Chapter Text
30th August
“Would you… would you come with me to see Runaan and Ethari?” Rayla’s voice caught as she spoke, and she coughed to clear it.
Callum blinked at her for a moment, taken by surprise by her request.
“Sorry,” Rayla laughed humorlessly, her eyes once again on her hair pin. “Actually, it’s awful timing—”
“No!” Callum jumped up, hurrying over to her. Taking her hands in his, he bent down to catch her eyes. “Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting— But, yes, yes, of course, Rayla.”
“Not right now, obviously.” She exhaled shakily and attempted to smile. “I’m not even sure when… but I think it’s time.”
“Whenever, Rayla.” He guided her over to the bed and pressed her to sit down. “Whenever you want to go, I’ll be there for you.”
“Thank you.” She sighed, her smile genuine.
“Is there— What do you want to talk about? What do you want to say to them?”
If she so much as mentioned apologising, he was going to lose it. He could already feel his blood boiling at so much as the thought of Rayla asking for their forgiveness. He wasn’t sure he could listen to her beg—
He needed to understand what she was thinking first. Why exactly she wanted to see them. She hadn’t spoken about them in so long and he’d mostly put them from his mind.
Mainly because he wasn’t sure he could be level headed when talking about them.
First and foremost, Rayla needed his support, not him ranting and raving about her good for nothing parents
“I’m not sure, and I guess it’ll be you saying it but—” Taking a deep breath, Rayla looked around the room. “But… goodbye, I think. Or something like that.” Tears were glistening in her eyes when she turned back to him. “I think it’s time I let them go.”
His own throat grew tight at the idea, knowing it was hurting Rayla to even think about these things. He wasn’t exactly happy seeing her contemplate leaving that part of her life behind, or giving up on having her Ghosting lifted, but he couldn’t help but hope it meant she was finally accepting that what had happened to her, what had been done to her, wasn’t a just retribution for some great crime. It was a cruel punishment. Abandonment. She had deserved love and support and everyone who should have done right by her had turned their backs on her.
Even her own parents.
“Okay. If that’s… whatever you want to do or say—” Leaning forward, he wrapped his arms around her, unsurprised to find her trembling.
“Thank you, Callum,” she mumbled into his neck, her voice tight.
Leaning back, he took her face in his hands, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I’ll always be there for you, Rayla.”
She smiled, placing her hands over his and sighing softly. For once, she didn’t look elsewhere, didn’t shy away from him or try to make a joke of things. Instead, she held his gaze, her face calm and open.
Squeezing his hands, she nodded. “I know.”
31th August
Rayla gripped Callum’s hand as they turned the corner and approached the council room. People were waiting outside, humans and elves of various arcana. Her mouth went dry at the sight of a number of Moonshadows among them, their backs currently to her.
They couldn’t see her, but surely they’d know she was there—
“Maybe today isn’t a good day for me to come along—”
“No, Rayla, we talked about this.” Callum turned to her, his eyes wide and fixed on hers. “You deserve to be here.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at him. He was so stubborn. “Callum, I kept you company while you did all the actual work—”
“No, like I keep telling you, you inspired me to properly explore this stuff.” He looked at her pointedly. “You made me actually think about magic and how it affects people’s lives and how they live.”
She took a breath to argue but he spoke quickly, cutting her off.
“I don’t know how I connected to the sky arcanum but I do know that it wouldn’t have happened if not for you, Rayla.”
She wanted to argue with him, to once again insist that he was smart and inquisitive and kind. That he might not have figured out how to connect to primal magic now, or in the manner he did, but he’d have figured it out somehow.
There was something special about him.
In this hallway, with a group of people who practically radiated hostile intentions, it did not feel like the best place to have that conversation.
“Okay?” Callum leaned in closer, almost like he was willing her to accept what he was saying.
“Okay.” She laughed at how earnest he was.
Anyway, they could talk about things another time.
Taking a deep breath, she prepared for the disconcerting wrongness that would be the faceless Moonshadows, but seeing the tense set to Callum’s brow, she suspected that might be the least of her worries.
She had no idea what to expect of this council meeting, but from the way Callum was frowning at this group, she suspect this was abnormal.
“Prince Callum,” Viren stepped out from the group, looking almost gleeful.
Rayla took that as a very bad sign.
“I hear you have some… good news to share with the council.” Gesturing to the group, Viren beckoned her and Callum closer. “Both from your trip and also regarding some personal developments.”
