All the dead kings came to me
At Rosnaree, where I was dreaming,
A few stars glimmered through the morn,
And down the thorn the dews were streaming.

And every dead king had a story
Of ancient glory, sweetly told.
It was too early for the lark,
But the starry dark had tints of gold.

- Francis Ledwidge

It had been a beautiful night for a gorgeous opera. Of that, there could be absolutely no denying. The stage far below was a chaotic tumult of color and silken skirts, crimson and emerald and gold swirling, bare skin slick with perspiration beneath the glare of the theater lights. The dances were intricate and involute, the dancers adroit and adept, more poetry in movement than any true pageant of physical power. And every so often, from the teeming rout of terpsichoreans and impresarios, would rise a very high note, refined to such perfection that spectators lowered their lorgnettes for fear they might shatter there and then. The audiences were awash in shadow, a mere penumbra of murmurs and rustles from which no individual face or word might be distinguished from the mass that accompanied them.

It had been a very long time since Azeria had found her seat among their number. Her place had, for a very long time, belonged to the gold-wrought, silver-fretted splendour of the royal viewing box high above. Not at directly at the spectator balcony, of course, where twin velvet-backed chairs supported the two reclining crown princes of this nation they had once called Illea, and not even in the two wing chairs that clustered near them, like courtiers clustered to fawn over an aristocrat. No, Azeria's place was in the shadows of the opera box, a kind of strange lonely audience to the royal family and all they observed and all that observed them.

A good bodyguard, her mother had always told her, required three things more than anything else: eyes like a corsac fox, skin like a moloch, and the bite of a tsetse fly. And Azeria was a very good bodyguard. She doubted a hawk watching the royal brothers would have noted as many subtle details as she did, even as she cast her eyes about the broad, dark theatre and listened intently to the dramaturgy unfolding beneath. She supposed familiarity had to help a little with the task; another might have noted Matthias' crossed legs, the relaxed way he leaned against the arm of his chair to speak softly to his brother, the languid manner in which he flicked his gaze towards the rostrum, and the singer there who was bathed in golden light.

But Azeria, who had been playmate and confidant and something akin to sister in the young princes' childhood, adolescence and adulthood, could clearly perceive below Matthias' equanimous facade: the dark shadows under his eyes, the too-tight grip he kept on the stem of his wine glass, the way he pushed his hair back almost on a reflex.

The opera was nearing its conclusion. Azeria could not say she was too sorry to see it end - she always did find such opuscule difficult to follow at the best of times. The stage seemed to heave with energy and tension, from which the prima donna, clad in the long sage cloak of Leonora, emerged to belt out a final plea for reprieve from the stoic, stalwart baritone who had pursued her across the stage. It had not escaped Azeria's notice that Matthias seemed particularly transfixed by one figure in particular - nor his brother's, for the younger prince spoke sotto voce with a smile in voice.

"In the middle of your Selection?" Yves spoke with a conspiratorial tone. "Oh, Matya, that is poor behaviour. Even for you."

"You cannot judge me," the crown prince replied. "For admiring a young woman's talent."

"Was it her talent you were ogling? You must forgive me for misinterpreting."

Matthias' voice was dismissive. Even in the gloom of the theatre, Azeria could picture very clearly how he would comport himself in this moment: ankles crossed, elbow on the arm of the chair, fingertips grazing across his lips, mouth curved in a half-smile. "Can you really blame a man for growing bored of something so tedious as a Selection?"

Yves shook his head. His hair was a little long again, grazing his collar and curling about his jaw, giving him a slightly boyish look that reminded Azeria of summers past. As children, she had given him a very radical haircut with a pair of blunt, borrowed scissors, and been thoroughly scolded for vandalising national property in doing so. Youth, she thought, had done a good job of erasing the divides between prince and protector. Certainly the young children who had been Matya and Ivo and Zeri and even tiny Si had never truly imagined the day would come when the brothers would recline in front of an opera and their childhood companion would silently stand sentry in the shadows behind them.

"Oh, yes," Yves said. "I imagine those beautiful girls have you wearied beyond belief."

"Thirty-five look alike after a while," Matthias replied. "Especially when they're all playing at intrigue... and sleeping in their own beds."

Even after two years out of the army, Yves still carried himself like a solider, Azeria thought - not in his discipline, but in the coil of his muscles, the cautious, ready and wary manner in which he reclined, like he was daring the world to creep closer so he might snatch it and wring its neck. "I suppose one must embrace his bachelor days to their utmost, ya prav?"

"Everything is malicious in that head of yours, Ivo." Glancing over his shoulder, Matthias caught Azeria's steady, unmoving gaze. His smile seemed almost reflexive, like it had slipped from his muscles without any clear intention or consent. "Some things never change. Wouldn't you agree, Zeri?"

"I wouldn't dare," she said, straight-faced and dead-pan. "To disagree. Your Royal Highness."

Yves rolled his eyes and raised his wine to his lips. "You always did side with him." He tipped the glass between his fingers and watched the dark liquid swirl within, his eyes distracted and far away for the briefest of moments, a question flickering across his expression and disappearing again before Azeria had chance to identify it. "It is a shame the little bibliosoph was not able to leave his precious library for to join us for even an evening," he added, a rueful note in his voice. "I feel rather outnumbered without Silas." He set down his glass and stood, his long dark jacket swinging gently. "More wine." He held up a hand to quieten the serving boy who started from the shadows. "Please, don't worry. I'll get it myself - could do with stretching my legs. Preference, Matya?"

"Absinthe." The crown prince had returned his gaze to the stage.

