Chapter Text
Caz was thirteen years old, and he was waiting.
It was past twelve bells in the afternoon, and Caz stood patiently outside the doors to the queen mother’s tearoom. Or perhaps it would be referred to by the title of the future queen - Burlyn had officially proposed marriage to Venetia Lisbon last fall, and everyone was impatiently waiting for the wedding.
But no matter; Caz could wait a little more.
The doors opened, and Caz startled out of his haze, blinking at Viracocha.
Caz always thought she was pretty, even when they were younger. But now they were all growing up, and Vira’s face grew sharp, playful eyes set back in a plane of high cheekbones and lips swept with the soft rose oils that the women of the Court often coveted. She had left the short children’s day dresses behind for the formal ones worn by ladies of the Court, with a square neckline that plunged past pointed collarbones, the expanse of her bronzed neck on full display.
Today, her dress was lavender, and her dark hair was done up in perfect curls. The light of the braziers flashed across her face, making her eyes twinkle.
She smiled at him broadly and knocked her shoulder against his, shaking any thoughts Caz had of her truly becoming a lady of the Court. Caz thought that she had never been graceful a day in her life.
“Were you waiting for me, Castor?” Vira gasped, pressing a white gloved hand to her chest in mock shock.
“Perhaps,” he said, stifling a smile.
“You shouldn't have.”
They began to walk through the corridor, and Caz glanced at her. “How is the queen mother?”
“Old,” Vira cringed. “So old.”
He laughed, and she looked at him expectantly. “Where’s your other half?”
Caz’s expression soured when he realized she was speaking of Paris, giving her a light (but ungentlemanly) shove that she returned twicefold. “He’s off somewhere with Nari. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“And Kelby?”
“With my mother.”
Her fingers brushed against his as they walked. Her heels clicked on the stone floor. “So I suppose it’s just you and me, then? It hasn’t been so in far too long.”
“No, it hasn’t,” he said quietly. He felt the mood turning into something warm, and he didn’t wish for that quite yet. He grabbed Vira’s hand, giving her a mischievous smile. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
Far too many twists and turns later, Caz was pulling Vira through a door, and she let out a small laugh through the dim room. “Never take me up that many stairs again, Caz.”
Caz just took her hand again. He had done it once, and he couldn’t stop now that he knew Vira wouldn’t pull away from the touch.
He had brought them to North Tower, one of Lear’s four towers. This one he thought particularly special because of what lay at the top.
It was all open air, four pillars in each corner of floor leading up to form a domed roof. Hanging from the roof was a bell taller than he was, made of heavy gold. Vira giggled when he nearly hit his head on it.
He was standing along the edge, waiting expectantly against the sky, but when he turned, Vira was still huddled in the perch of the stairs, head peeking out from the hatch opening. She eyed Caz wearily when he held out a hand to her.
“I’m afraid of heights,” she muttered, gripping the stone edge, as if being close to the idea of danger was enough to give her a thrill.
Caz was perfectly content to sit and talk with Vira, so he moved away from the edge, and sat down in front of the stairs to be close to her. Caz did not quite know how to admit that he, despite leading her to the belltower, was entirely terrified of heights as well.
It was true; they had not been alone together in a very long time, and Caz delighted in speaking with her. He loved Paris and Kelby both dearly, but he did occasionally miss the way he used to joke and laugh with Viracocha.
They spoke of everything, from the letters her favourite sister wrote her (in her words, she was the “one out of twelve siblings that she could stand to hold a conversation with”).
“The others are just so – ugh,” she scowled, and Caz grinned. “They fall into all the Tacayan empyrean stuff, as if they think they have a chance. Pitahuya’s the only smart one. She’s not wasting all her time fighting for a throne that will never be hers.”
Caz talked of Romulus and Hellie, how he had no idea what he was supposed to do when he came to fill his place in Court. For all his parents' talk of his place, he still was not sure what exactly his place was.
They stayed there until they were both starving, and the bellringer had come up six times since they had gotten up. The old man always gave them funny looks, but Caz and Vira just dissolved into giggles the second he left.
They snuck down to the kitchens, where Vira instructed a servant to bring her supper to her room.
That was where they found themselves, sprawled out across the floor because, in Vira’s words, the bed was “too boring”.