Callum appeared confused, his jaw tense as he looked to be puzzling out whatever Viren was getting at. “Yeah—”
“I am sure we are all very excited to hear about them, once we sort a more pressing issue.”
“What pressing issue?” Callum glanced at her, stepping a little closer.
“I understand Lady Rayla is to join us at the meeting today,” Viren glanced at her, his face pinched, like he’d trod on something foul. “Obviously, that may cause issues for our Moonshadow council members.”
“They can skip the meeting, if they want.” Callum replied dismissively, glaring at Viren.
Rayla glanced at the elves, wondering what they made of this. Generally, dark mages were at least distrusted by elves, high status ones like council members especially. She winced to find the Moonshadows turned in their direction, their blank faces horrifying, as always. The other elves did not even pretend that they weren’t listening.
Viren stepped closer to the elves, raising his voice. “I’m sure you understand what an insult—”
“Can you stop pretending you care what they think?” Scoffing, Callum rolled his eyes. “That’s what’s actually insulting, you know.”
Rayla didn’t know Viren in any way, but even she could see when his mask dropped. At Callum’s words, his face hardened, his posture immediately stiffening.
“Prince Callum—”
“What’s going on here?”
Rayla’s stomach dropped at the sound of Harrow’s voice.
“King Harrow,” Viren visibly brightened as he gestured to the elves in the hallway. “We were just discussing a… cultural concern.”
“The hallway is hardly the place for discussions.” Harrow raised an eyebrow, glancing at the Moonshadows before turning to Rayla, a slight smile on his face. “We have council rooms for a reason, Viren.”
“Of course, your Majesty.” Viren bowed stiffly, wilting just a little.
Without further comment, they shuffled into the council room, Callum smiling reassuringly at Rayla and gesturing for her to go ahead of him.
She breathed a sigh of relief, comforted by the support of not just Callum, but of his parents too, it would seem.
Rayla took a seat next to Callum, her heart still racing. She tried not to look directly at the Moonshadows, but she did note they hadn’t decided that her presence was enough of an insult to forgo the meeting.
Likely, proximity to the king, to power, was more important that morals to them.
She thought back to Rian, to Cru and her parents. Living far away from Katolis, from other Moonshadows. Good, kind, decent people, forced to leave their home for people as fickle as this.
Viren had barely taken his seat before he cleared his throat and spoke up. “As I was saying before, I am concerned for the cohesion of the council, considering the discord between members.”
Rayla pressed her leg against Callum’s willing him to keep his temper. Harrow seemed more than capable of shutting Viren down. He’d obviously be more successful too. She didn’t know why Viren kept pulling at this thread, but she suspected the fact that Callum had connected to a primal source had him even more on edge. If he’d been angry about Harrow choosing their drought remediation plan over his, knowing that a human, Callum in particular, had figured out how to do primal magic, likely made him scared too.
If Katolis no longer needed dark magic, Viren’s power was threatened.
“Viren, the point of the council is to have discord between members,” Sarai explained slowly. “If everyone agreed on everything, they’d be no need for us to be here, would there?”
“Queen Sarai, there is a difference between disagreeing on a trade agreement and having a criminal on the council.”
Callum snorted loudly, but a pointed look from Harrow silenced him.
“There are no criminals on the council, Viren.” The impatience in Harrow’s voice was becoming more and more obvious.
“Your Majesty, I must be frank, blood doners are considered criminals.”
Rayla bit her lip, a cold shiver running down her spine. More than anything, she wanted Viren to shut up, to stop talking about her like she wasn’t in the room. Like she couldn’t hear him.
“Doners are not pursued for their… activities, Viren.” Harrow glared at Viren, seeming to want the conversation to end too. “Only those who trade in contraband items.”
“They are not punished by the state of Katolis,” Viren continued, appearing unwilling to concede the point. “But they are by their own people. Rayla has been banished from Moonshadow society for her donations. It would be—”
“You call them donations, but that’s not what they are!” Rayla snapped, finally interjecting.
The room went silent for a moment, even Callum seeming surprised by her outburst.
“I assume you are more familiar with the process than I would ever be,” Viren sneered.
Was he really trying to pretend he had no familiarity with this aspect of dark magic?
“I’m not so sure about that.” Rayla couldn’t help but scoff. “But I do know they’re not actually donations, are they?”
Viren arched an eyebrow at her, clearly confused.
“Donating implies freedom. Choice. Most people caught up in that… they have neither.” Rayla paused, the room fading into the background. “I know what it’s like to feel like you have no other options. To sell yourself so you can put food or medicine on the table. I know what people, elves and humans, have to do when they can’t see any other options.”
