Tied to the Crown

by Neha Yazmin

  Applause filled the room.

  “I know I say this every year,” he continued once the clapping and cheering ceased, “but it’s worth saying: The Fresdans haven’t always ruled over Roshdan. This land has seen more wars than I care to remember, and during times of war and famine, the Kings and Queens still celebrated their birthdays with the Harmony Dance.”

  Harmony Dance, Aaryana repeated in her head, that’s what this ball is called.

  “So that they could remind their Kingdom that peace and harmony is the most important thing in the world,” he went on. “We must all stand together, otherwise we fall apart at the first sign of a threat. United we are stronger. We are mighty. Divided, we are no more than a castle of sand.

  “And today, looking around this ballroom, I am delighted to see my people standing side-by-side, angels dancing with men—

  “No, wait. Not just angels and men. This year, I see that the Queen of the Deep is represented…”

  Aaryana had taken a deep breath and walked inside the ballroom and the King had spotted her almost immediately. Now, everyone else turned to stare at her. She knew what they saw: A tall woman in a shimmering green-blue gown and a Crown embedded with blue and green gemstones. They couldn’t see her tail yet, trailing after her like a loyal pet.

  When the Sea Goddess’s Crown and tail had been brought up to her room by one of Quin’s ladies-in-waiting earlier today, Aaryana thought the tail was actually a curtain for one of the narrower windows in her chambers. Then, she noticed that the dark-green fabric had hundreds of scales embroidered on with glistening blue thread. She was meant to use the ties at the top end to fasten the thing around her waist. Two thirds of the way down, the material was bunched together with a blue ribbon studded with green and blue crystals, with the remaining fabric flowing out into the shape of a fish’s tail.

  “If I hang this up at the window,” she’d joked with Jeena, “it really will look like a curtain.”

  “Just be glad it isn’t as heavy as I’d expected,” Jeena had said. “Remember, you have to walk and dance in it.”

  “True. This thing is as light as water…”

  “But the Crown!” Jeena swooned. “It’s more beautiful than I thought.”

  The girl ran her fingers along the silver swirls depicting the waves of the ocean and the sparkly gems that were probably supposed to look like drops of rain.

  “Raindrops?” Aaryana had asked, pointing at the crystals.

  “Teardrops, my Lady.”

  “What?” But Jeena was already ushering Aaryana into the bedroom so she could start getting ready for the ball.

  And here she was, the last one to arrive at the party and being gawped at. Not because she was late, but because she was the only person wearing a tail and a Crown amongst wings and ordinary men and women.

  “And it’s Lady Aaryana!” King Keyan announced, smiling warmly. “Our Queen of the Deep. Come Aaryana, welcome to your first Harmony Dance.”

  Aaryana walked towards the centre of the room, taking in the beautiful wings sprouting out of the backs of a handful of Courtiers. Upon closer inspection, she saw that the manmade wings had straps; people were wearing them like packs on their back.

  “I hope you had plenty to eat at lunch, Aaryana,” the King went on, “because you have to dance with everybody tonight, all in the name of togetherness—”

  The King paused when a winged man walked up to him and said something in his ear. When the man stepped away—

  Wyett. Wearing the largest of the wings in the room.

  Aaryana hadn’t recognised him up on the dais because his back was to her. He looked like a fierce warrior angel rather than the kind that watched you from above.

  The King was smiling even wider than before when he spoke again. “Well, maybe not everybody, after all.”

  She thought back to what he’d been saying before Wyett had interrupted him, about how she’d have to dance with everyone. Apparently, that wouldn’t be necessary anymore due to whatever Wyett had whispered to him.

  The King turned to his left, towards the musicians. “Music!” he ordered with a clap of his hands and the room filled with the sound of flutes and drums and violins and a powerful piano.

