Our "close knit" dinner isn't exactly what you'd call cozy. It depends on who you ask in this room. I do not know what the others think, though I can tell that this gathering doesn't delight anybody in particular; but personally I find it unnerving.
I'd say awkward, but with Ekho in a room, there's no place for awkward. He has that charm about him. He can deliver the most grievous of news in a way that left you oddly reassured than terrified. He can manipulate his words so rhetorically, that one minute you'd be hell bent on disagreeing on something, and the next minute you'd be persuaded to nod your head in consent.
He is beguiling and capricious to be around.
But behind that captivating aura is his nerve-racking rage. I've seen it, countless times before. I've seen it since I first got beat by Caspian in our Combat lessons when we were just kids. I've seen that frightening rage surface when I lost in a duel to Drazen. I've been witness to his demeanour change within seconds when his warfare strategies do not go as planned; or when his authority is impugned.
If I did not know any better, I'd say he passed his genes onto me. His capricious temperament anyway. But I know better, and I know he's not my father. Ekho adopted me from Asteria. Or so he says. Why me? I want to ask him. Why adopt an Asterian child when you hate us so much? How do you even manage to bear the sight of me, when you would not hesitate to throttle someone who even closely resembled an Asterian?. And at times I almost have, but I never could manage to put it into actual words. I'm not even sure I want to find out. I guess I should be grateful to him. I get to be where I am, among splendour and grandeur. I get to be what I am because of his status. But would I have been better off if I wasn't an inconsequential part of this opulence, in a way I would've had a sense of belonging? Of that I have no way of knowing. No way of knowing who my birth parents were, or why they abandoned me. Of what could've been of my life if i grew up in Asteria.
"Alyona, darling. You look beautiful." Ekho says that with a warm and fatherly smile, and I know he's being genuine.
He may have his faults, but he's the only one I have close to a parental figure. And even though I've never specifically called him Dad, he does love me like a daughter.
Now when I see him, dressed in his perfectly tailored suit, with neatly shaved face and a crisp military haircut, he looks every way the Warfare Commander of Zephyr that he is.
"Happy birthday, Ekho." I smile and take a seat next to him.
I'm glad that it's just me and him in the Dining hall at the moment. I could talk freely for a while, without having to censor my words.
"I take you've been practising well." Ekho says with a half smile, and I sense a tinge of pride in it. For a moment I cannot comprehend if he means it as a question, but then I get what he's referring to. Without meaning to, I touch the angry bluish bruise on my forearm.
Wrong dress, I curse myself mentally. And then I feel even more insecure when I remember that my helix mark is clearly visible too. If Ekho notices, he doesn't bother to mention it. Good for me.
"I have, but my footing's all wrong these days." I was hoping he'd council me on that, suggest me something that'd help me correct my stances.
"A bad word whispered echoes a hundred miles." He says instead. He wants me to hide my vulnerabilities, to keep them sotto voce.
With the chandeliers' luminescence foregrounding the scar that runs across his right eye, he looks sinister.
Before I can consider formulating some sort of reply to that, the doorway to the hall opens up.
Enter The Crown Head Klymene and The Glorious Trio of Foolery. Begone my peace of mind.
The guards scurry to take their places at their designated positions. The servants dressed in their typical midnight blue robes, stand around the royal ménage holding a candle each.
I've never clearly understood the purpose behind this, but my best guess would be for the dramatics. Or maybe because the royalties need to be the focal point of every thing, however impromptu the occasion be.
And it does work. Because now when I stand up to courtesy them, they look intimidating, domineering.
Klymene takes one brief look at me, and averts his eyes as if he just saw a centipede, as if I'm the most irrelevant thing in this room. And In a way I am. His demeanour only alters when Ekho greets him in Zephyr obeisance; index and middle fingers of both the hands criss-crossed in front of the chest, followed by a short bow. It is an indication of respect and subservience.
Behind Klymene stand Drazen, Caspian and Kolan, hands clasped back, looking straight ahead like soldiers on guard.
Though they're all of the same age, Drazen is the Crown Prince of Zephyr. And quintessentially so, he looks like one too. His tall stature and toned physique gives him the gravitas of someone suited for the crown. His squared jaw and the inscrutable expression on his face, gives him the appearance of someone ruthless. But it's his soft honey eyes that contrasts his otherwise hostile mien.
For my part, I mostly stand behind Ekho. My hands are clasped behind my back too, but I'm fidgeting with the ring around my thumb. I feel threatened here, an anomaly.
Ekho and Klymene exchange a few short greetings, and then we're seated at our allotted places.
