The next morning, I woke up in another unfamiliar bed and room that didn't belong to me. Not that I ever really had one. Back in the temple, all of the children were fit about two or three per room. Nobility usually had the facilities and money to raise their children, but the nobility who didn't and were prone to beast attacks would send their children to the temple for protection. In return as payment, the nobles would have to sign a Sun Contract with Father to make donations to the temple until the debt is paid. Sun Contracts have been dated from the ancient divine texts, and are said to have been existing since the Divine Surya had walked upon the land. Those contracts are made with sworn oaths kept by both parties involved, and after being signed the contract is practically bound to the parties' souls until completion. If one party breaks the promise somehow by failing to commit, the punishment agreed upon when the contract is written will be dealt.
It was an evil tactic, more fit for thugs in the back alleys than the Pope. After all, if the noble families could not repay Father in a satisfactory manner, their children were made into hostages. But Father was just that kind of person. Rather, I suppose it's better to say that everyone who could wield a sizable amount of power and authority were cut from the same cloth. After all, while it may have not been so in the beginning, by the time my era had come along the only people who could present Sun Contracts were those in power. It's pitiful really, something Surya had created of their own divinity made to balance and divide the power of us humans had turned into something as wicked as that.
As a result, about a third of the children in the temple remained in the temple for some time. In that fraction of children, about half would show potential in being able to control their divinity. While all humans have divinity, it does not mean everyone has the capabilities to conjure and wield their divinity. By the age of ten, a child's potential will manifest clearly. Father used this as a way to pick out children who showed promise. When a noble becomes a paladin, they are to abandon their noble name. Paladins are both an honor, and also a disgrace to nobility in that aspect. Most children who knew their talent with their divinity however, often chose the temple over their own.
It's sad, I reminisce. I had given everything up to be with my family. That itself is a bad example seeing as it was the worst choice I made. It wasn't my fault though, that Father just happened to be a horrible person.
I stare at the uncomfortably luxurious ceiling. Is it possible for a ceiling to be such a pure white? It's scary.
Kaspar was one of those talents, I recall. He was practically a genius. By age ten, he already had great control over his divinity. That's how he became doted on by Father, after all. He was already Father's star pupil before I even came into the picture, since I was around eight when I was brought in and there was a… three? Four year difference between the two of us? The Divine Revelation that revealed me being the Saintess didn't happen until I was ten. Until then, I could never fully manifest my divinity in physical form.
I wonder what happened to Kaspar after the battle…
The Pope told me there was no information about anyone. Out of everyone, Kaspar probably would've left a mark. I remember Kaspar sustained a large wound, but I also remember rushing to heal him. But what happened exactly is still muddled together a bit. Even so, Kaspar definitely would have lived. Knowing him, he probably returned to the temple. For all I knew, he could've succeeded Father as the next Pope. Father was a greedy and selfish man, but if he were to let his place be taken by anyone, it would've been Kaspar.
"I should ask for records of past Popes when I get back…"
Right. I'm at the Palace. In a bed somehow much softer and more luxurious than the temple's, though that shouldn't surprise me. Is it even possible to acquire softer feathers? Are the temple's beds and pillows even stuffed with feathers? As nice as it feels, to the point it feels like I'm sinking into the mattress, I don't think I could get used to it. Beds stuffed with common straw are more familiar to me. Or better yet, no bed at all. Even a nice and simple blanket would be enough, but I wouldn't turn down the firm floor.
Vaguely, I recall the conversation I had with the prince in his own inconspicuous carriage to the palace.
"You don't have to worry about your escort," he assured me. Glancing outside the window with a carefree smile he continued, "I already sent Saire to find a paladin and deliver the news. I will send a more formal letter of apology and explanation to the Pope when we get to the palace."
He paused for a moment before raising a hand and holding it beside his mouth as if to whisper.
"Of course," the Prince muttered in a harsh tone, smiling still. "Not the actual reason, I'll just come up with one on the fly. That way, you'll be free to focus on finding your 'Unknown'."
The golden haired prince smiled warmly as the carriage rattled from the road.
"So don't you worry about a thing."
