Aethan

Eight years ago

Aella’s cross-footed curtsy was a stiff, lifeless thing that made her look like she had injured her shins.

From a nearby couch I laughed, with a copy of the Philosopher Farore’s Born to Reign, in hand. My studies in the monarchy were tiresome enough, but I knew that Aella also had to practice being a lady at court. That meant countless dresses, dances, poses, and lessons on how to speak, and who was to speak first to whom.

“I’d like to see you try it, you fathead,” she shot at me through her teeth. I stuck my tongue out at her and blew a raspberry.

“Quiet little miss. You watch that temper or I’ll tell ye mam,” her governess tapped a riding crop on the arm of her chair. “Now straighten that back – chest out, chin up.” Aella tried to follow the instructions, with her skinny arms and legs positioned awkwardly about her stiffly held torso. “And, curtsy!”

For three seconds she wobbled before falling to the ground with a curse.

I rose my face up out of the book, “Governess Lila, can’t she take a break?”

“Not after behaving like a sailor,” the stately middle-aged woman shot back. “Be glad you were born a man, or else we would now have you up to your neck in frills learning just as she is – no, no, no!” Lila shrieked at Aella as she picked at her nose with the most concentrated face ever seen. “Ladies, absolutely do not pick their noses!”

“They do too,” Aella shot back. “Lady Vanessa picked her nose behind her fan at the ball last summer, she thought no one was watching.”

We shared a grin between us, and I joined in, “I bet she’d have eaten it too if she wasn’t so close to her betrothed.”

Governess Lila gave a great big sigh and swatted me on the arm with her riding crop, "Don't you encourage her. She’s to sit on that throne next, and what a picture it will be that the Queen of Gracia is digging into her nose as if it held the treasures of Luviere.” Then she looked at me even more closely. “You. Get up, stand beside your sister.”

I looked at her as if she had gone barking mad. “You’re not serious, are ye?”

“Get moving, little man or I’ll be having a talk with your father about what I found you doing in the pond last week.”

Aella frowned, “What was he doing…?”

I cut her off, springing to my feet with a face blossoming red, “Nothing, nothing, I’m already up, you see?”

Governess Lila was a blackmailer at heart. I half-imagined she enjoyed torturing us. I bet she went home to boast to her family that she spanked royal asses day after day if we were rude to her.

“I hope you were paying attention, young lad, because it’s not as easy as I make it sound,” she gave me her steely gaze.

I scratched the back of my head, “But you already make it sound awfully difficult.”

Her brown eyes gazed into mine menacingly, “Exactly. Posture!” Aella snapped to full height and I followed after a brief moment of hesitation. The governess circled us. She tapped both of my shoulder blades then rose my chin with the leather crop. “The eyes of a royal is like the sun itself. Tell me… How does the sun shine?”

“Down,” we replied at the same time. We had heard this from father many times. We had also felt his gaze, burning down on us from the throne. I could not imagine my sister being that way.

“Good, hold your head up, but keep your eyes ever on the people. See them where they are, in need of your direction, in need of a strong arm to lead them, and now… step forward.”

Aella moved with her left leg, gliding across the floor as if the movement took no effort.

When I mimicked her I was sure I had accomplished the same until I looked at the governess’ face.

Her expression said it all. I heard my father’s voice in the expression on her face, “Only a few people are born to rule.”

___________

Now it was Mirax that stood in front of me with a riding crop and a smirk as he surveyed me in Aella's clothing. The dress was form fitting and more revealing than I was accustomed to, with more of my legs showing than ever saw the light of day in Gorma. Around my bodice I had been padded and banded with a thick material that I was assured would give the natural feel of breasts, for if, gods forbid, someone touched me.

"You make a better woman than ever you did make a man," Mirax added insult to injury and gestured at my face, which had been done in all the finery of makeup, with black lining my eyes and blue, the vidwa was a pair curved irises like teardrops on my cheek to bring out the colour of my eyes.

Mirax's servant had been extremely gentle and precise, hardly touching my skin, fearing to even leave her fingerprints. She had left my hair for last, claiming that the princess had kept it simply styled. She braided two light gold, small strands at the edges and brought it around my head like a crown, then finally, placed a delicate ruby and sapphire tiara on the braid.

