Pushing through another door, he called to a smattering of stones in the wall and urged them to glow. The pure sunlight that bathed them during the day poured into the room, glinting off of the gold mirrors and warming the space, hitting his skin as he ripped the dusty clothes from his body.
Another call to his power and a wide, rectangular hole opened in the wall above the massive tub in the floor, hot water gushing forth. With a sigh, he trudged down the steps and sat on the ledge beneath the steaming fall, the tension leaving him with every speck of dirt that was swept away.
Well, some of it, anyway. There was too much to fucking do. Never mind his duties during the mating ritual that evening—the ones he’d absolutely been obsessing over, even though Faldir was right and he’d carried the ceremonial vessel of stain so many times that he’d lost count.
When the bath was full, he cut the water off and eyed the cloths and soap on the opposite side, willing his magic to work on something other than the earth and stone. He hadn’t yet gotten so lazy that he’d stoop to deforming the castle walls just to avoid walking a few measly feet, but still.
His youngest brother, Araxis, could have easily brought them to himself.
Lucky Nachthellian bastard.
Brand’s grumbles were swallowed by the humidity as he sloshed across the pool and swiped them up, thoughts wandering to his family while he lathered and scrubbed.
He often wondered what they’d all looked like at birth, if they’d resembled each other or their parents for those few hours before they were made into something else. If they’d had wings like their father or frost like their mother. Eyes of green, or the deepest brown.
Unfortunately, he’d never know those answers. It was taboo to speak of such things. To try and own something other than that which they’d been given.
He may have entered life as Brandir aht Bordoroth, the fourth Son born to the ecstatic Imperial Sovereigns, but it had been a few hours later when the newly-crowned Demon King of Straelon had shown up to Bless him that Brand’s true role in this world had been solidified for the rest of his very long life.
His father, Emperor Alwyn, said that Lyriat had looked comical standing there holding Brand to his small chest—a mere child himself and looking utterly lost—but the magic of Bordoroth needed no prior knowledge, no fancy words or actions, in order to work.
In an instant, his body, his very essence, had been transformed into those of the Montrealm.
For all eternity, he was changed. ’Til death, he was Demon.
Now, he was Straelon’s striped sienna mountains and the towering majesty of its evergreen trees. His razor-sharp horns took pride of place in his reflection, their obsidian lengths rising up and back from his auburn hair to crown him with the dignity of all Straelani.
He commanded the earth and it heeded him. He raged, a seething colossus with whorls of power tracing over his skin. He swam in the sea and climbed the crimson peaks and rejoiced in the light of Solyrian.
Same as the rest of his Demon brethren.
Greater minds than his had been broken trying to understand how the magic worked, or why only Imperials could undergo the Blessing. Brand didn’t care. He had no interest in picking apart Bordoroth’s mysterious quirks. He had one job, and he would do it well if it killed him.
Which it might.
Brand submerged himself, rinsing the suds away before floating to the surface and staring up through the slanted glass roof to the sky beyond. Solyrian was still blazing, gulls flying by against the endless blue backdrop.
A couple of hours, then, before the gathering would start in the square.
“Fuck.”
No matter how much he loved this realm and what it had made him, it never escaped Brand how wildly ill-equipped he was for being the focus of so many damned people.
The little moments were fine, like settling petty disputes in the pub over an ale. Ensuring the artisans, quarry hands, and lumberers were paid fairly for their wares and exports. Keeping the markets in good repair for the fisher folk. He even enjoyed visiting his uncle and brothers in their realms to negotiate Lyriat’s terms, doing his part to keep a tentative peace in Bordoroth.
All easy enough. Business and numbers.
But he’d been made High Ambassador while still a babe latched to his mum, and his Blessing Day may as well have been hisCursingDaywhen he had to face the nights like this one.
When he had to perform for the masses, hundreds of eyes on him expecting to see a tear or two for the pair he’d be helping to join. When all he’d done was stand there holding a bloody damned bowl, but he’d have to hear over and over about what a marvelous job he’d done, pretending he wasn’t fully aware of their veiled attempts to get into his good graces.
No wonder he had episodes.
And that evening marked the first of almost two month’s-worth of feasts and parties he would have to attend.
“Sisters save me.” With a groan, Brand pulled himself from the comforting weightlessness of the bath, water sluicing from his body as he wrapped a swath of linen around himself.
His canopied bed beckoned when he left the washroom, its airy sheets and mound of pillows whispering words likenapandrestandforget for a little while.
