Noble Charms

Prologue From the Mouth of Babes

NOBLE

The loud weeping that echoed through the Great Hall rubbed against Noble’s nerves like a knit sweater fastened too tightly around his neck.

One woman’s bellows paused, and he took a breath in relief.

Relief that was interrupted when she blew her nose into a handkerchief as loud as a horn.

He shot a look over his shoulder and saw her—wet-faced, white-haired, being comforted with many solemn members of the congregation. Countess… Something.

“You’re staring,” said Noble’s father, quietly, out the side of his mouth.

Noble huffed and flopped back into his seat properly.

“She’s making a ruckus,” said Noble, keeping his voice down, crossing his little arms over his chest. “It’s like she wants people to look.

” He was only age six, but he had more manners than her at age, what—twenty? She was terribly old and terribly rude.

His dad blew out a quiet chuckle and placed a hand atop Noble’s fluffy brown curls. “She’s in mourning.”

Noble peered up at Dad, at his pale freckled face and round spectacles perched on the arch of his nose. “She didn’t even know him.”

“Everyone knew him. He was our king.”

“Yeah, but he was my grandfather. I’m not crying loud enough to stop the elf priest.”

At the front of the hall, the priest in question bowed solemnly, waiting for the many rows of quiet chatter—and the crying—to settle again. He’d been in the midst of reading the final rites given to mortals from his god: Rosint, the elven God of Death.

The priest’s long black hair swept over the shoulders of his tunic—a special dress with glowing stitches on the hem. Like all elves, he had magic, and he filled the air with light as he spoke, and Noble would have been content to watch him all day.

Well, maybe not all day. He spared a glance out the nearest sunny window, and saw birds twittering about, and butterflies dancing on a breeze, and hoped he’d get a chance to roll down the big hill before the day was done.

They didn’t come to King’s Castle that often. That hill was his favorite part.

His father’s fingers drummed along the top of his head, pulling his attention back to the matter at hand.

The King’s funeral.

The elf priest continued now that the blubbering settled.

Noble could still hear the countess boohooing behind him, but at least it had been muffled.

After a moment or two, when Noble’s dad still had not yet removed his hand, Noble looked over to him again.

He was being obedient and didn’t need to be held onto like a pup on a leash.

Noble’s shock hit him deeply, somewhere between his heart and his soul, when he realized his dad was crying. Silently, but unmistakably, with tears trailing down his face and into his short, dark beard.

Why was Dad crying? Noble was big for his age, but his father was still much larger, and it took all ten of Noble’s fingers to properly wrap around his hand, pulling it off his head and into his lap instead. He squeezed. “Dad?”

His dad wouldn’t look at him. He instead whispered, “It’s okay.”

The elf priest raised his voice, words like a song. “And now, we say, to the Great Eighth Son Child of the Sun God: hasitan.”

All those in attendance chorused back, “Hasitan.”

Noble scrambled to say, “Hasitan,” at the tail end of everyone else. The elven word for goodbye.

A band of musicians began to play slow, gentle tunes. Some people milled about, rising from the long wooden pews that made up the Great Hall. Quiet chit-chat filled any spaces that music did not. None approached the front pew where Noble and his father sat, giving him distance with which to mourn.

Noble sat with Dad for some time, holding his hand. After the song ended, and the performers began to pack up, Noble said, “Don’t be sad. The elf priest said it. Grandfather is with Rosint now. You can speak with him whenever you like, can’t you?”

His dad exhaled and pulled his hand away to fish out a handkerchief and wipe his face. “It’s not that simple, Yves.”

Noble’s confusion nearly made him ask why, but he didn’t want to make his father any more upset than he already was.

His dad tucked away the hankie and then shifted on the seat to face Noble. “None have heard from the gods in seven years.”

Noble squinted.

His dad continued, “We used to speak to them. All the time. They would leave their plane and come to ours. I met Sumas once before, when I was a young man. He came to a family dinner and met all of us Agoldes and St. Clairs.”

Noble said, slowly, recounting his lessons at home, “I thought, when we spoke to the gods, we did so in here.” He pointed at his chest, at his heart. That’s what he had been taught.

“We do. And that’s good. You should do that. But I used to do that at your age, and sometimes, I’d hear a reply back. We all would. Us mortal folk.”

Noble’s initial thought was how he wouldn’t like for the gods to suddenly appear in his mind. His second thought was, “Why don’t they talk to us now?”

