vaelora/Stories/Crown of Blood/C2S3 - Arguing before the court.md

The **Great Hall of Talpis** was half-shadowed when Telaryn entered, lit by patchy firelight and the failing glow of stained glass. Smoke drifted through the rafters. The doors had been thrown open hours ago to let in wounded and word—and neither had stopped flowing since.

She moved past the line of guards, through the ring of servants, and toward the old stone dais where the throne sat like a tomb. No one sat upon it now. They had draped it in black furs, a gesture that was meant to be respectful, but only made the space seem colder.

Half the royal court had gathered in the chamber. Most of them stood, cloaked and dust-caked, arguing in sharp, desperate voices. Their faces were flushed with wine and panic. What had once been a circle of kingsguard, diplomats, and high-born clan lords now looked like **a pack of drowning men, arguing about who deserved the last breath**.

“—We must parley!” barked **Lord Caerin**, his cheeks red from either drink or fury. “Send a flag down to the outer wards before they torch the upper city!”

“They will not honor parley now,” spat **Lady Brythe**, widow of the Eastern Vale, her voice brittle and hoarse. “They broke the first walls under truce. You’d trust them again?”

“They’ll hang us all the same,” mumbled an old scribe. “At least with surrender, they may spare the children…”

“Surrender is death dressed in silk!”

“They’ll breach the inner walls by nightfall!”

“They have breached the walls,” Telaryn said.

The words cut the air like a blade, and for a moment, the hall was silent.

She stepped into the center of the room, pulling back her hood. Her cheeks were pale with wind. Her eyes were sharp, clear—not filled with rage, but focus.

“My father is dead,” she said, calm and deliberate. “I saw the charge from the towers. He fell. The guard fell with him. Talpis is now without a king.”

A few gasps. A few bowed heads. But no one moved.

“I will not die for your performance,” she continued. “We will not make a martyr of this court. We will **survive**.”

Caerin scoffed, loudly. “You’re not crowned, girl.”

“She is blood,” Alisha snapped from the shadowed edge of the room.

“A child’s blood,” Brythe muttered. “Not yet tempered.”

Telaryn stepped forward, placing a gloved hand on the map table. The table where her father had planned every futile maneuver of the siege.

“They are coming through the gates. We have one chance to slip the noose. There are tunnels—old ones, from the time of the Shattering. The palace crypts connect to the lake caves. From there we can scatter into the Mourning Peaks. If we move now, we can save what’s left of the crown.”

“Run like thieves in the dark?” Caerin snarled. “You want to be queen of cowards?”

“I want to live!” she snapped. “I want something left to fight with tomorrow, instead of wasting blood in a hall too proud to admit it’s already a tomb.”

The nobles recoiled—not from the words, but from her tone. From the raw force of her will.

“That isn’t the Talpian way,” someone murmured.

“No,” Telaryn said. “It’s the only way left.”

Brythe shook her head. “The girl’s afraid. Let her run. Let the wind take her. I will remain, and I will die as I was born—Talpian.”

And like that, the moment passed.

The others nodded, muttered, turned away. **The court fractured into silence.**

Telaryn stood alone by the map.

No crown. No backing. No time.

Just Alisha at her shoulder, quiet and loyal. And the weight of blood in her veins, growing colder by the hour.

“They won’t follow,” she said, her voice low.

“They don’t have to,” Alisha replied. “Just say where we go.”

Telaryn’s eyes burned—not with tears, but clarity.

“Beneath,” she said. “Into the dark.”

--- 
They were still arguing when Telaryn left the map table.

Not even fighting anymore—just whispering and accusing in low, tired voices. Hands wrung. Tempers dulled. The last flicker of royal order dying not in flame, but in exhaustion.

She pushed through the antechamber doors into the lesser hall, where her **inner circle**—those few who still answered to her name—waited.

**Ser Deyran**, her sworn shield.  
**Lutha**, scout-captain of the hill riders.  
**Old Marec**, who had once guarded her cradle and now limped with a sword at his side.  
And **Alisha**, always Alisha, half in her shadow.

They stood in a loose semicircle near the tall window where snow filtered through shattered glass.

“They won’t follow,” Telaryn said simply.

Marec grunted. “Court never did know which way was down until it broke beneath them.”

“We don’t need the court,” said Lutha. “Give me ten men, and I can get you to the Mourning Foothills by nightfall. There are clan-holds there. Caves.”

“You won’t reach the foothills,” Deyran snapped. “Not through open ground. The gates are lost. The streets are taken.”

“There’s still the crypt tunnels,” Alisha offered. “They run beneath the lake wall, don’t they?”

“They haven’t been walked in twenty years,” Marec muttered. “Might as well throw her to the lake spirits and see who answers.”

“We’re wasting time.” Lutha’s voice rose now, sharp. “The princess needs to move, not stand here listening to tomb-dwellers whine about ghosts.”

“She is not going to flee like a thief,” Deyran snapped, rounding on him. “She is Talpian. She stands her ground.”

“She’s alive,” Alisha said, softly. “And we want her to stay that way.”

