Prologue
The breaking of snow beneath leather feet woke him from his horrible slumber. The heavy panting in that cold night, a distant memory. He then discovered he was bundled within warm arms. Her arms.

“Tron, I can’t make it!” The woman labored. She tried to twist towards her unknown pursuers when the horrible billowing winds answered her concern.

“Do not look back, I will try to lead them astray. Make sure they will not reach the prince.”

And Walrowin knew that the woman had saved his life, somehow. From that emptiness where his brother had thrown him into. Although she had sworn giving up in their escape, his savior kept running. The cacophony of alien shrieks echoing throughout that distant night was drowned by the growing winter storm. The short respite in her protection returned him to thoughts of his brother.

As they progressed, memories of that toxic smoke, dark eth that had clambered to his soul felt heavy now on the chest. He felt tainted, poisoned and hopeless. Muffled inside his own despair, he couldn’t help opening his eyes when the woman spoke, “Sadness is a part of us little prince. It—it is by our own will… will we let ourselves be swallowed by it—or grow from it.”

Surprised, Walrowin found himself staring at the beautiful woman. Her tan reflection was draped by her snow flurried hair. She was both smiling and whizzing when he had found her amber eyes. He was tethered to her kind face when the cry of a familiar beast banished his settling calm.

Walrowin knew every voice of power his family makes. One in particular was his sister’s.

Jovial to the coming reptile from the sky, Walrowin felt his spine freeze when the woman grinned. “I’ve never fought a dragon before. I hope we’ll survive our first.”

Scrying into Memory

Walkre soared to the gate spires and disappeared upon nearing the curvatures. Assured of his trajectory, Alve ran to her seeing orb and paneled her thoughts to its clawed base. Immediately, the glass painted her owl’s vision diving towards the gathering of palace and Pillar-State staffs. The King was already there, beside him were Lady Sahturna and Arlou.

Alve felt her own grin as she saw her brother’s noble character. His tied hair now a long silver like her father’s.

The charon barbican was brimming with arriving nobles as Walkre perched at its machicolation. The exempted princess now had the front view and her feet danced at her ingenious. She was also fortunate that her owl was cooperative for the day.

“Good boy, Kre!” She toasted for the bird. “Expect your biscuits when you come back.”

Not a moment later, the High Adjunct and his family appeared and the greetings began. One after another, carriages with all sorts of emblems and colors spitted various liege nobles. Alve could not hear the courtesies but she was able to tell a Memehiko bow and a Solven handshake. Once they received the King’s nod, Grandfather Dunder, the house steward and his kin took the responsibility in sending the lot to their rooms. The pattern went on perhaps for the entire day as more foreign figures and dignitaries came thundering in.

Alve gasped when a ginormous ivory beast, armored with two tusks, a long snakelike trunk, and two flapping wings? Or ears? She could not tell, passed the entrance with a parade of flagged riders in toe. The creature dutifully knelt near the stairs as servants and scholars scampered to give space. A little nudge on Kre’s attention turned Alve to the old woman coming down its stirrups. It had a saddle! Or rather a booth on its back!

Alve never thought her father and brother could ever bow so deeply. The crone had dismissed their respects with pats on their heads and startled her entourage when a chair was brought to her. The giant beast in the plaza stayed when the foreigners settled to stand guard. They were all waiting for someone and Alve pondered to Thravadin for a narrower guess.

 A hair’s breadth and the response came from her phantom, “Another Acolyte… a princess.”

Alve rubbed her lengths to rid the gooseflesh and prayed, “Thank you,” to the absent speaker. Alve had to wait as well.

Foregoing the compliments, Alve made a game out of the diversified regional representatives. “The old woman would have been from Cander.”

“Imperial Daughter…” the ghost sighed.

“You mean she is the Imuto?” Alvenrade would have nodded if he had an apparition. But Alve knew she was not wrong for Imuto wore her white drapery. A large cloth belt was tied around her abdomen while the dress encapsulated her arms and feet. “Then that means the creature is the faharan, gianta. The largest familiar,” she declared to no one.

For Hailaga, their civil war may have put delegations as a passing thought. But Enthah had answered their prayers when the tama flying fish was out from its waters in gray flags. They had arrived with Imuto at the end of the train. From Plaks, Alve felt Walkre shiver. Dawned with large cloaks, the people of High Cliffs had knitted feathers to their attire.

“No one was from Lahuku Man Bi?” Alve noted the missing hued skirts.

As someone who can pass through walls, gossip was rampant news. “They had arrived when Oria was still nigh…” Alvenrade reported.

The disrespect was bitter on her tongue. “Oh well. I hope the King wouldn’t mind the Elder.”

A quiet juncture passed. Torion was reaching his zenith when Alve nearly fell from her stool. Reverberating drums had reached her study. She was puzzled from the noise before she realized she had lost Walkre’s vision. Tapping her mind again to the glass, her owl must have flown from the drums as the seeing orb told of the common roof tiles he sees when flying through town.

“I’m sorry, Kre.” She apologized through the orb. “You may come home with abundant biscuits.”

“The Amir arrives,” Alvenrade said.

“Yes, but I can’t force Kre when he’s scared.” Alve rose and went for the door. As usual, she is met with the same black tinted Gasulin guards at each corner. She addressed one of them, “Greetings loyal protectors, may I ask one of you to tell Urda I need more biscuits for my midday meal?” One of them bowed and was immediately off.

When her pet’s meal was secured, Alve shut her door and returned to her abandoned canvas. It was but a basket of fruits. Beside her easel, another unfinished portrait of her maid lay as a copy of the multiple severe masks shadowed in charcoal. Just by the look of her brushes thrown down the floor, creativity had fled her mind and was replaced by frustration.

The trapped princess took a deep breath. Her mind’s eye was going for another Alohimian book by her reading desk when her ghost advised, “You may as well look out for Walkre…”

The voice was never wrong. Eager to know where at least her owl hid, Alve resumed to her instrument. Trying to rethink of her owl, she however did not expect the dark orbs that had stared back at her bird. The void slits were a bell familiar.

Walkre perched at a gutter. The house he was on was just beside a main street. Dozens of folks, both human and fae were packed in crowds, some cheering and waving hands, others beguiling at the passing buskers. It was there did Alve find the drummers, dancers, and even singers possibly exalting the Amir.

But it was not the prince her owl latched onto. Just behind the noble’s high horse were two other praised riders. One was a woman drabbed in full on white, her attention straight ahead. The Pillar-State soldier accompanying her, his goddess cape billowing in the wind, was the one whose gaze was on Walkre. 

And he did not falter

And she could not break free

“Who…” she stared at his abyssal eyes.

Tap, tap, tap

The sound came from her door and that ended the spell she was laced upon. Alve was glad Urda knocked every time she visits. Since it gave her time to extract her hand from the seeing orb and unbind the string she tied to her skirt. The evidence of her comfy breeches tucked away. As she did so, she spied another peek at her gifted tool.

“Come home Kre, when you can,” she hopefully thought to her bird.

“Your highness, the chambermaid Urda,” announced a guard from the hall.

With a last look to the now clear glass, Alve embedded the soldier’s eyes into her memory before responding, “Coming!”