III. Daybreak - Stretto
She flew long through the deep hours of the night, until the morning frost fell from her wings in the wake of the breaking sun. The subdued scents of the Winter Court’s realm gave way to Spring’s ever-so-slightly sweet blossoms; the crowned trees beneath her wore capes of glittering rose and lilac.
In the distance she saw a formation of knights rise above the foliage line — a morning patrol, no doubt. Aurin had neither the time nor patience to converse with them. With a sharp fwip! she fanned out her wings, broke her inertia and switched to a dive. Shielding her face from the branches whipping past, she landed on a thick fallen tree-trunk, a few feet above a small stream.
Her racing heart slowed, the emotion-shrouding adrenaline digressing from her hummingbird-like flight from Tris’ lands, and she slowly sank down to her knees, folding her legs up under herself; her blue wings hung limply behind her.
There was a constant din in the air in the Spring Court’s realm: the babbling brook, the chirping of birds in the trees, the cries of all sorts of creatures in the underbrush. It was a startling difference from the almost sacred silence that blanketed the Winter realm, rarely broken by the daring animal that would be bold enough to make itself known in isolated song.
The thoughts she’d tried to leave behind gradually caught up to her. Fury welled up in her chest, and she pulled the pennant from where it was pinned at her breast, clutching the golden finding until her knuckles were white. She stabbed the point of it into the bark next to her, where it bristled upright, the soft dark blues of Tris’ tail-feathers wavering iridescent in the half-light.
I must tell Fiora what I have learned.
Aurin started to rise, but the pennant glimmered in the dappled light where she’d left it, as if waving to her, capturing her attention for just long enough to make her hesitate.
…and what would come of it?
She rocked backwards again, burying her head in her hands, clutching at her hair. If Fiora were to come to know this truth, there’s no doubt that things will end in anything but violence. Not just for the Autumn Court, but for lady Tris as well; for knowingly keeping that faerie’s secret… Aurin bit her lip bitterly. Just then, she could care less if Fiora sent the entirety of the Spring Court’s forces to tear Yone apart, but at the thought of Tris coming to harm… a cold, lonely feeling seeped into Aurin’s heart.
What next? Having broken the knight’s oath of loyalty, she would have to seek asylum with Fiora in the Spring Court. While Aurin had no doubt a place would be found for her, she felt a strange sense of melancholy at the thought of returning to her old life.
As long as she could remember, every summer beyond her eighth had been a lonely one. While her childhood days were joyful, and she’d had the privilege of growing up beside the crown princess, once her training began in earnest and Fiora chose to become the knight captain at the young age of thirteen, there was a distance between them that could never again be bridged, by neither words nor actions.
And in spite of the cold nights of her domain in Castle Winterwood, the two seasons Aurin had spent under Lady Tris’ service had been filled with such a welcoming warmth as she had never known before from the royal family. Tris spoke to her sworn sword as an equal, but not only that, she had opened her heart to Aurin – something Fiora and no one else ever had.
Aurin stared at her reflection in the rippling water beneath her. She reached out and took the ribbon from beside her, running her fingers across its textures gently — the smooth gilded metallic part, now slightly scratched from her violent handling of it; and the nearly indescribable feeling of those precious feathers from Lady Tris. Silken yet coarse with thousands of tiny scales that shifted in colour, firm and yet strangely light and… fluffy. Aurin pressed it to her cheek. The pennant was cool to the touch, like a gentle caress.
Slowly, she pinned it back onto her lapel. At the very least… I owe her grace a chance to explain herself.
Externally, Tris was the picture of calmness: not a twitch in a single feather of her tail, nor a tell-tale flicker of her ears as she stood there. But in the hands she had folded behind her back, she dug her nails into her palms so hard that they almost drew blood.
“My Lady. As you requested, we have brought her before you.”
Eight Winterwood knights entered her solar, parting from formation to bring the spring faerie forward. Aurin’s red eyes were inscrutable, her hands held before her perfectly still, so still that the silver cuffs around her wrists did not make a sound.
“Leave us.” Tris commanded. She looked over her shoulder at the maidservants. “You as well. Close up the balcony and give us some time alone. I shall ring the bell if I need you.”
She felt a wave of confusion pass across her knights, as they looked at each other uncertainly.
“Did I not speak loudly enough?” Tris said sternly. And this time, the knights did not hesitate. With a hurried bow, they and the maids quickly made themselves scarce.
Aurin watched them go without turning her head, and still stood there like a statue even after the door had clicked shut behind them. She looked at Tris briefly, before lowering her gaze to the floor at Tris’ feet — but she did not bow or kneel.
She seemed surprised when Tris came to her side in a flash, and even more so when the silver chains around her wrists fell into Tris’s hand with a deft turn of the tiny key that she’d been hiding from her own servants. Tris threw the cuffs aside, letting them jingle across the floor.