Vira was sopping up the juices left on her plate with a piece of bread. “I am just saying, if he’s the king, why doesn’t he just marry again?”
Caz shook his head. “I don’t think he particularly wants to.”
“Everyone wants to get married,” Vira insisted, and Caz felt skepticism creep into him. “You Learish royals are just too superstitious.”
His mind caught on Vira’s words, something she clearly meant nothing by. Something off hand. Everyone wants to get married. He supposed that it was something he did not wish to do. But maybe he was just young; not many twelve-year-olds wanted their entire lives tied up just then.
He looked at Vira fondly and thought that she would not be the worst person to marry. She was gorgeous enough to appear so to a blind man, with a mind sharper than a knife with a tongue to match. She was Tacayan royalty, raised in the court, beyond a proper lady.
But something in the back of his mind whispered, You can’t. You won’t.
He ignored it, shifting so he was closer to Vira. He put his hand over hers and looked into her eyes.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, and he knew he meant it, no matter what part of him was twisted into knots.
But it was getting late, and he had sword lessons with Paris and General Csaba the next day, so he kissed her on the cheek and bade her goodnight.
He most certainly was not supposed to be in the palace so late. He knew King Astrifer always grew irritated when he heard that some nobles overstayed their welcome in his halls, soldiers and guards always ratting people out when needed.
So he took the servants' passageways, intent on exiting through the servants' door in the kitchens. Maybe he’d even pick up a pastry for Kelby if they had food left over from Astrifer’s dinner feast.
He fumbled through the dusty tunnels, wooden boards creaking awfully beneath his feet as he went from one end of the palace to the other.
The servants' passages spat him out in front of the kitchens, and he walked in without guard; he knew no one would be there.
The fires had simmered down to glowing embers. Trays of half-finished food were left abandoned on the wide wooden tables that littered the space.
She saw him before he saw her: a woman who tugged the hood off her head. She held a rucksack in her hands as she scooped food into it.
They both stopped, seizing each other up. She was a young woman, no more than thirty years of age, and she clearly wasn’t nobleborn. Caz wondered if she was even a palace servant.
He was acutely aware that he had no weapon on him. She was bigger than him, but not by much.
She looked at him through a sheen of dirty blonde hair, and Caz realized how terribly thin she was, all pale skin and bones that threatened to burst to the surface.
He thought about calling for help, for the guards, anyone. Instead, he took a step forward, the words, “Are you alright?” falling out of his mouth before he could stop them.
The young woman’s relief was imminent. The tension in her face snapped and she lowered the sack of food, revealing a stomach far too swollen to be anything but a child.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please just let me take this.”
Caz didn’t understand entirely, but he gently took the sack from the woman, trying not to stare too hard at her stomach or the harsh dent of her collarbones just visible below her cloak.
He began whirling around the kitchen, putting things in without a second thought. He knew it would all rot overnight and be thrown out in the morning, anyway. Why not let some poor woman eat the table scraps?
When he had it full, he came back to her. “Why are you doing this?”
She looked gracious as she took it from him. “Surely you know, little boy.”
“Know what?”
She looked at him, a saddened expression crossing her face. “Do you really live here, in such a sheltered state? I know you are young, but . . .”
“But what?” Caz asked, stepping closer, flitting a glance behind him at the empty hall outside the kitchens. “Please, tell me. If – if something is occurring outside the High Court, I need to know.”
A sound of footsteps echoed out in the hall, and the woman tugged her hood over her head, holding her rucksack close. “Forget I said anything, boy.”
“Wait,” Caz pleaded, but she was already turning away, passing through the kitchen’s small door that led outside before a palace guard passed by.
Caz awkwardly let the guard lead him away from the kitchens, claiming he got lost on the way out, and stepped out of the palace. It was dark now, hours after sundown, Astrifer’s guards wandering the grounds, and he found himself curious about how she had gotten inside at all.
The walk home through the wood thicket, his mind raced, his feet pounding numbly into the dirt, until he was knocking a fist against the Varren estate’s front door.
It took a while, but Katris’s old gnarled hands heaved it open, chiding him as she tugged him inside. She sat him at the small table in the kitchen, pushing a cup of steaming nettle tea into his hands.