  Men and women partnered up, began to move in time with the music. Aaryana glanced around the room. She spotted Seth dancing with Erisa—the girl was in an ivory gown with gold thread work. Dancing close by, her mother was in a similar dress. Clearly, neither of them had picked the icon that represented man and weren’t donning any wings. Nor was Rozlene’s partner, a Lord that sat on the King’s Council.

  Scanning the room, she saw a winged Lisbeth dancing with her wingless husband. Quin was chatting with one of her friends near the banquet table; they were clearly the same age and hadn’t been required to turn up in wings or tails or Crowns.

  “Shall we dance?”

  “I’m not much of a dancer,” Aaryana replied to the voice coming from behind her as she turned around—

  Wyett was towering over her. Or rather, his wings were. Wyett asked me to dance? She had never heard his voice sound so… normal before, so casual; that’s why she hadn’t recognised it. Gone was the hostility and contempt from his face, and what remained was a mix of King Keyan, Seth, and Micah all rolled into one. His expression wasn’t as warm and friendly as the ones his father and brother usually wore… he was just there. He wasn’t happy to be there, but he wasn’t angry or looking for a fight.

  “Neither am I,” he said. He doesn’t like dancing, either.

  “That’s why you were up on the dais while everyone else was dancing.”

  “I’m down here now.”

  “From heaven?” she teased, lifting an eyebrow and smirking at his wings.

  Wyett shook his head in response. “For you.”

  Aaryana sucked in a breath. He hadn’t come from heaven, but he’d come for her.

  “Your Highness, I—”

  “What? You’re refusing to dance with me?” His green eyes were wide with feigned disbelief.

  “No, of course, not.”

  “Then, shall we?” Wyett held up both hands for her to take, palms up.

  When she placed her hands on top of his, he pulled her close, before moving his hands to her waist. She put her hands on his shoulders just so that her fingers could feel the feathers of his wings. They were so soft that she shivered.

  “Cold?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and one corner of his lips, smug and amused.

  Did he think she’d shivered because she was touching him? How presumptuous! At least he believed that reaction had been genuine. She schooled her features into a bewildered one and shook her head. No, she wasn’t cold. The room was almost stuffy with people and their elaborate gowns.

  They began to move together slowly. Aaryana couldn’t think of anything to say. For the purposes of deceiving the Court into thinking that the two of them were lovers, she knew they ought to be talking and laughing. Enjoying each other’s company. But she didn’t know how to act around a Wyett that was on his best behaviour.

  The Prince didn’t seem to be uncomfortable with this situation, but she noticed that he was struggling to decide on where to settle his gaze, continually shifting his eyes from her face to the floor. Occasionally, his eyes fell on her throat. Her cheeks felt a little warm. She told herself that her dress didn’t have a low neckline, that there wasn’t much bare flesh on display.

  “That’s a strange thing for the Queen of the Deep to wear.”

  “Huh?”

  Aaryana stiffened when she realised that Wyett was looking at her necklace. The necklace from Rudro. She wore it for the most ridiculous reason. Just before leaving for the ball, she’d looked in the mirror and decided that, yes, she did look too Roshdani. Dressed up as one of their Goddesses and going to the birthday celebration of their King. Nothing in the reflection said Adgari. How long before she forgot where she’d come from? Where she had to return to?

  She didn’t want to forget
. Didn’t want to change. So, she’d taken the flower necklace out of her secret hiding place and put it on. It was the only thing she was wearing that wasn’t blue or green; the reddish-brown gems that constructed the flowers of the necklace matched the bottom half of her hair.

  “Your necklace doesn’t go with what you’re wearing.”

  Aaryana burst out laughing. “You’re the second Prince that has criticised my choice in jewellery, Your Highness.”

  She shook her head at herself, recalling that hideous pearl necklace she’d worn in Adgar to see if it reminded anyone of the sunlight stone that her mother had worn in the depths of the sea. Of course, Aaryana hadn’t known it was a sunlight stone then, and had thought that her mother had been wearing the largest pearl in the world. She looked stupid in those rows of pearls and Ty had advised her to drop them into the ocean. Let the sea folk have them.

