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It was another hot, perfect summer's afternoon in Lhant, the cloudless air heavy with heat and the drone of cicadas.
Hanging out together in his room, Hubert was at his desk, nose pressed to a comic book. Cross-legged on the bed, Sophie leafed through a heavy tome full of etchings of rare flowers. It was a sticky, lazy kind of day, the kind that made you want to do nothing at all except stay in the shade and eat ice pops.
Only Cheria was inclined to do anything at all. She stood at the big bay window the looked out over the garden, seething at the scene that was being enacted there.
"Un-believable!" she exhaled. "They're just outrageous. Sophie, you have to see this."
"...It's hot," said Sophie, continuing to leaf lazily through her book.
Hands placed on her hips, she huffed, "Hubert."
Slowly, Hubert peeled his face away from the comic. Out of grudging curiosity, Sophie eventually put her book down and ambled over to stand on the other side of Cheria.
Hidden from the road by the thick tangle of hydrangeas, Richard and Asbel were lounging on the grass, Richard's head propped up on Asbel's chest in a display of casual intimacy.
"Un-believable!" Cheria huffed once more, for good measure.
"...I don't get it," said Sophie.
"Yeah, I'd actually say this is one hundred percent believable. This is what those are always like, Cheria," Hubert said, already sidling back for his comic book.
"That's exactly what I mean," Cheria said. "How can two people be so oblivious? They'v e been making goo-goo eyes at one another ever since Richard got here. And that was what, two years ago? And in that time, they still haven't told one another."
"Told one another what?" asked Sophie.
Hubert's eyes smiled from above his comic, the smile of a smugly knowing brother.
"That they have feelings for one another," Cheria said.
"Oh," said Sophie. "What kind of feelings?"
"Romantic feelings," Cheria said. When Sophie looked none the wiser, she explained: "You know how Lord Aston loves Lady Kerri? Or how Jim the baker loves Jane?" Thoughtfully, Sophie nodded. "Or how Hubert has a crush on Cynth-"
"Hey, s-shut up, Cheria!" Hubert said, burning bright red.
"Like that," Cheria said smugly.
Sophie approached the window again, watching appraisingly as Richard pulled a blade of grass from Asbel's hair.
It was funny to imagine now, that Cheria had once thought of Sophie as a rival for Asbel's attentions. Back when they first met, Sophie had been taller than any of them. Now, they'd all grown several inches, as well as developing in other ways. Sophie, on the other hand, looked exactly the same as the day they'd met her.
Cheria had come to think of her fondly, as a little sister.
As for Asbel, she'd long given up on drawing his attention. At first, it had hurt, seeing Asbel and Richard behaving as they did, when she'd always hoped it would be her in the Prince's place. But it wasn't in Cheria's nature to grudge Asbel his happiness, nor Richard's. So she poured out her feelings on paper and through the keys of her piano, emptying herself like a bottle down a drain. Afterwards, she felt better. It wasn't that it had stopped hurting, but it was no longer a flesh wound, raw and bleeding. It had healed, leaving only a scar, with only the echo of pain that returned like an old ache in the cold weather.
"Idiots," Cheria muttered, as she watched Richard play with Asbel's hair. Surely it was impossible to be this dense.
She would have to help them, since they clearly couldn't help themselves.
"Sophie, Hubert. I'm going to need your help," she said.
Hubert's new reading spectacles slipped off the end of his nose, and he pushed them back on. "To do what?"
"We're going to set Richard and Asbel up on a date."
That evening, Asbel returned to his room to find a letter sat on his desk. It was addressed in flowery writing to My Dearest Asbel. Asbel pulled a face.
He looked over at his brother, who was reading his comic so close to his face Asbel thought his forehead must be pressed against the paper.
"You'll make your eyes even worse than they are if you keep reading like that, Hubert," he said. Hubert made a noise that sounded a lot like a nervous squeak. Asbel shrugged this off. "Do you know who left this letter?" he asked.
Raising his comic higher to hide his face, Hubert managed out, "Um. It was- Richard. Yes, Richard came by and left it."