“We don’t know.”

Noble stood off the pew. His heart raced as his mind caught up with all he knew, and all he learned just now, and he said, “Are we not going to be able to talk to Grandfather? We won’t be able to speak with him ever?”

“I don’t know.” His dad’s eyes still brimmed with tears, but he offered a smile nonetheless. He stood and pulled Noble close. “No one really knows.”

A sudden, overwhelming flood drowned Noble in fear. “But I didn’t say goodbye to him. I was going to tell him about—” and he struggled to speak. Instead, a sob broke from him, louder than the countess at her peak. “I was going to tell him about the sword I liked. And the falling star I saw, and—"

If the gods were silent, and Rosint was no longer a deliverer of messages to the dead, Noble wouldn’t be able to say all the things he wanted to say. All at once, he understood: death meant his grandfather was gone. Forever. His heart broke and he wailed.

Dad crouched down and pulled Noble into a hug, but it did little to soften his cries. Noble wept loudly, openly, into his father’s nice dress shirt, against the thick red fabric of his jacket. His dad picked him up, eventually, and said, “Shh.”

Noble’s mom, having been coordinating the funeral from the wings, came springing over. “What did you do?”

Noble’s dad chuckled, and that rumble against Noble’s chest soothed the heartache. “I just answered some questions, that’s all.”

“He’s making a scene, Emeric.”

His dad soothed a hand down his back. “What would you have me do?”

Noble’s Aunt Prittey manifested before them. She pulled her black veil over her head, revealing her familiar, angular face, and her cheeks were dry of any tears. Noble sniffled and hiccupped and squeezed more tightly to his father, suspicious of her approach.

She said, “I’ll take him to the library. We can meet you at supper after. How about that?”

“No!” Noble cried.

His mother gasped, her face pale with horror. “Yves St. Clair, you lower your tone right now.”

Noble knew there was nothing he could do against his mother’s word. He shrank back from her and his father chuckled again. Like before, it soothed him—and his panic ebbed away.

“Here. Go with Prittey. You love your Aunt Prittey, don’t you? You said she has the best house in the whole entire family, remember?” said his father.

Noble sniffled and bit back another scream of no, because he knew his mother would scold him again. Instead, he went into Prittey’s arms, and found himself whisked quickly away.

Prittey, like all the royal family, had Sun God strength, and carried Noble easily through one of the back doors, down a corridor, and into a library, as discussed.

Prittey placed Noble upon one enormous leather ottoman and crouched down. She grinned, teeth bright and white. Her big brown eyes looked like Noble’s dad’s. Her smile did, too. She stroked some hair from his face and said, “You’re okay, Yvie. You feeling any better?”

Noble sniffed. Wiped his face with a sleeve. Shook his head no.

“Don’t let your mom catch you getting snot and tears all over that nice wool. Here.” Prittey pulled out a clean handkerchief and gave it to Noble to use.

Noble had too many thoughts, and his stomach hurt, and his heart hurt, and the first thing to escape his mouth was, “Are the gods dead?”

Prittey laughed at him, and when Noble started to cry anew, she said, “No, no. Sorry, sweetheart. It’s okay. I don’t think they’re dead. They’re just silent. They’re somewhere else. Doing something else.”

“Sometimes—” Noble swallowed, catching his breath, and wiped at his face again. “Dad said sometimes they visit us. Sometimes they come to the castle, even. Maybe they’re here?”

“Yeah, mayb—"

The door to the library opened, and the elf priest, Rosint’s priest, stepped inside, carrying a pile of books. He made it only two steps before his eyes fell on Noble and Prittey, and he gasped. “Elys above. I apologize. I didn’t realize someone would be in here. Please forgive me, Princess.”

“Please—I’m hardly a princess these days, am I?”

Noble tilted his head in confusion, because Prittey wasn’t ever called Princess Prittey. But then he wondered, “If my dad is a prince, then you are a princess. But no one calls you that.”

Prittey booped Noble’s nose with one finger. “Smart little boy.”

“Not little,” Noble mumbled, sniffing as his tears dried.

“I’m a princess technically. But Our King, in all his infinite wisdom, stripped me of my title long ago.”

“Why?”

Prittey met eyes with the priest, who stood stiff as a board nearby, squeezing books to his chest. Prittey exhaled a sad sigh and said, “I’m different from my siblings. Your dad did everything right—found your mom, and fell in love, and got married. I didn’t do that.”

