After a minute of digging and sorting, you pull out the outfit you brought just in case you need to attend something formal.
It's a fine doublet and hose, made out of much higher-quality fabric than you're used to. You find the outfit strange-looking. It's the newest innovation in men's fashion, or so you've heard.
You don't see the appeal. The collar feels too stiff, and the arms lack a full range of motion. You wear a sturdy pair of turnshoes, tucking the dagger into the right side of the left shoe, hiding it under the hem of the pants.
Glancing at the mirror, you're shocked by how you look. You look somewhat noble, if not a little scruffy. It's not uncommon for men, especially fighting men, to have scars, though your intense eyes don't fit the image of a noble.
With a final shrug, you turn to leave the room.
Next
The banquet and dancing hall is one of the largest rooms in the royal palace. It is one you remember spending a lot of your time in, back in your youth. The part of your youth not spent suffering, that is.
Back before The War, back before it all. Back when you were still a treasured son of House Stiedry, your parents always tried to lure you out of your shell. They tried to get you to interact with your peers.
Especially those not of your sex.
From what you remember, marriage was always hanging over your head.
You felt dissociated from your peers. You felt dissociated from… society. You heard so many constantly speak of the merits of love and lust, but you never felt it.
Not as a teenager, and definitely not after The War.
You know such thoughts are meaningless now. You can't change who you are. You can't change what happened in the past.
But that won't stop you from hating yourself for it.
Next
As you gaze out at the room of finely dressed nobles, you feel a sense of detachment and isolation. Despite your heritage, you have hardly anything in common with these men and women of status.
A large banquet table stretches nearly the whole length of the room, with space to either side open for dancing. Couples fill this space, dancing the day away to a merry song being played by musicians that occupy the sidelines. Behind the musicians, against the walls and deliberately out of the way, are the guardsmen maintaining a watchful eye over the feast.
Now those are my people, you think.
You may look the part of a noble, but you know that it's just an illusion.
The door in was unguarded, though you could feel the eyes of the guards on you when you entered.
Now you're standing off to the side of the entrance, pressed up against the wall and away from the feast. You scan the crowd for your sister, but find no sight of her. But you do see the twins. They appear together at the head of the table, talking with a large group of bystanders, mostly young women.
In the very back of the hall, behind all of the tables and dancing, there's a series of steps. They lead up to an elevated platform where the monarch's throne sits in all its opulence.
A throne now vacant.
Belos and Vedran almost always appear together. You know they're close, but Belos is the elder, if only by a few seconds, and will inherit. You pray a silent prayer that they don't decide to split Kanton between the two of them.
You bite back a curse as you formulate a plan.