She didn’t ask where he had been, or why he was gone so long into the night. She just sat across from him, still in her nightclothes, and blew the steam off her tea until dawn had come, and it was time to be awake.
Caz couldn’t find it in him to feel anything but.
***
It was hard not to compare himself to Paris Zarnika.
The other boy was taller and smarter with a blade than he could ever be. He was one of those boys that Caz thought would just end up being too beautiful for the world, more akin to a star than to the vivid reality that was the High Court.
He looked at Paris now, lying next to him as they peeked down through the banisters of the balcony in the King Mother’s tea room. His dark lashes brushed against his cheeks when his eyes closed. He smelt like chocolate and honey and something else, like the wood of a freshly fallen tree or the grass after it rained.
Paris caught him staring, raising his brows at Caz.
Caz looked away.
He was on his stomach, peering down at the gathering unfolding itself in the dazzling white room below.
The afternoons before King Astrifer’s parties, the king’s mother, Lilyan, would host an afternoon tea for the ladies of the court.
This, of course, meant that Caz, Paris, and Kelby would have no part in it. At least, that was what Hellie had said viciously before she had left that morning.
But Caz couldn’t exactly listen, could he?
They had all snuck onto the balcony before the event started, hiding out behind the portrait of the first queen of Lear when servants had gotten a little too close. Now they were watching the entertainment unfold beneath them.
Kelby was on the other side of Caz. He was a rather terrible fit for their little mission. He whispered too loudly, and spent most of his time sitting in that odd, slumpy way that only children could, as if his bones were made of jelly. But Caz and Paris had lightly bullied him until the youngest Varren cousin had grumbled and lay flat on his stomach like the rest of them.
“The stone is just so cold,” Kelby muttered.
“Shut up, Kelby,” Caz hissed. “They’re saying something.”
Kelby pouted, but he went quiet.
Hellie and Vira were sitting together at one end of the table, on the opposite side of the Lilyan. Between them was a sea of ladies in colourful dresses, all gossiping and sipping away at steaming cups of tea.
Venetia was next to Lilyan and sat up straight in her seat. She and her sister both had the same porcelain skin and shining golden hair, like the dolls Hellie kept as a child. Caz was reminded eerily of the blonde peasant woman from the kitchens he had spotted weeks prior. Every time he looked at the full banquet tables of the court, he’d think of her and his stomach would lurch. What had she needed the food for? What was going on in the lesser courts?
He pushed the thought from his mind, focusing on the tea party below.
Venetia and Elowen could have truly been twins, if not for the long, boney stretch of Venetia’s face, where Elowen’s was still rounded with the cusp of girlhood, only seventeen against Venetia’s twenty years.
“There’s El!” Paris exclaimed in a quiet voice when the doors opened, and the younger Lisbon sister scampered in, closing the door behind her. She toed in awkwardly, a cringed expression on her face. She was dressed in persimmon and pearls, hair piled on top of her head in an elaborate mass of woven braids.
Venetia was staring curiously at her sister as Elowen rushed to have a seat next to Hellie.
Vira eyed her with mirth, but Elowen just huffed as a servant poured her tea.
“Why do you think she was late?” Caz murmured, straining to catch his sister’s conversation.
Paris nudged him, winking, “I’m sure that her sister isn’t the only one with suitors.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“I’m honest.”
“Both of you are loud,” Kelby muttered, still annoyed at being shushed.
“Hush, Kel!” Caz exclaimed, clamping a hand over his cousin’s mouth. It backfired when Kelby just licked his hand until he pulled it away. “They’re speaking.”
Below, Hellie took a sip, sending a sideways glance at Elowen.
“That was some entrance,” Hellie cackled into her teacup, and Vira nearly spit up what she had been drinking.
“I do not want to hear of it,” Elowen rolled her eyes, but she was smiling as she scooped sugar into her tea. “Some serf spilled wine all over my dress on the way here, and I had to go back to my rooms and get changed!”
“You should have him hanged for his crimes against you,” Vira teased, and Hellie swatted her with a glove.
“Everyone must behave themselves,” Elowen announced with a chastising look to both of them.
Vira grinned and leaned in to say something so quiet that Caz couldn’t catch it. All he knew was that it was enough to make Elowen’s tea come out of her nose.
This caught all of them off guard, Paris the most.
