Chapter 47: Iron Heart.

Chapter 47: Chapter 47: Iron Heart.

" you really expect me to marry that?" he snorted. Yawned, then flicked another one.

"Hey, you watch your mouth," Khobi snapped hotly.

"Watch yours."

"Enough." This time it was Gurdet who caused the table to quake as he brought down his empty wine goblet with authority.

"I will have no more fighting at my table," he said, too politely. He was smiling again. "Loac, even if your father was raised in a barn, you certainly were not. So act like it. For once."

"Father, don’t..." his daughter pleaded, sounding too much like just a daughter, and not very much like a princess. But it was obvious that he had said what he had to say, and that Loac had heard enough.

It was a subtle but jarring change, the way a blank mask fell perfectly back into place over his features and shut away the darkness and the hunger that Khobi had glimpsed in his eyes, locking it away like it had never been there to begin with.

Now, he just looked upon the room with eyes rife with contempt, and there was a disgruntled curl to his lip as he picked up his plate, still piled high, and kept filling it. For some reason this distressed the princess more than anything else.

"Loac, please, father didn’t --"

"Yeah, Xena, he did."

And that was the last word spoken on the matter. That was, in fact, the last Loax spoke before he departed amid a silence not unlike that which he’d entered to.

No one stopped him as he made to leave the table, and Montrel had barely even taken a step forward to bar his way when Gurdet waved for him to stand down.

"Let him go," Gurder said, more to Loac’s back than to Montrel.

"...Your Majesty?" Montrel queried, because he’d spent the better part of the morning trying to find the damn prince and get him here.

"Let him go," he repeated, and the guard obediently (yet not unbegrudgingly) stepped aside. "We’re done here, anyways."

Loac didn’t look back.

And his uncle didn’t seem to care.

"Always such a delight," he mused flatly, obviously meaning much the opposite. He smoothed down a crease in the tablecloth and allowed himself a moment to reset his dry expression to one a little more suited to the occasion.

Xena had never liked his smile, but his loving, late wife had once described it to him as devious, insincere, and a little unsettling, so he’d never thought to work on it. "Now, Khobi, I do believe we were talking business?"

"...You were doing a lot of talking, that’s for sure."

"Well, I hope you were listening."

"...I was," Khobi replied flatly, finally managing to shrug himself away from Bongo now that he wasn’t a threat to any of the royal family. He kept his head high as he spoke, and his voice admirably even, but there was a waver there --something in his eyes that told Gurdet that no matter what he said next, he’d still won.

Conflict.

What he wanted most in this world was his home. The home that Gurdet could bring to him, in the form of his uncle, the good, the Iron Heart --Knojin Frost.

"...And I’m saying no deal."

Deal.

"This is not a negotiation, Khobi," he explained, because men are full of pride, and those who have to swallow it need to know --need to be able to tell themselves --that they had no other option.

"It’s quite simple. You want your uncle. Alive. And if you do exactly as you’re asked, you’ll get just that."

He didn’t say what would happen if he disobeyed. It felt like a show of bad faith to promise that if he did, he would never see his uncle again.

Nothing puts a damper on a deal more like consequences for breaking one. But he was fairly certain that Silas had taught Khobi a thing or two about reading between the lines when it came to promises with kings.

Khobi hesitated, and for Gurdet, that was as good as agreement, because there in his eyes was that little flicker of hope again --the bane of all desperate men.

All in a morning’s work.

"Vogrid, arrange new quarters for our guest, will you?" he remarked conversationally, dusting his hands off with a napkin and rising from his seat.

All around the room the guards respectfully stiffened to attention, Khobi was the only one who didn’t react --still frozen in place by the abrupt reminder of why he was at this table in the first place...and what exactly it meant.

"And Bongo, speak with your men. I’m sure they’ll be delighted to hear that they’ve been relieved of guard duty for the meantime."

"Of course, Your Majesty," Bongo assured him, dipping his head dutifully. Vogrid did not accept his orders with nearly as much grace, but didn’t manage more than a word of protest before Gurdet rode over him with the ease of one who has had much practice.

"Khobi Frost is a guest here," he reiterated for the umpteenth time. "I believe he’s decided to start acting like it.

" He glanced down the table to Khobi, who was staring steadfastedly into the ugly mix of tea and wine that was spreading across the table in spite of the servants’ best efforts to hinder it. He had nothing to say, it seemed, and that in itself spoke volumes.

Excellent.

"Besides," he added, dismissing the guards who were lingering in the eaves with a gentle flick of his wrist, "If he doesn’t try to escape, then I’ll have no need to stop him, will I?"

...

The king, it seemed, had nothing more to say to Khobi, which was just as well because the things that Khobi had to say to him were best left unsaid. If he wanted to keep his tongue, that was --which he did.

So, instead of cursing him, he kept his silence, because there was the chance he was telling the truth --and if by chance he was, then he could find Khnoji.

He could find him, and help him --save him and his people from exile in the wilderness.

Through all the long, dark years in Briyagi, Khobi had longed for nothing more than home.

Scargga, the kingdom in the mountains, was little more than a memory for him nowadays, but he still remembered it.

