~.✧ Austora ✧.~ [COMPLETE]

~.✧ two ✧.~

I sighed awake, my eyes slowly fluttering open to a dark room. It was rare for me to wake up in the middle of the night as I was a deep sleeper, but then I remembered how early I'd gone to sleep. I'd only meant to take a nap after we'd come back from the Corzavan's Estate, but I must have been even more exhausted than I realized as it had to be nearly nine or ten at night now.

Slowly, I sat up and stretched, letting out a large yawn. I felt more refreshed now than I'd had even that morning after a good night's rest and my once tense muscles from earlier that day were relaxed and antsy. So, I climbed from my sheets and slipped on my robe, determined to find a snack in the kitchens since I'd accidentally skipped dinner.

I loved the castle at night. It was very rare that I was allowed to or able to explore it when it was so silent and dark, but when I could, I savored every moment of it.

Slipping through the halls, the sound of my slippers against the slick floor echoing off the walls, I made my way downstairs and to the kitchens. It was dark and empty, the clean up after dinner having been finished long ago, and I couldn't help but smile to myself. Just how I liked it.

We had three head cooks, one for each meal of the day, but Tehrsi was my favorite. She was the dinner cook and she always made extra portions of desert, leaving them out for us overnight. After all her years of working at the castle, she had learned that Asria and Braz—who were lighter sleepers—would often come down for a snack when they woke up in the middle of the night. She probably even knew that on rare occasions, I came down too.

Tiptoeing over to one of the counters, I found the plate of pastries. I snatched up one of the patlevfts, my smile widening. The little treat was raspberry filled and flaky, one of my favorites. Braz always teased me about my sweet tooth, one of the only things I received from my father.

Braz and Kartren were like younger duplications of our father, Kartren more so than Braz. Braz was slightly thinner in build, like our mother, but all of his other features were father's. I, on the other hand, looked more like Mother, as I was shorter, thin boned, and had smaller facial features like my nose and sharp chin. Asria was the only royal child that looked more independently herself physically, much like her personality. Her hair wasn't dark, but it wasn't the iconic bright blond that defined the Bordovakis. Her eyes were also darker; while they were still green to match ours, they were closer to a hunter green than emerald or sage, a differentiating characteristic. Many of the older Councilors said she took after Mother's father, who had died before I'd met him but apparently had similar coloring.

I was glad I hadn't turned out to be the different one. The image of the royal line was one of the oldest, most quintessential traditions of Austora. And while no one disliked Asria because of her differences, she sometimes received interesting looks or challenging glances. There had been a rumor many years ago—that'd been quickly and thoroughly quieted—that she wasn't even Father's child. But where she hadn't received his looks, she received his head-strongness and cunning intuitiveness.