Emeral In Shadow

Court and Wedding Bells [#16]

Gustaaf spared no time returning to the Palace, luckily Ewald and his protesters had seemed to taken the day off, or something, as the gates were shut.

He had decided to return on foot, for the fun of it. Though not by the streets, rather he ran across the green and blue tiled roofs of the Bramblehaven district, listening to the clik clak of his shoes on the brick.

Gustaaf leaped off the roof, landing and continuing to run, emerald green eyes and smile shining with pride at the perfect prose with which he executed the jump. The skies seemed perfect that night, he thought as he approached the guard's peephole beside the gate, stars and constellations dancing in the sky.

Gustaaf shouted, not too loudly, into the hole "I need to enter the Palace, as it is my home, as your acting king." He almost snickered at the idea of being King of the kingdom that wanted him dead as an assassin, but a memory dropped into his thoughts.

It was years back, he'd be around 14 then.

He was living with his mentor, now recently dead at his hands, Æthelweald. A hint of nostalgia settled over him as he reminisced, waiting for the guard to hear his summons and allow him entry.

Æthelweald had been trying to teach him something, the precise way to flick a knife into someone's jugular while they wore heavy armor, but Gustaaf's mind was dozing. It was late at night and they'd been up all night.

His mentor poked him hard in the shoulder, "Gustaaf, Gustaaf. I did not raise a wild bull who charges wildly, you are to be as the dragonfly that always silences it's prey."

Gustaaf made increasingly futile attempts at keeping his eyes open, swaying on his feet slightly, "Yeah, sorry. I'm just..." He yawned, eyes filling with sleepy tears.

Æthelweald stood and said, "Sink the blade in the dummy, and we can end your exercises for the night." To which Gustaaf gleefully threw the knife at the dummy, sticking it perfectly into it's neck. Finally he'd be able to get to sleep.

Æthelweald smiled lightly, showing the edges of his teeth. Gustaaf turned to the cellar door, eager to bury himself under the covers, when Æthelweald said something that made Gustaaf's skin crawl with resentment, something so evil and heinous he'd never forgive him for...

"Not time for bed yet Gustaaf, first I must show you something. Come." Gustaaf groaned audibly, but followed Æthelweald upstairs and through the house.

They ended up on the roof, Æthelweald pulling Gustaaf up over the edge.

The stars were beautiful that night, much like they were the night Gustaaf killed his mentor, in the present.

Æthelweald sat upright, one knee pulled to him and one leg outstretched, his face almost ghostly from the moonlight. Gustaaf laid backwards onto the tiles.

Gustaaf instantly wanted to fall asleep on the roof, the tile cold beneath his back and the breeze just perfect, but Æthelweald prodded him awake, and pointed to the sky with a dagger he had produced from somewhere on his body.

"Do you see that cluster of stars? Four bright luminaries, one green, one blue, one purple, one red, all in a neat square. And around those four in a semicircle a dense wall of smaller ones. It's called the Halo of Beginnings " He moved the point of the knife just slightly on each color.

Gustaaf looked where he pointed to, squinting,

"I don't think..."

He looked harder, and eventually he found it; just as he said, four stars that glowed a little brighter than the rest, with the four different hues that were enough to be noticed if you were looking for it, but mostly they just looked white-yellow like the rest of the stars.