21 #3
While more servants remove our furs and usher away the magic carpets, I survey the cluttered room.
“Have the people of Tularesk brought some of their belongings here for safe storage?” I pose the question partly to Vawn and partly to the attendants.
One of the servants exchanges a look with her companions, then replies, “No, ma’am. All these items belong to our Lieges. This room, like the rest of the palace, is full of their treasures.”
“Oh.” I look to Vawn for an explanation, but he only shrugs and holds out his flask toward me. As if I’m going to need liquid fortification as well.
A beautiful middle-aged woman with bronze skin approaches us.
Her dark hair is pulled back smooth and tight, then woven into a braid that arches high at the back of her skull and falls all the way down her back, its curled end brushing her skirts.
Her uniform is very similar to that of the other servants, except she has red fur epaulets.
She curtsies deeply before Vawn. “Your Highness, King to be,” she says.
“I am Inaya, Stewardess of the Seat. Welcome. We bless the goddess Lune that you have made it here safely, thanks in part to the bravery of your esteemed bodyguard.” She curtsies briefly to me as well.
“I understand that you are weary from your journey. We will let you rest soon, but if you would kindly indulge our Lieges with a brief audience, they would be most grateful.”
“Of course,” Vawn replies, with his most sunny, gracious smile. “Anything for the Twins.”
“Right this way. Please excuse the abundance of our Lieges’ treasures.”
Following Inaya, we weave our way along a narrow path between the mountains of objects. As the fresh air from the entrance fades, I begin to detect a strong odor, musty and sour, with occasional hints of something truly foul.
The Stewardess reaches the entrance to a hallway—or what used to be a hallway before it was choked with piles of possessions.
The floor is covered with objects, jammed so closely together that they’re like the pavers of a garden path.
Inaya has to walk on top of the compacted mess in order to proceed.
“Watch your step,” she says, without looking back. Her shoulders are rigid, and I realize how difficult her job must be—trapped in this overstuffed palace, possibly forbidden to clean it out the way she might want to. Yet she stays, because everywhere else is crumbling.
“Did you know it was like this?” I whisper to Vawn.
“I’ve heard the stories, but seeing it in person is quite different.”
“I’ll go first. Be careful.”
We worm our way through the narrow passage, bumping our elbows on jutting pieces of furniture, nearly choking on the dust that puffs up from discarded bolts of fabric and rolls of fur.
On the wall, barely visible above the piles, I spot the head of a moharganth, the extinct predator Vawn mentioned.
The moharganth has sleek black fur, red glass eyes, and shining scarlet tusks curving upward from its lower jaw.
Long, rabbitlike ears brush the ceiling.
Their tufted tips look silky-soft even in death.
It’s a majestic face, and a sorrowful one. The sight of it, combined with the careless abundance crammed into this building, makes me hate the Twin Lieges long before I see them.
Their throne room is a cavern of white pillars and arches, like a cave of icy stone. Its ceiling features enameled images in blue, pink, lavender, and red, but it’s impossible to enjoy the artistry of the décor due to the vast hills of collected objects that choke the space.
Stacks of furniture and piles of boxes tower nearly to the ceiling, swathed in more furs and brocade, stuffed with statuary and candlesticks. Moharganth heads adorn some of the piles, as if someone made a morbid attempt to decorate the clutter with the hunting trophies of previous generations.
The Twins sit upon thrones that are nearly indistinguishable from the hoard, layered as they are with rugs and furs and fabric, flanked with drifted piles of bits and baubles.
The two rulers have skin as white as snow, practically bloodless, and though their lashes are ice-white, their hair is bright orange, chopped off at the chin and cut in a straight line across their foreheads.
Their ethereal features are so perfectly matched that it’s difficult to tell which is the male and which the female, although I know they’re of opposite genders. One wears a robe of bright crimson fur, while the other is draped in silver-gray fur flecked with white.
As Vawn and I approach, stepping where the floor is still visible, a white rat with fur like bristling icicles runs across a bare spot and disappears into one of the furniture stacks.
Stewardess Inaya flinches, then paces forward, announcing, “His Highness, Third Prince of House Molloi and Rightful Heir to the Belavrin throne. Prince Vawn, may I introduce Liege Remin and Liege Roxalin.”