Tessia Eralith
The music played in the background of the ballroom of Sister House Ivsaar as I spoke with the sons and daughters of the many other Noble Houses of Elenoir.
The melody was light, almost frivolous, the kind of composition that was meant to be heard and forgotten, to fill the spaces between conversations without demanding anyone's full attention.
I had heard it a hundred times before, at a hundred different gatherings, and I had learned to let it wash over me without listening.
That was another facet of what being a princess meant, I was discovering. It meant learning to be present without being fully there. It meant letting the sound of the world flow around you while you kept your eyes fixed on the faces that mattered.
This had become my routine for the last couple of years.
A princess needed to know about her future subjects. What I had done when I was a little girl at Mom's tea parties with other noble ladies—playing and spending time with other noble children around my age—was not enough anymore, even if from time to time those events still happened.
Now I fully lived the court life of Zestier. I knew the name of every Lord and Lady of Zestier's major Houses, from the seven Sister Houses to the minor ones.
I had personally spoken to almost all of the city's noble youth and those who visited the Green Gem.
I had learned their names, their lineages, their ambitions, their fears. I had learned to smile when I was tired, to laugh when I was not amused, to remember details about people I would never see again because that was what a princess did.
Listening to Corvis speak of Zestier—which he was very passionate about, just like he was about all types of architecture and city-planning—had been far more useful than I had expected.
Whoever young noble came from outside the Royal Capital came to me to ask for information about it. Was it just a seemingly innocent and polite way to start a conversation with the Princess? Probably. Almost surely, in most cases. But that did not matter.
What mattered was that I had answers for them. What mattered was that when they left, they remembered the princess who had spoken to them with knowledge and grace, who had made them feel seen in a room full of people who were all trying to be seen.
The last months, Dad had started teaching me the ways of politics. It was not the kind of teaching that happened in a classroom, with books and lessons and clear answers. It was the kind of teaching that happened in the spaces between words, in the glances that passed between Lords at the dinner table, in the way invitations were extended or withheld.
Dad would point to a conversation that had just happened, would ask me what I had noticed, would wait while I fumbled toward an understanding that he had reached before the first word was spoken.
Seeing how Corvis seemed totally alien to it, not wanting to even think about it—so much that he had founded an organization to explore the Beast Glades rather than sit through any sort of meeting—it was my role to fill that space.
I did that because I was a good sister first, a dutiful daughter second, a devoted granddaughter third, and a princess fourth.
While I could not deny I always liked the feeling of being a princess—the dresses, the attention, the quiet thrill of knowing that I was something more than just a girl—it was my family that always came first.
And more than anyone else, it was my twin.
I feared that if it was not for Corvis, even enjoying my princess life would not be the same. He was the one who made the weight of it bearable. When I came home from these events, exhausted and hollow, it was Corvis who would sit with me—when he was home obviously—who would let me complain about the tediousness of it all without telling me I should be grateful. I did not know what I would do without him. I did not want to know.
"Princess, what a pleasure to see you!" A young voice greeted me.
Feyrith Ivsaar III, one of my oldest friends since early childhood, appeared before me with an exaggerated bow that made his back bend almost double. His antics were always a pleasant change from the careful formality of everyone else in this room.
He wore an over-the-top light blue suit with white trousers and black shoes, a combination that should have clashed but somehow worked on him.
By his right hip, a wand-sword was kept in an elegant silvery sheath with decorative motifs that caught the candlelight and threw it back in tiny, scattered rainbows.
It was mainly for show—Feyrith's dueling days were behind him, if they had ever truly begun—but he was also a proud water mage now, and the wand-sword was a symbol of that.
Like all Ivsaars, Feyrith cared a great deal about aesthetics. That was always useful. I often went to Lady Elena Ivsaar, his mother, for tips about my dresses.
An important part of being a princess was looking like one, and no one in Zestier understood the language of fabric and cut quite like the members of House Ivsaar.
"Feyrith," I greeted, giving a shallow nod of my head as etiquette dictated.
"Please, Princess, let me accompany you," Feyrith said, offering me his arm with a flourish that made his sleeves ripple like water.
I walked past him, refusing it, satisfied by Feyrith's flabbergasted expression—which he never stopped making, no matter how many times this situation repeated itself. And like always, Feyrith simply followed in step behind me, falling into the position he had occupied since we were little children.
"Feyrith, do you know if the Grephins are attending this ball?" I asked, keeping my voice low enough that only he could hear.
Amongst all the nobles, the Grephins were the ones I most rarely interacted with. Their members seldom participated in court life. Even the stern military Sister Houses of Chaffer and Auddyr were social animals compared to the Grephins.
