Amaranth's Yule

Chapter One ~ No Bard Without A Ballad

The sound of old, crinkling paper filled the room.

Flickering orange candlelight danced on the tall, burnished, wooden bookshelves. The candles themselves sat atop multiple side tables, on small glass plates painted with gorgeous floral designs. Vases, filled with beautiful assortments of flowers picked from the castle garden were also scattered about the tops of the shelves. Hundreds of books fit neatly into the shelves, ranging from fiction to children's stories to textbooks. Shiny brass signs indicating the genre, were fastened to the end shelf of each row. Above it all, the magnificent ceiling rose in a dome of colorful glass fragments, where a candle chandelier hung from the center, illuminating the entire library.

Emira sat at one of the few tables at the edge of the library, reading a book with a red, leather cover. She kept leaning in closer to get a better look at the words, intent on learning the book's contents. She brushed her long, brown hair out of her face, pushed up her reading glasses, and turned the page.

Suddenly, the still, silent library was not so quiet anymore. Lassor came out from behind a bookshelf, seeming to have just appeared without entering at all. "Do you ever do anything other than read?" he asked bluntly, crossing his arms coolly.

Emira ignored him, flipping another page. "I'm studying," she replied eventually. "Mother thinks we're old enough to know how the kingdom works." She was fifteen and he was sixteen, and every day they grew closer to the age when they could be crowned.

Lassor scoffed quietly. "And you agree with this?"

Emira turned to her brother and gazed into his strange, purple eyes. "Yes," she answered with an eye roll.

Lassor's eyes had looked that way since birth, but Emira had gotten used to them. His strange appearance also came with a special ability. He could travel to and from a separate dimension he called the Voidlands. He never spoke of what the Voidlands looked like, but they must have been very entertaining, as he spent most of his day there.

As for Emira, she had nothing like Lassor did. When she was younger, she had wished every day that she would find her special power, but it never revealed itself. She remembered how much her mother believed in her, and even after Emira had fully given up hope, her mother still believed. "Everyone is special in some way," she would tell Emira with a warm, loving smile upon her face.

As if the thought had summoned her, Queen Azalea appeared in the wide, library doorway. She wore a silky, red dress that hung down to her feet, with a gold lace that wove down the center. The large, drooping sleeves at her wrists were also trimmed with gold fabric, and atop her head sat a dazzling tiara, embedded with rubies and sapphires. All in all, Emira thought her mother looked stunning. She wished she could wear a dress like that, but she just couldn't stand the scratchy lace.

"Emira," her mother said evenly. "Why don't you go outside for a little while. You've been cooped up in this library for hours."

Emira stared blankly at her mother's face, as if trying to combat her order with an excuse. Eventually, she gave in and stood up with a sigh, mindful not to slam her chair into the table out of frustration. Lassor leaned over and peered at the open book on the table.

"You too, Lassor," their mother added, nodding at him as Emira stalked through the exit.

With a barely audible sigh, Lassor followed his sister out of the library. The two walked through the corridors, side by side. Emira turned her head up, and as she did every time she passed through the halls, marveled at the tapestries spread out on the cold, stone walls. Beautiful woven designs made of colorful fabric, all of them so different. There were also portraits of past kings and queens of Revelen. Some were old, some were young, many were handsome or beautiful, and a few were not. But Emira admired them all the same, knowing how much each and of them did for the kingdom.