Chapter Text
There have been wars with less fire than this.
His body brings him in front of a blackstone castle, though had it always been black? Or had the flames licked them clean of their propriety? Reds and oranges and blues and whites tickle his skin, but the fire does not hurt. Not in the slightest. Not in the way they hurt everyone else.
With a step (one foot, another. Left, right. There is a pile of burning oak. There is no waking life.) inside the castle, he is brought immediately to a ballroom.
It is opulent—or, rather, it should be. Golds and silvers entwine in the curtains; absorb in the tiles. He could tell this place had once been grandiose. Had once been filled with richness and textile culture. They swirl and fold and curve alongside each other, the patterns, but they all connect to the wildflower in the center of the room. Such a wonder, such great tragedy.
There are people here. Quiet people. Dead people. People with faces burnt beyond recognition and people with skin rotten to its base layers. The man’s eyes are sunken spheres of itself. The woman’s hair is aflame in the way the string of a bomb is aflame—slower, slowly; gone.
What is the cause of such great suffering?
At the edge of the ballroom stands a woman. A lady. A debutante.
She is frozen over the hypocrite fire that promised absolute ruin. Her eyes (Brown? Grey? Blue?) saunter over the chaos, unmoving and unmoved. Her face is the picture of grace and serenity. How is she peaceful, when everything around her is anything but?
Moth to flame, Icarus to sun, he trudges over to her.
Trudges—because there is weight around his feet. Walking on water, walking in sand, walking with steel. Anything, everything. It keeps him from her.
Trudges—because the lady is staring right at him. Unblinking, unsurprised. Like he is meant to be there like she, herself, is meant to be here.
There is recognition in her (Amber? Black? Green?) eyes. Flowing steadily beneath are crystal peals. Something aches in them. Something longs and yearns in them. What is it? What is it?
He is plagued by his own curiosity.
He has never been known to back down from his pursuits.
So, he steps.
Her hair (Blonde? Auburn? Hazel?) is washed by the flames, floating in the air like a siren’s in the water.
Is that what she is? He wonders. He is inexplicably drawn to her. She has not spoken a word. Has not moved an inch. And yet.
He keeps looking at her. Registering and filing facial features that leave the expanse of his fire-addled mind just as quick as it came. He realizes he does not know what she looks like. He is looking at her—why does he not know what she looks like?
He opens his mouth to speak. Of course, speak. He can speak, can he not?
“Who are y—”
Colin jolts awake.
He feels his cheeks wet with unconscious tears. How odd. He does not remember why.
The heart in between his sleeve and pulse point beat (thump, thump, thump) and stutter (ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump) with no set pattern or style. They do not settle. They do not abate. They simply haunt. Forever and always. Always and evermore.
His hand roams over his bare chest, wandering over unkempt hair, feeling every consecutive spike of adrenaline in his very bones. Something has changed. (Was it him? Was it everything else? Is there any difference?)
A knock on his door interrupts his aching mind. Quickly, his palms wipe away the rendition of grief on his face. Fates forbid anyone see how affected he is this early in the morn.
“Your Higness?” The muffled voice of his valet permeates through the oak. Colin sighs into his palms, letting the odd sense of relief wash over him. At least it is not his siblings. He is spared, at this moment, from their jeers.
“Come in, Baltimore.” He calls, picking himself up off his bed and slipping inside his breeches. Baltimore arrives right as the last button is placed, alert and ready for his duty. “Is the bath ready?”
“Yes, your Highness. I have made sure it is lukewarm for you, as per request.”
“Thank you, Baltimore.” He thinks for a second, clicking his tongue. “I should like to dress myself today, if that is alright.”
“If it is what pleases his Highness, then of course.” Baltimore begins his voyage to Colin’s closet, meticulously picking out his daywear. Colin opens his mouth to say that he wishes to attend to that himself as well, but he waves the thought away. Baltimore is quite the force for duty. Where his siblings’ valets and abigails refer to them by their given names—albeit with titles attached—Baltimore still subscribes to the old-fashioned custom of believing only people with esteem and blood connections can utter a Royal’s name.
