Page 42 of Gilded Crown

A room down the hall had water for washing up, and Jari went first. After Aurelius returned, Jari put their one rickety chair under the doorknob. It wouldn’t stop anyone that really wanted in, but it’d make a racket and wake them up.

“Did you keep your head down in the hall?” Jari asked.

Aurelius pushed his hood back and removed his cap so all of his damp hair could fall out. “I went downstairs and announced who I was to everyone. All of the peasants got down on their knees for me.”

“All of them? That sounds like an orgy.” Jari took off his shirt. “You were fast.”

“You always have a response.”

“So do you.”

Aurelius’s eye went down to his bare chest for a second.

“What? It’s warm. Don’t tell me you’re cold and that you’ve got two shirts on. Do you wear three pairs of drawers too?”

Jari didn’t understand what he said that caused the faint hurt to flash in Aurelius’s eye before he turned to the bed and took off his eyepatch. It was probably because he was tired and not over shit that he wouldn't speak about. After Aurelius got into bed and faced the wall, Jari suppressed a sigh, turned out the gloomy oil lantern, went to his pitiful spot on the floor, and tried to make his lumpy pack into a comfortable pillow. Lights from the shitty old crystal lanterns strung on a string outside cast odd, dim patches of light on the ceiling, and he stared at them for a couple of minutes while he debated with himself.

“You know, if you want to talk, you can,” he said. “He was your Father. Mine didn’t have much excuse to be such a sack of shit, and I still kinda wished I’d had someone to talk to afterward.”

Silence was his answer. It figured. The gate was frozen over.

“You never mention your Mother,” Aurelius finally said.

Neither did he, beyond the barest things a couple of times.

When Jari grew older, he learned the fever was named after the fairy, Welling, who first recognized it to be something specific. Mostly, it only took women and children, and the younger the child was, the higher the chance of illness and death. Boys fared better than girls. Adult males rarely contracted it.Jari had only been six, so he figured he’d been lucky. A second version of the fever, known as Wellings II, worked the opposite way.

He hadn’t cared what it was called back then. All he knew was that he’d lost two people, and without Mother, nobody was around to stop Father from hitting Jari.

“She died when I was six, so I don’t have as many memories of her,” he said. “Welling fever took her and my little brother. His name was Timothy.”

“I’m sorry,” Aurelius said in a stoic tone like he didn’t really give a shit. He was probably stomping things back into a box in his head.

“From what I do remember of her, she was a strong woman, and she made the best rabbit stew. Did your Mother make anything nice?”

“She didn’t cook.”

Of course, the Queen wouldn’t be slaving away over a hot stove in the kitchen. Jari told himself he was dumb as a box of rocks.

“She gave nice hugs,” Aurelius added in a small voice.

“Mine too.” Didn’t all Mothers?

He didn’t know what else to say, and he kind of wished he hadn’t brought up anything. It was surprising he’d gotten that much out of the Prince, and he tried to imagine Aurelius as a child with a Mother and less snakey actions. No scars. Perhaps he’d had better hopes for the future that didn’t involve surviving and fighting something he couldn’t even tell most people about.

***

By the time they entered Wockston, they didn’t know shit concerning the Kingdoms. Whenever they entered civilization, it was to get food or a room. They never stopped to talk with anyone and didn’t even check for notice boards to see ifsomething about them had been tacked up. It was safer to get in a room and stay away from others.

Aurelius always kept his noticeable hair covered and his hood up. Jari didn’t have remarkable hair or anything special like wings, but he didn’t want anyone thinking too hard about either of them.

When they’d considered one inn, the men smoking by the door had set off something in Jari’s gut that told him no. Aurelius trusted his instinct, and they slept outside that night instead after a long ride to get far away from that place.

Jari wondered if Elira herself was shielding them considering they met no trouble as they traveled. They were rained on one night and had no choice but to huddle against a tree. Jari fell asleep without meaning to, had unsettling dreams, and woke with a jolt and a bad case of morning wood.

Pure panic flooded him as he realized Aurelius wasn’t next to him or anywhere in sight. Galahad lifted his head as he chewed a mouthful of grass and gave him an accusing glare. Mercury ignored him. Jari jumped up as he noticed what looked like a path in the tall grasses. Horrible images of someone kidnapping the Prince and dragging him away while Jari drooled against the tree flashed in his mind.

He hurried past the horses and down the flattened path. He didn’t want to be free from his vow because he’d failed and the Prince was dead. If he left, it would be because Aurelius and the Kingdom were safe, the items in the Prince’s pack were dealt with, and he was no longer needed.

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