Other Fan Fiction ❯ Seeds of Obligation ❯ Chapter Four: Sacrifice ( Chapter 4 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Hoshiko Saitou 
Everyone learns exactly how the Elder Council's spell went wrong.
Miscellaneous: Other Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Fantasy / Drama | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 12.27.2007 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.0K | Visits: 153 | Status: Completed
Everyone learns exactly how the Elder Council's spell went wrong.
Miscellaneous: Other Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Fantasy / Drama | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 12.27.2007 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.0K | Visits: 153 | Status: Completed
Long chapter ahead. Feel free to let me know if you prefer longer or shorter installments. I’m not too obsessed with reviews, but I would like some sort of feedback on how the plot is developing, opinions on the characters, etc. If not I’ll still continue writing it, but input would be helpful in the process.
--- --- ---
“What’s going on, seriously?” Kylie asked. The two of them had stopped during their journey to rest and eat. Bianca had been silent the entire trip.
“Apparently I was holding my bag when we got dragged here,” she said. “Marvin, for some reason, thought it was ok to go through my stuff and he found-“
“Martin,” Kylie corrected.
“What?”
“His name is Martin, not Marvin.”
“Ok, not important,” Bianca snapped. Kylie was about ready to smack her friend’s bad attitude right out of her. “They found the scroll for the spell that brought us here and translated it.”
“Ho do you know all this?”
“I overheard Martin and Jauffre talking about it. They really didn’t intend on telling us about it. They thought we’d freak out and leave if we knew why we were brought here.”
“And what are we here?”
Bianca rubbed her forehead with a shaky hand. “If they translated it right, one of us is pregnant.”
Kylie slowly lowered herself to the ground, watching Bianca carefully as if waiting for the punch line. “Excuse me?”
“Martin said something about the Elder Council messing up the wording in the spell. It keeps mentioning Martin and referring to him being dead and they tried to use something to pretty much clone him. I mean, Martin didn’t use the word ‘clone,’ but they took a piece of Martin and tried to use a spell to make a child that would have the same blood as him.”
“Martin’s not dead.”
“Oh shit, no really?” Bianca asked sarcastically.
“One more bitchy remark like that and I’m riding off and leaving you here.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Bianca put her hands up as a sign of yielding. “I’m just still pissed. Anyway, the scroll was written in some really old language with a bunch of different words for ‘create.’ Whoever wrote it used the word that technically means conceive, as in, you guessed it, get pregnant.”
“So one is us is pregnant…”
“…with the heir to this entire empire.”
--- --- ---
“Why didn’t you tell them first?” Marizia shouted, following Martin as he paced the main hall of the temple. At that moment she could not care less that he was going to become emperor, she was going to give him a big piece of her mind. “Quit treating them like pawns and start treating them like people!”
“It’s a little too late for that,” Martin said. “They’re gone, and they’ve taken the scroll with them.”
“Well then I’m going after them.”
“You don’t even know where they went.”
“So? You don’t know how much of your conversation they heard. You don’t even know which of your conversations they heard. For all we know Kylie might think she’s the one who’s pregnant.”
Martin sat back down in his chair and buried his face in his hands. “You must go and retrieve the daedric artifact. I will send a few Blades to canvas the area and look for them.” He passed her a book with a specific page marked off. “This should tell you the location of Azura’s Shrine. It’s nearby here, I believe.”
“Yes, your majesty.” Her tone was flat and she left immediately.
Jauffre walked across the room and stood over Martin. In that moment Martin felt like the Grandmaster was a tower, looming over him, ever-watchful. It unnerved him to feel so small, so at fault for the fleet of problems that had blown in. “Sire, have you found out any information recently that may be life threatening to you?”
Martin tried to hide the truth, but his shoulder twitched in recognition. The connection clicked in an instant, and the former priest looked up at Jauffre with an honest and defeated expression. “I have.”
“I don’t need to Amulet of Kings to prove you are Uriel’s son,” Jauffre said with a sigh. “Always taking the brunt of people’s suffering upon your own shoulders. Tamriel needs you. I know it bothers you to know people may have to die in order for you to live, but far more people will die if we lose you.”
“I’m not suicidal,” Martin said. “It was a type of contingency plan.”
“That explains why, in all the planes of time, your heir was brought here. Your ‘contingency plan’ is what sparked the fuse that lead to your death in the future.”
