Snow's White | ✓

17. The Fairest Heir

Keir frowned as he eyed his father's letter, which lay opened on the small desk at the corner of his chambers. Though the letter had arrive almost two weeks ago, Keir still struggled to find it within himself to reply. After numerous crunched balls of parchment littered the floor of his chambers, much to the distress of the maids, Keir almost gave up trying to write a reply that didn't sound insincere, though his insincerity was indeed incredibly sincere. Keir had given up on writing something heartfelt, and instead settled on being as formal and business-like as possible, the words coming much easier to him that syrupy words of forgiveness.

His father would have to find solace in the fact that Keir made the effort to reply at all.

His father's letter had been by no means soppy, though Keir could hear his father's underlying desperation to reconnect with him through the ink. Keir almost laughed at how alike they were, unable to express how they felt, resulting in awkward letters that didn't garner much eye-watering. Still, the two were making the effort to communicate, even if they only spoke about politics and mundane affairs. 

Keir's heredity was a constant theme in his father's letters, a topic that still made Keir squirm in discomfort. After seven years of accepting that he would never succeed his father's throne despite being his only son, suddenly having a crown shoved onto his head didn't make him sleep easily at night. Keir wasn't sure that he, the man he is now, wanted to wear that mantle, no matter how much glory and wealth came attached. 

Somewhere deep inside him, Keir knew that part of his reluctance to accept his birthright was because of his romantic preferences. He had seen countless marriages based on prestige and rank play out in courts in both the north and the south, and despite the vast land that separated them, they all sang the same bitter tune. These marriages always ended in cold beds, with husbands sneaking out to embed themselves in the bodies of other women, and wives spreading their skirts for the passions of younger, handsome men who were showered with gold and material wealth. 

Keir was well aware that he couldn't marry another man, if he even found one he wanted to share that bond with. As a King, he would be duty bound to produce an heir fit for the throne, and to do so he would have to marry some poor noblewoman and be forced to endure passionless sex in the hopes of impregnating her. Once that job had been fulfilled, and the royal lineage was preserved, he would likely never return to that bed, at least not with a woman. It would be a sour arrangement for both parties involved, and Keir was repulsed even thinking about living a life that bleak.

There were three things that Keir had found to be positive in his exile; his escape from his step-mother, the destruction of the burden that came with the crown, and his close friendship with Guin, that never would have developed to such an extent had he not lived with her for the last seven years of his life. He had lost his home, his father and his sister, but he had found other things that he never took for granted. And now, his father had seemingly taken one of those things away from him again.

Melting the stick of blue wax in the flame and pressing a large blob across the edge of his folded letter, Keir stamped it with his seal, and passed it to the courier that waited outside his chambers. For the third time, Keir had wrote to his father vaguely expressing his feelings about inheriting the throne, and he felt that he would soon receive the same reply from his father, neither openly rejecting nor embracing Keir's stance, the two of them locked in a cautious standstill. 

Rubbing his tired eyes, Keir stretched his long limbs as there were two heavy knocks on his door. 

"You may enter," Keir called, getting up from his chair as the door opened, revealing Lucas's clean-shaven face, which smiled at him. "Lucas?"

"Rose told me that you were busy writing a letter to your father, and considering that was four hours ago and the courier left only just now, I thought that you may be hungry," Lucas laughed, stepping inside Keir's room to reveal a tray of sliced fresh fruits and warm pastries, plus a pitcher of sweet-smelling wine which dangled dangerously from Lucas's curled fingers. Carefully stepping around the balls of parchment that were scattered across the floor, much to Keir's chagrin, Lucas placed the food and drink on a table, gesturing for Keir to come share the snacks with him.