The way the court rips into the turkey, that one of the servants has delivered before them, makes them resemble slobs rather than friends to royalty. Solomon sighs. He wishes he could go outside. Yet, ever since his father officially announced him as Crown Prince in a ceremony that feels like it was yesterday’s doing, the people of Aglia now recognize him anywhere he walks.

Eventually, Solomon was forced to yield and trade a freedom he once knew for this—futile talks with people he isn’t quite sure he appreciates, at a table much too large for anyone to notice the lies that may be in hiding in wait, like poison weaved within their words.

Dante, the jester of the lot, wriggles his brows at the young prince. “Sire!” he exclaims. “Sire!” His voice is far too loud for it to be pleasant to one’s ears. “You did not tell me the day of your birth approaches!”

Solomon scoffs. He takes a sip of his wine and leans against his fist, with one elbow propped up, onto the table. “I did not need to,” he tells the jester. “I figured this was obvious. It happens every year.”

“Sire…” Dante groans, all the while making gestures that are exaggerated, as they always are with him, Solomon has learned. “I was speaking of the date, not the theory in question!”

I know, you fool, Solomon almost blurts thanks the alcohol that has settled in his belly; a calming pool of heat that he welcomes with an eagerness that may very well be his downfall someday. I was mocking you, as you often mocked me, during my younger years on this earth, good sir.

But the sound of Dante planning a party peels Solomon from his bubble of thought. “A ball! I say we hold a ball! He is turning twenty-one, we must honor his case! It is a must, my friends!”

A lady in black chuckles. “My—” She brings a palm to her lips, cod in red, though not from her drink. “I must admit, that for once, the man is making sense.”

Dante lets out a noise which implies he is offended, though clearly, he is not. Like a pig rolling in mud, he relishes in these futile compliments, clad in armors of irony.

“Surely you are aware that I hold a certain disdain for the blight we know as crowds,” Solomon isn’t sure who he is saying this to, he only knows that it must be said in order for them to cease with their unnecessary fantasies about a ball that will never happen—not on his watch.

The castle’s jester squirms in his seat. Despite his efforts at leaning in closer, to where Solomon is seated, the gesture does little to bridge the space between them. “Come on,” he coos, “even crowds full of gorgeous young women?”

Solomon rolls his eyes. He wishes Dante would stop treating women like livestock as he waves the idea away, shudders, then says, “I couldn’t hope to dream of anything worse than that.”

“Our princeling sure is a ruthless one.” Someone at the opposite end of the table huffs with an outdrawn sigh.

The Prince internally cringes, though he remains content, for they have given up on pestering him as the conversation diverges to the topic of war.

He watches the world outside from between parts of the red-velvet curtains, that a servant surely forgot to draw back whilst doing their daily rounds today. On the streetside stands a young woman who argues with a group of men. One of them hits her, and tugs at her head of long blond hair without a bout of mercy in his ways.

Solomon’s heart drops. He rises to his feet and accidentally slams both his palms against the table in the process. The people that had been once dining around him pause.

“Solomon?”

Solomon does not finish his plate. He turns his back on them and quickly makes for the exit. “I’m tired,” the young prince tells them—especially Dante. “I’m going back to my quarters.” Before completely disappearing, however, the young Prince adds, “Dante?”

“Yes, my prince?”

“Don’t surprise me again with one of your parties this year. I did not need one for the beginning of every month, and I am not in need of one for the start of another meaningless number next to my name.”

“Oh, don’t worry.”

The Prince looks over his shoulder. He notices Dante, who has risen from his seat in turn, too.

As the jester bows, then cackles, he tells Solomon, “I wouldn’t dream of it, milord.” Solomon has a gigantic hunch Dante will not listen, though he figures he will have time to scold the man later. Right now, there are more pressing matters at hand, like the girl being beaten in the streets beneath the castle’s reign.

He takes three guards with him—two because of protocol, and another for good measure.

He barges out the doors that loom over the city and its crimes. As fast as they are and try to be, it still seems he and his group were not quicker than the vandals, unfortunately, for the street once filled with violence is now emptied like a gutted lamb. No matter how much they search the vicinity for traces of blood—or worse—there is no sign of what the Prince described ever happening here.

Later, Solomon returns to the castle’s grounds empty-handed, with a certain hate that burns like wildfire in his heart.

Some things that should not have to exist in Aglia do; what he has witnessed, is one of those.

He will change it. He will change everything—once he becomes King.