By Nona Myuso

The toilets in the Grand Palace of Excryvin were oddly elegant in their design. A fire agate enchanted with runes around the edge and mounted into the wall next to the door illuminated the toilet’s almost flower like armrests. They curved around the front in a fashion similar to the petals of Lestran Irises. Slava found this specific feature especially helpful in supporting themself as they dry heaved into the toilet bowl. In a stray thought they even considered that this was some approximation of the designer’s original intent.

Convenient.

That was uncharacteristic of them.

Distractions weren’t allowed.

Jokes weren’t allowed.

Stepan had emphasized that to Slava with painfully clear severity; their childhood a minefield of abstract rules and harsh personal expectations with little yield. They were to do as they were told and pay complete attention. That is how Stepan had raised them to be; agreeable and compliant. Anything less was considered by Stepan to be a personal insult as well as a catastrophic failure deserving of deep scorn. Stepan had also made it clear that Slava was granted a magnificent opportunity by the Pavlov Family and the state, and that any misbehavior or distraction was paramount to spitting in the face of their fellow countrymen.

The regiments, expectations, derision, and barely concealed, constantly simmering contempt had felt like great coils being wrapped around Slava’s entire being and pulled tight. They could feel every compelled action; every forced nicety. They could feel the grand motions in place that turned them like an obedient cog. An obedient cog that had, in an instant, snapped out of place and done untold amounts of damage to some greater machination.

Another retch yanked itself up through Slava’s throat. They were now at the point where the gagging did less to relieve their stomach of its contents and more to injure them with each lurch.

Eventually Slava felt their stomach settle. They closed their eyes and rested their forehead on the edge of the toilet.

General Pavlov, the man who had overseen their entire personal and academic life, was gone. The implications of that pulled at the edges of their sanity. They wanted to take it back. They hadn’t wanted him dead, not really. They just wanted him to stop screaming at them. To stop insulting them. Slava had only wanted almost seventeen miserable years of terror and hatred and gods damn screaming to end.

Slava felt something deep and dark stir inside them. Before it could take shape, their mind felt a gale force within it that swept their rising emotions somewhere beyond their reach. The sudden clarity almost startled them. Slava had just killed someone. Someone very powerful. The last thing they should have been able to feel was calm.

Slava took a deep breath and a plan began to form in their mind. The ideas felt alien to them. They were going to go back into the main bedroom, close Stepan’s mouth and eyes, and place the pillow where they had found it. They would then leave the room and say whatever they needed to in order to get past the guards without leaving them any reason to check on the general. Ideally they’d avoid any such encounters altogether but it was best to prepare for the worst. Their next objective would then be to equip themself to withstand the cold of a North Rhetz winter and leave the city. The key to that would be doing so quietly and quickly enough that Slava was long gone by the time anyone realized Stepan was dead. It was late enough that they had at least nine hours before the sun would rise; twelve hours until anyone would take notice of the general’s absence.

Slava really fucking hoped this plan would work. They wondered how they would manage to pull it off with guards patrolling each block of the guest floor of the main spyre. Not to mention any number of palace personnel between Slava’s current location and the servants’ quarters where they had been assigned to stay in a spare room. Fortunately that was near a stairwell leading to the dining hall and kitchen. Slava could stock up on some food to take with them and leave through the loading bay in the back.

With another deep breath Slava set about bringing their plans to fruition. The first step proved easier said than done. Slava had somewhat of a hard time stomaching the idea of touching a dead body. The fact that said body was dead because of them didn’t make it any easier. The thoughts were dismissed almost too quickly.

Another tide of nausea hit Slava. They had mustered up a strong enough constitution to make Stepan look as though he were merely sleeping and then stood hunched over the sink doing their best not to gag. Once finished they took a moment to regain some semblance of their composure. As Slava raised their head to the mirror above the sink they felt a very different kind of anxiety.