Instead of dwelling more on it, Colin takes his robe and wraps it around himself, taking the scarce five steps to his washroom where the tub lay. “I shall be out quickly. Anthony has required my presence—for what, I’ve not a single inkling.”
If Baltimore has any standing knowledge on the matter, his face does not indicate. “Stoic as always, my good man.”
“Such is the life, your Highness.”
Colin lets a laugh run loose in the washroom.
“How delightful that you deem us worthy of your presence, brother.” Anthony snarks from where he sits at the head of the table. Beside him, to his right, is Queen Kathani Bridgerton. Colin quite likes Kate. She makes Anthony tolerable.
“Why, of course! Whoever shall you turn to for riveting conversation?” He jests, taking a biscuit off the peak of a tower and unceremoniously dropping to his designated chair beside Benedict. A wrinkle on his brow appears as he registers the taste. “My word, had Cook prepared passionfruit?” His eyes turn to slits in accusation. Passionfruit is a bribing flavor. Specific to—
“Colin,” His mother, the former Queen of Crownstone, approaches him like one would a skittish lamb. “As you know, Benedict has finally taken a wife—”
“I was present for the wedding, yes.” Colin could not help but interject, to the fondness of his mother and exasperation of all else.
“—Yes, my dear. And it is because of that event that the invitation shall now go to you.” A butler serves him a folded parchment on a platter, one of which he was hesitant to take.
He scans over the wax crest, eyebrows further narrowing. “…Goldenhollow? I did not realize our kingdoms held an understanding towards one another.”
“It is not so much as an understanding, but more so that it is a proposition.” Benedict finishes, breaking his stare with Sophie. “It is called the Firestorm Festival.”
Befuddled, Colin tries to wrack his brain for a festival aptly titled. He comes up short. Frustrated at the expectant stares around the room, he grits out—“Shall we dance around the salon forever? Goldenhollow is a sennight’s ship away.”
“It is an annual Festival, darling.” It is his mother who answers succinctly. “For a fortnight, noblemen from all across the land gather in Goldenhollow for a noble purpose—to bring home the youngest Featherington Princess.”
“Princess Philippa?” His confusion grows.
Anthony gives his head a shake in a strange sorrow. “There is another. Princess Penelope Anne.” He exchanges a look of grief to their mother. “Upon her debut into society, a witch most despicable placed a curse on the poor Princess. One that cleaved her consciousness from her body and rendered her unresponsive from any interference. She has since then been lying still in the old Emerald Castle in northern Goldenhollow.”
He gasps, eyes wide as he listens to the story. Colin’s heart aches, not for the first time today, for an unspeakable reason. “Is she well? Had the witch…” He could not bring himself to finish the thought. It made him ill to his core—the thought of such a vulnerable lady bound to the mercy of a wicked creature.
Thankfully, Violet shakes her head. “As far as we know, the Princess is unharmed in the Castle.” She has a look in her eyes that suggest pride, though for what; he cannot fathom. “Like I’ve said, the Firestorm Festival is done in the name of the Princess. To free her from the witch. To bring her home.”
There is meaning in her tone that Colin does not catch. “She cannot be brought home domestically? Whyever would other kingdoms be involved? And why could Benedict no longer attend?” He is a machine gun of questions, turning his head from one person of authority to another.
“Because, brother,” Benedict interjects. “Both Anthony and I are married.” He says with that simpering grin he wore on his wedding day. Anthony is much the same. “The attendee must be eligible. For the Princess shall only be awoken by a true love’s kiss.”
Colin blinks. Looks around; looks at the faces of everyone around the table. Anthony; to Kate; to his mother; to Benedict; and to Sophie. They all have the same air of severity about them. He feels like a proper fool—or is it them?
“Are you quite serious?” He asks, aghast. “A true love’s kiss… Is this not a tale in one of Hyacinth’s books?”
“I assure you, brother, it is quite real.” Benedict takes the invitation from his fingers and snaps the seal open. “If I may,” he looks to Colin for a facsimile’s permission. “The Goldenhollow Crown regretfully invites the Bridgerton Clan once again to the fifth annual Firestorm Festival, where the search for Princess Penelope Anne Featherington’s one true kiss remains as the satisfactory conclusion. It is a great sorrow to keep asking this of your heirs and sons, however we are once more reaching for the mercy you may hold in your heart.”
