Amathea stopped herself from grunting in frustration at the banquet’s buffet. Her Father Alend had just announced to her that fineries were not only important regarding appearances but also with what went into the bodies that held them up. The table along the length of the ballroom promised nothing less than apparently everything someone could think of.
That someone, Amathea mused, must’ve been a servant working themselves to death. She couldn’t really see one of those pompous heavyweights use their own minds to come up with a menu of this size.
“Why is there gold on everything?” Amathea said mostly to herself, trying to find somewhere to wipe off the dusting on her fingers from picking up something that might be a bun. Magnus sighed, clicking the scissor-like implement to drop another bun on Amathea’s plate. “Kaerndal permits, there is a lady in you somewhere. I just cannot see her,” he half sighed, half chuckled.
Amathea moped.
She turned on the spot to find a place on a bench to sit, before in a moment of disorientation, she realized that the next bench was probably a few weeks by warp thread away. Discreet little tables seating six or eight embellished the edge of the room quite inefficiently in Amathea’s opinion.
So she turned to Magnus, who held a bottle of something. His large hands hid the label, but what she could make out looked ancient and dusty. Without taking her eyes off it, she bit into the bun and made an unhappy, almost whining noise. “Where’s all the filling?” She huffed and let it drop on the plate before moving her bad mood to Magnus. The giant took a long sip from the bottle. Amathea pushed her lips to one side and asked, “Don’t they have glasses in the Hegemony?”
Magnus smirked and pointedly placed the neck of the bottle against his lips before drinking without breaking eye contact. He winked and said, “I am trying to give them something else to stare at.” He nodded with his chin to the room at large. “A piece of cheap meat isn’t as closely studied as you, dear Amathea,” he said, letting his smirk grow into a grin.
Amathea’s face faltered into a wide-eyed stare.
The Kaerienne crown-princess felt every muscle in her face heating and refusing to cooperate. Should she put the plate down? Should she continue eating? Magnus rolled his eyes, picking the bun from Amathea’s plate, regarding its buttery hollow with interest. “Don’t you worry.” It vanished whole between his lips, and after a few chewing motions he said, “Any male suitor you are certain to attract; I will break them like twigs.” He swallowed and made a breaking sound while motioning with his free hand, “Easy as.” He laughed in two heavy sounds that were full of anticipation of violence. Welcoming even.
Amathea looked unsure to the floor, before remembering she wasn’t ought to show weakness in hegemonic courts. But she couldn’t quite remember where else to look. She shrugged at Magnus and mouthed a voiceless “thank you.”
Magnus ran a tongue over his teeth and looked around. Then motioned Amathea towards the crowd, “You could attract me some female attention? How about that? I will sort them out too,” Amathea chuckled before reining herself in. “You are impossible.”
Magnus leaned forward, the motion pushing enough air towards Amathea that she felt it like a cool breeze. “I think you are missing a word there. Impossibly good looking? Impossibly intelligent? Ah!” he straightened up and barely hid his grin when saying, “Impossibly modest!”
“Magnus. May I talk with my daughter?” the voice of Alend cut through their banter. The King was holding a tiny plate close to his chest, with the tiniest spoon resting on the edge that Amathea had ever seen.
Magnus turned to him with a smile, “What will your Majesty do if I deny the request?” King Alend sighed dramatically but couldn’t hide his smile. “I guess I will ask the Shield of Kaerndal to remove this nuisance.” Magnus chuckled softly, “Then I guess I shall break my own kneecaps in the corner.” He straightened, “But only after this. I cannot leave you unattended. This is the Hegemony after all.”
Instead of picking up the discussion, Alend took time to part off a piece of undefinable gelatine with his small spoon. He smelled it intently, then placed it inside his mouth. The hairs on Amathea’s neck stood at attention. She huffed in distaste and asked, “I thought that was waste left from preparation. How can you eat it?”
Alend didn’t let her question disturb his tasting; his eyes wandered around the ceiling as if he were fully concentrated on every part of the taste he could find. He swallowed and sighed, “Absolutely disgusting. Just how I remember it.”
Magnus coughed as a gulp of wine decided to fight him on the way down.
