here, in the faerie wood, between sea and sea,
I have heard the song of a faerie bird in a tree.
I have heard the song of a faerie bird in a tree.
E
very one of her father’s letters is sealed with golden wax. The face of the envelope is left blank, its only embellishment the flakes of real gold embedded into the grain of the thick, creamy paper. Aghavni has not received one for months.
So when she walks into her father’s office that morning and sees the envelope of gold-flecked paper stamped with golden wax, reflecting bits of sun like glass, she snatches it up and tears it open like it were a divine summons.
She skims the swirling calligraphy eagerly, unaware of the sun that has risen in her own expression. The letter reads like all of his letters do: a few lines of greetings (“I hope you have been well, little dove.”), a few lines of regret (“Urgent matters keep me from visiting the Scarab this season like I had intended.”) and a paragraph of new tasks to complete. Escort a visiting noble, investigate caravan disappearances, sever ties with this or that establishment.
She likes this part the least. She always skims it quickly, impatient for her father’s parting sentences (the only part of the letter he remembers to tell her a bit about himself) so she almost misses it — one swirling line, indistinguishable from the rest.
Her lips ghost over it, and come to a frigid, breathless halt.
She reads over the words again and again, carefully and then faster and faster, until they tangle together into a flavorless, meaningless mass. Writhing snakes on her tongue.
“The new king of Solterra will be visiting a week from when you receive this letter.”
Aghavni wants to think — wishes desperately to think — that her father is wrong. That he has made a mistake. But her father is never wrong. He rarely makes mistakes, and she does not think this is one of those times.
Her father has sealed their fates with the dip of a hawk-feather quill and the cooling of golden wax.
Raum is coming.
She folds the letter into thirds and slips it back into its gold-pressed envelope. Slides it gently beneath a porcelain vase filled with fresh roses, dew still dripping from the thorns like blood.
Her face, when Aghavni gazes into the gilded mirror hung like a portrait above the desk, is bloodless.
She goes the entirety of the day and half of the night without mentioning the letter and its damning sentence to anyone.
She suspects that Charon already knows. The advisor is fond of reminding Aghavni twice a day — once during breakfast and once again after dinner — that he knows everything there is to know about anything that matters.
And this, certainly, matters.
She finds herself staring up at August’s door without remembering how she had gotten there. Perhaps her wandering hooves had wanted to hammer the final nail into the coffin that had been building, plank by plank, around her since dawn.
She considers for a moment, of what she would lose, and knocks on his door before she can consider too long.
When he answers the door, leaning against the doorframe like a tomcat basking in noonday sun, Aghavni blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.
“Will you come with me to see the ice castle?” Her voice ends in a flat dropping of breath, making her question sound less like a question and more like a poorly-strung command.
She resists the urge to scowl, even when it tugs at her mouth like puppet strings.
Before he can answer, she looks away from his quicksilver eyes (ones she'd thought, when she'd first met him, too pretty for a boy to wield) and adds “You can refuse. It is not an order.”
@August | "speaks" | notes: two birds with one stone ;D