As the letter drones on, Colin’s ears fog with disbelief. He feels rooted in place, with the open walls and high ceilings closing in most hastily. Calling the weight in his heart a dread is an underestimation of the first water. He cannot think, quite frankly, of anything else. How could he? In all honesty, how could they?
“Why have I never been told of this?” He interrupts Benedict’s letter reading. “Why is this not common knowledge? Princess Penelope—”
“Is alone, vulnerable, in Emerald Castle.” Violet finishes. “You must understand, dearest, that some things must remain a mystery to foreign powers. One could say, of course, that the Princess is protected by her curse, but could you imagine Daphne? Eloise? Francesca? Or, Fates forbid, little Hyacinth in the place of her? Would you open your parameters to all who would listen?” She sighs a heavy thing, fingers soothing the crease on her forehead. “That family has been through enough tragedies this past decade to last a lifetime. They are doing all they can to protect what is left. We mustn’t begrudge them for that.”
Colin’s mouth is clamped shut, fear and understanding soaking his bones like water to cotton. He tries to imagine Hyacinth, all ten-and-seven years of her, full of life and love and suddenly—suddenly nothing at all. A fire stifled. A storm wavered. A poem never spoken; never made real. As if she had never been there.
Colin is a sentimental. His heart and his mind are one and the same—motivated under the same sun, the same damning light: love. It is why he travels. It is why he leaves. There are too many things to see, too many things to love and adore and revere. Shall he be ensconced in the same four walls evermore? When there is love beyond it?
His eyes water with secondhand grief for the Featheringtons. How would it feel? To have never been given the opportunity to love before they go?
“How does it work?” He swallows around his sensitivity, puffing his chest in determination. “The Firestorm Festival?”
“Colin, we must warn you before making any lasting decisions.” Anthony reaches for Kate’s hand, which she openly accepts. “The Firestorm Festival is filled with perils and dangers. The curse is your enemy and the enemy gives worse than it gets. Men do not survive the selection. Not unless they are the cursebreaker.”
He looks at Colin like he’s expecting him to cower with his hind legs bent. It is odd—to him, perhaps—that Anthony would think he’d leave. Why would he?
Ignoring his brother’s probing stare, he steadies. “How are suitors selected? Will it be voluntary? If so—”
“Colin Bridgerton!” Anthony bellows, a vein that was long extinguished by Kate reappearing as he rises from his seat. “Are you daft or are you being purposefully foolish?! Being selected for the Firestorm Festival means death to the suitors who are not the champion! For Fates’ sake, think! Where would we be if you were selected and the curse rejected you?!”
“Where would Princess Penelope be if I were selected and the curse accepted my suit?” He fires back, standing to his full height—which is thankfully a hair greater. “I cannot be more afraid of death than the Princess who may actually be toying with the concept. What kind of man shall that make me?”
“A man who knows how to choose his battles.” Benedict interjects, his own married hand tilted towards his wife. “I, too, was invited for this, brother. Last year, in fact. I could not attend. I had been in the midst of my pursuit for Sophie and… I must admit, I was afraid. It is acceptable if you are, as well.”
“I am not.” Colin says definitively. “You would do well to separate me from yourself, Benedict.”
“Yes, that is noted, but Colin—” He takes a deep breath through his nose. “—You are merely four-and-twenty. You have such a long life ahead of you. Are you sure? Deeply, truly think about it. This is not a situation of us acting cruel in the light of Princess Penelope’s circumstance. It is a situation of us fearing the loss of you.”
He and Benedict engage in a challenge of perseverance. Colin, with his hard eyes drawn in determination and noble strength; and Benedict, with his countenance a testament to his gentleness as a fellow artist. Colin knows he is only saying what he says as a show of care. If Gregory had been given this responsibility and he reacted as Colin did, then he, too, would worry. But he cannot back down.
There is something about the Firestorm Festival that calls to him. A tinny sanctus bell that rises above the tedious bass. The ship for his travels had never demanded of him what the ship for Goldenhollow does. He is meant for something there. Perhaps not the cursebreaker, but definitely a purpose of the same vein.
