Page 57 of The Laws of Nature (Heirs of the Empire #3)
RAFUS
T he sun is setting over Ceruleum. The nights are growing colder and darker.
There are fires lit in barrels on the corners.
All the taverns and inns and pot shops are filling up, light and laughter spilling from open doors.
Crowds who have not yet decided where they will spend the night, walk the narrow streets in rowdy groups.
Prince Rafus, formerly Crown Prince of Azuria, is not out revelling.
He has far more solemn business. He walks the streets alone, in a heavy cloak and arrives at the Bride House.
He does not think he has ever gone anywhere alone in his life, except when he was visiting a pillow house or planning on seducing a woman.
He stamps his feet against harsh winds that blow in from the dark Vashtian Ocean as he climbs the steps at the front of the Bride House.
The air is knives. They may have a snow fall this night.
Years ago his son Tobi came to him and sobbed on his knees, begging Rafus to find a way to help him care for Mareena. Tobi’s mother. It had been so bitter to hear what had happened to her.
Sweet Mareena. Once the great love of Rafus’s life. A striking woman. A woman like no other. Her singing voice had been sweeter than the song of the mortingales at dawn.
He had loved her so, his own Mareena. Mareena of Archa.
Loved her for one night, after he had watched her perform in the water gardens of the gleam.
And seven summers later, she had introduced him to the son that single perfect night had brought to this world.
Tobi. That sweet child. He had wanted to keep him, of course.
Rafus had always fought to keep his children close to him.
He had raised his three legitimate children.
Done his duty and sired the holders of the golden thread of the royal line.
Atticul, the headstrong boy would one day be a strong Emperor.
Ferra, the lilac doe, his only daughter, his sweet light, he had married to the Great Chancellor Vindar and she had given him his beloved grandson.
Endrew he had lost, a pain in his heart that will stay with him until death, but before he lost his Sweetpea, he had doted on that boy. His baby.
And although he could not bestow the same honours on his bastard sons as he had on his true born children, he had always done what he could.
Damon he had raised as his own when Damon’s mother, a great and celebrated pillow house beauty called Black Eyes, had died birthing him.
Lukas’s mother had wanted to keep her babe and so Rafus had made sure she had a job in the wash house of the Rose Palace and her son was treated with every favour Rafus could manage.
Kerik’s mother had always been difficult to handle, expecting more honour for her son than any bastard born boy could expect, and often getting it.
And Jemel. He had always watched over Jemel, despite the great shame of that boy’s siring. His greatest sin.
He had wanted to keep Tobi in Attar and raise him with Damon and Lukas. But Tobi had been snatched away from him. Mareena had only been in the Rose Palace a year when she had fled in the night with no explanation, taking Tobi with her.
He had resented Mareena for that, held onto that resentment. Perhaps, as a result, been harder on the boy when he had begged for help for his mother. He regretted that. He has so many regrets.
Tobi, that sweet exuberant boy, is in danger.
Tobi’s employer, one Cyrus Copperhead, had visited the Ivory Palace to tell Rafus that his son had been snatched by the blood-thirsty heathens of the Amber Forest to be forced into a sinful sly union with their demon beast of a forest king.
Cyrus had seen this man. A great horror who had dragged Tobi up onto a horse the size of a ship.
Half man and half demon with eyes of fire and scaled skin.
His own blood, dragged off to a fate to rival the tragedy of Gold Alyse.
Who had also, Rafus noted with his heart full of pain, been the child of a man who lived in the Ivory Palace.
A great stain on the empire that Rafus’s own father, the stone-hearted Emperor Erond, had punished the Duke of the North for trying to win his soiled daughter back.
Rafus had gone straight to Attar for an audience with Vindar and Selim. Willing even to overcome his quarrel with his brother if the forces of the Imperial Army could be mobilised to retrieve his son. Surely no child of the Darek line could be left to such a fate.
But Selim had refused to even grant him audience, still holding his own resentments over their quarrel.
Selim was deeply insulted by Rafus’s decision to absent himself from Attar and sever ties with the Rose Court.
So Vindar had received Rafus alone in a sickly parlour and told him bluntly that his bastards were a great stain on the empire and that the Rose Court could not be seen to condone Rafus’s immorality by protecting the results of it.
