All was still.
“Never in my life have I laid my eyes upon a treasure even half so beautiful as you, and never shall I know a greater happiness than that of claiming you as mine. I cannot dream of another, nor will I try, for they could only pale in comparison to such divine radiance as yours. So marry me, dear treasure. Marry me, so I may bask in that radiance for as long as we both shall remain on this earth and feel its warmth on my skin for centuries after we’ve gone.”
The music, the dancing, the flickering flames and the flowing of fine fabrics—everything froze in place, and everything that once had shined, from the crystal chandeliers to brooch pins and gilt threads, suddenly went dull. All eyes shifted at once to the two figures standing in the center of the ballroom floor, who seemed to beam with all the shimmer and sparkle that had been sapped from everything else precious in the room.
Only the one didn’t beam—quite the opposite, in fact. His eyes were wide, but not with wonder; his lips were parted, but not with delight. Like all else in the room, he was perfectly still—deathly so, for while the one before him seemed to blaze with a vivacious, romantic light, never in his life had he felt a cold so vicious as the one that came over him. That cold seemed to have the entire room gripped in its wintrous teeth, plunging all onlooking eyes and mouths into inky black pits as their faces and clothes grew increasingly paler.
As the color drained from the shrinking world around him, the sapphire eyes before him only grew bigger, and brighter, until he saw nothing but blue and felt nothing but frost—and fear. He tried to flee, but he had no legs. He tried to fight, but he had no arms. He tried to scream, but he had no mouth. But his eyes were still there, their vision now enveloped completely in that terrible, icy blue—so he closed them, pinched them tight, and in moments found himself staring at a jade-colored canopy.
His other faculties returned shortly after, and Auriel shot upright just as Mithril opened the door to his bedroom. She jumped when she saw him, red-faced and heavy-breathed with wide, wild eyes.
Timidly, she approached.
“P-Prince Auriel?” Mithril asked, extending a shaky hand. “Are you all—?”
The moment her fingers touched his exposed shoulder, Auriel gripped her wrist, and she gasped. He held it there for a time, his expression largely unchanged while Mithril’s grew more and more distressed with each passing second. But as the warmth of the morning sun tingled upon his skin, the tension in his body slackened, and he breathed a heavy, cathartic sigh.
“I’m sorry,” said Auriel, his eyes falling to his lap. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, I just…wanted to be sure you were real, that’s all.”
“There’s no need to apologize, my prince,” Mithril replied, though she drew back her hand sharply as soon as Auriel released it. “You had a nightmare, I take it?”
Heavily, he nodded. “Yes. A bad one. So whatever amount of herbs and oils you normally put in the bath, double it. Divines know I’ll need them to get me through the day.”
He could tell that Mithril wanted to ask more, but instead she simply affirmed his request and led him to the bath. The increase in additives made the water significantly darker than normal, but it left Auriel feeling significantly lighter. His wild eyes had softened; his pounding heart had slowed; his muscles had relaxed so much that not even a concerted effort would make them tense—this last bit proved rather troublesome, as it left him unable to stand properly on his own. Instead, Mithril had to support him on her shoulders and heave him up to sit at the tub’s edge, a position which allowed her to carefully guide his legs out from the water and onto the floor.
He remained seated there for a few moments, his now-bleary eyes listlessly lingering on an unassuming piece of tile as his body tried to remember where it was and how it functioned. As he sat there, Mithril set about drying his hair, the gentle jostling of which aided his mind in righting his body. Gradually, his vision focused, and the vibrant blush beaming across his cheeks grew cooler. Mithril offered him a hand, and he accepted, but this time he used his own legs to stand, and to walk, both to his dressing room and to the dining room.
There were several dining spaces in the palace, each of which had dedicated and oftentimes singular purposes, whether specific times of day, specific occasions, and even specific types of meals. This one, the so-called “Small Pearl,” named for its pale, pearlescent walls, was used only for morning meals shared with invited guests of royal status. If no such royal guests were present, father and son ate together in the “Small Peridot,” which was adjacent to Seyfrus’s chambers. Auriel was not permitted to eat alone, for Seyfrus believed that his status—and beauty—made him a target for “undesirable parties,” who may want to “affect him with illicit substances.”
Auriel doubted there would be any illicit substances present this morning, but as he approached the door, he found himself increasingly affected by the undesirable party that lay within. But when the guards on either side of the door allowed him entrance, he saw that the oblong table, which could seat four comfortably and six intimately, had only been set for two.
“Good morning, my son,” said Seyfrus. Beside him was a servant holding a tray of various fruits, very little of which Seyfrus transferred onto the plate before him.
“Good morning, Father,” Auriel replied. Another servant closed the door behind him and pulled out the chair across from Seyfrus. “Is Celethir not joining us this morning?”
Seyfrus stilled his hands and cast a flat gaze Auriel’s way. “The High Prince will not be joining us this morning, no. He is still tired from last night and prefers to take his meal in bed.”
“How wonderful that sounds,” muttered Auriel as he sat down. “I’m surprised you haven’t moved us to your chambers.”
“Well, I’d only just received word a few moments before you arrived, and I didn’t want to make you walk all the way back there after walking all the way down here. If the High Prince is still exhausted from last night, I know you must be as well.”
“It was certainly exhausting,” Auriel affirmed, though he did find himself somewhat invigorated by Celethir’s absence.
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Seyfrus set the serving utensils back on the tray and waved the servant away. As the servant moved to Auriel’s side, the other one came to Seyfrus, bearing a tray of sliced bread and small sweets. Auriel looked to Seyfrus’s plate before filling his own: His father had taken a handful of grapes, another handful of mixed berries, and about half of an apple cut into slices so thin that one could almost see through them. Though he knew these fruits were nothing short of ambrosial, he took less of everything than his father had, leaving only a quarter of his plate occupied.