Yves' lips tightened in dry mirth, and he exchanged a meaningful look with Azeria before he turned to depart the box. When he opened the door, golden light spilled into the space like the tide rushes into the beach. The sudden glare illuminated clearly the two Selected girls who were seated in the wing chairs along the edge of the box: Lady Inbidia, with her plum silks puddled about her, quartz shining like unshed tears in her hair, her fingers overburdened with gold rings that glowed even in the faint light from the stage; Lady Sabela, her eyes pools of calligraphy ink in the darkness, her blood-colored dress drawn furtively around slender limbs, a red jewel the color of a mimic-kite swallowtail glinting like a dagger from her hair. Neither girl looked ruffled by the discussion which had just passed audibly only a few inches away from them; their expressions remained, Azeria thought with some ruefulness, contentedly complacent and peaceably placid, as though they believed that any external expression of emotion might be enough to pluck the throne from their grasp.

Azeria had been watching the Selection as best she could from the shadows, feeling for Matthias' future the strange kind of protectiveness that only a childhood friend could. She could not say that she considered a single member of the Selected suitable for the crown prince. A conniving lot, she had told her father on the very first evening of the competition, a conniving murder of ravens descended upon the castle with greedy, gaping maws and lies woven into their hair.

Her father had said, with metaphors like that, I know you've been spending too much time with Silas.

It was easier with Silas. Less strange. The youngest prince had never allowed himself to forget the times when aristocrat and attendant were more than acquaintance. If Matthias had been her childhood half-twin, Azeria thought wryly, and Yves the wild younger brother fighting to prove himself scrappy enough to play with the older children, then Silas had always rather resembled some kind of stray kitten, adopted and arrogated without much attention paid to him.

Much like Yves, she found she rather missed the third prince's quiet presence tonight. On the stage below, the mezzo-soprano was lamenting a nostalgia for the lost mountains of her youth, the action surging around her while she remained a single, frozen point of stillness within the turbulence. Definitely coming to a climax, she thought to herself, and shifted her weight almost imperceptibly as thought to brace for the last few long, boring minutes. Despite her attempt at subtlety, Matthias' clever eyes found her again, an amused sympathy in his gaze. "Not much longer now, Zeri." He indicated Yves' abandoned chair with the lip of his glass. "You might as well steal it while he is gone."

"I do not neglect my duties, your Royal Highness."

"That seemed rather pointed, even for you, Azeria," Matthias replied, laughing mirthlessly under his breath as the door swung open again to admit Yves' return.

"I'm afraid I couldn't find any absinthe," the dark-haired prince said wryly, offering his older brother the tiny phial in his left hand. The dark maroon liquid swirled within. "What did I miss?"

"The count's war is going poorly," Matthias replied casually, accepting the glass without looking at his brother. Azeria thought he must be correct. On-stage, the beautiful prima donna had already succumbed to her suicide by poison, and the count was about to execute his philandering troubadour brother with some relish. Pseudo-corpses littered the open spaces.

"What war has ever gone well?" Yves caught Matthias glancing at the phial with curiosity, and answered a question that was not asked. "Sombai. It's quite bitter."

The slightest hint of a genuine smile flashed across Matthias' face at these words, and he inclined his head towards Azeria. "Oh," he said. "I'm used to a little bitter." He raised his glass to touch it against Yves'. "To our parents."

"To the king," Yves replied. "And to the nation."

They drained their glasses.

A rustle in the corner. Lady Sabela was adjusting her skirts. Azeria could not move her eyes from the dark liquid. She could remember drinking sombai with the boys when they were in the very earliest days of adolescence, hiding in the stables and taking it in turns to sip furtively from the clay mug they had half-filled with water to dilute the overwhelmingly sweet taste of the alcoholic beverage, giggling and gossiping with half-drunken mirth. They had felt very grown up, she thought, in those days, long before they knew what responsibility or fear was. She could still almost taste the sugary-sweet flavour on her lips, so fresh was the memory.

Sweet, Azeria thought. Sweet.

Not bitter.

"Matya, don't," she cried, but it was too late because the glass had already slipped from beneath his fingers and crashed into a thousand pieces on the floor below.

What happened next all happened very quickly. Matthias' legs gave out from beneath him - he fell into the railing which overlooked the stage, and then collapsed to the ground, all his breath escaping him in a single, pained, rattling gasp. A scream rose in the crowd below, not because of Matthias but because of the smoke which had abruptly begun to billow from from the orchestra pit as an inferno slowly grew to blazing. A knife glinted in Lady Sabela's hand as she produced it and slashed at Lady Inbidia with a violent determination, and shouted for Yves to run. And Yves just stared at his brother's prone form and, very slowly, lowered himself to his knees.

"Brother," Yves was saying, very softly, almost under his breath, the merest whisper even as Azeria's hands found his hair and his collar and the bare skin of his throat and pulled him away from the corpse with the desperation of duty and the despair of grief.

"Matya." And Azeria could not say if it was she or Yves who pleaded the prince's name. "Matya." There was blood on his lips, staining the starched white of his shirt, falling from his face like accumulated tears. "Matya."

The prince could reply nothing, because he was already dead.

Yves' voice was the fragmented spectre of anguish. "Prosti menya."

Forgive me.

Welcome to my SYOC! I hope you liked this little preview of what is to come.

Here's the elevator pitch: The kingdom of Illea has been at war for as long as anyone alive can remember. When Matthias, heir to the throne, is murdered by his very own brother, assisted by a member of the Selection, the heavy burden of the crown falls to the youngest brother, Silas, who has never been prepared for the duty. A brewing conspiracy casts a shadow across the entire Selection as the manhunt continues for his brother, and Silas must decide who he trusts, who loves - and whether the two might not be the same.

You can find the rules and form on my profile. Please, please send me a review to tell me what you think so far!