One week passed. Things happened in it, obviously; that's why it's called time. However, it was standard for the Golden Palace. Not all of it has to be told. Henry suffered through being fitted for a new outfit, Silira was given a new dress for the party by the kindly housekeeper, and Corwin helped Wintress make the invitation list. Princesses from far lands were either engaged, married, or too far away to come on such short notice, so only relatives and friends in the nobility were invited. Another reason was that Wintress was trying with might and main to find out who the blonde on the beach was. Oh, and there was one notable incident.
Silira was walking down the canal steps as usual, no longer secretly watched by Henry from his balcony, and the bells were ringing all over the city for evening church, which was for people who slept in in the morning. As I said, she was walking down the canal steps, when suddenly she saw her father's golden crown glinting offshore. There was no doubt about it. He was there, and her sisters were with him, one, two, three, four, five...six?! Her grandmother was there. No, no, no...now she came up? Silira had been badgering her for years to go up and learn more about the land, and now she ascended once again? She ran down the steps, lifting her skirt above the waterline. Yes, her sisters were coming. But her father and grandmother were staying behind.
Eltress swam up, screeching to a halt, nearly bashing her brain out on the sea-washed marble. The other four were close behind. "Silira!"
Silira didn't need to speak for her sisters to know she was surprised. Nyrie, breathing hard in the transition from breathing water to breathing air, panted, "You...You were...Corwin...on the long balcony overlooking the sea..."
Silira started, then smiled and shook her head. She wasn't even going to try to tell them the story. Levana's eyes went wide. "He's not in love with you?" The other four smacked her with their tails, and they had powerful tails. Levana subsided, rolling her eyes. Silira shrugged. She had no idea which girl Corwin remembered, her or the other one.
Rika raised her eyebrows. "You don't know? But you were hugging--" Silira shrugged again. She really had no idea. "Well, you do know that there's some sort of commotion in the palace? Some dinner for the prince's birthday?" Silira nodded, trying to look eager and expectant, meaning she was looking forward to it.
Eltress turned and looked at their father and grandmother. Both were waving, and no doubt wanted to speak to Silira, but they couldn't come close to land because the waves were rough that night and if one of them was seen things might get problematic. "They didn't want to come too close, but they missed you so much," Eltress said. "Both of them said to apologize to you about not coming closer, but they distrust the land and its inhabitants. Not you, of course. And not really Corwin. Although I admit Father seems rather cagy about him. If he ever realizes he's madly in love with you--" Silira rolled her eyes-- "then you have to bring him down here sometime, so he can meet us. We'll tell him the whole story. And Father can approve him." Eltress paused. "Would Father approve of him?"
Silira considered seriously for a moment, then nodded. He would. Corwin was a good man and true. She couldn't blame him for not knowing about her pain. How was he supposed to know who she was?
She heard a distant call. It was the housekeeper. "Lady Silent? I've found the perfect dress, dear!" Silira stood up quickly, resisting the pain in her feet. She nodded to her sisters, waved to her father and grandmother, and left, hoping no one had seen her. She always chose the most secluded part of the steps. However, for once, Henry had seen. But he wasn't telling. He really was excellent. He would keep her secret as well as she did.
It was sunset, and the carriages were arriving. Silira was wearing a black gown and her luminescent hair was done up behind her head, so she blended in with the shadows behind a high window, looking down on the arriving guests. A candle flickered in its sconce behind her, but she was standing next to a long, heavy brocade curtain that was patterned black and white, so her dark dress and pale hair made her invisible to Corwin, who ran past without noticing her. She turned around and closed the curtain so Corwin would hear the rings rattling on the curtain rail. He did, and spun around, eyes wide.
"Who's there!? Oh." He smiled, relieved to see Silira after a long week of planning. "It's a good evening, milady. Would you come with me? I would stop, but I have to be in the hall with the fountain in five minutes." She came and walked alongside him, trying to ignore the ever-present agony in her feet. "So," he said, straightening his tunic, "all my old friends are here. All are expecting me to be looking for a girl tonight, but I'm not, as you know. And you know who I'm looking for."
