Unnaturally bright though the tone of the harpsichord struck his modern ear, the slender, dexterous touch that enveloped the antechamber in sun-sired warmth also cast a radiant, nostalgic glow over memories unfaded, but, of late, hardly ever visited.

He was transported back to Elysia as he listened to the composition that had been Aunt Eulalie’s favorite, and which she had often played for him in her private sitting room. Though the princess wasn‘t performing it with the same degree of technical mastery that his aunt had, few could ever hope to do so, and her fingers glided over the keys with a surety that belied her youth.

Watching her play, Zephyrin was reminded of his own childhood. How often had he been found with his nose pressed to the glass, looking down at the parade-ground as the soldiers ran through their drills! And how often his tutor had been obliged to seek him out and drag him unwillingly back to the pianoforte, trying to entice him with the thought that his mother would be so pleased if he were to play for her nameday.

In the end, he had acquired a certain proficiency with the instrument before realizing the nature of the ploy. When it was clear that music wouldn’t deter him from watching the training exercises, painting had been proposed; after that, poetry, before in his keepers’ despair the whole gamut of pacifistic pastimes had been run: horticulture, birdwatching, dancing—even (rather optimistically, he now thought) lepidoptery; and finally, when he had been older, the allurements of feminine society.

Will she be born in this world?

Zephyrin was jolted out of his thoughts when the princess missed a note midway through her impromptu performance. Her jaw clenched and she tried to proceed as if nothing happened, but before long it was impossible to ignore the little flaws that had crept into her playing, the hesitancy in the fingers that earlier had flown over the keyboard with such confidence and agility.

Another note was missed, and that proved the tipping point; the piece came to a premature and jarring conclusion. The harpsichord’s reverberating twang lingered in the air with unwelcome longevity, before being replaced by the sound of the princess’s heavy breathing.

Balling up her hands in her dress and visibly grappling with her anger, Sophia required some time to master herself. “My malady… because of it, it has been some time since I last played,” she finally stated in a low voice, her cheeks as brightly flushed as if she were still in the grips of the illness. “That is the reason why my execution was so poor.”

“On the contrary, Your H—Sophia, you played very well. But have you taken the trouble of memorizing the piece’s text?” Zephyrin ventured to ask. Judging by the princess’s look of incomprehension, she had not. “Doing so would make the piece’s modulations easier to anticipate,” he elaborated.

“How so?” A quick response, sharp and to the point—more and more he was beginning to understand her temperament. Zephyrin replied, “Savarius made extensive use of tone-painting. If you’ll allow me to demonstrate…”

After a moment’s delay the princess ceded her spot, grudgingly allowing Zephyrin to take her place on the carved bench. “The music always reflects the meaning of the text. If one keeps that in mind, the piece’s abrupt transitions become easier to anticipate. Consider the prelude: bright and vigorous in G major, it signifies that nature is whole, and that humanity is one with it and our common source.”

Zephyrin demonstrated with what seemed to him aggravating clumsiness—he had not played in over a decade, and the last time he did his handspan had been a fair bit larger. That the colors of the instrument’s naturals and sharps were inversed also didn’t help matters. Still, he ran through the music tolerably well, explaining as he did so the meaning of the composition’s movements, the princess watching intently all the while.

As purpling twilight stole over the King’s Isle, the vibrant tone of the Elysian harpsichord took on an uncharacteristically somber, elegiacal quality. Zephyrin had completed the second movement and was now undertaking the third; still no word had passed the princess’s lips.

“…Our anticipation is answered by an arresting modulation to the subdominant C major. The Eclipse is occurring! The Goddess has interposed herself between benighted mankind and the blazing, all-consuming righteousness of the Unfailing Light. Our hearts swell; we dare hope that she will save us!”

A nascent, yearnful strain seemed to evoke the possibility of reparation, of the mending of the rent that had sundered the Firstborn race from its Celestial Progenitor…

But it was all too short-lived. “…Until we transition to C# minor to most unnerving effect, the dissonance highlighting mankind’s despair in the face of the Absolute.” The princess shivered, her skin breaking into gooseflesh. Zephyrin raised his voice to be heard over the chaotic storm conjured up by his fingers, spectrally white against the naturals.

“We arrive at Selena’s Choice. The Source of Being is unrolling the tapestry of possibilities to the Goddess; she sees all of history as it exists in the Mind of the Eternal; she comprehends the atrocities that will become reality if the Absolute condescends to hear her plea on our behalf; the murders, wars, and horrors beyond reckoning...”

The maid standing by the door looked on impassively, while Madame Ehzvina winced as Zephyrin’s hands whirled the dissonant maelstrom ever more wildly.