The crown head takes his seat at the head of the table, his ruby red robe cascading on the floor. Followed by the princes, and then Ekho. Only then do I sit beside Ekho. I know my place here.
Across from me is Caspian, his tawny hair tied in a bun. He gives me a cold look and averts his eyes the way Klymene did. Beside is Kolan. He looks stern too. Even he has the basic mannerism to veil his skittish bearing when need be. I'll give him that. It's klymene's presence that we're all collectively restrained from being anything but subdued. Except for Ekho.
"I yearn to hope that everything is to his majesty's fancy." Ekho's voice is imperturbable, but a little strained for some reason.
"Indeed." Klymene says and sips his wine from the flask, embellished with platinum.
"What are the figures of today's casualties at the war front?" He asks, all business.
"We're yet to get an out-an-out confirmation, but roughly five thousand." I cannot read into the way Ekho says it, but the news is definitely dreadful, whichever way the disclosure be delivered.
Our first course is served, as if to temper the impact of what we'd just heard. More candles are lit around the room, highlighting the mural on the ceiling and the intricate designs on the wooden carved pillars. A violinist plays a saccharine melody in the background. I do not recognise this particular tune, but it's soothing.
If I didn't just hear that disconcerting peace of news, I'd have felt at ease.
But at ease I feel not. At all. And it's not just me. I can see everyone tense up a bit, however hard they may be trying to mask it. I shift my focus on the food, desperately hoping it'd distract me somehow.
"Bloody Asterian filth." I hear Caspian mutter in contempt. I know what he's insinuating and at whom it is directed. He meant those words to fall on my ears. I'm not Asterian, not in the literal sense of the term since I've lived here all my life . But It stings all the same. I resist the urge to say something, anything. But I'm supposed to speak only when spoken to, and it seems highly unlikely that anyone here is going to. So I tighten my jaw and sit a little straighter and look at him square in the eye. I want him to glimpse at my defiance, even without words. I try to poise myself and only hope that my body isn't betraying how I truly feel. He just sneers back at me with disdain. Everyone present in this room, except for Ekho hopefully, would rather see my severed head on the table, than my being present in the same room with them. It still feels like a win somehow, to know that I'm the element that irks them so much. Yet here I still am sitting among them, eating their food and intoxicating myself with the wines that they brew. So much for being an Asterian filth.
"I'm considering taking the Black Ring regiment to the west front myself." Ekho says after a while. What the hell does that even mean? Have you no sense? I want to holler at his face.
West front is where particularly berserk Asterian battalion has taken hold. Though I admit it'd be strategic and a pragmatic move if the Black Ring regiment deals with them, it doesn't mean i want Ekho to lead it. Going there is a death sentence. I cannot loose him. I will not loose him. But before I can say anything, klymene does.
"You're to stay here and strategise. I am not adjuring in this regard. It is a command."
It is for the first time tonight that Klymene looks at Ekho. Really looks at him. Though his voice is authoritative, his gaze is pleading. I have long suspected that they two had something almost intangible between them. Something that was only conveyed in the way they looked at each other. As I watch Ekho return his gaze with the same intensity, my suspicions get closer to conformation.
I half smile to myself, and when I look back up, I catch Drazen's eyes on me. He doesn't make haste to look away as most people would. Instead, he searches my eyes, blinks slowly, and then busies himself with his food.
His countenance is unexpressive enough that I'm left wondering. Wondering because he never does usually look at me, not to my knowledge at least. He ignores me in peace always, probably denying my existence to himself altogether. Which is convenient, really. There's only so much diplomacy and loathing I can take. But tonight, he looked at me like I hadn't seen him look. Not since we were kids, when he offered his toy car to me while I was crying hysterically. He had those same unsure eyes back then.
My heartbeat speeds up a little, and I indulge myself to eat my food, which is getting increasingly hard to swallow.
I give an exasperated sigh as I make my way back to my room. Tonight's crusade is going to take its toll on me for a good week. My feet ache from the heeled boots that I'd been wearing, and so I take them off and walk barefoot. The lush carpet feels cold and soft under my feet, and the dimly lit corridor only adds to make me feel tranquil and wrought with nerves at the same time.
My head's swarming with thoughts from dinner, but I try to keep them at bay. Before I can try to stop it, I'm again reminded of Drazen's eyes on me.
All these years, he's kept his distance from me. Speaking only when absolutely necessary.
That is what I get from almost everybody in here, so it is not like I was expecting a hearty conversation out of him anyway. It is only tonight that I felt he looked at me different, In the way he took his time to take those honey eyes of his off me.
Something keeps gnawing at my chest, and I do not know what it is. But before I can decipher what I've been feeling, i feel cold hands grip around my forearm, dragging me into a dark alcove.