DINNER IN THE PRIVATE dining hall of the Cliasa Palace used to be an entertaining affair, with honorable guests filling up the fifty seats around theextravagant table beautifully decorated with flower arrangements andcrowded with dishes of lavish food and bottles of fine wine. There'd bechatter, laughter, and merriment, and by the end of the night, a sort ofalliance would be formed and new policies to improve the nation would beimplemented. Now, however, the dining hall's atmosphere was anything butjolly. There were no guests, as there had been no guests invited in the lastsix months after that horrid evening when a nursemaid had run into the hall,her face pale with terror as she shakenly announced that their adorablebeloved Princess Lilly Turodon had gone missing.
Lionel Turodon, King of Cliasa, lifted his gaze to his beloved wife Selina,noting her pale complexion and red eyes. He reached his hand out andgently stroked hers. "You mustn't torture yourself so, Selina," he said."We'll find Lilly soon."
Selina sniffed and lifted her gaze to her husband, her dark eyes swollenand red from the many hours of tears. She nodded and tried to manage asmile but failed, and tears once again came pouring down.Lionel gathered his wife into his arms, and beautiful Selina continued tosob.
Sitting opposite Selina was Wilfred Turodon. Noting his mother was breaking down again and the solemn expression on his father's face, the ten-year-old crown prince stood, moved around the table, and came to thepair. The three embraced, and soon, tears began to well in Wilfred's eyes,too.
It was a little while later when Wilfred paced along the corridor of thepalace walls, his personal bodyguard, Baden, following silently behind him.Upon the entrance of a grand hall, Wilfred stood and fixed his gaze on hisaunty, Princess Myra Turodon, who was kneeling at the altar.
Wilfred walked up behind the petite, plump form and kneeled, too, hishands in prayer and his head bowed. He hoped at least one of the deitiescould hear him, hear his plea for any sort of news of his sister. Moreimportantly, he hoped they could hear his imploration for Lilly's return.Wilfred was deep in chanting his appeal to the gods when he felt a gentlehand on his head. He opened his eyes to see Myra smiling at him.
Eager for news, Wilfred asked, "Have you any sight of Lilly?"
Myra's pretty face fell instantly, and she shook her head. "Unfortunately, Ihave not, Wilfred. I fear the deities have not answered me."
"But you are a seer," Wilfred said, a hopeful expression on his face. "The
only one in all of Cliasa. One of the only three in all of Eseron. You havethe power to see all and communicate directly with the deities."
"Unfortunately, that is not so, my dear Wilfred. Being a seer doesn't meanI have the power to see all," Myra said. Wilfred's shoulders slumped, and Myra wrapped her arms around the boy."'Tis getting late. Return to your chamber now."
"What about you?" Wilfred asked.
"I will pray some more," Myra said. "I will continue to do so until I havea.sight of Lilly. I will not stop."
Indeed, she had not stopped since the day Lilly had gone missing, and the soldiers had searched every corner of the nation for the little princess.Myra had visions for the past six months, as she had had visions since she discovered she was blessed by Kalir, the God of Oracles. Regrettably, those sights were not of Lilly, but revelation of the weather, that it was going tobe the worst so far during all of winter, which it was with the snowstormbrewing endlessly for weeks at a time, that the people would suffer becauseof it, and that the winter disease would rampage, as it had always beenevery winter.
It had always been thus-doom and gloom-and Myra often wondered why the vision couldn't be more positive. Something along the line of here's the recipe for a medicine to cure the winter disease, or better yet,here's a recipe to make delicious food. Despite the nation having anabundant harvest and the people never going hungry, Myra had given uphope of finding anything that was remotely delicious to treat her refinedtaste buds.