“The Absolute presents her with an alternative; the destruction of ruined humanity, and its replacement with a pure, innocent race, one that will never offend her and its author. The Goddess looks into her heart, and then…”

Zephyrin removed his hands from the keys. He willed himself to allow the last jarring notes to subside, then leaned in again to sound a single pure chord. The first stirrings of a suspenseful but hope-filled interlude on D major inundated the room. “…She makes her decision.”

“Selena chooses her children, fallen though they be! She accepts them in their degraded state and consents to all the wickedness that will be wrought until the consummation of the ages. Now in the third movement, we swiftly cycle through the E minor and F# chords, awaiting the Restoration…”—a breathless rush of notes ushering in a broad, swelling arc like a tidal wave—“… before triumphantly returning to the tonic key, G major.”

At length the composition reached its conclusion. Zephyrin turned on the stool to face the princess, who blinked several times, as one roused from a reverie long and deep.

Gradually returning to her senses, she began plying Zephyrin with questions and offering some of her own reflections.

“And so… the original’s second movement has polyphonic singing to represent the people’s desperate supplication,” she said, struck by a sudden realization.

Zephyrin nodded. “While the third’s soprano passages are monophonically diatonic, symbolic of the Goddess’s intercession before the Immutable Essence.” He returned his gaze to the harpsichord and ran through the section again, slower this time, while the princess looked on silently. “What about the coda?” she asked when he had finished. “What is the significance of the finale’s banal parallel fifths?”

Zephyrin paused. His own teacher had been at a loss to explain this blemish in an otherwise flawless masterpiece; for a neophyte its conclusion was certainly pleasing enough, but those with more discriminating taste were unanimous in roundly condemning the simplistic denouement as an unpardonable disappointment.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “There are some who say that because Savarius was in the twilight of his career, his powers had waned by the time he finished composing the piece.”

“Do you agree?”

“I do not believe the answer is so simple. My belief is that Savarius chose to end his magnum opus on a lackluster note deliberately; what his reason was for doing so, I cannot say.”

“I see.” A pause. “Thank you for this. It was… very informative. I wish my tutor had explained the piece—and played it—half as well.” The princess fixed Zephyrin with eyes grayer than her brother’s—though Roland took more strongly after his mother than her, she had the queen’s eyes.

“You are not as sorry looking as the roturiers I see on my outings with His Majesty, nor as ugly,” she remarked bluntly. Studying Zephyrin a moment longer, she then added, “Indeed, I should think you nobleborn, had my mother not given me assurances to the contrary.”

“I can only ask Your Royal Highness to bless the Goddess on my behalf, for having so liberally favored me with material gifts throughout my life,” Zephyrin said pointedly.

The implication was not lost on the princess; a guilty look flashed over her face, before being replaced by her usual stoic expression. “I see. I am glad your parents were able to provide you adequate sustenance; and now at the lyceum, I imagine, you need not worry about eating according to your needs.” Casting about for a change of subject, she then inquired, “Will you be accompanying us to Douàzile to-morrow?”

Though still subdued, her tone was—if Zephyrin wasn’t imagining things—a trifle thawed compared to when she had made her entrance. As for her question… “Douàzile, Your Highness? I’m afraid the name is unfamiliar to me.”

“It’s a small village—a hamlet, do you call it…?” she began, her eyes briefly seeking out her governess, who nodded in confirmation, “…on the outskirts of the capital. His Majesty says we must reside here in this mouldering old castle to appease the people, but outings to our other domains are still permitted. Will you be coming?”

Zephyrin was on the verge of voicing a polite refusal when an alarming consideration stopped him. The queen was leaving the palace to enjoy the countryside… for how long? If she was absent for a week or longer, that would leave him stranded until her return; appealing to the members of her household for release would be useless unless they received her express say-so.

There’s no way around it; I have to accompany the queen’s party and settle things once and for all.

Zephyrin made his decision… or rather, the decision was made for him.

After he had given his affirmative and the princess had briskly stridden off to freshen up and change before their common meal, but before her governess followed her into her bedchamber, Madame Ehzvina found the time to murmur in Zephyrin’s ear, “Thank you very much, dy Valensis; it has been some time since the Little Madame has enjoyed herself so.”

Had they been longer acquainted, Zephyrin fancied she might have squeezed his shoulder. Even so, the gratitude in the nod she granted him before closing the bedchamber door between them was palpable.

Closing his eyes, Zephyrin permitted himself a deep sigh in the maid’s presence. The day wasn’t over yet. But when the morrow came, it would be decisive—of that, he had no doubt.