He laughed out loud, the only male voice to be heard in the entire room, and Caz clapped his hand over Paris’s mouth.
The two looked to each other with glee, but it was already too late. Caz saw Hellie’s eyes scan the room, eventually catching his in a glare that could have only promised death.
All of them sprang back from the edge of the balcony, stricken.
“I think Hellie saw us,” Kelby whispered.
“Of course she did,” Caz breathed, heart racing.
“She’s going to kill you,” Paris said with a grin.
“Oh, you think that you’ll be the exception?” Caz smiled sharply, and Paris paled. “She’d go after Burlyn if it wouldn't put her head on a spike.”
That was the motivating factor that led them to sneak out behind the paintings, coming into contact with a servant passageway that connected to the war room eavesdropping area.
They looked at each other and grinned, bursting out laughing once they were out in the corridor.
Caz and Kelby bid Paris goodbye as they departed the palace for the Varren estate. Caz watched Paris go, and Kelby nudged him.
“Come on, Castor,” he said, exasperated as he tugged on Caz’s arm.
Caz smiled and followed.
***
The party was in full swing by the time Caz arrived.
The throne room was alive with music and dancing, the sound of idle Court chatter bouncing off the marbled stone walls.
Kelby went off with Hellie and the rest of the girls, leaving Caz to search for Paris.
A sweep of the dance floor proved unsuccessful. Even when Caz peeked around the party’s alcoves, Paris’s usual place for peace and quiet in the busy throne room, he found nothing.
It left him wondering if Paris had left the party altogether, so he began peeking into the corridors that led out of the great hall. Paris was always one for privacy; the chances he had left the party early were slim, but still chance enough.
He had half a mind to go up and see if he was still in his rooms. Caz couldn’t bear a party like this all by himself. Alone in the crowd of people, he felt naked without Paris by his side.
While investigating the corridor that branched off the throne room, instead of his friend, Caz nearly ran headfirst into his father.
Romulus peered down at him, steadying hands on Caz’s shoulders. Romulus’s face was blown open with surprise, the usual harsh divot of his brow gone. “Castor? What is the meaning of this? Why aren’t you with Helliad in the throne room?”
“I was looking for Paris,” he blurted, brows furrowed as Romulus put an over-friendly arm over his shoulder, guiding him back into the hall. Romulus wasn’t the type of father to put an arm around his son. Romulus wasn’t the type of father do even pay much attention to Caz at all, and the turn around left him tense, waiting for the next shoe to drop.
“Oh, do not fret, Castor,” his father told him. “I’m sure he’ll show up eventually. You know these Zentri types; lazy bastards.”
“Right,” Caz mumbled, trying not to focus on how Romulus’s hand squeezed Caz’s shoulder a little too tight to be fatherly affection.
As they got closer to the great hall, Romulus’s arm came off Caz, and his hands folded behind his back. He peered down curiously at his son. “I hear that you and the Zarnika boy have gotten quite close over the years.”
Caz nodded, unsure of what to say. He had watched this play out before, a set of aimless questions that led to a verbal trap. He’d seen Hellie walk into them a million times before. Friends with Elowen Lisbon, now, are we? Are those grass stains on your pants? Where were you before dinner? Unease curdled uselessly within Caz.
But perhaps Romulus was simply in a good mood. Caz tried to ease his mind, smiling at his father, trying to say, I am a good son, I have good friends, and I am good with a sword, and you do not need to yell at me.
I am not Hellie.
“He is the ward of Hastur Nari here in Lear,” Romulus went on, eyes scanning over the crowd as they passed into the hall. Immediately, they were overwhelmed with the music and sheer force of energy that was the High Court in its natural state: sweating wine and laughing open-mouthed to reveal teeth rotted with sugar and sweets. Romulus accepted a glass of something clear and downed it in one sip. “Burlyn tells me that he may be making general soon.”
Caz’s brows furrowed, and he followed his father to the side perches of the party, away from the dancers. He cast a glance at the dais, where King Astrifer was laughing with General Feror Csaba on his side. “But Csaba is already general?”
His father waved a hand. “Oh, Csaba is getting old. It is only a matter of time before he steps down.”
“He’s always been general,” Caz said uselessly. His mind was still snagging on Paris’s absence.