She nodded. She knew the mystery girl better than he thought. He pushed his hair back, looking at his reflection in a window that had not yet been curtained. "Wintress didn't...really...understand. She says I have to find a wife, and soon. But that girl...Silent, there's no one else for me. Someday I might find her, but until then I don't flirt, and I definitely don't attach myself, to any woman." Silira nodded. If she only knew which of them he had seen, her or the girl from the cathedral.
He stopped before a door and laid his left hand on the silver handle. He put his right hand on her shoulder. "Silent, they'll think you and I are a couple. Now don't get me wrong, you're important to me, but I...well...I'm not really sure what I feel about you...Mother wants me to either ignore you or fall in love with you. Therefore, one of us has to act aloof, and if it's you, then everyone will still think I could fall for you. However, if I ignore you, then people won't try to ship us. But I cannot in good faith ignore you. I love you too much."
Her eyes went intense again, but he didn't see it because of the dim candlelight. "I'm sorry. I...there's nothing I can do." He looked miserable. "I can't just leave you alone. Even just for this one evening. Not after I've been away for three months. I missed you so much, and I looked forward to tonight. There's no way out."
She could have been mad. But the whole reason he was in love with her was that she was the kind of girl who was not. She smiled at him and straightened his hair, standing on tiptoe to do it. She could stand to ignore him for one night.
He looked so relieved, he might almost have melted. "Yes! Thank you, Silent. This means more to me than I can say." He started to open the door, then hesitated. "I'll cut around to the stairs. We don't want to be seen coming in together. Oh, and I'll pass you off as a visitor from parts unknown again. Is that all right?" She nodded, and he dashed off.
She would have insisted on taking the stairs herself, not only to save him trouble, but also to make a dramatic entrance, except for the fact that her feet were really paining her tonight. She pushed the door open and slipped into the hall. She had meant to go unobtrusively to some chair and sit down until the dinner began, but her otherworldly looks made that highly improbable.
Silira slipped into the dining hall just before the master of ceremonies said the blessing. As you may imagine, when he did say it, he wasn't very sincere. As he mumbled the words of grace, glances were slipped sideways at Silira, the mysterious lady from parts unknown. Corwin's cousins, an agreeable lot, kicked each other under the table and whispered about eligibility. Corwin heard them and hoped it wouldn't last. Silira, in spite of herself, hoped it would.
"And we are ever thankful," Montayne finished, and sat in his seat with an audible thud. Conversation started up around the long table.
"So," a girl cousin of Corwin's on his right said, "who is that girl? Her eyes are huge. Is she some kind of fairy?"
Corwin panicked, but tried to seem disinterested. "Oh, she's not a fairy. She can't speak, and she can only write in another tongue."
Unknown to anyone but Henry, Silira had been trying to learn to write, but no one was available to teach her and she was making slow progress.
"She is Lady Silent, an ambassador from a far-off land."
"You have no idea who she is, do you?" an uncle of his, the father of the girl on his right, said from his left.
He sighed. "I'm not interested in her in the way you think."
"Fair enough," the girl said into her cup, sipping water and waiting for the servants to bring the food in. Flutes played behind curtains in a corner of the room. "But tell me, is there anyone?"
"No," Corwin said quietly, hoping his mother wouldn't hear.
Silira was doing well. Somehow she had managed to convince two handsome Russian twins, on each side of her, that she couldn't speak, and they were flirting outrageously. She handled it well enough. Back in the sea there had been plenty of handsome young mermen who liked her better than any of the other five--and with good reason. Eylee was regal and unapproachable, and nobody dared to flirt with Eltress, and Levana being absolutely white tended to creep guys out, and Nyrie's genius was sadly unappreciated.
So Silira managed to interact socially with them, even though she couldn't speak, and tried not to laugh at their amusing compliments. Corwin saw her down the table, and shivered, even though the hall was warm. Wintress caught his eye and gave him a look. He turned away and purposely looked at Silira for a few seconds. His cousin tried not to laugh.