On cue, a servant seemed to appear behind the shoulder of the King, and Alend dropped the plate in their hand without looking. He shook his head and smiled at his daughter, “I wasn’t quite sure if it was the right shoulder where you could pass the dishes. I guess I chose right. Hmm, that could’ve been even the mnemonic.”
He killed Amathea’s question in her throat with a raised finger.
Alend let his shoulders settle; he stretched his back. Amathea sighed and thought, “And there’s the matriarch again. What will this be about?” She couldn’t think of any bad she’d done, so maybe she wasn’t the target.
The King said, “Princess Amathea, you will win Princess Katharina of De Vend for the purposes of Kaerndal.” Her father might’ve slapped her with the back of his hand; it would’ve done the same.
Magnus seemed to step between them, just as if the violence had been real. “Alend. I must protest.” His face moved into a snarl when the expression on the King’s face put him in his place, and explicitly beneath Alend.
So, the Gyr matched the register, straightening to an even greater size. “Your Majesty. This is madness.” His words frayed at the edge, and Amathea felt the second voice - the gyr rumble - vibrating beneath too. This situation had suddenly become very dangerous.
The King did not comment, which left an opening for Magnus. “De Vend is a rotten apple, and he is going to spoil whatever there is in his vicinity, like rotten apples are known to do.”
Alend glared at Magnus, but Amathea knew her father. She saw the strain on his face and in his body, and that made it real to her in ways that scared her. Moments passed that lasted aeons before Alend sighed - not relenting but pulling them both together - as he always did.
“At least give us the benefit of explaining yourself.” Alend said, looking with a tilted head at the giant. Magnus grunted, shifting his muscles backward. Amathea could see that he was getting uncomfortable - questioning his own statement to find the weakness he had left when emotion demanded action.
Magnus tried to begin once, then twice, each time the word died before it could reach them. The little twitches in his face told of the frustration and anger welling up that wouldn’t have anywhere to go in here. Alend placed his hand softly against Magnus’s upper arm and said, “Little words, Magnus.”
The Shield of Kaerndal bared his teeth before breaking eye contact with his Monarch, but it was enough to break the stalemate happening in Magnus’s own mind. Magnus raised his chin and said, “He disgusts me. A coward hides in clothes that are not his own,” he scoffed, motioning with his chin to the room at large. “There is nothing of worth for us here. The carrion eaters should take him.”
King Alend sighed and nodded, but he didn’t stop looking at his protector. And Amathea knew that gaze well. That warm embrace of a face worn from too much history and too many years of war.
“Are you assessing him fairly, Magnus Weissebeard?” Alend simply asked, but didn’t let the gyr answer immediately, “Did you give him all the benefits of doubt that my father once extended to a silver-clad gyr princess arriving at our castle?”
Magnus bristled, “I was bleeding for my freedom,” but he didn’t dare meet Alend’s gaze. “You think you see a kindred spirit fighting his cage?” His hand extended, almost striking a servant who startled and hurried away.
Alend looked at Magnus in warning, but Amathea could see that the princess needed to make her point. “That means breaking the bars, not rearranging the cage.”
“So this is it.” Alend nodded and sighed heavily. “I am keen to remind you that you demand De Vend pay for the same freedom you enjoy in a currency…” Alend paused to correct the seat of his dress, an often used signal that the discussion was over, “that the princess cannot afford.”
He turned to Amathea and said, “As a father, I would never demand anything of you, but as the King, my orders will not be refused. You have your mission.” Amathea blinked and said, “But… but how?”
King Alend made an undignified sound, “How? You’re the Princess of the Monarchy of Kaerndal. Everything the household can provide, you have it under your command.” His hand found into the neck of Amathea, gently pressing against it–he could call himself the King all he wanted, to her he was Father first, anything else came second. “The only reason I see that you could fail is because that man has decided to throw himself off his own balcony tonight to escape your offer.”
Magnus’s rumble broke the small, tender moment, and Amathea startled. She had known this second voice of the giant since she had been born. Magnus was a known artist with it; to hear him raw like this - Amathea couldn’t remember if she had heard him like this at all before.
Amathea felt the ground between them cracking and did the only thing she could think of. “Magnus will help. Yes? He will keep my back,” she said, looking from man to man. Alend smiled to extend his other hand to Magnus, pulling him closer. “Aye. Magnus will help you.” Alend said.