“There were men before him, and then there will be men after him,” Romulus told him. He hesitated a moment before letting out a sigh. “I did not seek you out to speak of the general, Castor. I came to speak about your little friend.”
“Paris,” he supplied.
“Do you love him?”
“What?” Caz reeled back, startled. He knew the answer instantly in his mind. He knew that he did not think he could ever live a life where he did not love Paris Zarnika. But Caz knew his father. Whenever his attention so briefly shifted to Caz, he would say whatever it was that would make Romulus satisfied enough to turn away.
His first thought was almost always the wrong answer. He could not say that there was nothing Paris could do to make Caz hate him. So instead he stuttered out, “He’s my friend.”
Romulus’s face went stiff, blank, and Caz knew that was not what his father had wanted to hear. He cursed himself inwardly, thought of banging his head against the wall. How could he mess this up? It had been so easy; say that perhaps, no, he did not love Paris. But there was no denial in Caz’s words, only the acceptance that yes, of course, he loved Paris Zarnika.
Yes, of course, he was wrong.
“You know, Castor, some believe simple . . . friendships to be thicker than the blood tie of family,” Romulus said sharply, carefully, placing every word down on his tongue to ensure that Caz digested every syllable. “Of familial loyalty. Why do you think this is?”
He knew now that this had been one of Romulus’s verbal traps, of which he had walked into willingly. He knew that there was no way out but sharp disagreements that led to fruitful punishment, which befell to Hellie, or blatant agreement until Romulus was satisfied.
So he shook his head meekly, eyes peeking out at the people around them, praying someone would come up and shake Romulus’s hands, ask him to dance, anything to staunch their conversation. “I’m not sure, Father.”
“I believe it is idiocy, though that is the simplest reason,” he said, dark eyes boring into Caz’s. Those were Hellie’s eyes, so different from the storm gray that Caz had inherited from their mother. He knew it was what softened him, what was where the differences between him and his father ended. But Hellie looked like him through in through, down to the mark between her brows when she was angry and brewing. His black eyes met Caz’s, and he was reminded starkly of a snake. “But another reason is rage.”
“I don’t understand,” Caz murmured, looking down. Romulus’s expression softened slightly, going from sharp conviction to something strangely akin to pity.
“I know you are not nearly as reckless as Helliad, but I do know that you do not sit and stare at the wall day,” he put a hand on Caz’s shoulder, and Caz tried not to freeze beneath the touch. “Temper is a curious thing in this family, and it can make one act out of place.” He levelled his gaze at Caz. “Loyalty is more important than anything. Family is more important than anything.”
“I understand,” Caz told him solemnly, and Romulus took this with a nod and a tight squeeze of his shoulder before letting go.
“Have fun at the party, my boy,” Romulus bid him as he turned and faded into the crowd.
Caz watched his father drift up to the dais, letting out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He always felt like his heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest whenever his father turned his attention on him. Romulus had never hit him, but it felt like Caz was always waiting for the day that he’d finally snap and realize words simply didn’t cut deep enough.
“Caz?” Hellie’s voice rattled with concern, her hand coming to her arm. He hadn’t realized she had found him in the crowd, and he startled at the touch, put off by the memory of his father’s hand on him.
Hellie seemed to realize this, releasing him immediately. She was taller than him still, but not by much. But still, she crouched a bit in front of him like he was a little kid, brows furrowed as she worried her lip. “What did he want? Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” he muttered, feeling his stomach lurch as he pictured all the screaming matches Hellie had with their father. Had he hurt her? Could he have stopped anything? “He was only speaking nonsense about loyalty and family.”
Hellie’s face relaxed a little, but not by much, as she straightened. “He’s always prattling on about that recently. Just ignore him.”
“Is something . . . happening?” he asked, leaning close to be heard over the party’s rush and rattle. “I think there’s something wrong in the lower courts.”
Helie frowned at him. “Where did you hear that?”
Caz shook his head. “Is it true?”
She seemed to be debating something, but just placed a hand on Caz’s arm. “Do not worry about it, Caz. People are dealing with it. For now, enjoy the party.”
Caz felt like she had just told him to learn to breathe underwater. Something was going on, and he felt it dragging at the back of his mind, pulling his nerves taut.
