Thread of Gold

Ch. 3: from the darkness

Princess Penelope Delafort was getting outrageously drunk.

Intoxicated. Blasted. Utterly door-knobbed. She giggled to herself. Door-knobbed. That was clever, actually.

Penny floated around the garden party, humming as she plucked a champagne glass from a passing tray. Technically, at sixteen, she was too young to drink — but nobody was going to stop a princess, were they?

They never did.

Violin music swelled above the party, mixing with the tinkling of glasses. Her mother was sitting on a throne under a golden awning, fanning herself with a large pink feather. Her auburn hair — the same colour as Penny's own — shone with bits of gold. The larger throne next to her was empty.

No sign of Ryne yet. Where the hell was her brother?

Penny winced as her head throbbed. Not from the champagne, but from the feelings.

Feelings.

There were so many of them here. Anxiety. Happiness. Awe. Fear. Penny could feel all of it crushing her at once, crawling over and on top of one another. She took a long drink of champagne. It did little to help.

Bollocks.

Her father used to call it Penny's special little gift. Her parents both loved games, and her father's games usually involved crouching behind sofas in the castle. Arthur's green eyes — a shade darker than her own — would sparkle with amusement. He would press a finger to his lips, nodding to a scullery maid.

"What's she thinking, sweetheart?"

Penny would screw up her face. "She's tired. And a little grumpy."

"And him?"

Her father had gestured to a footman. Penny tilted her head. "He's in love. He's having a torrid affair with one of the parlor maids, and they're planning to run away together before her father can object."

In retrospect, Penny wasn't sure if this was true. She couldn't read people's thoughts, but her imagination was like a runaway carriage: once it got going, trying to stop it was futile.

After their game finished, her father would give her an ice lolly. Later, the king expanded their game, bringing Penny with him to council meetings. Penny's job would be to pick out each man's emotion, to decide whether he was for or against proposed bills. That was duller; she detested long council meetings.

But her father had been proud.

"It's such a special little gift," Arthur always said. "For my special little princess."

It didn't feel like a gift right now.

Penny drained her champagne, her eyes narrowing. Nope. Still not drunk enough. She needed something stronger; if only she'd thought to bring her flask. She sighed, grabbing another glass of champagne.

Across the garden, a troupe of actors were performing the War of Nightmares. Penny's eyes narrowed. Her tutor, Briar, had told her about the War several times, but she never listened. Terribly boring stuff.

Still, Penny knew the basics: seventeen years ago, King Pieter of Lucerna bravely led an army into Wynterlynn. He lay siege to the castle for twelve days — blah, blah, blah — and then when Pieter won, he put Penny's father, Arthur, on the throne.

The actors were just getting to the part where King Pieter executed all the Nightweavers. The crowd applauded as fake-Pieter killed each member of the Cidarius family: King Gideon Cidarius, Queen Mab, their daughter Princess Lotta and her husband Benji, and even their baby, Annalise.