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The celebration has barely started and he’s already tired of it. He does his best to smile, keeps a pleasant expression among biting small talk. It is for the best that father is in the south to check on the state of the cavalry branch there and the latest disasters. If he were here instead, listening to such drivel, keeping control would be much more difficult.
“If it isn’t the young heir of Count Aile,” a woman with a round face and in a dress two years out of fashion says sweetly. It’s all sugar syrup over rotten apples.
Still, he puts on a kind smile and returns her greeting. He knows he looks charming in his father’s colors, but the black marks him too.
“I did not expect to see you here!” she chats away as though without a single care in the world. “Where is your father?”
All around them, the smiles turn into maws, razor-sharp teeth. They know his father isn’t here, that the banquet thrown in honor of the recuperating south is missing one of its main actors. Of course, it is all deliberate, another machination to keep the Cavalry from gaining too much influence. He should’ve stuck closer to the Deputy Commander.
He suppresses a sigh. The woman in front of him does not care about Yudrein Aile.
“Doing his duty,” he answers instead, just as kind. “So I attend this celebration in his stead.”
“To put a burden on a child so young…” The woman sighs theatrically. He recognizes her by now, the long list of names he remembered finally proving useful. She’s the third wife of Baron Velm, not of substantial wealth herself, but the only wife to give him the desired son. “Well, it cannot be helped in your situation.”
Her husband really should’ve picked a smarter spouse. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees a man slowly charming his way through the masses, clearly heading in his direction. He means well, but this is not a place they’re allowed to have a conversation. He’ll have to make this quick.
“I don’t mind,” he says. “I’m happy I can be a filial son and help my father in this way. My father has raised me to be conscious of my choices and their repercussions. I have much to learn at fifteen, but this much I can manage.”
Her previously so satisfied expression falters, and she is quick to hide behind her fan. Her precious son has, after all, been put on house arrest for indecent behavior. Were he a commoner, the price to pay would’ve been much higher, and the gossip surrounding the situation has been ruthless. By comparison, he has been nothing but the excellent son.
“If you will excuse me, Baroness,” he finishes his little monologue. “There are some greetings I still have to deliver.”
He is not excused from the conversation, but he leaves anyway. If his retreat is hurried, they’ll forgive him based on his age. He is the youngest participant at this banquet, part of a generation that has not matured enough for their formal introduction into society. The palace is to host a debutante ball in spring, he’ll have to talk to his father if he’s expected to partake in that too. As the son of a Count, it would be expected, but of course, that isn’t all he is.
He walks until he is out of the celebration hall, until the cool air hits his face and he has the space to breathe. Naturally, the moment of peace doesn’t last long, somebody followed him to check up on him. It is not the man from earlier, he wonders if he should consider it a blessing or a disappointment.
“Your father is worried.”
“My father is in the south for the annual checkups,” he replies as practiced, then turns around.
Nathan Zuckerman looks like he always does, standing tall, wearing the formal uniform of the Peletta Knight Order.
“Helios,” he says, his concern showing in his strictness. “Are you contrarian for the sake of it or is there actual trouble?”
Nathan is like his father in that way – honest and direct to the core. His father just doesn’t ask as harshly, waiting for Helios to come to him. It is a kindness rarely afforded to them.
“Leora is sick,” he finally says. It is nothing much, barely a cold, but enough for a six-year-old, who misses her parents, to throw a tantrum. “She won’t let the nanny take care of her, so I have to do it.”
In that regard, they are both most certainly their father’s children, refusing the touch of strangers. Helios has watched his sister since he had a sister to watch, the first person to hold her after his father. She’d been a small baby, but Helios has loved her ever since.
Nathan scrutinizes him for another moment, then exhales slowly. “If you had sent a letter, we would’ve come over.”
Helios scoffed at the foolishness, pretending he hadn’t considered it. “Yes, I’m sure the Duchess of Peletta would’ve been relieved to see her husband abandon her so publicly to look after his whiny bastard for a week.”
It isn’t fair – not to Nathan, who is not to blame for this situation, nor the regents of the Peletta Duchy. If Helios were to write a letter, Kishiar would’ve been there within the hour. He would’ve tussled his hair and sent Helios off to bed with a kiss on the forehead before staying awake at his fussy sister’s side, tending to her every wish.
Most likely, Helios would’ve woken at night to find Leora half asleep on top of Kishiar, her hair in a braid neater than their father ever managed, and Helios would’ve been dragged into the cuddle pile too. It would be domestic, warm as it should be, right until morning when the Emperor’s letter came, a reminder sharper than the blade of the guillotine.
“It doesn’t matter,” Helios says after a while. “I’ll return home in an hour or two after paying my respects to the emperor. Father wants me to leave a good impression.”
He only has to walk the tightrope, smile, and be useful to the emperor as Count Aile’s black-haired, red-eyed raven child.
And then, once he was pleased, Helios could return home to his family.
“Tell da… tell the Duke Peletta he need not worry about his subordinate’s son. I am fine.”
He pushes right past Nathan, unwilling to prolong a useless conversation. There is nothing to be gained from acting friendly in the emperor’s palace. Once returned to the ballroom, he greets his father’s allies and ensures he never crosses the boundaries set by more powerful men.
If, just once, worried red eyes mirroring his own catch his, Helios ignores them.