She may not be able to deal with fancy balls and crown stuff, but let's see Rosamund or Cailan try to do this!
At the crest, Myra swung her hands over and gripped onto a balcony's iron bars. This high up it stopped looking whimsical and a lot more serious. The entire decor screamed 'We don't want you to fall off of this window, or break out.' It wouldn't surprise her if they used to keep prisoners locked up around here.
Inching her hands along the bars, Myra glanced between her dangling feet and noticed how far down the ground was. Fall from here may not kill her but it'd certainly break something other than her pride. Her mother'd shout herself blue if she found out, but Myra had climbed much higher.
So what if he likes Rosamund? Damn near everyone does. It's hard to not like Rosie. She's the people's princess. Beautiful, kind, probably can commune with deer or fly with an eagle if she wanted to. And it's not like Myra cared. Her mother, she was the one who made Myra talk to him again. Get into his life, his face, and...talk to him.
Myra pulled herself over the railing and flopped hard onto the balcony. It felt good to have her feet hit ground, but her mind was buzzing with a lot of really angry thoughts. Like wasps, they kept stinging her brain no matter how many times she took a swipe at them. Fine. She was a bastard. She'd known it since...well, since she put two and two together that the man at her breakfast table was the same one who sat on the throne.
It wasn't a big deal. It was a name, a word people threw around, like half-blood. That was true too. Everyone knew her mother was an elf. She liked elves. They were...were they her people? Who the hell was her people?
"Well!"
Light beamed down upon Myra and she had to shield away her eyes from the window above her. As the whiteness faded, she could see a silhouette leaning out the gap. He wore a smile on his face as her father chuckled, "I see a golden finch has flown up to my windowsill."
"Dad," Myra rolled her eyes at his acting goofy, her cheeks burning.
He slid back in a moment as if to check on something, then reached down with his hand, "Would the finch like to join me inside?" Myra dug her bare foot into the cold stone, not certain if it was such a good idea. "I have warm brandy."
Leaping up, Myra caught her father's hand. When they were both younger, he'd haul her straight up while Myra dangled off him. She used to giggle like crazy every time, her dad reaching the zenith over top of his head and then hurling her higher up into the air. She loved that. This time, Myra helped. With her spare hand, she tugged her body up, her feet digging into the knots on the bars as she slid up to the even higher window.
Her dad wrapped a single arm around her shoulder in a half hug while Myra tried to smooth down her dress and check to make sure she didn't rip it. Together they walked into her father's study, if one could call it that. He rarely did any studying here, though his children often had. The King would pace about the room while Myra, or Cailan, or even Rossie sometimes would sit at the desk pretending to conduct business. He liked it when they'd order him to do something, even sealing fake proclamations in real wax.
Of course he kept every single one, even the ones that were pure gibberish before the kids learned how to write. There was a huge pile of them in a honeycomb alcove, more of the fake than real ones saved.
Her dad slid into his favorite chair that looked right into the fire. It was blue as the ocean, with a soft cushion that he'd had replaced four times. Whenever Alistair wasn't off kinging, he'd be in his study calmly reading, writing, or watching the fire pop in his favorite chair. There were often children and/or dogs crawling around on the rug below him, but tonight he sat alone. It almost seemed sad.
Funny, Myra ran out into the night because she was feeling sorry for herself and now... No, she wasn't feeling sorry, she was exhausted and couldn't breathe in there. That room was full of hot air.
While her father fiddled with a bottle on the old rocking table, Myra glanced to the wall beside his desk. That was where he put the painting. It had all three of his kids in it. There were dozens, maybe hundreds of Princess Rosamund in the castle. A good chunk of Cailan too. But that was the only one Myra ever sat for.
Sat being the operative word. She shot up a few months before the artist had them pose, scrawny Myra at eleven already a few inches taller than her fourteen year old brother. Rosie was positioned in a chair in front, her hands placed in her lap like a prim marble statue. Cailan stood to her right while Myra was painted on the left. Even in oil form she looked uncertain if she should be there; the skinny, tall blonde next to the two dark haired, well proportioned siblings.
