Chapter Four
After the ceremony ends, I am taken back to Grange Castle for what is my official presentation; where my honourable guests visit me in the oratory adjacent to the great hall, to wish me good fortune and express their gratitude for their newly initiated princess.
With the wax candles of various sizes resting on every visible surface, I can’t help but feel like I’m sat atop a shrine, a false saint ignited by the flickering glow of candlelight.
And I’m slightly disappointed that I didn’t get the privilege of providing the flames myself.
This new power that surges under my skin, feels so distant to the energy the Relic usually produces. Those small magics I grew up performing were more like drawing out and moulding the energy from the atmosphere, like reaching out and grasping with intention.
But this fresh presence of power whirs within my body, like it’s vibrating with impatience, eager to be unleashed.
It buzzes through my veins, hot and bursting with the concentrated energy of pure life.
This power is mixing itself into every cell in my body, and I’m beginning to worry it won’t cease this unification until I am one day made of fire itself.
I will have to battle it into submission if I ever want to have full control.
If I ever wish to use it to protect my kingdom from an Umbrian eclipse.
He is here.
He disappeared after my powers manifested, but the shadow of his presence in the castle feels like the endless dark of night clouding over the festivities.
I swear I can feel the breathy chill of his energy trail the length of my spine as I try and focus on polite conversation with those who’ve come to wish me well.
It’s eerie, and uncomfortable and… familiar.
Familiar in the same way that a reoccurring night terror is, only once you’re completely plunged into the absolute dark do you realise you have no power to claw your way out of it. You must endure the shadow – and whatever lurks within – until you slip back into the light of the wakeful world.
I shudder as I remember the feeling of his eyes on mine. Murky with the absence of life, his gaze sparked something not unlike that sensation of falling that occurs when you’re wedged between the conscious and unconscious realms.
It was brainless of me to disregard his letter as simply an intimidation tactic against me as the Reyheni heir, to trick us into believing he is capable of ripping through the powerful shields of the Divide.
Not when it now feels like a genuine promise to enter Reyhen and cause whatever damage he can whilst he’s here.
His words are burned into my vision. If you wish the Divide to remain intact.
Like he knows exactly how to destroy it. As though he possesses enough concentrated power to completely obliterate the only thing separating my people from the barbarians of Umbra. Like he can defy the gods.
The risk of an Umbrian attack just got a whole lot greater. And I have to sit here on a plush velvet bench like a prize idiot.
There are guards at the entrance, however, standing parallel to one another, their faces governed by the same severe expression that stiffens their brows and tightens the muscles in their jaws.
Their eyes scrutinise Lillienne as she passes over the threshold, stripping her bare in search of any potential threat.
She frowns at the guard to her left, gesturing back at him as she walks by.
‘Do they have to look so intimidating?’ She approaches the table of refreshments and light bites laid out for me at the opposite end of the room.
She snaps a handful grapes from their stems and pops one in her mouth.
‘I had one shadow me all the way to the toilet chambers as though the hasty nature in which I fled the parlour was the most suspicious act he’d ever witnessed. ’
‘They are trained to keep us safe,’ I say as she saunters down the aisle of pews and plops herself down on the row across from me, her dress puffing upwards with air.
‘I didn’t realise I would also be vetted profusely.
’ She deflates her shirts by throwing exasperated arms upon them, the action sending a grape flying from her grip.
It lands with a soft bounce and rolls the rest of the way to my feet.
She doesn’t even notice. I feel the tension of the royal facade and the lingering doom of the Umbrian king loosen in my muscles. Lillienne is here.
‘Well, they can never be too sure.’ I smile. ‘Maybe you have a devious look about you. That, or it’s because you’re only person who can get as close to me as you do. They’d be stupid not to keep their eyes on you for any signs of traitorous behaviour.’
She throws her hand to her heart feigning hurt, and I laugh at the pure dramatics of it. ‘I look mischievous at best. And there’d be no chance I’d betray you.’ She smirks. ‘Who could I even betray you for? I don’t even know anyone besides you.’
I subtly tug on the energy of the Relic in the air, picking up the runaway grape from the floor and flinging it at Lillienne. She squeals as it smacks her forehead, directly between her brows.