Silence followed.

Then: “I swore an oath,” Deyran said. Not to her. To her father. “To defend the crown. Not to run from its grave.”

Telaryn looked at him. His armor still bore the scratches of the last wall breach. One side of his helm had been caved in and crudely hammered back into shape. His blood had already been spilled for her house. And now he wanted to die for it.

“Then stay,” she said.

Deyran blinked. “Your Highness—”

“No.” Her voice was level. “I release you. You’ve done more than was ever asked. But I won’t let my bones decorate their road to conquest.”

He looked wounded, but said nothing. He bowed. Deep. And walked away.

Marec followed him, muttering something under his breath. Perhaps a prayer.

Only Lutha remained, arms crossed. “They’ll call you a coward.”

“Let them,” Telaryn replied. “They’ll call me worse before this is done.”

She looked to Alisha. “How long to gather the others?”

“Those still loyal?” Alisha asked. “An hour. Maybe less.”

“Good.” Telaryn turned to the door. “Then let the nobles write their own songs. I’ll write our future.”

The arguments had begun again. Lord Caerin and Lady Brythe now bickered over what words should be spoken when the palace finally fell, as if the right phrasing might sanctify their failure. A few lesser nobles had already slipped out, robes trailing in the soot.

**Telaryn stood alone** by the war table, staring down at her father’s map—creased and curling at the corners, wine stains where ink once lay. No one noticed her anymore. Not really. She was the princess, but not the voice they wanted. Not the ghost they revered.

Then the **doors slammed open**, hard enough to crack the stone frame.

The chamber turned. Spears were drawn—late and uncertain.

A figure staggered in through the smoke.

**Captain Varin**.

Blood ran from his temple. His left shoulder was soaked, his arm hanging limp at his side. His cloak was torn, and ash clung to the lining of his armor.

He took three steps before his knees buckled. Telaryn was the first to reach him.

“Captain,” she said, steadying him.

“My lady,” he gasped, voice thick with pain. “They’ve taken the king’s road. The palace gate won’t hold an hour.”

He looked around the room. Looked at the nobles. The map. Her.

“I saw him fall. Your father. He struck down three before they pulled him under. He didn’t scream.”

A silence spread across the hall like frost.

Varin fumbled at his side, fingers slick with blood. Alisha knelt to help him. Together they lifted the cloth he had clutched—a torn scrap of **the king’s banner**, black with silver thread, soaked through in red.

He pressed it into Telaryn’s hands.

“My oath,” he whispered. “Passes to you.”

And then he died. There, before the throne. Before the lords and ladies. Before the stone walls that had once echoed with music.

No one spoke.

Even Brythe said nothing.

Telaryn rose slowly, the **bloodstained banner scrap** folded in her fist. The warmth of it soaked through her gloves.

When she looked up, the hall was watching her—not with reverence, not yet. But with recognition.

**The king was dead. The crown had no heir.**

Only her.

And the path she chose now would be written in blood.

The king’s banner still dripped onto the marble floor.

No one moved to lift it. No one moved at all.

The nobles remained frozen in a loose circle around the war table, avoiding each other’s eyes, their robes heavy with the stink of smoke and indecision. None reached for the throne. None knelt. None spoke her name.

And yet the air had changed.

The court no longer looked at her like a child. Nor did they speak over her as they had before. Something had passed between them—not reverence, but inevitability.

**Captain Varin’s blood**, pooled in the center of the chamber, had made it real.

The king was gone. And she stood in his place.

Footsteps echoed at the edge of the hall.

Three **palace guards** entered, their armor soot-streaked and dented. They moved without a lord’s summons. Without protocol. One bore a wounded arm, hastily bound. Another’s sword was bloodied to the hilt.

They stopped in the center of the hall and turned—not to Brythe, not to Caerin. **To her.**

The lead guard stepped forward and bowed, lower than he needed to.

“Your Highness,” he said. Not question. Not hesitation. Statement.

“We await your orders.”

The words struck like steel against stone.

Alisha stood still behind her, breath caught in her throat. Even the nobles faltered.

Telaryn looked at them all—at the crumbling court, the cracked throne, the guards with blood still drying on their blades. She looked at the torn map. The dead captain. The crown her father had worn into death.

And she knew, with sudden, terrifying clarity:

**This would not be given. It would have to be taken.**

Not just the crown. Not just survival. Everything.

The city. The future. Her name.

She stepped forward.

“Gather those still loyal,” she said, her voice clear and loud enough to silence the hall. “Rouse every guard, every servant who can run. Have them meet at the west chapel door within the hour.”

One of the nobles finally found his voice. “You mean to flee? With what dignity?”

Telaryn turned toward him.

“I mean to live. And to make sure Talpis lives with me.”

No one spoke after that.

She didn’t need them to.

The palace groaned in its bones as another impact shuddered through the walls. Somewhere in the distance, a horn blew—low and sharp.

Telaryn turned toward the sound. Toward the throne. Then away from it.

“I am done asking,” she said.

And with the blood of kings on her hands and the weight of silence behind her,  
**she began to lead**.