“I should not have let myself think things couldn’t get any more complicated.” Martin said. “I won’t let it happen again.”
--- --- ---
Days passed with no news regarding the missing women. Marizia finally brought back Azura’s Star, and Martin knew by the look on her face that attaining it had been no easy task. He didn’t ask, but he sincerely thanked her for going through whatever trails she had in order to get it.
It took a little over a week for word to get back to Cloud Ruler Temple. A royal messenger arrived, fully clad in Imperial armor and riding a powerful steed.
“I’ve come to speak with the Grandmaster,” the guard said, his voice practically booming. Jena rolled her eyes at his overdone show of self-importance and walked with no great hurry to alert Jauffre. The man dismounted and followed her inside to escape the cold.
Inside the main hall, Martin and Jauffre were discussing the complicated task of attaining the blood of a Devine, the next ingredient in opening a portal to Mankar Camoran’s Paradise. Martin looked over at the Imperial messenger and was caught off guard when the man bowed before him.
“Grand Master, your Majesty, I have been sent to you with a message from the Imperial City.”
“How do you know of this place? How do you know of the heir to the Septim throne?” Jauffre already knew the answer, but he had to hear it for himself.
“The one named Kylie was able to point out this place on a map,” the messenger said. Jauffre sighed as he remembered back to when he taught the two women about the layout of Tamriel. He wanted to make sure they could at least locate themselves on a map if they ever got into trouble, but he was beginning to regret that gesture. The messenger turned to Martin and added, “You’re fiancé is being kept safe in the Temple of the One and requests you come retrieve her immediately.”
“My fian-?” Martin began to ask.
Jauffre quickly motioned for him to be silent and began talking instead. “We shall leave in a few moments. You may ride ahead and give word that we are on our way. But before you go, does anyone else know of this location or of the heir?”
“No Grandmaster Jauffre, only the Elder Council and myself, and I swear on my life that your secret is safe with me.”
“It better be,” Jauffre said unabashedly. “Now go.”
Startled by Jauffre’s words, the man took a few steps backward before trusting it was safe enough to turn his back and leave.
“Do we really have time for this?” Martin asked. “Send Marizia to get them and bring them back here.”
“If only it were that simple,” Jauffre said. He sighed and began getting ready for departure. “I know Ocato is up to something down there, otherwise he’d have just sent the ladies back with escorts. He has the scroll now and probably wants to ensure that if an illegitimate son is going to be made emperor that his heir not be the same.”
“This entire mess is his fault in the first place. It had to be him who ordered this illegal summoning be done after my death.” It felt very surreal to talk about his own death. Martin rested his fingertips against his lips in disbelief that he had actually said it. Though he was willing to sacrifice himself if it came to that, he was still afraid of dying.
“Ocato is very skilled at covering his tracks. He knows that this must be resolved before you are crowned. It’s petty Elder Council business, but their business all the same.”
Martin stared off into the distance for a moment, trying to gather together all his thoughts. “I don’t even know this girl,” he said. “It’s not fair to her. I’d rather let her make her own decision than sit there with some stranger and decide her fate.”
“The fate of the future is one thing,” Jauffre began as his put on his helmet, “But the present is another. We must work with the situation that has been presented to us. We shall see how things work out once we get to the Imperial City. Until then we can only hope for an expedient and fair resolution.”
As they exited the temple Marizia appeared at the bottom of the stairs leading three horses behind her. “What, did you think I wasn’t coming?”
“On the contrary,” Jauffre said, “We’ll need you to set out as soon as Martin and I figure out a way to get the blood of a Devine, which very well may be on this trip.”
“And I don’t take no for an answer,” she added. She mounted her unicorn and waited for the men to follow suit before she hit the side of her foot against her steed and took off down the mountain side.
--- --- ---
Kylie sat in the tall wooden chair, clothed in a green imperial dress, her teeth clenched with painful force. She bounced her leg slightly, her impatience growing at an exponential rate. High Chancellor Ocato paced in front of her, trying to figure out a better way to handle her friend before the arrival of Grandmaster Jauffre and this rumored illegitimate son of Uriel Septim. His current methods were extreme to say the least.
“Why don’t you just let her go?” Kylie asked in a low tone. She’d suggested it a million times already; maybe the million and first time would get through to him.
“She’s still making threats. I don’t want to take chances.”