The frown fell off Asbel's face at this revelation. He tore the letter open, wondering why Richard would write him a letter when they'd spent the whole day together. He read:
My Dearest Asbel,
I can no longer keep locked in the deepest depths of my heart my unbridled passion for you. My dearest, chocolate-haired knight! Your cerulean eyes are two limpid pools of loveliness. I wish I could kick off my shoes and go paddling in them! For you I would traverse the harshest deserts of Strahta and brave the icy tundras of Fendel. For you I would throw away my crown and live as a pauper. My darling, my love for you burns hotter than a thousand suns (even though that would be technically impossible since gravity wouldn't be able to support that many stars and they would collapse inwards and
There were several lines that had been scratched out so many times it was impossible to read what had been there before. The letter then continued:
My sweet love, if you reciprocate my feelings, meet me tonight at Lhant Hill, after dark. I will be waiting for you, my sabre wielding love stallion.
Yours, Richard.
This was followed by the most obscene amount of hearts and kisses Asbel had seen in his life.
The practice sword he held limply in his grip slipped now to hit the ground with a soft thunk. The noise that left Asbel's mouth sounded like a strangled cat. He sunk down into his chair, feeling overcome. The lines of text flickered and blurred, and his eyes homed in on meet me tonight and after dark.
Swallowing hard, Asbel wondered if he'd last that long.
"Ch-Cheria, I'm not sure about this. If Dad finds out, we're going to be in so much trouble."
It was dark on the incline to Lhant Hill, the only light coming from the silver sliver of moon perched on the horizon. Hubert hung back, jumping nervously when an owl hooted from up in the trees.
Cheria marched back and hooked Hubert by the crook of his elbow. "Oh, come on, Hubert. Sophie's not scared. Are you, Sophie?"
Taking long strides up the hill, Sophie paused. Pigtails swished as she shook her head. "No."
"Yeah, but Sophie's not scared of anything," said Hubert, as though that made this a moot point. "You're never usually this mean, Cheria. I- I mean, did I really have to write all that stuff, about the limpid pools and sabre wielding love stallion...?"
"I don't expect a boy to understand true romance," Cheria sighed, and Hubert sniffed.
"Usually it's Asbel that makes me do this kind of thing," he bemoaned.
Cheria felt a twinge of guilt, before she swallowed it down. They were helping Asbel and Richard, after all. It wasn't like they were doing anything bad. One day, they might even thank Cheria for giving them the nudge (or rather, the large shove) that they needed.
And Cheria could finally cut away the final remaining part of her that hoped one day Asbel would look away from Richard's eyes, and realise it was Cheria whose gaze he should be staring into.
You stupid, stupid, stupid girl, she chastised herself, hands clenched so tightly that her nails bit into her palms.
The worst part of giving up on Asbel might not even be Asbel himself, but snipping away all the threads of hopes and dreams that she'd wound around him. Before, whenever she'd thought of her future, she'd dreamed about getting well. Well enough to be Asbel's bride, the mother of his children. Every single dream she'd dreamed about centred round Asbel.
Her condition hadn't vanished, but the new medicine her grandfather brought home from the doctor in Barona helped. She was finally well enough to traipse round Lhant with her friends. Asbel no longer had to carry her. But just as she thought her dream might actually come true, she'd begun to notice just how the two boys looked at one another. To her shame and embarrassment, she'd wept when she'd found out that Richard's stay in Lhant had been lengthened past the harvest festival; that the capital was still too unstable; that he might remain in Lhant for years. All her friends had laughed and danced with joy on the news, and Cheria had choked back tears that were half made of guilt, because as much as she wanted to hate him she liked Richard, and she felt terrible that she'd hoped he would go home.
Cheria climbed the dark incline to Lhant Hill in silence. Normally she'd be nervous sneaking out like this and disobeying her grandfather. But in a way, she felt strangely fearless.
Now, she had to make new dreams. Find something new to live for, that didn't centre round someone else. That was far more frightening than the dark.
The three of them trekked to the top, and there spied Richard standing in the flower field. They ducked behind a bush, Cheria dragging Sophie down by her wrist when she stood there in full sight like a lemon.
"My brother's not here yet," Hubert whispered. "What do we do? Should we go home?"
"No," said Cheria. "We wait."
