While Kairos trotted away down the stairs to see the king, Erika walked through the halls and stopped in the drawing-room where her sisters sat at a table by the hearth sipping rose soda. She stood in the doorway, hands folded across her chest, watching them giggle and fan themselves and talk about niceties. Did they not know how dangerous things had become in this world? They lived in a powder puff reality while soldiers and serfs sacrificed their lives to keep them safe. Having returned from battle where she watched men torn apart by wild beasts and crushed by ghostly spirits, the sight of her sisters enjoying their fineries repulsed her. It broke her heart that these were her siblings. Worse, the pain and torment she had experienced on the battlefield still raged within her. She wanted to lash out, tear the jewels off of her sister’s clothes and rough up their hair. As daughters of the king, they should at least care.

“Erika, come sit with us,” Rhea offered. Rhea and Olinda were identical twins, though few people had difficulty distinguishing them from one another. Both were blond and blue eyed, their hair fell in curls pressed in place from the tight braids they wore at night. Yet they never dressed the same. Rhea liked earthy colors, greens, and browns, whereas Olinda favored pastel pinks and lavenders. Olinda wore her hair up and pinned with flowers when she could, but Rhea preferred to wear her hair down. They held themselves differently too. Rhea stood straight, which made her seem taller than Olinda and more aggressive for a girl.

Erika stepped into the room cautiously, anxious that the twins would reprimand her for the mistake she made. Being older than her, they often criticized her, and at the moment Erika didn’t need their judgment. Still, she couldn’t hide from family forever. Erika kept an invisible wall around herself.

“What sort of infusion today, ladies?” she asked.

“Rose soda, Eri.” Olinda loved to give people short names. Erika hated it. Olinda poured green liquid from a silver pot into a finely etched silver teacup.

“Why wear black today, Erika?” Rhea asked. “You look like you’re in mourning.” Her curls drifted gently as she fanned herself with her colorful silk fan and munched on a cracker.

What’s this? Rhea digging for unspoken guilt? A technique she often tried to get Erika to apologize.

“I am in mourning.” Erika squinted at her when she answered, chugging her tea with one swallow.

“You’re supposed to sip rose soda, Erika.”

“Who says?”

“Who are you mourning?”

“Squire Richard,” Erika replied curtly. Rhea straightened in her chair with a look of indignation.

“I’m sorry about your soldier.” Olinda offered as consolation.

“Twenty-one. There were twenty-one soldiers who died.”

“And you mourn just for Squire Richard?” Rhea asked.

“I mourn for all of them. But Richard shouldn’t have perished. We were on our way home.”

“No doubt there were others who shouldn’t have died as well.” Rhea stabbed.

“No one should die in war, Rhea. But they do. And everyone makes mistakes. I know you two have been talking about me. I can see it in your faces.”

“I’m sorry,” Olinda repeated.

Erika looked Olinda in the eye. “Sorry?”

“About Richard,”

“It would have been nice if you apologized for gossiping about me.”

“Talk among sisters is hardly gossip,” Rhea muttered.

“Why are you sorry about Richard, Olinda? I’ve heard you talk about our servants. You never had concern for errand boys.”

“Come, now, Erika, there’s no reason to be hostile toward Olinda. She’s only offering you condolences because she sympathizes with you.”

“Olinda?”

Olinda had been staring into her chalice. She set the cup down and wiped her mouth with a linen napkin. “Actually, I have no sympathy for you. I think you were foolish to have accompanied Barin. You muddled matters with your charades. Slaying a king who offered his army to help us! Shame on you,” Olinda said.

“I’ve made a mistake and regret it. I don’t need either of you to rub salt on my wounds.”

“We’re not rubbing salt.” Rhea stood.

Erika, cheeks burning, slammed her chalice on the table, splashing tea on the tablecloth.

“Whether you know it, you are. And it hurts. Neither of you should judge what I do. I didn’t see you offering to help our men.” Erika struck back. “Perhaps you don’t care for the soldiers who went with Barin, but you claim you love Felix. Felix endangers himself daily, battling the same monsters our grandfather fought. And look at you! You sit here with your silver chalice and sweets and discuss the weather and what dresses you’ll wear tomorrow when you have no notion if there will be a tomorrow. You have even less knowledge whether Felix is going to be alive tomorrow. You say you care, but you don’t. You’re the fool, Olinda. And yes. I made a mistake. But at least I tried, and I fought alongside our men enduring war. Watching people die. Rescuing some and burying the others. You’re a fine one to criticize. How will you feel if next time I come home I tell you I buried Felix?”

A dead silence followed. Erika poured another cup of tea and drank it.

“Now, Erika,” Rhea uttered softly. “That’s no way to talk to your older sister.”

“And as for you!” Erika turned on Rhea. “Where is your courage?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and Kairos are passionately in love with each other, but neither one of you will confess. You tiptoe in the shadows, caressing and carrying on. I can’t say I sympathize with you, but if you two are lovers, why slink away to dark places like a couple of thieves? When are you going to tell Father how you feel? He already knows. Maybe he’d appreciate hearing it from the both of you.” Erika leaned on the door post with her arms crossed.

Rhea stuttered, unable to answer.

“You’re both cowards and that’s the reason the dark lord can invade our kingdom, kill good men, and make slaves out of our nations. Too many of our people are just like you. You’re afraid of your reputation or that you might get in harm’s way, or that you’ll make an error, so you shroud away in your regal curules, pretending everything is just splendid, secretly coveting something you’ll never own because you refuse to fight for it!”

Erika enjoyed their silent outrage for a moment before she stormed out of the room.