Rosie got everything, a beautiful face, an enviable figure with the right kind of padding girls were supposed to have, power beyond imagining, and the ability to get everyone to love her. Myra got height. That was...something. Not a useful something unless they needed to reach stuff on a high shelf. The rest was all... Damn it, she hated when she felt sorry for herself.
"Here," her dad reached over with a warm mug.
Myra eyed it up a moment, "Is that hard liquor?"
"It's not that strong," he said, then winked, "besides, I won't tell your mother if you don't."
Smiling, she accepted the drink and slipped into the chair to the right of her father's. Myra curled her feet under her, the way she used to sit when she was little and he'd read her stories before she'd be taken to her little room in the palace. It'd been awhile since she last stayed up here. Every year it felt less and less like she had a reason.
"Dad," Myra said, interrupting him from taking a drink. At her look, he placed the mug onto the table and turned to her, "Are you gonna tell mom I was climbing on the windows?"
Alistair chuckled, "Are you kidding? After she was finished with you, she'd ream me out. No, I think it's best if we keep it our little secret." He bunched his lips up together like a button and Myra smiled.
Tipping the mug up, the scarlet liquid burned on her tongue and she scrunched her nose up at it. Myra swallowed a few times, trying to get the nasty taste out, when a sweetness blossomed at the end. Her dad stared at the fire, his tired eyes watching the flames rip apart the wood. He'd taken off the fancy doublet and replaced it with one of the simpler tunics Myra suspected the King hid everywhere in the castle. The second he was free of his duties, he'd strip off the uniform and head right back to comfort.
Neither said anything, Myra slowly taking a second and then third swig of this awful draught. She didn't want to say anything, just be with her dad. For a little bit.
"I'm guessing the fancy shindig isn't going so well?" her dad finally broke the solitude, his eyes turning over to hers.
Myra couldn't meet him and she shifted in her chair to face the fire, "It's fine."
"Uh huh," he cupped his hands behind his head and tipped back in his chair. Myra braced herself for him to try and drag it out, but her dad seemed content to let the hiss and pops of the fire speak for him.
It was all fine. It wasn't a big deal. She was the bastard child, the oops running around. Not meant for royalty, or the family business, a free agent doing whatever she pleased. Neither elf nor human. Neither royal nor common. Myra was...
"Dad?" her voice struck the air like a flint sundering darkness. "Why'd you have me?"
He stumbled up at that, his eyes opening wide. "Wheaty...?" he whispered his nickname for her since birth. They all had one, and all oddly food related.
"I mean, Rosie and Cailan, ya know, future royals. Got to have those. But..." Myra couldn't shake the tears building in her eyes. She stared down at the remaining brandy, her face bobbing in its crimson depths, "why me? What's the point of having a bastard--?"
"You're not a bastard," Alistair interrupted her, angry at that word. He was always mad about it. He'd all but yell at anyone who called her it when he was around. Not that it stopped people from letting Myra know exactly what it was. Exactly who she was.
Rolling her eyes at him, Myra slammed the mug down onto the table. "Dad, I'm not stupid."
&nbs
p; "I know you're not. Your name's Myra."
"For the love of the Maker," she snorted at his terrible joke.
"And, your mother and I are married."
This again. Her mother considered it a cute little moment she could tell her daughter about when they were both missing him. When her father, swept up in feelings of romance and spectacle, did some special mage thing that counted as a sort of wedding. But to her dad, it was real. It, somehow he seemed to act like it meant more to him than his actual marriage to the Queen.
"If you love Mom so much," Myra began, her father nodding his head vigorously. As if anyone could deny their long running relationship. "Then why don't you actually marry her?"
Her dad sighed, his palms rubbing into his weary cheeks. "Myra, it's not that...it's never that simple."