“High Chancellor Ocato!” someone was shouting down the hall. Ocato opened the door to find the messenger standing outside. “They are on their way. I’m not sure how far behind me they are, but it shouldn’t be too long.”
“Good then. See to it that they are received well and sent to the Temple of the One. I shall meet them there.” He turned around to face Kylie. “Let us go.”
There were thousands of things Kylie wanted to say in return, but she knew that the Imperial Palace was no place to say them. She and Bianca had been trapped there for days, dressed up like fine young ladies and paraded around like nothing was wrong.
Outside the city walls, Marizia had already stabled her horse when the other two men showed up. “Having trouble ladies?” She never once took for granted that she was allowed to banter with such high ranking officials like that. It was an honor she had earned, however, and she flaunted it.
“You expect horses to keep up with a mythical steed?” Jauffre asked. “That’s a little unfair, wouldn’t you say?”
The trio walked through the streets of the Imperial City, thankful that they fit in with the crowd. Marizia and Jauffre had changed out of their armor and Martin, despite being told to dress more like an emperor, still wore his priest robes every day.
They met up with the messenger guard, voices low while they tried to keep their movements natural and inconspicuous. He led them to the Temple of the One, but not even the guard knew what was going to be there.
“High Chancellor, you had better have a good explanation for this,” Jauffre warned as the large doors shut behind them.
Bianca was chained to the thin pillars the formed a circle in the middle of the room. She’d been cleaned up and dressed up in royal finery, but her limp body was splayed on the floor like a rag doll’s as she slept.
“Let me explain,” Ocato said. His voice was shaking as he wrung his hands. “She came to us feeling very angry and presented the scroll that had been used to summon her. We took it, looked it over and sent it to be translated. It would seem that I did, in fact, agree to have a person summoned to be a Septim heir after your death. She told us about the incorrect word usage that you had so cleverly found and after a quick Detect Life spell we were able to tell which had conceived your heir during her summoning. It would seem she was in contact with her friend during the time of the ritual, however, and therefore brought her along as well.”
“When in this story did it become necessary for you to chain her up in a temple?” Martin asked, impatience laced in every word.
“The girl snapped. She pulled a dagger off Chancellor Razzan and threatened to slit her throat. We had to subdue her and keep her someplace where she wouldn’t be a harm to herself or others, and where nothing could harm her.”
“How is she safe here?” Marizia asked. “She’s chained out in the middle of everything.”
“Talos blesses those that carry the Septim bloodline. It is, after all, growing inside them.” He unsheathed his dagger and threw it toward her, warranting gasps from everyone in the audience but Kylie. It bounced off a transparent, red force and fell to the ground with a metallic clang that echoed throughout the temple. “As long as she here, in a temple of the Nine, she is completely untouchable.”
“As long as she’s here, she completely miserable,” Kylie corrected. “Let her go.”
“That’s why we called you here,” Ocato explained, turning to Martin. “I wanted to meet with you to discuss a number of matters. I would have begun by questioning your claim to the throne, but you are more in the image of your father than your half-brothers were. The Elder Council awaits your orders, your majesty.”
“Then unchain the girl,” he ordered.
Ocato grabbed a set of keys from his belt and unlocked the girl’s arm and leg shackles, effectively waking her up. Kylie rushed to her friend’s side and helped her sit up.
“I have unchained you and your friends are here to see you. Will you please eat now?” Ocato asked. He was attempting to sound polite but the words came out very patronizing.
Eyes half shut, Bianca turned away from him without a word and buried her face in Kylie’s chest.
“She won’t eat anything or talk to us. I’ll leave you four to tend to her. When all is ready meet me in the Elder Council’s meeting room.”
Bianca heard the light footsteps retreat and the door close, but she still didn’t want to move. They were unable to take away her control of few things, and she clutched those to her like life line, even if her own life and death was one of them.
“Bianca, come on, you’ve gotta stop this,” Kylie said as cried into her friend’s dark brown hair. “I told you not to leave me like this. I’m so sorry that things are like this, but you really can’t just leave me here; I dunno what I’d do.”
“Oh come now,” Marizia said, sounding shockingly out of place wither casual tone. “That’s it? That’s all it takes you defeat you; a surprise? I thought you were better than that. I guess if this is how you wanna go, that’s up to you. Congratulations on getting what you want.”
