MALACHI II

I was woken at the first fall of the sun. I dragged myself out of bed feeling like I had only just fallen asleep. Which was probably the case. I felt falling asleep was the hardest part of my day. I tossed and turned for what felt like hours. So much was on my mind recently. I should request sleeping potions.

Getting out of bed, I was forced to see the mess I left everything in. The spilled tea was still all over my end table. Clothes were everywhere, covering the floor and any unlucky chair around. I really needed to clean up after myself more. I don’t understand why it was so hard.

I turned away from my mess and dressed myself. I tied my hair back and slipped on my usual coat. Since I knew what the rest of the night had in store, I grabbed my trunk key. I will wear my gloves tonight. They were light, soft leather ones my mother had enchanted. That was her blessing. She had an affinity for enchantments. The runes on my gloves kept your hands at the perfect temperature. Never too hot and never too cold. Mundane things but they were my most comfortable pair of gloves I’ve ever had the pleasure of owning.

I headed down to the dining hall. Most of my family was already there, waiting for the food to be served. Mother sat at the head of the table already, Father to her right. I took my seat on her left. A seat down, Jeremiah had a book open under the table. He glanced over the empty seat between us. When he looked at me, he instantly noticed my hands.

“Why are you wearing gloves?” he asked.

Mother and Father both looked down to my hands. I suddenly felt self-conscious. I balled my hands into fists and dropped them under the table. “The Princess has a very invasive blessing, as she put it.”

“What is it?” Grandle asked. He was seated two down from Father, next to his own mother, Lady Peony. “Her blessing?”

“I’m not sure if I’m the one who should decide to disclose that,” I shot at him. He gave me an exaggerated frown.

Lunette on the other side of her mother spoke up then. “When you touch her she can feel your emotions, right?” she said.

Mother’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh my, I touched her without knowing.”

Before anyone could say anything else, the Princess arrived. We all stood and greeted her with a bow. We only sat down after she did. She was already the picture of beauty. The dress she wore today was a soft yellow. It had a corset back and a high neckline. Her sleeves ended right at her wrists in lace. Her long hair was braided and rolled up just behind her right ear. Judging by all the pins, Elisif was trying not to have many hairs get loose from it tonight. Even though she was pretty enough to keep me looking, she was uncomfortable. You could tell by the way she sat, rigid and unrelaxed. I pulled my eyes away before I made her any more uneasy.

The Princess greeted everyone with a nervous smile. “Good morn- er, evening,” she stammered.

“Good evening! How did you sleep?” My mother asked. I heard Jer turn the page in his book.

Iara glanced over at my little brother and turned back to the Queen. “I slept fine.”

“Why don’t you tell us about your blessing? I don’t think anyone asked you yet,” Aunt Peony said, giving her daughter a pointed look. Lunette scowled and grabbed her glass to sip it in silence.

“I-I don’t think I would-”

Jer interrupted her. “Lunette already told everyone,” he sighed, flipping another page in his book.

Princess Iara’s face turned bright red and she looked at her in horror. Before she could speak, Mother said “It’s fine, no one is offended. We will all be more careful now.”

“No, I’m sorry. I should learn to control my blessing better,” she replied.

“We all struggled with our abilities at some point,” Father added. I suppose he would know the most out of all of us at the table.

“What is your blessing?” she asked. She was probably ready for the conversation about her to be over.

After idle chit chat and our breakfast being served, we were rushed to our carriage. I got in the open top carriage first and offered my hand to help her in. She paused but looked taken aback when she noticed my glove. She furrowed her brows and placed her hand in mine. She sat next to me, careful to be far enough away that our arms didn’t brush. As the other carriages were getting ready, I looked up to the starry sky. I could already see the lanterns floating up. The city would be a full out festival by now.

As we left the palace grounds, people lined Carith’s streets. There were streamers and colorful banners hung off every building. The cobbled paths were littered with confetti and flower petals. People cheered as the Princess rode by. I kept looking over at her to see her reaction. She was amazed by the city. Her eyes shone like a child’s. People reached out in hopes to brush her hand. When she did finally reach her hand out, her nerves must have eased. She looked less rigid. The people she brushed hands with were all here to cheer for her and she must have felt that.