The dinner went on easily, with good food, the smell of which nearly drove Silira mad because she couldn't taste it, and good conversation, some of it one-sided--or two-sided, counting the twins as two. Silira was quietly commented on, but taken for granted, as it was seen that she was sitting apart from Corwin and he paid no attention to her. She survived well enough without him, as she had hoped.
Eventually, it got late, and the dinner ended. If you were expecting more accounts of the socializing, read the works of Jane Austen. Those of the guests who lived too far off to return home that night were shown to guest rooms in the higher stories, and Marge and Tina shut and locked the door on those who left.
Silira flopped down on her bed, arms spread out. The whole agony-every-time-she-took-a-step thing was starting to get on her nerves. She had changed into her nightgown and brushed her hair, all the time trying to walk as little as possible. She rolled over and pulled the covers over her. The summer blanket was no longer thick enough to keep out the cold, she noted.
The leaves were beginning to fall...oh, they were so beautiful...she had always loved autumn, even if it meant the sea would be freezing soon. Even now they would be gathering around the vents, the holes in the seabed that had molten rock or something under them. There was a whole field full of them outside Twilight. It was beautiful, and everyone gathered around it in winter. The leaves on the trees looked just like the faint fiery lights from the vents, only brighter. Everything here was so much brighter.
Oh, vomit, she had left the balcony door open. She got out of bed, walking to the door and closing it as quickly as possible. Then she had an idea. She went down on her knees and tried to get to her bed on them, technically not taking one step. But it still hurt just as much. Apparently, the witch was cleverer than she had thought. And she couldn't exactly walk around on her knees all day.
She got back into bed and smiled. Then it turned into a grin. Corwin loved her. Maybe not romantically, but he loved her. She almost didn't care who it was, just as long as someone on the land cared about her.
Important to him. And he had missed her, and he had looked forward to tonight...
She drifted off to sleep. As it happened, it would be the last good sleep she would have in a long time.
Of course she dreamed again.
Silira turned and swam out of the hall, speeding out the door and through the dark water, in a tempest of longing for the land and the prince and maybe even a soul. She skirted the palace, hearing the servants inside chattering about the party and how many people had shown up, and the princess must have just sung and didn't she sound lovely, and swam into her garden. The round plot of red flowers, growing up to tangle into the boughs of her red sea willow, surrounded and contrasted with the bright white statue. Algae was growing on it, coating that finely formed face in a thin layer of green. She wiped it off, remembering the time when she had pushed his hair off his face. Hunting horns echoed above the water.
He's going out to hunt...
How am I supposed to live three hundred years here, knowing all I have in the end is nothing?
That sunset is probably the most beautiful one yet, and I'm missing it...the palace up there will be glowing so bright in the light...
I can't do this any longer...
She was as close to crying as merfolk ever get, when her sisters swam up. She turned, furious, and was about to hit them when Eltress put a hand over her mouth. "Shhh! We want to help you."
They all embraced her, then turned and sped away, leaving her in the dark. Silira turned, looking ahead. A small plain of grey sand lay before her. Around it, cliffs of black rock blocked all ways save one. She swam slowly into the black cleft. It was silent and almost entirely dark. If not for her natural night vision, Silira would have been feeling her way. She was the only live thing there...so far, though. So far, so good. Silira tried not to think of the madness of this thing. She couldn't let her emotions control everything she did, but what else could she do? Stay home and wish she could cry? The only trouble was that the sea would miss one princess, but, really, there were five others and she knew this was the only way she could gain a soul.
She stopped. There was something pulling her in. She had never been here. Silira knew what was in front of her, though, forcing her to swim back a little and grab onto the cliffs to keep from being drawn in.
A whirlwind of water, an underwater whirlpool, led down to who knew where. But she knew what went down there. It was where they buried their dead, those who didn't live their three hundred years, but were killed before their time. Her mother's bones were down there, and those of a thousand others. Dying prematurely was very rare. Who knew what might live down there? Serpents? Colossal squid? A kraken? The whirling current was there in front of her, pulling at her hair. One stroke of her tail and she would be pulled into the darkness. If the witch made it, so can I. And if she didn't, I don't care if I make it or not. She flipped her tail and drove forward, and she was dragged into the tempest.
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