When we arrived at the palace's entrance, the prince handed me off to a maid who escorted me to this room to rest until the ball. It does make me nervous, however. While I don't particularly care for how that paladin thinks of me, it still makes me worry about our next interaction. Whether this fails or not, I'm still going back to the temple. That means that I will still have to be escorted when I leave the temple's grounds. In turn, that also means the chances of me and that paladin being paired remain high. How he feels about me is how he feels, but I just don't want to deal with an escort who is glaring and constantly in a bad mood. No one would feel great about something like that.
Glancing at the small clock that is set onto the desk a little ways away from the bed, I wonder what there is to do. After all, my only instructions last night from the prince was that I could simply rest in this guest room until the morning. When I asked for clarification, he only smiled in a way that said, "Don't worry, I will handle it". Handle what exactly? After sending me along with the maid, the prince did not contact me after. After a small tour of the hallways preceding the guest room and the locations of the nearest garden, I sat in this very spacious guest room for about an hour. It was already sunset by the time we arrived at the palace, and a duo of maids had brought me food so I could have dinner in private.
"The prince is pretty attentive," I muse quietly. He's also observant, despite his strange character. Or perhaps I really am as easy to read as he claims. He's also quite… What's the word? Reckless? Rash? In a way, he is both considerate and inconsiderate. He acts without thinking, but seems to have good intentions. He doesn't really feel like a noble, strangely. Or is it perhaps that nobles have changed in the millennia I've been gone? At least, when I think about nobles of similar standing to Father, I can only really think about the kind of person Father and his associates were.
All of those people were part of the temple though…
The noble children who were sent to the temple behaved similarly to the adults in the temple. Or rather, they followed Father's example. Since Father didn't care for and hated me, the others followed suit.
There was the King though, I suddenly remembered. I only ever saw him once, the day me, Shivani, and Kaspar left for our journey. He presented Shivani to the kingdom, revealing their identity as the Sundrop Knight. Everyone was shocked of course, and there were shouts I remember. After all, no one knew of this child clad in armor from head to toe.
I'm pretty sure the King was also the twisted sort. He seemed smug that day, seeing Father's enraged expression. The King purposefully hid Shivani's existence until then to make a fool out of Father. I think long and hard. Did Shivani ever talk about the King?
No, I conclude. Rather, Shivani may have been avoiding talking about it. The King, that is.
I close my eyes in remembrance.
"Shivani, why did you become the Sun Knight?"
Kaspar was sleeping away while we rode on the edge of a farmer's wagon. I think it was around the time Shivani had begun to teach me sign, a little more than a year after we met. We were not lovers then. Were we even friends, I wonder? We may have started to be. I wasn't able to hold conversations in sign at all yet, though. We were moving, so Shivani couldn't write into the dirt as they had predominantly at the time. So Shivani did what they did as an alternative, writing into my palm to communicate. It was always a bit difficult though, because Shivani always wore the bulky greaves for their armor.
[... to protect my family.]
"You have family, Shivani?" I remember the silent helmeted stare, as well as my embarrassment along with my struggle to explain. "It's not that I'm saying you don't have a family! It's just, you've never mentioned them until now, and I…"
It was awkward. Awkward because I knew of exactly two family members I had. My gentle and beautiful mother, who had done her best for me even though she would have lived a better life had I not been born. A mother, who became a mother much too early involuntarily, and passed away just as quickly when I was around seven. The other, a Father who ruined my poor mother's life on a whim, and had never been a true father. A man I wished wasn't my father.
I think all of those thoughts had shown on my face then, too.
[... Yes.]
Shivani gently wrote into my hand.
[I have a lot of family, a tribe in fact. A lot of siblings, cousins, and those tied very thinly by blood.]
Though I could not see it, the warmth and comfort of their divinity enveloping mine were as if they had smiled.
[Would you like me to tell you about them?]
There's knocks at the door, loud and echoing. A strangled noise comes from my throat as I sit up in surprise.
"Um—come in!" I call.
The pearly white doors of the guest bedroom are pushed open abruptly and the maid who had been escorting me and bringing me my meals up until now bursts in.
"Pardon me, Your Holiness, but we must rush to the drawing room!"
I look at her, puzzled, but her rush and excitement is starting to make me nervous.
"I apologize, but… where?"