It calls to him.
“I am sure.” He decides. “Perhaps I will not be chosen. Perhaps it will be for naught. But it is my prerogative to try, is it not?”
Benedict sighs out of their battle, back slumping in his seat. He trades an exhausted look with Anthony. There is resignation there as well. Perhaps a spark of premature grief. However, within that weighted gaze, there is acceptance. There is belief.
“Kate, Sophie.” Their mother calls out suddenly, shocking them out of their stand-off. “Might you take your husbands over to the family wing? You may break your fasts with the younger ones. I would like to have a word with Colin.”
Without further probing, the married Bridgerton men are swept away by the tides of their women, traitorously leaving Colin behind with their formidable mother. He looks to them longingly, wishing he could follow.
It would be a great dishonor to call Colin’s trepid hesitance to be alone with his mother a discomfort when the stark opposite is true. He adores his family, and none could match the filial piety he holds for his mother. She is his true constant, the very thing that turns his compass homebound when the longing for familiarity starts surfacing in between his wanderlust voyages.
No, it is not a discomfort to talk with Violet Bridgerton. It is only the contents of such a talk that makes his confidence waver.
After all, if not his mother, then who else is meant to know how to sway him with a single raised eyebrow?
Violet calls his name again, her voice such a gentle thing that he believes she was born to be his mother, instead of the other way around. It is often like this, he believes. Even as a child, there were moments like this where it seemed like Violet Bridgerton could see through him like a ray of sun through a shard of glass. He feels completely raw—open against his will, only by virtue of facing the woman who created him.
“Shall we be honest with one another, Colin?” With his nod, Violet continues. “Very well. Tell me, then. Your reason for accepting.”
It is not—It does not sound like Anthony when she asks him to state his logic. Her eyes do not feel like Benedict’s. Her voice; her timbre; her gentle coaxing—She sounds like his mother. The exact person he wishes to speak with the most at this time.
“I suppose—” His voice catches, eyes aflutter with emotion (he is best with that, isn’t he?). “—I suppose it is because she is a damsel.” It is such simplicity, the words that come out of his mouth, that it feels almost shameful.
But his mother is without judgment, even when she tacks on, “A damsel in distress?”
“Yes, I…” A hand is ran through Baltimore’s careful work of his curls. “I feel as though I have to. Need to, even. I may not be the cursebreaker, nor could I even be selected, but it must be terribly painful, no? For her? For the Princess?” He speaks in tongues and answers in riddles, something that has been his burden since a young lad, but sweet words and charming empathy is all he has. All he is. “If I could lessen her pain with my presence alone, to lend her strength in numbers, then should it not be my sworn duty?”
“But you must entertain the notion that you could be selected, my dear.” Violet approaches his chair with ease. “What will you do then? How can you ensure that you will not only bring Princess Penelope home, but yourself as well? The curse demands true love. Suitors participating in the festival are only given three days. Do you truly believe you can achieve a love great enough to appease the curse in three days?”
Her words—old and well-beloved amongst his siblings—echo in the quiet. Friendship is often the best foundation for a relationship, she’d said, over and over, with their father when he was still alive, and again and again, when Daphne developed courting troubles with her now-husband, time and time again with his brothers when they acted like fools in the light of their loves.
He is a believer of those words. If there ever was an altar for phrases, Colin Bridgerton would have been its most dedicated devotee. How long has it been now since Colin was a young boy yearning to have a love like his parents? How many years have passed since he had sworn against the carnal desires that made a man ever since his realization of its banality? How had his childish scrawls on worn-down parchment aged since its cementation as the one and only method of love in his heart?
Could he bear to lose such a belief? Could he let it go, let it fade to the mindless dreams of his feeling heart?
Perhaps the love destined for him is different—could he handle what different implies?
“Thunderbolts have struck in lesser intervals, have they not?” Colin puts on his most convincing smile.
