The Red Glaive

Prince Valerian fiddled with the reins. It was an old habit of his to have restless hands when he was nervous. Elric Talbain had told him to keep it at bay lest he reveal his nerves. As he grew older the habit all but vanished. Not to many people knew about it, and Prince Valerian had quelled the habit enough to barely be noticeable except by those who knew him best.

Today, Val had reason to be nervous as he sat atop Bold Ruler on their ‘return’ to the city with Lord Oimni’s host. Val had pointed it out earlier; why be part of the parade when half the city knew he was already back? But Elric had told him only this: King Veritas had told his court his son was to arrive with Gretommo with the Glacies host and the king was not a man you made a liar.

So, begrudgingly, the Val came along. Though he didn’t say, Elric knew Val’s nerves were about the girl in the Oasis. Nearly everyone in the city came out during the parade. If she saw him, she would no doubt know he was the Prince Valerian Donumdei, crown prince of Lux Aeterna. Elric had urged the prince to tell her before hand, but he had not. Now Val had to deal with his nerves.

Elric had tied to reassure him. Told him that perhaps she wouldn’t be one of the many faces in the crowd. If what Val had told him was true and she was a woman in sanctuary, then she wouldn’t risk leaving the shrine during the day. That seemed to calm the prince, if only a little.

Secretly, Elric knew she’d be watching though he didn’t tell the prince that. During the parade lords liked to display their wealth and power. Many liked to do that by throwing obscene amounts of coins out into the crowd. There’s no way anyone would miss that.

Now all that was left was the girl’s reaction.

Val had asked to meet him at the end of the ball. Elric prayed to the Avian that she would show. Despite his initial distrust of the girl, Elric had come around. If she had sought to do him harm, then she already had many missed opportunities. Not only that, Elric had seen a visible change in the prince’s demeanor, especially on the days right after seeing her.

From a distance, those who saw the prince thought him cold or indifferent. Elric knew him better than anyone and that was farthest from the truth. The prince carried a sullenness to him that was difficult to describe. Forlorn was his natural state, Elric could see why many thought him cold. But he had never known someone more sincere and loyal to his friends than the prince. The girl was changing that. He was more engaged on the days after their encounters, cheery almost. So instead of putting an end to their meetings, he had allowed them to continue.

The girl had to show.

Their initial encounter had been all but accidental though Elric had been suspicious for a long time. Val, despite Elric’s warnings, had snuck away with the girl and she had tried nothing. She genuinely didn’t seem to know who Val was, which was baffling to say the least. Only the kings of Lux Aeterna entered the oasis at during the full moon, though only the locals knew that. So she had to be a foreigner, from Durus or Aestus based on her features.

Any attempts to follow her ended in losing her in the vast network of tunnels beneath the Ivory Bastion or into the shrine, and they had gone to the shrine already and there was only one woman named Elyon there. Ancilla hadn’t found her amongst the serving staff either. How she vanished was still a mystery.

Despite that, the few times Elric had spoken to her, she seemed genuine, if oblivious. And the way she looked at the prince was like no one had ever looked at him before, not as the crown prince but as a man first and foremost. It seemed to be what Val needed, to be treated as a person and not as a the thing that was to rest upon his head.

There had only been one other for the prince, but that had been a farce.

The only girl the prince thought he loved had manipulated that love out him. To Elric’s greatest shame, she had also nearly succeeded in murdering him as well. Kandra was a cruel, cruel woman. She had waited, waited until she had fully gained Val’s love so that he would run off with her behind Elric’s back. The knife had struck the prince right over the heart but had somehow missed. Elric had felt the blade as if it had been plunged into himself, alerting him. It had taken the King’s Glaive and the sisters in the shrine to save the young prince’s life.

Against his better judgment, Elric had allowed Val to go Kandra’s execution. After spewing countless defamations and traitorous speeches, Kandra’s final words? “Valerian, I love you,” spoken with upmost sincerity a vile actress could muster just as the blade fell upon her.

Those words had haunted the young prince for many years. Many a woman entered the prince’s bed chamber in an attempt to fill the void that woman had left behind. That all ended with the marriage agreement and Elric believed Kandra’s final words were the driving force behind the prince’s acceptance to the marriage agreement.

