Page 43 of The Pastel Prince

“Kenton,” a woman called. I jolted at the familiar sound of my mother’s voice, spinning to find her among the rest of my family stepping out from a small alcove where, somehow, all seven of them had been hiding. My father, my mother, and all of my siblings, even Eldar, poured out of the nook to engulf me. I clasped my mother tightly, the smell of soft yellow daisies and sunshine flowing from her skin and long, tight braids. “My youngest boy has become a man in the blink of his mother’s eye. My sweet son.” She pressed a kiss to my brow where the goddess had blessed me, and then wept openly. “You have saved us all, my darling chosen one. Without you and your fellow warriors, our people would have been locked in stone forever, unable to move into the trees to be lifted to our goddess. We cannot…I simply cannot say how much we love you. How proud you have made us.”

“Mother,” I choked out, keeping her as close as I could before my brothers and father wedged in to clasp me to them, pound on my back, and call me the hero princeling.

“My boy, you have made us so proud,” my father whispered into my ear as he held me to him. He pulled back, hands on my biceps, to smile at me and turned his attention to Beirach standing off to the side with Tezen grinning widely. “And I hear that you have chosen a man to settle with? A man who I know not only from the tales of his devotion to the goddess and her woods, but by fighting at his side. Your mother and I approve.”

“Father, we haven’t even—”

My protest was cut short when my family turned to Beirach with handshakes, hugs, and huge welcomes that made me want to crawl into a corner and hide.

Eldar limped up, his leg in a splint, but otherwise looking healthy. I hugged him to me, then pinched his side as hard as I could. He yelped.

“That is for telling Mother and Father about my…about our…”

“Oh for the goddess’s fair toes, just say it,” Eldar said while rubbing at his side.

“For telling everyone about Beirach braiding my hair. We haven’t even discussed what will come after tomorrow and already they are making wedding plans!”

He gave me a sly wink. “You are welcome. If I waited for you two to announce your romance, we would all be resting in the arms of Danubia. Now come and have a seat. The food is coming soon, and I find I am famished.”

I let my family and my two companions move me to the front of the hall. In all my years in service here, I had never been seated at the grand advisor’s table. Now I sat beside Aelir, in a place of honor, as the appetizers were brought out in a mad scramble of staff wearing harried smiles.

“Did you have a nice nap? I don’t have to take naps anymore, but I know the elderly need them,” the young heir said as he plucked a fat berry dipped in honey from a tray filled with candied fruits.

“I had a lovely nap,” I said, smiling at my elder brother seated next to Beirach as my love spooned some sticky palm roots imported from the capital onto his plate.

“I’m glad. I told Grandfather when the first raven arrived from the purge clerics that told us the evil mage was dead that we should have a feast and invite your family. He was crabby about it at first, but I told him if I had done such a heroic thing, I would want to see my mother and father and brothers afterward. He got very quiet and told me he would think about it and then the next day we were told a feast in your honor would be held.”

He plunked the dripping treat into his mouth. I stared at the young lad with sorrow. “I wish more than anything that when you return from a quest when you are grown that you could see your parents.”

Aelir chewed and swallowed, then wiped his sticky fingers on his pant leg—under the table so that his grandfather would not see—and then took my hand in his.

“I wished for a long time I had a brother, then I realized I did. You were the sibling that could have been if my parents hadn’t died. Even if your skin is green and mine is white, we’re close as kin, are we not?”

I gave his hand a squeeze. “We are brothers in all the ways that matter most.”

His grin was wide. “That’s what I told Grandfather. That made him spit and sputter! But I don’t care. It’s dumb to think someone is lesser than someone else because of their skin tone. When I rule the vills, I’m going to wipe out that stupid thinking!”

With that proclamation, the future lord of the vills of Renedith shoved two more berries into his face and was then scolded by Umeris for unseemly behavior.

I prayed that I would still be at his side when Aelir ruled. And I also hoped that his childish wishes for unity among all of elven kind was attainable. It would take more than a proclamation from a boy with honey on his chin but, perhaps, with diligence, an elf grown with a fire in his heart could affect change. It was a dream surely, but dreams did have a way of becoming reality if one believed in them strongly enough.

Fourteen cycles of the moons

The eve of the summer synodic

“JUST ONE MORE FLOWER.” I EXHALEDso loudly the breath sent my flower maid skittering back, her wings working doubly hard to counter the rush. Tezen shot me a dark look, then bared her pointed teeth. “No need to get elvish with me. You’re the one who insisted on weaving moon posies into your braids. I’d have been happy to sprinkle the damn sticky petals on people’s heads, then hit the kegs, but nooooooooo.”

My patience and energy were at their frayed ends. As were my nerves. I glanced skyward to view the twin moons of Melowynn slowly moving toward each other. Tonight would be the annual synodic of the heavenly bodies when the moons aligned perfectly in a show of how Danubia cradled the skies in her loving hands just as she did the woods and waters.

“I apologize,” I whispered as the pixie princess tucked yet another bloom into yet another braid. “I should just cut them all off and wear my hair short as you in the guard do.”

She preened then patted her extremely short black hair. Part of being a member of the royal guard was a military haircut on the day of commencement. Tezen had been so thrilled to be admitted that she had shaved her head with one of her hunting daggers. Her father, the king and his family, who had come toRenedith for the ceremony, were shocked. Her mother and four of her sisters fainted. It had been quite the indoctrination.

“Your husband to be would be shattered,” she teased, plucking another flower from the bouquet lying on my mother’s desk. “He talks of little else other than the glory that are your tresses. If I have to hear how erotic braiding your hair is once more, I shall knock him off his gelding on our next journey to find students.”

I wanted to argue but found that I could not. Beirach did enjoy my long hair. He loved to free it at night, grasp it in his fist when taking me from behind, and brushing it out after making love. Now, after the brief ceremony when the moons joined, he would do so as my wedded husband. My stomach churned. Why my gut was bound with nerves, I could not say. Perhaps it was the two mugs of pumpkin ale that Bissori had insisted I slug back to calm myself before getting dressed.

I’d not eaten since breaking my fast with my family. The day had flown by in preparations and final fittings for my wedding robes. I glanced down at the white frothy material that hung off my bare shoulders. The elders had done a fine job with the intricate needlework on the front, capturing the moons in all their purity. My father’s wedding robes had needed much altering to fit my smaller frame, but the older men in the village, who were responsible for the raiments worn by the grooms, had fitted it perfectly.

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