Emily (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2025-03-08 09:42 am
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2025-03-08 09:42 amget your words out { 2025 } yahtzee tracking
Fill Form
Fill Form
Fill Form
Fill Form
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2025-03-08 09:42 am
why did love put a knife in my heart | fantasy girl gang | 900
Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.
Tristan Moore stares at the last line she has written and wills herself to believe it’s true. It’s probably fortunate that her husband won’t be staring her in the face as he processes her request, but she knows he will listen. He will do as he asks. He will protect their children as she throws their safety away. With so many unknowns laid out ahead of her, that her husband will keep their family safe is the one thing she can rely on.
She looks down at the blood spattered across her armor, and knows that as much as she would wish it, there is no other way.
Tristan seals the letter, placing it in the harness of one of the carrier birds and sending it off toward their home. She then moves to take another bird off its perch and sends another letter towards the sea. If she’s going to do this, betray everything she’s ever known, she’s going to need help. Raff will answer the call. She owes Tristan that much. Best to be prepared either way.
Caliphan’s voice echoes in her head as she makes her way down the stone stairs. Find out which one is the oracle and eliminate the spare. He’s made no bones about her defying him if she chooses another path. Part of her isn’t sure she can commit to what he asks of her, while what remains is simply screaming.
The problem is, she knows which is the spare. It’s easy to figure out if you spend any kind of time with the twins, which the Emperor hasn’t. What use has he for his half-siblings-in-law unless they’ve had some kind of vision of the future?
But Tristan knows. Tristan trained them both. Only one of them moves, not with anticipation but with a certainty of where the blows will come from. Never moving to block or dodge, but to place themselves elsewhere. It’s a subtle distinction few would notice, but there’s nothing Tristan knows better than combat. She can tell the difference.
Moving through the palace, she pauses outside one bedroom when she hears footsteps inside. Soon, the door opens and Oliver Tannenbaum slips out, tall and spindly, and meets her eyes with concern.
“Have you figured it out yet?”
He shakes his head. “No idea. Some kind of alchemy. I can’t figure out how he’s giving it to her. I handle all her food, and as far as I know, she’s been given no extra tinctures.”
Tristan’s eyes close. “Damn.”
“Why? Has he ordered something?” The tension in his voice gives away that if Tristan were anyone else, he would have her by the shoulders, shaking out answers. “Are you to kill her?”
“Not her.” Tristan’s jaw sets before she looks up at him again. “He wants me to determine which twin is the actual oracle and kill the other. Apparently, the ruse that they need each other and that the power resides between them is no longer working.”
Oliver’s face turns grave and she frowns.
“What? What do you know?”
“I’ve heard rumor that the court alchemist is working on a tincture. One that place the oracle into a state that will force a vision.”
Tristan doesn’t know enough about magic to do the math, but she knows enough about oracles to know that it isn’t ideal. “Isn’t that dangerous? Once the oracle speaks the prophecy, it becomes true.”
“I think the Emperor will take that risk, so long as he’s only asking about the truth of his enemies.”
Tristan’s eyes drop to the rug, staring at the intricate pattern beneath her as she weighs her options. She doesn’t have many. One, she kills the spare twin. Two, she steals both of them and tries to make her escape without the guards catching them. Three—
She’s not sure there’s an option three.
“Might I suggest you follow through with His Imperial Majesty’s request?” She can hear the remorse in his voice, but that doesn’t make his question any easier. Her eyes flash up, anger flaring as she meets his gaze.
“They’re children, Oliver.”
“And your children are the ones who will pay the price if you don’t, Tristan. It is a cold calculus, but we need time. Time to figure out what he’s done to Talia and how to reverse it. She is our only chance of deposing him.”
“Talia wouldn’t want us to kill one of them for her sake.” Even saying the words, Tristan can’t be entirely certain they’re true. The Empress had a certain amount of fondness for her half-siblings, but she could be as ruthless as they come when the moment called for it. Would she sacrifice a child if it would save her own life?
Oliver glances back at the door, and she could see the uncertainty in his expression. He knows Talia better than any of them. He’s loved her longer, kept her confidences. Tristan lets the silence grow between them, demanding that he find an answer despite the urge to beat it into him. Eventually he sighs, before turning back to her again.
“You’re right. But that doesn’t change that we need time, Tristan.”
Tristan nods before looking down at the blood on her armor again. If nothing else, it seems to strengthen her resolve with what needs to be done. “Then I’ll buy us time.”