He preferred life to be steady, with the comfort of predictability. His existence may have been miserable, but it was a familiar, monotonous misery. The arrival of anything new introduced the risk of a fresh, raw kind of suffering.
So, August stuck to his routine. He dealt with the tedious lessons, his thoughts always far removed from the ramblings of tutors and their lectures on diplomacy and manners and whatever other grueling thing they decided was crucial for him to learn.
He enjoyed his meals with Lottie in an empty dining room, where she’d tell him all about whatever novel she was reading or whichever friend she’d had tea with that day. Dinners with his mother were rare, marked by uncomfortable silences and icy disinterest.
When there were official events or formal receptions, he would find any excuse to avoid them, retreating to the solitude of his room. Since his father’s death, his mother never pushed theissue, content to let him have his privacy. Grateful as he was, he knew it was about image preservation, not anything resembling compassion. The same reason she no longer let him leave the castle grounds, even when Lottie went out with their tutor.
Of course, it helped that Lottie drew enough attention at the events to make up for his absence. Despite being twins, their differences far outnumbered their similarities. Where August was unsociable and unapologetically unambitious, Lottie was everything someone born into royalty should be. Gregarious and driven and kind.
And persuasive, apparently, because she’d somehow convinced him to break his comfortable routine to sneak out for a stupid festival.
With a confident stride, Lottie led the way down the street, the sounds from the market square growing louder with every step. She wore a lilac dress with a high collar, her black hair pinned at the base of her neck.
August glanced down at his brown frock coat. It was a casual outfit, nothing that would make him stand out. But he was still acutely aware of the fact that he didn’t belong.
Then again, that was how he usually felt, regardless of the setting.
Lottie slowed to match his pace. “Stop making that face. It’s a celebration.”
He gave her a tilted look. “What face?”
“Your grumpy old man face.”
“This is just my face, Lottie,” he said, throwing out his hands.
She laughed and gave him a playful shove. “Just smile, dear brother.”
“I’d rather not.”
Music greeted them as they reached the square; the rhythmic, energetic lilt of a fiddle, and the fluttering trills of a flute. August had learned to play a variety of instruments, taught by renownedmusicians from across Atheran, but the songs he knew were heavy and slow. This was buoyant and wild, with the pulse of a racing heart.
He followed Lottie to a spot at the edge of the crowd.
Fallowmoor was a walled city built out from the massive castle. It was composed of short brownstone buildings, iron fences, and narrow, twisting streets, but the sprawling market square at its centre, ringed by shops with decorative facades, was its best feature.
Gaslamps burned with the pale pink of wielder fire, and the cobblestones disappeared beneath the sea of grey and brown jackets and muted bustled dresses. Even at this late hour, the square hummed with life and too much noise, its energy effervescent. Market stalls sat crammed together like sardines in a tin, the vibrant colours faded from summers spent in the sunlight and winters spent in sleet and snow. Although winter’s chill remained stubbornly present, the handful of trees in the city center were already bursting with tiny green buds.
August hadn’t expected his city to smell so delicious up close. From his balcony, he’d occasionally pick up the foul odor of the Copperhill tanneries or the Torlaeth ironworks, and sometimes the pungent smell of animals carried in on the wind from the farms outside the walls. But down here, the air was thick with the scents of spiced food and warm mulled wine.
It had been four years since he’d been immersed in the city rather than observing as a distant bystander. Now, Fallowmoor felt like an estranged friend, someone once loved but now unfamiliar.
Back then, when he visited the city, it was with his father or a tutor and always with at least two members of the royal guard. Being out here among wielders without protection was terrifying.
He eyed a woman perched on an old wooden crate, her green dress frayed and blackened with soot. With a graceful flourish of her hand, she coaxed a thin sprout from the pot of dirt at her feet. August tensed as the sprout grew and budded, wrapping up around the woman’s hand, then her arm. All at once, the buds bloomed into an explosion of vivid yellow flowers, the sweet scent hitting him like a blast.
With a gasp, he jumped back, heart pounding in his chest.
The woman gave a gentle smile and bowed as passersby tossed a handful of caern into the bowl at the base of the crate.
August wasn’t accustomed to being this close to wielders, since they weren’t allowed inside the castle. The massive gardens were tended by hand, and the gaslamps lit with plain orange fire. Wielders were too dangerous, too volatile. He’d witnessed firsthand the sort of destruction they were capable of.
Fear prickled in his fingertips, but Lottie seemed unbothered, her face alight with unbridled excitement as she watched the crowds flow like rivers beneath the colourful banners.
“What do you think, Auggie?” she asked over the noise.
His brow cinched. “It’s loud.”
“It’s a celebration,” she said with a smile. “It’s meant to be loud.”
