Spectral Crown: Chapter Nine

“Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty more where that came from.”

I don’t have a great story or a good reason for why I was too busy this weekend. Though I did have a great time this weekend, with my cousin’s socially-distant wedding. No, that isn’t the reason I’m resorting yet again to Spectral Crown. I had time Monday. But there’s still a good reason why. It’s that I’m sad. I feel sad. I don’t really feel any motivation to write something this week. The why of it isn’t important. In fact, it doesn’t matter if there’s a why, and when it comes to depression, usually there just isn’t a why. It’s okay to feel sad. And I feel sad. And tired. And I don’t want to write anything new this week. It’s a lot of work for not a ton of return, even emotionally. But hopefully I’ll feel better next week, and then next week I can tell you about what I usually do when I feel sad; watch videos of spooky-looking fish.

Anyway, here’s the previous chapter. If you like it, let me know.

Spectral Crown, by Andy Sima: Chapter Nine

The feeling of being stared at by Iacob was both pleasant and unsettling.  But I lacked time to think about the implications of that; Simon hurried around the servants and tapped those of us carrying gifts.

            “Quickly,” he whispered to each of us in our turn, doing his best not to disrupt to court members.  “After the court ascends the stairs to the throne, follow them and present the gifts you are carrying to Princess Sorina.”

            “How will we know when to present them?” Kolte asked.

            “The king will make a speech of presenting the gifts.  Then you step forward one by one,” Simon said.

            The Uradel court made their way up the stairs, fancy clothes sashaying as they moved up on spindly legs, with King and Queen Uradel at the front, and Simon motioned for us to follow after a moment.  We walked up the steps to the platform where Prince Maynard was smiling with glee as his parents joined him.  Upon reaching his son, King Adalbert slipped him the small box Simon had chosen and cleared his throat.

            “Maynard,” he said, testily.  “Why don’t you present the first gift to the Princess Sorina Blestemat, soon to be Princess Sorina Uradel.”

            Maynard looked confused, and his mother whispered something in his ear.  He understood, then, and his eyes lit up with excitement.  Then, without further instructions, the prince turned around and carefully got down on one knee, doing his best to avoid breaking a bone in the process, and held the small wooden box before Princess Sorina.

            “Princess Sorina of Umbra,” Maynard said, “you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.  Let us make a union of two people and two families, for the benefit of our love and our two kingdoms.  I would be honored to take you as my wife.  Will you marry me?”  He opened the small box and presented a simple gold ring, with a single black diamond inlaid.  It did not appear very impressive, but it was a gift nonetheless, and it shimmered in a manner similar to the more ethereal nature of the Blestemat royalty.

            A small smile cracked Sorina’s calm demeanor, though I couldn’t tell whether the expression held happiness or amusement, the same way a fox looks at a particularly weak bird foraging for food.  “I graciously accept your proposal of marriage,” she said.  “Let us wed and be merry.”  She took the small box and closed the lid, sealing the little ring away.  She held it close to her chest, smile widening.

            Another round of blue-tinted cheers went up from the Uradel court, and off to the side at the other throne, I thought I heard Iacob chuckle.  But it was soon lost in the sound of Simon whispering furiously into my ear.

            “Alright, Saelac, Josefa, you must present the next gifts.  This chest holds the greatest works of art the Stalpert valley has ever produced.  First impressions,” Simon said, out of breath.  “First impressions keep us alive.”  I was about to protest, to ask why he kept saying that, but he cut me off with a hand motion.  “Gifts.  Now!”

            “Princess Sorina, Prince Iacob, Blestemat Court, wherever you may be, we would like to show our gratitude for letting us stay in your castle and your country,” King Adalbert said.  “In thanks for your hospitality, and in preparation for the wedding, we would like to present a series of gifts, some of the finest that I have commissioned.”  I’m sure Simon was mentally rolling his eyes, but his face remained taught and bespectacled.

            “Our first gifts to present to you,” Adalbert said, “are here.”  He turned and gestured for my mother and I to step forward with our trunk and its unknown contents.  We obliged, and made our way to Princess Sorina and Prince Maynard, standing at the crystal chair.  Iacob, from a distance, moved in and leaned closer to see.

