3.
"Please, just open the window a little bit."
Pressing her ear to the wall, Emilia could hear her father unlatching the window, and she could imagine the cool spring breeze drifting through the sitting room. It didn't give her much consolation; she knew her mother would keep fanning herself.
"I think you're looking well, my dear," Alkimus said heartily. "Perhaps you'll be able to watch Gulcasa's tournament after all. He's looking forward to it, and I'm sure he'd be braced if you were there."
"He's looking forward to serving as Darian's squire?" There was a short silence while Thrasia might have coughed softly, laughed, or even rolled her eyes. "They seem ill-matched."
Alkimus' chuckle was anything but discreet. "True enough. But Baldus already has young Leon for a squire, and aside from him, Darian is the greatest of the Falcons. No one else is worthy of Gulcasa, even if..." Another pause while Emilia heard her father walk across the floor. "Never mind. Gulcasa will take the bitterness as long as he has a chance to compete."
Emilia glanced down the hall. Their talk wasn't interesting after all. Just as she'd decided she'd sneak away, she heard her father's next words:
"As for Emilia..."
Ear to wall.
"Don't start, Alkimus." Emilia couldn't hear Thrasia's sigh, but she knew it was there. "She's much too young, too small."
"Small is what she needs to be. As for age, she'll soon be too old to be initiated. She wants this, Thrasia."
"But I don't," Thrasia replied with her characteristic starkness. "I don't...I don't want to strap Emilia onto a griffon and see her fly away where no one can help her."
"There now," Alkimus said gently. "No need to upset yourself." Another pause. "Then I'll tell Emilia tonight. No reason to keep her in suspense. Besides, she can train to be a Valkyrie in a few years."
Emilia barely heard the last words, turning and running down the hallway.
Her mother, and consequently the rest of the family, had temporarily moved into the castle's south wing, which was the newest part of the castle. According to the imperial magicians who had built it, it was warmer and suffused with inherent magic, small and made from wood, not stone, the better to conduct the magic's healing properties. The imperials always moved there, when they were sick.
It was small enough that Emilia had returned to the stone main castle in short order, not glancing at those she passed. Sir Radant and Lady Espria, two of her father's seven Falcon Generals, gave her raised eyebrows. Servants sidestepped out of her way. In one corridor, she slammed into one of her family's diplomatic visitors, young Roswell Branthese of Verlaine. His silk hat went flying, his face drained to a white rage, and Emilia only glared before quickly choosing another hallway.
The further she went, the less-traveled the hallways were, and when she'd come to the Hall of Consorts, she was alone and able to throw herself against the wall and cry.
Why had they made her wait so long before making a decision? Her mother had always resisted the idea of Emilia becoming a griffon rider, even when Alkimus first suggested it on her sixth birthday. Emilia had never really thought of it. She'd always loved griffons, and when her father pointed out that she had the light build ideal for a rider, she'd clung to the idea. And her father, though he told her to be patient, had never said she couldn't become one.
Emilia beat her fist against the wall. Griffon riders always started young, and the oldest initiates they accepted were nine-year olds. Three months had passed since her eighth birthday.
When she heard footsteps, she jerkily straightened and walked down the hall, as if examining the pictures.
"What're you doing here? Branthese said you were acting like a maniac," Gulcasa asked dubiously. Not turning, Emilia couldn't blame his question. The Hall of Consorts wasn't exactly exciting. It, like most of the hallways around it, was part gallery, part museum, this one being dedicated to portraits of the spouses of Bronquia's reigning monarchs. Emilia walked beneath her ancestors, many of them with the blood-red hair the Bronquian imperials were famed for. Many also had the golden eyes.
"They won't let me!" Emilia shouted, voice bouncing through the cold hall. "Father said no! That's it! I'm going to - to be a stupid Valkyrie, I guess!"
"Did he?" She could hear Gulcasa approaching. Turning, she saw he must have come from the dragons, wearing a thick quilted jacket for protection. His pudgy cheeks looked raw from the wind, his shoulder-length hair pulled back. "I thought he'd let you."
Emilia stopped and crossed her arms under the portrait of her great-great-great grandmother, Sigrun Eir Artwaltz. "He was!" Her voice was thinning into a squeal, and she tried to stop it. Didn't quite succeed. "B-but with Mother so - because she's - he's not going to - to upset her and-"
Gulcasa frowned. "I'll talk to him."
"I don't need your help!" Emilia shouted, stamping away from him and kicking the wall (almost dislodging her five-greats grandfather, Rodrigue Valois XIV).
Gulcasa cocked his left eyebrow in that annoying way he'd discovered recently. "He'll listen to me."
Emilia's haphazard stomps had led her to the portrait of her great-great grandmother, Varinia Bronquiae, who was enormously fat and had become empress by marrying her second cousin. She would not have approved of Emilia's death glare. "And he won't listen to me?" Emilia whirled to face her brother.
Gulcasa tightened his lips. It was grimace, or something like one.
Emilia fell to her knees and hung her head, letting her red bangs hide her face. Then she flopped forward and simply lay there for a minute or so, trying her hardest not to think. It was very soothing.
