The Prince's Angel

Chapter One - Reminiscences

The year 2000, Old Age of the Iron Shield

Stefan could not remember the color of his mother's eyes. He knew it was probably a bad thing, since her funeral had only been yesterday.

He wanted to ask Torin, his little brother, but Torin was only four and could not be expected to recall something so closely tied to their mum. Especially not when Stefan could hear him whimpering under the bedcovers at that moment.

He wanted to ask his father, but the last time he'd seen Da, he was weeping in his room and cursing the Master for taking his Lisette. Knowing his grief, he would probably yell at Stefan. Stefan hated being yelled at.

He wanted to ask Mem, his old nanny, but Mem was also the part-time palace cook and would be busy receiving guests from all over the Iron Shield, coming to pay tribute to his mother, the Queen.

There was no one else close to him that he could ask, so he lay in bed wondering. He wondered if his mother's eyes had been blue or brown, clear or deep. He tried to remember her scent, the way her clothes smelled of honeysuckle and soap after she'd received them from the laundress. He could see her in his mind, his mum, when she tried to teach him how to dance in the vast ballroom, laughing as she twirled him around, and they spun until their legs grew weary. He could picture the flowers in her long russet hair, woven in her braid. Mother had loved flowers. The hallways had overflowed with them, their vibrant colors and fragrances giving wonderful life to the halls.

Now the bright flowers had all been taken away, and in their place was vase upon vase of white roses. It meant sympathy, Mem had told him, but Stefan just thought it was so drab. Mother wouldn't have wanted her people mourning her death. She was so adamant that death didn't mean the end of life, it only signified the beginning. "The Master is our life," she'd told Stefan countless times.

Nevertheless, he and Torin and everyone else had been instructed to dress in all black, as tradition dictated, and join the mourner's procession to the chapel, where they had wreathed her body in a purple veil and already lowered her into the stone chamber, with the lifeless baby girl beside her.

Stefan thought that perhaps, if his mother had not been expecting a baby, then she might have lived. Maybe the baby would have lived too. All he knew was that no one smiled now, not even Mem, and Mem smiled all the time.

And that scared Stefan.

A world without anyone smiling, where no one told him the sun would come out again... that was a dark world.

He made up his mind. If no one else around him was going to smile, then he would.

He crept out of his own bed, tiptoeing across the floor, and slid under Torin's blankets. His brother's whimpers had subsided, but he was still making small sad noises. Stefan wrapped his arms around Torin and whispered, "We'll see her again."

Torin rolled over to face Stefan, his little face streaked with tears. His lower lip trembled. "How do you know?" he asked in his four-year-old lisp.

"She promised us, remember? And Mother always kept her promises." Stefan gave his brother a tiny smile. "She wouldn't want us to cry. Remember what she always used to say? When you start to frown, turn it upside down."

Torin giggled. "Then she'd tickle us."

"Uh-huh. So if we just remind each other, then we won't be so sad."

Torin sleepily rubbed his golden-brown hair and yawned. "Okay, Stefan. Will you sleep with me tonight? I don't want to be by myself."

Stefan wanted to remind his brother that they were in the same room, but he just replied, "Of course I'll stay with you, Torin. I'm your brother, and that's what brothers do, is take care of each other."