Page 2 of The Pastel Prince

“I smoked only a small bit of the pine cone tobacco then vomited for a day,” I had blurted out, my vision blurred, my heart thundering in my chest. “I won’t do it again.”

Her voice was musical, slightly amused, and soft like the sound of the wind wuthering through the tree when she replied.

I do not come to lay punishment upon you, my child. That is for your parents to mete out. Listen to me well for what I say will have great import for the future of Melowynn.

I nodded, throat clogged with awe and fright.

Hasten thee, young argent to Renedith, invoke my name to Umeris, remind him of the vow to fair Gialar on her deathbed. Take the babe Aelir to your side, look upon him as a brother, temper the teachings of those who have left their ancestry behind. Cultivate acceptance, unity, and the ways of the woods in his breast. Do this, sixth son of Wilder Warden Dyffros and Priestess Jastra, and you shall shape the future of the elven kingdom.

“But that’s so far away,” I had whispered, grief-stricken at the thought of leaving my mother, father, and annoying older brothers for a city that I had only heard terrible things about. “My lessons…”

She touched my brow with a finger. My joints locked for a moment as divinity flowed through me. My sight burst into bright white stars. I came out of the state when I fell backward into the bog. Shaking the water and frog spit from my eyes, my tight braids soaking wet and lying on my face, I pushed them from my eyes to see…nothing. Danubia had left the bosk. The birds began to sing, the toads gurgled, and the bees resumed visiting the blooms atop the swamp grass.

Soaked to the bone, I torpidly returned to our village to tell my story, my only proof a small white dot in the center of my brow. Danubia’s fingerprint, all the adults had proclaimed. A dot that once stood out sharply but now was less readily to view. My skin had paled over my ten years here in the city as the elders had warned would happen. I now appeared washed-out, not wholly of the woods and not wholly of the city.

Many a night on my long journey here, I questioned Danubia’s request. I was a small boy then, just having seen my tenth summer, and about to travel thousands of miles with only my second eldest brother, Eldar, at my side.

None in my clan had questioned my vision, not even my parents, although my mother wept when I climbed up next to Eldar in a small wagon the day we left for the city. Father had nodded, proud of my courage as well as the fact that out of the hundreds in our camp, Danubia had chosen me for this mysterious mission. There had been so many smiling olive-toned faces waving goodbye that day. I’d cried as soon as we had cleared the last sight of my home. My brother gave me a sideways hug, unusual for my sibling but welcome.

The trip had taken many passings of the moons. Eldar and I had grown close, shared some laughs, some tears, and some adventures along the way. Out of all my brothers, Eldar was the one who wrote to me the most. I missed them all terribly.

Lingering always was the fact that our goddess, cast aside by the pale elves as we called our distant relatives, had plucked a timid boy out of the wilds to help forge bridges. What was so special about Aelir Stillcloud, I still had yet to discover, but he was a good boy, cheerful and filled with mirth, and we had become as brothers. Why I was truly here remained foggy. Changing the course of elven kind of was unclear while also being fearsome. How could I change something when I knew not what to change?

The gods were mysterious, their messages vague but filled with import. Perhaps I had been chosen because I was the youngest of six boys and therefore was the easiest of my familial line to send forth to the Stillcloud vills. Perhaps I might never know, for that was the way of the gods.

Still, even with the doubts and worries, I lifted my voice in prayer for she knew far more than I ever would…

“Gentle Danubia,

Hear my heart as it beats alongside the pulse of the world,

Lead me to the verdant fields, the cool woods, the splashing waters,

So that I may be closer to you in spirit, word, and deed.”

I lowered my forehead to the cool grass, my backside still on my heels. The feel and smell of soil and vegetation on my brow lifted me above the cityscape and into the blue sky where I was momentarily winging my way home.