Hellie gave him a final smile before wandering off to find Elowen, or whoever else took her attention tonight.
For now, Caz needed Paris.
It took a moment of searching. He wasn’t hard to spot; Caz could count the darkskinned nobles of the court on one hand, and they always stood out in the crowd of pale-skinned Learish. He was dressed in finery, his doublet a vibrant green and gold. His brown hair curled around the golden circlet on his brow, and Caz thought he looked like a prince, nearly more than Burlyn. He stood next to Nari in casual conversation.
“Spar with me?” Caz breathed, out of breath from running over.
Paris broke off his conversation with Nari, eyes widening when he saw the expression on Caz's face.
Paris nodded, bidding Nari goodbye and following Caz out of the throne room and into the willow grove. They left the front entrance of the hall, where the guards eyed them wearily as they crept into the night.
“What’s going on?” Paris asked.
“It’s just —“ his voice broke off, and he shook his head. “God, I just needed to get out of there.”
“You were speaking with your father,” Paris noted. He knew Romulus Varren’s tendencies; he had been to dinners at the estate where Caz’s father's mood had been particularly thin.
“You saw?”
“I was looking for you, but didn’t want to interrupt when I saw you together,” Paris confessed, grabbing a practice sword for himself and one for Caz.
Caz accepted it with a weak laugh. “You should have. He was … well, you know how he is.”
Paris nodded, steeling his sword in front of him. “Vira was asking about you.”
“Really?” Caz’s sword met Paris’s, and he finally felt like he could breathe.
“She wanted to have a dance with you,” Paris rolled his eyes. He probably could have beaten Caz with his eyes closed.
“I think she likes me,” he murmured, taking the opportunity to press in on Paris when his body went slack with surprise.
“Really?” Paris coughed into his hand, recovering. “I mean, it is quite obvious.” He waved his free hand, the other still holding his sword. “Don’t worry; she’ll get over it.”
Caz was quiet as he stepped away for a moment, and Paris frowned, stepping forward. “You don’t actually like her, do you?”
Caz bristled. “And if I do?”
“I–” Paris stuttered, turning away. “It doesn’t matter. Forget I said anything.”
“Paris,” Caz reached out, but Paris pulled away, retreating to the stand to put away his sword. He didn’t offer to take Caz’s.
“Let’s go back inside,” he muttered. “I don’t know why we’re ignoring everyone anyway. It’s not like Romulus is going to hunt you down and eat you.”
Caz scowled, shoving his sword into the rack, but Paris was already walking away.
He jogged to catch up, anger coming to a boil.
“I don’t know what your problem is,” Caz started. Paris didn’t look back, so he grabbed his arm. He expected Paris to forge ahead, but the second Caz’s hands were on him, he stilled, facing Caz with crossed arms. Caz, satisfied, pulled away. “Do you not like Vira?”
“Vira’s fine,” Paris scoffed. “Everything about her is perfectly adequate.”
“Big word for the Zentri boy,” Caz rolled his eyes, and Paris was staring daggers at him. “I don’t see why we can’t be proper about this.”
Paris waved his arms. “There is no this, Caz! I don’t even know what we’re arguing about!”
Caz enunciated every word, “Neither do I.”
Paris held a finger, because apparently neither of them were done. “And I will have you know, Castor, that I have been learning Learish just as long as you have!”
“You have?”
“Yes, you stupid idiot–” they had walked through the doors, so Paris’s voice dropped to a low in his ear. “So do not be a–”
Paris stopped short, and Caz ran right into him, backing up while rubbing his nose. He’d basically face planted into the back of Paris’s head, and refused to mention to Paris that his hair smelled incredibly nice.
He was going to bark a retort when he looked up and saw two people whom he didn’t recognize standing before Paris.
A man and a woman, with the same brown skin as Paris. Caz’s eyes flickered between them, felt Paris tense beside him.
The pair sparked a familiarity in Caz as he studied them. The man was tall and stony of face, with a neatly trimmed beard encasing the second half of his face. Caz noted the narrow, hooked nose that Paris shared, and the crook between his brows that Paris got sometimes when he was angry. The man was a mirage of Paris, mirth drained, twenty years in the future.
