Crumbling Crown

2.

    As the weeks lagged on and the air grew chilly Alys noticed a definite upturn in the group's atmosphere. Many of the brutish guards were talking passionately of what they were looking forward to most when they arrived home. Some were looking forward to their wives' home cooking while others were looking forward to having a reunion with their favorite taverns. Others who were too young to have married, or have a favorite tavern yet, such as Kaden, simply wanted a warm bed to sleep in after so many nights with nothing but a sleeper separating them from the cold, hard dirt.

    Unlike everyone else, Alys wasn't particularly keen to go home just yet; she was still dreading her family reunion which would, no doubt, end horribly. Wondering what look would be on her father's face upon her arrival would cause her to punch her threadbare pillow at night. She knew she was overthinking it and that she really shouldn't care, but the image of his face contorted into a grimace of disgust seemed to haunt her every living moment, day and night.

    Then when she wasn't thinking about her father she was thinking about her mother and siblings. Her youngest brother, Daniel, had always kept in touch with her over the years she had been gone. Although the letters were thoroughly searched before they entered or left the school, Alys and Daniel still managed to share whatever information they could as pen-pals. Alys had even instructed that he wrote within every letter exactly how tall he was so she wouldn't be so thoroughly shocked the next time she'd see him. She was still stunned, however, at how different he looked during her few visits.

    Her older brother, Ashton, was heir to the throne and, because of that, she hadn't seen him for over three years due to him always being away on some battlefield playing hero. He was kind and good-natured but was sometimes full of himself which, despite her warnings, he had chosen to embrace. Hopefully he'd be more mature when she'd next see him... If she'd see him. Father had sent a letter along with the guards including a sentence explaining that Ashton was supposed to be attending her eighteenth birthday ball with whatever skank he'd chosen for the event.

Alys was never fond of her eldest brother's choices in women, but her advice had certainly never stopped him, much less influence him. Alys smiled to herself as she thought of the bejeweled nomad he had taken to the winter ball when she was fifteen.

    She was a tan woman with glassy eyes and dark hair and was wearing shear silk that looked like it was melting off her. Her hair was covered by a magenta fishnet scarf and several of her teeth reflected light, revealing priceless gemstones that matched her half-dozen necklaces, numerous earrings, and collection of loud bracelets that clanked around whenever she moved the slightest inch. In Alys's opinion, she looked like she had just robbed the castle's treasury and went for a swim in bright paint. Ashton, however, found her to be exotic. But Mother had different thoughts and after she had seen her eldest son's date, the colorful nomad was never seen with Ashton ever again. Not that he ever went out with the same woman twice, the pig.

    Then, finally, there was Alys's mother who, since the day they were born, had been sent out on an eternal quest to look for the perfect spouse for each of her children. Alys, Daniel, and Ashton all hated it when she tried to introduce them to whatever eligible candidate she decided to throw their way. None of her children believed it was just by chance that all of the candidates happened to be very rich and high in society. Mother was a snob to say the least and proud to be so, seeing that she flaunted her worthiness during her every waking moment.

    Alys didn't know much about her other relatives except for a few cousins and uncle who lived South-East in Baydonna and a mentally-disturbed grandfather who passed on when she was eight. She barely knew her first-cousins and uncle from her father's side and had only met them twice before: once at a winter ball and again at Ashton's coming-of-age. The latter was when Alys realized how truly strange her uncle was. Her grandfather was a whole other ordeal, for he was not a tad bit strange but completely off his rocker.