Noble asked, “Why?”

Prittey laughed. “It’s a long story.”

“I’ll leave you—” the priest began to say, but Prittey waved at him.

“No, no, it’s quite fine. Please, carry on.” She swept a hand out, inviting him farther inside the library. He bowed again before continuing forward.

Noble watched the priest carefully, thoughtfully.

He hadn’t seen an elf this closely outside of the adame that lived in his mother’s court.

His skin was as pale as moonlight, and his face was delicate like a doll’s.

And he was a priest of Rosint. The question came to him unbidden. “Does Rosint talk to you?” asked Noble.

“Yves St. Clair, you shouldn’t ask such bold questions of strangers,” said Prittey before she whispered, “So sorry,” in the priest’s direction.

The priest smiled kindly and pivoted from his course to approach Noble instead. “I don’t mind, Pri…ttey.” He placed the stack of books beside Noble on the ottoman and said, “I’ve not heard from Rosint in quite some time.”

“Seven years?”

Rosint’s priest nodded. “You must be good at history, huh?”

It was his favorite subject. But he had more pressing matters to speak of. Noble’s eyes watered again. “I want to talk to my grandfather. Isn’t Rosint the only one that can help me?”

“Fret not, little one. Just because you do not receive a reply does not mean your messages are not sent. You may speak to King Agolde whenever you wish. Rosint is a dutiful caretaker to the dead. He will pass on your thoughts.”

A knot loosened from behind Noble’s ribs.

“What about Sumas?” He turned his gaze to Prittey.

“What about our god?” Sumas, the Sun God.

He was Noble’s nine-times great-grandfather—and blessed Noble’s family.

Even at his young age, Noble carried some of Sumas’s gifts.

He was always warm. Like Prittey, he was god-strong.

The elf priest answered instead. “Sumas is as dutiful as Rosint. You know, I’ve great respect for the Sun God. He and the Elven God of Love were some of the most powerful collaborators in all the pantheon.”

“Elys,” said Noble. “He’s the God of Love.”

“That’s right. I’ve no doubt he can hear us now, whenever we call out to him. Same with Sumas. Rosint. Even the orc gods.”

Noble’s heart pulsed with hope. “They aren’t dead, then.”

“No. The gods cannot die. It’s what makes them gods,” said the priest, his tone matter-of-fact.

Noble again had a great many thoughts, but the first to escape came with a sniffle of relief. “Maybe Sumas and Elys are together wherever they are.”

“They may be. They were deep friends. It’s through their kinship that my people and your people have ended our wars, and collaborate in peaceful times like these.”

“Do you think they were in love?”

Prittey giggled, the warm brown color of her cheeks turning deep red. The priest fell silent and blinked like an owl. He answered, tone mild, “I am certain they carried some love for one another. What manner of love, I could not say.”

Prittey placed a hand on the top of Noble’s head, ruffling his curls, and said, “Sorry. His father mentioned earlier today—he’s learning about courtship and marriage in his etiquette class right now. He’s simply full of questions.”

“As the youth tend to be,” said the priest, lowering his head. “I’m going to go shelve these books now. If you’ll excuse me.”

“Thank you,” said Prittey. And then she nudged Noble’s knee with her own.

Noble chirped out, “Thank you!"

The priest bowed before walking away, deeper into the many towers that filled the room. It seemed as deep as a forest, and was twice as brown. Wood floors, wood shelves. Even most of the books were wrapped in tan leather coverings.

Prittey took up the handkerchief and folded it neatly. “See? Everything’s alright. You want to go get a snack? I bet the kitchen’s just bursting with food for everyone right now. If we ask nicely, they may share.”

Noble nodded and slid off the ottoman. He took hold of Prittey’s hand and asked, “You met Sumas once, didn’t you?”

She led the way out the library doors. “I did, along with my brothers. Your dad told you, huh?”

“Was Elys there?”

She laughed again. “Yeah, actually. He was.”

Noble nodded. “If they’re here, instead of in their own home, I hope they’re together. They should be.”

“Well, if they were in love, I hope so too.”

Noble nodded, more confident now. “They were in love. I just know it.”

Noble and Aunt Prittey carried on down the hall, toward the scent of fresh rolls, cooked onion, and candied fruit.