“When I look at you, I want to see a silent woman.”
She curls up on herself, sobbing into the ground, hating these situations she is somehow cursed to endure.
Rendel walks over her body with a ‘tsk’ noise before returning to the interior of the Sapphire Palace without another word.
Off in the distance, she can hear the faint string music of her party. She should throw herself from the garden's edge. Would that not please her father? Rendel? Would she finally find peace?
She steps backward, focusing on the open-air view of the villages surrounding the palace and wondering how long she will fall before reaching her Goddess. With a scream, Avina stumbles back and splashes into chilly water.
When she emerges, her hair unfolds from her bun and clings to her face in a curling mess.
So much for the straightening oil.
She wipes away her now runny makeup and emerges drenched in the courtyard, having fallen into the fountain dedicated to Maeve.
Thanks, she thinks bitterly. At least she has a valid excuse to step away from the celebrations.
She glances at the double wooden doors leading to the royal bedchambers. All she wants is to be alone, to change back into her nightdress, and return to her soft bed with a book.
Servants would still file up their staircase through the upper wings at this time. She could brave the chaos in her current state or slip into the quiet Academia Wing toward the library. Here’s hoping an unlocked study would yield a dry towel or robe.
She finds the Academia Wing deserted, just as she predicted. Avina ditchesher leather shoes in the corner of the long corridor and pads along the smooth stone floor barefoot. Only one room sits with a door ajar.
Her father’s study has a single candle flickering on his desk. The disarray of papers suggests he only recently abandoned his work in favor of the soiree. She throws open a closet and finds a spare cloak.
She sighs as she dries herself on the silk fabric. A string of hair instantly curls like it has been waiting for the moment to reconfigure itself from its pin prison.
Movement in the shadows stops her breathing. All of Treland has been invited and will have free reign of the palace. Anyone can be in this room with her.
“H-hello?”
The shadow moves into the light of the flickering candle, revealing a man whose appearance alone stuns her into silence.
Judging by his runic tattoos along his forearms and fingers and the long, tawny braid running down the center of his head, he is a Salt Warrior. Silver rune-etched beads fill his russet beard resting on his chest. Expressing this man as ‘rough around the edges’ is an understatement. He wears a black tunic with faint Salt knots embroidered along the seams and matching trousers.
She notices his black bracers and leather vest.
Is he expecting trouble?
Visible scars mar his neck and hands. Indifference rolls off of him, and the lines on his face and haughty air suggest he is almost a decade older than her. Then there are his piercing blue eyes, which fill her with a strange and foreign longing.
“Who are you?” She spits as much royal forcefulness as she can muster at this stranger’s appearance far from the gathering floors below them.
He tilts his head to the side as if she is out of place and not him. “You are soaked.” His voice is deep and gruff.
She huffs. “Quite aware of that, thank you.”
She opens her mouth to ask why he is trespassing, yet stops. Like in a chess game, one should anticipate their opponent's moves. This stranger would likely counter and ask the same question, forcing her into acorner where she would feel compelled to tell him the truth about her identity.
And, right now, she is content receiving his full attention, even if that means she pretends to be anyone else but Princess Avina Bloodstone.
He removes a blackwood pipe and puffs a smoke ring over her head. “What happened to you?”
Is that a genuine concern?
The sound of a drawer shutting shakes her focus, and she realizes he has been snooping. He strides around to where she stands and leans against the desk. All without taking his blue gaze off her.
Avina trembles slightly at his unflinching stare. “I fell in a fountain.” She mutters. “Are you looking for something?”