“What…” Aurin let out a dry exhale. “Why go through all that if you were just going to set me free?”
“I had to make a show of upholding the rules of my estate,” a strained tone entered Tris’ voice. “I hope they didn’t hurt you… and thank you for being magnanimous enough to not hurt them.”
“Magnanimous?” Aurin echoed the word and laughed, humourlessly. “My lady. Perhaps you mistook my errant behaviour last night.”
“Aurin.” Tris firmed her tone and the knight clicked her mouth shut audibly, tensed, ready to be reprimanded. But Tris sighed. “I am the one who owes you an apology. I had no right to keep such secrets from you when you had gifted me with your trust, knowing the sensitivity of the matter. I made the foolish choice to remain silent because I thought it was the best means to keep everyone I cared about safe… but to withhold the truth is no better than to tell a lie; and no relationship built on trust can flourish on such tainted soil.”
“I want to trust you,” Aurin muttered. “I do. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have come back on my own.”
“I was hoping you’d come through the way you left, so we could talk quietly without any riffraff,” Tris admitted. “But at the same time, I told the knights to keep an eye out for you… just in case.”
“What do I do with this – with these feelings?” Aurin shook her head. “There is no winning move. To seek out vengeance would lead to mass bloodletting. To do nothing is to disgrace the memory of our late Queen.”
“You speak of a ‘winning move,’” Tris murmured, “but what is ‘victory’ to you in this sense?”
“Justice for Her Grace. Her murderers, tried and executed for their crimes.”
“But if I were to place the sword back in your hands at this very moment, could you point it at someone with absolute certainty?”
Aurin hesitated, and that alone was answer enough, but then she finally turned to Tris, eyes brimming with conflict. “Yours is the power to know someone’s intent; and it is with that power by which you vouch for Yone. Tell me now — please, my lady — what is it that tears at my heart? Why do I not see the path forward?”
Tris took a small step forwards, bringing Aurin close into her orbit and taking the other faerie’s hands in her own. Aurin was tense, but when Tris pressed her thumbs into Aurin’s palms, she let a spark of her magic travel between them, and Aurin’s shoulders visibly drooped. Tris closed her eyes, as the myriad colours wove between them to reveal the tapestry of Aurin’s emotions.
A bright gold, intermingled with dark greens. Love, woven with hope, guilt, and anxiety. And opposing it, wrapped in a helix of crimson and blues, was her anger, her sadness and shame.
“Such a knot of sentiments cannot be undone with a needle of reason,” Tris said, cracking her eyes open. She shifted her hands gently, placing them on Aurin’s shoulders. “It is as you saw – all of these feelings are what makes us alive in this very moment. Reason can temper anger, but it makes poor company for understanding love.”
“I have only ever been taught to reason. Love is a foreign thing to me.”
Tris abruptly pulled her into an embrace, one arm around Aurin’s shoulders and the other cradling her head gently.
“You have it,” Tris shook her head. “And it is within you whether you realise it or not.”
Against the crook of her arm, Tris felt Aurin’s face crumple as she tried to hide her expression. “My lady… I’m sorry—” her voice broke, and Tris hushed her softly.
“Shh. No need for apologies from you. If you would do aught to make amends, then I ask simply that you seek to live in the moment. Feel these feelings, dear one. Do not flee from them. And you can have faith that I will stand by your side.”
Morning came, and everyone looked like they hadn’t slept a wink. Uri stacked her fists atop one another and rested her chin on both hands, lolling her head back and forth idly. Her stomach grumbled.
“So… it’s not poison. Can I keep it, then?”
“No.”
The chorus of voices, belonging to the alchemist, Tris, Nir, and Aurin, all said in unison.
“Hush, princess,” her maidservant whispered. “Don’t interrupt the inquisition.”
Across from the high table, Katarina stood flanked by a troupe of guards on either side, her hands cuffed and boarded before her. She cracked a wry smile and shrugged. “Of course it’s not poison. It’s the same as the knives I carry around. As if you’d let me strut around with something like that. Do I look stupid to you? And believe me, if I wanted to harm the princess, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I wouldn’t let myself get caught.”
“Wipe that smug grin off of your face,” Aurin growled. “You—”
“Face it,” Katarina quipped. “You don’t have enough to bring a trial. So might as well let me go, eh? I have a new dress that I need to pick up for the ball. Don’t want to be late for my appointment with the tailor.”
Tris sighed. “As much as I hate to admit it… the envoy has the right of it. Release her.”
“Can we have breakfast now, then?” Uri yawned. From the corner of her eye, she saw Aurin seething silently, the hand that rested on the back of Tris’ chair threatening to dig claw-marks into the wood.