She blinks and then gasps after realizing that I know little to nothing about the layout of the castle.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, but—oh, um, just follow me—quickly! Your Holiness!"
♢♦︎♢
There have been many loud door knocks in the past twenty four hours. But this time, I'm not the one calling for the person, whoever they are, to enter.
"Come in!"
The door creaks, though I cannot see it. Instead, dividing me and the rest of the large room is a finely woven screen that can be divided into about five folded parts. It's amazing how expensive and high quality nobles want everything to be, be it their beds to the folding sheet that shields you when you are changing. The silhouette of Lariette, the maid who I've recently discovered the name of, is hardly visible from the other side of the screen, but she bows quietly. The dense click of footsteps weigh onto the polished wood flooring, before being considerably muffled by the—equally—expensive carpet.
"How is it going, so far?"
"I would also like to ask that question, Your Highness," I respond stiffly. In the span of about forty minutes, perhaps fifty, I've been rushed to a room I've never heard of and have met a very enthusiastic young woman who appeared to be in her mid to late twenties. At first she looked at me and my clothes, the temple dress and boots I had been wearing since yesterday, with great almost offended pity before rushing like a storm and transforming the room instantaneously. Proceeding, a handful of maids had been called in with some carefully handling bundles of cloth and fabric which I now know are dresses.
And for the past thirty or so minutes since then, I had been stripped and dressed multiple times by a total of three maids interchangeably with the strange woman simply watching with a variety of expressions.
"Frankly, you had about twelve, give or take an additional two or three more hours, to tell me all about this beforehand," I chastise as a maid fastens clips up my back. My hair has been tied up and maintained into a rather large messy bun with a giant clip as it kept getting in the way. That was the only thing I could process as the minutes ticked by.
The crown prince from beyond the screen offers a quiet and albeit awkward chuckle.
"Sorry about that. I did tell you I had to write a formal letter to the temple. That, as well as arranging a time with Madame Varda to get your ball gown situated on short notice took quite a bit of time."
"Your Highness, while I did say I needed a dress, that did not mean I'm going to require an entire wardrobe change." As a separate maid tightened the corset to what I hope was to finish this dress, I continue, "Any spare dress on hand in the palace would have done fine."
"... Your Holiness, as I am the sole, unmarried, heir to the Ouranos Empire, we do not have any ball gowns befitting a noblewoman of this decade simply lying around. My mother had long passed when I was a child, so any of the keepsakes we own of hers likely wouldn't be the easiest to repair on short notice."
"Which makes creating an entire new array of dresses better…?" I question.
"Given that the ball in question is in less than three days time, a new dress is entirely impossible," the Madame a few feet in front of me answers. She eyes me up and down carefully with a pondering expression with her arms crossed. "As it is extremely short notice, my job today is to find what trending styles and colors suit you best, as well as your measurements to alter a preexisting dress we have in my boutique."
The woman stares and hums to herself in great thought.
"You may not know of this, Your Holiness, but as this is your first official appearance in public this by all means would be the equivalent to a young girl's debutante. You have been quite the hot topic as of late, so many eyes will be on you as well." She meets my gaze with her garnet-like eyes. "This is why, while you are inexperienced in social etiquette, your dress must be just as extraordinary as you are. In high society, appearance is everything."
I stand uncomfortably with my arms stiffly raised to my side. What nobles think matters little to me. All I wanted was to be presentable enough so that I wouldn't disrupt anyone, nor draw attention to myself. After all, I just want to find Shivani. But… there's very little I know about nobles in general. In addition, there's the possibility that this attempt to find Shivani will fail. If I ruin something the nobles consider valuable, I may destroy my chances to find them again. And if I'm going to draw attention to myself no matter what, I have no choice but to comply.
"... Continue as you like, then."
Delight reflects in the woman's eyes as she claps her hands together.
"Marvelous! Though I would have done so without the Saintess' permission regardless," she exclaims. Great. The Madame turns to the notebook she had set aside on a spare stool along with a simple graphite crayon. With a short moment of recollecting her thoughts, she quickly scribbles down more words into a list she had steadily been building since she had arrived.
"Now that we are partly finished, there are a few things I must discuss with Your Highness in regards to Her Holiness' dressing in the foreseeable future."