It felt uncomfortable and disgusting. The way Slava’s face was becoming more angular, their shoulders growing slowly broader, the stubble that had begun to form above their lip and at the corners of their jaw, the short haircut and black hair dye Stepan insisted on- it all made them sick to look at. On anybody else Slava would have had no problem admitting that these traits were acceptable; attractive even. Seeing them manifest on their own visage however felt like swallowing chilled goblin bile. It wasn’t them.

We don’t have time for this.

The thought cut through Slava’s rising despair like a current through stagnant water. It was time to act. Time to put on a brave face and pretend like everything was okay.

Slava set about tidying themself up. They straightened their hair as much as possible with a crew cut, and fixed the wrinkles in their uniform. It was standard dress for servants of the Pavlov family. The hems were straight and simple; nothing wasted on pageantry or flair. It was a testament to the Pavlov family’s austerity, using dark grey and black with blue accents to compliment the Pavlovs’ regalia.

Slava’s attention moved to their ascot; the one flourish allowed to them. It was white with intricate floral fractals embroidered on it in cobalt blue. The only reason they hadn’t been punished for wearing it was because blue was the penultimate color on the Pavlov family crest. They couldn’t remember where they had gotten the ascot, but Stepan had gone so far as to ask Slava to wear it during dinner earlier that night; something about being an especially well trained assistant and showing it. They might have been surprised at the apparent compliment if it hadn’t been followed immediately by a comment about how it would draw attention away from their weight. Stepan thought the remark was funny. It made Slava’s blood boil.

Had that been the tipping point?

Slava considered the prospect. Having their appearance criticized didn’t exactly make them feel less murderous, but it was a drop in the ocean really. They then considered leaving the ascot behind, but something about it begged them not to. Rather than indignation they almost felt a camaraderie towards it, as if the ascot also wanted to escape. Slava wasn’t sure about what Stepan had said, but they felt it made their features seem less severe. They gingerly ran their fingers over it. It was soft, even comforting.

I’ll keep it.

Slava deactivated the fire agate by turning a separated outer portion clockwise, and checked to make sure they left everything as they had found it. They then checked to make sure General Pavlov still looked asleep rather than the reality. Slava adjusted their ascot nervously, swallowed the growing lump in their throat, and turned towards the door.

Time to go.

Slava grasped the doorknob and braced themself.

–

By Nona Myuso

There was a unique kind of stillness in that moment. The ornate wooden clock that hung over the bed ticked onward, almost as if the steady sound were some chronicle of what was happening. What had happened. The curtains shuffled almost surreptitiously within invisible whispers of air. Slava’s blood rushed mercilessly against their eardrums, forcing breath after ragged breath from their lungs and squeezing the dim moonlight from the corners of their eyes. The motions of that night were all present and yet, despite all evidence to the contrary, Stepan’s bedroom was entirely still. The old man lay still in his bed. Slava’s fists were planted on either side of his head with white knuckles and a pillow clenched firmly in their palms. Slava felt as though they had just shattered the world in their hands. Now they had been left with what remained. A blank expanse of terrifying possibility. That expanse seemed to surge into Slava’s mind, purging them of all coherent thought. All they had in that impossibly still moment were impulses; vague impressions of the intent behind what may have under any other circumstances evolved into some semblance of an idea. To even ask themself what they had just done would have been beyond their comprehension. The moment stretched on; washed itself, and every moment since in agonizing uncertainty.

Breathe.

Slava took a shuddering breath as the thought finally occurred to them. At some point within the last few seconds they had begun holding their breath. It was almost as if the very air around Slava were about to punish them for what they had done.

What have I done?

This thought was like ice; like fire. It froze down through the pit of their stomach and set their mind ablaze. It was a sobering shock to their scattered senses. Like a broken vase snapping back together. Slava gingerly lifted the pillow from Stepan’s face. In their mind he sat up. He moved. He started yelling; screaming, attacking, coughing. In Slava’s returning imagination General Stepan Dimitri Pavlov was anything but-

Dead.

His eyes stared blankly at the canopy of the bed. His mouth was open; frozen in an expression of the purest desperation that can befall any living creature. One of the seven most powerful people in North Rhetzvit, possibly in all of Ymenor, had died struggling for air at the hands of a teenager.