With a smile, he closed the discussion. “He will keep the other nobles at bay so you have time and space to maneuver.”
Magnus sighed, but the rumble made it a warning instead of leaving it at resignation. “I guess I will,” he looked at Alend, “But if he as much as raises a finger towards her…” he let the threat trail. Alend nodded, “You will break him like a twig. You always break everything like a twig. I know.”
Magnus deflated; his gaze found that of Amathea, and there was nothing but warmth and duty in it. Then he turned his attention to the empty bottle in his hand, “Who has emptied this while we were talking?”
Amathea sighed, relieved about the tension evaporating, when Alend turned her gently by the neck, and he said, “It appears our Host has reappeared.”
Princess Katharina De Vend entered her ballroom, the crowd parting in front of her, if out of respect or fear was impossible to say. The black mourning dress was gone; in its place she wore a suit. No flowing lines or female curves; now there were only sharp lines and edges.
And De Vend wasn’t any less beautiful for it.
What hadn’t changed was the hair and the makeup. The golden bands in his hair gave him a strange, attractive mystique, while the black of his lips gave his face another dimension that the mourning gown had swallowed.
Amathea followed the length of De Vend’s body to search for more that was standing out, and she didn’t need more than to look at his hip. A sabre, martial and simple in an unadorned sheath. Its tip moved beside De Vend like the tail of a panther smelling the blood of prey.
Something began to hurt inside Amathea’s chest; her eyes dropped away from De Vend and lingered at his feet. “You seem eager to rid yourself of what makes you yourself…” Amathea thought, trying to bring herself to look up again - she couldn’t.
“If you only could give to me all that you just discarded.” She sighed, bitter, and forced herself to straighten. She was Princess Amathea of Aethland Kaerndal.
No.
She was Amathea.
No! She was Princess Amathea of Aethland Kaerndal - and this would be Princess Katharina De Vend of Aethland Kaerndal before this evening was over. She got orders. She got Magnus.
Amathea turned away and towards the buffet as she felt panic overcome her. “Booze. Bitter. Hard. Now,” she thought and began searching. She wouldn’t do this when her heart was already exploding out of her chest and she couldn’t breathe at all.
When she took the first step, she bounced off someone large. Magnus chuckled, catching her by the shoulder before she could stumble back. A thin glass was pushed into her hand, before she was turned - a bit roughly - back on her heels.
She couldn’t quite find her bearing with all the sudden motion when she heard Magnus whisper into her ear, “Get this over with quick. And we can return home.”
Amathea blinked and took a sip from the glass without looking. She almost coughed when, instead of the medicinal taste of alcohol, clean water touched her lips.
She grumbled, “Not even sparkling wine…”
Princess Amathea began to circle De Vend, looking for an in, an opportunity. But every time it almost seemed as if De Vend had noticed and deliberately blocked her by stepping into another group of people, backtracking, or interacting with a servant.
The water had turned warm in her hands, and she began to feel stupid for cradling it like something it wasn’t.
De Vend seemed very intent on staying out of reach. Or rather, everyone else was more important than poor Amathea. She scolded herself for the self-pity.
Amathea resigned herself to studying his process: how quickly his smile came and went, how the mask didn’t falter when he turned but smoothly dissolved as he gained distance.
An hour passed with Amathea gaining little but experience assessing whom De Vend would work with. Like a net being spun by an industrious spider, he worked from opportunity to opportunity. The connections became apparent, often only when De Vend was one or two parties over.
Suddenly two nobles found each other, both pretending to stumble over each other at random. Finding commonalities or opportunities, then making their way to the edge to discuss further.
This created a churn in De Vend’s wake that Amathea would applaud if he’d not look so stupid standing in a ballroom clapping at nothing in particular.
This felt like dancing, Amathea realized, not a march but a waltz. She just didn’t have a calling card.
She passed a group of younger noblewomen. At first, and only for a moment, Amathea thought about trying to join them. “I don’t have time for this,” she thought, but her gaze rested on some of their shapes. So full of life and beautiful in their dresses. Not like Amathea herself. “Should’ve gone with the normal dress…” she sighed, placing the empty glass into the hands of a passing servant.