The fantasy popped as the second bell for morning prayers rang out across the vills. Knowing that I would soon be chased from the garden by those who tended it so vigilantly, I rose and padded to one of four large cages filled with songbirds. The urge to fling open the doors was strong, but I had learned that lesson the hard way years ago. Sensing the sadness in the birds when I had first arrived, I raced through the garden, tossing open the cage doors, and shouting to the birds to fly.

The birdkeeper, a dour old elf named Rictus—a fitting name for his face always seemed locked in a death sneer—dragged me into the castle by my ear and threw me at the feet of Umeris Stillcloud. Punishment had been swift and severe. I’d been confined to my quarters near the rookery in the western tower for a month. Not a very auspicious beginning for the new forest elf companion to the wee Stillcloud heir. But I had learned. Locked up in that tower for a month with only a window and some books about proper decorum and behavior for castle staff, I devised a plan. I also became familiar with the surrounding lands.

Now, with ten years of self-learning and the touch of Danubia, I could cradle a living thing in my hands and lull it into a state of sleep. I had other powers as well, most feeble in comparison to what I should know by my twentieth summer,but since I had no instructor or scrolls to learn, I was doing what I could.

Rictus, a city elf who has never left the vills in his several hundred years, knew nothing of forest magicks. So, now, I would remove a bird, whisper a sleep spell, and it would fall to its side, appearing dead but only slumbering. Showing the birdkeeper the “dead” bird, I would then whisk it and myself to my room and wait. The bird would awaken and off it would fly out my window, free once more. Of course capturing the birds and the other wild creatures that the masses in Renedith enjoyed seeing behind bars meant that while I would free one a day, several dozen more were brought into the menagerie in the center of the vills. It was truly a losing battle, but I was doing what I could. Freeing a bird was easy. Moving into the menagerie to set loose a Coerul or a water bison was something vastly different.

Someday, though, perhaps with what I was imparting to Aelir, we could do away with the cages. It was a dream of mine. Perhaps that was why I was here. What other reason could there be for a tea-green wood prince with one-tenth of his druidic powers?

“Good morn, my friends,” I whispered, giving the walled-in green space a fast glance. Most of the city elves would be in morning vespers by now, so I opened the door of the birdcage holding the red and orange birds and slid my hand inside. I felt how happy the birds were to see me, for I usually sneaked seeds to them, but today was the day to free one from this cage.

Several sat on my hand but one hopped into my palm, a bird the color of a summer sunset. A mountain oriole, imported from the cold fir forests of the Witherhorn Mountains, a rocky range far north that the dwarves and yeti clans called home.

“Rest for a moment, small one,” I whispered. The bird blinked once, then fell to its side, tiny legs in the air. Cupping itin my hand, I closed the door, spun, lifted my day robes to my knees, and ran into the castle.

Up the servants’ stairs, past the vast kitchens, I darted. The smell of some sort of meat on the spit floated past my nose, making me grimace. I found it nigh impossible to feast upon the flesh of something that I was able to emotionally bond with. The elves of Renedith had no such upset. Just another way that I was an elf among elves, yet wholly alone.

Widow Poppy yelled at me to slow myself as I dashed by the open doorway of her domain. Several young elves called out to me to run faster, which probably got them a spoon to the ass from the head cook. I passed the pantries at full speed.

The stones of the keep were cool under my bare feet as I ran for the archway leading to the western tower. It had taken me two full passings of the crescent moon to be able to find my way about this massive keep. Castle Willowspirit was formidable as the three keeps of the three noble families all were. This one boasted twenty bed chambers, four solariums, two music and feasting chambers, a grand hall, and a wine cellar that Umeris seemed to be as proud of as his substantial guard numbers. There was also a small chapel where the family went to pray if the weather was bad or Umeris was suffering from the podagra that plagued him. The library in the eastern wing was a thing of beauty and prestige. The city elves worshipped logic, intelligence, and wisdom, so each keep had a bookroom that rivaled the one in the castle of the king in the capital of Calaer.

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