The jingle of keys and cuffs filled the hall’s silence in the wake of Uri’s question. “Helloooooo…?” She rolled her eyes.
If nothing can be done, why are we wasting time, then?
Katarina threw one more smirk over her shoulder as she was escorted out of the hall, and Tris’ poor chair creaked dangerously under Aurin’s death grip. Tris reached up to pat Aurin’s hand soothingly, then rang the crystal bell on the table.
“Yes, darling, we can eat now,” she finally addressed Uri, who perked up immediately. “Then we have to get ready for the ball.”
“Ugh.” Uri put her forehead on the table with a thud. “What if we didn’t, though. What if you just let me skip the ball and stay home…?”
On her left, Nir leaned in close and whispered into one ear, “Come now, princess. Surely you will find the spirit to save a dance for me, won’t you?”
“You,” Aurin interrupted, tapping Nir on the shoulder. “Where is your companion? Why did he miss the interrogation?”
“I had him wait outside,” Nir said, glancing at Tris. “In case things got… heated.”
“I would like to speak with him before we dine,” Aurin declared, and Tris nodded her permission.
“You are excused, then. The kitchen shouldn’t take long with our meal, though, so do come back shortly.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Aurin bowed slightly, and with a shimmer of her wings, slipped out into the hall. Uri flagged her tail.
“I… have to go to the bathroom!” She declared. Her handmaiden pulled out the chair for her and started to follow, but Uri crossed her arms. “I don’t need an escort to the bathroom!!”
“Y…yes, princess…”
On silent padded feet, Uri tiptoed out into the hall the way she’d seen Aurin go, slipping through the door before it could even shut in the knight’s wake. Just outside, a few metres away, she saw Yone and Aurin standing by the railing of the loggia, overlooking the courtyard. Uri slipped behind one of the colonnades, out of sight.
“...I am glad to see you returned safely,” Yone was saying. “Her grace was most concerned for your absence last night. You must not have slept much.”
Returned? Uri wondered. Did Aurin go somewhere last night?
“I’m alright,” Aurin replied. Her voice was strained, but even. “I… wish to apologise for my behaviour. It is not proper for a sworn sword to act on her own feelings. And after speaking with my lady; it is my belief that if her faith is with you, then so too shall mine be.”
Uri peeked around the pillar, and saw the autumn faerie looking down at Aurin with a wide, one-eyed look of surprise. The fronds on his mask seemed to ripple on their own. “Your apology is graciously accepted, but I understand your reasons for lashing out. Truth be told, I would have done the same were I in your shoes.”
“It is good, then, that we both have Lady Tris to temper us.”
Aurin was standing with utmost poise, but from her viewpoint, Uri could see the feathered scales between the knight’s shoulders flickering anxiously from time to time.
“I hope…” Aurin drew an audible breath, continuing, “I hope that we may come to understand one another better, Yone.”
Yone bowed deeply, startling Aurin. She bapped the top of his head. “Raise your head! We knights do not bow to one another.”
When he lifted his head, Yone had the slightest of smiles on his lips. “I think, perhaps, if I may be so bold; in another life, you would have been destined for more than just the role of a vassal.”
Aurin laughed, a sound Uri was quite unaccustomed to.
“Perhaps, and perhaps not. But either way, this is the life we have been given. And I would not trade it for any other.”
Two days later, the night of the ball arrived. Yone was stationed on the upper walkways overlooking the grand ballroom, patrolling the western side of the corridors. On the other side opposite the ballroom, he caught the occasional glimpse of Nir and his retinue circling the grounds outside.
Tight security. Just as Kalista had requested.
His one-eyed gaze swept the ballroom. Kalista and the Queensguard had not specified what it was that the Autumn knights should be worried about, but the sheer number of the Autumn guard present was enough to draw suspicion, in and of itself.
Yone paused in his pacing and leaned over the balcony railing, looking down at the crowd. Karma was seated on her throne, socializing with the lords and ladies that lined up to speak with her. In the centre of the ballroom, couples waltzed to the orchestra, draped in their glittering, elegant finery. Surrounding the dance floor, densely packed into groups, it seemed the rest of the kingdom had gathered, laughing and talking, drinking and eating.
He caught sight of Lady Tris, dressed in a gown of shimmering gossamer silk and chiffon. Aurin stood by her side, in her usual attire; Uri tugged on her elbow and whispered something in the knight’s ear, before darting off towards the courtyard. Aurin reached out to grab at the princess, but her fingers closed on empty air. Fuming, she started after the princess, but Tris took the knight’s wrist gently, and Yone saw her laugh, shaking her head.
Off for a rendez-vous with Nir, no doubt. Yone shook his head. Ah, to be so brazen.