When she finally peeled herself off the carpet, she was surprised to see Gulcasa was still there, watching her. "Don't worry," he said after a moment. "I'll bring Father around." Emilia flinched, then shook her head. Gulcasa's raised eyebrow was unrehearsed this time. "Why not? You want to be a rider."
"I..." Emilia's tantrum had left her tired, all of her angry conviction leeching out of her. "Mother doesn't want it, and..." She looked guiltily up. "Mother's..."
Frowning again, Gulcasa walked past her to Thrasia's portrait, the last so far in the line. Alkimus had remarried when Gulcasa was two, so the prince couldn't remember a time before his stepmother. After a moment, Emilia joined him, studying her mother's painted face.
Whatever the flatterers said, she didn't think it looked much like her mother. Her brown hair was too wavy, and the artist had gotten her eyes wrong, painted them a much darker green than they really were. Thrasia, like many of the consorts, had imperial Bronquian blood, so her eyes were more golden than pure green, a trait she'd passed down to her daughter.
After a moment, Emilia saw that Gulcasa had shifted his attention to the painting alongside Thrasia's. It was simpler, and much of it had been painted from memory: a woman in a plain blue dress, her long purple hair hanging close to her face. Her right hand was held at heart-level, and on her palm was a flame. Her eyes were flat gold, unlike the richer gold of her husband's. The color didn't startle Emilia; she'd seen it every day in her brother's eyes. But Gulcasa hadn't inherited his mother's slit pupils. Emilia touched Gulcasa's wrist, wondering if he missed her as much as Emilia knew she'd miss her own mother.
Emilia herself didn't know much about Alkimus' first wife, Empress Tritolma. She'd asked her mother about her once, especially the strange eyes, and Thrasia said that Tritolma came from a very ancient Bronquian family, and they often had such eyes. As for the flame, Thrasia said it symbolized Tritolma's ardent love for the empire. Emilia hadn't thought to ask why none of Bronquia's more illustrious sovereigns were depicted with a flame.
Gulcasa knew barely more about his mother. He'd once told Emilia that people hardly ever spoke of her to him, which led him to think she hadn't been a very popular empress, reclusive and reserved. For seven years, the court thought she would be childless. She died in childbirth.
Emilia felt Gulcasa shake himself. Just then, she realized how cold the corridor really was and how close the Hall of Consorts was to...
Gulcasa looked down when she wrapped both hands around his. "Brother, let's go."
"Why?"
Emilia bit her lower lip. "Just because." When he didn't move, she glanced pointedly to the far end of the corridor, which was unlit.
Gulcasa followed the glance, then half-smiled. "You're afraid of the Obsidian Castle?"
"I just don't...like it. I mean..." That's where the imperial crypt is, she could've said, but then he'd know for sure she was afraid of ghosts. It didn't make any difference that she was related to those ghosts, or she'd be interred alongside those ghosts one day. Ghosts were ghosts.
"It's just part of the castle." The Hall of Consorts didn't lead directly into the crypt, but they shared a wall. He shook his head. "Good thing you're not the heir." The black spire was not only a mausoleum; the thin, dark room at its tip was the chamber where every Bronquian monarch walked alone to crown himself.
"It's just cold, all right? And - you know..." She searched his face. "Haven't you noticed?"
"Noticed what?"
"That the closer you get the - the harder it is to breathe?"
Gulcasa stared at her a moment, then laughed heartily. "No. I think your imagination's bullying you."
Emilia shoved his hand away. "Fine! You can hang out with all the dead people if you want." And she made to move around him.
"Hold it," Gulcasa whispered, one hand latching onto her shoulder.
Emilia almost fell and angrily turned around. "Let me go!"
Gulcasa ignored her, staring fixedly down the dark hallway. After a moment, he squared his shoulders and called out, "Who's there? Answer the Heir of Bronquia."
Poised with apprehension, Emilia peered into the darkness, but saw nothing.
"Who are you?" Gulcasa asked, still speaking in an authoritative tone Emilia had never heard from him before. There was a moment of silence. "I command you to stay!" In another moment, he ran several steps forward. Emilia hesitated, then ran after him. Gulcasa stopped and angled his arm in front of her.
"What? What is it? Who are you talking to?"
Gulcasa looked sharply down at her. "Didn't - didn't you see?" Emilia blinked confusedly. "There was a man. He had a hood and - chains. He was watching us. Was hardly even hiding."
Emilia studied the dark end of the corridor. Closer now, she could see the far wall. There was no door at that end.
"Emilia!" Gulcasa's voice shook, very different from the tone she'd heard before. "You saw him!"
Emilia wanted to nod, to reassure him - which was something else new, her strong older brother needing that - but she couldn't lie to him. She didn't need to shake her head; it was plain on her face.
Gulcasa stalked to the end of the hallway, turned around, as if expecting to see the man crouched in a corner. After a moment, he sighed and rubbed his forehead, covering his eyes for a moment. Finally, he started back up the hall, grabbing her hand as he walked. His voice wasn't stern, but distant. "Don't come here alone."
"Why?" Emilia glanced back at the blank face of the wall, then shivered. "Do you know who he is?" She looked up. "Have you seen him before?"
Gulcasa didn't answer.
