A Tale of Crowns and Stars

Swords & Cake

 "You slipped something into the pound cake." Cyra jested, playfully pushing Wyndemere on his shoulder as he polished his knife.

"I did not," He began, laughing. "I simply had the cook warm it. I had no say in what went into it. Plus, I'm a horrible cook." Alorha, Idria, and Mirabel barely looked up from the card game they played on the garden lawn but laughed at their conversation.

"Mirabel said she couldn't wake you up from your sleep until after breakfast!" Alorha tossed to Cyra, who shrugged, smiling.

"I slept well; what can I say?" A horde of people swept by the lounging group without acknowledging them; carrying linens, chairs, and archways into the garden space.

"Only five more days..." Idria murmured ominously, and Cyra's stomach dropped at the thought. Married, crowned, and perhaps crowned again. It was then that she remembered the holmgang as well, the threat thereof looming in the back of her mind like the swinging ropes of a gallows. Halewijn barely acknowledged the genuine possibility he could end up on the wrong side of Omar's sword, perhaps because it scared him almost as much as it frightened her. But they hadn't spoken about it, not yet.

"Cyra?" Alorha's voice brought her back to the present, and she registered the others' eyes on her.

"Did you ask me a question?" She wondered, but Mirabel quickly shook her head, dismissing the inquiry.

"It's irrelevant." Wyndemere gave Cyra a pointed look but quickly went back to his knife-polishing as the card game resumed. Cyra turned around to watch the people preparing the garden for the lavish festival-wedding, still unable to shake the sinking feeling in her gut.

"Your Highness!" Cyra's head snapped to the portico of the palace, where the same young boy she had stopped in the hallway when Idria and Eres had arrive stood. He waved a short arm at her, then jogged down the stairs to meet her in the garden.

Out of breath and slick with sweat, the dark-skinned child placed his hands on his knees, huffing as Cyra approached. "You're... needed... in the... library." Cyra smiled down at the brown-eyed, coil-haired boy and patted his cheek twice in thanks.

"Thank you, sir. Go ask one of those white-haired men for a sip of lemonade and tell them I sent you. If you're nice, I'm sure Wyndemere will sneak you a slice of pound cake." The young boy nodded, smiling - thus showing the missing teeth again - before rushing over to the group to collect his reward.

Cyra took the stairs one at a time, making the trip to the library a deliberate one. She hadn't stopped to ask who sent for her or what the nature of the talk would be. Perhaps it was Omar, looking for some information she wouldn't divulge. Or maybe it was Halewijn, who spent his days bent over his plans for the new temple and somewhere with Alorha 'conducting meetings', Alorha confessed, but wouldn't share the nature thereof. It could even be the frozen-eyed Eres, who seemed to give her a lot more space than he had at Yul.

An attendant pushed open the library doors upon her arrival, and she walked in, examining the room that looked a lot like the one at home, except much larger in size.

"... the path will lead right here." She heard Halewijn's voice echo in the room and followed the sound up a flight of stairs and to her left. When she found him, he sat in front of a large window that overlooked the palace grounds' west side, where the hedge maze was. Beyond the hedge maze stood a tall, grey wall that seemed to deflect even the sun's powerful rays, but that didn't dim the light in the greenery below it by a fraction.

"My love, you came quickly," Halewijn murmured, turning away from the desk and holding his hand out to her, his way of bringing her close for a kiss.