“Cute reverse psychology,” Bianca said. “Nice try. Not working.”
“Please, you think I’m kidding?” She knelt next to Bianca and looked her straight in the eye. Everyone else in the room was so morbidly curious about what the Redguard was doing that they didn’t try to stop her. It wasn’t like they had any better plans themselves. “I’m not going to pretend to know what it’s been like here, but I find it hard to believe that you’re so broken beyond repair that you’re ready to die. You haven’t even tried to think about getting home and already you’ve given up. There might be a way.”
“There is,” Bianca said, shifting so she could rise to her feet. Kylie helped support her before she rested her weight on one of the pillars. “They took it. That scroll is my way home and they said I can’t have it back.”
“What?!” Marizia screeched.
“They decided that Marty over there and I are going to get married and be a happy, normal little family with the magic baby their future selves made appear inside me.” Even in her darkest moments Bianca couldn’t help being sarcastic. “See, they even dressed me up to look more royal. Do you like my engagement ring?” She held up her left hand and flashed a gold band that they had placed on her ring finger before letting it drop back to her side.
“It’s been horrible,” Kylie said. “They were nice enough to name me the ‘Head Handmaiden,’ but I respectfully declined.”
“We should get back to the Cloud Ruler as soon as possible,” Jauffre said. “We can discuss this all there.” He turned to Martin. “Can you heal her before the trip?”
“I doubt she wants me to lay a finger on her,” Martin said. “It’ll only do more psychological damage at this point. Let her decide what she wants.”
Thought they had kept their voices down, Bianca heard the exchange and, yet again, felt guilty for being so difficult when people were trying to help her. She extended her hand and let Marizia help her walk.
“Jauffre and I will go speak to Ocato,” Martin said. “We’ll meet you at the stables when we’re ready to depart.”
Bianca listened and nodded but refused to look at him when he spoke. It was still to embarrassing to even think about him, let alone look at him. She was escorted out of the temple, probably toward some place that could feed her, and the two men left for the meeting room of the Elder Council.
--- --- ---
“You understand why we decided on your engagement, I hope,” one of the Chancellors said. Martin couldn’t name a single one of them, and their shear number was overwhelming.
“Yes, it’s just a shocking concept to get used to,” he said. He knew arranged marriages were common among royalty, and with being coroneted at his age under such desperate circumstances, he was expecting to be paired off mere days after he became emperor. Still, the truth about his lineage hadn’t completely sunk in by the time this fiasco started. “I’ve been dealing with a lot of strange news in a very short period of time. I hope you’ll excuse my lack of focus.”
“We understand,” Ocato said. “From what you have told us it has been a harrowing journey that promises to become more difficult. After this ordeal we will be sure to give the hero of Kvatch a title of honor in return for her services to the empire.”
“Before I go I would like to know why you’ve confiscated the summoning scroll,” Martin said. “I believe it should be returned to the girls.”
“This type of magic is highly dangerous,” one of the Dunmer Chancellors said. “We are currently traveling along the line of time at the pace of seconds the become minutes, minutes that become hours, and so on. Eventually we will catch up to our future counterparts, and we have not yet figured out what will happen when those two realms meet. The scroll is the only thing that could possibly give us answers.”
“I understand. When will you be returning it?”
“I’m sorry, sire,” Ocato apologized. He knew Martin would not like what he had to say. “We will not let that girl return to her realm until she has given birth to your heir. With the Amulet of Kings missing and the Mythic Dawn after you, we need some sort of contingency plan.”
“There’s that word again,” Jauffre said. “I hate that word.”
“After the Dragon Fires have successfully been lit and you have been crowned emperor, she may return home.”
“Don’t you think you have put her through enough?” Martin asked, trying to keep his temper in check before such an important audience.
“You should be the most understanding,” Ocato argued. “You too much sacrifice much for the good of Tamriel.”
“High Chancellor Ocato, you cannot force someone to be altruistic. That defeats the purpose.”
“It may, but are you willing to sacrifice the end of your bloodline and the safety of this entire empire for the comfort of one girl? If you are so concerned with her well being then find a way to make her happy, but she must stay here. I will let you return to your duties at Cloud Ruler Temple, but as you pass people in the streets I want you to weigh their worth against hers. If you truly believe that every person whose eyes you meet is worth sacrificing because she is upset by her destiny then I will give you back the scroll. Somehow, though, I doubt you’ll be telling me that.”