‘That is not very ladylike, m’lady!’ she says, before sending a grape hurtling towards me in retaliation, her face the very picture of childish delight.
It hits my chest with a thump before landing in my lap.
‘Coming from miss “I’m-going-to-shit-myself” herself.
’ I lob the grape back at her. She throws her arms up to shield her face.
‘It was the coffee!’ she exclaims, unable to keep her joy in the hilarity of it from her voice.
She raises her arm to catapult yet another grape, but before she can release it, someone clears their throat from the entrance to the room. Oh, please gods, no. Not him.
I snap my neck in their direction, quickly straightening my posture and willing my expression into seriousness.
There is a man staring expectantly at us, appearing slightly bewildered by the blatant display of immaturity he just witnessed.
He holds his hat to his abdomen, and sways with an awkwardness that tells me he doesn’t quite know how to proceed.
I offer him a restrained closed-lipped smile, which he accepts with a nod and a timid twitch of his mouth that must’ve been an attempt to return the smile.
The shoulder of his dress-coat is open at the seam, and his shirt was evidently once white, but is stained a murky grey in random patches.
Locks of his tousled blond hair fall into his vision, and he blinks, evidently irritated by it, but makes no attempt to move them from his eyes either.
I recognise in this moment that he is the boy who had sat next to Lillienne this morning in the Cathedral. The one she’d elbowed. Only, he looks less angered and more diffident than he did when I last saw him.
Lillienne must remember because she blinks sheepishly and turns a mortified shade of pink.
‘You must forgive us for our brief lapse in the proper manners,’ I say, breaking the silence. ‘It would seem the fumes from the candles have us intoxicated into brief delirium.’
For some reason he winces as I gesture to the stool to my left. ‘Please, do sit with us.’
He obliges with a shaking hesitance, and I take the fleeting opportunity when he is getting himself situated, to flash Lillienne a look that screams, ‘Oh my Gods this is so fucking painful.’ To which, she just throws her hands over her face as if it’s all just too awkward to watch.
‘You will have to forgive me again, for I do not seem to know your name,’ I say once he is fully sitting down, still holding onto his faded hat for dear life, but it now rests on his thighs.
I suppress a giggle when I realise the stool is much too small for his long limbs, forcing his knees to rise parallel to his ribcage.
‘Diarmid Erskine.’ He fidgets. ‘I manage the stables, Your Honourable Lady Princess.’
It’s Lillienne who tries to keep her laughter from escaping this time, only she fails. I find his botched attempt at formally addressing me, more tragic than comical.
‘You don’t have to talk so grand.’ I turn my whole body in his direction until I’m perched on the very edge of the bench, blocking his view of Lillienne. ‘Your Grace will do just fine.’
He keeps his head down and I desperately rack my brains for something else to say to help ease him of his obvious anxiety at conversing with a noble. I look to the mud speckling his tattered sage-green boots.
‘You manage the stables.’ I land on. Brilliant.
Earth-shatteringly obvious stuff. Fuck. I’ve spent way too long mooching in the countryside away from civilisation, I’ve forgotten how to have a normal conversation with anyone apart from Lillienne, and from the silence behind me she’s not any better.
Think. Stables, the smell of shit, taking care of the animals…
‘Pegasus!’ I blurt, and the poor mouse-like man near jumps out of his skin. ‘You must have your hands full with the Pegasi. They are stubborn creatures, are they not?’
Life seems to flood into him, and his eyes light up at the mention of the creatures that most detest entirely.
‘Pegasi are highly misunderstood, Y-your Grace.’ He lets go of his hat.
‘I believe most people take the formality of their interactions to be arrogance. When they value respect above all. Once you know exactly what it is that they expect from you, you have yourself some very loyal and obedient animals.’
He pauses for what feels like the mere concept of a beat before continuing.
‘You know, out of all of the animals that I have come across in my lifetime, I would say the most horrid would have to be ducks. I cannot tell you how glad I was when those ghastly things went extinct.’
Gods above, I seem to have opened the flood gates. The sudden animation in his face tells me he’s not going to stop anytime soon. I find myself nodding along, not fully aware of his words as they swirl in the air around him, unable to pin one down and comprehend it.