"It was only after two weeks that the revelation was out. Someone sold themselves to the other houses."
That sentence still tasted like metal in my mouth.
"The News did not move like a gossip between neighbours. It moved in sealed envelopes and curt riders, in midnight riders and men in grey cloaks slipping through gates. Two weeks after Moonhall, a single drip became a leak." I took a pause, "Then a flood."
No one knew the full truth, only fragments. But what slipped into their life was simple and terrifying,
"The words spoke of the Durkren." I finally said,"and destruction".
I saw Joshua's face go pale as I spoke of those words. Even now, not everyone knew about it. About the calamity that was to coming towards us, now faster than ever.
At that moment, we were in the dark as well. It was only after the council meeting, that the veil was torn away. The truth, no one was ready for, and yet we all desperately demanded.
"Durkren and destruction? How?" He spoke, his voice somewhat shaky. "Sir, this is the first time I have heard of this."
"I will tell you everything, as we go by. Have patience for now."
He just nodded, and I continued.
"No house could pretend calm. The words were enough to stir everything and everyone. And then came the letters carrying the heat of hands that wrote them in haste.
One house sent three, another dispatched an envoy. Each house trying to contact one another, to get any information, to get to know the truth.
The matter was grim.
The capital filled with riders.
No one stayed silent for long.
Every house carried weight late into the night, every high seat summoned their kin. By morning, messengers moved in a tide between strongholds." A sigh escaped my mouth.
Everywhere you looked, was curiosity spiced with worry.
Anger, too.
Some Lords were angry that something so vital had been kept behind closed doors.
Why had the truth whatever the whole truth that might be been withheld from them?
"Letters piled up at each house. Be it ours, or others. You felt it in the air, a pressure, like a storm gathering on a plain. Houses who had a thousand other reasons to distrust their neighbours set those aside for a moment. Curiosity turned into a hard, shared attention. Everyone wanted the same thing... a simple answer."
"Just what exactly did they see?" Joshua interrupted by monologue, his voice laced with curiousity. His pen scratching harder than he meant to, even though he hadn't write a single line ever since.
He wasn't supposed to yet.
This wasn't the part of the report, but for him to know.
"No house remained still, they started calling meetings. They came together in narrow rooms, voices low and urgent. There was no ceremony in those talks, no grand gestures. Everyone had seen the same change in House Oneir's elders' faces after the ritual... they had all noticed the too quick excuse and departure. That was enough to set their minds working." I said to him.
I remember the small things. The rain that afternoon that fell sideways and did not wash the city clean. The sound of a servant dropping a tray and swearing quietly because his fingers went numb with shock.
"I wasn't surprised the first house to press publicly was Mnemosyne. It was the sensible move. If anyone could give weight to a whisper, it would be memory keepers and ritual houses. " I took the bottle of water beside and took a sip, "Their representative stood up at the earliest open meeting we could all force together and did not mince words. He said, plainly, that a rumor about the Duskren was intolerable to leave unaddressed. He asked to address the queen dowager Allysane, to ask her to present herself, to explain what House Oneir had seen. "
Everyone had a wounded expectation at being kept out. People who worry about a future as much as they love their present do not like to be removed from the conversation. The tone was... you had the right to tell us, and you did not.
"I will not lie to you, Joshua" I looked at his face worried as if he was there back then, "I had my own tangled part in this. Allysane and I had differences. My ties to her were complicated. We had a history of disagreeing, and more. " I closed my eyes for a second, and let my mind drift away, and my voice a break. "She carried the burden of the crown now, and the future of this country or maybe humanity itself. Yet for all of it, I was still worried. I worried for the child. And yes... I worried about what a frightened nobility might do if they decided the future required them to act immediately."
There was a practical side to it, too. If the Durkren truly stood at the center of this vision, then not much really mattered.
The past between their kind and our own had been anything but blood.
No one in their right mind wanted to leave a supposed Duskren problem to chance.
The duskren had been more than a story for generations... they were a threat in our histories, and the idea of them and destruction touched a chord you could not ignore.
----
The car was silent, and Joshua didn't disturb me. I could hear the pat pat of the rain, and the calm it brought.
After a minute or two, I found my voice again. "The line from Mnemosyne pushed us forward. The letters became firmer. Envoys were ordered to return and bring more. The capital shifted from festival colour to a more nervous, practical tone."
Joshua's lips paused, he looked at me, a small question on his face. But before he could ask, I spoke, "And finally, the council was asked for."
He breathed in, and the rain thinned to a fine veil against the windscreen.
"Sir," he said, his breath trembling slightly, " the noble council?"
"Yes. The noble council consisted of the king, and the lords of all houses."
"I have another question, if you don't mind sir."
" What is it? " I asked. I was curious as to what it was that he needed to ask permission first.
" You and the queen, what was your relation with her? " A question that took me off guard.
Me and Allysane? We were friends, yet enemies. I hated her, and yet I loved her a lot.
Afterall... she was my sister.
And, I was the adopted one.