Then, he saw an unexpected pair approach Lady Tris. A lord of the winter court, whom Yone did not recognize – but on his arm, draped in the pinks and greens of the summer court, was Lady Mimi, Tris’ good friend. A veil half-covered Mimi’s face, but did little to subdue the demure look in her eyes as she cast glances across at her companion, while the lord puffed out his chest, wrapping an arm around her waist as he conversed with Tris.
Yone’s grip tightened on the railing. Is it truly that easy? He wondered at their whimsy. To live such a simple, carefree life? What is it that makes such things impossible for someone such as I… perhaps it is all—
“What has you in such a look of consternation, my handsome old friend?”
A chill ran down his spine at the familiar voice. He turned to see Katarina sauntering up to his side, uncomfortably close, as she hopped up on the railing next to him. An old ache from his torn wing sent a surge of adrenaline through his veins.
“None of your business,” he muttered, as he sized her up.
She, too, was dressed in a new gown, laced with gold finishings. The bodice of her dress was iridescent amethyst, the same hues shimmering along her long gloves and legwraps, with a darker purple sinching her waist.
Yone’s gaze travelled past the Unseelie to the throne, where Karma was continuing to entertain her guests. Purple… and pink. The royal colours.
“Like my outfit?” Katarina smirked, unperturbed at Yone drawing his distance from her. She flipped her hair over one shoulder. “You know me. I love to make a statement.”
“Don’t speak so familiarly with me,” Yone growled, and started to walk away.
“It’s a shame, really, that you chose the wrong side.”
He halted in his steps. “What?”
“Well… our plans aren’t going exactly as smoothly as I’d hoped, thanks to all the interference from you and your nosy investigations. But really, killing the Queen in this operation was just going to be the icing on the cake. What we were really after is the princess. That little minx, Uri. I think she will make for a wonderful puppet Queen, don’t you?”
Yone’s head was reeling. His hands went to the blades at his side. “Why… why are you telling me this?”
“Because…” Katarina slid a hand up her thigh, revealing her pair of hidden daggers there. “Killing you is going to be my distraction for the others. Dead men tell no tales, as they say.”
A clamour broke out in the courtyard, followed by the clashing of steel on steel. Then there was a blinding flash of light, as he saw Katarina blink away from in front of him, and he anticipated the bite of her blades in his back.
But it would not come. Aurin’s rapier cut a swathe of white starlight as she seemingly appeared out of thin air, deflecting the dagger Katarina had thrown. One step beside her, Tris lifted her hands gracefully and twirled, the dark feathers across her mantle spiralling out across her arms with a flux of blue and black magic, as a barrier glimmered around the three of them.
A hail of spectral daggers rained down all around them as Katarina danced her deadly waltz of blades, but Tris’ shields held firm.
“Now, Aurin,” Tris commanded, and Aurin darted forwards out of the shield, accompanied by a mote of Tris’ magic, swirling around her. The condensed starlight on her rapier flared as she riposted from her original parry, striking out at Katarina as the light pierced her chest. The Unseelie faerie hissed and coughed, clutching at the invisible wound, and Yone was quick to press the attack, slashing out with both his blades and dashing forwards, knocking her off her feet.
Yone sank his two swords into the carpet on either side of Katarina’s neck, pinning her to the ground. “Don’t move,” he growled. He looked over his shoulder at Tris. “My Lady – the princess. It’s Uri they’re after!”
“Aurin, go and find her,” Tris urged. She saw a moment of hesitation and trepidation cross Aurin’s expression as she looked between Tris, Yone, and their subdued foe, but then Aurin steeled her red eyes.
“Yes, my lady. Yone… look after her.”
“Hiyah!”
Uri spun around and kicked the knight under the chin, sending his helm spiralling off into the air. She ducked under his sword as he swayed dangerously, then lashed out with her claws, blinding him.
“Augh!!!”
A familiar rapier appeared through the knight’s chest, cutting off his cry, and he slumped to the ground, struggling for breath.
“Oh, hi, Aurin.” Uri waved.
​
“Are you alright, princess?”
Aurin looked around, and Uri gestured about proudly at the fallen Unseelie faeries, disguised in the garb of Nir’s men. The captain himself was demanding that the remaining knights pull off their helms, checking their identities, all the while looking around to and fro – presumably for her.
“Niiiiiir! Over here!”
He was by her side in an instant, clutching her hands. “Princess–” He stopped abruptly, looking at the blood on his hands, smeared from hers. “I-is this yours? Are you—”
Aurin pointed at the bodies surrounding them. “She’s fine.” She patted Uri on the head, and Uri grinned.
Is that a hint of pride I smell, my dear knight?
“Where… where did you learn to fight like this?” Nir stared at the mangled face of her last assailant in shock.
Uri shrugged nonchalantly, wiping the gore off of her claws onto the hem of Aurin’s skirts.
“Anyway… so, how are things going in there?”