Martin slowly rose from his seat and let himself out silently. Jauffre followed, looking back at Ocato with a disapproving gaze as the door shut between them. He watched Martin gaze out at the streets of the Imperial City; at the people as they carried goods and stopped to exchange gossip. Both men knew exactly what had to be done. Both of them knew that the sown seeds of obligation would spawn a bitter fruit.
--- --- ---
“What’s going on, seriously?” Kylie asked. The two of them had stopped during their journey to rest and eat. Bianca had been silent the entire trip.
“Apparently I was holding my bag when we got dragged here,” she said. “Marvin, for some reason, thought it was ok to go through my stuff and he found-“
“Martin,” Kylie corrected.
“What?”
“His name is Martin, not Marvin.”
“Ok, not important,” Bianca snapped. Kylie was about ready to smack her friend’s bad attitude right out of her. “They found the scroll for the spell that brought us here and translated it.”
“Ho do you know all this?”
“I overheard Martin and Jauffre talking about it. They really didn’t intend on telling us about it. They thought we’d freak out and leave if we knew why we were brought here.”
“And what are we here?”
Bianca rubbed her forehead with a shaky hand. “If they translated it right, one of us is pregnant.”
Kylie slowly lowered herself to the ground, watching Bianca carefully as if waiting for the punch line. “Excuse me?”
“Martin said something about the Elder Council messing up the wording in the spell. It keeps mentioning Martin and referring to him being dead and they tried to use something to pretty much clone him. I mean, Martin didn’t use the word ‘clone,’ but they took a piece of Martin and tried to use a spell to make a child that would have the same blood as him.”
“Martin’s not dead.”
“Oh shit, no really?” Bianca asked sarcastically.
“One more bitchy remark like that and I’m riding off and leaving you here.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Bianca put her hands up as a sign of yielding. “I’m just still pissed. Anyway, the scroll was written in some really old language with a bunch of different words for ‘create.’ Whoever wrote it used the word that technically means conceive, as in, you guessed it, get pregnant.”
“So one is us is pregnant…”
“…with the heir to this entire empire.”
--- --- ---
“Why didn’t you tell them first?” Marizia shouted, following Martin as he paced the main hall of the temple. At that moment she could not care less that he was going to become emperor, she was going to give him a big piece of her mind. “Quit treating them like pawns and start treating them like people!”
“It’s a little too late for that,” Martin said. “They’re gone, and they’ve taken the scroll with them.”
“Well then I’m going after them.”
“You don’t even know where they went.”
“So? You don’t know how much of your conversation they heard. You don’t even know which of your conversations they heard. For all we know Kylie might think she’s the one who’s pregnant.”
Martin sat back down in his chair and buried his face in his hands. “You must go and retrieve the daedric artifact. I will send a few Blades to canvas the area and look for them.” He passed her a book with a specific page marked off. “This should tell you the location of Azura’s Shrine. It’s nearby here, I believe.”
“Yes, your majesty.” Her tone was flat and she left immediately.
Jauffre walked across the room and stood over Martin. In that moment Martin felt like the Grandmaster was a tower, looming over him, ever-watchful. It unnerved him to feel so small, so at fault for the fleet of problems that had blown in. “Sire, have you found out any information recently that may be life threatening to you?”
Martin tried to hide the truth, but his shoulder twitched in recognition. The connection clicked in an instant, and the former priest looked up at Jauffre with an honest and defeated expression. “I have.”
“I don’t need to Amulet of Kings to prove you are Uriel’s son,” Jauffre said with a sigh. “Always taking the brunt of people’s suffering upon your own shoulders. Tamriel needs you. I know it bothers you to know people may have to die in order for you to live, but far more people will die if we lose you.”
“I’m not suicidal,” Martin said. “It was a type of contingency plan.”
“That explains why, in all the planes of time, your heir was brought here. Your ‘contingency plan’ is what sparked the fuse that lead to your death in the future.”
“I should not have let myself think things couldn’t get any more complicated.” Martin said. “I won’t let it happen again.”
--- --- ---
Days passed with no news regarding the missing women. Marizia finally brought back Azura’s Star, and Martin knew by the look on her face that attaining it had been no easy task. He didn’t ask, but he sincerely thanked her for going through whatever trails she had in order to get it.