"Let me see how you walk..." Mirax instructed.

I stood briskly and walked a few steps, feeling oddly constricted in weird places. This dress was a pain, how do women do this?

"Wrong. Absolutely everything about it was wrong. Have you forgotten?"

If I had forgotten? I could hardly breathe! How could he really expect me to master this all at once? I cast him a glare of irritation before turning and trying again, this time placing my left leg forward first and easing my body into a glide with my back straight and hands clasped downward in front of me. Just like Aella, I thought sadly.

Gracian women were not to walk like men, they always moved with their leg foot first to show deference. Grace was everything. Beauty was power. Without beauty a woman would be shamed, and often relegated to the unsavoury duties of a home if she was a servant.

Mirax clapped drily, "Better, much better. Now try smiling as you do it, and end it as if you are greeting the prince for the first time."

Smile. Sure. Because I had lots to smile about. But I was doing this with a purpose. Mirax would only show me to my sister's resting place after I satisfied his inspection of my protocol as a princess.

I stretched my mouth into a smile and Mirax looked irritated. "I said smile. You look as if you've just been assaulted."

I pretended he had told a joke and let my voice thrill into laughter then stay into the smile. He looked approving for a moment so I kept smiling and walked three paces before inclining my head downward and crossed my legs into a small curtsy. "I'm delighted to meet you, my future husband."

Mirax gave a groan of frustration. "Everything perfect until you opened your mouth. Use feminine form. Stop referring to yourself in male pronouns."

Gracians had two words for 'me', one was masculine and the other feminine. Using the wrong pronoun could even alter the meaning of a word, since I had used the male form of 'me', delighted would become 'pleased' or 'pleasured'. Apparently that was too self-centered for a female who is meant to be pleasing. Stupid.

"I am to be the princess, we are meeting as equals," I protested. "And they don't know or care for our protocol do they?"

"It doesn't matter. Your father wants you to appear compliant and so you will. Greet him as if he is already your husband and you are just his wife, not a princess. Try again."

I smiled again.

And again.

And again.

My smile was beginning to hurt my face when Mirax finally stopped drilling me in courtesies.

I breathed a sigh of relief and sank into the chair that faced the mirror in Mirax's chambers. This was more tiring than a night caught at sea in a storm.

A knock came at the door, two knocks and a pause. The knock of a servant.

"Are you ready for the final test?"

I rose my head. What test? Were we not over? No I was not ready, I was drained. And he knew it.

"My lord, you summoned me?" That voice sounded familiar for some reason.

"Come in Hama, someone wishes to see you again," Mirax replied.

Hama. I wondered why that name was so familiar to me. Oh yes, she was a maidservant of Aella’s, they seemed pretty close too.

I was beginning to realise what my test was as the door swung inwards and Hama, a mature woman with streaks of grey in her hair and a full bosom that certainly bore no padding, entered.

When the woman caught sight of me she gave a quick outburst of surprise and hurried to my side in expressions of joy I could not understand. From her tone I understood that she was containing her excitement and that she knew that royal protocol would not allow her to scold me in the company of others. Aella had a light touch with servants, something I had always tried to copy.

The woman sank into a crouch at my feet and took my ankles into her hands looking up earnestly, "I've worried tirelessly after you your highness, have you eaten any of the meals I've sent, so many of them came back untouched."

I tried for a brief smile after glancing for Mirax's reaction. His face remained impassive, like stone.

"No need to worry Hama, it was nothing, just a maiden preparing herself for marriage."

"Of course, your grace. I've kept busy getting all your things arranged if you'd still like to see them."

"Thank you, Hama, your words lift my spirits. And thank you for the meals though I did not eat them many a time. Call it a sickness that is over," I was being very polite, and only after saying this realised that Hama was slightly put off by it. But by the looks she sent Mirax's way she seemed to understand that we could not speak freely. I prayed now that she would attribute my formality to this reason alone.

She did. Smiling she rubbed my ankles a few times affectionately then rose from her position, backing away slowly, "I will bring your things to your room, your grace."

"That won't be necessary, Hama," Mirax interrupted. "Princess Aella will not be there this evening and neither will you."