  “Prince Rudro?” Wyett asked cautiously, voice lowering to almost a whisper. His curiosity was loud, though, wanting to know if the Prince that had criticised her jewellery was the man she’d written that letter to.

  “Prince Tyross of Khadak, actually,” she informed him in a clipped voice.

  She didn’t even want to acknowledge that Wyett had uttered Rudro’s name. When it looked like he was going to ask her about her former Combat Master, she didn’t let him speak.

  “Neighbouring Island,” she explained. “A few days’ journey from Adgar. Ty’s cousin is married to my eldest sister, Leesha; she’s most likely the Queen now.”

  Wyett nodded. “Who’s Rudro, then?”

  She wasn’t expecting him to keep pursuing this topic, especially when she’d made it obvious that she didn’t want to talk about Rudro. She looked down at the floor between their feet.

  “He is in the past,” she said in an uneven voice.

  After a short silence, she felt something warm and rough on her cheeks. Someone’s calloused fingers. Her head snapped up to see that they belonged to the Crown Prince. She jerked her face away from his touch, stunned, but he reached out and continued what he’d been trying to do—tucking her hair behind her ears.

  As Quin had instructed, Aaryana hadn’t done anything with her hair—Jeena had simply arranged her curls around her face the way Aaryana had asked her to do all week. She had not only become accustomed to wearing her hair down, but she found that she preferred to have her tresses hiding half her face these days. Myraa would have rejoiced—her friend had always pursed her lips in disapproval when Aaryana requested her usual tight ponytail or bun.

  “That’s better,” Wyett said when he was done rearranging her hair.

  Was he telling her that he’d rather she didn’t cover so much of her face? Why? He couldn’t possibly like her face. She appraised his expression—there was no emotion there. Definitely no desire. He was only playing his part. This dance, this night, it was the easiest way of convincing the Court that the two of them were having an affair. Yes, they’d been keeping it quiet, sneaking into the empty tower every night, but the way Aaryana looked tonight, the Crown Prince couldn’t help himself. He just had to be with her. That’s what he wanted everyone at the ball to think.

  How had the King persuaded him into going through with this? Wyett hated the mere thought of her; there was no way he’d touch her willingly. The King’s more cunning than I thought.

  “I’m sorry, Your Highness,” she said quietly, “it’s just that I’m not used to… It was the twins that liked to be courted.”

  “What did you like to do?”

  She shrugged. “Train. Fight.”

  “With who?” He seemed genuinely intrigued. But the answer was nowhere near as interesting.

  “With the trainers, the guards, champions from all over the world—”

  “I meant,” he cut her off, “who did you argue with the most? Bicker with? Your siblings? Your friends?”

  “My lady-in-waiting, Myraa. We were always bickering—”

  “Did you fight with Rudro?”

  “All the time—”

  Her mouth and eyes widened.

  Wyett grinned, triumphant. “At least I got you to admit that much.”

  She stared at him, aghast. “You really want to know?”

  “Yes.” He pulled her close by her waist. She gasped. He whispered in her ear, “So, tell me.”

  When he straightened up, he was wearing a very intense expression on his face, determined and superior and… he was the Crown Prince of Roshdan. Authority and power.

  Nodding, she said, “Alright, but you can’t tell anyone. He could get into a lot of trouble if this gets out. He could lose everything—”

  Wyett chuckled. “It was that kind of affair, was it?” His eyes seemed to say, I should have known.

  “We didn’t have an affair!”

  Her voice was almost too loud. She hoped no one had heard. The music was loud but not that loud.

  “Nothing happened,” she said quietly, “and I don’t know for sure how he felt about me, anyway.” She really didn’t.

  “But your letter—”

  “I know he cared for me more than he cared for anyone else. But was it love? He never used that word. I never used that word.” They had never talked about it.

  “Until your last day in Adgar.”

  “Yes,” she lied. “So, that he would stop loving me if he ever did. Perhaps that was too presumptuous of me?” Aaryana shrugged.

