus caught himself mid-speech and diverted, “—the King?”

Tylariel shot him a look, and he lifted his hands in apology. “Sorry, Mentor. The King, I mean. Because of the King?”

“Yes,” Tylariel said simply. “Because of the King.”

“Aren’t you worried the store owner will, uh, recognize me?” Arcturus asked, even then wondering how nobody else had recognized him.

“He will, but he also knows not to get involved in the affairs of those too far above him. Maurice didn’t survive on the King’s goodwill alone. He is a smart man.”

“And why has no one else recognized me, come to think of it? We’re just strolling out in the open, talking like there aren’t dozens of ears around,” he said, suddenly all-too-aware of how many people were around them—though they were all a curious distance from their group.

“My aura,” Tylariel said matter-of-factly. “It’s also why they’re not impeding us. I’m letting my Aether bleed, and they’re avoiding looking at us or engaging us. It’s a common trick when dealing with crowds of mundanes.”

“Isn’t that kind of obvious, Mentor?” Arcturus questioned.

“That’s the idea,” Tylariel said enigmatically as she led them steadily down the thoroughfare.

“I don’t understand…” Arcturus muttered to himself, glancing at the passing crowds and the way they seemed determined not to look at him or the three women, and even more determined not to eavesdrop, which he wasn’t complaining about.

“It’s a common facet of life in the Empire,” Jess said nearby, drawing his attention as they walked. “Archons project auras, and most mundanes and lowborn stay far, far away from them. It’s actually considered something of a courtesy, especially if there is a House war brewing. Nobody wants to accidentally be mistaken as an Archon’s companion if things are reaching a boiling point.”

“So it’s a mutual understanding?” Arcturus clarified.

“Yes,” Jess confirmed with a nod. “Archons avoid drawing others into their intrigues, and in return are left alone to whatever business they have. Even the most vicious or deadly warrior will hesitate before crossing even the weakest Archon, because you aren’t just crossing them.”

[Perception Check] successful!

“You’re crossing their House, their Mentor, their Apprentices—if any—and their allies as well,” Arcturus surmised. “I can see why mutual non-involvement is preferred.”

“It’s just common sense, really,” Jess said with another nod.

Arcturus noticed that they’d changed direction at the exact moment as Tylariel took a sharp turn to the right and cut through the crowd on the opposite side of the thoroughfare, leading their party into a well-lit and spacious side street with colorful streamers and pennants hung between the tops of buildings above them. Various pieces of iconography and decoration adorned the fronts of stores with words like ‘emporium’ in liberal use.

The sunlight was warm and encompassing, with shafts of golden light reflecting off clothes and jewelry that even Arcturus could recognize as exquisitely made.

Well-dressed men and women of several different ethnicities parted around them as they moved, as well as other individuals who seemed to part the proverbial sea of people with their presence alone. None ever came close to their party, but Arcturus could pick up the tell-tale signs of an Archon’s presence from the ripples of the crowd. At one point, he even thought he glimpsed a pair of feline ears atop the head of a passerby.

“Catgirls…?”

Easy there, Tiger.

“Did you say something, Arcturus?” Sumeko asked as they walked.

“No, it’s nothing. Just an overactive imagination, I hope.”

“Here we are,” Tylariel said just ahead of them as she came to a stop outside of a large black-painted storefront, with the word “Maurice’s” in golden-flake text across closed glass double-doors. Arcturus could respect the mix of success and confidence that using only one’s name as an identifier spoke of.

“Maurice has style,” Arcturus said as Tylariel opened the doors, following his mentor inside as Jess and Sumeko brought up the rear. The interior of the store seemed to light up as they entered, and Arcturus let his eyes wander over the incredible variety of clothing on display. Tunics, shirts, coats, dresses, leggings, and even underwear that made him blush at the mere thought of seeing a woman in them.

It was only a minor surprise when Sumeko beelined for those particular displays, and Arcturus hastily focused on following Tylariel instead of dwelling on that fact.