Violet looks and sees, because of course she looks and sees, at her third-born son and sighs a truly heavy thing. He knows, then, that he has sufficiently won their little battle. Once his mother is convinced, it will take little else to convince Anthony and Benedict as well. Anthony may be King, and Benedict may be too free, but on the better half of their mother’s smile is where they always prefer to be.
The coming days are taxing, to be sure.
It is not necessarily a problem to travel to Goldenhollow, but trouble lies where companionship is involved.
Benedict, while entirely ineligible and a firm non-participant of the Firestorm Festival, insists on himself and Sophie accompanying them to the Kingdom of textiles and extravagant fashion.
“It shall be a splendid honeymoon location, I say.” He proclaims, along with several other innuendos on silk and leather that he’d have rather not heard and made him quite envious of his younger sisters, who remained unaware of the insinuations made by their retired rake brother.
By the end of his tirade, however, Benedict yelped a squeak that made the table erupt in a round of laughter, which could have only been by the menacingly-heeled feet of Sophie, to which both Anthony and Violet gave approving nods to.
Once they have spoken more about it during the night, Colin discovers Benedict’s desire to keep their mother in high spirits if Colin, hypothetically, were to be chosen.
It causes a stutter in his heart, the thought that his mother would have to wait three painstaking days just to affirm his condition of life. He could not deny her that. He has already asked enough of her.
Once that has been settled, Colin dedicated himself to the study of Goldenhollow culture.
While Colin prides himself on being a man of open mind and wider arms, he has never personally went to Goldenhollow. He has heard of its renown, yes, one could scarcely walk a mile without hearing a fanatic of their quality fabric and unique embroidery, but never has he truly delved deeper than the surface.
In a book he has found in Anthony’s study, Colin has found out that Goldenhollow was geographically located near the Queenlands, otherwise known as the epicenter of magic and the mystic arts. It is not uncommon for a mortal kingdom to be located near the source of all magic, but it certainly explains its penchant for hexes and curses.
Colin, along with every child in all the lands, he presumed, knew that it was a dangerous endeavor for a mortal to practice magic. If memory serves, then it is because mortals do not possess the evolutionary gene that lets magicians absorb mystic energy rather than repel it. Magic is quite damaging to a mortal, and with every word he reads about Goldenhollow’s unfortunate encounters with magic, he feels a deeper ache in his heart for Princess Penelope.
His dear sister, Daphne Bridgerton (now Basset), has lived with her husband, Simon, in the Queenlands for two years now, following the birth of his adorable nephew, Augustus Basset. Daphne, as all Birdgertons were, is a full mortal. She grew up around semi-mystic gemstones (as they are what the Crownstone Isles are known for), but she is not a borne magician. It had to change, however, when she married her husband, a respected Duke in the Queenlands. Simon had been hesitant to marry her because of the complications she may face in childbirth, but they have since sorted out their grievances and are now living happily in Simon’s estate in the Queenlands.
However, that said, because of Daphne’s increasing letters about the Queenlands and how organic the magic was over there in comparison to the feeble excuses in the Crownstone Isles, Colin has been made aware of just how dangerous it was for Goldenhollow to remain where they are on the map.
Daphne had to endure many rituals and spells in order for her soul to remain in tact in the mystic air of the Queenlands—in fact, the reason she was exclusively living in her husband’s estate implies that she must stay a resident there if she wanted to keep her tolerance.
That begs the question of the hour—were the people of Goldenhollow kept safe from the dangers of overexposure?
Considering how their Princess was currently under a truly conniving spell, he did not place much confidence to the affirmative.
That gets him thinking at a rapid pace. How was he to move forward? Due to the Duke’s regard in their family, the Bridgertons have a natural safeguard in their souls that prohibit invasive spellcasters from having their way with them, so Colin need not worry about his soul being disintegrated while staying in Goldenhollow, but what else?
Would his safeguards prohibit him from going near the Princess, should time tell? Would it harm her more? Or would it negate it enough for Colin to forge a meaningful bond between them?
The more he finds about Goldenhollow’s geographical disadvantage, the more restless he becomes.
But he cannot cower now. He has made his decision; drawn his parchments and crossed his letters.
He shall have to figure it out along the way.
After all, how different could it be, truly, from every other voyage he’s been on thus far?