"You don't love the Queen, I know that," Myra cut back with. It wasn't exactly a secret, nor was it really expected for royalty to love their spouse. The fact the King and Queen didn't even fake it somehow made everyone breathe a sigh of relief around their not posturing.
"But I love my kids," her dad said, "and divorcing Bea would..."
"Would turn Cailan and Rosie into bastards, like me," she sighed.
"Wheaty," her father seemed to fold in on himself as if the years dumped an avalanche onto his body. For a long time, her father was a giant. She remembered legs wandering back and forth, baby Myra clinging to the front while he'd shuffle her around standing on his feet. Or this big face with silly smiles and funny crinkles that swooped into her bed to kiss her goodnight. Somewhere around the time Myra got as tall as her father, he suddenly grew old. She didn't see it before, the white hair was nothing more than the sunlight bleaching him, until it all went grey. Those friendly smile lines stayed in place, and he took to sitting more than ever.
This ancient, world weary man reached a hand over to Myra as if to comfort her but she kept hers tight fisted around the mug. "We didn't plan to have you, that's true. But..." her father stopped and a smile twisted half his face up in a sweet remembrance, "the second we both knew you were coming, your mom and I were ecstatic. We wanted you so bad, My. Both of us. Your mother in particular was not happy about how long it took you to get out of her."
Myra rolled her eyes, having been told that fact on a few occasions after she'd been caught doing something naughty like say painting the walls. "It's not my fault," she grumbled, taking a longer drink of the brandy. Either she was growing used to the taste, or it was stronger than her father let on.
"I know, but...neither's your parents not being married," her dad's goofy smile fell. It was so strange to see a true frown or grimace on the King's face. The mere presence of it would send people flocking from the rafters to rescue him.
"The bastard thing, I get it. I get why you wear it proudly too, even if you don't want to. Even if secretly you just...wish you could be normal." He wasn't talking to her anymore, his hand curled into a fist as he glared through space.
Carefully, Myra reached over and ran her fingers over his. The tip of her missing pinkie she stupidly cut off when playing with a knife stood out above the King's spotted but intact hand. "Dad?" she whispered.
Whatever past demons haunted him, he shook them all off. "Don't worry kiddo," he said with a forced grin. Drowning the last of his brandy, he added, "And don't let the rich snots get to you. It's all politics and bluster. One day they hate you..."
"The next they need you," Myra sighed.
Her dad cocked an eyebrow over the top of his glass to watch his seventeen year old daughter slump deeper down into her chair. "When did you get so smart?"
"Dad," Myra groaned at the attention, feeling a blush start. To distract from it, she lifted her cup to her lips and added, "I've always been smart."
He snorted at that, "Smart ass for certain."
"Which she gets from you."
Myra spun her body in the chair to glance at the open door. Her mother stood in the entranceway, the Solver hat gone but she kept the coat which was partially unknotted revealing one of Reiss' fancier shirts. Walking into the room, Reiss left the door open as she joined the rest of her little family.
Rising to his feet, her dad joined her mom and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, "I'm not denying where our darling daughter gets her mouth from."
Her mom smiled a moment at the affections of the man she loved, before she turned her cold eye upon the scene. "Myra..." Oh Maker, she knew she was in for it with that voice. "Were you climbing outside on the ledges again?"
"No," she said. Technically it was balconies and sills. No ledges.
"Then what are you doing up here?"
The valiant King came to the not-princess' rescue, "She wanted to stop by and visit with her old man before heading back to the kid's party. Rather nice of her to lose all that fun time with her friends to humor me." Right, fun times. Friends. That was so what Myra left behind.
Reiss folded her arms, not about to be moved by Alistair's pleas. "Then why is the window open?"
"Warm night, thought it might be nice to get a bit of a breeze blowing through here," her dad shrugged, the instant fool slotting into place. Myra watched it often from her little balcony alcove above the court. Her mom didn't want her to be at court, but her dad wanted her around so they compromised on letting her sit in the rafters like a phantom observing from heaven. He would often pull the same act on people coming to make requests from the crown, driving them mad with his impenetrable idiocy. It never worked on her mother.