“I’ve never been so. . .” She searched for the right word.

“Celebrated?” I asked.

She nodded and gave me a smile. “Celebrated.” But her smile fell quickly. She pulled back her excited expression.

She didn’t say much else the entire parade. Once we made it back to the palace, we had a light lunch and then Mother shoved us out and ordered me to show her the palace. I sighed and started leading her down the halls. I made sure to be out of earshot before I spoke.

“If you want to go back to your room for a rest, you can tell me,” I said.

“Actually, can you show me to the library? I’ve been dying to go,” she replied. Her hands clasped and came up to her chest.

“Of course,” I said. Although I had really hoped she wanted to be alone. I felt as though being with her caused her discomfort. I felt uneasy at every turn. As soon as I thought she was enjoying herself, something darkened her face.

I turned down the corridors that led us to one of the palace’s libraries. It was the closest one to our rooms so I thought it was best to show her this one. There were a few scribes about. I was glad to see Master Ivar wasn’t among them. The Princess scanned the many shelves in excitement. She pulled out tomb after dusty tomb to take back to her room. We had at least a dozen. Once she checked out the titles I helped her carry them back to where she was staying. When we reached the room, I set the tall stack down on her tea table.

“Thank you for carrying them,” she smiled. “I never asked, where is your room? Is it far from here?”

“It’s not very far,” I replied, amused. If she didn’t know I resided right across the hall, we should keep it that way.

“That’s good then. I would like to spend the rest of the night reading if that’s okay with you.”

“Yes, I don’t mind,” I said quickly. I regretted what came out of my mouth next but I couldn’t help but be polite. “You know though, the next few nights will be much busier than this one. Are you sure there is nothing else I can show you?”

She bit her lip and looked at her open window. She had a perfect view of the inky ocean. “Actually,” she mumbled. “If we won’t have any more time, maybe you could take me to the beach?” She turned her big brown eyes on me. The way she looked at me made my chest constrict.

I forced myself not to turn my lips downward. “I really shouldn’t. We aren’t supposed to leave the palace without a knight present.”

“Really? You can’t ever leave by yourself?”

“Well, I can,” I said slowly. “I just shouldn’t. I should not show you. But if you really want to go I can take you.”

She breathed out heavily and looked back at her window. “I don’t need to go,” she mumbled. She sounded as disappointed as one could be.

I mirrored her sigh. “Come on.”

I turned and swung her door open. She jumped and followed behind me. “Are you sure?”

“As sure as I’ll ever be.”

She followed close behind as we weaved through the halls towards the east courtyard. I led her through the overgrown lot to the rusted gate and turned to her. “I hope you don’t mind walking in the woods,” I said as I pushed the gate open.

She brushed past me to duck under the low hanging ivy. She sucked in a sharp breath as she took in the forest. I pulled the gate closed behind me and put my hands on my hips. I scanned the trees around us. Bushes and vines grew in every direction. Large thick trees scraped the sky above. It was hard to spot stars through some of the leaves. The canopy was so thick. I looked over to the Princess. Her hands were on her face in a show of amazement. It was the only time I had ever been out here with another person. It felt strange to bring someone out here. It was stranger still that I didn’t hesitate to bring her out here.

“Do you enjoy forests?” I asked.

“Oh do I ever,” she breathed. “I already see so many things I can collect for potions.”

“You’re a witch? Well, I should’ve already known if you lived with Lady Rey,” I said. I watched as she rushed through the foliage, picking at leaves and thickets.

I led her slowly through the brush so she could have her fun. She looked in her element out here. Instead of being stiff and awkward she moved through the trees like a pixie. Leaves started to tangle in her skirts and her hair loosened from some of the pins. She didn’t care at all though. It reminded me of how I felt in the woods. Free.

