Chapter 22: Madman's Gambit - Part 12

"My lord."

I flipped forward in my father's journal, not bothering to look up and greet the priest. If his southern accent wasn't enough of a giveaway, the presumptuous way he entered the room without knocking would have been.

"I ordered a supper of cabbage soup and bread, sire. I figured you wouldn't wish to waste fresh game on him – nor any cured meats, for that matter."

"You figured correctly," I murmured, scanning the page regarding Angeli's death. It was written in a convoluted amalgam of Krovic and Dreyfnijic characters, either indicating a moment of lunacy or an entry of which he intended to keep in shrouded mystery to outsiders. But why just Angeli?

"Is that your father's journal?"

As the priest moved closer to the desk, Rostya's ears pricked up, along with his nose, his nostrils flaring.

"Ah... hold him back, will you?"

I smirked, finally lifting my gaze to the alchemist as he rummaged into the rucksack hanging over his left shoulder.

"Have you a gift for him, then?"

"I'm not jesting, Nikolai," Vitale said, his golden eyes flicking to me, hand poised in the rucksack. Whatever was in it, he had a firm grasp on, but if it truly was a gift for Rostya, it was likely coated in the metallic smell of fresh blood.

"Come, now, Vitale," I grinned at him. "As long as the scent of your fear does not overpower the scent of his snack, you should be fine."

The priest narrowed his eyes at me, glaring with exquisite style and poise.

I stood then, triggering my tiger to do the same. Not anticipating the action - from me nor Rostya - Vitale flinched.

"My father instructed many things." I lifted the leather journal, waving it a bit for effect, before rounding the desk and strolling forward. "How's your Old Krovic, Vitale? Let's put it to the test. He says about you, 'Tai-zumudry Vitale Sicarius einoni'."

The man huffed and shifted his feet - his show of irritation.

"Your father didn't call me a half-wit, Nikolai."

I studied the man for a moment. It was true - my father knew Vitale to be a shrewd individual. But that wasn't necessarily a fact that would harbor him from my wrath.

"No," I agreed eventually, with a sigh. "But he did say this - 'Nwinjek Vitale skloshatoni, ubačje chorzheje." I studied the priest, his stony expression. "Wouldn't you have rather had him call you a half-wit?"

"He would only kill me if I got in his way," Vitale answered, making it apparent he knew the translation of the old language. "And yet I stand here with lungs full of breath - thus, I did not get in his way."

I hummed, closing the journal and tossing it back onto the desk.

"Not yet, no."

Striding over to the man, I snatched his wrist and forced his hand out of the rucksack, revealing the wrapped meat.

"Rostya, ovdeite."

Tigers tended to resent those who tried to command them, but to him, 'ovdeite' was not an order to come, rather, a pleasant indication of food, and thus, his response was immediate.

"What has Lada provided you today, Rostya?" I purred to him, taking the bloody package from the priest, and unwrapping it. "Ah, boar tongue - she spoils you."

The sight of the meat elicited from deep in his throat a whoof of air, his tail flicking in anticipation.

It was once a terrifying thing to hand feed Rostya, but that was when both he and I were quite young and quite immature. Now, I knew if ever he were to harm me, it would be entirely beyond his control, and what sort of fool feared something that could not be controlled?

"That damned emperor has coached the pest to be patient with me," I said as I dropped the cold tongue - sticky with drying blood - into Rostya's open maw.

"I'm sure you mean Rens," Vitale replied, regarding Rostya with caution, giving him wide berth as he circumvented him to get to the leather chair beside the east wall, lined from ceiling to carpet with shelves.

"Who else? I gave him plenty of chances to strike me down – especially with that world renowned temper of his." I sighed. "This was not a long-planned campaign. My father's death was sudden and premature. By the time I would've naturally ascended to the throne, the emperor would've been in the catacombs and his subpar grandson would've been crowned. Perhaps killed by that other subpar grandson just for the opportunity to rule."

Or, perhaps that was the plan all along - figure out how to get Rens out of the way so Ciro, who possessed more of the wretched qualities necessary for Casterian monarchs than his elder brother, could sit upon the imperial throne. My father's death was simply an opportunity that the old bag of bones jumped on like a cheap whore.

"He threw something together last minute, figuring if he didn't do it, someone else would." I crossed for the desk once again and sat down. "In all reality, quashing the pathetic coup - if I can even deign to call it as such - would be as simple as setting Rostya on him like the rotting piece of flesh he is. But, as always, there is one thing that is keeping me from that gloriously simplistic solution. It is the same thing that has, time and again, gotten in my way."

I looked over to the priest, sitting back in my father's armchair.

"It is a tedious thing that I am beginning to lose patience with. Something that... well, I dare to say, has grown a sudden and forthcoming expiration."

Vitale shifted in his seat, lacing his fingers together.

"My lord-"

"If the next words that spill from that prevarication prone mouth, Vitale, are not valid reasons for the painfully gracious clemency I have provided that putrid pest in my Room of Bears," I interjected with the stern composure that I had learned well from my father. "Then the next tongue I will feed to Rostya will be yours."

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