Chapter 8
“You act like you’re facing your own death,” Lottie said, digging through the towering wooden wardrobe in August’s bed chambers.
Sunlight slanted through the large balcony doors, bathing his room in the warm glow of late afternoon. Golden tiebacks held the heavy cobalt curtains open, and August’s attention kept drifting to the walled city below.
“Perhaps I am,” he answered. “You think killing myself at the dinner table would put a damper on the evening? I’ll have an abundance of cutlery to choose from.”
She spun to face him with a slight smile. “It’d be the talk of the town for at least a week. Mother would be thrilled to know that she’s the topic of conversation in every home.”
“I’d probably use the wrong knife and embarrass her.”
Lottie laughed, flicking her heavy braid off her shoulder. “It’s just dinner. You’ve survived them before.”
She was right, of course. August remembered the lavish dinners, the grand balls, the constant stream of guests. But that was before their father’s death. Before their mother, the ruling aesran, had shut out the world and reduced her court to a skeletal few.
In August’s mind, life was divided cleanly into before and after that year. The two felt like entirely different lifetimes.
His mother had only started hosting the banquets again sometime last year, and this was the first time she’d ordered him to attend.
“Your absences are raising questions,” she’d told him, though he didn’t care about gossip or ridiculous banquets.
August plopped onto his bed and pulled a berry scone and a handful of grapes from beneath his pillow. Crumbs speckled his dark bedding.
Lottie wrinkled her nose. “I thought you’d grown out of that.”
“Out of what? Eating?”
“Hiding food around your room like a squirrel.”
“It’s an emergency reserve. I eat when I’m nervous.” He took a bite of the scone, then added around the mouthful, “Would you like a bite?”
“How long has that been under your pillow?”
“Only like,” he paused, trying to remember. With a shrug, he said, “I don’t know. It’s still fine.”
“I love you, Auggie, but you’re disgusting.”
“Fine, I didn’t want to share, anyway.” He popped a grape in his mouth, which he promptly spat out into his hand. Apparently, those had been under his pillow a bit too long.
Lottie shook her head, and when she turned back to the wardrobe, he discarded the mushy fruit into a vase beside his bed.
August’s gaze drifted involuntarily to the window. It had been a month since he’d snuck out with Lottie. A month since he met Felix. A month buried back underground with nothing but stale air.
Same time next week?
I’ll see you then.
He’d known it was a lie. So why was he still obsessing over it?
Had Felix even noticed when he didn’t show?
How he wished he could make good on that promise. The idea was a dangerous temptation, growing stronger every day. The castle had always felt like a prison, like August was biding his time, stuck in his cell awaiting execution, and that had only intensified since his night of freedom.
His life didn’t belong to him. It never had.
Lottie pulled a few items from the wardrobe and dropped them onto the bed. “This should be acceptable.”
August had no idea what passed as fashion outside his prison.
“Thanks for helping.”
“We must always be at our best,” Lottie stated as she turned back to the wardrobe, a mocking imitation of their mother’s stern diction.
He cringed at the accuracy of it. “Don’t do that.”
Lottie snorted a laugh—the uninhibited kind she only had when it was just them. He liked having a version of her that no one else knew existed.
August changed quickly, studying himself in the tall mirror as he fastened the last of the burnished silver buttons.
“You know, I actually don’t hate it.”
The double-breasted waistcoat was a rich black velvet with a subtle ornate pattern of acanthus leaves that reminded him of the wallpaper in the castle’s foyer. The shirt beneath was a soft white with a high collar. Elegant without ostentation.
“I didn’t even know this was in there.” His mouth tipped into a half-smile as he smoothed his wild curls and placed his silver diadem on top. Like the clothing, it was a subtle sort of elegant, a modest silver circlet. For a moment, he felt a little less out of place.
Then he found his eyes in his reflection, and the usual frown settled back in.
Lottie and their father shared the same brown eyes.
Their mother’s were emerald green. And yet August had somehow ended up with charcoal grey, like someone had forgotten to colour them in.
The silver rings around his pupils served as a constant reminder of what made him different.
The thing he persistently fought against being.
“Do you ever actually look in here?” Lottie asked, standing on her tiptoes to see the top shelf of the wardrobe. “There’s so much junk. I mean, what is this?” She gasped and flinched back. “Seriously, Auggie. What is this?”