It took a little over a week for word to get back to Cloud Ruler Temple. A royal messenger arrived, fully clad in Imperial armor and riding a powerful steed.
“I’ve come to speak with the Grandmaster,” the guard said, his voice practically booming. Jena rolled her eyes at his overdone show of self-importance and walked with no great hurry to alert Jauffre. The man dismounted and followed her inside to escape the cold.
Inside the main hall, Martin and Jauffre were discussing the complicated task of attaining the blood of a Devine, the next ingredient in opening a portal to Mankar Camoran’s Paradise. Martin looked over at the Imperial messenger and was caught off guard when the man bowed before him.
“Grand Master, your Majesty, I have been sent to you with a message from the Imperial City.”
“How do you know of this place? How do you know of the heir to the Septim throne?” Jauffre already knew the answer, but he had to hear it for himself.
“The one named Kylie was able to point out this place on a map,” the messenger said. Jauffre sighed as he remembered back to when he taught the two women about the layout of Tamriel. He wanted to make sure they could at least locate themselves on a map if they ever got into trouble, but he was beginning to regret that gesture. The messenger turned to Martin and added, “You’re fiancé is being kept safe in the Temple of the One and requests you come retrieve her immediately.”
“My fian-?” Martin began to ask.
Jauffre quickly motioned for him to be silent and began talking instead. “We shall leave in a few moments. You may ride ahead and give word that we are on our way. But before you go, does anyone else know of this location or of the heir?”
“No Grandmaster Jauffre, only the Elder Council and myself, and I swear on my life that your secret is safe with me.”
“It better be,” Jauffre said unabashedly. “Now go.”
Startled by Jauffre’s words, the man took a few steps backward before trusting it was safe enough to turn his back and leave.
“Do we really have time for this?” Martin asked. “Send Marizia to get them and bring them back here.”
“If only it were that simple,” Jauffre said. He sighed and began getting ready for departure. “I know Ocato is up to something down there, otherwise he’d have just sent the ladies back with escorts. He has the scroll now and probably wants to ensure that if an illegitimate son is going to be made emperor that his heir not be the same.”
“This entire mess is his fault in the first place. It had to be him who ordered this illegal summoning be done after my death.” It felt very surreal to talk about his own death. Martin rested his fingertips against his lips in disbelief that he had actually said it. Though he was willing to sacrifice himself if it came to that, he was still afraid of dying.
“Ocato is very skilled at covering his tracks. He knows that this must be resolved before you are crowned. It’s petty Elder Council business, but their business all the same.”
Martin stared off into the distance for a moment, trying to gather together all his thoughts. “I don’t even know this girl,” he said. “It’s not fair to her. I’d rather let her make her own decision than sit there with some stranger and decide her fate.”
“The fate of the future is one thing,” Jauffre began as his put on his helmet, “But the present is another. We must work with the situation that has been presented to us. We shall see how things work out once we get to the Imperial City. Until then we can only hope for an expedient and fair resolution.”
As they exited the temple Marizia appeared at the bottom of the stairs leading three horses behind her. “What, did you think I wasn’t coming?”
“On the contrary,” Jauffre said, “We’ll need you to set out as soon as Martin and I figure out a way to get the blood of a Devine, which very well may be on this trip.”
“And I don’t take no for an answer,” she added. She mounted her unicorn and waited for the men to follow suit before she hit the side of her foot against her steed and took off down the mountain side.
--- --- ---
Kylie sat in the tall wooden chair, clothed in a green imperial dress, her teeth clenched with painful force. She bounced her leg slightly, her impatience growing at an exponential rate. High Chancellor Ocato paced in front of her, trying to figure out a better way to handle her friend before the arrival of Grandmaster Jauffre and this rumored illegitimate son of Uriel Septim. His current methods were extreme to say the least.
“Why don’t you just let her go?” Kylie asked in a low tone. She’d suggested it a million times already; maybe the million and first time would get through to him.
“She’s still making threats. I don’t want to take chances.”
“High Chancellor Ocato!” someone was shouting down the hall. Ocato opened the door to find the messenger standing outside. “They are on their way. I’m not sure how far behind me they are, but it shouldn’t be too long.”
“Good then. See to it that they are received well and sent to the Temple of the One. I shall meet them there.” He turned around to face Kylie. “Let us go.”