  “Why would he get into trouble if this came out?”

  “Because he wasn’t supposed to care at all,” she told him. “He was the Combat Master. For The Contest.”

  Wyett’s green eyes were wide. “Truly?”

  Aaryana nodded. “Unfortunately.”

  “Well, that is a secret that shouldn’t come out.” Wyett raised an eyebrow. “And that begs the question of why you wrote to him. What if the letter ends up in the wrong hands?”

  “With The Contest over, nobody in Adgar is interested in who writes to Rudro,” she assured him. “I’m sure that letters to him aren’t intercepted. If he’s incredibly unlucky and the letter is seen by someone else… it won’t be good.” She swallowed.

  “Should you risk it, then? Just to ease your guilt? Aren’t you being selfish?”

  “I’d say I’m being hopeful. He’ll want to read that letter, Your Highness. He’ll be happy to receive it.”

  “If you’re so certain of that, then I think you know, deep down, that he loves you. Or did.”

  “I don’t know anything, Your Highness,” she almost whispered. It appeared as though the Prince was about to argue, so she asked, “What about you, Your Highness? How many hearts have you broken?”

  Wyett stiffened abruptly. “I don’t break hearts, only bones.”

  I don’t break hearts, only bones. That had been her motto for almost her entire life. Until she was banished from her home. Ty may not have loved her, but Myraa did, Malin did, and Rudro definitely cared more than he let on. And she’d broken all of their hearts to some extent when she left them behind. But she hadn’t forgotten them. Even if she forced them out of her waking thoughts, she’d never forget them. She would find a way to return to them.

  The letter to Myraa, which must surely be on the seabird, and the one that King Keyan would send Rudro on her behalf, they were the only way she could let her loved ones know that she still cared. That she was coming back as soon as was safe.

  She wanted to write to Malin, but that was too big a risk. She hoped her sisters were well, that her half-brothers were still as happy and obsessed with gore, and her father… If only she could talk to him. Ask him why he believed that his favourite child could be a killer. He was the King; he could have set her free.

  As for Adgar’s Chief of Justice... did he knowingly send her to the homeland of her ancestor Nidiya? Did he know the truth about her mother?

  It took Malin every single dry day this past week to go back to the Outskirts and follow-up with everyone that she’d interviewed in the last couple of months. This
time, it was a lot quicker. All she—as Shahan—had to do was ask whether they, too, had dreamed of music and singing on the night that their loved ones had vanished. A resounding ‘yes’ from everyone left Malin quaking in the fiery heat.

  The conversation that had stuck with her was the one with a teenaged boy, no more than two years her senior, whose mother had been gone for three years. A stunned and enlightened expression had crossed his youthful face when she asked him if he’d dreamed of music—a lost memory recovered. That’s how the others had reacted. As though they’d forgotten about the musical dream until Shahan asked them about it.

  “Tell me what happened in the dream, Arkat,” Shahan had said.

  “Call me Ark,” the boy said. “Everyone does.”

  “I will if you stop calling me ‘sir’.” Shahan smiled encouragingly.

  The boy blushed. “I couldn’t. You’re a noble—”

  “I want to find your mother, or at the very least, find out what happened to her. Ark, what happened in your dream?”

  “Nothing,” he replied. When met with a confused gaze, Ark added, “Just music and singing.”

  “Could you make out the lyrics?”

  “No.” Same as everyone else.

  “Was it a man or a woman that was singing?”

  “I, err, I’m not sure…” Just as uncertain as the others had been.

  “Was the song pleasant?”

  Ark nodded vehemently. “Very. It was so… calming.” Again, this matched what the others had told Shahan so far. “Like a lullaby.”

  “Lullaby?” None of the others had used this word.

  “My mother used to sing me to sleep when I was younger,” Ark said. “It felt like that.”

  “Like the music was putting you to sleep?”

  Ark shook his head and chuckled. “I was already asleep, remember?”