The agreement, made by good friends King Veritas and and Vals patrino Gretommo Oimni stated that if the prince didn’t marry at a certain age he was marry Gretommo's daughter Kireina. Though an exact date wasn’t actually set. Recently, however, both the king and Gretommo had began to grow more than a little impatient. The prince was twenty two and not officially courting someone for marriage and Kireina had turned down more than a fair share of suitors.

“What are you thinking?” Kireina said with a smile breaking into his thoughts like a ray of sunshine piercing a stormy sky.

Kireina Oimni. The most beautiful woman in all the land. She had slender figure with cascading golden hair that shone like the morning sun, most beautiful of all were her eyes; one green, the other blue. A beautifully bizarre blemish. A simple glance was enough to leave any man hypnotized, Elric included.

So he only glanced at her quickly and said, “Nothing of consequence.” Before staring ahead. It was a quick enough glance to see the long white gown that draped over body and most of her horse. Her golden locks had been wrapped and woven in and out of an intricate headdress made of ivory, flowers, and hundreds of dangling crystals. She jingled softly as she moved.

Elric grumbled. They rode ahead of Gretommo’s host, far enough ahead to ride in relative privacy. Why she chose to ride with them instead of her gilded palanquin with the main host was beyond him. She had even left behind her beast with her father’s host. Looking back Elric could spot the creature, a sleek black shadow, slowly stalking behind them.

Elric heard the soft jingle of Kirenia’s head dress and he diverted his attention back to the road ahead where dangers could be lurking. It was hard to focus on anything when she was around.

“Is the Ivory Bastion really as big as they say?” Kireina asked riding between Val and himself. It was Kireina’s first trip to capital. They were close now.

“Think of the Crystal Palace then double it.” Val said glancing at the lady with a smile. She had been his intended from the day he was born, so the king constantly sent his son to visit Icleport, the Glacies’ capital. Growing up together, the pair had grown fond of each other.

“The Sky Castle is bigger.” Elric replied thinking back to his own ancestral home.

“Taller,” Val corrected with a grin. “Not bigger.”

Elric chuckled. Insolent boy. There was a time when Elric had resented his charge. Resented the prince for having to protect him and for taking the only woman Elric had ever cared about.

Kireina and Elric were only two years apart. While she and Val were five. Though the age differences didn’t feel so bad now, it was really noticeable when they were younger. During their earliest visits to Icleport, Kireina was more of babysitter than a suitor. So it was Elric and Kireina that had grown close.

Back then Elric didn’t know the visits were any more than visit’s to the prince’s patrino. The king and Gretommo had ulterior motives; to make the two fall in love. Before he knew that, Elric had toyed with the idea of asking Gretommo to allow him to court his daughter. Only a passing comment to Elric’s uncle put an immediate halt to that when the truth was revealed. Elric had resented the young prince for a long time.

But Elric had grown and the prince had grown. Now the prince was as much a sibling to him as his own blood sister. He would gladly put his life on the line for him because of that and not just because, how his uncle had put it, ‘the king’s line had to continue for they were the keepers of the Lightbringer’s divine essence’. Though the prince had yet to Ascend.

The girl had distracted his meditations in the Silver Oasis, but he was glad for that now because the closer Val got to her, the happier he seemed and the freer Kireina became.

So Elric had given her an invitation and his endorsement to the Pauper’s Pageant in the form of a gold bracelet. If she presented herself there, before the court, then the prince could choose her as a suitor to officially court her and no one could say a thing.

The trick now was to convince the prince to go. He couldn’t tell Val that she would be there. He couldn't make it seem like he was giving any kind of special treatment that could influence the prince’s decision. Those were the rules, and they had to be followed strictly. That way no one could make any excuse, nor question when Val inevitably chose her.

Kireina gasped. The tall white spires of the Ivory Bastion loomed ahead. For a brief second, the prince got visibly nervous then masked it. He did not enjoy large crowds and preferred to be alone most of the time, but he was getting better. The girl was changing that.

On the night after the ball, the girl had to show.