Richard stood in the field of sopherias, the letter Asbel had written him clutched tightly in his hand. He didn't need to read it again to hear the words; it felt as though they were seared into his brain. Part of him had always hoped Asbel would write him such a letter. But at the same time, this letter kind of seemed...
Suffice to say, he could never have imagined the words amber haired love hunk leave Asbel's lips.
In fact, Richard was pretty sure this was some sort of prank. But he'd no choice but to come, on the off chance it wasn't. After all, what if Asbel really did come, and Richard wasn't here?
His heart rose to his mouth as he caught movement, turning just in time to see Asbel crest the top of Lhant Hill. He was really here.
The breeze rustled through the flowers like tin foil, the leaves on the trees a moving mass of inky blackness, twisting in the wind. Asbel stopped a foot away from him, leaving space for all the unspoken words to breathe.
For all the years of lessons on elocution, poise and composure, Richard had no idea what to say. He waited instead on Asbel, who'd called him here. But when Asbel finally spoke, all he said was, "Um."
"Ur," said Richard, fishing for something, anything to fill the awkward silence. "It's- a great clear night tonight."
"Yeah," replied Asbel.
"You can see the moon."
"Right."
"Lots of stars," said Richard.
"There sure are."
"You can... see the Great Deer really well," Richard said, shaky hand pointing out the asterism line in the sky, just above foselos.
The silence stretched on, and Asbel asked, "Where?"
As they pointed out various constellations to one another, Richard's nerves begun to settle. Asbel's voice slowly started returning. The space between them started to slip away, and as Richard was explaining how to find the seven points of the Huntress, he felt Asbel slip his fingers through his. And old, easy gesture, now with a dozen more layers of meaning than it held just hours before.
"I see it," said Asbel. "Oh hey, it kinda looks like a butt-"
"I love you too," Richard said quietly. Asbel's voice choked as though it'd been stoppered. Richard waited patiently for him, squeezing his fingers in reassurance.
Asbel's jaw tightened in determination. "I- I love you too, Richard," he said at last, voice strengthening. "I think maybe... I don't know. Maybe I always have. Since the day we met. I was just confused- I thought maybe that it was normal to feel that way for your friends. Special ones. Until I read that letter you wrote me, anyway."
Letter? What letter?
Richard was distracted from this train of thought when Asbel asked, "Have- have you known for a long time?"
"A while," he admitted. It felt like such a relief, to say it all out loud. "I just wasn't sure how you felt. I didn't want to compromise our friendship." His heart swelled in his chest. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Asbel, Truly. I'm not sure if you know just how happy I was, the day you took me up here for the first time." He didn't think he would ever forget that day for as long as he lived. After all those years shut away in the castle, unable to trust anyone, and then Asbel had burst-literally- into his life. Had dragged him out the dark. Richard would never forget it: that moment of connection between them, leaping between their hands as they swore the pact of friendship.
"The last two years here in Lhant with you and everybody- they've been the happiest in my life. If- if I'd had to return home to Barona, I don't know what I would have done." Startlingly, Richard realised there were tears in his eyes. Embarrassed, he made to brush them away, but Asbel beat him to it. He wiped them away with his thumb, and Richard's heart trembled at the intimacy and tenderness of the gesture.
I love him, Richard thought. I adore him. I will never let him go, as long as I live.
From there it seemed simple, even natural, to close the gap remaining between them for a kiss. Tentative, clumsy, loving. The night held them in its embrace, breathing silently around them.
"C'mon, let's go," whispered Cheria, pulling at Sophie's arm.
But Sophie was like a rock that couldn't be shifted. "I thought you wanted to watch," she said. Cheria shook her head. Her throat felt tight. She felt like she'd intruded on something deeply personal, like a robber with sticky hands palming precious heirlooms.
When Sophie still wouldn't budge, and with Hubert in minor hysterics, she let go of her arm and made her way down the dark incline on her own. Her fast walk turned into a jog, and then she was running. It didn't take long before she collapsed, out of breath against the rocky face of the cliff, coughing.
Even as a small child with a wobbly tooth, she couldn't help but play with it. Even when it hurt.
When the coughing subsided, Cheria picked herself up, eyes fixed on the ground as she walked, avoiding the gaze of the stars that stared down at her like spears.