⚔️ THE BREATH OF THE BLIND GOD
1121 Words
Hours later, the roaring fires of the banquet hall died down to a dull, smoldering amber. The drunk and exhausted Viking warriors slept on the benches, their heavy snores echoing off the stone walls.
King Roosevelt left the feast early, retiring to the royal solar... the grand suite that had once belonged to Alice's father.
Alice was commanded to follow him, carrying a heavy brass ewer of fresh well water. Her heart hammered against her ribs as the heavy oak doors shut out the rest of the castle.
Roosevelt stood by the grand arched window, looking out over the moonlit harbor where his twenty-five longships bobbed on the dark water. Without turning around, he unclasped his heavy wolf-fur mantle and threw it onto the bed.
"Clean the hearth, girl. Then scrub the grime from the strategy table. I have no patience for a messy room."
"Yes, Your Grace," Alice whispered, bowing her head.
She knelt by the stone fireplace, using a rusted iron poker to clear the ash. But her sharp mind was focused entirely on the heavy mahogany table across the room. Spread across it were maps of the northern realms and a sealed parchment bearing a dark purple wax crest, the mark of the Seer.
When King Roosevelt stepped out onto the adjoining balcony to look at the guard rotation below, Alice moved with lightning speed. She glided across the room, her bare feet making no sound on the rugs. Her fingers carefully unrolled the parchment. Her eyes scanned the complex runic script. Because of her hidden education, she could read the ancient dialect fluently. It was a secret treaty.
"The youngest daughter, Alice, is eliminated as promised,” the text read. “The elder, Margaret, will hold the line of succession. In exchange for the crown, the city's hidden silver reserves beneath the mountain vaults will be yielded entirely to the High King upon the wedding night.”
Alice’s breath caught. The Seer hadn't just sold her out to Margaret, he had sold the entire kingdom's wealth to Kung Roosevelt.
But more importantly, the document proved that King Roosevelt knew Alice was supposedly dead. He thought he was marrying a clean line of succession.
Suddenly, the heavy iron handle of the balcony door clicked. Alice scrambled back toward the hearth just as King Roosevelt stepped back inside. Her mind raced with the weight of the secret she now held. She wasn't just a survivor anymore, she held the key to the entire invasion's financial of the Kingdom that collapse.
Before Kung Roosevelt could speak, a cold, unnatural wind swept through the chamber, causing the torch to be flamed until it flickered violently.
Then the heavy main door to the solar creaked open without a sound. From the dark hallway, the blind Seer drifted into the room. He wore tattered, ash-stained black robes that seemed to swallow the light, and a white linen blindfold was tied tightly across his sightless eyes. He carried a gnarled wooden staff that tapped rhythmically against the stone floor.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Alice’s blood ran cold.
The Seer possessed an uncanny, supernatural intuition. He could not see with eyes, but he could smell fear and sense the rhythm of a person's soul. If he stood too close to her, he would recognize the royal bloodline instantly.
"Hide," King Roosevelt muttered to Alice, not wanting a common servant interrupting his council.
Alice didn't hesitate.
She slid behind the heavy, dust-laden velvet curtains draping the grand four-poster bed, pressing her back flat against the cold stone wall. She held her breath there, her fingers clutching her father's pouch tightly against her thigh.
"King Roosevelt," the Seer croaked, his voice sounding like dry bone rubbing against stone.
"The hour grows late, yet the thread of fate is tangled in this castle tonight." King Roosevelt walked over to his table, his scale armor clinking softly.
"The treaty is signed, Seer. The wedding is tomorrow. The city is mine. What is there to be tangled?" he asked.
The Seer turned his head slowly, his blind face pointing directly toward the velvet curtains where Alice stood paralyzed. He tilted his chin, inhaling deeply through his nose, like a hound catching a faint scent on the wind.
"The air in this room is heavy with the scent of the mountain," the Seer whispered, taking a slow, deliberate step toward the bed.
Tap. Tap.
"A scent of fresh snow... and grave dirt. Someone who should be dead is walking among the living."
Inside the curtains, Alice’s heart hammered so loudly she was certain they could hear it. A single bead of sweat rolled down her temple, cutting a clean line in her cheek.
King Roosevelt frowned, his hand instinctively dropping to the pommel of his sword. He glanced toward the curtain, then back at the mystic.
"You speak in riddles, old man. The only thing in this room is the scent of old ash and cheap ale from the scullery girl I brought up to clean."
The Seer stopped just three paces away from Alice's hiding spot. He raised his gnarled hand, his long, dirt-caked fingernails pointing directly through the fabric.
"The scullery girl... bring her to me. Let me touch her face. The gods whisper that a wolf hides in a sheep's skin tonight, King Roosevelt. Let me see if she is the ghost I cast into the snow."
The Seer’s gnarled hand remained suspended in the air, his dirt-caked finger pointing like an accusation straight through the heavy velvet curtain. The tension in the room stretched so thin it felt ready to snap like an over-drawn bowstring.
Behind the fabric, Alice pressed her hand over her mouth, forcing her breathing to stop entirely.
King Roosevelt did not move. He stood by the mahogany strategy table, his icy gaze tracking the blind mystic’s movements. A dangerous, subtle shift occurred in his posture, his shoulders squared, and the muscles in his jaw hardened into stone. He was a conqueror who had crossed a violent sea to claim a kingdom, and he took orders from no man.. not even a self-proclaimed god.
"You push your boundaries, Seer," King Roosevelt said, his voice dropping into a low, and rumbling growl that vibrated through the floor.
"I only speak the warnings of the sea gods, the only god of the High King," the Seer croaked, his blind face still turned toward Alice's hiding spot.
"The threads of your victory are being chewed by a mouse in the dark. Let me feel her brow. Let me taste her blood. If she is nothing but a gutter rat, she has nothing to fear."
The Seer took another slow step forward.
Tap.tap.tap..
Would King Roosevelt let him be?
- Writer