There were thousands of things Kylie wanted to say in return, but she knew that the Imperial Palace was no place to say them. She and Bianca had been trapped there for days, dressed up like fine young ladies and paraded around like nothing was wrong.
Outside the city walls, Marizia had already stabled her horse when the other two men showed up. “Having trouble ladies?” She never once took for granted that she was allowed to banter with such high ranking officials like that. It was an honor she had earned, however, and she flaunted it.
“You expect horses to keep up with a mythical steed?” Jauffre asked. “That’s a little unfair, wouldn’t you say?”
The trio walked through the streets of the Imperial City, thankful that they fit in with the crowd. Marizia and Jauffre had changed out of their armor and Martin, despite being told to dress more like an emperor, still wore his priest robes every day.
They met up with the messenger guard, voices low while they tried to keep their movements natural and inconspicuous. He led them to the Temple of the One, but not even the guard knew what was going to be there.
“High Chancellor, you had better have a good explanation for this,” Jauffre warned as the large doors shut behind them.
Bianca was chained to the thin pillars the formed a circle in the middle of the room. She’d been cleaned up and dressed up in royal finery, but her limp body was splayed on the floor like a rag doll’s as she slept.
“Let me explain,” Ocato said. His voice was shaking as he wrung his hands. “She came to us feeling very angry and presented the scroll that had been used to summon her. We took it, looked it over and sent it to be translated. It would seem that I did, in fact, agree to have a person summoned to be a Septim heir after your death. She told us about the incorrect word usage that you had so cleverly found and after a quick Detect Life spell we were able to tell which had conceived your heir during her summoning. It would seem she was in contact with her friend during the time of the ritual, however, and therefore brought her along as well.”
“When in this story did it become necessary for you to chain her up in a temple?” Martin asked, impatience laced in every word.
“The girl snapped. She pulled a dagger off Chancellor Razzan and threatened to slit her throat. We had to subdue her and keep her someplace where she wouldn’t be a harm to herself or others, and where nothing could harm her.”
“How is she safe here?” Marizia asked. “She’s chained out in the middle of everything.”
“Talos blesses those that carry the Septim bloodline. It is, after all, growing inside them.” He unsheathed his dagger and threw it toward her, warranting gasps from everyone in the audience but Kylie. It bounced off a transparent, red force and fell to the ground with a metallic clang that echoed throughout the temple. “As long as she here, in a temple of the Nine, she is completely untouchable.”
“As long as she’s here, she completely miserable,” Kylie corrected. “Let her go.”
“That’s why we called you here,” Ocato explained, turning to Martin. “I wanted to meet with you to discuss a number of matters. I would have begun by questioning your claim to the throne, but you are more in the image of your father than your half-brothers were. The Elder Council awaits your orders, your majesty.”
“Then unchain the girl,” he ordered.
Ocato grabbed a set of keys from his belt and unlocked the girl’s arm and leg shackles, effectively waking her up. Kylie rushed to her friend’s side and helped her sit up.
“I have unchained you and your friends are here to see you. Will you please eat now?” Ocato asked. He was attempting to sound polite but the words came out very patronizing.
Eyes half shut, Bianca turned away from him without a word and buried her face in Kylie’s chest.
“She won’t eat anything or talk to us. I’ll leave you four to tend to her. When all is ready meet me in the Elder Council’s meeting room.”
Bianca heard the light footsteps retreat and the door close, but she still didn’t want to move. They were unable to take away her control of few things, and she clutched those to her like life line, even if her own life and death was one of them.
“Bianca, come on, you’ve gotta stop this,” Kylie said as cried into her friend’s dark brown hair. “I told you not to leave me like this. I’m so sorry that things are like this, but you really can’t just leave me here; I dunno what I’d do.”
“Oh come now,” Marizia said, sounding shockingly out of place wither casual tone. “That’s it? That’s all it takes you defeat you; a surprise? I thought you were better than that. I guess if this is how you wanna go, that’s up to you. Congratulations on getting what you want.”
“Cute reverse psychology,” Bianca said. “Nice try. Not working.”
“Please, you think I’m kidding?” She knelt next to Bianca and looked her straight in the eye. Everyone else in the room was so morbidly curious about what the Redguard was doing that they didn’t try to stop her. It wasn’t like they had any better plans themselves. “I’m not going to pretend to know what it’s been like here, but I find it hard to believe that you’re so broken beyond repair that you’re ready to die. You haven’t even tried to think about getting home and already you’ve given up. There might be a way.”