            “We present to the royal majesty of Umbra a trunk of gifts,” my mother said.  “May they be of acceptable nature.”  My mother and I placed the trunk on the floor and undid the latches as one might unmuzzle a dog.  We opened the lid of the trunk.

            The gifts were a set of three pendulum clocks.  They were gorgeous and delicate, built to look like small renditions of Chateau Uradel and houses in Stalpert valley, made with fine dark pine wood, stained glass, and lead, with moons and stars as glass pendulums, but the problem was, none of the clocks worked.  We discovered this as Sorina picked up the center clock, the one fashioned after my home castle, and wound up the gears inside.  The pendulum began to swing, but the hands on the clock face did not move.  Nevertheless, Sorina’s face broke into a small smile, and this time, one of surprise.

            Simon took one look at the unmoving hands of the clock, and nearly had a heart attack.  His face scrunched up like he was trying to eat himself, and he hurried forward to Princess Sorina without bothering to ask for permission to approach.  He snapped the clock away from her.

            “I’m terribly, terribly sorry,” Simon said, and held the clock in his sweaty palms, appraising it carefully and looking inside the gear works at the back.  “I don’t understand why it does not work.  These were constructed not three days ago.  Please, forgive us.”

            “Simon Taylor,” King Adalbert said under his breath.  “Return the gift that you stole from Princess Sorina.  Now.”

            Simon looked at the clock in his hands, and then looked at the princess, and realizing what he had done, almost died again.  “Terribly sorry, terribly sorry, Princess Sorina, your highness,” he said.  He carefully returned the clock, more slowly this time.  “We are more than happy to offer a replacement gift.  The other two clocks will work, I am sure.”

            “No,” Princess Sorina said, her small smile content.  “It is not broken.  See?” she pointed to the second hand, which had not moved since the pendulums started turning.  As she gestured, it twitched ever so slightly, and took one step forward.  There was no further movement from it.

            Simon’s mouth jumbled together, trying to speak, but all that came out was a small huff of air and “I’m sorry, madam, but I do not understand.”

            “I’m impressed, really,” Sorina said.  “We have not seen a working clock for quite some time in Castle Blestem.”

            Now Iacob was standing next to the princess, too, staring at the clock.  His face was full of childlike delight, but his eyes betrayed something that I didn’t recognize.  “This is quite wonderful.  This will go well in our library.”  The second hand made another small jerk forward.

            Simon asked,  “So you find this gift to be acceptable?”

            “More than acceptable,” Princess Sorina said.  “I find it to be wonderful.  And what of the other two?”

            “The other two,” Kind Adalbert jumped in, “are just as perfect as the first.”  He glared at Simon as he picked up the clocks, a glare that the Blestemats could not see.  Somewhere behind us, I heard Reinhard snickering.

            The King, too, was soon just as bemused as Simon, as he picked up one of the other clocks and wound it up himself.  As he stared at it, the second hand refused to move, just as it had on the first clock.  But, after a bit of anxious waiting, and before the King could bite off Simon’s head, the second hand gave a small leap.  At the same time the other clock moved, too.  They were broken in the same way.

            “I’m pleased to see,” Queen Annalise said, turning to her husband, “That the second clock works just as well as the first.”  Prince Maynard was too busy steadying himself in Princess Sorina’s company to pay attention to the look his mother gave him.

            “They are all exquisite, and I assume the third works, too,” Sorina said.  And then she clapped her hands.  “Handmaidens, please take this trunk up to my quarters.”

            Although I was certain the throne room had been empty, excepting our group and the two Blestemats, there were suddenly a number of other people streaming in from the sides of the room.  I do not know how they arrived so quickly, or how they got in, as there was only one way in or out of the throne room, but yet, here they were.  Handmaidens to Princess Sorina surrounded the wooden trunk, latched it shut, and began carrying it away.  They hefted it as if it were filled with feathers.

            All the handmaidens looked nearly identical, with long black hair and soft moon-white skin, and all of them were just as beautiful as either Iacob or Sorina.  They seemed to move about by floating above the ground.  They glided away just as quickly as they had appeared, taking our gift box with them.  All of this was done in silence except for the sound of their handmaiden dresses in the wind.

            “Right,” Kind Adalbert said, looking as bewildered as the rest of us felt.  “We are quite pleased that the clocks work so well.”  And there was another look at Simon.  “We would like to present more gifts, if Princess Sorina would be so pleased.”