Her voice caught in her throat, but she forced herself to go on.
“I know what it’s like when the world turns its back on you. When you have no other choice.”
She glanced around the room, noting the fine clothes on all present, the table with golden goblets, elaborate tapestries on the walls—
This was an entirely different world to the one inhabited by most people.
“You sit up here. You have your balls and your feasts and those of us in the slums are forced to do whatever we can just to live, and you judge us for that.”
Some present shifted in their seats, but Viren continued to glare at her.
“You pretend the problems are between elves and humans, but they’re not. They’re between you up here in the light and the rest of us in squalor and darkness. It’s easier to pretend it’s because we’re too different, because humans and elves don’t understand each other. The truth is too dangerous. The truth is that it’s between those who have and those who don’t.” She thought of the children she’d seen over the years, gaunt faces and ragged clothes. Old people, bent over and hobbling in pain. Elves. Humans. In such dire circumstances, they were all the same. Their faces blurred into one. They were all just people. People struggling to survive.
“You need to keep people fighting among themselves because if they ever realised that truth, they’re understand—” she inhaled slowly, eerily calm as she regarded Viren dispassionately.
He had come from nothing apparently, born poor and connection-less. Had he really forgotten the truth?
“… there’s a lot more of us than there is of you.”
A stunned silence followed her outburst, even the king and queen were left speechless.
Rayla felt the colour drain from her face as her actions sunk in. Her heart pounded in her chest, her head spinning. The silence seemed to drag on forever and she felt the hair at the back of her neck stand on end as she sensed everyone’s eyes on her. Take a deep breath, she shook herself, attempting to look unaffected.
“I think I’ve said enough for today.” She moved to leave, then remembered herself, glancing at the Harrow, hoping he’d give her permission to go. She was already hating this.
Harrow shook himself, looking at Sarai for a moment then back to Rayla. “Yes, I— Thank you, Rayla. I think it would be best if we all took a recess and considered these points.”
Nodding, she jumped to her feet and practically ran from the room, breaking into a true run as soon as she was in the hallway. She had no idea where she was going, only that it needed to be far away—
“Rayla!”
Callum’s voice rang out behind her, but she hurried forward, desperately blinking back tears. Barely twenty minutes into her first council meeting and she’s already fucked up beyond belief—
Why did she always act without thinking? Her impulsive nature had got her into too many messes to count.
She was an idiot.
“Rayla, wait!” Callum caught up to her quickly, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her around to face him.
Before she could say anything, he wrapped an arm around her waist, cupping her cheek with his other as he kissed her.
“Callum!” She leaned back, her mind struggling to catch up. “What are you— I don’t know what—”
Callum laughed, his eyes bright and a brilliant smile on his face. “Rayla, that was amazing!”
“What?” she gasped. Of all the things he might have said to whatever the hell that outburst had been, “amazing” was decidedly not one of them.
“The amount of times I’ve wanted to lose it like that with Viren!” Pressing his forehead against hers, he pulled her closer. “Or with those stuck up prudes—”
“You’re not angry at me?” She could see he wasn’t, even if she struggled to accept it.
“No,” Callum chuckled. “Why would I be?”
“I just totally lost it less than two minutes into my first council meeting.”
“Do you regret what you said?” Callum smirked at her, appearing like he certainly didn’t regret what she’d said.
“I— well, I could have said it better.” She winced. “Nicer, maybe?”
“Does the fact people might not have liked how you said what you said mean that it wasn’t right?”
“I—” She paused, thinking this over. “They might be more likely to accept it if I said it differently.”
“Viren is not going to like the fact that dark magic harms people, no matter what safe guards are put in place.” He sighed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “And the Moonshadows probably don’t want to admit that Ghosting doesn’t actually solve any problems, right?”
Shrugging, Rayla tried to think of an argument. What he was saying was true, but still, it seemed like the way information was delivered did matter.
“You’re not talking to Viren or the Moonshadows.” He kissed her forehead, smiling softly at her. “You’re talking to the people who’s minds aren’t made up. They care about what you say, more than how you say it.”
“I’m not so sure that’s true.” She laughed, her heart still racing, even as Callum’s words helped ease some of her fears.
“Well, we’ll see.” He smirked dismissively, “But if that doesn’t work, you are still with a prince, remember.”
“Oh, you going to pull rank?” Giggling, she allowed Callum to press her against the wall, running her fingers through his hair as she pulled him closer.
“If I need to.” Callum kissed her, cupping her cheek. “I’d do anything for you.”