As if the metaphorical weight that came from having every eye in the kingdom trained on him was not enough, the actual weight that came from wearing dozens of yards of layered silk had left Auriel feeling terribly achy by the night’s end. The heavy belt holding the even heavier train had even left dark imprints on his pallid skin, but it was nothing a soak in the tub could not heal. Mithril had, of course, been bursting with questions, and Auriel had been ready with tepid answers—though given her servant position and sunny disposition, even the most lukewarm words about Celethir must have struck her as boiling.
But really, nothing extraordinary had happened following Celethir’s arrival. There was a tea held for royals and advisors, then a garden party with upper nobility, then an evening meal with even more nobility, and finally a dance set to music performed by Argentus Eventide, the Geletran palace harpist—and one of the most famous vocalists in all of Ealla, though Auriel had always found him a bit too indulgent in vibrato. The events themselves were all decidedly average in their proceedings. Celethir’s attendance had merely brought greater pretense and slightly finer clothing.
The midnight bath was a thousand times more riveting, and when Mithril finally departed his room, he felt lighter and happier than he had all day—much of that was the bath, of course, but the sweetness of solitude never failed to make him smile, if only for a moment.
The silken sheets beckoned him to sleep, but instead Auriel went to the desk on the opposite side and withdrew a small bag from the uppermost drawer. Within that small bag was an even smaller bag of needles and silk threads, as well as a teal cloth bound tightly in a wooden hoop. Both of these things he brought with him to the padded seat beside the wall-high window, and with eager eyes he looked—for once—outward toward the treetops. Surely enough, by the time he’d threaded a needle with a pale orange strand, a little bird bearing the same color in its breast came fluttering to the windowsill. His eyes brightening even more, Auriel opened one of the panes and leaned in close.
“It’s finished, Marigold,” whispered Auriel as he held up the hoop. “Well, nearly so. Just a few more stitches to fill your chest, then you can join your brother on my robe.”
The little bird cocked its little head as its little black eyes gazed upon its stitched reflection in the fabric. It lingered there for a few moments, then turned its eyes to Auriel and gave a little chirp—seemingly of praise, as it perched its little feet onto the very top of the hoop right after.
Auriel chuckled as he drew the needle through the tiny gap in the embroidered bird’s chest. “Ah, I’m so glad you like it,” he said. “I thought I’d finished two nights ago, but the last time you came, the moonlight revealed to me an extra shade of orange in your chest that I hadn’t noticed before. I’ve redone the center to accommodate the change, and I think it’s better for it. I suppose I should apply the same change to the one I’ve already made, but, well…not everything has to be perfect, now, does it?”
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Marigold chirped once more.
“See, I knew you’d understand. Now if only the others could do the same…” The momentary light Marigold had sparked in his eyes dimmed, though faint vestiges of his smile remained as he continued, “For someone so blinded by surface beauty as Celethir, you’d think he’d choose better-looking advisors than the ones he has. Emara’s forehead is so pronounced, she can stand under a blazing sun without hurting her eyes, and Rindair’s nose is so hooked, you could catch fish with it. And their clothes, oh…she looked like a brick, and he looked like a twig! Perhaps that’s intentional, though, to make Celethir look better by comparison. And he does, for sure, but there’s just something about his chin that irks me to no end. His whole face is irksome, really, but that doesn’t hold a candle to the glittering pile of conceited dogshit he calls a personality. ‘The most precious jewel in my future crown,’ he called me—more like ‘the prettiest doll in my locked display case,’ I’d say. ‘How I yearn for the day when I can finally bring you home to Sola Anlae.’ And how I yearn for the day your carriage falls down a ravine. I don’t want him to die in the fall, though—just come out of it permanently and irreparably disfigured. It would hurt him more that way.”
Gradually, Auriel’s expression had shifted from melancholy to agitation, and thus his stitches had shifted off-center. Realizing his mistake, as well as the seemingly troubled look in Marigold’s eyes, he slumped his shoulders and sighed.
“I’m sorry, Marigold. I suppose it wasn’t very ‘demure elvish prince’ of me to speak that way.” With another sigh, Auriel set down his needle and leaned in closer to the bird, a tiny distorted image of himself reflected in its glassy eyes. “Let’s talk about you now. Where have you come from tonight? And where will you go when you tire of this place? A tree, or a ledge, or a mountain top? Do you have a place you consider home? Or do you consider the whole world to be your home? I certainly would, if I were in your shoes—or, feathers, I suppose. You’d look rather silly with shoes on. Or maybe you wouldn’t? Maybe you’d look cute? Perhaps I should try making you some, once I finish this embroidery. How should they look, I wonder? Should it be one big shoe per foot, or three little ones, one for each tendril claw?”
His mind was now filled with ideas for bird shoes, but his mouth had grown tired of the subject, and so he released yet another sigh and leaned back. “How foolish I must seem to you. Pathetic, at the very least. You can go anywhere, see anything, yet I’m stuck here, seeing only what I’m allowed to and thinking about only what I’m told to. I wish I could trade souls with you, if only for a minute, just long enough to feel the thrill of a chainless life. Though I fear that single minute would ruin me forever. I’d be left wanting, yearning, craving for the rest of my days—though somehow I don’t think there’d be many of them after that. The pain would be too much to bear.”
Marigold’s eyes had remained transfixed on Auriel through most of its visit, but toward the end, its gaze began to wander, and with a little chirp, it hopped from the hoop to the windowsill. It stood there for a moment and turned its head to Auriel once more, as if thinking about what it wanted to say next. It settled on two chirps, then flapped its little wings and took off. Auriel watched with a tingling in his eyes as Marigold disappeared into the night, stroking the smooth, shiny threads of its embroidered portrait as he did.
He closed the pane before he could look down and went to bed.