            “It would please me greatly,” she said, and gave a small curtsy in her position behind Maynard.  He shivered ever so slightly.

            What followed was a train of gifts, as presented before Sorina, given to her by a long stretch of servants and maids.  My mother and I moved out of the way to the back of the group, where those without gifts also resided.  The gifts presented from there onward were nothing of any particular interest or note; it was the typical royal array of glass decorations, depicting scenes of god, gold, and glory, china plates intended to be smashed before the wedding as per Uradel tradition, metal tableware, a style of which would clash horribly with the aesthetic the Blestemats had built for themselves, fine silken clothes and bedsheets, presumably for the bride-to-be, a large set of Stalpert valley spices and mushrooms, of which I was certain maintained almost zero value outside of Stalpert valley, a fancy sword with dragons and monsters carved into its blade, making it useless as a weapon, and some sort of fur coat, made of an animal I did not recognize.  For all I knew, it could have been horse hide, seeing as how little Simon had to work with back home.

            All these gifts were unloaded by way of many small boxes and larger trunks, the ones that the various servants had been carrying along with them.  After all the gifts had been presented, and after a stream of identical Castle Blestem handmaidens had removed these gifts and taken them all up to Princess Sorina’s private chambers, we were left in the throne room once again waiting for something to happen.  Simon sweated nervously.

            “From one royal woman to another,” Queen Annalise said after the last gift had departed, “I’m quite jealous of all that you have received.  Adalbert’s dowry was not quite so grand.”  Adalbert looked distressed but only for a moment before his wan face regained its stoic demeanor.

            “He didn’t have Simon to make the dowry for him back then,” Franz snickered to Kolte from behind me.  Mayor Reinhard turned around and glared at him, though none of the other court members paid any attention.

            “I, too, am quite impressed with the gifts that have been given this day,” Sorina confided.  “If this is any indication, our union of families shall be quite fruitful.”

            “Yes, fruitful,” King Adalbert said.  “To good will and peace among families, and to a productive union between young lovers.  May you produce beautiful heirs and be happy.  Here, here.”

            There was a weak-willed “here, here” from the court members, the loudest voice being the impish Reinhard, and a rumbling of assent came from the citizens of Uradel situated at the back.  Franz and Freda met each other’s eyes and chuckled, as if they had their own little secret.  Simon smiled uncertainly, forehead diluted in sweat, and I gave my own quiet “here, here.”  My mother was the only one who did not open her mouth.

            “Are you alright, mother?” I said, glancing at her.  She was watching the royals, where Sorina had placed herself behind Maynard once more, towering over him and covering his shoulders with her hands.  Iacob had made his way over, too, and stood next to the Blestemat princess.  Adalbert and Annalise were discussing something with Iacob, while the bride and groom-to-be listened.  Or, rather, the bride listened.  The groom seemed to be losing focus on where he was or what he was doing, as sometimes happened with Maynard.

            “Call it mother’s intuition,” she said to me, under her breath so that no one else could hear.  “But I have had a bad feeling about this, since we crossed that border.”

            “I as well,” I said.  “But this castle is gorgeous, and full of light.  Sorina was delighted by our gifts, and they clearly have a great deal of staff.  Perhaps we have misjudged them.”

            “I trust my bones,” my mother said.  “And they ache.  Do not forget,” she added, “that the soldiers are still missing.”  It surprised me a little how easily I had forgotten that.

            “The Umbra soldiers have not shown up yet, either,” I agreed.  “Perhaps they are being held up by something.”

            “Or they will not show up at all,” my mother said.  I glanced at the royals, who were talking and laughing about matters that I was sure were not important.  The other Uradel court members idled about, thin and tired.  As my eyes scanned the white room, noting nothing worthy of attention, my gaze rested once again back on Iacob.  Momentarily, his eyes, too, met mine, and they flashed with something that was not malice but was also not good will, either.  Something deep inside me stirred.  And yet, for all the formalities and trivialities introduced to us by Castle Blestem, I would have to do my best to not have the wool pulled over my eyes.  My mother was right.  Something was wrong.

I hope you’re looking forward to freaky fish next week, because it’s one of my favorite topics that I’ve never talked about on here before, and I’m excited. Well, not excited enough to get over depression. But excited. See you next week.