“Is this where you were when you came back that first night?” Princess Iara asked as she came over to me. She offered me a leaf without a word about it. I took it, my leather covered fingers holding it up to the moonlight. I was embarrassed to say I couldn’t identify it. I could name every animal that spent time in the woods, but I knew little to nothing about the foliage.

“Yes it is. I like hunting,” I admitted. There was no use in lying to her. She had seen me at my worst already.

“Is it something to do with your blessing?”

“I suppose,” I mused. I slipped the little green leaf into my pocket.

“What is your blessing?”

“I never miss.” As we passed a bush I pulled a small twig off one of the branches. I flicked it up without looking and turned to her. Sure enough, the twig came back down and bounced right off her nose.

“Hey,” she snapped, trying to catch it. She fumbled and lost it before she could even find it.

I laughed. “Sorry, Princess.”

She frowned and rubbed her nose. “Can you please call me Iara.”

I frowned back at her and kept moving forward. “It feels quite improper, don’t you think?”

She sighed and quickened her pace to stay in step with me. “Well, I have another question then. Elisif told me when someone blood bonds, they share a lifespan. Does that mean a human will live as long as their vampire or if one dies the other does?”

“Both are true.” I had to hold back a sigh at having to explain this. Lady Rey must not have taught her anything while they lived in their little cottage. “There is no natural cause that will kill a vampire. So anyone from another patronage will live far past their life expectancy. But if the vampire’s partner were to be killed, the vampire would follow,” I explained. “Are you worried about it?”

She shook her head. “No, not at all.”

“I don’t like the idea of drinking anything but animal blood anyway,” I added.

“You’ve never had blood from a person?” The Princess asked. She looked a bit surprised.

“No, not even from-“ I stopped myself mid sentence.

“Not even from who?” she pressed. “A lover?” she teased.

“No,” I replied icily.

As I broke from the trees, stepping into the sand, the Princess reacted just the same as she had when stepping into the forest. She ran right up to the wet sand. She stopped short of the waves, watching the water ebb and flow in amazement. I kicked off my shoes and called for her to do the same. I rolled up my pants and stepped into the waves. They lapped gently across my bare feet. She followed and pulled up all her skirts. The Princess stood close to me, her eyes never leaving the water. Every time a particularly large wave came and hit her legs higher than she expected she would squeal. She was so full of excitement it couldn’t help but rub off on me.

She gasped suddenly and I looked over at her, startled. She gathered all her skirts in one hand and pointed next to my foot. Her eyes were bright and bewildered. “What’s that?” she gasped.

I looked down and saw what she meant. It was a seashell. A large conch at that. It was soft pinks and browns. Spines jutted out on the largest part of the spiral. I plucked it from the water and offered it to her. She took it in her one free hand and looked it over. “It’s a conch shell. There are all sorts of them,” I told her.

She turned the shell over and over in her hands, studying every inch of it. When she was done, she slipped the conch into her bundle of skirts as if it were a pouch. Her eyes quickly went back to the ground, scanning for more. She must never have been to a beach before. I wondered how she would react if I took her to the tide pools.

I joined her in looking for seashells. When I would find one I would show her and tell her which kind it was. She soaked up the information as if it gave her life. Her jaw dropped when I told her things lived in them before they washed up here. She started to amass quite the collection. When it got to be too many for her skirts to hold, she dropped a pile just shy of the waves. She got on her knees and started to make a small mound in the sand.

“Building sandcastles?” I asked. I came over to her, dropping a loire comb into her pile.

The smile that I expected to see wasn’t there. She glanced up at me and then back down to the pile of sand she had been forming. The blond brushed her hands on her skirts, leaving behind trails of wet sand. “I was going to make this as an offering to Loire, but it seems silly now.”

“Silly?” I asked. I looked down at both of us. I was shoeless, my coat and pants soaked with seawater. The Princess’s dress was ruined, caked with sand and twigs from the brush. It certainly was silly, but I was never allowed to be this way. Out here I could be as silly as I wanted. We both could.

