A S T E R I O N
in sunshine and in shadow*
“Yes,” he answers, remembering well his own surprise at the series of discoveries his first week here. “There are four courts in Novus – Dusk, Dawn, Day and Night. Each has a sovereign. The previous queen abdicated a year ago, the week I arrived, and named Florentine in her place.” He might have gone on speaking, had not Raymond already known Flora, or had his own surprise – a year here, how strange, how wrong – not caught him off guard.
Or had the chestnut not himself continued, in word and in deed.
Asterion freezes the moment he catches the lash of red in his peripheral vision, throwing up his faint telekinesis like a hand to block what he could. It does not end up being necessary, but as his pulse feathers along his throat and his dark-eyed gaze slides to the other stallion’s, he promises himself that one day he will have a defense for such a weapon.
He will not be weak forever. He cannot afford it, and neither can this court.
Ever so slightly he inclines his head toward Raymond, and then he begins to walk again, keeping his lips a firm dark line despite the way his heart races.
“Responsible,” he says, and there is a weariness in his voice that is far older than his five years. No longer did this all seem a grand adventure. “Flora named me her regent. But there is still so much here I don’t understand, and we are all so young.” He does not only mean himself and his sister; he thinks now of Israfel, of Cyrene. Of all of them, trying to be wise.
But then he glances back at the stallion, set aflame by the sunset, and there is something hungry (greedy, almost) in his gaze. It is there in his voice, too, though the volume is still soft. “What was it really like – the riftlands?”
All thoughts of crowns and kingdoms are pushed down, for once. He is a boy again, and his mind is full of time worn down, and worlds that changed like weather, and monsters –
And a unicorn.
@Raymond