And the Grephins were a Sister House. For me to not meet them regularly was unthinkable. Dad had spoken to me about Sister House Grephin—how they had been an anomaly since the dawn of Elenoir, a tradition whose origin, like most traditions in noble life, had been forgotten, but that was too rooted in elven culture to remove.
Just like the roots of a Watchful Willow supported dozens of buildings, these traditions supported the life of elven nobility. I still did not know if that was good or bad.
"They are not, Princess," Feyrith replied.
I waved at various people attending the ball—a girl from House Sylwerih whose name I had learned last month, a boy from House Vernisser who had asked me three questions about Zestier's architecture that I had answered using Corvis's words, a distant cousin of one of Corvis's friends from House Auddyr who was visiting the capital for the first time.
Each interaction was brief, polished, exactly what was expected. I smiled. I nodded. I moved on and the music played on.
I spent the evening speaking with all the presents, moving through the ballroom like a piece on a board that was being moved by hands I could not see. But throughout the day, I noticed a woman I recognized from somewhere, even though I could not pinpoint where. The same woman I could swear always looked at me during all these balls.
A black-haired elven woman. A description that more or less described a good third of Elenoir's women. But I still knew that she was that same woman, even if she moved and seemed like a ghost—present and absent at the same time, there and not there, watching and disappearing whenever I tried to catch her eye.
For that reason, during these balls I also had a second objective: discover who that woman was. And unluckily for her, I had eyes in the skies to help me.
With two fingers between my lips, I made a soft whistle, shaped with wind magic to carry further than it should, to mean something only one creature in all of Zestier would understand.
I called my faithful robin. I called Coco.
I excused myself after a couple of rounds around the ballroom that took me about two hours, and headed to one of the balconies of the Ivsaar ballroom—a balcony that overlooked a nice portion of the Canopie.
The evening air was cool against my face, a relief after the warmth of the ballroom, and I stood there for a moment, letting the quiet settle around me.
"Any news?" I asked as Coco landed on the back of my hand, her tiny claws gripping my glove with the familiar pressure I had known for years.
The robin shrugged herself—a gesture that should have looked ridiculous on a bird but somehow did not. She ruffled her feathers, settled them, looked at me with those golden eyes that had always seemed too intelligent, too knowing, too something to belong to any ordinary creature.
"Come on, don't be shy," I said.
Coco had always been very submissive, but there were things that she refused to do. Like making a bond with me. Or showing me the full extent of her magical capabilities, which she still feigned not to possess.
To explain Coco's existence, I sometimes thought she might be the Summer Crow—the bodily manifestation of summer, following the teachings of the Verticil.
But she was a robin, not a crow. Just like all of Zestier joked that Berna was the Beary Bear—which had caused a very amusing reaction in Corvis—or Mom suggested Berna might be the grown-up Autumn Cub, now Coco being the Summer Crow was a joke me and my family made.
Coco shrugged again, her wings lifting and falling in that particular motion that meant I do not know or I cannot say or perhaps simply no.
"Fine," I conceded. "But can you at least tell me where this woman is right now? Guide me to her? I will speak to her myself."
Coco chirped in confirmation, a bright, clear sound that cut through the night air, and took flight. Her small form disappeared into the darkness beyond the balcony, and I watched her go, feeling the familiar mix of affection and frustration that she always inspired.
I smoothed my dress, composed my face, and stepped back into the ballroom.
Windsom Indrath
It seemed that again the lesser prince named Corvis Eralith was exploring the Dicathian Beast Glades, venturing into the "dungeons" the extinct Djinn had built in their blasphemous arrogance.
The words formed in my mind with the slow, deliberate precision that came from centuries of observation, centuries of watching the lesser races scurry about their brief lives like mayflies dancing in the last light of an autumn evening.
From my vantage above the clouds, I watched the Sea Den, as the lessers named it, return to its former, blasphemous glory.
The ancient structure was rising from its grave, shaking off the stone and salt that had been its shroud for so long, and I felt the familiar curl of disgust in my chest.
The Djinn were gone. Their works should have gone with them. That they did not was an insult to the order my Clan had imposed upon this world.
The developments regarding Corvis Eralith's situation had been pleasantly surprising to Lord Indrath.
I had reported them myself, in the precise, unadorned language my Lord preferred, and I had seen the faint lift of his brow, the almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgment that was, for him, the highest form of praise.