Her reply was only a single nod. She turned her eyes to her pitiful building and heaved a sigh. “Would this even be a good offering to Loire?”

I got on my knees next to her, reaching my hands into the damp sand. It felt strange through my leather gloves. I thought about taking them off, but I didn’t want to risk my skin touching hers again. “Have you ever built a sandcastle before?”

“No,” she mumbled. Her arms crossed, hugging her sides. She avoided my gaze.

I chuckled. “Then it would be silly to make one for Loire. I’ll show you how to build one and then maybe the water goddess won’t be so insulted.”

The Princess gave a small laugh. The sound bubbled through the air and forced a smile onto my own lips. As we molded sandy walls with our hands, I couldn’t help but feel close with her. I couldn’t remember the last time I had shown anyone a genuine smile. Sharing this with Princess Iara didn’t send me into a panic like it would with others. She was hard not to trust. She seemed vibrant and true, unlike so many people I had grown up around. It was a breath of fresh air.

Our castle had become a large structure. It had four towers and walls surrounding it. There were windows carved into the sides and I managed to make tall thin spires at the top. I had taken a lot of inspiration from the castles more north than my home. As some final touches, we stuck shells into the sides of it. I hoped the goddess of the ocean accepted this sort of offering. I personally never gave offerings to any gods before. I didn’t know how it worked. Some of the shells were too heavy for the sand though. The castle caved and the Princess cried out. Sand slid down, covering her shells and her knees.

“It all fell,” she pouted. She reached into the soft sand and let it slide through her fingers in defeat.

“We could start fresh?” I offered.

She sighed and got up. “Alright,” she replied.

I got up as well and led her back to the lapping waves. I didn’t even notice the sun rising over the water until I faced it. The soft morning light was like a haze over the sky. It blurred out the stars and made the almost black water turn to deep blue. I’m sure the Princess would have an easier time finding shells in the light, so I didn’t say anything about it getting late. We scanned the water for more gems. Every time I found one, I would relinquish it to her. She would inspect it carefully and add it to her skirts once again.

The Princess was leaning down for another shell when a particularly big wave hit her. She stumbled, dropping all her skirts and shells and started to fall back. I grabbed her in a panic and pulled her against me. Her head collided with my chest and I held her tight to me. “Careful, Princess,” I laughed.

She looked up at me, the morning light casting cool tones over her. “Iara,” I whispered. She blushed then. I leaned closer to her, letting my forehead almost touch hers.

Her eyes widened when she realized what I was doing. She gasped and pulled away from me. I let her go as soon as she resisted. She stumbled back and splashed water up. I almost thought she would fall again. She steadied and shot me a startled look. “Don’t,” she snapped.

“Don’t?” I asked, my voice taking a harsher tone than I had meant it to.

“Don’t use my name, and don’t flirt with me,” she yelled. Her face was bright red by now.

I held up my hands in a show of surprise. “I’m sorry,” was all I could manage in reply.

“Y-you should be,” she stammered. Her lip started to tremble and her eyes swam. She turned away from me as a tear fell down her cheek. The Princess trudged back to shore, her skirts heavy with water now.

What the hell happened?

I started retrieving the shells. I was completely soaked as well and just as confused. I felt guilty. Was I being far too inappropriate? I was shocked to realize how comfortable I got around her. I reached out and touched her without consent and I used her first name. My ears felt hot and I ground my teeth. I never meant to make her feel uncomfortable. I glanced at shore and saw she was sitting at the tree line, her legs hugged tightly to her chest. Her shoulders hitched with sobs. My heart sank. I had made her cry that hard. I finished gathering the shells and walked over to where she was. I placed the shells on the ground in front of her and sat down.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I will take you right to your room and you don’t have to see me all night tomorrow.”

She peaked at me from behind her knees. Her eyes went to the pile of shells I recovered. She set her forehead back against her knees and sighed heavily. “I’m sorry. You were about to touch me.”

I felt my stomach tie into knots. “I won’t touch you without your consent again. I never meant to-”

“I wish I didn’t have this blessing,” she interrupted.

