Elisavet stood atop an opulent marble staircase watching hundreds of royal guests dance across the same deep black crystalline stone below. Women of every color and shape moved gracefully, gowns a blur of satin and swirls. Gentlemen clad in bespoke tuxedos and social influence joined in rhythmic pursuit, spurred on by a lively orchestra. The music called to Elisavet too, but she waited to be announced by the liveried herald. The aged man’s large, brass stave struck the floor thrice, his voice issuing throughout the hall, “Lady Elisavet of House Amsel!”
Days ago, a raven drone had arrived on clockwork wings to deliver a summons to the royal holiday gala. For as long as history could remember, every member of her family had been called to such an affair, never to return. She had thought her ancestral hardship ended when her father died; year after year the event passed and no summons appeared. Elisavet had been wrong, however; her time had come.
Despite her fear, Elisavet could neither refuse her ruler nor abandon her familial obligation. She gathered up her courage and the crown prince’s writ of forgiveness. She prayed the combination would grant reprieve.
Elisavet’s name permeated the dense, judgemental atmosphere, where it met with titters and gasps. It had been twelve years since an Amsel had been called to service. The king’s son, Prince Aeasus, was especially shocked at the announcement of a woman he had arranged never to see.
The Amsel were a noble clan bound to an ancient promise in payment for an even older sin. They had shown cowardice in the face of the crown’s enemies and were now generationally doomed to serve the royal palace as mechanistic raven messengers. Elisavet thought the curse was ended when her father saved Aeasus from assassination. In gratitude, the prince had agreed to allow Gorath Amsel to be the last avian automaton. Elisavet, Gorath’s only daughter, would be spared.
Perplexed displeasure painted the prince’s face as his ambitious sister slithered up alongside him, drumming her spindly fingers against his arm.
“Beautiful, is she not?” Aealyth avoided her brother’s gaze as a low growl slipped from his lips.
“She should not be here.”
“She must have been summoned,” she shrugged. “A shame; she’s the last. But you know the law… all Amsel are fated.”
Elisavet gracefully descended the grand stairs despite threat looming in the shadow of every guest. With each step, the air and exclusion grew thicker. When Elisavet reached the bottom, the princess barely concealed her amusement. Glass sole touching stone set Aealyth’s waiting spell rippling malevolently across the obsidian floor.
“Go to her,” she taunted her brother. “Tender your condolences.”
Snarling, Aeasus leapt from the dais towards the woman he had protected. Just as he stepped out, however, attendees obstructed his path. Taking the throne to watch, Aealyth donned a sinister smile. It would be glorious to see her sibling tormented, his promise broken.
Pushing through the crowd, Aeasus made to meet the last Amsel, but found himself frustrated on the opposite side of the room. Again he aimed his steps, but was confounded in his journey. He had to reach her before the appointed hour; before the bells tolled her fate. Each sojourn failed however; he could find no path through his guests that led to her.
For Elisavet, the world slowed. Attendees languidly moved out of her way, gazes drifting to the floor rather than acknowledge her. She caught sight of the prince, but could not make him see her. Each time she tried, someone moved between them or he looked the other way. Had he changed his mind?
The first of three bells rang. With a wave of Aealyth’s hand, the spell was lifted. The Prince and Elisavet stood face to face, as if they had always been so. The princess had timed this perfectly. Her brother’s promise would be broken, his honor put to ruin, and the last scrap of a craven bloodline would disappear into cold metal workings. Fait accomplis; the throne would be hers.
The second bell came, and with it the prince’s realization his sister had worked her dread arts. He turned to seek Aealyth’s gaze while Elisavet glared at him in disbelief. The wicked princess raised her glass to toast the foiled pair, a vulpine smile revealing viciously clenched teeth.
“What have you done!?”
“I have lived long enough to see you fall,” Aealyth gritted out. “From grace, when you made to excuse the treachery of the Amsel filth and now from honor, as you betray your word to her.”
Elisavet looked between them anxiously, clutching the now-worthless pages of her pardon. “But my father trusted you! He saved your life! You gave your word!”
Aeasus tore his furious gaze from the dais to look softly at Elisavet. “No, I…”
The third bell rang, and Aealyth clapped gleefully. “Time is up. Law is law.”
An eldritch light began to coalesce around the last Amsel, eliciting a different kind of gasp from the recoiling crowd. Elisavet’s fate was at hand. Metal pinfeathers brutally emerged from her skin, causing her to cry out. “Bastard!”
Disoriented by the miasma of sound and light, the prince did not see her newfound talons take aim until it was too late. “As you take back your word, I take back your life,” Elisavet heaved, slashing her metallic claws through the soft of his throat. By the time Aeasus raised his hand to his ruined neck, his legs had already betrayed him to the ground. The ruby heat gushed out between his fingers as Elisavet’s corax form was finalized.
It was over quickly. As the rays of light dissipated, the horrified guests watched the latest and last of the Amsel ravens wade through cooling royal blood.
The new crown princess stood, an imperious sweep of her arm directing attention to the bloody scene. “It is done. The treason of the wretched Amsels is proven and punished, once and for all – and the throne is mine.”