Rafus’s official removal from the Royal Line of Azuria was announced that same day.
Rafus had left to return to the Ivory Palace that very night. Helpless. Without the power of the Azurian Empire behind him there was nothing he could do. He was no longer the Crown Prince. Just a man who could do nothing for his son.
He cannot save Tobi, just as he could not save Damon. But at least he can take the time to visit Mareena and tell her what has happened to her son.
He knows his dear Tobi stayed in Northern Azuria so he could visit his mother at the Bride House. He should at least explain to Mareena why her son has not been to visit her. And it will be sweet, he thinks, to see her again. Perhaps he could trouble her to sing.
The door to the Bride House is opened by a woman in pale yellow. She is young. Her face is thin and pinched. Rafus isn’t sure of the age at which women can take their vows to become Brides of Zai, but he is sure this woman looks far too young to have chosen a life of chastity.
She bobs her head. “Can I help you, Sire?”
Rafus smiles one of his most charming smiles. “I come to visit Mareena of Archa. I understand she is a guest here, under your care, by arrangement with the Rose Court.”
The woman narrows her eyes, as if a little unsure what to say, “She is here,” the Bride begins. “But I am afraid she is very unwell. She does not receive visitors.”
Rafus feels his face tighten. He is unused to having his will questioned. “I know well that her son visits her. Tobi Darekul. Although he may not have been here recently.”
“Tobi Darekul, yes,” says the woman. “But only her own blood may see her. ”
“I am father to Tobi Darekul,” Rafus says, in a low stern tone. “I am Prince Rafus—” he stops himself, before he names himself crown prince, saying instead, “A Darek of Azuria.”
It is satisfying how the young woman pales. “Prince Rafus?” she says weakly.
Rafus takes this opportunity to step forward, over the threshold of the Bride house.
He takes hold of the shaking young Bride’s thin hands in one of his own.
“Now, my dear,” he says in a calming tone, “do not fear. I quite understand that you may not have realised my station. Usually, I am never one to arrive without ceremony. However I must see fair Mareena. It is about our son. Tobi Darekul. Perhaps you have met him. I assure you the matter I need to speak to Mareena about is of great import.”
“I…” The woman turns as if seeking help.
Behind the shaking Bride a man appears. A tall man in a shift of yellow and grey, around his neck is a twelve-pointed, mark of Zai, wrought from gold and hanging on a gold chain.
Rafus takes a small step back in surprise, dropping the woman’s hands as the man says, “Prince Rafus, how unexpected to see you.”
“Doroth Zain,” Rafus says, quickly regaining his composure.
“Forgive me. I was not aware you were in Ceruleum.” He does not mean it to sound harsh.
Although he could be harsh. It is surely only good manners to inform him if a member of the Rose Court, the High Word of Zai, no less, were in Ceruleum.
Does he not still retain the title of Duke of Northern Azuria?
Should he not be made aware of the things happening in his own city?
“How long are you visiting for? I must offer you chambers in the Ivory Palace. We must arrange a time for me to take a Blessing.”
“The Bride House is where I feel closest to Zai,” Doroth Zain says with a small bow of his head. “Now, Eloili, I will deal with this. Please, Prince Rafus, come with me.”
Eloili moves aside and Rafus steps into the hushed silence of the Bride House.
He moves his hands behind his back and Doroth Zain places a smooth rod into them.
The white stone. The simple procedure that is required of all men around Brides of Zai.
He gives Eloili a generous smile as he follows Doroth Zain into the house.
They pass through the entrance hall into a wide corridor. Candles flicker. Doroth Zain does not speak and the corridor, long and narrow, seems to be taking them some distance into the building.
Rafus has never been close with Doroth Zain.
Despite their proximity over the years, they have exchanged few words outside of courtly business.
Rafus has always been quite sure that Doroth Zain disapproves of him, and with good reason.
He has never been a godly man in the eyes of Zai.
But Rafus has often thought they had a good deal in common underneath it all.
Rafus was brother to Emperor Selim, Doroth Zain was brother to Chancellor Vindar.
Both of them are younger brothers to the most powerful men in the empire.
Eventually, Doroth Zain turns off onto an even smaller corridor that drops down three narrow steps and from there he leads Rafus through a low doorway with a thick wooden lintel and into a small circular room.