“I’ve also had word from Taurien,” Seyfrus said, shooing away the second servant when he finished his selection. He’d taken three slices of oat-crusted bread—each slice no more than two bites large—along with two ramekins of mixed candied nuts.
“Has she run into more trouble?” Auriel asked as he made his own selections.
“The opposite, actually,” replied Seyfrus with a good tone. His voice belied his expression, however, for his eyes narrowed as Auriel began to move a second ramekin of nuts onto his plate. These nuts had always been one of Auriel’s favorites, and he was sure that he could eat ten ramekins’ worth and still go back for more. Of course, he would never have the opportunity to test this theory. That would be overindulgent, and overindulgence of any kind was considered immoral. Auriel’s lithe, slender body was a testament to a poised restraint that came from a lifetime of practice—but even after all those years of practice, he still hadn’t found a way to keep his mouth from yearning for more. Still, in the end, denial always won, and after returning the second dish to the serving tray, he dismissed the servant.
His face relaxed, Seyfrus continued, “It seems the storms that delayed her return from the south have abated much earlier than expected. She should arrive two mornings from now—or perhaps even tomorrow night, should the Divines favor her. Either way, the initial fitting for your wedding attire will be moved up a week, which means the High Prince will be able to attend.”
Auriel’s eye twitched as he reached for a berry. “Oh…how wonderful…”
“You don’t sound very excited.”
A chance for Celethir to play dress-up with his precious doll with an overenthusiastic royal dressmaker to supervise? How could he not be excited!
“Oh, I am,” Auriel said with the faintest hint of a smile. “It’s just…well…I’d spent so much time anticipating Cele—the High Prince’s arrival that the fitting had completely slipped my mind, so it was, um…unexpected to recall.”
Seyfrus’s eyes fell flat. “Auriel.”
It only took moments for Auriel’s lips to drop, and not long after, his shoulders did the same. “It’s just…well…I received a visit last night. From a little bird—it’s visited me a couple of times, actually. And the more it does, the more I find that I…I…envy it.”
“And what do you envy about it, pray tell?”
“Its freedom. A bird has no duties, no engagements nor occupations—”
“It also has no home,” Seyfrus interrupted. “No place to go back to; no place to call its own; no place that’s safe from the perils of this world and the creatures that lay within it. They feed their children by the mouth, then throw them from the treetops to see if they’ll live, and if they do not, then they are forgotten just as quickly as they fell. I have not thrown you because I cannot bear the thought of watching you fall—nor could your mother, if she was still here. Freedom is never as free as it seems, Auriel. It is almost always paid in great suffering of some kind, and it is my duty as your father to ensure that you never experience that suffering—or any suffering, for that matter.”
“You say that as if I won’t be suffering in Sola Anlae,” Auriel grumbled.
“Auriel, that’s hardly—”
“They hate me, Father,” he snapped. “They hate me here, and they’ll hate me there. You saw the way his advisors looked at me down their noses—bulging and misshapen as they are—as if I were some common street whore whose very presence was enough to dirty them. They don’t want me, Father. The High Prince might, but he is alone in that desire.”
“Well, as much as those wretched two may seethe and scorn, the High Prince’s desire is the only one that matters,” Seyfrus replied. “But even so, while I do not agree with nor approve of their disdain for his decision, I do understand it. The Selection Season has been part of our culture for well over a millennium, and for the High Prince to call it off so abruptly when the marriage candidates had already been chosen…it was bound to cause disgruntlement. But of course, they cannot turn that disgruntlement on the High Prince, and so, unfortunately, it must be turned onto you. If only your meeting could have waited just a month longer, when the Season began properly..”
“But it didn’t, and now the entire Elvish Confederation thinks I’m an underhanded usurper.”
Seyfrus scoffed. “I’m sure not everyone thinks that way. No one could have predicted that the High Prince would attend the Geletran solstice ball instead of his own. His presence was completely unexpected, even by us.”
“Exactly. It was completely unexpected, which makes it look like it was planned. I had just been announced as the Geletran candidate, so for the High Prince to just so happen to waltz his way into our solstice ball, rather than the one in Sola Anlae, the kingdom in which he is the most important figure…it doesn’t take a very sharp mind to connect those two very large dots.”
“Except those dots aren’t meant to be connected,” Seyfrus said. “High Prince Celethir said he was drawn here by an “internal force” that he could not fight—a force which led him to you. That could only be described as the push of fate.”
“If it could only be described as such, then it would only be described as such. But it’s not, and it won’t be. To them, I’m nothing more than a thief who unjustly destroyed more than a thousand years of tradition and stole their precious prince away with deceit and trickery.”
“Then you must prove them wrong,” Seyfrus said firmly, though his face was not unfeeling. “You must show everyone—not just those in Sola Anlae, but everyone, in the entire Confederation—that you are beautiful, and kind, and charming, and virtuous. Because you are all of those things, Auriel, and anyone who cannot see that does not deserve to have eyes. Regardless of the circumstances that led to it, the High Prince did choose you. He does love you. And he will marry you. The sooner that everyone can accept that, the better—and that includes you.”
Aurirel wanted to say more—much more, in fact. He wanted to say that he didn’t want the marriage; that he didn’t want Celethir; that he’d planned to make himself absolutely repulsive in private if the Season had gone as planned. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. And even if he could, it wouldn’t have mattered. It never did. So instead he just took a spoonful of nuts into his mouth and seethed in silence—yet another lifelong practice that only grew more painful with each passing year.