I could never understand what she felt. I had loved my blessing from the very first time I ever shot an arrow. It was truly a gift. The ability I had was strong. It was the one thing I liked about myself. I suppose not everyone was afforded the same joy from their gifts. Some gifts were better never given. I struggled to find something to say to console her.

“At least you can tell when someone is trustworthy or not,” I said eventually.

She looked at me from behind her knees again. “Sometimes it makes me not able to trust myself,” she mumbled.

“What do you mean?”

She wiped her face with the back of her hand. Her eyes were puffy and red, her nose dripped. She took a deep breath in and shook her head. “I-I don’t know if the things I feel are always my own feelings. My blessing makes me see other’s emotions and thoughts so vividly it’s hard to separate them sometimes.”

The idea of losing my own autonomous thoughts with a single touch horrified me. Such a thing obviously troubled her. It would trouble anyone. She probably felt like she wasn’t herself. That was a feeling I could relate to, even if it was watered down in comparison to what she experienced.

“Well, what are you feeling right now?” I asked. I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. “Speak up and don’t think too hard.”

“What am I feeling?” she whispered. Her face fell into a pensive expression. It was like she had never considered it before.

“Yes. Say what’s on your mind,” I urged.

“Well, I really like the beach,” she mumbled. “And I’m surprised you’re so nice,” she added.

I snorted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her face turned red and she leaned forward. Her wet hair fell over one of her shoulders, almost completely out of the braid now. “I just never imagined a vampire to be so considerate. Not that I think your patronage is inconsiderate,” she rambled. “I have never been around vampires before. I have only heard what people in my village used to say and the few books Rey gave me.”

Humans with their short life spans remembered things differently than my patronage. History was lost more often for them than it was for us. My mother was over two hundred years old. She had been just a girl during the last years of the war against humans. She could give you first hand accounts of things that happened. But humans only had what knowledge managed to be passed down. It was twisted and darker than it seemed. A lot of humans still feared vampires, and honestly for good reason. If their only knowledge about us is killing and draining their blood, then it was only natural they would be scared. And not too many people got to meet vampires. The other mortal patronages far outnumbered us now, and we tended to stay among our own people.

“I’m not mad,” I assured her. “As long as you feel differently now.”

Princess Iara tucked her hands under her knees and nodded. So many things passed through her face. Each thought was worn without holding anything back. This was why I felt at ease with her. She was easy to read.

“What else are you feeling?” I asked. “Try thinking about your own emotions more than others.”

“That’s selfish though,” she muttered. Her lips turned down in a slight frown. Frowns didn’t fit her round, freckled face.

“Not keeping your thoughts your own is selfish. It’s cruel to yourself,” I told her. I let my hand rest over my heart. “If you take the thoughts of others too often, you won’t be yourself.”

Her eyes swam with more tears. She pressed her forehead to her knees again as she cried. I was hit with the desire to soothe her. I reached my hand out but hesitated. I still had my gloves on despite being soaked through. Even if her blessing wouldn’t activate, it didn’t give me the right to touch her without permission. I pulled my hand back and bit my tongue. What do I even say to her? I had only made her cry again.

I felt the sun on the back of my neck and stifled a sigh. I straightened and brushed some sand off my pants. “We should go back. The sun is up.”

“Will you burn?” she asked.

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “I won’t burst into flames if that was your question. Worst that will happen is a headache,” I said.

Her cheeks reddened this time with embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”

I offered her a hand to help her up. “Don’t be.”

She took my hand in hers and I pulled her up. She bent down to pick up her shells and we both went back into the trees. Our walk back was in silence. I couldn’t help but keep mulling my words over in my head. If she did see inside my head, she knew I didn’t have a clue how to feel. How could I give her advice I couldn’t even follow myself? I was almost certain our time spent together was a mistake. She wouldn’t be able to bear another minute alone in my presence after we got back. Maybe it was better that way too. I wasn’t deserving of her company. She was like a ray of sunshine. She was bright and intense. I would only bring her down more like I had today.