The efforts of the elf to unite Elenoir and Darv served the purpose of the Heaven's Host—the personal court of Kezess Indrath CXVII, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of the Great Eight—in the war against the rebel, Agrona Vritra, who would surely attempt to invade Dicathen with his hordes of inbred lessers.
That was the shape of things to come. That was the board upon which we were all merely pieces of the Great Eight's design.
And seeing how Asuran intervention was prohibited by Lord Indrath himself, Epheotus too would have to dirty its hands and rely on fallible lessers. The mightiest beings in existence, forced to use insects to do our work.
But that was the role my Lord had bestowed upon me, and Corvis Eralith, again disguised as Finn Warend, seemed the perfect proxy of his will.
I watched the lesser prince move through the newly awakened chamber, his companions trailing behind him like ducklings following a particularly enterprising hen.
He had bonded recently to a lost Guardian Bear that roamed the Elshire Forest, and that bond made him easily controllable through her. Moreover, said Guardian Bear appeared to have been corrupted by the Vritra's taint—a perfect lever to use on the lesser prince.
The creature's presence was a gift, really. A leash I could hold without the elf ever knowing it was there.
And what a peculiar Guardian Bear. Selene 17, the last experiment of Wren Kain IV at attempting to create a Guardian Bear that would satisfy the peculiar expectations of the Titan craftsman.
An experiment that had resulted in a failure and ended with the abandonment of the Guardian Bear in the Dicathian Beast Glades—a habit I considered disrespectful to the preservation of the Old World, but that Lord Indrath, in all his magnanimity, had not prohibited the Titan from doing.
The Titans were strange that way. They created, and they discarded. I had never understood it. If something was worth making, it was worth hoarding. But I was not a Titan.
From the fold of my uniform, I retrieved my notebook, folding space with the aether arts of the Indrath Clan to summon it.
I did the same to summon a fountain pen, the nib already wet with ink that would never dry, never fade. Spatium, the Edict of aether that supervised spatial aether arts, was my birthright. It was the blood that ran in my veins, the power that had been passed down through generations of my lineage, the mark of everything that made me superior to the creatures I observed.
I noted my observations of the elven prince. He was accompanied, other than by Selene 17, by two other lessers: Albold Chaffer and Ashton Auddyr.
Even writing down their names felt like an insult to my station. I was Windsom Indrath, scion of the most ancient clan in all of existence, entrusted by the Lord Protector himself with the oversight of an entire continent.
And here I was, recording the names of children who would be dust before I had finished composing my next thought. But my times as Overseer of Dicathen were closing to an end. A decade, perhaps. Two at most. A century if Agrona Vritra decided to delay his invasion.
The only thing that made elves better than other lessers was that they lived a century more than humans and dwarves. A century. It was the time it took for the gardens of the Heaven's Host to shed their petals and grow them anew.
But that meant Corvis Eralith was not going to expire as soon as other lessers his equal. Which made him even more exploitable as a pawn. I turned the thought over in my mind, examining it from all sides, and found it satisfactory.
A pawn that lasted longer was a pawn that could be moved more times, could be positioned more carefully, could be sacrificed more effectively when the moment came. He did not know it yet, but his life had been measured the moment Lord Indrath first looked upon him.
His purpose had been assigned. His fate had been written. And he would fulfill it, whether he willed it or not.
Yet another dungeon had awakened while Corvis Eralith was present, which was potentially a problem if he discovered too much about the "Ancient Mages" as the current lessers of Dicathen called the peaceseekers.
The Sea Den was once the Awareroom of a Sage—the title of a Djinn that mastered their blasphemous Manatech and Aetherology—the peaceseeker known as Avicenna Artira of Ramdad.
That blasphemer was one of the few Djinn that dared to fight back as my Clan purged them. He was killed by Gawain Indrath, former instructor of Epheotus' finest younglings, loyal servant of the Great Eight and Lord Indrath, before Kordri Thyestes.
Avicenna had been clever, for a Djinn. He had been dangerous. But he had died like all the rest, and his works had been buried, and the world had moved on.
That it was rising again, that a lesser was walking through the halls that had once held the blasphemer's secrets—that was not something I could allow to continue unchecked.
Before Corvis Eralith discovered things no lesser should know, I would better make myself seen.
I would better appear in front of him in my Narmanakaya, the Emanation Physique I was currently using even now as I observed the Beast Glades from far above.
I closed my notebook. Lord Indrath had to be informed of my decision so that I would be allowed to interfere in the life of a mere lesser that was going to soon have a role that not even in a hundred lives he would have had the honor to receive.
To be a pawn of my Lord.
Truly the highest form of honor for a lesser being.