When she turned back, De Vend seemed to have vanished. She turned around to find him; he had been like a lighthouse in this ocean of nobles. Amathea felt his absence almost physically.
Then, on the other end of the room, she could just make out how he slipped out through two drapes. “Now or never, Amathea,” she spurred herself on and made her way across, sidestepping and evading the other guests.
“Are you the Princess of Kaerndal?” someone asked, stopping Amathea in her tracks. The young man had a self-assured smile and sharp eyes, which somehow seemed to evaporate the moment his sentence had ended.
A shadow clouded the man’s face, and his eyes rose, which confused Amathea before she could smell a faint note of brandy. She asked aloud, before realizing she had done so, “Magnus?” But the giant was moving. “Let me talk with this little twig here,” he said, stepping past Amathea and resting a large hand on the young man’s shoulder.
Amathea looked at him. “Have you been following me?” Magnus didn’t answer but motioned her towards where he too must’ve seen De Vend leave. The young man made an unsure sound as Magnus wrapped his arm around his shoulder, like guiding a small child away. “Now, boy. What were your intentions here, hm?”
Amathea couldn’t make out the rest as she found the handle of the balcony door and stepped into the cool air outside.
The moon was bright above Planet De Vend; the air was crisp and brought relief with its coldness. De Vend heard the door behind him opening again, not a minute after he had closed it behind himself. Half an hour, even a quarter of one, would’ve been enough to recuperate for the rest of the day, but not even in his own home he was allowed this comfort.
He had wanted to step out of his shoes, let the cold tiles calm his heels, stretch his hurting joints and breathe. Just breathe.
Instead, he straightened before the other person could see him. He wouldn’t turn; that would invite a chat, and that was the furthest from what he wanted right now.
He noted the pace and sound of who came through. The door opened with an immediacy that betrayed hurry, but the sound of heels didn’t come. So no noble of the Hegemony. Who wore soft shoes to such a sombre event?
“Princess Amathea of Kaerndal.” De Vend said, his voice cold and flat. “How did you … I am sorry, Your Grace. Do I disturb you?” came the voice he had expected.
The venom threatened to flow into his voice, but De Vend swallowed it as best he could. He turned enough to look at her while being visible in portrait. Not inviting, not denying. “I sought the solitude of my own balcony, dear princess. What brought your grace here?” he asked.
Amathea was at a loss for words, but she knew that silence was even worse. “I… I just wanted to give you my condolences personally.” She tried to find a thread worth following. “De Vend is quite far from the border. Our border. I wish we had arrived sooner because I thought you were beautiful…uhm.” Amathea said, but felt herself trail off.
“I wish we’d arrived sooner so I could… bask… in your presence. The beautiful dress and … that’s about it.” Amathea finished the sentence with a sigh and wondered how many stories the balcony was up and if she’d felt it when she hit the ground below. Because suicide felt suddenly a much cleverer idea to escape what she had said.
De Vend blinked confused, the statement didn’t fit into his mind. It caught on the edges of his awareness as if it had barbs. “My… dress?” he repeated.
Amathea nodded, smiling wide, “Yes. You were quite pretty in it.” Maybe she got away with what she said.
De Vend felt something well up in him, not quite his, but he would use it. “Dear Princess,” he turned to face her fully, “to congratulate someone on the selection of their wardrobe on the day of mourning for their parents. Is that some form of cruel kaerienne joke? Does your culture not know restraint?” His words came like little daggers, and De Vend couldn’t quell that he enjoyed them hitting the small woman before him.
He could see the colour drain from the Princess as she tried to form an apology De Vend didn’t care to hear. He turned his back to her; if she took it as hurt or dismissal, he couldn’t care about that now.
De Vend kept his sigh quiet, so that the night would drown it as he heard the hand of the kaerienne Princess lower onto the handle of the balcony door. Soon there would be peace. But the sound of the lock didn’t come.
There was a quiet pause before he heard her feet turn back.
“I know an apology will not be enough.” Amathea said, her voice settled and as pale as her face must be. “But…” she had to push herself past what held the statement back. “Even so. This might’ve been your worst day, and I guess the most painful one too.” She shuffled around behind De Vend.