Where the man was stony, the woman was sly. There was something in the curve of her charming smile, in the flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, that Caz saw the Paris he knew. Something alive, hidden beneath the surface, simmered under the woman’s skin as her eyes gleamed like those of a cat that had sunk its teeth into a mouse.
Their clothes were strange, foreign, made of gold threading and loose, finely made silk that would not bode well in a Learish winter.
The woman came to Paris with a smile, reaching forward to pull her to him, a small space of quiet in the midst of the party.
Caz watched Paris’s carefree look slip right off his face as his mother held his arm in her hands, and thought, Is that what I look like when I speak to my father?
Paris whispered something before the woman swept him in her arms, saying, “Hello, my pesar.”
Her accent was twin to Paris’s, faint, but rounding her vowels out into something warm.
“Maman,” he said, pulling back, face gaunt as his eyes flickered to the man who could have only been Paris’s father.
Despite the similarities he shared with Paris, this man had a strangeness to him, something so far away that Caz wasn’t sure if the man was going to ignore Paris or wrap him in a hug.
Instead, he just stood where he was, hand resting on the hilt of a sword slung at his side.
He said something to Paris in Zentri, and the blood drained from Paris’s face.
Caz shelled their meagre argument aside and stepped forward, taking Paris’s hand. He didn’t know what was happening, but he thought that maybe Paris needed to know he was there, too. Caz didn’t care if it was a childish gesture.
The woman’s narrowed eyes passed from their hands to Caz’s face. Paris was tense beside him, glancing between Caz and his mother.
“And who might this be, Paris?” the woman asked, her tone honeyed and sharp
Paris cleared something thorny out of his throat. “This is Castor Varren. Caz,” Paris looked at him, and Caz felt something pull tight against his chest, “This is my mother, Umbrielle.”
Umbrielle looked at Caz with a blank expression as she offered up her hand.
Caz grasped her’s with his clammy hand, and he reached down to kiss her knuckles. This was what the son of Romulus Varren was supposed to do. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Umbrielle.”
When she laughed, it almost sounded unreal. “Oh, little boy, I am no lady. We do not have your Learish foretitles in Zentrifen.”
“Maman was hosted in the Court when she was my age,” Paris told Caz, and Caz tried not to wince at the coarse expression on his friend's face as Umbrielle kept a hand on his arm.
“It's how my Learish is so good,” Umbrielle’s eyes glimmered. “The king's mother had an affinity for knowledge. I believe she sought it out through her wards.” Her eyes turned to Paris. “I heard there is a Tacayan girl currently staying under Lilyan’s prowess.”
“Lady Viracocha Salkan,” Caz supplied. He tried to sound strong, natural. Apparent. Any kind of branch for Paris to hold onto, even if it was just a handle in the conversation.
At this, Paris’s father chuckled. “Ah, Umbri, you’re boring the poor boys.”
Umbrielle scowled at her husband, who Caz now knew to be Cyrus Zarnika, right hand to the Phirre. “I can say what I wish to my son; by the gods, I haven’t seen him in years.” Umbrielle brought a hand up to Paris’s cheek, pressing her thumbnail into his skin. “I hope you haven’t gone soft on me, Paris.”
“Of course not, Maman,” Paris answered immediately. “Is there a reason you came tonight?”
“International relations,” Umbrielle supplied.
Cyrus frowned. “Do not be dry, pesar. Your presence will be needed to complete negotiations in Tacay.”
“Tacay,” Paris said blankly.
Caz stared, watching the Zarnika’s wall against Paris, with their sharp gazes and sharper tongues.
“It has been so long, pesar,” Umbrielle was saying, and Caz snapped out of his daze when Paris squeezed his hand, something pleading in the gesture. “I think a little trip would be nice. Cyrus and I are off to Tacay tomorrow; your presence would make the journey all the more bearable.”
From the look Cyrus Zarnika was giving Paris, he knew that it wasn’t a choice.
“Alright,” Paris muttered, looking down. He let go of Caz’s hand, and Caz felt cold all over. Paris was always so warm; he wondered if he’d been born with fire inside of him.
“Oh, don’t look so grim, dear, it won’t be long,” Umbrielle laughed. She smiled down at Caz. “Now say goodbye to your little friend.”
Paris looked at Caz, and he felt like they were ten years old when Paris whispered a faint goodbye before fading into the crowd.