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Guests arriving to stay at the old manor overlooking the city of Cloudrest have learned to stop asking about Caelanoril’s recovery. So has Caelan. It’s been nearly two years, say the physiologists and the therapists and the coaches. Long past the stage during which any significant improvement was likely, despite all manner of therapies Summerset has to offer. His hands still shake, and balance is still a tricky thing. If his mouth were at least capable of complaining at length about these things, it might not be quite such a heavy prospect to bear, but his words come few and far between these days.
It used to bother him - the awkward beat of silence between the questions asked by well-meaning acquaintances and their realization that he could not (would not) answer. Lately, though, more and more of them have been getting accustomed to it. Now they simply don’t speak to him at all. He isn’t sure which is worse.
Still, he perseveres. Best to get back to living life as well as he can, said the arcanist in charge of studying his damaged brain. Better for everyone. Slowly, he and everyone he knows have been coming to terms with the idea that this is his life now. Yes’s and no’s. Empty canvas. Spilled tea.
Of course, he thinks with bitterness as he struggles to keep a spoonful of mushroom soup inside the spoon, some have adjusted with more grace than others.
The Canonreeve of Mathiisen and his wife are sitting across the dinner table from him in the marble chamber reserved for state dinners and other political affairs. They are a beautiful couple, adorned in draped silks of sage-green and pearly silver which they are very proud of, judging by their lofty postures and the way the Canonreeve has been waxing poetic about the skills of their maker in Lillandril. Their faces match, too: Caelan observes the same prim air about both of them, the same barely-restrained awkwardness and weighted silences whenever their eyes pass over him. He has been trying not to notice. The dinner the kitchen staff have laid out for them is filled with excellent food, and he has better things to do than worry about what some distant acquaintance thinks of his presence at his family’s table, or so he tries to tell himself. But his injury has not taken his artist’s eye from him, and he has made a career out of noticing details.
He knows he is the anomaly here. The light of the glass chandelier shines softly over a gorgeous array: twists of cherry blossom and white mountain lilac crown the crystal vase centerpiece, glasses filled with garnet-red wine stand scattered about the table like the points of a constellation, and candied oranges and pomegranate seeds garnish a venison roast that shines like a gem beneath its honey glaze. His family, to a one, are groomed and dressed to their finest capacity. His father Aldaril commands the room, robed in starry black and silver, chin high, white hair braided back with not a strand out of place. His mother graces Aldaril’s left side, arrayed in dark sheer fabrics that shimmer like the sea under starlight; every movement of her hands is smooth and deliberate. The rest of their children sit poised around them, stately and refined with bejeweled hair pins and shimmering cosmetics and lordly postures. Caelan, by contrast, sits leaned over the dinner table like an overgrown ash tree, and his crutches lean against the table with him. His is the only place setting at the table that is not spotlessly clean.
He is not in his traditional seat, next to his youngest brother and his mother. Silindion cannot abide the risk of having soup splashed onto his person, sensitive as he is to the textures of all things, and Caelan will not risk embarrassing Saroniel in such a way. Instead he is sandwiched between his elder brother, who helps him, and his father, who sits to his left, away from the hand Caelan eats with. The whole seating order has been rearranged to accommodate his new status. The unfortunate result is this: himself, broken, the visual centerpiece of the family. The Canonreeve, seated directly opposite him, his sharp yellow eyes missing nothing.
He has been holding back his opinion of Caelan’s presence the whole evening. Ondolemar, seated at Caelan’s right elbow, has been watching the Canonreeve with an eagle’s intensity. Caelan has been steadfastly attempting to ignore them both. He’s happy to let his father speak over him, for once. The Canonreeve is here on business, after all, and on that topic Aldaril has plenty of important things to say.
Caelan’s hand jerks without his permission. The spoonful of mushroom soup leaps onto the tablecloth. A slice of chanterelle slaps onto the side of his bowl and slides slowly, comically, downward. He puts his spoon down, avoiding everyone’s eyes.
“Embarrassing,” mutters their guest impulsively to his wife, at the very lowest edge of Caelan’s hearing.
Ondolemar empties his wine glass onto the Canonreeve.
Time stops. Caelan has a single fleeting second to capture the scene in his mind. The light of the chandelier, catching with a soft glow on the lip of the crystal glass as it tilts. The wine, dark and luminous, a twisting amoeba of color suspended in midair, spreading tendrils out toward the Canonreeve like an unleashed creature of the sea. The Canonreeve’s face, frozen in an awkward amalgamation between disdain and wide-eyed reflex. That face he would have liked to dedicate a portrait to, Caelan thinks.
Then it’s happened, and the Canonreeve sits there at his father’s table open-mouthed, his shimmering Lillandril silk robe drenched in wine. Like a wound from the chest, it bleeds and drips down into his lap.
His wife stares. Everyone stares. There is not a sound at the dinner table.
“My apologies, Canonreeve,” Ondolemar says, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. “My hand slipped.”
The server steps forward and refills Ondolemar’s wine glass without a word. Her face is beautifully schooled into neutrality, her every movement fluid and serene. Caelan still catches the glimmer of delight in her eye when she backs away.
The Canonreeve stares at Ondolemar. The Kinlord’s eldest son has already turned his attention back to his plate. Ondolemar’s ears are relaxed as he slices a small piece of meat from his venison, his expression thoroughly untroubled. The Canonreeve’s shocked eyes turn to Aldaril. Caelan can’t quite tell whether the backward pin of his ears is a plea for support or in anticipation of rebuke. He is, after all, sitting at the Kinlord’s table soaked in wine, and the Kinlord has not yet seen fit to comment. The Kinlord’s silence is a well-honed weapon even on the most pleasant of days.
Aldaril places his fork down beside his plate with the weight of a judge about to make a pronouncement. “Even the steadiest hands cannot always protect us from the misfortune of spilled dinnerware, good Canonreeve,” he remarks in a mild tone that no son of his would fail to recognize the danger of. “There ought to be some spare robes available in the guest wing, if you wish to save yourself further distress.”
It’s not a reprieve at all. The guest wing is on the opposite end of the estate, and the ruling family of Cloudrest is far from lacking in visitors this summer.
The Canonreeve and his wife flee the table in silence, lips pursed tight, eyes and ears cast downward. A few droplets of Rellenthil Red trail after them like blood in the wake of an injured stag. Already a member of the waitstaff is moving in with a damp rag in hand, ready to erase the evidence of the Canonreeve’s passage from the marbled floor. The server rounds the table and begins to clear the visitors’ plates away. Aldaril requests a refill of his own wine glass. The dinner table moves on, led by his example.
Under the table, Ondolemar’s toe catches the side of Caelan’s shoe. He looks up. Ondolemar’s face is solemn, deadpan, except for the twitch of his ear and the quiet glint of satisfaction in his eye.
Caelan smiles and takes another bite of his soup.