“Even so. You have all this grace and presence. Despite this day. I think.” Amathea said and sighed loudly, her hands fell to her side to emphasise the statement. “And I have nothing like that. You in this suit are more woman than I feel I could be naked.” Amathea chuckled self-deridingly, “Well… I might be mistaken for a boy anyway with these breasts.”
The crudeness startled De Vend, and he turned. His eyebrows knitted together in confusion and almost worry. It wasn’t a comfortable expression; he noted to himself.
Amathea seemed to realize which words had left her mouth, and her cheeks turned red. She decided to hide her panic in words. Her face displayed her thought process, like stage directions for De Vend to read.
“I came to make an offer. I mean. I was sent too.” She said and cleared her throat. “The Aethland extends an invitation to Princess De Vend,” Amathea said, trying to smile convincingly. Then she went through the words again, “You. To you. …even.”
Amathea groaned in pain that appeared to become physical any moment now. Her hands were wringing themselves out in front of her chest before she noticed De Vend looking. Her hand fell to her side.
“I need a teacher. I need to be taught how to be a woman.” Amathea said clearly, “And it should be you. You threw away so much by stepping into this suit… so much that you could give me.” her hands gestured. “I didn’t have a mother. Magnus and my father tried. They tried so intently to be enough like one, but…” she shrugged, “You’ve seen Magnus.”
De Vend nodded, and hated that he felt a smile tug on his lips, “It is quite impossible not to see Magnus.”
Amathea nodded, “Right?” She smiled, “So. You can join. You’d be a monarch in all but name. A Princess of Kaerndal,” a heavy sigh followed. “You don’t need to give up on House De Vend. Kaerndal doesn’t need the land, and we don’t need to send you through integration. You’ve done nothing wrong. I promise we don’t do it.”
De Vend’s eyebrow rose, “You very intently have to tell me that, which makes it suspicious.” He felt something shift inside him, and Katharina’s words fell into the place the shifting had created: “Trust them.” Or had it been “Believe them”? Was there a meaningful difference in what this was?
There was a long pause as De Vend, exhausted, got lost in his own mind. He startled when Amathea stepped closer, blinking at him with round, honest eyes, lips drawn up to steel herself for what she intended to say, “Be my princess.”
De Vend began to laugh. It overwhelmed him for a few moments before a sardonic smirk settled on his face with a deep sigh. He looked down at Amathea, his head leaning to one side.
“I have been courted many times, but I can’t say that a woman of maybe eighteen had tried quite like this…” he said. Amathea looked away. “I’m… twenty.” Her voice was tiny.
De Vend nodded, “Just as well.” He sighed as if giving up. “Dear Princess.” De Vend said to the world at large, “I could’ve ignored clever.” he said, stepping closer, “I could’ve turned from strong.”
His face lined up with the side of her head, and he whispered into her ear, “But it has been too long since I’ve been graced with honesty such as this.”
De Vend looked at the princess; she was vibrating in place. From fear? Who knew? De Vend didn’t intend to find out, but Katharina stepped in, “If this is you now, the Hegemony should be very afraid of what you will be.”
And with that, he straightened and stepped past Princess Amathea, opened the balcony door, and left her behind. He thought, Kaerndal might’ve gained a princess, but he got gifted a fulcrum on which to turn the Hegemony. And the crown on his victory really was the way Hatya would fume over being cut out - as always.
Amathea remained. Her muscles bristled, the hairs on her neck stood stiff, and her mind was reeling from the sudden intimacy. Unbidden fantasies of a parting kiss mixing with being run through with the sabre at De Vend’s hip for her impertinence.
She began to laugh, wild and unrestrained. “You’ve done it!” she congratulated herself. “De Vend is mine!” she laughed. And the laughing broke into heavy heaving, then open crying. Her knees buckled, and she sank to the floor. All the pent-up emotions and horror of the day flooded out of her like a dam breaking and drowning the surrounding countryside.
Amathea managed to calm herself after a handful of minutes, wiping the tears and her nose on her sleeve before remembering that her father had stuffed a handkerchief in her pocket before leaving. “Always a father first…” she huffed, and with it left the last sorrow.
The stars above De Vend were beautiful. But she really needed to see those over Kaerndal right now.