He moved to her side as she gingerly retrieved a small object, holding it warily between her thumb and forefinger, as if it might scald her.
It was a plain, unremarkable black ring.
“No idea,” August answered. He’d accumulated plenty of items over the years; shiny rocks and lost jewelry, currency from all over the world left behind by visiting leaders.
The ring was hardly a surprising find. Though, he usually kept his collected items in the chest beneath his bed, not in his wardrobe.
Her expression tightened as she studied it. “It’s cold.”
“It’s metal,” he said dryly. “Metal’s cold.”
“No, I mean, it’s cold. Like, freezing.”
He took it from her, and it bit into his skin, a shock of ice that seeped instantly to his bones. With a start, he dropped the ring. It bounced, spun, and came to rest on the floor.
They both stared at the object for a long moment before he crouched to pick it up. After the initial shock, the cold was bearable. He turned the ring over in his hand.
It wasn’t just black, it was a void, the absolute darkness of a starless night. The light seemed to bend around it, refusing to land.
Everything about it felt strange, including the way it pulled at him.
August’s finger traced the smooth surface, pausing where the shape flattened at the top.
There was an engraving. A signet of some sort.
It reminded him of something, though he couldn’t place what.
He lifted it to the light, trying to see the shape, but it was hard to make out against the impossible black.
A knock came at his door and August jumped, stuffing the ring into the pocket of his trousers.
“Coming,” Lottie called. She grabbed a black cravat from the wardrobe and tied it around his neck. “Ready?”
With a deep sigh, the full brunt of his attention turned back to the impending dinner. Yeah, he definitely felt like he was on his way to his execution.
Lottie opened the door and greeted the royal guard on the other side by name, as she always did. August could never remember any of them. They were a singular blur of cobalt blue and rigid posture.
The guard bowed, then looked at August. “Aesran Erynda wishes to speak with you, Mo Aesling. You are to wait here.”
The words made his stomach lurch, and when he asked why, it was closer to a squeak than an actual question.
“I’m not sure, Mo Aesling. You’ll have to ask her.”
His mother didn’t pay him visits, didn’t stop by to chat.
There was a time—the before part of his life—when she treated him differently.
She was never the sort of doting mother that existed in stories.
She was stern and awful and overbearing, but she at least spoke to him back then.
Disciplined him, held him to impossible standards.
Something that, in a brutal, terrible way, felt a little like love.
However, in the after she didn’t bother. When she looked at him, which she rarely did, there was always something behind her eyes that, if August didn’t know better, he may have thought was fear. Perhaps it was just disappointment. Maybe she stopped trying because she realized he was a lost cause.
Now, in the after, she was overbearing in a different way, through her endless rules and the royal guards. She was protective, but it didn’t feel like love. It felt like he was a possession. Some found object she hid away.
Leaning against the table in his chambers, August watched the dying fire, his mind racing with possible reasons why she might want to talk.
A few moments later, a different royal guard pushed through the door, holding it open so his mother could enter. This one he did know by name. Sebastian. His mother’s personal guard.
The aesran was dressed for the banquet. Her midnight blue gown, trimmed with delicate threads of royal cobalt and silver, hung elegantly, almost caressing the floor with each step. Rows of pearls were draped over her collarbone, only a few shades lighter than her pale skin.
He pushed off the table and stood up straight. “Hello, Mother.”
The guard closed the door, leaving them alone, and she lingered at the door, not stepping further inside.
Her eyes quickly assessed his clothing, then slid past him to the fireplace.
“Your last public appearance was quite some time ago,” she said, and August almost smiled, thinking how accurate Lottie’s imitation of her was. “I trust you recall the appropriate response to the inevitable question.”
He nodded. Of course, he remembered.
The rings around his pupils were only visible up close, and no magic manifested as silver, but the last thing the aesran wanted was for someone to mistake the heir aesling for a wielder, especially when she knew perfectly well he wasn’t.
So she forged a lie and drilled it into his head until it was impossible to forget.
“Go on,” she said.
He resisted the impulse to roll his eyes. “It’s a side effect of the illness I survived as a child,” August recited, the words worn smooth from overuse.