The Dance of Kings [discontinued under this title]

Chapter 2

Mynoa, Rundil

A thick blanket of snow covered the city of Mynoa.  Audriel Hemmings, sole daughter of King Odirius Hemmings, gazed out her window of the palace.  This was the first snow of the winter and a warning of the long winter ahead.  The snow is also a reminder of her birthday today.  It felt like it has come earlier this year. 

Outside her room, she heard the quiet bustle of servants working in the halls.  She heard a knock at her door.  “Milady Audriel, are you awake?” her handmaiden asked through the door.

“Yes, Tella”, she replied as she tied her crimson velvet robe.  “You may enter.”  Tella quickly and quietly enters the room, shutting the door behind her.  She knows how her mistress enjoys her privacy.  “Do you know where my father is?”  Audriel closed the curtains, cloaking the room in darkness.

Tella began lighting the fire and candles in her room.  “I believe he is in the kitchen, talking to the cooks about tonight’s meal”, she replied as she tried lighting the fire.  “He wants everything to go perfect for you.”

Audriel snorted.  “I believe my birthday means more to him than it does to me.”  She approached her unmade bed and pulled the blankets off.  “If it was up to me, I wouldn’t be hosting any sort of festivities.  We are just inviting wretched, parasites into our home so that they can leech of us.”

Finally having gotten the fire lit, showering the room with light, Tella stood up and approached Audriel.  “Imagine what your father would say if he heard you talking about your guests like that.”  She began removing the blankets from the bed, beckoning Audriel to take a seat.  “Hosting these parties means a lot to him and to your mother, as well.  You know how she enjoys mingling with her friends and family.”

“It’s not the people we want to invite I have to worry about”, Audriel stated.  “It’s the people we have to invite.”  She sat on her stool in front of her mirror and removed her robe.  Her pale skin shone against the light of the fire.  “Especially those god-awful twins, Lisbette and Laelette.”

“I think they are lovely girls”, Tella noted.  “They seem perfectly sweet and not to mention, very beautiful.”  She finished stripping the bed and began remaking it with clean blankets.

“Sweet?” Audriel scoffed.  “They put on a good show, that’s certain, but I can see the ugliness behind their pretty faces.”  She picked up the power and began patting herself with it.  The powder was imbued with talc, which gave her skin a slight shimmer in the light.  “They wish to be treated as family, yet they only embrace us when it is convenient for them.  If they were more genuine in their intentions, I’m sure my father would have no qualms about reinstating them in our family, despite the treasonous actions of their grandfather.”  Audriel stood up from her seat and walked over to the fire.  “When you are finished, please tell Muiri to run my bath.  This winter is going to be colder than the last, I’m sure of it.  I can feel the chill now.”  She pulled her long hair up into a tight bun, leaving no piece of hair astray.  Tella adjusted the final layer of blankets and bowed to Audriel as she left the room, leaving Audriel alone.

Tonight, her parents will be the hosts of all of the royal and noble families across the empire.  Each of the families will come and dance and feast into the wee hours of the morning.  The sons of all the prominent families will smile and dance with Audriel and she will smile back.  But they both know that the smiles are just a show for what they really want.  Whomever Audriel marries will become the heir to the throne of the Rundilean Empire.  They will try to charm her and win her heart.  One may eventually succeed into making her believe he loves her.  She may be happy for a short time.  Then she will wake up one day and find that he is sharing a bed with another.  It will be scandalous and the entire city will pity poor Audriel and her unfaithful husband.  But she knew it was going to happen.