"Ah, Myra," her dad waved his hand to get her up to her feet, "why don't you head back down. Make certain your brother hasn't done something stupid."
"O...okay," Myra nodded, her feet quickly padding to the door. She was nearly out of it when her mother turned on her heel and glanced down.
"My, if you weren't climbing around outside, where are you shoes?"
Crap. She didn't stare down in guilt, but swallowed and shrugged, "It's a big trend now, to dance without shoes on. Cuts down on broken toes. Bye, mom. Bye, dad!" She spat all that out lightning fast and closed the door behind her. Myra took in a deep breath, her back crashing into the door, but she didn't hightail it back to the dance.
Through the thin wood she could hear her parents talking. Of course her mom began first. "Shoeless dancing?"
"Kids," Alistair snorted, "they get up to the craziest things."
"I'll give her points for creativity, but she shouldn't be doing that. She's liable to fall and break her neck."
"Reiss," her dad's voice paused a moment, "she's good at it. She knows what she's doing."
"One wrong move, one missed jump and..." A soft moan broke up her mother's words, "Fine, you win this battle."
"But never the war, I know."
For a time only soft sounds broke through the door. Myra'd guess that they were either hugging, or her father was massaging her mother's shoulders. She was supposed to be better at eavesdropping than she actually was. Body language could be a pain in the ass to read through a door.
"Why was she really up here?"
Her father must have stopped whatever he was up to, the sounds falling away to a cloying silence. "Stuff," he went with.
"Stuff?"
"Father, daughter stuff. You wouldn't understand," he sounded his flippant self but those who knew him, who saw the wounds under the jester mask could hear the tremors in his voice.
Her mom sighed, "It's never gonna get easy is it?"
"She'll find her path, her place where people won't care anymore, as much. Then it'll sort itself out," her father, somehow the eternal optimist in the family. New sounds, like someone eating a sandwich broke and Myra stepped away. Her parents were making out again. Ugh. No doubt that was why her mother came here in the first place, to...
She wasn't the King's mistress, her mother was very certain about that the first time a confused, young Myra asked. But what the hell was she? Not a wife. Elves couldn't be queens. A lover? Was that a good thing to be? Lover to a king? Her mom neve
r bothered much with the labels, especially when the street was often happy to provide its own, but Myra wondered. She needed a good answer to shout back at the assholes she'd throttle for disrespecting her mother.
Her feet wandered her back and forth over the carpets. There was no one up here, her father's side of the palace silent while most were busy with the dance. No one cared about that half-elf bastard running her fingers across the wall, Myra watching her naked toes dig into the carpet.
What path? There was never a path, not unless she made it her damn self. Somehow everyone else seemed to know exactly what they wanted in life. All Myra had were a few gut feelings and a lot of questions she didn't want answers to. Trying to shake it away, she turned down the staircase. She should head back to the dance, catch up with Bryn. Talk her friend into stealing a bottle of wine and then the two of them could head up to the battlements.
Her friend was the best at making all that shit not matter.
But first, Myra wiggled her toes, she should probably get her shoes back.
CHAPTER NINE
Heart to Heart
Gavin flinched, trying to think about anything but the terrible itch on his bum. It'd been squatting there the entire night, tempting and taunting him to break from his stance and scratch at it. But if he even so much as thought of reaching backwards, his Knight's careful eye would dip over to her fumbling squire. As the night wore on, the drunken nobles went from politely ignoring their guards to annoying them. More than a few attempted to balance bottles on his bunkmate's head, Snowy somehow staring straight ahead and not moving a muscle.
They even picked on Cal, positioned across the ballroom from them. He wasn't seen often, but when the dancers would break they'd spot a fuming blond man covered in dainty and soiled napkins. For whatever reason the partiers knew better than to mess with the Knights. One boy, who looked fully blitzed out of his gourd, stepped up to Ser Daryan and moved to touch her chest plate.
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