The woman's face registered alarm and fear all at once. I felt it instinctively really, the feeling that something bad was about to happen. Maybe it was Mirax’s tone that tipped me off, like a serpent’s hiss. Hama was still confused, "My lord?"

"When next you conspire to commit treasons, Hama, you will remember that the walls have my ears all over them." Mirax's hand was the only thing that moved into his coat, the rest of him was taut like a bowstring. "But then... There won't be a next time."

I opened my eyes again long after the 'thud' I heard on the floor. By then a pool of slow moving blood travelled across the polished wooden grain. Hama's open eyes still looked to me, pain and concern swimming and dying in the washed out grey.

Mirax was immediately behind me when he spoke again, startling me so badly I gave a small shriek of fear.

He ignored me, turning my face to the mirror. My eyes were watery and the tears they painted on my cheeks were about to be joined by real ones. "You've passed."

I was still sitting there some minutes after when a dull faced woman came into the room and started to clean the blood from the wood, ignoring the corpse completely. How many bodies did she see in this very room? How many pints of blood scrubbed from the floor? I wanted to ask, but feared a truthful answer beyond belief.

"Your grace," she addressed me in female honorifics and I started briefly at the old woman's croaking voice, "Lord Mirax awaits you without."

He was waiting? That didn't sound like Mirax at all, but I responded quickly anyway, rising properly and bidding the servant thanks for her advisory. I was sure that she understood exactly where the true power lay in this room. That I was weak in comparison to Mirax even with royal blood. At least there were no deceptions between this servant and I, save the dress that I currently wore.

The constant bitterness at the back of my throat threatened to rise again and I bit it back as I exited the room to see Mirax braced against the stone wall with a serene look on his face. He had apparently been waiting for me to learn his lesson. A single step out of line and the people around me would pay for it.

He would've killed Hama anyway, since by the looks of things she was helping Aella to defy my father somehow. But the lesson wasn't Aella's nor Hama's who were both dead. The lesson was all mine, and it was effective, quelling the rebellion that rose now and again in my heart.

"Are you prepared?" Mirax wanted to know if I was ready to see my sister's grave. He now waited for a response with a blank face.

I nodded, "I am prepared."

He took me down flights of stairs until I lost count. Surely we were deep below ground now, with damp and musky air that smelled of stale provisions and moths. Books were held here too, old books that had no binding and which were slowly rotting on shelves.

Finally we came upon a place that smelled of many oils blending together, a tombing chamber. I had read of this tradition before but had never seen one in person.

The east islanders did not simply bury their dead, they removed the insides and bound them in wraps for the day they would rise and serve again. Either way, the method preserved the body for a long time, and the implications of using this method was not lost on me. At the very least my father intended to bury his daughter properly one day.

We came upon the tomb, a large cake of stone with a heavy lid banded with bronze.

"Eastern isle priests did it, they washed her and laid her to rest with dried seeds, herbs and spices to eliminate the smell. They preserved her skin with many oils and wrapped her hair. She could be asleep now." Mirax explained the process in what I could almost describe as a gentle voice, but it wasn't really that. It was just a voice without the malice I had grown used to. I hated him in my silence.

I nodded to myself, if I were here sooner I would’ve been able to see her face, but it was not safe to open a tomb in which a body was rested. This was how disease could spread. I knew this, and yet the irrational urge to see my sister had taken hold of me, I turned away from the tomb and looked to the ceiling where lamps had been hung decoratively, sending golden light everywhere.

"How many know that she has been laid to rest?"

Mirax thought for a moment, "Not many. About six persons in the entire realm."

I thought about it. Aella would've had at least a team of healers, personal escorts and guards, her maidservants, and possibly court friends. How many of them were now dead for having any suspicions? I shuddered.

This was wrong. My heart broke as I breathed the air of the chambers in which my sister lay lifeless. I felt useless. For what reason did a twin enter the world with you if not for support? Part of me hoped what the Easterners believe is true, the other part of me wished her eternal rest, far away from any wishing her harm or unhappiness.

This sadness I felt was not for my sister, it was for myself, because she had went where I finally could neither follow in body or in spirit, until my own time came.

"Leave me," Was the first command I had ever issued to Mirax, and miraculously, he obeyed.