He remembered the towering halls and the mighty storms that had tried to tear them down and failed --the winters that had laid waste to the mountainside and the springs that had brought it back to life.

There was music, and family, and when he had climbed upon the slopes when his nurses had told him not to, he’d find his uncle halfway to the summit, waiting for him.

He’d smile, and swear not to tell, and a young Khobi would ask him why he’d stopped climbing. And Knojin would turn to look out at the world, and say,

"If you’re climbing up a mountain, obviously you’re aiming for the top. But let’s enjoy the view. "

Khobi, because he was young and didn’t understand such things, would always remind him that the view was the nicest from the top, and his uncle would laugh, and he would climb with him through the forest and the brush of the highlands until Khobi got his view.

The world had felt so big from up there. He could see their city and their castle all the kingdom of Scargga, from the forest’s rocky crags, to where the mountains turned into rolling lowlands.

Gurdet was right.

It’d all be gone now. Burned to dust on Luminus’s orders to smoke Khnoji out and erase every mark he’d left on the world.

But even if there was nothing left of it, it was still his home. And if making his peace with this place for now --only for now --meant that maybe one day he and his uncle could stand there together again, then that was something he supposed he could do.

"Khobi?" Bongo inquired, asking without words if he was ready to leave now that the king had tired of their company. What with Loac having taken his leave, he didn’t think Khobi too much of a threat at present, but it was concerning that he’d been poised for some few minutes at the table, staring down into the stickying wine like it might offer him council. Dealings with his king sometimes had that effect on people. Gurdet liked getting what he wanted and was rather adept at doing so.

But Khobi wasn’t known for losing his tongue for long, and he found it again soon enough.

"Princess," he called out, more to the table than to the actual princess, who had chosen to follow in her father’s footsteps and was little more than a stride away from the door. "...Your Majesty," he tried again, a little less certain this time, and then finally, "...Whatever."

At least he tried , Bongo sighed to himself, correcting, "Crown Princess Xena."

"...Xena," Kagami opted for after a moment of consideration, and the captain sighed openly at his intentional rudeness.

But her name stopped the princess dead in her tracks and made her turn, she appeared more surprised by being addressed directly than offended by his lack of court etiquette."Khobi?" she inquired curiously, gathering up her skirts and making a tentative return to the table.

Whatever he had to say to her mustn’t have been for the room to hear because he waited until she was nearly even with him before he spoke again."...Your old man..." he muttered, eyes darting cagily to her face and then back down at the table. "....He said he could... will he find him?"Bongo watched the princess’ face soften, and for Khobi’s sake tried to unsee the uncertainty in her expression.

"He’s a man of his word," she promised him, which was kind of her to say even if Bongo didn’t think she believed it herself. She was a far sight better at sincerity than her father, but unfortunately those were the wrong words to provide Khobi any sort of reassurance.

"Sorry if I don’t believe you," he scoffed, finally straightening up from the table and rolling his shoulders to loosen some of the tension the morning had stockpiled there. She smiled again, this time at Bongo, like they were sharing some secret Khobi wasn’t privy to.

"No one does," she replied, and he wondered if maybe deep down she knew, like he did, or at least wanted to believe that her father had the capacity to be a better man than he let on. And then firmer, she added, "But if he’s promised to find your uncle, he will."

To her credit, when Khobi set his gaze on her, she didn’t flinch. "...We should go," Bongo remarked, after an appropriate amount of time had passed for them to size one another up.

The princess had never been a warrior --of her and her cousin she was the royal made more for ruling, and the courtly games of wit --and she was dwarfed by he and Khobi by a considerable margin, but somehow, when required of her, she carried herself like someone twice their size, with eyes that saw everything. The men of the court didn’t trust it, and rightly so. She was her father’s daughter, after all.

"...You will keep your word, won’t you?" she inquired suddenly, earnest in the way only women are when they are trying to spin promises out of men, "You won’t cause my father trouble, or try to hurt anyone?" Khobi, watching her as much as she was watching him, just shrugged noncommittally and replied with a touch of heat, "...Only if they try to hurt me first."For some reason that made her smile.

"Of course," she conceded, and then, because she probably had an inkling of who the sentiment is intended for, her smile waned again, and she bowed out of their staring contest.

"...Please don’t judge him too harshly," she murmured, brushing down her skirts to stop herself from fidgeting, "He’s not so bad, Loac."

"Are you kidding me?" Khobi scoffed incredulously, "The guy’s the worst. How can you stand him?" She shrugged, not taking offense.

"He’s my cousin," she explained simply, barely managing to hide the sadness in her eyes as she tried to find an eloquent way to voice her thoughts.

"Please believe me," she tried, before trailing off, "...He’s not always.... He didn’t used to..." And then finally, gently, "I’m sorry, Khobi. For what he said.""...I’m not," Khobi deadpanned flatly, "Next time I’ll punch his lights out."

There was no doubt that that was a genuine threat, but instead of giving concern for her cousin’s wellbeing, it brought a small smile back to her lips.

"He has that effect on people," she sighed, long-suffering, but not without fondness. And then, quiet enough that maybe no one was meant to hear, "I don’t know what I’m going to do with him."