“There is,” Bianca said, shifting so she could rise to her feet. Kylie helped support her before she rested her weight on one of the pillars. “They took it. That scroll is my way home and they said I can’t have it back.”
“What?!” Marizia screeched.
“They decided that Marty over there and I are going to get married and be a happy, normal little family with the magic baby their future selves made appear inside me.” Even in her darkest moments Bianca couldn’t help being sarcastic. “See, they even dressed me up to look more royal. Do you like my engagement ring?” She held up her left hand and flashed a gold band that they had placed on her ring finger before letting it drop back to her side.
“It’s been horrible,” Kylie said. “They were nice enough to name me the ‘Head Handmaiden,’ but I respectfully declined.”
“We should get back to the Cloud Ruler as soon as possible,” Jauffre said. “We can discuss this all there.” He turned to Martin. “Can you heal her before the trip?”
“I doubt she wants me to lay a finger on her,” Martin said. “It’ll only do more psychological damage at this point. Let her decide what she wants.”
Thought they had kept their voices down, Bianca heard the exchange and, yet again, felt guilty for being so difficult when people were trying to help her. She extended her hand and let Marizia help her walk.
“Jauffre and I will go speak to Ocato,” Martin said. “We’ll meet you at the stables when we’re ready to depart.”
Bianca listened and nodded but refused to look at him when he spoke. It was still to embarrassing to even think about him, let alone look at him. She was escorted out of the temple, probably toward some place that could feed her, and the two men left for the meeting room of the Elder Council.
--- --- ---
“You understand why we decided on your engagement, I hope,” one of the Chancellors said. Martin couldn’t name a single one of them, and their shear number was overwhelming.
“Yes, it’s just a shocking concept to get used to,” he said. He knew arranged marriages were common among royalty, and with being coroneted at his age under such desperate circumstances, he was expecting to be paired off mere days after he became emperor. Still, the truth about his lineage hadn’t completely sunk in by the time this fiasco started. “I’ve been dealing with a lot of strange news in a very short period of time. I hope you’ll excuse my lack of focus.”
“We understand,” Ocato said. “From what you have told us it has been a harrowing journey that promises to become more difficult. After this ordeal we will be sure to give the hero of Kvatch a title of honor in return for her services to the empire.”
“Before I go I would like to know why you’ve confiscated the summoning scroll,” Martin said. “I believe it should be returned to the girls.”
“This type of magic is highly dangerous,” one of the Dunmer Chancellors said. “We are currently traveling along the line of time at the pace of seconds the become minutes, minutes that become hours, and so on. Eventually we will catch up to our future counterparts, and we have not yet figured out what will happen when those two realms meet. The scroll is the only thing that could possibly give us answers.”
“I understand. When will you be returning it?”
“I’m sorry, sire,” Ocato apologized. He knew Martin would not like what he had to say. “We will not let that girl return to her realm until she has given birth to your heir. With the Amulet of Kings missing and the Mythic Dawn after you, we need some sort of contingency plan.”
“There’s that word again,” Jauffre said. “I hate that word.”
“After the Dragon Fires have successfully been lit and you have been crowned emperor, she may return home.”
“Don’t you think you have put her through enough?” Martin asked, trying to keep his temper in check before such an important audience.
“You should be the most understanding,” Ocato argued. “You too much sacrifice much for the good of Tamriel.”
“High Chancellor Ocato, you cannot force someone to be altruistic. That defeats the purpose.”
“It may, but are you willing to sacrifice the end of your bloodline and the safety of this entire empire for the comfort of one girl? If you are so concerned with her well being then find a way to make her happy, but she must stay here. I will let you return to your duties at Cloud Ruler Temple, but as you pass people in the streets I want you to weigh their worth against hers. If you truly believe that every person whose eyes you meet is worth sacrificing because she is upset by her destiny then I will give you back the scroll. Somehow, though, I doubt you’ll be telling me that.”
Martin slowly rose from his seat and let himself out silently. Jauffre followed, looking back at Ocato with a disapproving gaze as the door shut between them. He watched Martin gaze out at the streets of the Imperial City; at the people as they carried goods and stopped to exchange gossip. Both men knew exactly what had to be done. Both of them knew that the sown seeds of obligation would spawn a bitter fruit.