After leaving Hadria, my usual routine resumed in Coppershire. My family had been home for several fortnights before my mother wished to visit Florendel and asked me to accompany her. She claims it’s a diplomatic mission, but I know she loves to visit Spring simply to catch up with her oldest friend, the High Princess Isidora.
Though I’ve visited Florendel countless times, Spring’s High Princess always proves an imposing sight. Every time, she greets us from her throne, crafted of helms of the past High Rulers. I feel perpetually shrunken beneath the shadowed stare of her helm. However, once she and my mother retire to the study for discussion, they end up cackling away like two schoolgirls.
The Royal Family of Spring never removes their helms in front of anyone. On the way here, I asked Mother if she’d ever seen Isidora’s face, and despite years of friendship, she said no, of course not. Then, she’d leaned in close and whispered that when the two of them are alone in the study, sometimes Isidora will lift her helm the smallest bit so she can take a sip of coffee. Mother said those slight glimpses of her jaw and mouth are sweeter than honey.
I’d much rather have been sitting in the study, drinking coffee, eating polvorones, and listening to Mother and Isidora gossip about the latest fashion trends in Summer or the marriageability of the young Winter Prince than have been sent off to the forge like an errand boy.
“Your lance is nearly complete,” Isidora had gushed to my mother earlier. “My son is completing the final inspection of it today. He’ll be in the forge. Farron, be a good lad and go fetch it. Your mother and I have much to discuss.” Then they’d started giggling again, a sound quite foreign from my mother’s lips.
“I don’t know the way,” I’d hedged.
Isidora had waved her hand. “I’ll send my lady-in-waiting to show you.”
Now, I stand before the gaping maw of the forge, throat tight.
“Well, what are you hesitating for, boy?” Isidora’s lady-in-waiting asks. “There ain’t no dragons inside! Get in there!”
I turn to the lady-in-waiting, a voluptuous red-faced woman with bouncy blond curls. Normally, I’d correct someone for not addressing me by my proper title, but there’s something aboutthis woman that makes me think I shouldn’t cross her. “It’s not dragons I’m worried about,” I grumble.
“The prince will be working the Great Forge. Straight through. You won’t be able to miss it,” the lady-in-waiting says.
That’swho I’m worried about. The prince. There’s two of them. The eldest isn’t so bad. He acts like I don’t exist, which is fine by me. But the youngest… I suppress a shiver. There’s a quality to him that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.Please, oh please, oh please, let it be the older brother.
Gulping, I turn to the lady-in-waiting. “Will you come with me, Ma—uh—Mary…”
“Marigold!” she snaps. “And you best remember it, boy. No, I don’t go in there.” She primps her ridiculously bouncy curls. “The soot affects my hair. You’re a tough lad! Get in there!”
With that, she gives me an unceremonious shove on the back, and I stumble into the forge.
Heat and darkness swallow me as I step within Draconhold. I peer through the gloom. Bursts of bright orange light erupt on either side as workers stoke the massive forges, their hammers ringing out in a symphony of metal against metal. An acrid scent fills the cavernous space. Shadows dance across the walls, revealing glimpses of machinery and runes etched into the foundation. There’s a scholar in the Scriptorium who can decipher Spring’s runes and even speaks several of their unique languages. I’d like to learn one day.
Ahead, the Great Forge looms, a colossal structure that dominates the heart of Draconhold. Flames roar within its depths, casting an eerie glow that bathes the chamber in a fiery hue. A lone figure stands at the forge, only their silhouette visible, hammering on an object that gleams bright orange. Sparks fly with each strike.
My throat tightens. I can make out the silhouette now, a tall man who’s wearing breeches covered in black smudges, a tight, sleeveless undershirt, and a leather apron.
And the helm, of course.
What color is it? What color, what color?
The man looks up from his work as I approach, and I breathe a sigh of relief. A silver helm. Not black. It’s the eldest brother.
Prince Ezryn.
My whole body relaxes as I realize I won’t have to have a painfully awkward experience with Kairyn, the younger brother. Now, I can just have a painfully awkward experience with Ezryn. Still embarrassing, but at least I won’t feel like he wants to dismember me during the conversation.
Ezryn goes back to his work. This is the first time I’ve seen him without a full suit of armor. His arms bulge with each hammer swing, the muscles in his back rippling. His tawny skin is slick with sweat and smeared with oil. It’s a wonder his mother hasn’t paraded him around the marriage mart yet; I’m sure there’ll be a line of suitors for the heir to the throne of Spring.
I walk up beside the forge and stand uncomfortably for what feels like eons. Ezryn doesn’t look up again, merely continuing his relentless barrage against the red-hot sword before him. I wonder if he’s seen me at all. Hecanseeout of that helmet, can’t he?
I wait another minute, then another, until the heat and clatter are too much for me to bear.
I fake a cough.
Ignored.
I fake aloudercough.
Ignored.
